A catalectic line is a metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete

foot The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...

. One form of catalexis is headlessness, where the unstressed syllable is dropped from the beginning of the line. A line missing two syllables is called brachycatalectic.

In English

Poems can be written entirely in catalectic lines, or entirely in acatalectic (complete) lines, or a mixture, as the following carol, composed by Cecil Frances Alexander in 1848: :Once in Royal David's city (8 syllables) : Stood a lowly cattle shed, (7 syllables) :Where a mother laid her Baby (8 syllables) : In a manger for His bed: (7 syllables) :Mary was that mother mild, (7 syllables) :Jesus Christ her little Child. (7 syllables) It has been argued that across a number of Indo-European languages, when the two types of line are mixed in this way, the shorter line tends to be used as a coda at the end of a period or stanza.

Blunt and pendant catalexis

It has been argued that catalexis can be divided into two types.L. P. E. Parker (1976)
"Catalexis"
''The Classical Quarterly'', Vol. 26, No. 1 (1976), pp. 14-28; p. 15. (Here "x" stands for an ''

anceps In languages with quantitative poetic metres, such as Ancient Greek, Latin, Arabic, Sanskrit, and classical Persian, an anceps (plural ''ancipitia'' or ''(syllabae) ancipites'') is a position in a metrical pattern which can be filled by either ...

'' syllable.) :(a) When a line with a pendant ending such as trochaic (– u – x) is made catalectic, the result is a line with a blunt (or "masculine") ending (– u –). :(b) When a line with a blunt ending such as iambic (x – u –) is made catalectic, the result is a line with a pendant ending (u – x). An example of a blunt line becoming pendant in catalexis is

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...

's poem

Heidenröslein "" or "" ("Rose on the Heath" or "Little Rose of the Field") is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1789. It was written in 1771 during Goethe's stay in Strasbourg when he was in love with Friederike Brion, to whom the poem is addr ...

, or, in the same metre, the English carol

Good King Wenceslas "Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king who goes on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the Second Day of Christmas). During th ...

: :Good King Wenceslas looked out, (4 beats, blunt) : On the Feast of Stephen, (3 beats, pendant) :When the snow lay round about, (4 beats, blunt) : Deep and crisp and even; (3 beats, pendant) Another example is the children's song

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" (also titled "Mulberry Bush" or "This Is the Way") is an English nursery rhyme and singing game. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7882. It uses the tune which Nancy Dawson danced into fame in ''Th ...

, of which the first stanza ends as follows: :Here we go round the mulberry bush (4 beats, blunt) : On a cold and frosty morning (3 beats, pendant) In all of these songs, when they are set to music, there is a lengthening of the penultimate syllable in order to equalise the two lines. However, there is not enough evidence to tell if a similar phenomenon occurred in Ancient Greek. When a poem is doubly catalectic (brachycatalectic), that is, shortened by two syllables, a blunt ending remains blunt: :Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound (4 beats) : That saved a wretch like me. (3 beats) :I once was lost, but now am found, (4 beats) : Was blind, but now I see. (3 beats)

Quantitative metres

In languages which use quantitative metres, such as Latin, Ancient Greek, Arabic, Persian, and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

, the final syllable of any line is ''

'', that is, indifferently long or short. According to one view dating back to ancient times, even if the final syllable is prosodically short, it counts as long because of the pause which follows it (see

brevis in longo 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 , meaning "a short yllablein place of a long lement" Although the phenomenon itself has been known since ...

). Thus any line ending x – u –, when catalectic, becomes u – x. An example in Ancient Greek is the iambic tetrameter, which in normal and catalectic form is as follows: :, x – u – , x – u – , x – u – , x – u – , :, x – u – , x – u – , x – u – , u – – , In classical Arabic, the most commonly used metre, the '' ṭawīl'', has normal and catalectic forms as follows: :, u – x , u – x – , u – x , u – u – , :, u – x , u – x – , u – u , u – – , In

, a comparison between the traditional

śloka Shloka or śloka ( sa, श्लोक , from the root , Macdonell, Arthur A., ''A Sanskrit Grammar for Students'', Appendix II, p. 232 (Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 1927). in a broader sense, according to Monier-Williams's dictionary, is ...

and the

mandākrāntā metre (Sanskrit: ) is the name of a metre commonly used in classical Sanskrit poetry. The name in Sanskrit means "slow-stepping" or "slowly advancing". It is said to have been invented by India's most famous poet Kālidāsa, (5th century CE), who used it ...

reveals the same type of catalexis. The first line of the

Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad Gita (; sa, श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, lit=The Song by God, translit=śrīmadbhagavadgītā;), often referred to as the Gita (), is a 700- verse Hindu scripture that is part of the epic ''Mahabharata'' (c ...

