Prosody (from Middle French , from Latin , from Ancient Greek (), 'song sung to music', 'pronunciation of syllable') is the theory and practice of versification.
Prosody Greek poetry is based on syllable length, not on syllable stress, as in English. The two syllable lengths in Greek poetry are long and short. It is probable that in the natural spoken language there were also syllables of intermediate length, as in the first syllable of words such as τέκνα /tékna/ 'children', where a short vowel is followed by a plosive + liquid combination; but for poetic purposes such syllables were treated as either long or short.West, M.L. (1970), "A new approach to Greek prosody", Glotta 48:185. Thus in the opening speech of the play Oedipus Tyrannus, Sophocles treats the first syllable of τέκνα /tékna/ as long in line 1, but as short in line 6.
Different kinds of poetry use different patterns of long and short syllables, known as meters (Commonwealth: metres). For example, the epic poems of Homer were composed using the pattern | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – | (the so-called dactylic hexameter, where – represents a long syllable, and u a short one.)
It would appear that most Ancient Greek poetry, including the poems of Homer, was composed to be sung to music, and it is generally assumed by those who have reconstructed the surviving fragments of Greek music, such as the Seikilos epitaph, that a short syllable was sung to a short note, while the long syllables were sung to longer notes, or to a group of two or three short notes.Cf. also A.M. Devine, Laurence D. Stephens (1994), The Prosody of Greek Speech, p. 359.
The word-accents in Greek poetry did not affect the meter, but contributed to the melody, in that (judging from the Seikilos inscription and other fragments) syllables with an acute accent tended to be sung on a higher pitch, and those with a circumflex were sung on two notes, the first higher than the second. (See Ancient Greek accent for musical examples.)
Determining Quantity
There are rules that determine the length of any given syllable. A syllable is said to be "long by nature" if it contains a long vowel or a diphthong: η and ω are always long. α, ι, and υ can be either long or short. αι, αυ, ει, ευ, οι, ου, ηυ, υι, ᾳ, ῃ and ῳ are either diphthongs or in some cases represent long vowels written as a digraph.
A syllable is "long by position" if the vowel precedes the consonants ζ /zd/, ξ /ks/ or ψ /ps/ or two other consonants. However, a plosive followed by a liquid or a nasal will not necessarily lengthen a syllable.
π, β, φ, τ, δ, θ, κ, γ and χ are plosives. λ and ρ are liquids. μ and ν are nasals.
The final syllable of a line, even if short by nature, is, if the relevant hypothesis is accepted, generally considered long ("brevis in longo"), as in the opening line of Euripides' play The Bacchae: | – – u – | – – u – | – – u – |"I, the son of Zeus, have come to this land of the Thebans"
An exception to the brevis in longo rule is occasionally found in lyric poetry when lines sometimes form a continuous system without a pause between one line and the next, for example Aristophanes, Birds 333.West, M. L. (1987). Introduction to Greek Metre, Oxford, p. 61.
When a single consonant comes between two vowels, such as in the word (), the consonant is deemed to start the second syllable: . A syllable ending in a vowel, like χθό-, is called an "open syllable". Note that ζ , ξ and ψ count as two consonants, and a word like () is divided into syllables as ak-si-os, with the first syllable closed. A short syllable is a syllable which is open and which has a short vowel, such as khtho- or di-.
If a word ends in a short vowel + consonant, such as (), the final syllable will be treated as long by position if the next word starts with a consonant; but if the next word starts with a vowel, the consonant will be taken as part of the next syllable and the final syllable of the word will be considered short, for example (), syllabified as ak-si-o-ses-ti.
Exceptions
γμ, γν, δμ and δν will always make a long syllable even when preceded by a short vowel, e.g. (kádmos) 'Cadmus'. In epic and elegiac poetry, a long vowel or diphthong at the end of a word preceding a vowel is usually shortened, e.g. Homer, Odyssey 1.1 () 'tell me of the man', which is scanned | – u u | – u u |. This is called "Epic Correption." Correption is also sometimes found within a word, e.g. u –, – u –.
Metrical feet The ancient prosodists divided lines of verse into 'feet', each foot consisting usually of 3 or 4 syllables (but sometimes 2 or 5). These can be seen as roughly equivalent to bars in a line of music. The different varieties of feet were given different names, as follows:
Disyllables Macron and breve notation: – = long syllable; ᴗ = short syllable.
pattern name ᴗ ᴗ pyrrhus, dibrach ᴗ – iamb //Collins Online English Dictionary (or iambus) – ᴗ trochee/ //, choree (or choreus) – – spondee
Trisyllables pattern name ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ tribrach – ᴗ ᴗ dactyl ᴗ – ᴗ amphibrach ᴗ ᴗ – anapaest (anapest) ᴗ – – bacchius – ᴗ – cretic – – ᴗ antibacchius – – – molossus
Tetrasyllables pattern name ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ proceleusmatic, tetrabrach – ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ first paeon ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ second paeon ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ third paeon ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ – fourth paeon – – ᴗ ᴗ major ionic ᴗ ᴗ – – minor ionic – ᴗ – ᴗ ditrochee ᴗ – ᴗ – diiamb – ᴗ ᴗ – choriamb ᴗ – – ᴗ antispast ᴗ – – – first epitrite /ˈɛpɪˌtraɪt/ – ᴗ – – second epitrite – – ᴗ – third epitrite – – – ᴗ fourth epitrite – – – – dispondee
Non-lyric meters Non-lyric meters are those used for narrative, funeral elegies, the dialogue of tragedies, pastoral poetry, and didactic poetry. A characteristic of these metres is that every line is the same length throughout the poem (except for the elegiac couplet, in which the whole couplet is repeated throughout the poem).
