This Week in Literature

This week we will discuss the use of the dactylic hexameter in epic poetry and the poems, "Evangeline," and "The Aneid."

An Epic Guide to Dactylic Hexameter in Latin & Ancient Greek

Dactylic hexameter is an important poetic meter in the literary traditions of Ancient Greece and Rome. In this post I will explain how it works and give you examples in Greek, Latin, and English.

First and foremost, dactylic hexameter is the meter used for epic poetry. Many famous epics were written in this meter – the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid, to name a few. Down below we will analyze lines from some of these epics.

As a professor of Classical Studies, I frequently teach my students about dactylic hexameter. Sometimes my explanations are for students with no knowledge of ancient languages, while other times I guide Greek and Latin students through the process of scanning ancient epic.

Whether you know Greek, Latin, or neither, this post is the perfect guide to dactylic hexameter.

What is dactylic hexameter?

Dactylic hexameter is a poetic meter that combines dactyls and spondees for a total of six feet per line.

Let’s unpack that definition. Ancient Greek and Roman verse is quantitative. In other words, the meter (or rhythm) is established via a pattern of long and short syllables.

Units called feet serve as the building blocks of many meters. Each foot has its own syllabic makeup. A dactyl, for instance, consists of one long and two short syllables.

👉 Confused by long vs. short syllables? Read this beginners’ guide to Latin syllables.

In the case of dactylic hexameter, two types of feet are important.

dactyl: — u u (long short short)
spondee: — — (long long)

The term “hexameter” refers to a line with six feet. The addition of “dactylic” clarifies that this type of hexameter is distinguished by frequent use of the dactyl.

A purely dactylic line of hexameter would look like this:

— uu | — uu | — uu | — uu | — uu | — x

The X at the end of the line indicates an anceps. This means that either a long syllable or a short syllable can go here.

The characteristic rhythm of dactylic hexameter is DUM diddy DUM diddy DUM diddy DUM diddy DUM diddy DUM DUM.

Things aren’t that simple, though, since dactylic hexameter is a meter that allows substitutions. One long syllable is roughly (!) equal in duration to two short syllables. Because of this, spondees can substitute for dactyls.

— uu equals — —

The technical term for the switch from uu to — is contraction.

Poets manipulate syllable patterns to achieve different effects. In theory, any of the dactyls in a line can be replaced by a spondee. In practice, the fifth foot is almost always a dactyl.

The pattern is as follows (where uu means that either two shorts or one long is possible):

— uu | — uu | — uu | — uu | — uu | — x

We will look at examples and discuss things in more detail below. But first, we need to talk about the cultural context of dactylic hexameter.

In ancient Greece and Rome, dactylic hexameter was inextricably linked with the epic genre.

Today when we think of epic, we think of the content: a heroic narrative involving superhuman characters on a quest or facing some sort of trouble. We have epic movies, epic novels, and more.

In ancient Mediterranean literature, the form was also important. If a narrative was not told in dactylic hexameter, it wasn’t epic. It was as simple as that.

Here is what the Greek philosopher Aristotle had to say about the matter:

Experience has shown that the heroic hexameter is the right metre. Were anyone to write a narrative poem in any other metre or in several metres, the effect would be wrong. The hexameter is the most sedate and stately of all metres and therefore admits of rare words and metaphors more than others, and narrative poetry is itself elaborate above all others.

Aristotle Poetics 1459b, trans. Fyfe

According to Aristotle, epic poetry is the μίμησις σπουδαίων (mimēsis spoudaiōn) or “imitation of serious (weighty, excellent) things” (Poetics 1449b10). Thus we need the “sedate and stately” hexameter to properly convey this material.

👉 Looking for a new epic to read? Check out my review of Jason and the Argonauts – the Roman version!

How to Scan Dactylic Hexameter

Scanning a line of dactylic hexameter means identifying the syllable quantities. These quantities should conform to the schema we saw above:

— uu | — uu | — uu | — uu | — uu | — x

Take a close look at the permissible patterns. Notice that short syllables always come in pairs. This means that you will never see an isolated short syllable in the middle of a hexameter line.

