Sunday, January 17, 2010

Loripes et Lumine Captus (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 161 in the collection. Although the pairing of the blind man and the lame man is not in the classical corpus, it is a story found in various later collections - perhaps from an eastern source (Voltaire seems to think so)...? If anybody knows more about this story, let me know!

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:

Lōripedem sublātum humerīs fert lūmine captus,
Et sociī haec oculīs mūnera rētribuit.
Quō caret alteruter, concors sīc praestat uterque:
Mūtuat hīc oculōs, mūtuat ille pedēs.


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

Lūmine captus lōripedem fert, humerīs sublātum, et haec sociī mūnera oculīs rētribuit. Sīc uterque concors praestat, quō alteruter caret: hīc oculōs mūtuat, ille pedēs mūtuat.


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):

Lúmine captus lorípedem fert, húmeris sublátum, et haec sócii múnera óculis retríbuit. Sic utérque concors praestat, quo altéruter caret: hic óculos mútuat, ille pedes mútuat.


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.

Lōripe·dem sub·lāt~ hume·rīs fert· lūmine· captus,
Et soci~· haec ocu·līs || mūnera· rētribu·it.
Quō caret· alteru·ter, con·cors sīc· praestat u·terque:
Mūtua·t hīc ocu·lōs, || mūtuat· ille pe·dēs.


IMAGE. Here's an illustration for the fable (image source) from a 1556 edition of the emblems:


What follows is an unmarked version of the prose rendering to faciliate word searches: Lumine captus loripedem fert, humeris sublatum, et haec socii munera oculis retribuit. Sic uterque concors praestat, quo alteruter caret: hic oculos mutuat, ille pedes mutuat.