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101-570: Greek poetry is based on syllable length , not on syllable stress , as in English. The two syllable lengths in Greek poetry are long and short . It is probable that in the natural spoken language there were also syllables of intermediate length, as in the first syllable of words such as τέκνα / tékna / 'children', where a short vowel is followed by a plosive + liquid combination; but for poetic purposes such syllables were treated as either long or short. Thus in

202-476: A geminate consonant . For example, the Japanese name for Japan , 日本 , has two different pronunciations, one with three morae ( Nihon ) and one with four ( Nippon ). In the hiragana spelling, the three morae of Ni-ho-n are represented by three characters ( にほん ), and the four morae of Ni-p-po-n need four characters to be written out as にっぽん . The latter can also be analysed as Ni-Q-po-n , with

303-463: A syllable , that exists in some spoken languages in which phonetic length (such as vowel length ) matters significantly. For example, in the Japanese language , the name of the city Ōsaka ( おおさか ) consists of three syllables ( O-sa-ka ) but four morae ( O-o-sa-ka ), since the first syllable, Ō , is pronounced with a long vowel (the others being short). Thus, a short vowel contains one mora and

404-501: A + i , or one long and one short vowel, ā + i ) is assigned a value of two mātrā s. In addition, there is pluta (trimoraic) and dīrgha pluta ('long pluta ' = quadrimoraic). Sanskrit prosody and metrics have a deep history of taking into account moraic weight, as it were, rather than straight syllables, divided into laghu ( लघु , 'light') and dīrgha / guru ( दीर्घ / गुरु , 'heavy') feet based on how many morae can be isolated in each word. Thus, for example,

505-473: A bad omen but is ignored. Hera seduces Zeus and lulls him to sleep, allowing Poseidon to help the Greeks. The Trojans are driven back onto the plain. Ajax wounds Hector, who is then carried back to Troy. Zeus awakes and is enraged by Poseidon's intervention. However, he reassures Hera that Troy is still fated to fall once Hector kills Patroclus. Poseidon is recalled from the battlefield, and Zeus sends Apollo to aid

606-567: A brilliant radiance by Athena, Achilles stands next to the Achaean wall and roars in rage. The Trojans are terrified by his appearance, and the Achaeans manage to bear Patroclus's body away. Polydamas again urges Hector to withdraw into the city; again, Hector refuses, and the Trojans camp on the plain at nightfall. Achilles mourns Patroclus, brokenhearted. Meanwhile, at Thetis's request, Hephaestus fashions

707-572: A coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles . It is a central part of the Epic Cycle . The Iliad is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature . The Iliad and the Odyssey were likely written down in Homeric Greek ,

808-480: A conclusion determines the validity of evidence. Some scholars believe that the gods may have intervened in the mortal world because of quarrels they may have had with each other. Homer interprets the world at this time by using the passion and emotion of the gods to be determining factors of what happens on the human level. An example of one of these relationships in the Iliad occurs between Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite. In

909-538: A couple of extreme examples, namely コーン茶 and チェーン店 ), the drop in pitch of a word (so-called "downstep") cannot come after any of these "special mora," a useful tidbit for language learners trying to learn word pitch accents. In Luganda , a short vowel constitutes one mora while a long vowel constitutes two morae. A simple consonant has no morae, and a doubled or prenasalised consonant has one. No syllable may contain more than three morae. The tone system in Luganda

1010-484: A different character from iambic. The name "trochaic" is derived from the Greek verb τρέχω "I run" and it was considered a livelier and faster rhythm than the iambic. The anapestic (or anapaestic) tetrameter catalectic is used in comedy. It is described as a 'dignified' meter and is used in Aristophanes ' Clouds (961-1009) for the speech of the character Just Argument describing how boys were expected to behave in

1111-427: A duel and exchange unequal gifts, while Glaucus tells Diomedes the story of Bellerophon . Hector enters the city, urges prayers and sacrifices, incites Paris to battle, and bids his wife Andromache and son Astyanax farewell on the city walls. He then rejoins the battle. Hector duels with Ajax , but nightfall interrupts the fight, and both sides retire. The Trojans quarrel about returning Helen. Paris offers to return

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1212-422: A line of music. The different varieties of feet were given different names, as follows: Macron and breve notation: – = long syllable; ᴗ = short syllable. Non-lyric meters are those used for narrative, funeral elegies, the dialogue of tragedies, pastoral poetry, and didactic poetry. A characteristic of these metres is that every line is the same length throughout the poem (except for the elegiac couplet, in which

1313-452: A literary mixture of Ionic Greek and other dialects, probably around the late 8th or early 7th century BC. Homer's authorship was infrequently questioned in antiquity , but contemporary scholarship predominantly assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently and that the stories formed as part of a long oral tradition . The poem was performed by professional reciters of Homer known as rhapsodes . Critical themes in

