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Commodian and Medieval Rhythmic Verse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

E. H. Sturtevant
E. H. Sturtevant*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

It is evident, upon even a cursory examination, that the curiously faulty hexameters of Commodian illustrate one stage in the loss of quantitative distinctions which the Latin language suffered in postclassical times. This fact has suggested to many that we may find in them a clue to the change which has made modern European verse so different from the classical measures. I, too, am convinced that the clue is there, and the purpose of this paper is to find it.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 2 , Issue 4-Part1 , December 1926 , pp. 223 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Linguistic Society of America 1926

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References

1 De Commodiani Metro et Syntaxi Annotationes 6, 13-17, 27-33 Utrecht (1917).

2 Anfang und Ursprung der Lateinischen und Griechischen Rythmischen Dichtung, Abhandlungen der Bair. Akad. 17 (1885) = Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur Mittellattinischen Rythmik 2. 24–39, 108–122, especially p. 118; Fragmenta Burana 146 (1901).

3 Frank, American Journal of Philology 45. 173 (1924) finds an average of more than two of them per line.

4 De Arte MetricaCommodiani = Dissertationes Philologicae Argentoratenses Selectas, 5.1–90 (1881).

5 AJP 45. 172 f. Frank introduces his discussion of Commodian in the course of an argument designed to show that the loss of the fixed quantitative distinctions resulted from the learning of Latin by great numbers of immigrants, rather than from the continuance among the lower classes of tendencies that are seen in Plautus. My reply to the remainder of the article has appeared in Transactions of the American Philological Association 56.5–25, under the title ‘Concerning the Influence of Greek on Vulgar Latin’.

6 The third and fourth ictuses in this line have usually been placed one syllable further on; but, as I show below (pp. 232 ff.), effundat cannot have an ictus on the ultima unless another rests on the antepenult. For the neglect of penthemimeral caesura, see below, pp. 234 f.

7 Neophilologus 8. 304–13 (1923).

8 For proof of this, see Scheifler, op. cit. 20–7

9 Figures below a word or a verse indicate the position of the several ictuses.

10 Of course we must reject W. Meyer's conjecture in A. 682: Et loc <ut> us iterum, ab idolis mundos haberi.

11 Scheifler, 15, prefers to read agone cronari

12 AJP 44. 319–38 (1923).

13 TAPA 54. 51–73 (1923).

14 Most recently by Kent, TAPA 53. 70 ff. (1922).

15 TAPA 54. 71–3.

16 The Rhythm of Speech 13, etc. Glasgow (1923).

17 See my article on ‘The Ictus of Classical Verse,‘ AJP 44. 319-38 (1923).

18 Classical Philology 14. 373–39 (1919); TAPA 54. 51–73 (1923); 55. 73–89 (1924).