Vergil does not make alliteration a feature of his verse, at least so far as conscious striving for this effect is concerned. Ovid, on the other hand, while he nowhere goes quite to the extreme of Ennius, did consciously and constantly avail himself of alliterative effects. Alliteration in two letters is very common. In these lines, the words which begin with the same letter are generally connected rhetorically. Many of the lines contain two pairs of alliterated words, e.g. VII, 96; XIII, 93. Alliteration in three letters is also common, e.g. II, 77, 82; III, 481; X, 44; XIII, 83, 84. Ovid's most extreme alliterative lines are as follows: II, 155, 170; V, 473; VI, 312; VII, 136; IX, 80; XIII, 87, 116, 577. The same taste which led the Latin poets to alliteration is displayed in their frequent attempts to produce a jingling or rhyming effect at the end of two or more words in a line. Whether such attempts are to be considered as the origin of the modern rhyme is a question which cannot be answered; and yet the fondness for such effects, displayed by many of the Latin poets, is significant. This is shown very strongly in Ennius, and perhaps most of all in Lucretius. Ovid also makes use of assonance with extreme frequency. The following lines illustrate this echoing or rhyming effect:· : I, 130. In quorum subiere locum fraudesque dolique. Other examples are in: II, 27, 215, 235, 245, 249; IV, 83, 147, 480; V, 192, 193, 422, 428, 432, 625; VI, 219, 250; VII, 139, 177, 271; VIII, 673; IX, 91, 180; XI, 142; XIII, 303, 304, 361, 844; XV, 754, 757, 758. It will be seen, upon examination, that the syllables here in question fall in the masculine caesurae in the second and fourth feet. There can be little doubt that the poet consciously aims to produce an echoing effect in these lines. This effect can be produced only by giving prominence to (i.e. by accenting) the similar syllables; and since these syllables are word finals, this requires an accent which is not the proper accent of the word. A favorite line ending with Ovid is seen in I, 129, 130. Over fifty such endings occur, with the similarly duplicated enclitic -ve. Ovid's fondness for jingles is further illustrated in such phrases as the following: ille levem; advehor Ortygiam ; Helicona colentes; convicia victae; Latona relatis; deme meis; ense senis; clausere serae; texit ora frutex; voce vocatur; pecoris spectans; sentiat at; tantae . . . Tantalides; Lemnos nostro; spolieris erit; nobis altera nobilitas; remoratur ituros; silvis et visus; septemflua flumina; unus onus. In this class of jingles, Lucretius easily excels all other Latin poets. In the actual repetition of words and phrases, however, Ovid outdoes even Lucretius. This repetition extends from such simple cases as I, 240. Occidit una domus: sed non domus una perire, through all phases of line initial, medial and final repetition, with duplication of part lines and half lines, to almost complete line repetition, such as, I, 325, 326. Et superesse virum de tot modo millibus unum, Et superesse videt de tot modo millibus unam, For further illustrations of this most prominent feature of Ovid's poetic form, turn to the following passages: I, 248, 249. Forma futura, rogant: quis sit laturus in aras Tura? ferisne paret populandas tradere terras? and 325, 326 (line repetition with slight changes); 361, 362 (second half line repeated); 481, 482 (first half line repeated); 514, 515 (double word repetition); 742 (double jingle: que in quinos dilapsa absumitur); II, 280, 281 (double phrase repetition with chiasmus); III, 98 (a perfectly symmetrical chiasmic arrangement of a double repeated phrase); 446 (the same as in 98); 465 (triple word repetition); IV, 152, 153; 713 (double word repetition with chiasmus and triple alliteration); V, 345 (triple word repetion; two in parallel order, and one in chiasmic order); 369, 370; 483; VII, 197, 198 (remarkable repetition of -que, and double word repetition in beginning and medial positions); VIII, 673 (every word but one containing an echoing syllable: Dantque locum mensis paulum seducta secundis); 714, 715 (triple word repetition); IX, 36-38 (11. 36 and 37 are held together by vicem and cervicem; while 37 and 38 are joined by captat and captare); 44, 45 (three pairs of repeated words, with quadruple alliteration in one line, and two pairs of double alliteration in the other); 207-210 (a strongly onomatopoetic passage with many repetitions); XIII, 284; XV, 757,.758 (in one line, triple ending in -os and double in -isse, every word but et being involved; in the other, triple ending in -um and one in -isse). These passages, containing every possible variety of alliteration, assonance, anaphora, double, triple, and quad ruple echoes, repetitions in parallel and chiasmic order, exhibit an amazing fluency which amounts to an almost fatal facility of language. Add to this the ceaseless, swift gallop of his lines, of which mention has already been made, and it will be seen that Ovid is a past master in the use of the Hexameter- a veritable juggler in language. II. THE ELEGIAC DISTICH The first appearance of this species of verse in Roman poetry is in the Epigrammata of Ennius, of which the following lines, upon the poet himself, are a good illustration: Áspicite Ó civés, || senis | Énni_i|máginis | fórmam ! Marcus Terentius Varro employed the same verse, to a limited extent, in his Menippean satires. The following passage, of which the initial hexameter line is lost, is among the extant fragments: Nátu ra húmanís # ómnia | súnt pari á: Qui pote plús, urgét, || pis cís ut | saépe minútos In Catullus, Carmina 65-116 are in the elegiac distich. This poet is probably the first of the Latins to use the distich in the true elegiac (mournful) strain, as illustrated in Carmen 65, in which he laments the death of his brother: Númquam ego | té vitá # fráter a mábiliór But the distich reaches its highest perfection of development in the more properly styled elegiac poets, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, in whose hands it becomes the ready instrument for the expression of the passion of love. For Ovid's own account of the measure, and the origin of his use of it, read Amores, I, i, and see notes upon this. The elegiac distich, as will have been observed above, is composed of a dactylic hexameter line followed by a (wrongly so-called) pentameter. It is to this pentameter only that the attention of the student need be called. In the selections quoted above, and in the minor works of Ovid (i.e. all except the Metamorphoses), observe the following facts: 1. The distich is a true couplet, a unit, not alone in form, but in thought, which is brought to a close by the pentameter line; so that the sense rarely goes over uncompleted into the next hexameter. In this respect, compare the English rhymed couplet, e.g. of Pope. 2. The pentameter line, as has been suggested above, is wrongly so called. Properly considered, it is a dactylic hexameter with the unaccented part of the third and sixth feet suppressed. In theory, the remaining syllable has the time of the entire foot. 3. The line is usually broken rhetorically after the |