Aeolic Verse - Choral Aeolics

Choral Aeolics

The versification of Pindar and Bacchylides' 5th century BC choral poetry can largely be divided into dactylo-epitrite and "aeolic" types of composition. This later style of "aeolic" verse shows fundamental similarities to, but also several important differences from, the practice of the Aeolic poets. In common with Sappho and Alcaeus, in the aeolic odes of Pindar and Bacchylides:

• Two or more consecutive anceps syllables may occur at the beginning or middle of a verse (see e.g. Pindar, Nemean 4).
• There are many metrical sequences formed by prolongation, including both double-short (as in the dactylic expansion discussed above) and single-short units together (mostly double-short before single-short, e.g. ¯˘˘¯˘¯, but also the reverse, e.g. ¯˘¯˘˘¯, which is uncharacteristic of Sappho and Alcaeus).

These connections justify the name "Aeolic" and clearly distinguish the mode from dactylo-epitrite (which does not use consecutive anceps syllables, and which combines double-short and single-short in a single verse, but not in a single metrical group). But there are several important innovations in the "aeolic" practice of Pindar and Bacchylides:

• Verses are no longer isosyllabic (e.g., Pindar may use ˘˘ in place of ¯ by resolution).
• Anceps syllables are mostly realized the same way in a given location (and the aeolic base is more limited in its possible realizations).
• Verse forms and sequences are more varied, so that description with reference to the earlier practice must speak of expansions, shortenings, acephalic verses, cholosis, etc.

The tragic poets of Classical Athens continued the use of Aeolic verse (and dactylo-epitrite, with the addition of other types) for their choral odes, with additional metrical freedoms and innovations. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides each went his own way in developing Aeolics.