Choliambic verse (), also known as limping iambs or scazons or halting iambic,. is a form of

meter The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...

in poetry. It is found in both

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

poetry in the classical period. Choliambic verse is sometimes called ''scazon'', or "lame iambic", because it brings the reader down on the wrong "foot" by reversing the stresses of the last few beats. It was originally pioneered by the Greek

lyric poet Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. The term for both modern lyric poetry and modern song lyrics derives from a form of Ancient Greek literature, t ...

Hipponax Hipponax (; ; ''gen''. Ἱππώνακτος; ), of Ephesus and later Clazomenae, was an Ancient Greek iambic poet who composed verses depicting the vulgar side of life in Ionian society. He was celebrated by ancient authors for his malicious w ...

, who wrote "lame trochaics" as well as "lame iambics". The basic structure is much like

iambic trimeter The Iambic trimeter, in classical Greek and Latin poetry, is a meter of poetry consisting of three iambic metra (each of two feet) per line. In English poetry, it refers to a meter with three iambic feet. In ancient Greek poetry and Latin po ...

, except that the last

cretic A cretic ( ), also known as an amphimacer ( ) and sometimes paeon diagyios, is a metrical foot containing three syllables: long, short, long (– ᴗ –). In Greek poetry, lines made entirely of cretic feet are less common than other metres. An e ...

is made heavy by the insertion of a longum instead of a

breve A breve ( , less often , grammatical gender, neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark , shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (, the wedge or in ...

. Also, the third

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 a l ...

of the iambic trimeter line must be short in limping iambs. In other words, the line scans as follows (where — is a long syllable, ⏑ is a short syllable, and × is an

): :× — ⏑ — , × — ⏑ — , ⏑ — — — As in all classical verse forms, the phenomenon of

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 a long lement. Although the phenomenon itself has been known since ancien ...

is observed, so the last

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

can actually be short or long.

Latin

The Roman poet Catullus' poems 8, 22 and 39 serve as examples of choliambic verse. : : : : : (Catullus, 8.1–5) :"Wretched Catullus, you should stop being foolish, :and what you see has perished, you should consider it lost. :Once suns shone brightly for you :when you used to go wherever your girl led you, :loved by us as much as no girl will ever be loved." Occasionally, one of the first three in the line may be resolved into two short syllables, but this is rare.Raven, D. S. (1965), ''Latin Metre'', p. 62. There is usually a caesura or word-break after either the 5th or the 7th syllable. In later poets, such as

Persius Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satire, he shows a Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he considered to be the stylistic abuses of his ...

Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman and Celtiberian poet born in Bilbilis, Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of '' Epigrams'', pu ...

, and

Ausonius Decimius Magnus Ausonius (; ) was a Latin literature, Roman poet and Education in ancient Rome, teacher of classical rhetoric, rhetoric from Burdigala, Gallia Aquitania, Aquitaine (now Bordeaux, France). For a time, he was tutor to the future E ...

, resolution was used more freely, in any of the first four , and sometimes the first foot might be an anapaest (u u –).

Notes

References

* . * . * . * Raven, D. S. (1965). ''Latin Metre''. Faber and Faber. * . Types of verses Latin poetry Greek poetry Latin-language literature {{poetry-stub

Latin

See also

Notes

References