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Translating the Latin into English is necessary as it shows you understand what it means and in some way it shows you're engaging with the material rather than just "literary feature spotting". (as apparently the evidence is not ‘trustworthy’ if not translated). I want to mention the effect that the dactylic line has stylistically in an essay, so am I required to add the scansion markings to the Latin quotation to ‘prove’ this, or is it not really necessary? I feel like this is a bit of a stupid question but I’m currently taking GCSE Latin and my teacher is always very pedantic over things like making sure to translate all Latin quotations into English etc. I’ll definitely see if I can find a copy of that book at the library when we get back to school If you're new to scansion, there's an excellent section at the back of Mathew Owen's book Ovid Unseens which explains all about the different rules of scansion and has some lines to practice on (with answers later in the book!)
![latin dactylic hexameter scansion practice latin dactylic hexameter scansion practice](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CYIxn5UVRtU/TqVM99O9TpI/AAAAAAAAAS4/7N-2Qd-1hS0/s1600/Elegy+for+AngelaBarnes004.jpg)
Therefore, if your first four feet are spondees, then the line is considered spondaic. The last two feet in a hexameter are always scanned long-short-short | long-anceps, so the fifth foot always has to be a dactyl. It's definitely a dactylic line: all the feet that can be dactyls are. Your first go is the right one: nescio is three separate syllables in Latin.