1414-525: A long syllable, and u a short one.) It would appear that most Ancient Greek poetry, including the poems of Homer, was composed to be sung to music, and it is generally assumed by those who have reconstructed the surviving fragments of Greek music, such as the Seikilos epitaph , that a short syllable was sung to a short note, while the long syllables were sung to longer notes, or to a group of two or three short notes. The word-accents in Greek poetry did not affect

1515-401: A long vowel or a diphthong : A syllable is "long by position" if the vowel precedes the consonants ζ /zd/, ξ /ks/ or ψ /ps/ or two other consonants. However, a plosive followed by a liquid or a nasal will not necessarily lengthen a syllable. The final syllable of a line, even if short by nature, is, if the relevant hypothesis is accepted, generally considered long (" brevis in longo "), as in

1616-413: A major role in the poem, aiding their favoured warriors on the battlefield and intervening in personal disputes. Their characterisation in the poem humanised them for Ancient Greek audiences, giving a concrete sense of their cultural and religious tradition. In terms of formal style, the poem's repetitions and use of similes and epithets are often explored by scholars. The story begins with an invocation to

1717-411: A moraic system of writing. For example, in the two-syllable word mōra , the ō is a long vowel and counts as two morae. The word is written in three symbols, モーラ , corresponding here to mo-o-ra , each containing one mora. Therefore, the 5/7/5 pattern of the haiku in modern Japanese is of morae rather than syllables. The Japanese syllable-final n is also moraic, as is the first part of

1818-468: A new set of armor for Achilles, including a magnificently wrought shield . In the morning, Thetis brings Achilles his new set of armor, only to find him weeping over Patroclus's body. Achilles arms for battle and rallies the Achaean warriors. Agamemnon gives Achilles all the promised gifts, including Briseis , but Achilles is indifferent to them. The Achaeans take their meal; Achilles refuses to eat. His horse, Xanthos , prophesies Achilles's death; Achilles

1919-456: A proper name, as in lines 2 and 3 of the example below, the anceps syllable may be replaced by two shorts: Unlike most other kinds of Greek poetry, it appears that the iambic trimeter was used for dialogue unaccompanied by music. The opening lines of Euripides ' play the Bacchae are scanned as follows (the resolved elements are underlined): The iambic trimeter is also the basic meter used in

2020-504: A result of this thinking, each god or goddess in polytheistic Greek religion is attributed to an aspect of the human world. For example, Poseidon is the god of the sea, Aphrodite is the goddess of beauty, Ares is the god of war, and so on and so forth for many other gods. This is how Greek culture was defined as many Athenians felt the presence of their gods through divine intervention in significant events in their lives. Oftentimes, they found these events to be mysterious and inexplicable. In

2121-505: A short vowel or the last mora of a long vowel ( é , eé ). A circumflex ( ῆ ) represents high pitch on the first mora of a long vowel ( ée ). Gilbertese , an Austronesian language spoken mainly in Kiribati , is a trimoraic language. The typical foot in Gilbertese contains three morae. These trimoraic constituents are units of stress in Gilbertese. These "ternary metrical constituents of

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2222-526: A syllable would have more than four otherwise. In the Old English period, all content words (as well as stressed monosyllables) had to be at least two morae long. In Sanskrit , the mora is expressed as the mātrā . For example, the short vowel a (pronounced like a schwa ) is assigned a value of one mātrā , the long vowel ā is assigned a value of two mātrā s, and the compound vowel (diphthong) ai (which has either two simple short vowels,

2323-405: A vowel, like χθό-, is called an "open syllable". Note that ζ /zd/ , ξ /ks/ and ψ /ps/ count as two consonants, and a word like ἄξιος ( áxios ) is divided into syllables as ak-si-os , with the first syllable closed. A short syllable is a syllable which is open and which has a short vowel, such as khtho- or di- . If a word ends in a short vowel + consonant, such as ἄξιος ( áxios ),

2424-642: Is based on morae. See Luganda tones and Luganda grammar . In Old English, short diphthongs and monophthongs were monomoraic, long diphthongs and monophthongs were bimoraic, consonants ending a syllable were each one mora, and geminate consonants added a mora to the preceding syllable. If Modern English is analyzed in terms of morae at all, which is contentious, the rules would be similar, except that all diphthongs would be considered bimoraic. Probably in Old English, like in Modern English, syllables could not have more than four morae, with loss of sounds occurring if

2525-520: Is beaten back by Hephaestus's firestorm. The gods fight amongst themselves. The great gates of the city are opened to receive the fleeing Trojans, and Apollo leads Achilles away from the city by pretending to be a Trojan. When Apollo reveals himself to Achilles, the Trojans have retreated into the city, all except for Hector. Despite the counsel of Polydamas and the pleas of his parents, Priam and Hecuba , Hector resolves to face Achilles. When Achilles approaches, however, Hector's will fails him. He flees and

2626-471: Is called monomoraic , while a long vowel contains two and is called bimoraic . Extra-long syllables with three morae ( trimoraic ) are relatively rare. Such metrics based on syllables are also referred to as syllable weight . In Japanese, certain consonants also stand on their own as individual morae and thus are monomoraic. The term comes from the Latin word for 'linger, delay', which was also used to translate

