Hypermetic verse, the phenomenon by which one line of dactylic hexameter elides into the next, is a rare enough occurance in Vergil's Aeneid that no example can be dismissed as accidental; therefore its presence in lines 745-6 of Book 2 of the Aeneid merits attention. The lines in question:
Quem non incusavi amens hominumque deorumque,
aut quid in eversa vidi crudelius urbe?
"Who of men and gods did I not accuse,
or what did I not see more cruelly in the fallen city?"
The accusation in question is the fate of Creusa, the wife of Aeneas and mother of Iulus, whom, in a hyperpatriarchal manner, Aeneas bid walk behind him. She did not arrive in the meeting place outside the city. Luca Grillo has commented in his article on how badly Aeneas appears (in his own account!) in comparison to Hector and Orpheus in relationship to his wife. These lines seem to be to crux of it. Not only does Aeneas invite Dido and the audience in Carthage, as well as any readers of Vergil, to consider which individual among gods and men he has not accused, but he does in a couplet using a poetic device that elides, quite literally, one syllable for the one man he has not accused - himself!
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