dabúnt malúm Metélli Naéuió poétae
is simple enough: but when we come to
sin illos deserant fortissimos uiros
magnum stuprum populo fieri per gentes
or
dedet Tempestatibus aide meretod
we come, to speak frankly, to chaos.
4. A large number of well-attested saturnians yield only two accents in the second colon.
(b) Beside the 'Queen-and-Parlour' theory there is what I may call the Normal Accent Theory. It originated with two papers by W.M. Lindsay in the American Journal of Philology vol. xiv—papers which furnish a more thorough and penetrating treatment of the whole subject than is to be found anywhere else. Lindsay's view is in substance this:
1. The saturnian line falls into two cola of which the first (a) contains three, the second (b) two accented syllables.
2. a contains seven syllables in all, b contains six (occasionally five), save when ᵕᵕ takes the place of one accented syllable.