2727-412: Is chased by Achilles around the city. Finally, Athena tricks him into stopping, and he turns to face his opponent. After a brief duel, Achilles stabs Hector through the neck. Before dying, Hector reminds Achilles that he, too, is fated to die. Achilles strips Hector of his own armor, gloating over his death. Achilles then dishonors Hector's body by lashing it to the back of his chariot and dragging it around

2828-539: Is found in the choral odes of Pindar and Bacchylides . The Aeolic meter is built upon two kinds of lines, the Glyconic and the Pherecratean. Both have the choriamb | – u u – | as their nucleus. The Glyconic can be represented as follows: Mora (linguistics)#Ancient Greek A mora (plural morae or moras ; often symbolized μ ) is a theoretical or perceptual smallest unit of timing , equal to or shorter than

2929-645: Is found occasionally in the surviving fragments of other playwrights. In this meter there is either a break (dieresis) in the middle of the line, or a caesura (word-break) after the first syllable of the second half. It is probable that it gets its name from the poet Eupolis , who may have used it. The speech in the Clouds starts as follows: Lyric meters (literally, meters sung to a lyre ) are usually less regular than non-lyric meters. The lines are made up of feet of different kinds, and can be of varying lengths. Some lyric meters were used for monody (solo songs), such as some of

3030-465: Is indifferent. Achilles goes into battle, with Automedon driving his chariot. Zeus lifts the ban on the gods' interference, and the gods freely help both sides. Achilles, burning with rage and grief, slays many. Achilles cuts off half the Trojans' number in the river and slaughters them, clogging the river with bodies. The river god, Scamander , confronts Achilles and commands him to stop killing Trojans, but Achilles refuses. They fight until Scamander

3131-463: Is joined with a pentameter , consisting of two sections of two and a half feet each. The second half of a pentameter always has | – u u | – u u | – |, without variation. The dactylic hexameter-pentameter couplet was also used for elegies (hence the name " elegiac couplet ") and later, in writers such as Callimachus in the Hellenistic period , for poems about love. Another very common meter, which

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3232-405: Is lost in his grief and spends his days mourning Patroclus and dragging Hector's body behind his chariot. Dismayed by Achilles's continued abuse of Hector's body, Zeus decides that it must be returned to Priam. Led by Hermes , Priam takes a wagon filled with gifts out of Troy, across the plains, and into the Achaean camp unnoticed. He clasps Achilles by the knees and begs for his son's body. Achilles

3333-437: Is moved to tears and finally relents in his anger. The two lament their losses in the war. Achilles agrees to give Hector's body back and to give the Trojans twelve days to properly mourn and bury him. Achilles apologizes to Patroclus, fearing he has dishonored him by returning Hector's body. After a meal, Priam carries Hector's body back into Troy. Hector is buried, and the city mourns. Ancient Greek religion had no founder and

3434-480: Is nearly always a dactyl; in Homer only 1 line in 18 has a spondaic fifth foot. Because the final syllable in a line is long by position, the last foot is always a spondee. Often there is a slight pause in the line, known as a caesura , in the middle of the third foot, as in lines 1, 5, and 6 above. However, for variety the position of the caesura can change, for example to the middle of the 2nd foot, as in lines 2 and 4, or

3535-405: Is not always equal to the number of graphemes when written in kana; for example, even though it has four morae, the Japanese name for Tōkyō ( とうきょう ) is written with five graphemes, because one of these graphemes ( ょ ) represents a yōon , a feature of the Japanese writing system that indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized . The "contracted sound" ( 拗音 ) is represented by

3636-506: Is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer . It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Odyssey , the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter . It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. Set towards the end of the Trojan War , a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by

3737-555: Is removed; since the final syllable of a line always counts as long, in catalexis the formerly short penultimate is changed to a long when it becomes final, as in this extract from Aristophanes play the Clouds (1399ff): In Roman comedies this meter is known as the Iambic septenarius . There is often a break (dieresis) between the two halves of the line, but as the above example shows, this is not always found. Occasionally, as an alternative to iambic, Greek playwrights use trochaic feet, as in

3838-465: Is said to have the property of quantity sensitivity. For the purpose of determining accent in Ancient Greek , short vowels have one mora, and long vowels and diphthongs have two morae. Thus long ē ( eta : η ) can be understood as a sequence of two short vowels: ee . Ancient Greek pitch accent is placed on only one mora in a word. An acute ( έ , ή ) represents high pitch on the only mora of

3939-587: Is the spondee (– –), followed by the anapaest (u u –), then the dactyl (– u u). The exact proportions of the different kinds of feet differ in different authors; for example, anapaests make up 26% of the feet of anapaestic verse in Sophocles, but 39% in Aristophanes; dactyls make up 20% of anapaestic verse in Sophocles but only 6% in Aristophanes. In comedy a very small number of feet are proceleusmatic (u u u u). Other meters are also occasionally found in comedy, such as

