Brevis in longo
In Ancient Greek and Latin metre, brevis in longo is a short syllable at the end of a line that is counted as long. The term is short for brevis in longo, meaning "a short in place of a long ." Although the phenomenon itself has been known since ancient times, the phrase is said to have been invented by the classical scholar Paul Maas.
Brevis in longo is possible in various classical metres that require a long syllable at the end of a line, including dactylic hexameters and iambic trimeters. However, it does not seem to be found in every metre. For example, in Greek, in ionic metres ending in u u – –, there do not seem to be any examples.
A similar phenomenon is found in other languages whose poetic metres are quantitative, such as Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit.
Brevis in longo is associated with catalexis, in that when a metre ending u – loses its final syllable, the former short penultimate element becomes long since it is now final.
Brevis in longo is distinct from the metrical element anceps, which is a position in a line which can be filled by either a long or a short syllable. These two phenomena are often confused but there are differences between the two. For example, an anceps will be considered short or long in accordance with its natural length. A brevis in longo, on the other hand, will always be considered long, even though its natural quantity is short: the pause at the end of the line adds weight enough for even a short syllable to be counted as long.
In Ancient Greek
Brevis in longo elements are quite common in Homer, occurring every four or five verses. An example is line 2 of the Iliad:The phenomenon can also occur at the end of iambic lines, for example, the opening of Euripides' play the Bacchae:
The brevis in longo can thus be found both in a weak position, i.e. in a pendant ending, and in a strong one, i.e. in a blunt ending. There has been some discussion among scholars over whether these two types should be classified separately.
Ancient writers on Latin and Greek metre noted that it was logical for a short syllable at the end of a line to be taken as long, since the pause helped to make up the length. Brevis in longo therefore only exists when there is a pause. When a line with a rhythm such as | – u u – u u – u u – u u | is part of a continuous song, there is no pause at the end of the line and the final syllable remains short.
Another question discussed by scholars is whether a word ending in a short vowel + one consonant, such as πολλάκις "often", at the end of a line should be considered as ending in a short or long syllable. In the view of Martin West "only a syllable ending in a short open vowel should be counted as short", on the grounds that in some poets the treatment of these is different from words ending in a short vowel. For example, Pindar has a marked tendency to avoid placing a word ending in a short vowel before a pause, although words like πολλάκις "often" are allowed.
Another study, by the American scholars Devine and Stephens, similarly shows that a word ending in a short vowel such as χθόνα "land" at the end of an iambic trimeter or dactylic pentameter is less common than one ending in a short vowel + consonant, and that the latter in turn is less common than one ending in a long vowel. The Roman poet Ovid also avoided a short-vowel brevis in longo at the end of a dactylic pentameter, which suggests that an ending of vowel + consonant was felt to be heavier than vowel alone.
When a metre with a short penultimate element is made catalectic, the short element is affected by the brevis in longo phenomenon, and becomes long. An example in Ancient Greek is the iambic tetrameter, which in normal and catalectic form is as follows:
The deletion of the final element causes the previously short penultimate to become long, and at the same time the anceps at the beginning of the metron becomes definitely short.
In Latin
Brevis in longo is less common in Virgil than in Homer, but is still found:It can also be found in iambics, as in following lines from Catullus which show a series of short-vowel brevis in longo endings in an iambic setting:
Catullus and Tibullus also occasionally allow a short-vowel brevis in longo at the end of a pentameter:
However, in Ovid, although words like erit ending with short vowel + consonant are very common at the end of a pentameter, he carefully avoids words like fore which end with a short vowel.
Brevis in longo is also found in the rhythmic sentence-endings favoured by orators known as :, a spondaic ending such as confitērī "to confess" sounded stronger than a trochaic one such as timēre "to fear": "I am well aware that a short syllable can stand for a long one in final position, because some of the silence which follows seems to be added to it; but when I consult my ears it seems to make a big difference whether the last syllable is truly long, or merely a short standing for a long."
In Arabic
In classical Arabic, when a verse ends in an open vowel, the vowel is always lengthened in performance. If the vowel is -a, it is always written with alif, like any long -a; if it is -i or -u it is usually omitted in writing, but still pronounced long. Thus a normally short vowel can stand in a long position in metres such as the ṭawīl, where the repeating pattern of the feet leads one to expect a long syllable at the end:Exactly as with Greek, the brevis in longo principle causes a short penultimate to become long when a line is made catalectic. Thus the most commonly used Arabic metre, the ṭawīl, has normal and catalectic forms as follows:
In Persian
In classical Persian, just as in Latin and Greek, poetic metres are quantitative, except that in addition to long and short syllables, Persian also has "overlong" syllables which are equivalent in length to long + short.The final syllable of any Persian line or hemistich is considered to be long. In this position, the difference between short, long, and overlong syllables is neutralised, and any of the three may be placed here. It is sometimes said that a final short vowel is lengthened in final position, but Thiesen argues that in some cases at least a short vowel is retained, since in Hafez a final -e is almost never lengthened in normal positions, but is readily used at the end of a verse. The pronunciation of such endings by Persian speakers is also short.
The lengthening of a penultimate short syllable when a line is made catalectic is found in Persian too; for example, if a metre in choriambic rhythm is shortened, the resulting ending is a cretic :