scans as follows: :, – – – – , u – – – , , u u – – , u – u – , whereas the metre is as follows: :, – – – – , u uu uu – , , – u – – , u – – , A similar phenomenon is also found in classical Persian. For example, the metre based on the choriamb pattern (– u u –) has a shortened form as follows: :, – u u – , – u u – , – u u – , – u u – , :, – u u – , – u u – , – u – , In Latin and Greek, the rarely used trochaic octonarius is not catalectic, but the common

trochaic septenarius In ancient Greek and Latin literature, the trochaic septenarius or trochaic tetrameter catalectic is one of two major forms of poetic metre based on the trochee as its dominant rhythmic unit, the other being much rarer trochaic octonarius. It is use ...

is catalectic: :, – u – x , – u – x , , – u – x , – u – x , :, – u – x , – u – x , , – u – x , – u – , The anapaestic octonarius and anapaestic septenarius differ as follows. When the final syllable is removed, the final element must be a long syllable, not a double short (see

Metres of Roman comedy Roman comedy is mainly represented by two playwrights, Plautus (writing between c.205 and 184 BC) and Terence (writing c.166-160 BC). The works of other Latin playwrights such as Livius Andronicus, Naevius, Ennius, and Caecilius Statius are now los ...

): :, uu – uu – , uu – uu – , , uu – uu – , uu – uu – , :, uu – uu – , uu – uu – , , uu – uu – , uu – – ,

Catalexis in Greek poetry

Catalexis was common in Greek and Latin meter, and also in ancient Sanskrit verse.West, M.L. (1982)
"Three topics in Greek metre"
''Classical Quarterly'' Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 281-297. Catalectic endings are particularly common where the rhythm of the verse is dactylic ( – u u ), trochaic ( – u ), or anapestic ( u u – ); they tend to be associated with the end of a strophe or period, so much so that it can almost be said that acatalectic forms cannot end a period. In classical verse, the final syllable of a line always counted as long, so that if a dactyl ( – u u ) is made catalectic, it becomes a spondee ( – – ). Ancient poetry was often performed to music, and the question arises of what music accompanied a catalectic ending. A few ancient Greek poems survive with authentic musical notation. Four of these are by

Mesomedes Mesomedes of Crete ( grc, Μεσομήδης ὁ Κρής) was a Greek citharode and lyric poet and composer of the early 2nd century AD in Roman Greece. Prior to the discovery of the Seikilos epitaph in the late 19th century, the hymns of Mesom ...

(early second century CE). Secondary sources of Mesomedes' poems To Helios and To Nemesis are in a catalectic meter known as apokrota "sonorous." In each case, in place of the missing short element of the text (i.e., missing syllable) one often finds lengthening signs. In two cases in To Helios, this appears to be a three-note melisma. It is possible ancient use of catalexis indicated some form of melody or continued singing in place of the missing syllables. In ancient Greek drama, catalectic meters may have been associated with a male

aulete An ''aulos'' ( grc, αὐλός, plural , ''auloi'') or ''tibia'' (Latin) was an Music of ancient Greece, ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in Ancient Greek art, art and also attested by classical archaeology, archaeology. Though ''a ...

or had some other special use. For example, of

Menander Menander (; grc-gre, Μένανδρος ''Menandros''; c. 342/41 – c. 290 BC) was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy. He wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His rec ...

's surviving plays, almost all are in iambic trimeters. He changed the meter in one long scene in Misanthrope to 15-syllable catalectic iambic tetrameter recited to an aulos accompaniment.

Catalexis in Latin poetry

Poem 25 by Catullus is in iambic tetrameter catalectic. Of Catullus' extant 114 or so poems and fragments, this meter appears only in this poem.

Catalexis in music

Venantius Fortunatus Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus ( 530 600/609 AD; french: Venance Fortunat), known as Saint Venantius Fortunatus (, ), was a Latin poet and hymnographer in the Merovingian Court, and a bishop of the Early Church who has been venerate ...

' hymn ''Pange lingua'' is in trochaic tetrameter catalectic—the meter of the marching chants of the Roman armies. The hymn is one of the oldest with surviving musical notation. As Greek meter is often used to describe musical phrasing, some famous themes include: *The slow movement to Haydn's Surprise Symphony (

spondaic A spondee (Latin: ) is a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables, as determined by syllable weight in classical meters, or two stressed syllables in modern meters. The word comes from the Greek , , 'libation'. Spondees in Ancient Greek a ...

dimeter In poetry, a dimeter is a metrical line of verse with two feet. The particular foot The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In m ...

catalectic) *The theme of Weber's Rondo brillante in E-flat (

anapestic An anapaest (; also spelled anapæst or anapest, also called antidactylus) is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. In classical quantitative meters it consists of two short syllables followed by a long one; in accentual stress meters it consis ...

tetrameter In poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet. The particular foot can vary, as follows: * '' Anapestic tetrameter:'' ** "And the ''sheen'' of their ''spears'' was like ''stars'' on the ''sea''" (Lord Byron, "The Destruction of Sennach ...

brachycatalectic) *The slow movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony (alternating acatalectic and catalectic dactylic tetrameter)

References

{{reflist Poetic rhythm