Persian metres () refer to the quantitative metrical patterns of long and short syllables used in traditional Persian poetry.
Historically, the formal analysis and terminology of Persian metres are derived from the Arabic ʿarūḍ system, established by Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi in the 8th century. Persian prosodists adapted this descriptive framework to fit the distinct phonetic structures of the Persian language. It has recently been argued, however, that although Persian metres are traditionally given Arabic names, they are an independent development and not merely imitations of Arabic ones.
Until the advent of free verse in the 20th century, Persian poetry was strictly quantitative. Since short vowels are not written in the Persian script, a knowledge of metre is often essential for correct recitation and meaning resolution.
A specific feature of Persian metrical scansion is the categorization of syllables into three lengths: short, long, and overlong. In Persian prosody, an overlong syllable is metrically equivalent to a long syllable followed by a short one.
Persian metrical practice became highly influential. It was subsequently adopted and imitated in Turkish poetry during the Ottoman period,Deo & Kiparsky (2011), p. 7. and in Urdu poetry under the Mughal emperors.Pritchett, Frances W. (1994). Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics. University of California Press. This influence is evident in metre selection: Turkish and Urdu poets frequently favoured the specific metres popularized by Persian lyric poetry, while largely avoiding the most common traditional Arabic metres (such as the ṭawīl, kāmil, wāfir, and basīṭ).Deo & Kiparsky, p. 7.
Quantitative verse Classical Persian poetry is based not on stress but on quantity, that is, on the length of syllables. A syllable ending in a short vowel is short (u), but one ending in a long vowel or a consonant is long (–). Thus a word like ja-hān 'world' is considered to have a short syllable plus a long one (u –), whereas far-dā 'tomorrow' consists of two long syllables (– –). A word like na-fas 'breath' is usually considered to have a short syllable plus a long one (u –), but if a vowel follows, as in na-fa-sī 'a breath', the second syllable is short (u u –).
A characteristic feature of classical Persian verse is that in addition to long and short syllables, it also has "overlong" syllables. These are syllables consisting of any vowel + two consonants, such as 'five' or 'friend', or a long vowel + one consonant (other than n), for example 'day' or 'wind'. In the metre of a poem, an overlong syllable can take the place of any sequence of "long + short". They can also be used at the end of a line, in which case the difference between long and overlong is neutralised.
In modern colloquial pronunciation, the difference in length between long and short vowels is mostly not observed (see Persian phonology), but when reciting poetry the long vowels are pronounced longer than the short ones.Thiesen (1982), p. 5. When a recording of Persian verse is analysed, it can be seen that long syllables are on average pronounced longer than short ones, and overlong syllables are longer still (see below for details).
In this article, the following scansion symbols are used: u = a short syllable – = a long syllable –u = an overlong syllable x = anceps, that is: some metres allow either a long or short syllable at the beginning of a line. u u = biceps, that is, a pair of short syllables that can be freely replaced by one long syllable. Mainly this occurs when a line ends in u u –, rarely elsewhere.
Metrical patterns From a metrical point of view, classical Persian poetry can be divided into three main types.
Masnavi The first type is poems in rhyming couplets, known as masnavi (plural ).The word is derived from the Arabic word for "two", : Thiesen (1982), p. 78. These are almost always written in one of seven different metres consisting of 11 (or in one case of 10) syllables, and each couplet has its own separate rhyme. The 11-syllable tradition may go back to pre-Islamic times, since 11-syllable poetry seems to have been common at that time.Elwell-Sutton (1975), p. 91.
Some of the poems written in the masnavi form are very long, up to 50,000 couplets. The most commonly used metres are the following (Elwell-Sutton's code follows each metre): u – – | u – – | u – – | u – (e.g. Ferdowsi's Shahnameh or Saadi's Bustan): 1.1.11 (motaqāreb) u – – – | u – – – | u – – (e.g. Gorgani's Vis and Ramin or Nezami's Khosrow and Shirin): 2.1.11 (hazaj) – u – – | – u – – | – u – (e.g. Rumi's Masnavi-ē Ma'navī or Attar's Conference of the Birds): 2.4.11 (ramal) – – u | u – u – | u – – (e.g. Nezami's Leyli and Majnun or Khaqani's Tuhfat al-Iraqayn): 5.1.10 (also hazaj)The feet are unclear; cf. Farzaad (1967), p. 60; Hayes (1979), p. 214. x u – – | u – u – | u u – (e.g. Sanai's Hadīqatu-l-Haqīqa or Nezami's Seven Portraits): 4.5.11 (xafīf)
Some shorter poems also, such as many of those in Saadi's Golestān, are also written in rhyming couplets in one or another of these metres, a famous example being Banī Ādam from the Golestān, which consists of three rhyming couplets in the first of the above metres.
The 12th-century poet Nezami famously wrote a set of 5 masnavīyāt, each in a different one of the above metres, totalling nearly 29,000 couplets in all.Parrello, Domenico (2000/2010). "Ḵamsa of Neẓāmī". Encyclopaedia Iranica online. Such a quintet was known as a khamsa or khamse (from the Arabic xamsa '(group of) five'), and the practice was later imitated by other poets such as Amir Khosrow of Delhi and Khwaju Kermani of Shiraz.
Lyric poetry The second type of Persian poetry is lyric poetry, such as the ghazals of Hafez, or the spiritual poems in Rumi's collection known as the Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. These tend to be in longer metres, usually of 14 to 16 syllables long, in tetrameter form (i.e. with four feet in each hemistich or half-verse).
