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In all kinds of iambic verse the old Romans freely introduced spondees where the Greeks used iambi; so in hexameters spondees for dactyls. Cf. Hor. Ep. ad Pis. 254 et seq. The original meaning would thus be 'give here', and in this sense the word is often used. See Lex. Dare is commonly put for dicere, as accipere is for audire. QUI: 'how'. TANTAM: = οτσαυτην ουσαν.
It did not seem fit to us that such a one as he should trouble his head about spondees and dactyls, or care to know who signed the Magna Charta. When he said in open class that King Alfred was the man, we little boys all felt that very likely it was so, and that perhaps Jim knew more about it than the man who wrote the book.
Along came my poet, hurrying, hatted, haired, emitting dactyls, spondees and dactylis. I seized him. I am on an assignment to find out the Voice of the city. You see, it's a special order. Ordinarily a symposium comprising the views of Henry Clews, John L. Sullivan, Edwin Markham, May Irwin and Charles Schwab would be about all. But this is a different matter.
And in the best steps of all, which it has in common with the hornpipe, such as the quick "heel and toe," "the sailor's fling," and the "double shuffle," the foot strikes the ground for every single note of the instrument. All good dancing is beautiful. Or skating to sliding: Or English verse to dactyls in English: Or painting to daubing: Or preserved strawberries to strawberry jam.
Students of poetry may note that seven lines have the exact hexameter ending, if scanned accentually, as voce proclamant; Deus sabbaoth, etc. Seven have two dactyls, as laudabilis numerus, laudat exercitus; one ends with spondees, apostolorum chorus. The other six lines have a less regular ending.
Adherents of musical theories in the interpretation of verse may prefer to speak of "duple time" instead of iambic-trochaic metres, and of "triple" time for anapests and dactyls.
It is well to note particularly Boito's metrical device. He seemingly counted much on the effect of incessantly reiterated dactyls. Not only do his Cherubim adhere to the form without deviation, but Helen and Pantalis use it also in the scene imitated from Goethe's Classical Walpurgis Night, use it for an especial purpose, as we shall see presently.
Poetical language is the key to the ideal world of poetry, poetic measure the key to poetical feeling; for the man, to whom the eloquent epithet is dumb and the living image is dead, and in whom the times of dactyls and iambuses awaken no inward echo, Homer and Sophocles have composed in vain. Let it not be said that poetical and rhythmical feeling comes spontaneously.
A man may be a poet without measuring spondees and dactyls like the ancients, or clashing the ends of lines into rhyme like the moderns, as one may be an architect though unable to labour like a stone-mason Dost think Palladio or Vitruvius ever carried a hod?" "In that case, there should be two authors to each poem one to think and plan, another to execute."
And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. Boito treats the interview in what he calls a Dramatic Interlude, which gives way to the third movement, a Vocal Scherzo, starting off with a chorus of Cherubim, who sing in fugacious thirds and droning dactyls:
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