4040-458: Is used in the dialogues of Greek plays, is the iambic trimeter . The basic scheme for this is as follows (where "x" represents an anceps syllable, that is one which may be either long or short): The group | x – u – | is known as a " metron ", consisting of two feet. In the first and second metron, one of the two long syllables may be replaced by two short ones, making the following possible variations: Occasionally also, especially to accommodate

4141-487: The Iliad as a major piece of evidence for his theory of the Bicameral Mind , which posits that until about the time described in the Iliad , humans had a far different mentality from present-day humans. He says that humans during that time were lacking what is today called consciousness. He suggests that humans heard and obeyed commands from what they identified as gods until the change in human mentality that incorporated

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4242-431: The Iliad , Paris challenges any of the Achaeans to a single combat and Menelaus steps forward. Menelaus is dominating the battle and is on the verge of killing Paris. "Now he'd have hauled him off and won undying glory but Aphrodite, Zeus's daughter, was quick to the mark, snapped the rawhide strap." Aphrodite intervenes out of her own self-interest to save Paris from the wrath of Menelaus because Paris had helped her to win

4343-576: The Muse . The events begin in medias res towards the end of the Trojan War, fought between the Trojans and the besieging Achaeans . The Achaean forces consist of armies from many different Greek kingdoms, led by their respective kings or princes. Agamemnon , king of Mycenae , acts as commander for these united armies. Chryses , a priest of Apollo , offers the Achaeans wealth for the return of his daughter Chryseis , held captive by Agamemnon. Although most of

4444-599: The Achaean kings are in favor of the offer, Agamemnon refuses. Chryses prays for Apollo's help, and Apollo sends a plague to afflict the Achaean army. After nine days of plague, Achilles , the leader of the Myrmidon forces and aristos achaion ("best of the Greeks"), calls an assembly to deal with the problem. Under pressure, Agamemnon agrees to return Chryseis to her father but decides to take Achilles's slave, Briseis , as compensation. Because war prizes were correlated with honor, Agamemnon's decision dishonors Achilles in front of

4545-486: The Eupolidean. This is used in the second edition of Aristophanes' Clouds when the chorus leader steps forward in the persona of the poet himself and addresses the audience (518-562). The basic meter is | x x – x | – u u – | x x – x | – u – |, where the opening of each half is generally trochaic ( – u / – – ) but may occasionally be iambic ( u – / u u u ). Aristophanes uses the meter only here in his extant plays, although it

4646-611: The Gods, allows it. This motif recurs when he considers sparing Hector, whom he loves and respects. This time, it is Athena who challenges him: Father of the shining bolt, dark misted, what is this you said? Do you wish to bring back a man who is mortal, one long since doomed by his destiny, from ill-sounding death and release him? Do it, then; but not all the rest of us gods shall approve you. Again, Zeus appears capable of altering fate, but does not, deciding instead to abide by set outcomes; similarly, fate spares Aeneas after Apollo convinces

4747-619: The Greek word χρόνος  : chrónos ('time') in its metrical sense. The general principles for assigning moras to segments are as follows (see Hayes 1989 and Hyman 1985 for detailed discussion): In general, monomoraic syllables are called "light syllables", bimoraic syllables are called "heavy syllables", and trimoraic syllables (in languages that have them) are called "superheavy syllables". Some languages, such as Old English and potentially present-day English, can have syllables with up to four morae. A prosodic stress system in which moraically heavy syllables are assigned stress

4848-400: The Q representing a full mora of silence. In this analysis, っ (the sokuon ) indicates a one-mora period of silence. Similarly, the names Tōkyō ( To-u-kyo-u , とうきょう ), Ōsaka ( O-o-sa-ka , おおさか ), and Nagasaki ( Na-ga-sa-ki , ながさき ) all have four morae, even though, on this analysis, they have two, three and four syllables, respectively. The number of morae in a word

4949-419: The Trojans can assail the Achaean wall. They camp in the field to attack at first light, and their watchfires light the plain like stars. Meanwhile, the Achaeans are desperate. Agamemnon admits his error and sends an embassy composed of Odysseus, Ajax, Phoenix , and two heralds to offer Briseis and extensive gifts to Achilles, if only he will return to the fighting. Achilles and his companion Patroclus receive

5050-443: The Trojans until their ships are at risk of burning. Only then will Agamemnon realize how much the Achaeans need Achilles and restore his honor. Thetis does so, and Zeus agrees. Zeus then sends a dream to Agamemnon, urging him to attack Troy. Agamemnon heeds the dream but first decides to test the Achaean army's morale by telling them to go home. But nine years into the war, the soldiers' morale has worn thin. The plan backfires, and only

5151-462: The Trojans. Achilles says that after all has been made right, he and Patroclus will take Troy together. Patroclus leads the Myrmidons into battle and arrives as the Trojans set fire to the first ships. The Trojans are routed by the sudden onslaught, and Patroclus begins his assault by killing Zeus's son Sarpedon , a leading ally of the Trojans. Patroclus, ignoring Achilles's command, pursues and reaches

