prefixed by a four-syllable element (−∪∪− | or ×−∪− |) or followed by a
pentasyllabic one (| ×−∪−−). I have given reasons for thinking that these
patterns were not borrowed from Greek models but inherited from the time
when the Phrygians’ Bronze Age ancestors lived near those of the Greeks.^72
The remaining branch of Graeco-Aryan is Armenian. The metres of
classical Armenian poetry are derived from Greek. But the fragments of older,
pagan poetry are versified on a different, syllable-counting principle. As in
Iranian, syllabic quantities are no longer regarded. The poem on the birth of
Vahagn begins with four seven-syllable lines; then, after two of nine syllables,
there are two more of seven and two more of nine. Other fragments show
hepta- and octosyllables, and sequences of 7 | 6 and 6 | 9 verses.^73 We must
reckon with the possibility that these metres developed under the Iranian
influence to which Armenian culture had long been subject. But they may
equally represent a native tradition.
Other Indo-European metreWe have now reconstructed the outlines of a Graeco-Aryan metrical system,
characterized by quantitative prosody and lines of determinate length. There
were shorter lines of seven or eight syllables, ending in the cadences... ∪−
− || or... ∪−∪− ||, and longer lines made by prefixing these with a four- or
five-syllable element, ×∪––×∪–– | or ×∪––∪∪––× |. Simple strophes were built,
usually from three or four similar lines, but sometimes by alternating lines
of different length. This summary account, it should be stressed, does not
necessarily encapsulate the whole of Graeco-Aryan metrics, only those details
that we are able to reconstruct from the extant evidence.
The next step is to inquire how much of this picture, if any, can be taken
back to Level 2 (MIE) or Level 1 (PIE). To what extent can the same features
be recognized, firstly in the other ancient European poetic traditions and
secondly in the Anatolian?
Taking the European traditions in chronological order of attestation, we
begin with the Italic evidence, which consists primarily of the Latin Saturnian
metre and other odds and ends of early Latin verse; we ignore, of course, the
classical Latin metres borrowed from Greek.^74
The basic scheme of the Saturnian may be represented as
(^72) ‘Phrygian Metre’,Kadmos 42 (2003), 77–86.
(^73) See L. H. Gray, Revue des Études Arméniennes 6 (1926), 160 f., 164–7.
(^74) Cf. T. Cole, ‘The Saturnian Verse’,Yale Classical Studies 21 (1969), 3–73; West (1973),
175–9; Watkins (1995), 126–34; P. M. Freeman, ‘Saturnian Verse and Early Latin Poetics’,
JIES 26 (1998), 61–90.
- Poet and Poesy 51