A lekythion or lecythion, in classical Greek and Latin poetry, is a metric pattern (''colon'') defined by a sequence of seven alternating long and short syllables at the end of a verse (—u—x—u—).Dale, A. M.: ''Lyric Metres of Greek Drama''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1968. p. 20, 215 In classical grammatical terminology it can be described as a

trochaic In English poetic metre and modern linguistics, a trochee () is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. But in Latin and Ancient Greek poetic metre, a trochee is a heavy syllable followed by a light one (al ...

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 A catalectic line is a metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot. One form of catalexis is headlessness, where the unstressed syllable is dropped from the beginning of the line. A line ...

, i.e. a combination of two groups of two trochees each (—u—x), with the second of these groups lacking its final syllable; or as a trochaic hepthemimer, i.e. a trochaic sequence of seven half-feet.Liddell, Henry George, & Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', s.v. "

A lekythion can appear in several different metric contexts in different types of poetry, either alone as a verse or as the second of two ''cola'' following a

caesura 300px, An example of a caesura in modern western music notation A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for " cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begin ...

. A frequent type of occurrence in Greek drama is in lines of

iambic trimeter The Iambic trimeter is a meter of poetry consisting of three iambic units (each of two feet) per line. In ancient Greek poetry and Latin poetry, an iambic trimeter is a quantitative meter, in which a line consists of three iambic ''metra''. Ea ...

, the most frequent metre used in spoken dialogue, i.e. lines of the type x—u—x—u—x—u—. These lines may have a metric caesura after the first five syllables, with the remaining line thus resulting in a lekythion group.

In Euripides and Aristophanes

The term "lēkythion" literally means "small oil-flask" (from , the diminutive form of , '' lēkythos''). The term was coined in reference to a passage in the comedy ''

The Frogs ''The Frogs'' ( grc-gre, Βάτραχοι, Bátrakhoi, Frogs; la, Ranae, often abbreviated ''Ran.'' or ''Ra.'') is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus in ...

'' by

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his for ...

, in which the two poets

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; grc-gre, Αἰσχύλος ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek ...

and

Euripides Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars a ...

are engaged in a comic debate criticizing each other's works. Aeschylus makes Euripides recite the beginnings of several of his tragic prologues (all in iambic trimeter), each time interrupting him and interjecting the same phrase "... lost his little oil flask" (), wherever the verse offers an opportunity, which is frequently the case because of Euripides' propensity to use a metric caesura after the first five syllables. Below, as an example, is one of the original passages of Euripides (from the prologue of ''

Iphigenia in Tauris ''Iphigenia in Tauris'' ( grc, Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Ταύροις, ''Iphigeneia en Taurois'') is a drama by the playwright Euripides, written between 414 BC and 412 BC. It has much in common with another of Euripides's plays, '' Helen'', as ...

''), followed by the same passage as parodied in ''The Frogs''. In both cases, the metric lēkythion part is highlighted in green; metric foot boundaries are marked with ", " and metric caesuras with "¦". ("

Pelops In Greek mythology, Pelops (; ) was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus region (, lit. "Pelops' Island"). He was the son of Tantalus and the father of Atreus. He was venerated at Olympia, where his cult developed into the founding myth of the O ...

, son of Tantalus, coming to Pisa with swift horses, married Oenomaus' daughter.") ("Pelops, son of Tantalus, coming to Pisa with swift horses" – "lost his little oil flask.") (The remainder of the Euripidean passages cited in the ''Frogs'' are from plays that are otherwise lost, so the original continuation of the lines is unknown.)

In Hephaestion

As a technical term in metrical analysis, the term "lekythion" is first attested in the 2nd century AD, in the ''Handbook of Metrics'' by the grammarian Hephaestion. Hephaestion also calls the pattern the "Euripideum" ("", "the so-called Euripideum or Lekythion"). While Hephaestion does not explicitly refer to the passage in ''The Frogs'', he cites some other verses from Euripides as an example. Here, the lekythion is found alone as a full line, in a piece of choral lyrics from the tragedy ''

Phoenissae ''The Phoenician Women'' ( grc, Φοίνισσαι, ''Phoinissai'') is a tragedy by Euripides, based on the same story as Aeschylus' play ''Seven Against Thebes''. It was presented along with the tragedies ''Hypsipyle'' and '' Antiope.'' With this ...

''. ("Now furious Ares has come before my walls ...")Euripides, ''Phoenissae'', l.239f
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Notes

References

{{reflist Ancient Greek poetry Latin poetry Poetic rhythm