Gripla - 20.12.2010, Page 42

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(adjectives beginning with the letter v- and ending in -osus) are considered.
Because of the limited scope of these conjectures, the rhyme and metrical
scheme, they may be considered an almost certain restoration of the text.
As stated above the meter of the poem is Leonine hexameter,78 tradi-
tional Latin hexameter with the addition of rhyme in the two last syllables
before the caesura in the third foot and the two last syllables of the line.
Thus thorlace rhymes with pace (1), perfecte with recte (2), pacifice with
pudice (3), secure with pure (4) etc. This metrical scheme is very compe-
tently handled by the poet and completely regular throughout the 24 vers-
es. Additional double rhyme, clearly an intentional feature, occurs in one
line (10, modeste, grauis… honeste suauis). In lines 3, 9, 10, and 12, the short
penultimate rhyming syllable before the caesura (pacifice, placide, grauis,
sacer), which could not carry a stress accent, are made to rhyme against
long penultimate syllables at the end of the line. This shows clearly that the
principle of the meter is not stress based and rhythmic but relies on the
quantity of the syllables. As for the feet, the fifth foot is always, as it
should be according to the classical rules of meter, a dactyl, one long and
two short syllables (– v v), and in 9 lines we have the easy pattern of a sin-
gle word coinciding with the fifth foot, forming a dieresis before and after
(pérpete [1], ínclite [2], strénue [4], sóbrie [6], nóbilis [12], próuide [13], múnere
[19], dógmate [21]). The fourth foot is usually a dactyl, a spondee (– –)
occurring only six times (in lines 1, 8, 9, 11, 16, 20). In the third foot, the
caesura can fall either after the first long syllable (masculine) of the foot or
between two short syllables (feminine), which however occurs only twice
(in 11 and 19).79 Elisions are rare, as they are in medieval Latin poetry,
compared to classical poetry, there being a possible but not necessary eli-
sion between ‘Alte’ and ‘humilis’ (= ‘Alt(e h)umilis) in line 11.
78 Paul Klopsch, Einführung in die mittellateinische Verslehre (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1972), 47–48; Edmond Faral, Les arts poétiques du XIIe du XIIIe siècle.
Recherches et documents sur la technique litteraire du Moyen Âge (Paris: Librairie Honoré
Champion, 1958), 104–105; The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1993), s.v. “Leonine Rhyme, Verse.”
79 For the record, the pattern spondee-spondee-spondee occurs seven times in the first three
feet (lines 1, 4, 6, 7, 13, 18, 22); spondee-spondee-dactyl occurs five times (lines 2, 5, 15, 19,
20, 24); dactyl-spondee-dactyl four times (lines 11, 14, 16, 17); dactyl-spondee-spondee
thrice (line 8, 21, 23); dactyl-dactyl-spondee twice (line 9, 10); spondee-dactyl-dactyl once
(line 3), dactyl-dactyl-dactyl once (line 12); and spondee-dactyl-spondee never.