Alcaic

The word Alcaic - pronounced al-KAY-ik, IPA: /æl 'keɪ ɪk/ - may be used, either as an adjective or as a noun, to describe or refer to a distinctive poetic metre..

An Alcaic stanza or strophe consists of four lines of verse conforming to a complex metrical scheme, the first two lines having eleven syllables, the third line nine syllables, and the fourth line ten syllables. The complete metrical scheme is as follows:

+| ¯ ˘| ¯ +| ¯ ˘ ˘| ¯ ˘| ¯

+| ¯ ˘| ¯ +| ¯ ˘ ˘| ¯ ˘| ¯

+| ¯ ˘| ¯ +| ¯ ˘| ¯ +

¯ ˘ ˘| ¯ ˘ ˘| ¯ ˘| ¯ +

( ¯ = a long syllable in quantitative metre or a stressed syllable in stress metre; ˘ = a short syllable in quantitative metre or an unstressed syllable in stress metre; and + = a syllable which may be either long or short in quantitative metre or stressed or unstressed in stress metre.)

As you see, Alcaic metre is essentially a mixture of dactylic and trochaic feet. Each line of an Alcaic strophe may itself be described as an Alcaic line or as an Alcaic. Thus the first two lines may be said to be Alcaic hendecasyllables, the third line an Alcaic enneasyllable, and the final line an Alcaic decasyllable. (Ennea (ἐννὲα), deka (δεκα), and hendeka (ἕνδεκα) are the Greek words for nine, ten, and eleven.) A poem written in Alcaic metre may be said to be written in Alcaics.

The word Alcaic comes from Alcaeus, a Greek lyric poet who lived on the island of Lesbos in the seventh century BCE and is credited with the invention of this metrical scheme. Many Greek and Latin poets wrote in Alcaics, and in particular more than a third of the Odes of the Roman poet Horace (65-8 BCE) use this metre. Here as an example are the first two strophes of Odes II 3:

Aequam memento rebus in arduis

servare mentem, non secus in bonis

ab insolenti temperatam

laetitia, moriture Delli,

seu maestus omni tempore vixeris,

seu te in remoto gramine per dies

festos reclinatum bearis

interiore nota Falerni.

(Translation: Remember, Dellius - for one day you will die - to keep your mind calm in difficult times, and equally in good times to curb it from excessive joy, whether you live always in sadness or whether on festive days, stretched out in a sequestered grassy spot, you treat yourself to a choice vintage of Falernian wine.)

The metres of Greek and Latin poetry are quantitative metres, whereas English poetry almost always employs stress or accentual metre. The complex rhythms of Alcaics, whether in quantitative metre or in stress metre, have not been attractive to many poets writing in English. But a few have written poems in Alcaics. Here, as an example, is Milton by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892):

O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,

O skilled to sing of Time or Eternity,

God-gifted organ-voice of England,

Milton, a name to resound for ages;

Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,

Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries,

Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean

Rings to the roar of an angel onset -

Me rather all that bowery loneliness,

The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,

And bloom profuse and cedar arches

Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean,

Where some reflulgent sunset of India

Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle,

And crimson-hued the stately palm-woods

Whisper in odorous heights of even.

See further Quantitative metre, Sapphic.