# So, tell me about dactylic pentameter

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-about-dactylic-pentameter/200451>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 9, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-about-dactylic-pentameter/200451 "2003-09-09T03:51:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Blackeyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@Blackeyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackeyes)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-about-dactylic-pentameter/200451/1 "2003-09-09T03:51:43Z")

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I’d give myself 7-5 odds in favor of me correctly spelling that phrase.

Can anyone tell me how it goes, for example, how many beats per line and how many lines per verse and that kind of thing?

Also, any examples of that in use other than something written by Homer would be much needed.

Thankee,

-Scur the Black.  
Considrin’ a new screen name along those lines.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-about-dactylic-pentameter/200451/2 "2003-09-09T04:08:12Z")

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DA-da-da DA-da-da DA-da-da DA-da-da DA(-da-da).

In classical Greek and Latin meter, a line of dactylic hexameter alternating with a line of dactylic pentameter was called the “elegiac couplet.” Here’s an example from Ovid:

_Arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam  
Edere, materia conveniente modis.  
Par erat inferior versus: risisse Cupido  
Dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem._

English version by Dryden:

For mighty wars I thought to tune my lute,  
And make my measures to my subject suit.  
Six feet for ev’ry verse the muse design’d,  
But Cupid laughing, when he saw my mind,  
From ev’ry second verse a foot purloin’d.

These lines actually talk about the meter they’re written in! (But Dryden’s version is iambic pentameter, pay no attention to it, I just cited it for meaning.)

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**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-about-dactylic-pentameter/200451/3 "2003-09-09T04:23:40Z")

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I don’t know anything about how it actually works, but here’s a line I just made up to illustrate it:

_Once in a century somebody changes their consciousness._

To me, it sounds more natural if you leave off the last two syllables. I take it from **Jomo Mojo** ’s post that that’s okay?

_Once in a century somebody changes the world._

I’m guessing this is how an “elegiac couplet” would sound…

_Humans have struggled with conflict and tyranny, trusting the promise that  
Once in a century, somebody changes the world._

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**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-about-dactylic-pentameter/200451/4 "2003-09-09T04:29:14Z")

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Poetry is one of my least favorite subjects, but I can tell you a few things before a real poetry expert shows up.

1. You spelled it correctly.

2. Dactyl is from the Greek for “finger,” thus a dactylic foot (odd combination, isn’t it?), like your finger, has three parts, with an emphasis on the first: DAH-da-da.

3. Therefore dactyllic pentameter would be poetry in which each line was fifteen syllables, five dactyls:

Dah-da-da, dah-da-da, dah-da-da, dah-da-da, dah-da-da.

Not being a fan of poetry, I can’t think of any works in dactylic pentameter.

There is a form called the double dactyl which has an interestingly strict format:

Two verses of four lines, each line is two dactyls.  
The last lines of each verse rhyme.  
The first line has to be a nonsense term, like higgledy-piggledy.  
The second line has to be the name of the subject of the verse.  
One line has to be to be a single word.

For instance:

Higgeldy, piggeldy,  
Benjamin Harrison  
23rd president  
Was, and as such,

Served between Clevelands and,  
Save for this trivial  
Idiosyncracy,  
Didn’t do much.

A google on “double dactyl” will provide plenty of examples.