The Latin rhythmic hexameterNorberg (transl. 2004) p. 95. or accentual hexameterBurger (1951), p. 13. is a kind of Latin dactylic hexameter which arose in the Middle Ages alongside the metrical kind. The rhythmic hexameter did not scan correctly according to the rules of classical prosody; instead it imitated the approximate sound of a typical metrical hexameter by having roughly the same number of syllables and putting word accents in approximately the same places in the line.
The rhythmic hexameter flourished between the 3rd and 9th century A.D. The earliest examples come from what is now Tunisia in north Africa. One poet to use it for literary compositions was Commodian, who is thought to have lived in North Africa in the 3rd century A.D. Other examples come from Portugal, Spain, Lombardy in northern Italy, and southern France. Several examples are found on tombstones, but there is also an anonymous Christian work of the 6th or 7th century called , and a book of riddles of the 8th century.
Over the centuries the style of the rhythmic hexameter underwent various changes; for example, in some early versions it had six stresses in each line, whereas later it had five. It has been suggested by one scholar that in its later form, with its five stresses with a caesura between the second and third, it eventually developed in France into the early form of iambic pentameter.
Metre versus rhythm One of the first scholars to make the distinction between rhythmic and metrical poetry was the English monk Bede in his book On Metre.Heikkenen (2012), p. 187. Basing his definition of rhythm on an earlier one by Marius Victorinus, he defines rhythm as "the composition of words modulated not by metrical quantity but by the number of syllables according to the judgement of the ears". Heikkenen (2012), p. 195.The passage is also discussed by Beare (1951), pp. 4–5.
It seems that not all rhythmic poems were made with equal skill. Bede observes that common people make rhythmic poems "in a rustic way" (), but learned people "in a learned way" (). He cites as a good example of a rhythmic poem imitating the iambic metre the hymn , and of the trochaic the hymn .Bede, de Metr. Keil 7.258; for the Latin quotation see Schlicher (1900), p. 74.
With iambic and trochaic metres, the word accents in the rhythmic style tend to follow the ictus of the metre.Though not always; cf. Norberg (2004), p. 82. However, with a dactylic hexameter, except in the last two feet, where metre and accent coincide, this is not the case, and the accent does not usually coincide with the beginning of a foot. A rhythmic hexameter, therefore, generally has the last two accents fixed, but the earlier ones variable, the first accent occurring sometimes on the 1st, sometimes on the 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th syllable.
Accent in the metrical hexameter A typical metrical hexameter is made up of six feet, each of which can be either a dactyl (– u u) or a spondee (– –), the last two feet almost always being dactyl + spondee (– u u | – x) (the final syllable can be long or short). Thus the general scheme or pattern is:
– u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – x
There is a usually a break, called a caesura, in the middle of the 3rd foot. Thus a typical line might be:
– u u | – –|– –|– –| – u u| – – at pater Aeneas, / audito nomine Turni
Sometimes, instead of a third-foot caesura, there is a break in the 2nd and 4th foot, but this is much less common:Raven (1965), p. 96.
– u u|– u u | – –|– – |– u u |– – inde toro / pater Aeneas / sic orsus ab alto
From an accentual point of view, usually there are two stresses in the first part of the line, and three in the second. In some lines, however, there are three stresses in the first half:
– u u|– u u|– –|– –| – u u |– – árma virúmque cáno, / Tróiae qui prímus ab óris
– – |– u u| – u u|– u u|– u u|– – spárgens úmida mélla / sopóriferúmque papáver
The number of syllables in each half varies. In the first half it is from 5 to 8; in the second half from 8 to 10. In the last two feet, it seems that poets sought in most lines to make the word accent coincide with the verse rhythm, and so usually the last word in the line has either two or three syllables, which ensures this coincidence.Raven (1965), pp. 94, 98. Only very rarely does a verse end in a monosyllable, and it is usually for special effect.
A poet writing a rhythmic hexameter, therefore, would follow the same rules. For example, in Commodian's poetry, the second half of each line has 8 to 10 syllables, and as in Virgil, the last word has either two or three syllables. The first half of the line usually has six syllables, but occasionally 5 or 7.
Dag Norberg writes: "The study of quite complicated rhythmic verse forms, which we have dealt with so far, has taught us that these forms were created in the following way: the poet read the quantitative models while noticing, not the quantity or the ictus, but the prose accent and the distribution of the different types of words; and in the new poetry he tried to render these accents and this structure in a more or less exact way without caring about the quantity or the ictus."Norberg (tr. 2004), p. 100.
In his study of the historical development of rhythmic poems, J. J. Schlicher writes: "Rhythmical poetry was based upon the natural judgement of the ear rather being based than upon rules."Schlicher (1900), p. 75.
Urbanilla
Perhaps the earliest example of rhythmic hexameter comes from what is now Tunisia. From a tomb near Gafsa 200 miles south of Carthage comes the following inscription. It has been dated to the early 3rd century A.D. and so is probably earlier than Commodian's poems.Burger (1951), p. 13. The style is different from Commodian's 2 + 3 stresses per line; instead, like Venantia's and Oppilanus's epitaphs from Spain (see below) there seem to be three stressed words in each half line. It is possible that some lines (e.g. 2 and 4) are meant to be divided into three as in some lines in Oppilanus's epitaph:
Urbanilla, my wife full of modesty, lies here. In Rome she was my companion, a business partner supported by thrift. After everything had gone well, when she was returning with me to our homeland, Alas! Carthage snatched my poor partner from me. There is no hope for me of living without such a wife. She used to keep my house, she also used to help me with her advice. Deprived of light, poor woman, she rests enclosed in marble. I Lucius, your husband, have covered you here with marble. This is the lot Fate gave us when we were being given to the light.
