|
|
Post by callaina on Jun 12, 2023 1:32:24 GMT
Hi! I was just looking at this line from Catullus 5 and wondering how it scanned:
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus...
As far as I know, in hendecasyllable the second-last syllable has to be long. Yet according to nearly all the reference works I've consulted, the "i" in the future perfect 1st person plural ending is short. The exception is Gildersleeve, which I think (the printing quality is not great) shows it as either short or long.
Thoughts?
Callaina
|
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Jun 12, 2023 5:25:39 GMT
I believe the i should be short in the future perfect, but it can optionally be lengthened in the perfect subjunctive in the 2nd singular and the 1st and 2nd plural. So fecerimus is probably intended to be a perfect subunctive.
I have seen other poets do that as well, but I can't remember where I saw it and I can't come up with an efficient search method to look for the endings.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Jun 12, 2023 7:43:36 GMT
I actually remember now where I came across that. It was Ov. amores 1,4,31f.:
quae tu reddideris ego primus pocula sumam,
et, qua tu biberis, hac ego parte bibam.
I actually wrote a full analysis about these lines because they were so fascinating.
In these lines, reddideris and biberis are actually future perfect, but the i is (supposed to be) long (which it shouldn't be).
My personal feeling was that this was done on purpose to make the caesura even stronger, but I read in a commentary by McKeown that the i in the perfect subjunctive had originally been long while the i in the future perfect had originally been short, and that those forms could have intermingled somehow. I didn't fully believe that (because it was an argument based on metrical necessity / metrische Not), but I at least learnt from that commentary why you sometimes find a long i in those forms, especially in the subjunctive. He had a second hypothesis that was more or less in line with what I thought.
I don't fully remember what he wrote, but if you want to look up his commentary on future II / perfect subjunctive, it should be found on page 89 of McKeown, J.C., Ovid: Amores: Text, Prolegomena and Commentary, in Four Volumes, Volume II: A Commentary on Book One, Liverpool 1989.
As for Catullus, I still believe it's just a perfect subjunctive there.
|
|
|
|
Post by Pacifica on Jun 12, 2023 13:22:15 GMT
I'm pretty sure fecerimus is future perfect.
Poets mixed up the vowel lengths of future perfect and perfect subjunctive every now and then. And, well, other people probably did too, but poetry is where it shows, because of the meter.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Jun 12, 2023 13:30:49 GMT
I'm pretty sure fecerimus is future perfect. Poets mixed up the vowel lengths of future perfect and perfect subjunctive every now and then. And, well, other people probably did too, but poetry is where it shows, because of the meter. What makes you think the subjunctive is impossible? |
|
|
|
Post by Pacifica on Jun 12, 2023 13:36:16 GMT
I wouldn't say it's impossible, but the future perfect seems more likely given the future tense in the apodosis and the fact that the cum clause reads more naturally with a temporal than with a causal meaning.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Jun 12, 2023 13:54:58 GMT
I wouldn't say it's impossible, but the future perfect seems more likely given the future tense in the apodosis and the fact that the cum clause reads more naturally with a temporal than with a causal meaning. I agree ... that would have been my first instinct as well ... cum temporale makes more sense to me, too. However, that would mean that the poet is either incapable of speaking his own language properly or that he is messing around with the forms metri causa, which always seems a bit insufficient an explanation to me. A cum causale could work in connection with the 2nd and 3rd line in my opinion. Or even a concessivum. It depends on what he was actually trying to say. I wouldn't fault anyone for either take, there, but I would be more inclined to justify the subjunctive. |
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Jun 12, 2023 14:05:22 GMT
I think I have written about that poem before on a different forum, but since you want to show it to a class, I may as well repeat some points:
soles occider(e) et redire possunt
is an extremely parallel construction (like the Ovid one above).
With the elision, you get a syllable count of 2 - 3- 1 -3 - 2 in that sentence, mirroring a regular day with the sun being up for as long as it is down.
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux
is interesting as well, because in terms of syllable count, it feels like a countdown: occit brevis lux - 3-2-1.
nox est perpetu(a) una dormienda
then gives you the counterpart .... the elision between perpetua and una makes it more or less a really long word, which underlines the idea that the night you have to sleep is *really* long.
|
|
|
|
Post by Pacifica on Jun 12, 2023 14:34:10 GMT
"incapable of speaking his own language properly"
If the forms were routinely treated as alternatives at the time, I wouldn't put it so harshly.
|
|
|
|
Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Jun 12, 2023 15:04:25 GMT
in terms of syllable count, it feels like a countdown: occit brevis lux - 3-2-1. Typo alert. |
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Jun 12, 2023 15:31:02 GMT
Occidit obviously.
|
|
|
|
Post by callaina on Jun 12, 2023 17:29:48 GMT
I wouldn't say it's impossible, but the future perfect seems more likely given the future tense in the apodosis and the fact that the cum clause reads more naturally with a temporal than with a causal meaning. I agree ... that would have been my first instinct as well ... cum temporale makes more sense to me, too. However, that would mean that the poet is either incapable of speaking his own language properly or that he is messing around with the forms metri causa, which always seems a bit insufficient an explanation to me. A cum causale could work in connection with the 2nd and 3rd line in my opinion. Or even a concessivum. It depends on what he was actually trying to say. I wouldn't fault anyone for either take, there, but I would be more inclined to justify the subjunctive. Concessive doesn't make any sense to me given the point of the final few lines (they are kissing thousands of times in order that nobody can know the number...) Causal makes more sense, but I agree with Pacifica that future perfect feels most natural there. |
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Jun 13, 2023 0:16:08 GMT
As I said, I agree that a future II would be more obvious.
My grammar book lists the i in the perfect subjuntive 2nd sg, 1st pl and 2nd plural as anceps while it lists the i in the future perfect as short.
That makes some sense as the future perfect came from [perfect stem] + [future forms of esse] while the subjunctive prefect came from the optative that was marked by the i (as in Greek).
However, my book has a footnote there hinting at another footnote which says that the i can be lengthened in poetry in both the subjunctive and the future according to metrical requirements. So I guess saying it's future II because you can lengthen the i is the simpler explanation after all.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Jun 13, 2023 0:24:57 GMT
Btw, if you have the devices and want to make the class a little more interesting:
This is the video by which I actually memorised the rhythm of hendecasyllabi. (and by which I learnt the poem by heart)
|
|
|
|
Post by callaina on Jun 14, 2023 1:59:14 GMT
It's fun, but it's not quite right. His rhythm is:
- - - u u u u u u - x
when it should really be:
- - - u u - u - u - x
|
|
