Towards saturnien

The towards saturnien ( versus saturnius or numerus saturnius ) is the oldest form of Towards of the Latin poetry .

Its characteristics remain still a enigma today, as they were it already undoubtedly for the Romains of the imperial time. The paradox is that one has at least a hundred worms (moreover drawn from distinct parts), that the tradition of the old Grammairien S catalogued like saturniens, but without precisely clarifying the clean character of it towards.

The origin even of the name is unspecified:

in the Roman Mythology, Saturn is the first inhabitant of the Latium, and the guardian god of the area. It is possible that the worms saturnien corresponded to the specific Scansion of a hymn dedicated to Saturn;
the Satire (saturated) is a specifically Latin poetic form: one conjectured that the saturnien was quite simply the metric specific one of this form.

Some examples

The example of saturnien most frequently quoted is that of the grammairien Caesius Bassus:

dabunt malum Metelli Naevio poetae (Metelli will give stick to the Naevius poet)

The epitaph of very the Naevius is also in saturniens:

Inmortalis mortalis if drill fas flere

Flerent divæ Camenæ Nævium poetam

Itaque postquam is Orchi traditus thesauro

Obliti sunt Romæ loquier lingua Latina

Livius Andronicus (260-207 av. J.C.) wrote a Latin version of the Odyssée all in saturniens (which reached us only mutilated) whose here some extracts (the vertical bar | mark the caesura, cf will infra ):

Virum mihi, Camena, | insece versutum
Tuque mihi narrato | omnia disertim
In Pylum devenies | aut ubi ommentans
Ibidemque vir summus | adprimus Patroclus
Quando dies adveniet, | quem profata Morta is
Atque escas habemus | mentionem
wandering Partim, nequinont | Graeciam to repeat
Apud nimpham Atlantis | filiam Calipsonem

Formal interpretation

Interpretation according to a rhythmic meter does not resist the examination, unless admitting a quantity of particular cases. The poet of the Early empire Caesius Bassus indicated that in general the saturnien comprises a caesura between a first member of four iambic feet iambic and a second of three feet, i.e. follows the diagram:

U - | U - | U - | X || - U | - U | - X

(U indicates a short vowel, - a long vowel, X a vowel either short or long).

However, Bassus also acknowledges that metric saturnien was so irregular that it could hardly find at Naevius of the examples of this rule!

Interpretation specialist in comparative literature

Certain researchers supposed that the old saturnien, worms, had been able to keep some relationship with the rate/rhythm of the Vedas and old poetries of the linguistic field Indo-European, where one finds topics rhythmic obliged of the form:

X X X X || U U X - U - U X
X X X X || X U U - U - U X
X X X X X || U U - U - U X

i.e.:

a number fixes syllables,
a group of two short after the caesura,
a iambic clausula.

This form corresponds in any case to the beginning of the worms saturniens:

dabunt malum Metelli (U - U - U - -)
atque Runcus Purpureus (- U - U - U U U)
magnum stuprum rabble (- - U - U U -)

One meter syllabic?

It seems that, in the examples which reached us, the words are placed according to the number of syllables which they comprise, the most frequent reason being:

2 syll. - 2 syll. - 3 syll. - 3 syll. -3 syll.

that one finds well in the examples above.

Lastly, the saturnien also comprises very often Allitération S, strong appraisals of the old Latin authors, for example:

summas apertures which regum regias refregit (alliteration in R)
eorum sectam sequuntur multi mortales

magni metus tumultus will pectora possidet

Sources

Alfred Ernout - Compilation of antiquated Latin texts (1915), libr. Klinsksieck, Paris
Antoine Meillet Draft of a history of the Latin language (1966), libr. Klinsksieck, Paris

L. Nougaret Treated metric Latin traditional (1956, rééd. 1963), libr. Klinsksieck, Paris