Sapphics

A Greek and Latin metre, so named from Sappho, the inventor. Horace always writes this metre in four-line stanzas, the last being an Adonʹic. There must be a cæsura at the fifth foot of each of the first three lines, which runs thus:—

The Adonic is—

The first and third stanzas of the famous Ode of Horace (i. 22) may be translated thus, preserving the metre:—

He of sound life, who neʹer with sinners wendeth,

Needs no Maurish bow, such as malice bendeth,

Nor with poisoned darts life from harm defendeth,

Fuscus believe me.

Once I, unarmed, was in a forest roaming,

Singing love lays, when iʹ the secret gloaming

Rushed a huge wolf, which, though in fury foaming,

Did not aggrieve me.

E.C.B.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.