In ancient Greek and Latin literature, the trochaic septenarius (also known as the trochaic tetrameter catalectic) is a form of ancient poetic metre first used in 7th century BC Greek literature. It was one of the two most common metres of Roman comedy of the early 2nd century BC and was also used for the marching songs sung by soldiers at Caesar's victory parade. After a period when it was little used, it is found again in the (variously dated to between 2nd and 5th century AD), and taken up again as a metre for Christian hymns. The same metre, with stress-rhythm replacing quantitative metre, has continued to be used, especially for hymns and anthems, right up to the present day.
The Ancient Greeks called poems in this metre simply "tetrameters", while the name "trochaic septenarius" (or plural "trochaic septenarii") is used for Latin poems in the metre.
The basic metre consists of 15 syllables alternating strong and weak. The Greek version of the metre is as follows (where – = long, u = short, and x = an anceps syllable):
| – u – x | – u – x || – u – x | – u – |
The Latin form of the metre, as used in Roman comedy, was as follows:
| – x – x | – x – x || – x – x | – u – |
In Roman comedy it is very common for a long or anceps element to be resolved, that is, replaced by two short syllables, except at the end of the half line or line.
There is usually a dieresis (or break) in the middle of the line after the eighth element.
Terminology In ancient Greece, lines in this metre were simply known as () "tetrameters" without the need to add any adjective. This usage is found in Aristophanes, Xenophon, Aristotle, Plutarch, and Diodorus Siculus.Liddle, Scott, Jones, Greek Lexicon s.v. τετράμετρος. Xenophon informs us that tetrameters were accompanied by the double pipe known as the aulos.Xenophon, Symp. 6.3.
The trochaic foot (or trochee) itself (– u) was called () (lit. "running (foot)") by Plato and Aristotle; later the name () ("dancing (foot)") was also sometimes used.Liddell, Scott, Jones Greek Lexicon s.v. τροχαῖος, χορεῖος. Cicero and Quintilian both use the term to refer to the trochee (– u), and to refer to the tribrach (u u u); but Quintilian adds that some people use for the trochee and for the tribrach.Cicero, Orat. 63, 212, 217; Quintilian, 9.4.82. Quintilian uses the adjective to describe an iambic senarius with a lot of tribrachs in it.Quintilian, 9.4.140.
The name , meaning "of seven (feet)", is first used by Cicero, who after quoting some lines of a speech of Hector's ghost from Pacuvius's tragedy Iliona comments "I don't know why he is afraid, when he is pouring out such fine to the sound of the ."Cicero, Tusc. Disp. 1.106. In fact, however, the lines he quotes are not trochaic or iambic septenarii but the very similar iambic octonarii. The term is also used twice by the grammarian Diomedes (4th century AD), referring once to the trochaic and once to the iambic septenarius.Diomedes (Keil pp. 507, 515). Otherwise it seems to have been little used.
The grammarian Marius Victorinus (4th century) called the metre Keil VI.52; cf. Questa (2007). La Metrica di Plauto e Terenzio, p. 328 note. or ; but he added ("which we call the ").Keil VI.134. Atilius Fortunatianus (also 4th century) agrees that is an alternative name for the trochaic tetrameter catalectic metre.Keil VI.288. But the word ("square") was also used for tetrameters in other metres, for example the iambic septenariusDiomedes, quoting Varro, Keil I.507. or the iambic octonarius.Terentianus Maurus line 2278.
In the 8th century, Bede referred to this metre as the .Bede, de Arte metrica, Keil, VII.258. Another medieval writer who discussed the metre is Alberic of Monte Cassino, an 11th-century scholar and monk, who called it the , referring to the fact that in his day it had exactly 15 syllables.Blum, Owen J. (1956). "Alberic of Monte Cassino and the Hymns and Rhythms attributed to Saint Peter Damian". Traditio vol. 12, pp. 87–148; for Alberic's discussion of the metre see p. 101.
In Greek
In Archilochus The name septenarius is strictly applied only to Latin poetry, but it has predecessors in Greek. It was first used as early as the 7th century BC by Archilochus. An example is the fragment which begins as follows:See the article Archilochus for the rest.
Archilochus fr. 128, quoted by Stobaeus (3.20.28).
| – u – u | – u – u || – u – u | – u – | | uu u – u | – u – – || – u – u | – u – |
"My Soul, my Soul, all disturbed by sorrows inconsolable, Bear up, hold out, meet front-on the many foes that rush on you."
In the above example, the metre is fairly regular. There are two resolutions in the fragment, one at the beginning of a line, the other at the beginning of a half-line. The anceps syllables are often short.
According to AristotleAristotle, Poet. 1449a21. this metre was used in the early satyr plays; but in the extant Greek plays it only occurs occasionally, much less often than in Plautus and Terence's Latin plays.
In tragedy
In tragedy the style of the trochaic tetrameter is more regular, and there is always a break in the centre of the line.Denniston, J.D., article "Metre, Greek", Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed., p. 681. In Aeschylus's tragedy, the Persians, of 472 BC, Xerxes' father King Darius rises from the dead and talks to his wife Atossa in trochaic tetrameters. Part of his speech is as follows:
| – u – – | – u – – || – u – – | – u – | | – u – – | – u – – || – u – – | – u – | | – u – – | – u – – || – u – – | – u – | | – u – – | – u – – || – u – – | – u – | | uu u – – | – u – – || – u – – | – u – |
"My son, in his ignorance, did these things with youthful audacity: he dared to hold back from flowing, like a slave in chains, the sacred Hellespont, the Bosporus, the stream of God; and he tried to change its passage, and chaining it with hammer-forged shackles created a great causeway for his huge army."
