A
lyric metre named after the
Greek poet
Hipponax.
The metre is made up of a pair of intermittant catalectic trochaic dimeter and catalectic iambic trimeter in the following scheme:
-^-^/-^-
^-^-/^:-^-/^--
(in the catalectic iambic trimeter: the first iambus (^-) of the first two metra can be replaced with a spondee.
The last syllable of the last feet can be replaced with a short one)
Example (in Latin):
- ^ - ^ / - ^^
Non ebur nequ(e) aureum
^- ^ -/^ : - ^ -/ ^ - ^
mea renidet : in domo lacunar,
(Hor. Od. II, XVIII 1-3)
* - long or stressed syllable; ^ short or unstressed syllable; : caesura.