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SAPPHIC METRE, SAPPHICS

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 201 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SAPPHIC See also:

METRE, SAPPHICS , an See also:ancient See also:form of quantitative See also:verse, named after the Aeolian poetess See also:Sappho, who is supposed to have invented it, and who certainly used it with unequalled skill. A sapphic See also:line consists of five equal beats, of which the central one alone is of three syllables, while the others consist of two each. The See also:original See also:Greek sapphic was of this type:- - V — — V V — V 7rOuCt I AOBPov' I bAlwar' I 'A¢po 13tra The sapphic See also:strophe consists of three of these lines followed by an adonic, thus:- - V— V— V V— V See also:Horace adopted, and slightly adapted, this form of verse, for some of his most engaging metrical effects. The Greek poets had permitted the See also:caesura to come where it would, but Horace, to give solidity to the form, introduced the practice of usually ending a word on the fifth syllable: jam satis terris nivis atque dirae, the second See also:half of the sapphic leaping off, as it were, with a See also:long syllable which connects it with the first half. This is a typical example of the Latin sapphic strophe : Intelger viltae scelerlisque I purus non el et Maurlis jacullis neique arcu, nec velnenaltis gravilda salg.ttis, Fusee, pharletra. Before the days of Horace, See also:Catullus had used this form in Latin, and afterwards sapphics were introduced by the pseudo-See also:Seneca into his tragedies. In the See also:middle ages the sapphic strophe was frequently employed in the Latin See also:hymns, especially by See also:Gregory the See also:Great. Later on, considerable laxity was introduced, and a See also:dactyl was frequently substituted for the first trochee; this quite destroys the true See also:character of the measure. It makes it a more easy metre, however, for those who write See also:modern accentuated verse. We see a loose but effective specimen of it in the famous Needy See also:knife I grinder! I whither I are you I going? Rough is the I road, your I See also:wheel is I out of I See also:order.

But nearer to the effect of the See also:

antique verse would be: Needy I grinder! I whither oh! I are you I going? Rough the I road; your I destitute I wheel is I broken, although this certainly does not suit See also:English versification so well. English sapphics were written by the Elizabethan poet, See also:Thomas See also:Campion (q.v.), and byWilliam See also:Cowper. Mr See also:Swinburne has attempted to create the effect of the ancient Aeolian metre in a daring and brilliant See also:stanza. Sapphics have been written more successfully in See also:German than in any other modern See also:language. The earliest original German poem in the form is said to be an See also:anonymous hymn to St See also:Mary Magdalene, dated 1500. See also:Voss kept strictly to the metrical See also:scheme of the Latin in his famous See also:translation of the Odes of Horace (1806), and among German poets who have cultivated sapphics are to be mentioned See also:Klopstock, Platen, See also:Hamerling and See also:Geibel.

End of Article: SAPPHIC METRE, SAPPHICS

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