XXX.
EXEGI MONVMENTVM AERE PERENNIVS
I have raised up a monument more lasting than bronze,
And taller than royal rubble of the pyramids.
For neither rain all-devouring, nor powerless Aquilo's gusts
Can raze it to ruin -- nor the uncountable
Count of years together with the flight of passing time. 5
I shall not wholly die, and such a part of myself
Shall escape Libitina's embrace. And still yet shall I
Grow, renewed with unending praise, as long as the Capitol
Shall a pontiff scale alongside a silent Vestal.
I shall be talked about, a native whence roars the raging Aufidus 10
And where sparsely-watered Daunus o'er his rustic
Peoples ruled. I, a man from humble birth now made mighty,
Am first among all my people to have taken Æolic song
To wed with Italian beats. Take up, thou, the pride
Demanded for my just deserts, and upon my hair a Delphic 15
Laurels lay with all readiness, O my Melpomene!
I. Meter: Hendecasyllabics - also called The Phalaician, the first four syllables are interchangeable to suit what's needed, but the heart of the line is a choriamb (- u u -) which leads the second half of the eleven syllables (hendeka - "eleven") into a strong iambic (u - ) end.
The meter is very evocative of colloquial, lighter themes, street humor, and the comic stage.
It became the principle meter of Italian poetry and is used consistently by The Greats, chiefly Dante (La Divina Comedia is terza rime, a hendecasyllabic meter structured into rhymed triplets.) The most famous English example of hendecasyllabics is Catullus-centered:
- "O you chorus of indolent reviewers,
- Irresponsible, indolent reviewers,
- Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem
- All composed in a metre of Catullus..."
- -Tennyson, "Hendecasyllabics"
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