| Title: | Adonic |
| Original Title: | Adonique ou Adonien |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 1 (1751), p. 142 |
| Author: | Edme-François Mallet (biography) |
| Translator: | Robert Levine |
| Subject terms: |
Poetry
|
| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
| Rights/Permissions: |
This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction. |
| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.476 |
| Citation (MLA): | Mallet, Edme-François. "Adonic." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Robert Levine. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2005. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.476>. Trans. of "Adonique ou Adonien," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 1. Paris, 1751. |
| Citation (Chicago): | Mallet, Edme-François. "Adonic." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Robert Levine. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.476 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Adonique ou Adonien," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 1:142 (Paris, 1751). |
Adonic, a kind of very short verse, used in Greek and Latin poetry. It consists of only two feet, the first of which is a dactyl, and the second a spondee or a trochee, as in rara juventus .
Its name may come from Adonis, beloved of Venus, because this kind of verse was often used in laments or mournful remembrances celebrated in honor of Adonis. See Adonies or Adoniennes . Normally it is placed at the end of each stanza of Sapphic verse, as in this one:
Scandit aratas vitiosa naves Cura, nec turmas equitum relinquit, Ocyor cervis et agente nimbos Ocyor euro . (Horace) "Corrupting care climbs aboard the bronze-clad ship,/ and never falls behind the troops of horses,/ swifter than deer, swifter than easterly winds/ that drive on the clouds." Horace, Odes, Bk. II, Ode XVI, trans. A. S. Kline (2003), available online at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceOdesBkII.htm.
Aristophanes in his comedies also mixed it with anapestic verses. See Anapeste and Sapphic .