Page:Goethe and Schiller's Xenions (IA goetheschillersx00goetiala).pdf/31



The form of the Xenions is, like their Roman prototype, the elegiac distich.

The elegiac distich has rarely, if ever, been used in English poetry, although there is much classical beauty in its rhythm. It consists of alternate dactylic hexameters and pentameters which in ancient Greece were recited to the accompaniment of the flute, and went by the name of "elegies," the etymology of which has nothing to do (as has been assumed) with lamentations, but probably means flute-songs.

A meter in Greek prosody is comparable to the musical bar, while a foot is a rhythmic figure. Some meters, such as the iambic and trochaic, consist of two feet, but he dactylic meters consist of one foot only. Accordingly a) indicates that, like a finger, it consists of one long and two short members.]