Dactylic hexameter

Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter used in Ancient Greek epic and didactic poetry^[1]^: 19 as well as in epic, didactic, satirical, and pastoral Latin poetry^[2]^: 90. Its name is derived from Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos, "finger") and ἕξ (héx, "six").

Dactylic hexameter consists of six feet. The first five feet contain either two long syllables, a spondee (– –), or a long syllable followed by two short syllables, a dactyl (–ᴗᴗ). However, the last foot contains either a spondee or a long syllable followed by one short syllable, a trochee(– ᴗ)^[3]^: 120^[1]^: 19. The six feet and their variation is symbolically represented below:

1	\|	2	\|	3	\|	4	\|	5	\|	6
– ᴗ ᴗ	\|	– ᴗ ᴗ	\|	– ᴗ ᴗ	\|	– ᴗ ᴗ	\|	– ᴗ ᴗ	\|	– x

The hexameter is traditionally associated with classical epic poetry in both Greek^[4]^: 17^[1]^: 43 and Latin. Consequently, it has been considered to be the grand style of Western classical poetry. Examples of epics in hexameter are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey^[1]^: 19, Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica, Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lucan's Pharsalia, Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica, and Statius's Thebaid.

However, this meter had a wide use outside of epic. Greek works in dactylic hexameter include Hesiod's didactic Works and Days and Theogony^[1]^: 19, some of Theocritus's Idylls, and Callimachus's hymns. In Latin famous works include Lucretius's philosophical De rerum natura, Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, book 10 of Columella's manual on agriculture, as well as satirical works of Lucilius, Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. Later the hexameter continued to be used in Christian times, for example in the Carmen paschale of the 5th-century Irish poet Sedulius and Bernard of Cluny's 12th-century satire De contemptu mundi among many others^{[citation needed]}.

Hexameters also form part of elegiac poetry in both languages, the elegiac couplet being a dactylic hexameter line paired with a dactylic pentameter line^[4]^: 45^[2]^: 104. This form of verse was used for love poetry by Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, for Ovid's letters from exile, and for many of the epigrams of Martial^{[citation needed]}.

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