Paeon (prosody)

This article is about the metrical foot. For other uses, see paean (disambiguation).

In prosody a paeon (or paean) is a metrical foot used in both poetry and prose. It consists of four syllables, with one of the syllables being long and the other three short.[1] Paeons were often used in the traditional Greek hymn to Apollo called paeans. Its use in English poetry is rare.[2] Depending on the position of the long syllable, the four paeons are called a first, second, third, or fourth paeon.[3]

The cretic or amphimacer metrical foot, with three syllables, the first and last of which are long and the second short, is sometimes also called a paeon diagyios.[4]

  1. ^ Free Dictionary
  2. ^ Strachan, p. 184.
  3. ^ The Roman rhetorician Quintilian, only considered the first and fourth forms to be paeons, while acknowledging that some include all four, Institutio Oratoria 9.5.96.
  4. ^ Squire, pp. 142, 384.