Asclepiad (poetry)

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)

West (1982) designates the Asclepiad as a "choriambically expanded glyconic" with the notation glc (lesser) or gl2c (greater).

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.[1] Examples in English verse include poems by Sir Philip Sidney, and W. H. Auden's "In Due Season" ("Springtime, Summer and Fall: days to behold a world"). Lines from Sidney's Arcadia:

Here wrongs name is unheard: slander a monster is
Keep thy sprite from abuse, here no abuse doth haunte.
What man grafts in a tree dissimulatiön?[2]

— Sidney: "O sweet woods the delight of solitariness!", lines 26-28

References
  1. Bishop, J. David (1968). "The Meaning of the Choral Meters in Senecan Tragedy". Rheinische Museum fur Philologie. 111 (3): 206.
  2. Sidney, Philip (1912). Feuillerat, Albert (ed.). The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney. Vol. 2. Cambridge: The University Press. p. 237. (dieresis added to clarify syllabification)
Printed sources
  • West, M. L. (1982). Greek Metre. Oxford University Press.


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