The ionic (or Ionic) is a four-syllable metrical unit (metron) of syllable weight (u u – –) that occurs in ancient Greek and Latin poetry. According to Hephaestion it was known as the Ionicos because it was used by the Ionians of Asia Minor; and it was also known as the Persicos and was associated with Persian poetry.[Quoted in Thiesen, Finn (1982). A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody, with chapters on Urdu, Karakhanidic and Ottoman prosody. Wiesbaden; pp. 132; 263–4.] Like the choriamb, in Greek quantitative verse the ionic never appears in passages meant to be spoken rather than sung.[James Halporn, Martin Ostwald, and Thomas Rosenmeyer, The Meters of Greek and Latin Poetry (Hackett, 1994, originally published 1963), pp. 29–31.] "Ionics" may refer inclusively to poetry composed of the various metrical units of the same total quantitative length (six morae) that may be used in combination with ionics proper: ionics, choriambs, and anaclasis.[Halporn et al., Meters, p. 125.] Equivalent forms exist in English poetry and in classical Persian poetry.[Thiesen, Finn (1982). A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody, with chapters on Urdu, Karakhanidic and Ottoman prosody. Wiesbaden; pp. 132–137.]
Examples of ionics
Pure examples of Ionic metrical structures occur in verse by
Alcman (frg. 46
PMG = 34 D),
Sappho (frg. 134-135 LP), Alcaeus (frg. 10B LP),
Anacreon, and the Greek dramatists,
[Halporn et al., Meters, p. 23.] including the first choral song of
Aeschylus'
The Persians and in
Euripides'
The Bacchae.
[Graham Ley, The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy (University of Chicago Press, 2007), 139, citing the work of Dale (1969).] Like
, the ionic meter is characteristically experienced as expressing excitability.
[Ley, The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy, 171; Edwards, Sound, Sense, and Rhythm, p. 68, note 17.] The form has been linked tentatively with the worship of
Cybele and
Dionysus.
[Ley, The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy, 139, citing the work of Dale (1969).]
The opening chorus of Euripides' Bacchae begins as follows, in a mixture of (u u –) and ionic feet (u u – –):
- Ἀσίας ἀπὸ γᾶς
- ἱερὸν Τμῶλον ἀμείψασα θοάζω
- Βρομίῳ πόνον ἡδὺν
- κάματόν τʼ εὐκάματον, Βάκ-
- χιον εὐαζομένα.
- u u – | u u –
- u u – – | u u – – | u u – –
- u u – | u u – –
- u u – – | u u – –
- u u – – | u u –
- "From the land of Asia
- having left sacred Mount Tmolus, I am swift
- to perform for Bromius my sweet labor
- and toil easily borne,
- celebrating the god Dionysus."
[Euripides. The Tragedies of Euripides, translated by T. A. Buckley. Bacchae. London. Henry G. Bohn. 1850.]
Latin poetry
An example of pure ionics in Latin poetry is found as a "metrical experiment" in the
Odes of
Horace, Book 3, poem 12, which draws on
Archilochus and Sappho for its content and utilizes a metrical line that appears in a fragment of Alcaeus.
[Paul Shorey, Horace: Odes and Epodes (Boston, 1898), p. 346.] The Horace poem begins as follows:
- miserārum (e)st nequ(e) amōrī dare lūdum neque dulcī
- mala vīnō laver(e) aut exanimārī
- metuentis patruae verbera linguae.
- u u – – | u u – – | u u – – | u u – –
- u u – – | u u – – | u u – –
- u u – – | u u – – | u u – –
- "Those girls are wretched who do not play with love or use sweet
- wine to wash away their sorrows, or who are terrified,
- fearing the blows of an uncle's tongue."
In writing this 4-verse poem Horace tends to place a caesura (word-break) after every metrical foot, except occasionally in the last two feet of the line.
Anacreontics
The
Anacreontics | u u – u – u – – | is sometimes analyzed as a form of ionics which has undergone anaclasis (substitution of u – for – u in the 4th and 5th positions). The
galliambic is a variation of this, with resolution (substitution of u u for – ) and
catalectic (omission of the final syllable) in the second half.
Catullus used galliambic meter for his
Carmen 63 on the mythological figure
Attis, a portion of which is spoken in the person of Cybele. The poem begins:
- super alta vectus Attis celerī rate maria
- Phrygi(um) ut nemus citātō cupidē pede tetigit
- adiitqu(e) opāca silvīs redimīta loca deae,
- stimulātus ibi furenti rabiē, vagus animīs
- dēvolsit
[The text is uncertain: see Kokoszkiewicz, K. "Catullus 63.5: Devolsit?", The Classical Quarterly, Volume 61, Issue 02, December 2011, pp. 756–8.] īl(i) acūtō sibi pondera silice.
The meter is:
- u u – u – u – – | u u – u u u u –
- u u – u – u – – | u u – u u u u –
- u u – u – u – – | u u – u u u u –
- u u – u u u u – – | u u – u u u u –
- – – u – u – – | u u – u u u u –
- "Attis, having crossed the high seas in a swift ship,
- as soon as he eagerly touched the Phrygian forest with swift foot
- and approached the shady places, surrounded by woods, of the goddess,
- excited there by raging madness, losing his mind,
- he tore off the weights of his groin with a sharp flint."
