One of the four most important Classic
lyric one line
metres (the others being the
asclepiad metres, the
glyconic metre and the
hendecasyllabic metre). While the
dactylic poetry (
epic,
boucolic etc.) and the
iambic and
trochaic poetry (
dramatic etc.) use feet arranged by certain orders and quantities, the lyric metres pertain to complete lines. A stanza doesn't need to be constituted of a single metric element (except for the
Alcaic and the
Sapphic Stanzas), but could interchange them and even occasionally add "feet-metre" lines and couplets (particularly the '
Elegiac Couplet'). The normal
lyric stanza has four lines.
The pherecratic is identical to the glyconic metre minus the last short syllable. It is found only in combination with other lines.
The pattern is therefore:
- - - ^ ^ - -
* - long or stressed syllable; ^ short or unstressed syllable.
Example (in Latin):
- - - ^ ^ - -
suspendisse potenti
(Horatius, Od. I, 5, 11)