Burger compares some of the lines to lines of Virgil which have similar accentuation:Burger (1951), p. 15.
cf. (Virgil, Aen. 1.399)
cf. (Aen. 1.130)
The omission of final -m in reflects contemporary pronunciation, according to Friedrich Hanssen, who made a study of the prosodic features of Commodian's poetry (, however, is ablative).Hanssen (1881), pp. 28; 73. The word must be scanned as two syllables, and as three to get the correct rhythm in the last two feet; similarly has four syllables. This feature, called synaeresis, is also frequently found in Commodian's verse.Hanssen (1881), pp. 63–66. Norberg counted more than 90 examples of synaeresis in Augustine's PsalmusNorberg (2004), p. 132. where, because there are exactly 8 syllables in each half line (e.g. ), synaeresis is easy to spot.
Like the poems in Commodian's , this epitaph has an acrostic in the initial letters of the lines, in this case spelling out the name "Urbanilla" (hence the unusual spelling for in the last line). In the last three lines, with , the author plays on his own name.
Burger suggests that in some, but not all, of the verses there is an assonance or rhyme between the two halves of the verse: .Burger (1951), p. 16. This feature is sometimes seen in other examples of rhythmic hexameter verse.
Commodian Apart from such inscriptions, the earliest surviving hexameter poetry in the rhythmic style is believed to be that of Commodian, whom one of the manuscripts of his Carmen Apologeticum describes as "African Bishop".Ludwig (1877), p. v. His date is probably 3rd century, although some have argued for the 4th or 5th century.Baldwin (1989) p. 337.Burger (1951), p. 20.Goodspeed (1946). There are indications in his poetry that he may indeed have lived in North Africa, although it is possible that he originally came from Gaza,Baldwin (1989), pp. 334–6. since the last poem in his book , quoted below, in which the name "Commodianus" is hidden in a reverse acrostic, is entitled or .
The lack of attention to the length or shortness of vowels in the Urbanilla epitaph and in Commodian's poetry may in fact be a North African feature, since St Augustine tells us, in the 4th book of his On Christian Doctrine, published in 426, that the people of the region made no distinction between long and short vowels, pronouncing "mouth" and "bone" identically.Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine, 4.10.24. (See African Romance.) Augustine in his book on Music imagines a dialogue between a pupil and teacher in which the pupil admits that he can hear the difference between long and short syllables but adds "the trouble is, that without being taught I have no idea which syllables are supposed to be long and which short".Augustine, , 3.3, 5: Quoted by Norberg (trans. 2004), p. 81. The grammarian Consentius (5th century) agreed that it was a characteristic of African pronunciation to say and instead of and . But it seems that in other parts of the Roman world, distinctions of vowel length continued to be observed until at least the 5th century.Baldwin (1989), p. 332.Burger (1951), p. 13.
Commodian wrote two books of rhythmic hexameter poetry, one called , consisting of 80 short poems, and the other the 1055-line or . The following is an example from :Thurneysen (1887), p. 312.For the complete poem see Ludwig (1878), p. 52.
O you who will be inhabitants of the heavens with the God Christ, who holds the beginning, and sees everything from heaven: let simplicity and goodness inhabit your body; do not be angry without cause with a devoted brother, for you will receive back from him whatever you have done. For this reason it pleased Christ that the dead should rise from Hell with their bodies, even those whom fire has burnt for an age, when six thousand years are completed at the end of the world.
Like the Urbanilla epitaph, Commodian's hexameters do not scan metrically, but accentually. In the first halves of the lines, as Thurneysen shows, the accentual patterns closely match line openings found in Virgil. For example: (line 1): cf. (Aen. 12.698)
(line 2), (line 3), (line 7): cf. (Aen. 1.26)
(line 4), (line 6), (line 9): cf. (Aen. 1.10) or (Aen. 5.545)
(line 5): cf. (Aen. 1.455)
Or possibly, if was pronounced as 4 syllables by synaeresis, it was like Virgil's (Aen. 4.1).
The second halves of Commodian's lines also have accentual patterns which imitate those of Virgil, but with some exceptions.Thurneysen (1887), pp. 309–311.
Another example from is:
Instructiones 2.
In the Law the Lord of heaven, earth, and sea instructed: Do not, He said, worship false gods Made by your hands from wood or gold; Let my indignation not destroy you because of them.
In this example, the words and must be pronounced with two short vowels each, but is pronounced with a long first syllable. The words are pronounced as five syllables without elision, and in , the ending is pronounced as one syllable by synezesis.
In most lines of Commodian, as in the above, there are five accents. The 4th and 5th accent are generally fixed but the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are variable in position, just as in Virgil's hexameters. However, in the great majority of lines the pre-caesura accent comes on the 5th syllable. Between the 2nd and 3rd accent there is always a caesura, and there is also often a word-break at the end of the 4th foot.Hanssen (1881), pp. 18–21.