Greek and Latin metre

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Greek and Latin metre is an overall term used for the various rhythms in which Greek and Latin poems were composed. The individual rhythmical patterns used in Greek and Latin poetry are also known as "metres" (US "meters").

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Greek poetry developed first, starting as early as the 8th century BC with the epic poems of Homer and didactic poems of Hesiod, which were composed in the dactylic hexameter. A variety of other metres were used for lyric poetry and for classical Greek drama.

Some of the earliest Latin poems, dating from the 3rd century BC, were composed in Saturnian verse, which is not used in Greek. Apart from these Saturnian poems, which today survive only in fragments, all Latin poetry is written in adaptations of various Greek metres. Although a large number of Greek metres were adapted, Latin verse tends to imitate only the simpler forms, and complex stanzas in irregular and rapidly changing metres such as the dactylo-epitrite used in many of Pindar's choral odes are not found in Latin. [1]

Prosody

Apart from Saturnian verse, whose basis is not well understood, and some types of medieval rhythmic verse, all classical Greek and Latin metre is quantitative, that is, based on different patterns of long and short syllables, rather than syllabic-accentual, that is, based on patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Prosody, that is, the rules for deciding which syllables are short and which are long, is more or less the same in Greek and Latin. Syllables which end in a short vowel, like the first syllable of Greek πα-τήρ or Latin pa-ter'father', are treated as short; syllables which contain a long vowel or diphthong, or which ended with a consonant, like the first syllable of Rō-ma'Rome', sae-pe'often', or stul-tus'foolish', were treated as long.

If a single consonant comes between two vowels, it is usually taken with the second syllable, even at the end of a word: thus miser est'he is wretched' is divided mi-se-rest (short, short, long). If two consonants came between two vowels, they are usually divided between the syllables, e.g. stul-tus'foolish'. However, there are some ambiguous cases; for example, the first syllable of patrem'father (accusative case)' can be treated as either long (pat-rem) or short (pa-trem) in Virgil. [2]

An important feature of both Greek and Latin prosody is elision. If a word ending in a short vowel (or -m in Latin) is followed by a word beginning with a vowel (or h-), the final vowel is usually not regarded as a separate syllable. In Greek the vowel is replaced by an apostrophe. Thus the word δὲ'and' is reduced to δ' in the phrase: πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς [3] (pollàs d' iphthímous psukhàs) 'and many mighty souls' (seven long syllables). In Latin the elided vowel continued to be written, but was presumably not pronounced or else pronounced very rapidly. [4] Occasionally even a long vowel was elided, as in the following example, which also illustrates the ambiguity of patr-, since pa-tris has a short first syllable here and pat-rem a long one:

nāt(um) ant(e) ōra patris, patrem qu(ī) obtruncat ad ārās. [5]
'who cuts down the son in front of his father, and the father at the altars'

The process of determining which syllables are long and which are short, and showing how the words of a poem match a metrical pattern, is known as scansion. The above line of Virgil is scanned as follows, where – represents a long syllable, and ᴗ a short one:

– – | – ᴗ ᴗ | – – | – – | – ᴗ ᴗ | – –

Rhythmic types

The different individual metres can be classified according to their predominant rhythmic type. In the examples below, the symbol x represents a syllable that can be either long or short. For example:

There are also metres which combine different rhythms, for example the dactylo-epitrite, which combines trochaic and dactylic elements.

Major forms

The greater part of Ancient Greek poetry is composed of stichic ( /ˈstɪkɪk/ ) metres, which are those in which the same verse-pattern is repeated line after line with no strophic structure. [6] The six main stichic metres used in Greek, according to Martin Litchfield West, are the following. [7] (Strictly speaking, the elegiac couplet is strophic, not stichic, but West considers its use in extended poems makes it suitable for inclusion here.) [8]

These are not the only stichic metres used in Greek and Latin poetry. Among others are:

Lyric metres

Epodic metres

Epodic metres are a simple kind of strophic verse practised by some Ionian poets of the archaic period, namely Archilochus, Hipponax, and Anacreon. Mostly these consist of either a dactylic hexameter or an iambic trimeter, followed by an "epode", which is a shorter line either iambic or dactylic in character, or a mixture of these. The first or second line can also end with an ithyphallic colon (– ᴗ – ᴗ – x). [9] For examples of such epodic strophes see:

These metres were imitated in Latin in Horace's Epodes.

