Glyconic

Glyconic (from Glycon, a Greek lyric poet) is a form of meter in classical Greek and Latin poetry. The glyconic line is the most basic and most commonly used form of Aeolic verse, and it is often combined with others.

The basic shape (often abbreviated as gl) is as follows:

x x – u u – u –

Here "x" indicates an anceps, "–" a longum, and "u" a brevis. "x x" is known as the Aeolic base, which can be a spondeus "– –", a trochee "– u", or an iamb "u –". The middle foot "– u u –" is a choriambus, as a so-called choriambic nucleus is a defining element of Aeolic verse. As in all classical verse forms, the phenomenon of brevis in longo is observed, so although the last syllable can actually be short or long, it always "counts" as long.

Related metres

Runs of glyconic lines are often ended by a pherecratean (a catalectic glyconic, gl^):

x x – u u – –

The acephalous ("headless") version (^gl), also known as the telesillean (Latin: telesilleus), is:

x – u u – u –

The glyconic can also be expanded into the lesser and greater asclepiad lines:

x x – u u – – u u – u –

x x – u u – – u u – – u u – u –

By expanding the ending of the line, it becomes the phalaecian hendecasyllable, often used by Catullus and Martial:

x x – u u – u – u – –

Origin of the glyconic

Some of the earliest poems in any Indo-European language, the Vedic hymns of India, are composed mainly in iambic metre, in lines of eight, eleven or twelve syllables, with occasional irregularities in the first part of the line. Noting this, the metrician Paul Kiparsky posits that the Greek glyconic and its related metres originated in the same way from an originally iambic metre.

Thus, by substitution of a trochee for an iamb in the 3rd and 4th syllables, but keeping the iambic ending, an original iambic dimeter could change to a glyconic:

x – u – | u – u – (iambic dimeter)

x x – u | u – u – (glyconic)

(A similar change is often seen in Vedic verse). Longer metres are derived by Kiparsky from the iambic trimeter, for example, the hendecasyllable and lesser asclepiad:

x – u – | u – u – | u – u – (iambic trimeter)

x x – u | u – u – | u – – (Phalaecian hendecasyllable)

x x – u | u – – u | u – u – (lesser asclepiad)

This switch of an iamb for a trochee or vice versa is known as anaclasis.