Practice for hexameter verse
headNotes
Page 412 of Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar offers the first eight lines of Charles Kingsley's Andromeda as an example of hexameter verse in English. It is such a good example that I went to the trouble of scanning the entire poem. As I read this poem, I can get the sound of hexameter in my ear and, eventually, filter out the sing-song element for an adequate reading. It is preparation for reading the Latin of Ovid or Virgil.
And so I've put the poem here with my notation and a series of d's and s's indicating the order of dactyls and spondees for every line. I have tried to prepare the poem visually for easy reading: Each hexameter verse is placed on one line (unlike the original publication); each foot after the first starts with a |; a bit of space is inserted between verses whenever a breath seems appropriate; and, I have advanced to a new page at breaks in the narrative.
There are a few notes on the page after the end of the poem.
John H Shaver
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