Metron (poetry)

A metron /ˈmɛtrɒn/, /ˈmɛtrən/ (from ancient Greek μέτρον "measure"), plural metra, is a repeating section, 3 to 6 syllables long, of a poetic metre.

[8] But Aristotle also defines μέτρα as μόρια τῶν ῤυθμῶν (mória tôn ruthmôn) "parts of the rhythms".

[10] The words δίμετρον dímetron "dimeter", τρίμετρον trímetron "trimeter" and τετράμετρον tetrámetron "tetrameter" are found in ancient Greek.

Thus in the traditional description of Arabic metre by William Wright, a section such as – – ᴗ – is referred to as a "foot";[14] but Golston and Riad refer to it as a "metron": "A crucial element of our analysis is that what is traditionally considered a verse foot is in fact a metron (two verse feet).

"[15] Similarly Bruce Hayes and Finn Thiesen refer to a four-syllable repeating section of a Persian metre as a "foot".

[16][17] Despite using the term "foot", both Wright and Hayes refer to lines with two, three or four feet respectively as dimeters, trimeters and tetrameters.

[25] For example, the following metre is known as a trochaic tetrameter catalectic (in Latin it is known as a trochaic septenarius):[26] If an iambic metre ending in a long element is made catalectic, the final metron changes from x – ᴗ – to ᴗ – x (with brevis in longo at the end).

[31] Another writer, a certain cavalry officer called Paccius Maximus (1st century AD), writes of keeping time when writing poetry by beating with a stick:[32] It would therefore seem that the metra, being of equal length, created a rhythm that made it possible to beat time once each metron.

Wallace Lindsay writes:[33] Iambic, like Trochaic and Anapaestic Metre, was scanned by Dipodies, not by single feet.

The chief metrical ictus of the line, in other words the syllables at which the baton of a conductor keeping time would fall, were in an Iambic Trimeter the 2nd, 4th, and 6th Arses[34] (in a Trochaic Tetrameter the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th).

[39][40] In recent metrical studies the term anaclasis has been extended to cover not just inversion across a metron boundary but any instance where the sequence x – corresponds to – x in a parallel part of the same metre.

The very earliest metres, however, used in hymns included in the Rigveda, were written in lines mostly of iambic character, which are often analysed as being divided into sections of four syllables each.

Common patterns are: Arab metricians traditionally divide a line into sections using a series of mnemonic words based on the verb faʿala "do", known as tafāʿīl.

For example the kāmil:[52] The wāfir is a catalectic trimeter as follows:[52] In the metaphorical language used by the 8th-century Arab metrician al-Khalīl, a complete couplet of six or eight feet (or metra) is described as a bayt "(Beduin) tent", and the feet or metra themselves are called arkān (singular rukn) "support poles".

[54] In this system, each foot or metron is composed of a watad or watid (plural awtād) "tent-peg" (usually an iamb) and either one or two asbāb (singular sabab) "guy-ropes".

For example, in the basīt metre comes the following verse of al-Mutanabbi, in which none of the "pegs" has an accent (the stresses are marked in bold): In the following tawīl verse, by Imru' al-Qais, only some of the stresses (mainly in the second half of the line) correspond to the "pegs": In Persian every metre in common use can be analysed as falling into regular sections of either 3 or 4 syllables which repeat periodically.