In later Sanskrit both padam and pa ̄dah
̇
‘foot’ are used to mean ‘verse’. The
usage seems to go back to Indo-Iranian times, as we find a corresponding use
ofpada or paδa in the Avesta. But is it mere coincidence that in Greek too
‘foot’,πο3, is the traditional name for the smallest unit of analysis apart
from the syllable? Scholars have hesitated to make the connection, because
there seemed to be a divergence of meaning: the Indian term refers to a whole
verse, the Greek one to a subdivision of a verse, usually of only two or three
syllables. But while this use of πο3 is standard from Aristoxenus on, in the
earliest extant example of the word in a metrical sense, at Aristophanes,
Frogs 1323, it appears to refer to a whole glyconic verse, the Greek cognate of
the Vedic eight-syllable pa ̄da. The only form of subdivision of verses into
constituent units attested for the fifth century is into ‘measures’,μτρα. Thus
Herodotus uses the adjectives ‘six-measure’ and ‘three-measure’ in reference
to the standard epic and iambic verses. ‘Measure’, as we have seen above, also
corresponds to a Vedic concept of versification, and the Greek noun comes
from the same root as the Vedic verb.
If the earliest use of ‘foot’ was for a colon or verse of up to twelve syllables,
what was the imagery? Indian scholars explained it from a conception of the
stanza as a four-footed creature. But this does not suit the three-line stanza
very well. If we look for something that may stand equally well on three feet
or four, the best examples are the products of the carpenter, the three-
or four-legged stool or table. The ordinary Greek word for table, τρα ́ πεζα,
means ‘four-footer’, and comedians could make jokes about four-footed
tripods and three-footed τρα ́ πεζαι.^94 This explanation of ‘foot’ as a metrical
term is speculative, but it would fit very neatly with the idea of the poet as a
carpenter.
Once invented, the term was open to wider interpretation. Feet are good
for standing on, but also for walking on, and it was easy to envisage the verse
as a step in the forward progress of the poem or song. Hence besides pa ̄dah
andπο3 we have in Vedic padám and in Greek βα ́ σι. At the completion of a ̇
verse or stanza one might be thought of as making a turn, and we can find
some terminology that accords with this. In RV 8. 76. 12, quoted above,
the poem was described as having nine corners or turnings, because of its
nine-line structures. Another Sanskrit word for a metrical clausula, or a line
containing a fixed number of syllables, was vr
̇
ttam, ‘turn’. From the same
root comes Latin uersus, ‘verse’, clearly a traditional term, and Greek has a
semantic equivalent in στροφ , ‘strophe’, literally ‘turning’.
(^94) Epicharmus fr. 147, Aristophanes fr. 545 Kassel–Austin.
60 1. Poet and Poesy