Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry for Renaissance poets. Horace's Sapphic stanza comprised three "lesser sapphics" and an "adonic": In Polish there was no quantitative verse, as phonemic quantity itself was extinct. Nor was there accentual-syllabic versification, save some attempts by Jan Kochanowski. But Polish syllabic lines were available. A syllabic hendecasyllable 11(5+6) took the place of the quantitative lesser sapphic; likewise with the adonic. The hendecasyllable (with caesura after the fifth syllable) is very common in Polish poetry, and the pentasyllable is so typical for Polish verse that Karol Wiktor Zawodziński gave it the name of "polonik". Pentasyllables occur in Polish poetry either in a
Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry stanza 11/11/11/5/11/11/11/3 (rhymed ABABCCAB), as was employed in the "W Porta Pia" ("In Porta Pia"). Another form developed by Konopnicka is the five-line strophe including decasyllabic lines and masculine rhymes: 10m/5f/10m/10m/5f, used in "Którzy idziemy" ("We that are going"). Adam Asnyk wrote an epigram (Italian strambotto) "Ironia" ("Irony") in the form of ottava rima with the last line being a pentasyllable. He also often combined octosyllables with a pentasyllable, making a quasi-Sapphic stanza of 8/8/8/5. He was not the first poet to use such a stanza, being preceded by Franciszek Dionizy Kniaźnin and by the Romantic poet Kazimierz Brodziński. There