Ionic metre

The ionic (or Ionic) is a four-syllable metrical unit (metron) of light-light-heavy-heavy (^{‿ ‿} — —) that occurs in ancient Greek and Latin poetry. Like the choriamb, in Greek quantitative verse the ionic never appears in passages meant to be spoken rather than sung. "Ionics" may refer inclusively to poetry composed of the various metrical units of the same total quantitative length (six morae) that may be used in combination with ionics proper: ionics, choriambs, and anaclasts. Equivalent forms exist in English poetry.

Pure examples of Ionic metrical structures occur in verse by Alcman (frg. 46 PMG = 34 D), Sappho (frg. 134-135 LP), Alcaeus (frg. 10B LP), Anacreon, and the Greek dramatists, including the first choral song of Aeschylus' Persians and in Euripides' Bacchae. Like dochmiacs, the ionic meter is characteristically experienced as expressing excitability. The form has been linked tentatively with the worship of Cybele and Dionysus.

An example of pure ionics in Latin poetry is found as a "metrical experiment" in the Odes of Horace, Book 3, poem 12, which draws on Archilochus and Sappho for its content and utilizes a metrical line that appears in a fragment of Alcaeus. The Horace poem begins as follows:

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