AG: Well, “The wild winds weep” (in William Blake’s “Mad Song”) is epitritus primus; “And the night is a-cold” is anapestic. Short short long short short (long), or light light heavy, light light heavy. Right? “And the night is a-cold” – duh-duh-dah, duh-duh-dah. That’s the anapest. That’s the fourth down among the three-syllable meters. Anapest. An-a-PEST, rather. “And the night is a-cold”.
“Come hither, Sleep”, epitritus tertius. “And my griefs infold – “.. duh-duh-dah-duh-dah. So that’s the anapest. “And the night is a-cold” “And my griefs infold.” But it’s a mixed anapest – “and my GRIEFS” “in-FOLD” is anapest and iamb. “And my griefs” is anapest, “infold” could be iambic.
Student: Can you have rests?
AG: Yeah.
Student: Like, can you count rests in that scheme?
AG: “Come hither … Sleep.” “Come hither” – duh-dah. “Come hither (to) sleep.” “Come hither, Sleep.” Duh-dah-dah. But you wouldn’t count the rest, no.
Student: Ah-hah.
Student: Could you consider the comma an unaccented syllable or is it….
AG: They don’t generally count it as such. That comma or that rest is called a caesura. Ever hear of that?
Student: That’s … Allen….
AG: A caesura is the center (or) that part of the line where you rest before you go on. In other words, there’s a little natural hesitation within the line marked by a comma or just naturally like “They make mad the roaring winds.” So, “They make mad” … “the roaring winds” and the caesura would be between “mad” and “the”. Got it? But you don’t count a caesura as far as the analytic count but you sure hear it.
Student: Uh-huh.
AG: And actually “Come hither…Sleep” — if you didn’t have the comma you might say “Come hither my sleep.” “Come hither … sleep.” So, “And my griefs infold.”…
Then, “But lo! the morning peeps” — duh-dah duh-dah duh-dah: So that would be primarily iambic. “But lo! the morning peeps” – “But LO! the MORning PEEPS”, right? – So that next one would be all iambic.
“Over the eastern steeps,” – dah-duh-duh-dah-duh-dah — dah duh duh dah duh dah –one two three – dah duh dah – that would be dactylic. Well, dactylic. “O-ver the EAST-ern” – primarily the accent’s on the first syllable of each of the feet in that line. “O-ver the East-ern Steeps” so I would say it’s a dactyl – “O-ver the” – then “East-ern” is bomb-buh – trochee – or “East-ern Steep” – you could say is a cretic – the amphimacer or cretic – The last of the three-syllable (meters). Dah-duh-dah. “O’ver the East-ern Steeps” – dah-duh-dah. You know that- cretic? Do you have the metrical-scheme thing?
Student: Not in front of me but I have one.
AG: Well, take a look. Look at the amphimacer or cretic, the bottom of the three-syllable ones.
Student: Yeah, isn’t that the….
AG: “East-ern Steeps” — would “Eastern Steeps” fit that? “East-ern Steeps.”
Student: Yeah.
AG: “East-ern Steeps.” So you could have “O-ver the” “East-ern Steeps”. So you could have a mixed (line) A line of mixed (syllablic-length meters)
Student: Yeah.
AG: “O-ver the” – anapest and amphimacer. Very few people know all this. It’s kind of funny. It’s really simple if you’ve got a scheme.
Student: What book is this from?
AG: It’s an old Greek dictionary. An 1840 Greek dictionary I have around my house. In those days people actually studied this stuff really carefully in Oxford.
Student: Who started doing … I mean, was this something that came out of (critical study) and they started breaking it down into these … and what was the, the….
AG: Well….
Tape breaks off here – to be continued