Learn Latin Harry Mount

‘What is the point of Latin, sir?’ It’s the oldest question in the book – the battle-cry of a million prep school boys over the centuries.

Well, if you don’t think learning the most important ancient language of them all is worthwhile, at least appreciate it for its effect on English verse. This week, we’re going to learn the rules of Latin poetry. They’re full of complicated words, like ‘iambic trimeter’, but, actually, the rules are easy enough.

The first thing to do is to divide Latin syllables into long and short ones. This isn’t always obvious, although Kennedy’s Latin

Primer is exemplary in the way it puts a - symbol over long vowels; as in servāre – ‘to save’, or nōs – ‘us’.

There are useful tips in working out whether a symbol is long or short. Syllables are long if they end in two consonants, or a compound letter: like dux, ‘leader’.

Each line of poetry is then divided up into feet, or little chunks of words. Hexameters have six feet. Pentameters have five.

There are many different sorts of feet. The most popular are: dactyls – one long and two short syllables; spondees – two long syllables; and trochees – one long and one short syllable.

One of the most popular forms of metre is the dactylic hexameter, as used by Virgil. It’s much easier than it sounds. Because it’s a hexameter, it has six feet. The first four feet can either be dactyls (long, short, short) or spondees (long, long). The fifth foot is almost invariably a dactyl. And the last foot, with only two syllables, is either a spondee (long, long) or a trochee (long, short).

Lines are also divided up by strong pauses, called a caesura – or ‘cutting’. The main caesura – and the only one you really need to bother with – comes in the third foot. A caesura after a long syllable is a strong caesura; after a short syllable, it’s a weak caesura.

See if you can scan these first lines of the Aeneid – that is, divide the verse into feet – and translate them, too. Don’t worry if you find it tricky. Virgil supposedly wrote only three lines a day – so he packed quite a lot into them.

QUESTION: Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris Italiam fato profugus Lavinaque venit litora.