So, how do you scan a line of dactylic hexameter? Here are some tips:

Mark the lengths of any syllables which you immediately know. Most advanced texts will not have macrons, so rely on your memory of long vs. short vowels. You can also (usually) assume that a syllable is long if it is followed by a double consonant.
Think in terms of permissible syllable patterns. In dactylic hexameter, short syllables only ever appear in pairs. You will never see just one short syllable – nor more than 2 in a row.
If you get stuck working from the beginning of the hexameter line, then try from the end. There are always a long syllable and an anceps at the end, and typically the fifth foot is a dactyl.
When you are scanning Latin, don’t forget about elision! A final vowel (or vowel + M) disappears before an initial vowel (or H + vowel). Forgetting to elide is the top mistake that my advanced Latin students make.
If you are really stuck, consult a dictionary to determine whether certain vowels are naturally long or short.
Remember that in verse, we divide syllables without respect for word boundaries.

We’ll look at some examples of scanned dactylic hexameter soon, but first we need to discuss two more concepts. The first relates to tip #6, and the second relates to pauses in the line.

Metrical Syllables

Word boundaries do not matter when you are scanning. When spoken out loud, the hexameter line is an uninterrupted stream of sounds. Consonants and vowels come together into syllables without regard for word divisions.

This is crucial in quantitative meter, since whether or not a syllable has a final consonant is often the deciding factor as to its quantity. Syllables ending in one or more consonants are “closed” and thus long.

Consider the opening words of the Iliad: μῆνιν ἄειδε (mēnin aeide). If we break the words into syllables, we get the following:

— — u — u

μῆ νιν ἄ ει δε

mē nin a ei de

The second syllable ends in nu / N (a consonant) and thus is long.

But if we ignore the word boundary, we get the following result:

— u u — u

μῆ νι να ει δε

mē ni na ei de

Now the second syllable ends in iota / I (a vowel). It is “open” and since this iota is short by nature, the syllable is short.

This latter syllabification is the correct analysis for dactylic hexameter. In his guide to Greek meter, M. L. West calls this “metrical syllables”, and I think this is a useful term.

There are some exceptions (especially in Greek metrics), since poets will manipulate syllable boundaries to suit their needs. But the main circumstance in which you should not form syllables across words is when a caesura or other significant pause lies between them.

Caesurae & Diereses

A caesura occurs any time a word ends inside a foot. There will be multiple caesurae per line, so when we talk about the caesura of a line we mean the primary caesura.

The primary caesura will coincide with a slight pause and will usually mark a break in sense unit. In this post I have used // (a double slash) to indicate a caesura.

In dactylic hexameter, the three most common caesurae are as follows:

The strong caesura of the third foot
The weak caesura of the third foot
The strong caesura of the fourth foot

The strong caesura of the third foot (also called the ‘masculine caesura of the third foot’ or the ‘penthemimeral caesura’) falls after the first syllable, the princeps, of the third foot.

— uu | — uu | — // uu | — uu | — uu | — x

The weak caesura of the third foot (also called the ‘feminine caesura of the third foot’ or the ‘trochaic caesura’) falls after the second syllable of a dactylic third foot.

— uu | — uu | — u // u | — uu | — uu | — x

Finally, the strong caesura of the fourth foot (also called the ‘masculine caesura of the third foot’ or the ‘hepthemimeral caesura’) falls after the first syllable of the fourth foot.

— uu | — uu | — uu | — // uu | — uu | — x

In Homeric epic, the overwhelming majority of lines have a caesura in the third foot. In Latin epic, there is more variability. As you will see below, there are instances of primary caesurae in the second foot.

When a word end coincides with a foot end, we call it a dieresis. In a Latin hexameter line, it is possible for the primary pause to come at the end of the fourth foot.

The dieresis between the fourth and fifth feet has a special name: the bucolic dieresis. This is because it is popular in pastoral poetry (such as Vergil’s Eclogues).

— uu | — uu | — uu | — uu // — uu | — x

Now that you are familiar with the concepts of metrical syllables and caesurae, we can get to the exciting part: real-life examples of dactylic hexameter!

Examples of Dactylic Hexameter

English

I will start with an example of the dactylic hexameter in English. English meter is based on stressed vs. unstressed syllables, not long vs. short ones like in Greek and Latin, but you can still get an idea of what the rhythm sounds like.