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5252-452: The Trojans. The Trojans once again breach the wall, and the battle reaches the ships. Patroclus cannot stand to watch any longer and goes to Achilles, weeping. He briefly admonishes him for his stubbornness and then asks him to allow him to fight in his place, wearing Achilles's armor so that he will be mistaken for him. Achilles relents and lends Patroclus his armor but sends him off with a stern admonition to come back to him and not to pursue

5353-428: The assembled Achaean forces. Achilles furiously declares that he and his men will no longer fight for Agamemnon. Odysseus returns Chryseis to her father, causing Apollo to end the plague. In the meantime, Agamemnon's messengers take Briseis away. Achilles becomes very upset and prays to his mother, Thetis , a minor goddess and sea nymph. Achilles asks his mother to ask Zeus to allow the Achaeans to be beaten back by

5454-581: The audience: When used in tragedy, there is always a break ( dieresis ) in the middle of the line, but as can be seen above, this is not always the case in comedy. This metre is also frequently used in Roman comedies, where it is known as the Trochaic septenarius . Some authors analyse this catalectic form of the meter not as trochaic but as iambic, with initial not final catalexis. In general, however, ancient writers seem to have recognised that trochaic meters had

5555-542: The augment ἐ- , e.g. ἔθηκε , and sometimes without it, e.g. τεῦχε . The line is divided into six feet, known as dactyls (– u u) and spondees (– –). In this opening passage of the Iliad, dactyls and spondees are equally common, although overall in Greek hexameters, the dactylic foot is slightly more common (in the ratio 60-40), while in Latin hexameters the spondee is more common (in the same ratio). The fifth foot in Greek hexameters

5656-432: The beauty pageant. The partisanship of Aphrodite towards Paris induces constant intervention by all of the gods, especially to give motivational speeches to their respective protégés, while often appearing in the shape of a human being they are familiar with. This connection of emotions to actions is just one example out of many that occur throughout the poem. Fate ( κήρ , kēr , 'fated death') propels most of

5757-428: The body. When Achilles hears of Patroclus's death, he screams so loudly in his grief that his mother, Thetis, hears him from the bottom of the ocean. Thetis grieves too, knowing that Achilles is fated to die young if he kills Hector. Though he knows it will seal his own fate, Achilles vows to kill Hector in order to avenge Patroclus. Achilles is urged to help retrieve Patroclus's body but has no armor to wear. Bathed in

5858-406: The city. The Trojans grieve. The ghost of Patroclus comes to Achilles in a dream, urging him to carry out the burial rites so that his spirit can move on to the underworld. Patroclus asks Achilles to arrange for their bones to be entombed together in a single urn; Achilles agrees, and Patroclus's body is cremated. The Achaeans hold a day of funeral games, and Achilles gives out the prizes. Achilles

5959-408: The dialogue parts of Greek comedies, such as the plays of Aristophanes and Menander . In comedy there tend to be more resolutions into short syllables than in tragedy, and Porson's Law is not observed. Sometimes even a short element can be replaced by two short syllables, making for example: However, the last foot of the line is always an iamb: | .... u – |. As an example of the comic version of

6060-529: The embassy well. However, considering the slight to his honor too great, Achilles angrily refuses Agamemnon's offer and declares that he will only return to battle if the Trojans reach his ships and threaten them with fire. The embassy returns empty-handed. Later that night, Odysseus and Diomedes venture out to the Trojan lines, kill the Trojan Dolon , and wreak havoc in the camps of some Thracian allies of Troy. In

6161-462: The events of the Iliad . Once set, gods and men abide it, neither truly able nor willing to contest it. How fate is set is unknown, but it is told by the Fates and by Zeus through sending omens to seers such as Calchas . Men and their gods continually speak of heroic acceptance and cowardly avoidance of one's slated fate. Fate does not determine every action, incident, and occurrence, but it does determine

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6262-465: The final book of the poem, Homer writes, "He offended Athena and Hera—both goddesses." Athena and Hera are envious of Aphrodite because of a beauty pageant on Mount Olympus in which Paris chose Aphrodite to be the most beautiful goddess over both Hera and Athena. Wolfgang Kullmann further goes on to say, "Hera's and Athena's disappointment over the victory of Aphrodite in the Judgement of Paris determines

6363-523: The final syllable will be treated as long by position if the next word starts with a consonant; but if the next word starts with a vowel, the consonant will be taken as part of the next syllable and the final syllable of the word will be considered short, for example ἄξιός ἐστι ( áxiós esti ), syllabified as ak-si-o-ses-ti . The ancient prosodists divided lines of verse into ' feet ', each foot consisting usually of 3 or 4 syllables (but sometimes 2 or 5). These can be seen as roughly equivalent to bars in

6464-449: The final syllable. Catalectic lines tend to come at the end of a period or stanza: The process of anaclasis , the metathesis of a short and a long syllable, yields a second pattern called Anacreontic : Beyond these more common feet, a great amount of variation is possible within the Ionic meter because of anaclasis , catalexis , resolution (meter) and syncopation. This meter is used by

