Does scansion ever require synizesis of two similar vowels?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

Does scansion ever require a synizesis like ŭŭ > ū or with u replaced by another vowel? I am not sure if this should be called synizesis when the two joined vowels have the same quality, but I hope my intention is clear enough. Here is an artificial example of a hexameter verse:

Est suus cuique viro canis et bene doctus amicus.
Every man has his dog and a well educated friend.

To be able to read this as hexameter, one is forced to make the synizesis ŭŭ > ū.

There was a question about confusion between ŭŭ and ū, but this one is about synizesis instead. An answer to the linked question mentions ĭĭt > īt. If someone can provide a line where īt is used and ĭĭtwould invalidate the metric, that would make a nice answer, although I prefer spelling with two vowels if possible.

manpreet 2 years ago