In the following quote, stressed syllables are in bold.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
Where is the thatch–roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?

Longfellow, Evangeline, 7-11

The first two lines are fully dactylic. In the third line, we have our first spondee: THATCH + ROOFED (stressed stressed).

English is not very well-suited to the dactylic hexameter; other meters such as the iambic pentameter are more common. Thus it is in Greek and Roman poetry that the dactylic hexameter has earned its glory.

Greek

Dactylic hexameter first appeared in the oral poetic tradition in ancient Greece. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, both of which emerged from this tradition, are two of the earliest surviving narratives created in this meter.

Let’s look at the first seven lines of the Iliad and see how they scan. As discussed above, I have divided the scanned line into “metrical syllables”.

Line 1: μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

— u u | — u u | — // — | — u u | — u u | — x

Line 2: οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε,

— u u | — — | — u // u | — — | — u u | — x

Line 3: πολλὰς δ᾽ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν

— — | — — | — // — | — u u | — u u | — x

Line 4: ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν

— — | — — | — u // u | — u u | — u u | — x

Line 5: οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή,

— — | — u u | — u // u | — u u | — u u | — x

Line 6: ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε

— — | — — | — u // u | — — | — u u | — x

Line 7: Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.

— u u | — u u | — — | — // — | — u u | — x

Lines 1 and 3 feature strong caesurae of the third foot, while lines 2, 4, 5, and 6 have weak caesurae of the third foot. Line 7 is the only one with a strong caesura of the fourth foot.

Note in line 1 that the epsilon and omega at the end of Πηληϊάδεω combine to form a single long syllable.

Latin

The Romans borrowed dactylic hexameter from the Greeks, and soon it became a central part of the Roman epic tradition. The poet Quintus Ennius (239-169 B.C.E.) was the first to write Latin epic in dactylic hexameter. He set the scene for Vergil, Ovid, Statius, and so many more epicists.

Here are the first seven lines of Vergil’s Aeneid, fully scanned. Macrons indicate length in the syllabified version so you can easily spot naturally long vowels.

Line 1: Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris

— u u | — u u | — // — | — — | — u u | — x

Line 2: Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit

— u u | — — | — u u | — // — | — u u | — x

Line 3: litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto

— u u | — — | — — | — // — | — u u | — x

Line 4: vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;

— u u | — // — | — u u | — — | — u u | — x

Line 5: multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,

— u u | — — | — — | — // — | — u u | — x

Line 6:inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,

— — | — u u | — u u | — // u u | — u u | — x

Line 7: Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae.

— — | — u u | — // — | — — | — u u | — x

All of the caesurae in these lines are “strong”. We have caesurae in the second foot (line 4), the third foot (lines 1 and 7), and the fourth foot (lines 2, 3, 5, and 6).

You will notice that some word-final letters are crossed out in lines 3, 5, and 7. This is due to elision. For an explanation of what elision is and how it works, see this introductory discussion.

Resources for Studying Dactylic Hexameter

I hope you are now feeling more comfortable with dactylic hexameter! It takes time, but eventually scanning will become second nature.

My top recommendation: practice!!! And practice out loud. Clap or bang on tables to drill the beat into your brain.

Seriously, table-banging is an important part of learning meter. My advanced Latin students can attest to this. (In case you are wondering – yes, my classrooms can get quite loud!)

If you would like to check your Greek or Latin scansion, I recommend hypotactic.com, a website on meter run by Dr. David Chamberlain (a classicist at the University of Oregon). An amazing variety of classical texts are scanned – you can even download a fully scanned version of Vergil’s Aeneid.

I also want to share some resources for learning more about Greek and Latin pronunciation and meter. I rely on them constantly.

👉 W. Sidney Allen’s Vox Latina: The Pronunciation of Classical Latin is my go-to reference for Latin pronunciation. This slim but comprehensive manual has a chapter dedicated to syllable quantity and meter (Chapter 6).

👉 Next up is Allen and Greenough’s trusty Latin grammar. §607-629 and 642 cover Latin meter in great detail. §615 discusses the dactylic hexameter specifically.

👉 W. Sidney Allen has also written my go-to book on Greek pronunciation: Vox Graeca: The Pronunciation of Classical Greek. Chapter 5 on quantity is especially relevant for metrics.