About 30 different metres are commonly used for lyric poems, but 70% of the poems are written in one of the following seven metres:Elwell-Sutton (1976) The Persian Metres, p. 162. u – u – | u u – – | u – u – | u u – (15 syllables): 4.1.15 – – | u – u – | u u – – | u – u – (14 syllables): 4.7.14 – u – – | – u – – | – u – – | – u – (15 syllables): 2.4.15 x u – – | u u – – | u u – – | u u – (15 syllables): 3.1.15 x u – – | u – u – | u u – (11 syllables): 4.5.11 u – – – | u – – – | u – – – | u – – – (16 syllables): 2.1.16 – – | u u – – | u u – – | u u – – (14 syllables): 3.3.14
The shorter metre 4.5.11 is frequently used for masnavīyāt, but can also be used for lyric writing, such as in eight of Hafez's ghazals.Nos. 13, 42, 56, 262, 270, 302, 381, 453; Thiesen (1982), p. 150.
Occasionally a metre is made up of two short sections, the second a repetition of the first, such as the following: – u u – | – u – || – u u – | – u – (7 + 7 syllables): 3.4.7(2) = 4.4.7(2)
The majority of lyric poetry is composed in the form of couplets, in which the first couplet is rhyming couplet, and then the same rhyme is used at the end of every couplet until the end of the poem. A minority of lyric poetry is composed in stanzas with more complicated rhyme schemes.
Ruba'i The third type of poetry is the ruba'i or quatrain, such as the rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. In these, either of two 13-syllable metres are used, which are variants of each other (often both are used in the same poem). These metres are only used for rubaiyat. A single long syllable may freely be substituted at the end of the verse where the pattern has "u u", and also sometimes in syllables 3 and 4:Elwell-Sutton (1976), p. 134. – | – u u – | – u u – | – u u – : 3.3.13 – | – u u – | u – u – | – u u – : 5.1.13
The rhyme scheme for a ruba'i is AA BA; in this respect it resembles lyric poetry rather than a masnavi.
Metric variations In all classical Persian poetic forms the same metre is used throughout a poem, the only variations being:
(i) the combination – u can be replaced by one overlong syllable;
(ii) at the end of a line, or before a dieresis, the rhythm u u – can be replaced by – –;
(iii) in the beginning of a line u u is often replaced by – u ;
(iv) the final syllable of a line always counts as long, whatever its shape.
In Persian poetry it is not possible to have more than two short syllables in a row. The pattern – u u – u u –, which is very common in Latin and Greek poetry, is also never found in Persian. Unlike in Arabic poetry, anceps syllables (x), i.e. the syllables of arbitrary length, are not found in any place in the line, except the first syllable if the second one is short and the third one is long (see the variation (ii)). This anceps first syllable can be seen in metres 3.1.11(M), 3.1.15, 3.1.16 and 4.5.11(M) in the table of common metres below.
In addition to the above metric variations, another source of variety is the word accent, which changes from line to line, thus avoiding monotony.
The traditional description
Until recently Persian metres were always described using the same terms as in Arabic poetry, using the system known as ʿarūḍ (, Persian pronunciation: 'arūz) devised by the Arab grammarian Al-Khalil in the 8th century AD. Thus for example the rhythm of Ferdowsi's epic poem the Shahnameh (u – – | u – – | u – – | u –) was thought to be a modification of the Arabic metre mutaqārib, which is similar (u – x | u – x | u – x | u –). (In this notation, u is used for a short syllable, – for a long one, and x for an anceps, which may be either long or short.) Another possibility, however, since this metre was not used in Arabic until the Islamic period, is that it was borrowed from Persian into Arabic.Elwell-Sutton (1976), p. 172.
Since Persian metres are generally different from Arabic ones, often the match between Arabic and Persian is not exact. Thus in the traditional system, both of the metres below are considered to be adaptations of the Arabic metre hazaj (u – – x | u – – x || u – – x | u – – x): u – – – u – – – u – – (2.1.11) – – u u – u – u – – (5.1.10)
Another point is that the four most popular Arabic metres (the ṭawīl, kāmil, wāfir and basīṭ) are virtually never used in Persian, while three of the basic Persian metres are not found in Arabic.Perry (1978), page 157.
In addition, one of the characteristics of Arabic poetry, namely the anceps positions (that is, certain places in the line where a syllable can be either long or short), do not apply to the Persian version of the Arabic metres. In Persian, except in certain metres where the first syllable only may be either long or short, the length of the syllables in any metre is either long or short but never variable.Maling (1973), p. 131.
A new approach The description of Persian metres was revolutionised with the publication in 1975 of an article in the journal Iran by L. P. Elwell-Sutton,Elwell-Sutton (1975). later expanded into a book The Persian Metres (1976) and summarised in his entry ʾArūż (1986) in the Encyclopædia Iranica. Elwell-Sutton argued against the idea that Persian metres are simply an adaptation of Arabic ones, and on the whole his view has been accepted by subsequent scholars. As François de Blois writes in Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey:De Blois (2002), p. 49. "Many Persian metres, particularly those used in lyric poetry, do not correspond to any Arabic metre, this despite the fact that the traditional Persian prosodic theory has given them elaborate Arabic names and attempted to 'derive' them from the standard Arabic metres with which they share a name."