Sapphic stanza Sapphic stanza The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form spanning four lines (originally three: in the poetry of Sappho and Alcaeus, there is no line-end before the final Adonean). The form is two hendecasyllabic verses, and a third verse beginning the same way and continuing with five additional syllables (given as the stanza's fourth verse in ancient and modern editions, and known as the Adonic or adonean line). Using "-" for a long syllable, "u" for a short and "x" for an "anceps" (or free syllable), and displaying the Adonic as a fourth line: While Sappho
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