Aeolic verse

Aeolic verse begins with the short lyric poems of the Lesbian poets Sappho and Alcaeus. Nearly all the poems of Sappho and Alcaeus are composed in strophes (stanzas) of two, three, or four verses, in which at least one line would be different from the others. [10] The most common rhythm is the glyconic (x x – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x), but this could be expanded or varied in a number of ways.

The following is also a kind of aeolic verse, though used stichically:

The simpler kinds of Aeolic verse were imitated in Latin by Horace in his Odes, while the Phalaecian hendecasyllable was used frequently by Catullus, Statius, and Martial.

Dorian lyric

The early Dorian lyric poets include Alcman, Stesichorus, and Ibycus. The choral odes of these poets tend not to be in any one metre, but consist of lines of irregular pattern containing dactylic, aeolic, and trochaic elements. [11] Among the fragments of Alcman's poetry there are also some cretic and spondaic lines. [12]

Later, in the choral odes of Simonides, Bacchylides, and Pindar, three main types of metre were used: dactylo-epitrite, aeolic, and iambic. The first of these is a mixture of dactylic elements (e.g. the hemiepes – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ –) and so called "epitrite" elements (e.g. – ᴗ – x – ᴗ –) with linking syllables between them. [13]

These poets wrote in the Doric dialect, with forms such as Ἀθάνα 'Athene' instead of the Attic Ἀθήνη, and this custom was continued in the choral songs in the tragedies written by Athenian poets such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The later Dorian poets wrote their odes in triadic structure (strophe, antistrophe, and epode), where the strophe and antistrophe were of identical metrical pattern, and the epode of a different pattern.

The complex rhythms of the Dorian poets are not found in Latin, but there are a few poems composed in the simple Alcmanian strophe, consisting of a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic tetrameter, as in Horace, Odes 1.7 and 1.28 and Epode 12.

Ionic metres

Anacreon (late 6th century BC) was an Ionian rather than Dorian, and wrote all his poetry in the Ionian dialect. He wrote some songs in aeolic metres, or aeolic mixed with iambic elements. [14] But he also wrote songs in ionic metre, often using the anaclastic form known as anacreontic, or a mixture of anacreontic and pure ionic elements.

The ionic metre is occasionally found in Greek tragedies in appropriate settings, for example in Aeschylus's The Persians and in Euripides' The Bacchae .

Ionic metres are rare in Latin. Horace Odes 3.12 is a rare example composed entirely in ionic feet, with ten feet to each stanza. Anacreontics are also very rare. [15] The Galliambic metre of Catullus's poem 63 (but of which there are no extant examples in Greek) is a development of the anacreontic.

The Sotadean metre, named after the poet Sotades (3rd century BC) is another variation of ionic. It was also used occasionally in Latin, for example in two poems in Petronius.

Other lyric metres

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows :

In poetry, a hendecasyllable is a line of eleven syllables. The term may refer to several different poetic meters, the older of which are quantitative and used chiefly in classical poetry, and the newer of which are syllabic or accentual-syllabic and used in medieval and modern poetry.

Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the Hymns of Orpheus. According to Greek mythology, hexameter was invented by Phemonoe, daughter of Apollo and the first Pythia of Delphi.

In poetry, metre or meter is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study and the actual use of metres and forms of versification are both known as prosody.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poetry</span> Form of literature

Poetry is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particular instance of poetry is called a poem and is written by a poet. Poets use a variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as assonance, alliteration, euphony and cacophony, onomatopoeia, rhythm, and sound symbolism, to produce musical or incantatory effects. Most poems are formatted in verse: a series or stack of lines on a page, which follow a rhythmic or other deliberate pattern. For this reason, verse has also become a synonym for poetry.

