Sunday, January 10, 2010

Temeritas: Auriga et Equus (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 55 in the collection. Although this is not part of the traditional Aesopic corpus, it shares the motif of the "runaway horse" with Perry 457.

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:

In praeceps rapitur, frustrā quoque tendit habēnās
Aurīga, effrēnī quem vehit ōris equus.
Haud facile huīc crēdās, ratiō quem nulla gubernat,
Et temerē propriō dūcitur arbitriō.


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

In praeceps rapitur; frustrā quoque habēnās tendit aurīga, quem ōris effrēnī equus vehit. Haud facile huīc crēdās, quem ratiō nulla gubernat, et arbitriō propriō temerē dūcitur.


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):

In praeceps rápitur; frustra quoque habénas tendit auríga, quem oris effréni equus vehit. Haud fácile huic credas, quem rátio nulla gubérnat, et arbítrio próprio témere dúcitur.


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.

In praeceps rapitur, frustrā quoque tendit habēnās
Aurīg~,· effrē·nī || quem vehit· ōris e·quus.
Haud facile huīc crēdās, ratiō quem nulla gubernat,
Et teme·rē propri·ō || dūcitur· arbitri·ō.


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


What follows is an unmarked version of the prose rendering to faciliate word searches:
In praeceps rapitur; frustra quoque habenas tendit auriga, quem oris effreni equus vehit. Haud facile huic credas, quem ratio nulla gubernat, et arbitrio proprio temere ducitur.