Prosody (Latin) long or short in some schemes to indicate natural syllable length but it is always long by position. A dactylic tetrameter catalectic is sometimes joined to the dactylic hexameter to form a couplet termed the Alcmanian Strophe, named after the lyric poet Alcman (some scholars however refer to the Alcmanian Strophe as the First Archilochian, as indeed there is a strong likeness between the two forms). Examples of the form are found in Horace's Odes ("carmina") and "Epodes", as here in his Epode 12. Note that the plosive + liquid combination pr in 'capreaeque', syllabified "ca.pre.ae.que", leaves the first open
Carmen Possum Carmen Possum Carmen Possum is a popular 80-line macaronic poem written in a mix of Latin and English. Its author is unknown, but the poem's theme and language enable one to surmise that he or she was from the United States of America and was either a teacher or at least a student of Latin. The poem's title represents a multilingual play on words: "Possum" is Latin for "I can"/"I am able to" and colloquial English for "opossum." While "carmen possum" sounds like a well-formed Latin phrase to untrained ears, its meaning in context reveals that at least this instance