Английская Википедия:Asclepiad (poetry)
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Greek and Latin metre An Asclepiad (Latin: Asclepiadeus) is a line of poetry following a particular metrical pattern. The form is attributed to Asclepiades of Samos and is one of the Aeolic metres.
As with other Aeolic metrical lines, the asclepiad is built around a choriamb. The Asclepiad may be described as a glyconic that has been expanded with one (Lesser Asclepiad) or two (Greater Asclepiad) further choriambs. The pattern (using "–" for a long syllable, "u" for a short and "x" for an "anceps" or free syllable, which can be either – or u) is:
x x - u u - - u u - u - (Lesser Asclepiad / Asclepiadeus minor) x x - u u - - u u - - u u - u - (Greater Asclepiad / Asclepiadeus maior)
Asclepiads are often found mixed with the pherecratean and glyconic, which have a similar rhythm:
x x - u u - - (Pherecratean) x x - u u - u - (Glyconic)
West (1982) designates the Asclepiad as a "choriambically expanded glyconic" with the notation glc (lesser) or gl2c (greater).
In theory the first two syllables are Шаблон:Lang (either long or short) but in practice Horace always starts the line with two long syllables (except possibly at 1.15.36).[1] The last syllable can have Шаблон:Lang.
Asclepiads were used in Latin by Horace in thirty-four of his odes, as well as by Catullus in Poem 30, and Seneca in six tragedies.[2]
Asclepiadic systems
Asclepiads are found either in stichic form (i.e. used continuously unmixed with other metres) or in 4-line stanzas mixed with glyconics and pherecrateans. The various forms are known as the "1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th asclepiad". The numbering of these, however, differs in different authors. The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 used by Klingner (1939), Nisbet & Hubbard (1970), D. West (1995), and Mayer (2012), (followed here) are called 1, 4, 5, 3, 2 by Wickham (1896) and Raven (1965), and 1, 3, 4, 2, 5 by Page (1895), Bennett (1914) and Rudd (2004).[3]
1st asclepiad
This consists of a series of (lesser) asclepiad lines used stichically, as in Horace, Odes 1.1, addressed to Horace's patron Maecenas:
- 'Maecenas, descended from ancestral kings, ...'
And also famously in Ode 3.30, the last ode of the collection (Odes 1–3):
- 'I have completed a monument more lasting than bronze
- and taller than the royal structure of the pyramids'
This form of the asclepiad is also used in several poems by Alcaeus, e.g. 349A–353.[3]
2nd asclepiad
(= Raven and Wickham's 4th, Page and Rudd's 3rd asclepiad)
Three asclepiads are followed by a glyconic, as in Horace, Odes 1.6, addressed to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa:
- 'You will be written as valiant and victorious over our enemies
- by Varius, the winged poet of Homeric poetry,
- whatever action with ships or cavalry our fierce
- soldiers have carried out under your leadership.'
This form is also found in Alcaeus (5 and 7).
3rd asclepiad
(= Raven and Wickham's 5th, Page and Rudd's 4th asclepiad)
This consists of two asclepiads followed by a pherecratean and a glyconic, as in Horace, Odes 1.5:
- 'What slender boy, lying on many roses,
- liberally anointed with liquid perfumes,
- is pressing you, Pyrrha, beneath a pleasant grotto?
- For whom are you tying back your golden hair...?'
4th asclepiad
(= Raven and Wickham's 3rd, Page and Rudd's 2nd asclepiad)
A glyconic followed by an asclepiad, as in Horace, Odes 1.3, addressed to a ship carrying Horace's friend Virgil to Greece:
- 'So may the powerful goddess of Cyprus,[4]
- so may Helen's brothers,[5] those shining stars,[6]
- may the King of the Winds[7] guide you
- having locked up the other winds, apart from Iapyx.'
5th asclepiad
(= Raven and Wickham's 2nd, Page and Rudd's 5th asclepiad)
A series of greater asclepiads, used stichically, as in Horace, Odes 1.18:
- 'Plant no tree, Varus,[8] sooner than the sacred vine
- around the gentle soil of Tibur and Catillus' city walls.'
This form is also found in Alcaeus (e.g. 340–9), Callimachus (frag. 400), Theocritus (28, 30), and Catullus (30).[3]
In English verse
The asclepiad has sometimes been imitated in English verse, for example in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia:
It is also found in W. H. Auden's "In Due Season", which begins:
Printed sources
- Nisbet, R. G. M.; Hubbard, M. (1970). A Commentary on Horace Odes book 1. Oxford University Press.
- Raven, D. S. (1965). Latin Metre. Faber & Faber.
- Шаблон:Cite book
References
- ↑ Nisbet & Hubbard (1970), p. xxxix.
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite journal
- ↑ 3,0 3,1 3,2 Nisbet & Hubbard (1970), pp. xxxviii–xl.
- ↑ The goddess Venus, who was born from the sea, and had a sanctuary at Paphos in Cyprus.
- ↑ Castor and Pollux, who guided sailors.
- ↑ The reference is thought to be to St. Elmo's fire: Nisbet & Hubbard (1970), p. 46.
- ↑ Aeolus, who in Homer's Odyssey helped Odysseus by locking up all the winds except one.
- ↑ Unknown, but possibly the same as Alfenus Varus, consul suffect in 39 BC, to whom Catullus addressed a poem (no. 30) in this same metre: Nisbet & Hubbard (1970), p. 227.