6565-408: The first writers to name and describe the gods' appearance and character. Mary Lefkowitz discusses the relevance of divine action in the Iliad , attempting to answer the question of whether divine intervention is a discrete occurrence (for its own sake) or if such godly behaviors are mere human character metaphors. The intellectual interest of Classic-era authors, such as Thucydides and Plato ,

6666-428: The first, a restriction not found with other vowel sequences such as io. That is, there is a distinction between oi, a bimoraic syllable, and io, which is two syllables. Most dialects of Japanese , including the standard, use morae, known in Japanese as haku ( 拍 ) or mōra ( モーラ ), rather than syllables, as the basis of the sound system. Writing Japanese in kana ( hiragana and katakana ) demonstrates

6767-428: The gates of Troy, where Apollo himself stops him. Patroclus kills Hector's brother Cebriones , is set upon by Apollo and Euphorbos , and is finally killed by Hector. Hector takes Achilles's armor from the fallen Patroclus. The Achaeans fight to retrieve Patroclus's body from the Trojans, who attempt to carry it back to Troy at Hector's command. Antilochus is sent to tell Achilles the news and asks him to help retrieve

6868-501: The goddess's wrist. Apollo faces Diomedes and warns him against warring with gods, which Diomedes ignores. Apollo sends Ares to defeat Diomedes. Many heroes and commanders join in, including Hector, and the gods supporting each side try to influence the battle. Emboldened by Athena, Diomedes wounds Ares and puts him out of action. Hector rallies the Trojans and prevents a rout. Diomedes and the Trojan Glaucus find common ground after

6969-547: The good old days. It begins as follows: Aristophanes also uses this metre for Socrates 's solemn invocation summoning the Clouds in Clouds (263-274), and in the Frogs (589-604) he uses it when the late poet Aeschylus is explaining his views about modern poetry. Anapaestic verse is always found in dimeters or tetrameters, each dimeter consisting of four feet. The most common type of foot

7070-487: The hands of Aiakos' great son, Achilleus. Here, Patroclus alludes to his fated death by Hector's hand and to Hector's fated death by Achilles's hand. Each accepts the outcome of his life, yet no one knows if the gods can alter fate. The first instance of this doubt occurs in Book 16. Seeing Patroclus about to kill Sarpedon, his mortal son, Zeus says: Ah me, that it is destined that the dearest of men, Sarpedon, must go down under

7171-399: The hands of Menoitios' son Patroclus. About his dilemma, Hera asks Zeus: Majesty, son of Kronos, what sort of thing have you spoken? Do you wish to bring back a man who is mortal, one long since doomed by his destiny, from ill-sounding death and release him? Do it, then; but not all the rest of us gods shall approve you. In deciding between losing a son or abiding fate, Zeus, King of

7272-403: The iambic trimeter, here are the opening lines of Aristophanes ' play Lysistrata . A short element is resolved in lines 2, 4, 6, and 7; Porson's Law is broken in lines 1, 7 and 8: Other meters are also used for the dialogues of comedies, especially when there is a change of pace or mood. One such meter is the iambic tetrameter. This metre is generally catalectic , that is, the last syllable

7373-422: The intervention of Odysseus, inspired by Athena , stops a rout . Odysseus confronts and beats Thersites , a common soldier who voices discontent about fighting Agamemnon's war. The Achaeans deploy in companies upon the Trojan plain. When news of the Achaean deployment reaches King Priam , the Trojans respond in a sortie upon the plain. The armies approach each other, but before they meet, Paris offers to end

7474-504: The ionic metre involves the use of choriambic feet | – u u – |, as in this choral song from Sophocles ' Oedipus Tyrannus (484-495). It starts with four choriambic dimeters, but then becomes Ionic (although some scholars analyse the whole ode as ionic). Aeolic verse mostly refers to the type of poems written by the two well-known poets of Lesbos , Sappho and Alcaeus , which was later imitated by Latin writers such as Horace . A development of Aeolic verse, but less regular and more varied,

7575-401: The kana for n ( ん ), the "geminate consonant" ( 促音 ) represented by the small tsu ( っ ), the "long sound" ( 長音 ) represented by the long vowel symbol ( ー ) or a single vowel which extends the sound of the previous mōra ( びょ「う」いん ) and the "diphthong" ( 二重母音 ) represented by the second vowel of two consecutive vowels ( ばあ「い」 ). This set also has the peculiarity that, (barring only

7676-561: The literary Trojan War of the Iliad , the Olympian gods, goddesses, and minor deities fight among themselves and participate in human warfare, often by interfering with humans to counter other gods. Unlike their portrayals in Greek religion, Homer's portrayal of gods suits his narrative purpose. The gods in traditional thought of 4th-century Athenians were not spoken of in terms familiar to the works of Homer. The Classical-era historian Herodotus says that Homer and Hesiod , his contemporary, were

