Metrics and Prose Rhythm

Abstract

The chapter deals with Byzantine metrics and prose rhythm. Byzantine poets used various meters; from the seventh century onward, primarily the Byzantine dodecasyllable, i.e., a meter with a stable number of (12) syllables, which is based on the iambic trimeter of Antiquity and Late Antiquity and is read after the word accent. Various authors (such as Ioannes Geometres, Theodoros Prodromos, and Theodoros Metochites) also wrote hexameters (not only for special occasions), but this meter was less frequently used because for the Byzantine audience the distinction between short and long syllables was lost. The fifteen-syllable verse (or political verse) represents an independent Byzantine development, which, as a combination of hemistichs of eight and seven syllables, may have its origin in early hymnography. Rhythm is part of verse and prose. The prose rhythm, an elementary element of rhetoric, describes the tendency in Greek prose to end clauses in a rhythmically patterned way. The position most suitable for rhythmical regulation of a prose text is at the end of a clause or a period, as also pointed out by Byzantine theoreticians. The so-called Meyer’s law (after Wilhelm Meyer from Speyer) describes the system of placing at least two unstressed syllables between the last two accents of a clause. The character of Byzantine cadences has been very much under debate, and recently, editors have begun to take into account the punctuation practice in manuscripts in order to get a better view of the relationship between punctuation and rhythm.