LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 171 The choriambics of the JEolic lyric poets are composed on the same plan, as they have also the preceding basis ; yet this metre always re- tains something of the stately tone which belongs to it. Hence Alcseus, and also Horace, whose metres are for the most part borrowed from him, composed poems of choriambic verses by simple repetition, without dividing them into strophes ; these poems have a somewhat loftier and more solemn tone than the rest. The Logaoedic metre also belongs peculiarly to the iEolic lyric poets ; it is produced by the immediate junction of dactylic and trochaic feet, so that a rapid movement passes into a feebler one. This lengthened and various kind of metre was pe- culiarly adapted to express the softer emotions, such as tenderness, melancholy, and longing. Hence this metre was frequently used by the jEolians, and their strophes were principally formed by connecting logaoedic rhythms with trochees, iambi, and iEolic dactyls. Of this kind is the Sapphic strophe, the softest and sweetest metre in the Greek lyric poetry, and which Alcseus seems to have sometimes employed, as in his hymn to Hermes*. But the firmer and more vigorous tone of the metre, called after him the Alcaic, was better suited to the temper of his mind. The logaoedic elements t of this metre have but little of their characteristic softness, and they receive an impulse from the iambic dipodies which precede them. Hence the Alcaic strophe is generally employed by these poets in political and warlike poems, and in all in which manly passions predominate. Alcseus likewise formed longer verses of logaoedic feet, and joined them in an unbroken series, after the manner of choriambic and many dactylic verses. In this way he ob- tained a beautiful measure for the description of his armoury |. Among the various metres used by Alcseus, the last which we shall mention
- That is to say, if the verse in fragm. 37. Blomf. 22. Matth. was the beginning
of this hymn. According to Apollonius de pronom. p. 90. ed Bekker, it runs thus : £«?££, KuXXavas o p£Sus (as participle, with the yEolic accent, for fiih-W), n yag /xoi. f In these remarks it is assumed that the second part of the alcaic verse is not choriambic, or dactylic, but logaoedic ; and that the whole ought thus to be arranged : o_/o_o | j^cjo — O — Thus it appears that the third verse of the strophe is a prolongation of the first half of the two first verses ; and that the fourth verse is a similar prolongation of the second half. The entire strophe is therefore formed of a combination of the two elements, the iambic and the logaoedic.
Fragm. 24. Blomf. 1. Matth. The metre ought probably to be arranged as
fol'ows (the basis being marked X _) : Verses 3 and 4 ought to be read thus : %u.Xx.iui Ss wu.ffiru.Xots xoiirroiffiv wieiHiifJuvc: Xufn.'x^ui xvapio*;, i. e. " and brazen shining grieves conceal the pegs, to winch they are suspended." *aff<raXois is the ./Eolic accusative ; the dative in this dialect is al- ways Tttt.ffaU.XDHt),
