A radical transformation, Glenn, and much to consider, so I’ll stick to meter for now.
I like both of Julie’s metrical fixes. In the Venus line, part of what makes it hard not to stress “blonde” is that it’s hard not to destress “If.” The following two ifs are more easily promoted because they’re not followed by words that naturally want a stress. Julie also smooths over the unruly dactyl “with a fanned.”
Two other dactyls that jarred me were “one foot from” and “own, too, Mount.” I don’t have a ready fix for the first, but the second could be:
What? You are claiming it all, and now you own Helicon’s valleys? (“You claim it” also seemed a little uneasy in the dactyl slot.)
“Sextuple” is stressed wrong, but I get into the elegiac groove and ride over it without even noticing. I always wonder in these cases, though, how much readers can be counted on to finesse the meter and how much they need to be forced.
BTW, I agree with Julie that the rhymes suit the lightness of the verse, and I liked them in her Posidippus and Ausonius, but this piece is long enough that they verge on cloying by the end. Maybe that’s just me, but I suggest that in the remaining 2,000-plus lines you use rhyme more sparingly!
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