Hexameters

Hesiod's handling of the dactylic hexameter was not as masterful or fluent as Homer's and one modern scholar refers to his "hobnailed hexameters".

In contrast, Dante decided to write his epic, the Divine Comedy in Italian—a choice that defied the traditional epic choice of Latin dactylic hexameters—and produced a masterpiece beloved both then and now.

In Greek Homeric poetry (not in Latin), also, hexameters have two bridges, places where there very rarely is a break in a word-unit.

Lucretius was the first writer to introduce Roman readers to Epicurean philosophy.sfn The poem, written in some 7,400 dactylic hexameters, is divided into six untitled books, and explores Epicurean physics through richly poetic language and metaphors.

Michael Drout states "Aldhelm wrote Latin hexameters better than anyone before in England (and possibly better than anyone since, or at least up until Milton).

Pope Damasus I placed an epitaph of eight hexameters over his tomb because of his firm defense of ecclesiastical discipline and the banishment which he suffered thereby.

The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist Persius to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrings".

While in a trance the Pythia "raved" probably a form of ecstatic speech and her ravings were "translated" by the priests of the temple into elegant hexameters.