Dactylic Hexameter The earliest Greek poetry, namely the poems ascribed to Homer and Hesiod, is written in dactylic hexameters, of which the basic scheme is as follows: | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – |
In this meter any of the pairs of short syllables (u u) can be replaced by a long syllable (–), although this is rare in the fifth foot.
The opening lines of Homer's epic poem the Iliad are scanned as follows:
| – u u | – u u | – – | – u u | – u u | – – | | – u u | – – | – u u | – – | – u u | – – | | – – | – – | – – | – u u | – u u | – – | | – – | – – | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – | | – – | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – | | – – | – – | – u u | – – | – u u | – – | | – u u | – u u | – – | – – | – u u | – – |
"Sing, goddess, of the anger of Peleus' son Achilles, that destructive anger, which made countless sorrows for the Achaeans, and sent many mighty souls to Hades of heroes, and made them prey for dogs and birds of all kinds, and the plan of Zeus was fulfilled; (sing) from when that first time the two differed, quarrelling – Atreus' son, lord of men, and godlike Achilles."
In order to accommodate the words to the meter, Homer often varies them. Thus in the above extract, the final two vowels of are merged into one by synizesis, the first vowel of "destructive" is lengthened to make , the name "Achilles" is sometimes pronounced with a double and sometimes with a single "l" , and so on. He also uses the past tense of verbs sometimes with the augment , e.g. , and sometimes without it, e.g. .
The line is divided into six feet, known as dactyls (– u u) and spondees (– –). In this opening passage of the Iliad, dactyls and spondees are equally common, although overall in Greek hexameters, the dactylic foot is slightly more common (in the ratio 60-40), while in Latin hexameters the spondee is more common (in the same ratio).Golston, C; Riad, T. (2000) "The Phonology of Greek Metre", Journal of Linguistics, 41 no. 1, Jan. 2000, p. 132. The fifth foot in Greek hexameters is nearly always a dactyl; in Homer only 1 line in 18 has a spondaic fifth foot.Golston, C; Riad, T. (2000) "The Phonology of Greek Metre", Journal of Linguistics, 41 no. 1, Jan. 2000, p. 133, quoting Ludwich 1885. Because the final syllable in a line is long by position, the last foot is always a spondee.
Often there is a slight pause in the line, known as a caesura, in the middle of the third foot, as in lines 1, 5, and 6 above. However, for variety the position of the caesura can change, for example to the middle of the 2nd foot, as in lines 2 and 4, or the middle of the 4th foot, as in lines 3 and 7. There is never a word-break exactly in the middle of the line, although pastoral poetry (such as that of Theocritus) often makes a word-break between the 4th and 5th foot, known as a "bucolic caesura".Tyrrell, R.Y. "The Bucolic Caesura". Hermathena Vol. 4, No. 8 (1882), pp. 340-343.
Elegiac couplet The dactylic hexameter is also used for short epigrams, such as Simonides' epigram commemorating the Spartans who died in the battle of Thermopylae of 480 BC. In this case it is joined with a pentameter, consisting of two sections of two and a half feet each. The second half of a pentameter always has | – u u | – u u | – |, without variation.
| – – | – – | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – | | – u u | – – | – || – u u | – u u | – |
"O stranger, take news to the Spartans that in this place we lie, obedient to their words."
The dactylic hexameter-pentameter couplet was also used for elegies (hence the name "elegiac couplet") and later, in writers such as Callimachus in the Hellenistic period, for poems about love.
Iambic Tragic trimeter Another very common meter, which is used in the dialogues of Greek plays, is the iambic trimeter. The basic scheme for this is as follows (where "x" represents an anceps syllable, that is one which may be either long or short): | x – u – | x – u – | x – u – |
The group | x – u – | is known as a "metron", consisting of two feet.Denniston, J.D., article "Metre, Greek", Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed., p. 680 note. In the first and second metron, one of the two long syllables may be replaced by two short ones, making the following possible variations: | – uu u – | | u uu u – | | – – u uu | | u – u uu |
Occasionally also, especially to accommodate a proper name, as in lines 2 and 3 of the example below, the anceps syllable may be replaced by two shorts: | uu – u – |
Unlike most other kinds of Greek poetry, it appears that the iambic trimeter was used for dialogue unaccompanied by music.A. M. Dale (1948), The Lyric Metres of Greek Drama, p. 77.
The opening lines of Euripides' play the Bacchae are scanned as follows (the resolved elements are underlined):
| – – u – | – – u – | – – u – | | uu – u – | – – u – | – – u – | | uu – u – | – – u – | u – u – | | – – u – | – – u – | u – u – | | u – u – | – – u – | – – u – | | u – u – | – – u – | u – u – | | u – u – | – – u – | u – u – | | – uu u – | – uu u – | – – u – | | – uu u – | – – u – | u – u – | | – – u – | u uu u – | u – u – | | u – u uu | – – u – | u – u – | | u – u – | u – u uu | – – u – |
"I, son of Zeus, have come to this land of the Thebans, Dionysus, whom once that daughter of Cadmus bore, Semele, brought to birth by lightning-born fire; and having changed from a god to mortal shape I am here by the streams of Dirce and Ismenus' water. And I see the tomb of my mother who was struck by lightning, here near the palace, and the ruins of her house smoking with the still living flame of the divine fire, the undying insult of Hera towards my mother. And I praise Cadmus, who made this ground holy, a sanctuary for his daughter; and I have covered it all round with the grape-bearing greenness of the vine."
Comic trimeter