A strophe is a poetic term originally referring to the first part of the ode in Ancient Greek tragedy, followed by the antistrophe and epode. The term has been extended to also mean a structural division of a poem containing stanzas of varying line length. Strophic poetry is to be contrasted with poems composed line-by-line non-stanzaically, such as Greek epic poems or English blank verse, to which the term stichic applies.

According to one meaning of the word, an epode is the third part of an ancient Greek choral ode that follows the strophe and the antistrophe and completes the movement.

In languages with quantitative poetic metres, such as Ancient Greek, Latin, Arabic, Sanskrit, and classical Persian, an anceps is a position in a metrical pattern which can be filled by either a long or a short syllable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Latin poetry</span> Poetry of the Latin language

The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205–184 BC.

Alcmanian verse refers to the dactylic tetrameter in Greek and Latin poetry.

Archilochian or archilochean is a term used to describe several metres of Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The name is derived from Archilochus, whose poetry first uses the rhythms.

This is a glossary of poetry terms.

In Greek and Latin metre, brevis in longo is a short syllable at the end of a line that is counted as long. The term is short for (syllaba) brevis in (elemento) longo, meaning "a short [syllable] in a long [element]". Although the phenomenon itself has been known since ancient times, the phrase is said to have been invented by the classical scholar Paul Maas.

Resolution is the metrical phenomenon in poetry of replacing a normally long syllable in the meter with two short syllables. It is often found in iambic and trochaic meters, and also in anapestic, dochmiac and sometimes in cretic, bacchiac, and ionic meters. In iambic and trochaic meters, either the first or the second half of the metrical foot can be resolved, or sometimes both.

Aeolic verse is a classification of Ancient Greek lyric poetry referring to the distinct verse forms characteristic of the two great poets of Archaic Lesbos, Sappho and Alcaeus, who composed in their native Aeolic dialect. These verse forms were taken up and developed by later Greek and Roman poets and some modern European poets.

The ionic is a four-syllable metrical unit (metron) of light-light-heavy-heavy that occurs in ancient Greek and Latin poetry. According to Hephaestion it was known as the Ionicos because it was used by the Ionians of Asia Minor; and it was also known as the Persicos and was associated with Persian poetry. Like the choriamb, in Greek quantitative verse the ionic never appears in passages meant to be spoken rather than sung. "Ionics" may refer inclusively to poetry composed of the various metrical units of the same total quantitative length that may be used in combination with ionics proper: ionics, choriambs, and anaclasis. Equivalent forms exist in English poetry and in classical Persian poetry.

Latin prosody is the study of Latin poetry and its laws of meter. The following article provides an overview of those laws as practised by Latin poets in the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, with verses by Catullus, Horace, Virgil and Ovid as models. Except for the early Saturnian poetry, which may have been accentual, Latin poets borrowed all their verse forms from the Greeks, despite significant differences between the two languages.

Prosody is the theory and practice of versification.

Anaclasis is a feature of poetic metre, in which a long and a short syllable exchange places in a metrical pattern.

A metron, , plural metra, is a repeating section, 3 to 6 syllables long, of a poetic metre. The word is particularly used in reference to ancient Greek. According to a definition by Paul Maas, usually a metron consists of two long elements and up to two other elements which can be short, anceps or biceps.

References

  1. ↑ Raven (1965), pp. 18–19.
  2. ↑ e.g. Aeneid 2.663, quoted below.
  3. ↑ Homer, Iliad 1.3.
  4. ↑ See discussion in Allen (1978), pp. 78–82.
  5. ↑ Virgil, Aeneid 2.663.
  6. ↑ West (1987), p. 19.
  7. ↑ West (1987), pp. 19–30.
  8. ↑ West (1987), pp. 23–24.
  9. ↑ West (1987), p. 31.
  10. ↑ West (1987), pp. 32–34.
  11. ↑ West (1987), pp. 35–39.
  12. ↑ West (1987), pp. 39–40.
  13. ↑ West (1987), pp. 42–44.
  14. ↑ West (1987), pp. 40–41.
  15. ↑ D. S. Raven (1965), p. 130, quotes an example from Claudian, Fescennina 2.
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