Asclepiad (poetry)

An Asclepiad is a line of poetry following a particular metrical pattern. The form is attributed to Asclepiades of Samos and is one of the Aeolic metres.

As with other Aeolic metrical lines, the asclepiad is built around a choriamb. The Asclepiad may be described as a glyconic that has been expanded with one (Lesser Asclepiad) or two (Greater Asclepiad) further choriambs. The pattern (using "-" for a long syllable, "u" for a short and "x" for an "anceps" or free syllable) is:

x x - u u -  - u u -  u - (Lesser Asclepiad) x x - u u -  - u u -  - u u -  u - (Greater Asclepiad)

West (1982) designates the Asclepiad as a "choriambically expanded glyconic" with the notation glc (lesser) or gl2c (greater).

Asclepiads were used in Latin by Horace in three of his odes: 1.11, 1.18, 4.10, as well as by Catullus in Poem 30, and Seneca. Examples in English verse include parts of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia ("Here wrong's name is unheard, slander a monster is; / Keep thy sprite from abuse, here no abuse doth haunt. / What man grafts in a tree dissimulation?") and W. H. Auden's "In Due Season" ("Springtime, Summer and Fall: days to behold a world").