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Concept
Spondee
Summary
A spondee (Latin: spondeus) is a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables, as determined by syllable weight in classical meters, or two stressed syllables in modern meters. The word comes from the Greek σπονδή, spondḗ, 'libation'.
Sometimes libations were accompanied by hymns in spondaic rhythm, as in the following hymn by the Greek poet Terpander (7th century BC), which consists of 20 long syllables:
Ζεῦ πάντων ἀρχά,
πάντων ἀγήτωρ,
Ζεῦ, σοὶ σπένδω
ταύτᾱν ὕμνων ἀρχάν.
"Zeus, Beginning of all things,
Leader of all things,
Zeus, I make a libation to Thee
this beginning of (my) hymns."
However, in most Greek and Latin poetry, the spondee typically does not provide the basis for a metrical line in poetry. Instead, spondees are found as irregular feet in meter based on another type of foot.
For example, the epics of Homer and Virgil are written in dactylic hexameter. This term suggests a line of six dactyls, but a spondee can be substituted in most positions. The first line of Virgil's Aeneid has the pattern dactyl-dactyl-spondee-spondee-dactyl-spondee:
Ārmă vĭ/rūmquĕ că/nō, Trō/iaē quī / prīmŭs ăb / ōrīs
"I sing of arms and of the man, who first from the shores of Troy..."
Most of Virgil's lines, like the above, are a mixture of dactyls and spondees. However, sometimes he will begin a line with three or four spondees for special effect, such as the following, which describes how Aeneas and his companion made their way slowly down a dark passage into the Underworld. In this line all the feet are spondaic except the fifth:
ībant / obscū/rī sō/lā sub/ nocte per / umbram
"They began moving in the darkness beneath the lonely night through the shadow"
Spondees can also add solemnity to a curse, as in the following lines where Dido, Queen of Carthage, curses Aeneas after he has abandoned her. The first line begins with three spondees, the second with four:
Sōl, quī / terrā/rum flam/mīs ope/r(a) omnia / lūstrās,
tūqu(e) hā/r(um) inter/pres cū/rār(um) et / cōnscia / Iūnō,...
Official source
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