LXIII.

In the metre of this poem Catullus observes the following general type--

--´ | --´ -- 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.