nants on the quantity of syllables will render the reading of verse easy. In addition it should be observed that a final syllable ending in a consonant before a word beginning with a consonant is affected as if the combination of consonants were in the same word, and that a final syllable ending in a vowel or m before a word beginning with a vowel or h is so slurred in pronunciation that it is not regarded as a syllable of the foot.

The elegiac meter, in which the Tristia are written, is a distich or couplet consisting of an hexameter and a pentameter. The pentameter consists of two feet and one half, in which there may be either dactyls or spondees, followed by a caesura and then two feet and one half, in which there may be only dactyls.

Ille ego qui fue | rim, || tene|rōsum | lūsor a mōrum,

quem legis, ut nōrīs, || accipe | posteri | tās.

ངུ