In this passage, Aeschylus adopts a style which was later imitated by Seneca in his tragedies. A resolved element occurs only once in these five lines. All the anceps syllables are long. There is a break in the centre of the line but not after the 1st or 3rd metron.
In comedy
The following example, from the opening chorus of Aristophanes' comedy The Knights, shows a very different style of the metre. There is a word-division at the end of almost every metron and the anceps positions are often short:
| – u – u | – u – – || – u – – | – u – | | – u – – | – u – u || – u – u | – u – | | – u – – | – u – – || – u – u | – u – | | – u – u | – u – – || – u – – | – u – |
"Strike, strike the villain, who has spread confusion amongst the ranks of the Knights, this public robber, this yawning gulf of plunder, this devouring Charybdis, this villain, this villain, this villain! I cannot say the word too often, for he is a villain a thousand times a day." (tr. Eugene O'Neill, Jr., 1938)
Occasionally in comedy there is no central dieresis, as in the following line from Aristophanes' comedy The Birds (286):
| – u – – | – u – – | – u – – | – u – |
"and the female ones also pluck out its feathers"
By adding an extra syllable at the beginning, the line can become an iambic tetrameter, as in the first line below. The following lines come from later in the same passage of Aristophanes' Birds in a passage of otherwise regular trochaics.Aristophanes, Birds 305–7. The second and third lines below do not have the normal dieresis after the 8th element, but have one after the 7th element, so that the last eight elements form a separate unit. In this they are like the iambic tetrameter which precedes them. The final line is normal:
| u – u – | – – u – || u – u – | – – u – | (iambic) | – u – – | – u – / u | – u uu u | – u – | (iambic-like trochaic) | – u – – | – u – / – | – u – – | – u – | | – u – u | – u – – || – u – – | – u – | (normal trochaic)
"Oh! Oh! what a lot of birds! Oh! Oh! What a lot of blackbirds! Look at them cheeping and running around squawking at one another! Are they threatening us two? Oh no! They're gaping at us, I tell you, and they're looking at you and me!" – "I think so too!"
In early Latin
The metre in early Latin tragedy and comedy is relatively free, and even the elements which are short in Greek are often represented by long syllables; but when they are long, these are usually unaccented so as to maintain the basic rhythm.D. S. Raven (1965), Latin Metre, p. 47. The basic shape of the line is therefore:
| – x – x | – x – x || – x – x | – u – |
As in Greek, often a long or anceps element (except immediately before the end of the verse or hemistich) is resolved into two short syllables, as with and in the first quotation below.
In tragedy The trochaic septenarius metre was used in early Latin tragedies by authors such as Livius, Naevius, Ennius and Pacuvius. However, these have not survived except for a few lines quoted in other authors. The following example, preserved by Cicero, comes from Ennius's tragedy Alexander, and is spoken by the prophet Cassandra to her mother Hecuba. It is remarkable for its alliteration, as well as the four-word second line: | – – – u | – – – – || uu – uu – | uu u – | | – u – u | – uu – – || uu u – u | – u – | | uu u – – | – – – – || – – – – | – u – |
"Mother, best woman by far of the best of women, I have been sent by superstitious premonitions; nor does Apollo, by speaking the fates, make me lose my mind against my will."
In another quotation from the same play, the first word is shortened to two short syllables (u u) by a process known as , commonly found in early Latin comedies: | uu u – – | – u – – || – u – – | – u – | | – – – – | uu – – – || – u – – | – u – |
"It is here, it is here, the torch wrapped in blood and fire! It lay hidden for many years. Citizens, bring help and extinguish it!"
In comedy
In early Latin, in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, the trochaic septenarius is one of the two commonest metres (the other being the iambic senarius); in fact more than a third of the lines in the two poets are trochaic septenarii.Database by Timothy J. Moore of The Meters of Roman Comedy Washington University in St Louis.
The style in comedy is usually very conversational, often with no break in sense in the centre of the line. An example from Plautus's is the following:Plautus, Captivi 251–2.
| uu u – – | – – – – || – u – – | – u – || uu – – – | – – – – || – – – – | – u – |
"Now I shall go back inside, to see if I can find out from these people what I want.Where are those people I ordered to be brought out here in front of the house?"
The second line above consists mostly of spondees (– –) instead of trochees (– u), but as in most septenarii, the word accents are arranged so that the 2nd, 6th and 10th positions, where in Greek a short syllable would be placed, if they are long, are unaccented (Meyer's law).Heikkinen, S. (2015). "The Resurrection and Afterlife of an Archaic Metre: Bede, the Carolingians, and the Trochaic Septenarius".
In Plautus the line quite often ended with a two-syllable word, such as above. If so the 12th element had to be long (the Bentley-Luchs law). In later centuries, as coincidence of word accent and metre became increasingly important, two-syllable words in the final position became increasingly rare.
Sometimes in early Latin there was no break after element 8, as in the following line of Terence:
Terence, Phormio 551.
| – – – – | – u – – | – – – – | – u – |
"Whichever country she is transported off to from here, I shall certainly follow her"
In satire