One of my favorite books on the subject is, unfortunately, very hard to access.

👉 M. L. West’s Greek Metre, originally published in 1984, covers the ins and outs of Greek verse in more detail than you could ever desire. You can try to purchase a used copy here, but it is often out of stock.

An adapted version – An Introduction to Greek Metre (1987) – can be read online via the Internet Archive.

You might also like my other posts on pronunciation, meter, and scansion:

A Beginner’s Guide to Latin Meter & Scansion

How to Pronounce Classical Latin

A Guide to Latin Stress & Syllables

Why You Should Memorize Latin Macrons

How to Type Macrons Easily

FAQs about Dactylic Hexameter

Why can dactylic hexameter end in either a short or a long syllable?

You pause naturally at the end of a line of verse, which means that the final syllable is slightly lengthened. If the final foot were a dactyl (long-short-short), the syllable pattern resulting from the pause would be long-short-long. This pattern is not allowed.

When the final foot is a spondee (long-long), the final syllable is already long, and since doubly long syllables don’t exist in Greek and Latin, the result is a spondee. When the final foot is a trochee (long-short), the last syllable is short. Its place at the end of the line lengthens it, so the result is long-long. This is a spondee – a permissible foot.

Thus the final foot must be a long syllable followed by a single syllable of any length. We call this variable syllable an anceps.

Why is it called dactylic hexameter?

Hexameter is a compound of two Ancient Greek words: ἓξ (six) and μέτρον (measure / foot). This means that each verse has six feet. Dactylic means that the dominant foot type is a dactyl (long short short). The word dactyl comes from Greek δάκτυλος (finger). You will see why when you look at your fingers: the knuckles divide each finger into one long and two shorter segments.

What is a spondaic line?

When a verse of dactylic hexameter has a spondee for its fifth foot, we call this a spondaic line. Spondaic lines are rare: the fifth foot is normally a dactyl.

What do “penthemimeral” and “hepthemimeral” mean?

Penthemimeral (“of the fifth half foot”) and hepthemimeral (“of the seventh half foot”) are old-fashioned terms for the strong caesurae of the third and fourth feet, respectively. The strong caesura of the third foot falls after the fifth half foot, while the strong caesura of the fourth foot falls after the seventh half foot.

What kinds of poems are written in dactylic hexameter?

Dactylic hexameter is called “heroic hexameter” because of its association with epic poems such as Homer’s Iliad, Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, and Vergil’s Aeneid. But hexameter is not confined to heroic epic.

Other genres written in hexameter include pastoral poetry (e.g. Theocritus’ Idylls and Vergil’s Eclogues) and satire (e.g. Horace’s Satires). There is also didactic poetry, sometimes considered a sub-genre of epic. For example, Hesiod’s Works and Days teaches about farming and morals; Nicander’s Theriaca deals with venomous creatures; and Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things discusses Epicurean philosophy.

"Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie" is an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published in 1847. It tells the story of Evangeline, an Acadian woman, and her search for her lost love, Gabriel, following their separation during the forced expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia. The poem is renowned for its use of dactylic hexameter, a metrical pattern common in classical Greek and Latin poetry.

Key aspects of "Evangeline" :

Dactylic Hexameter:
The dactylic hexameter used in "Evangeline" as a defining feature of the poem. This meter, consisting of six dactyls (a metrical foot with one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables), is characteristic of the poem's rhythmic flow.
Literary Devices and Themes:
As we read the poem, we will analyse various literary devices employed in the poem, such as imagery, symbolism, and character development. We will also explores the poem's central themes, ncluding love, loss, resilience, and the historical context of the Acadian expulsion.
Character Analysis:
We will discuss insights into the characters of Evangeline, Gabriel, and other figures in the poem, examining their motivations, relationships, and how they contribute to the overall narrative.
Poetic Style:
We will analyze the poem's poetic style, including its use of descriptive language, lyrical passages, and the overall tone and atmosphere created by the poem.
Historical Context:
Our survey of U.S. history class will further incorporate information about the historical backdrop of "Evangeline," including the real-life events of the Acadian expulsion and their influence on the poem's narrative and themes.

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