In this poem Catullus leaves a caesura (word-break) at the mid-point of every line. Occasionally the 5th syllable is resolved into two shorts (as in line 4 above) or the first two shorts are replaced with a single long syllable (as in line 5, if the text is sound).
Ionicus a minore and a maiore
The "ionic" almost invariably refers to the basic metron u u — —, but this metron is also known by the fuller name
ionicus a minore in distinction to the less commonly used
ionicus a maiore (— — u u). Some modern metricians generally consider the term ionicus a maiore to be of little analytic use, a vestige of Hephaestion's "misunderstanding of metre"
[Kiichiro Itsumi, "What's in a Line? Papyrus Formats and Hephaestionic Formulae," in Hesperos: Studies in Ancient Greek Poetry Presented to M. L. West on his Seventieth Birthday, OUP, 2007, p. 317, in reference to Hephaestion's description of Book IV of the Sapphic corpus as "ionic a maiore acatalectic tetrameter."] and desire to balance metrical units with their mirror images.
[J. M. van Ophuijsen, Hephaestion on Metre, Leiden, 1987, p. 98.]
Polyschematist sequences
The Ionic and
Aeolic verse are closely related, as evidenced by the polyschematist unit x x — x — u u — (with x representing an
anceps position that may be heavy or light).
[Halporn et al., Meters, p. 25.]
The sotadeion or sotadean metre, named after the Hellenistic poet Sotades, has been classified as ionic a maiore by Hephaestion and by M. L. West:[ Hephaestion on Metre, pp. 106f.]
- – – u u | – – u u | – u – u | – –
It "enjoyed a considerable vogue for several centuries, being associated with low-class entertainment, especially of a salacious sort, though also used for moralizing and other serious verse."[West, Greek Metre, pp. 144f.] Among those poets who used it were Ennius, Lucius Accius and Petronius.[Frances Muecke, "Rome's First 'Satirists': Themes and Genre in Ennius and Lucilius," in The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 36.]
In English
In English poetry, Edward Fitzgerald composed in a combination of anacreontics and ionics.
[Edwards, p. 79.] An example of English ionics occurs in lines 4 and 5 of the following
lyric poetry stanza by
Thomas Hardy:
- The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed
- In mental scenes no longer orbed
- By love's young rays. Each countenance
- ::Às ìt slówlý, às ìt sádlý
- ::Caùght thè lámplíght's yèllòw glánce,
- Held in suspense a misery
- At things which had been or might be.
[Thomas Hardy, "Beyond the Last Lamp" (1914), lines 8–14, as scansion by Edwards, Sound, Sense, and Rhythm, p. 80. The line "Held in suspense a misery" is a choriamb; the rest is iambic.]
Compare W. B. Yeats, "And the white breast of the dim sea" ("Who will go drive with Fergus now?" from The Countess Cathleen) and Tennyson, " In Memoriam," "When the blood creeps and the nerves prick" (compare pyrrhic).
Persian poetry
The ionic rhythm is common in classical Persian poetry and exists in both trimeter and tetrameter versions. Nearly 10% of lyric poems are written in the following metre:
[L. P. Elwell-Sutton (1976), The Persian Metres, p. 162.]
- x u – – | u u – – | u u – – | u u –
In the Persian version, the first syllable is anceps and the two short syllables in the last foot are biceps, that is, they may be replaced by one long syllable. An example by the 13th-century poet Saadi Shirazi is the following:
- abr o bād ō mah o xorshīd o falak dar kār-and
- tā to nān-ī be kaf ārī-yo be qeflat na-xorī
- "Cloud and wind and moon and sun and firmament are at work
- so that you may get some bread in your hand and not eat it neglectfully."
The acatalectic tetrameter is less common, but is also found:
- x u – – | u u – – | u u – – | u u – –
Another version, used in a famous poem by the 11th-century poet Manuchehri, is the same as this but lacks the first two syllables:[Farzaad, Masoud (1967), Persian poetic meters: a synthetic study., p. 60.]
- xīzīd-o xaz ārīd ke hengām-e xazān ast
- bād-e xonok 'az jāneb-e Xārazm vazān ast
- – – | u u – – | u u – – | u u – –
- Get up and bring fur as it is the season of autumn
- A cold wind is blowing from the direction of Khwarazm
The two underlined syllables are extra-long, and take the place of a long + short syllable (– u).
Anaclastic versions of the metre also exist, resembling the Greek anacreontic, for example:
- u u – u – u – – | u u – u – u – –
From its name persicos it appears that this metre was associated with the Persians even in early times.[Thiesen (1982), A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody, with chapters on Urdu, Karakhanidic and Ottoman prosody, pp. 132, 263–4.] It was used for example by Aeschylus in the opening chorus of his play The Persians, which is sung by a group of old men in the Persian capital city of Susa.
Turkish poetry
The Persian metre was imitated in Turkish poetry during the
Ottoman poetry period. The Turkish National Anthem or İstiklal Marşı, written in 1921 by Mehmet Akif Ersoy, is in this metre:
- Korkma! sönmez bu şafaklarda yüzen al sancak
- x u – – | u u – – | u u – – | u u –
- "Fear not! for the crimson banner that proudly ripples in this glorious dawn shall not fade"
However, neither of the two tunes written for the anthem in 1924 and 1930 follows the rhythm of the metre.
External links
-
Ionics, in Erling B. Holtsmark's Enchiridion of Metrics