7777-576: The lyric poets Alcman , Sappho and Alcaeus and also in some of the choral songs of certain tragedies and comedies. An example is the following from Euripides ' Bacchae 519-28. It is a choral song addressed to the stream Dirce , about the birth of the god Dionysus , whose mother Semele was struck by lightning. Like all choral songs in Athenian tragedy, it imitates the Doric α /ā/ in many words instead of η /ē/ (e.g. Δίρκα for Δίρκη 'Dirce'): A variation of

7878-489: The meter, but contributed to the melody, in that (judging from the Seikilos inscription and other fragments) syllables with an acute accent tended to be sung on a higher pitch, and those with a circumflex were sung on two notes, the first higher than the second. (See Ancient Greek accent for musical examples.) There are rules that determine the length of any given syllable. A syllable is said to be "long by nature" if it contains

7979-484: The middle of the 4th foot, as in lines 3 and 7. There is never a word-break exactly in the middle of the line, although pastoral poetry (such as that of Theocritus ) often makes a word-break between the 4th and 5th foot, known as a "bucolic caesura". The dactylic hexameter is also used for short epigrams, such as Simonides ' epigram commemorating the Spartans who died in the battle of Thermopylae of 480 BC. In this case it

8080-424: The morning, the fighting is fierce, and Agamemnon, Diomedes, and Odysseus are all wounded. Achilles sends Patroclus from his camp to inquire about the Achaean casualties, and while there, Patroclus is moved to pity by a speech by Nestor . Nestor asks Patroclus to beg Achilles to rejoin the fighting, or if he will not, to lead the army wearing Achilles's armor. The Trojans attack the Achaean wall on foot. Hector leads

8181-412: The motivating force into the conscious self. He points out that almost every action in the Iliad is directed, caused, or influenced by a god and that earlier translations show an astonishing lack of words suggesting thought, planning, or introspection. Those that do appear, he argues, are misinterpretations made by translators imposing a modern mentality on the characters, a form of reverse logic by which

8282-694: The mysterious origin of fate is a power beyond the gods. Fate implies the primeval, tripartite division of the world that Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades effected in deposing their father, Cronus , for its dominion. Zeus took the Air and the Sky, Poseidon the Waters, and Hades the Underworld , the land of the dead—yet they share dominion of the Earth. Despite the earthly powers of the Olympic gods, only

8383-449: The opening line of Euripides ' play The Bacchae : An exception to the brevis in longo rule is occasionally found in lyric poetry when lines sometimes form a continuous system without a pause between one line and the next, for example Aristophanes, Birds 333. When a single consonant comes between two vowels, such as in the word χθόνα ( khthóna ), the consonant is deemed to start the second syllable: χθό-να . A syllable ending in

8484-439: The opening speech of the play Oedipus Tyrannus , Sophocles treats the first syllable of τέκνα / tékna / as long in line 1, but as short in line 6. Different kinds of poetry use different patterns of long and short syllables, known as meters (UK: metres). For example, the epic poems of Homer were composed using the pattern | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – | (the so-called dactylic hexameter , where – represents

8585-474: The outcome of life—before killing him, Hector calls Patroclus a fool for cowardly avoidance of his fate, by attempting his defeat; Patroclus retorts: No, deadly destiny, with the son of Leto, has killed me, and of men it was Euphorbos; you are only my third slayer. And put away in your heart this other thing that I tell you. You yourself are not one who shall live long, but now already death and powerful destiny are standing beside you, to go down under

8686-496: The overmatched Trojan to fight Achilles. Poseidon cautiously speaks: But come, let us ourselves get him away from death, for fear the son of Kronos may be angered if now Achilleus kills this man. It is destined that he shall be the survivor, that the generation of Dardanos shall not die… Divinely aided, Aeneas escapes the wrath of Achilles and survives the Trojan War. Whether or not the gods can alter fate, they do abide by it, despite its countering their human allegiances; thus,

8787-429: The poem include kleos (glory), pride, fate and wrath. Despite being predominantly known for its tragic and serious themes, the poem also contains instances of comedy and laughter. The poem is frequently described as a masculine or heroic epic, especially compared with the Odyssey . It contains detailed descriptions of ancient war instruments and battle tactics, and fewer female characters. The Olympian gods also play

8888-453: The poems of Sappho and Alcaeus ; others were used for choral dances, such as the choruses of tragedies and the victory odes of Pindar . The basic unit of the Ionic meter is the minor Ionic foot, also called Ionic a minore or double iamb, which consists of two short and two long syllables. An Ionic line consists of two of these feet: Occasionally a line will be catalectic , that is, missing

8989-473: The sort found in Gilbertese are quite rare cross-linguistically, and as far as we know, Gilbertese is the only language in the world reported to have a ternary constraint on prosodic word size." In Hawaiian , both syllables and morae are important. Stress falls on the penultimate mora, though in words long enough to have two stresses, only the final stress is predictable. However, although a diphthong , such as oi, consists of two morae, stress may fall only on

