--' | --' --
uu- u- -u -- | uu- uuu u- (so Heyse.)
uu | uu
Except in 18, _Hilarate aere citatis erroribus animum_, 53, _Et earum
omnia adirem furibunda latibula_, where the Ionic a minore, which seems
to have been the original basis of the rhythm, is preserved intact in
the former half of the line. I have followed Catullus generally with
exactness, but with an occasional resolution of one long into two short
syllables, where it has not been introduced by the poet, _e.g._ in 31,
34, 49, 64, 65, 68, 79. In v. 10 I have ventured on a license which
Catullus does not admit, but which is, I think, justified by other and
earlier specimens of the metre, an anaclasis of the original Ionic a
minore at the end of the line. In reading this poem it should never be
forgotten that there is a pause in the middle of each line, which
practically divides it into two halves. Tennyson, in his _Boadicea_,
written on the model of the _Attis_, divides each verse similarly in the
middle; but in the first half he has changed the rhythm of Catullus to a
trochaic rhythm, in the second, while producing much of the effect of
the _Attis_ by the accumulation of short syllables at the end of the
line, he has not bound himself to the same strictly defined feet as
Catullus, and generally has preferred to take from the somewhat
emasculate character of the verse by adding an unaccented syllable at
the close.