Sunday, January 24, 2010

Arion: In avaros (Alciato)

SOURCE: The emblems of Alciato, with a convenient bilingual presentation online at Memorial University, and a marvelous collection of illustrated editions at Glasgow. This is emblem 90 in the collection. It is not traditionally part of the Aesopic corpus, but as "mythology moralized" it fits in nicely with the other fables.

READ OUT LOUD. Choose which marked text you prefer to practice with - macrons in verse form, or macrons in prose order, or accent marks in prose order, or focusing on the meter. You will find materials for all of these options below. :-)


VERSE MACRONS. Here is the verse text with macrons:

Delphīnī īnsīdēns vada caerula sulcat Arīon,
Hōcque aurēs mulcet, frēnat et ōra sonō.
Quam sit avārī hominis, nōn tam mēns dīra ferārum est:
Quīque virīs rapimur, piscibus ēripimur.


PROSE MACRONS. Here is the same text with macrons written out in prose word order:

Arīon, delphīnī īnsīdēns, vada caerula sulcat, et hōc sonō aurēs mulcet et ōra frēnat. Quam dīra mēns sit avārī hominis, nōn tam ferārum est: et quī virīs rapimur, piscibus ēripimur.


STRESS (ACCENT) MARKS. Here is the prose text with accents, plus some color-coding for the words of three or more syllables (blue: penultimate stress; red: antepenultimate stress):

Aríon, delphíni insídens, vada caérula sulcat, et hoc sono aures mulcet et ora frenat. Quam dira mens sit avári hóminis, non tam ferárum est: et qui viris rápimur, píscibus erípimur.


ELEGIAC COUPLET METER. Below I have used an interpunct dot · to indicate the metrical elements in each line, and a double line || to indicate the hemistichs of the pentameter line.

Delphīnī īnsīdēns vada caerula sulcat Arīon,
Hōcqu~ au·rēs mul·cet, || frēnat et· ōra so·nō.
Quam sit avārī hominis, nōn tam mēns dīra ferārum est:
Quīque vi·rīs rapi·mur, || piscibus· ēripi·mur.


IMAGE. Here is an illustration for the story (image source).


What follows is an unmarked version of the prose rendering to faciliate word searches: Arion, delphini insidens, vada caerula sulcat, et hoc sono aures mulcet et ora frenat. Quam dira mens sit avari hominis, non tam ferarum est: et qui viris rapimur, piscibus eripimur.