9090-537: The terrible fighting, despite an omen that their charge will fail. The Achaeans are overwhelmed and routed, the wall's gate is broken, and Hector charges in. The Achaeans fall back to their ships. Poseidon pities the Achaeans and decides to disobey Zeus and help them. He rallies the Achaeans' spirits, and they begin to push the Trojans back. Poseidon's nephew Amphimachus is killed in the battle; Poseidon imbues Idomeneus with godly power. Many fall on both sides. The Trojan seer Polydamas urges Hector to fall back because of

9191-525: The three small kana for ya ( ゃ ), yu ( ゅ ), yo ( ょ ). These do not represent a mora by themselves and attach to other kana; all the rest of the graphemes represent a mōra on their own. Most dialects of Japanese are pitch accent languages, and these pitch accents are also based on morae. There is a unique set of mōra known as "special mora" ( 特殊拍 ) which cannot be pronounced by itself but still counts as one mora whenever present. These consist of "nasal sound" ( 撥音 ) represented by

9292-438: The treasure he took and give further wealth as compensation, but not Helen, and the offer is refused. Both sides agree to a day's truce to burn the dead. The Achaeans also build a wall and trench to protect their camp and ships. The next morning, Zeus prohibits the gods from interfering, and fighting begins anew. The Trojans prevail and force the Achaeans back to their wall. Hera and Athena are forbidden to help. Night falls before

9393-421: The trochaic tetrameter catalectic. According to Aristotle ( Poet. 1449a21) this was the original meter used in satyr plays. In the extant plays, it is more often used in comedy, although occasionally also in tragedy (e.g. Aeschylus ' Agamemnon 1649-73). The basic double foot or metron is | – u – x |. Here is an example from Aristophanes ' Clouds (607ff), where the leader of the chorus of Clouds addresses

9494-573: The war by fighting a duel with Menelaus , urged by Hector , his brother and hero of Troy . Here, the initial cause of the entire war is explained: Helen , wife of Menelaus, and the most beautiful woman in the world, is either through seduction or by force, taken by Paris from Menelaus's home in Sparta . Menelaus and Paris agree to duel; Helen will marry the victor. However, when Paris is beaten, Aphrodite rescues him and leads him to bed with Helen before Menelaus can kill him. The gods deliberate over whether

9595-433: The war should end here, but Hera convinces Zeus to wait for the utter destruction of Troy. Athena prompts the Trojan archer Pandarus to shoot Menelaus. Menelaus is wounded, and the truce is broken. Fighting breaks out, and many minor Trojans are killed. In the fighting, Diomedes kills many Trojans, including Pandarus, and defeats Aeneas . Aphrodite rescues him before he can be killed, but Diomedes attacks her and wounds

9696-508: The whole conduct of both goddesses in The Iliad and is the cause of their hatred for Paris, the Judge, and his town Troy." Hera and Athena then continue to support the Achaean forces throughout the poem because Paris is part of the Trojans, while Aphrodite aids Paris and the Trojans. The emotions between the goddesses often translate to actions they take in the mortal world. For example, in Book 3 of

9797-451: The whole couplet is repeated throughout the poem). The earliest Greek poetry, namely the poems ascribed to Homer and Hesiod , is written in dactylic hexameters , of which the basic scheme is as follows: In this meter any of the pairs of short syllables (u u) can be replaced by a long syllable (–), although this is rare in the fifth foot. The opening lines of Homer's epic poem the Iliad are scanned as follows: In order to accommodate

9898-551: The word kartṛ ( कर्तृ ), meaning 'agent' or 'doer', does not contain simply two syllabic units, but contains rather, in order, a dīrgha / guru foot and a laghu foot. The reason is that the conjoined consonants rt render the normally light ka syllable heavy. Iliad On the Greek side: On the Trojan side: The Iliad ( / ˈ ɪ l i ə d / ; Ancient Greek : Ἰλιάς , romanized :  Iliás , [iː.li.ás] ; lit.   ' [a poem] about Ilion (Troy) ' )

9999-405: The words to the meter, Homer often varies them. Thus in the above extract, the final two vowels of Πηληϊάδεω are merged into one by synizesis , the first vowel of ὀλομένην "destructive" is lengthened to make οὐλομένην , the name "Achilles" is sometimes pronounced with a double and sometimes with a single "l" Ἀχιλλεύς, Ἀχιλῆος , and so on. He also uses the past tense of verbs sometimes with

10100-436: Was limited to their utility as "a way of talking about human life rather than a description or a truth", because, if the gods remain religious figures, rather than human metaphors, their "existence"—without the foundation of either dogma or a bible of faiths—then allowed Greek culture the intellectual breadth and freedom to conjure gods fitting any religious function they required as a people. Psychologist Julian Jaynes uses

10201-536: Was not the creation of an inspired teacher. Rather, the religion arose out of the diverse beliefs of the Greek people. These beliefs coincide to the thoughts about the gods in polytheistic Greek religion. Adkins and Pollard agree with this by saying, "The early Greeks personalized every aspect of their world, natural and cultural, and their experiences in it. The earth, the sea, the mountains, the rivers, custom-law (themis), and one's share in society and its goods were all seen in personal as well as naturalistic terms." As

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