Choriamb

In Greek and Latin poetry, a choriamb is a metron (prosodic foot) consisting of four syllables in the pattern long-short-short-long (— ^{‿ ‿} —), that is, a trochee alternating with an iamb. Choriambs are one of the two basic metra that do not occur in spoken verse, as distinguished from true lyric or sung verse. The choriamb is sometimes regarded as the "nucleus" of Aeolic verse, because the pattern long-short-short-long pattern occurs, but to label this a "choriamb" is potentially misleading.

In the prosody of English and other modern European languages, "choriamb" is sometimes used to describe four-syllable sequence of the pattern stressed-unstressed-unstressed-stressed (again, a trochee followed by an iamb): for example, "over the hill", "under the bridge", and "what a mistake!".

Quotes

In Greek and Latin

• The measure, as used by the early Greeks, is essentially lyrical and impassioned. Mingled with other metres, it was constantly serviceable in choral writing, to which it was believed to give a stormy and mysterious character.
  • Edmund Gosse, "Choriambic Verse", Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. 6 (1911), p. 269

In English

• Swinburne even introduced it into English poetry:—
    Love, what ailed thee to leave life that was made lovely, we thought, with love?
    What sweet visions of sleep lured thee away, down from the light above?
  Such lines as these make a brave attempt to resuscitate the measured sound of the greater asclepiad.
  • Edmund Gosse, "Choriambic Verse", Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. 6 (1911), p. 269

• The charm of Swinburne’s ‘Choriambics’ is undeniable:
    Large red lilies of love, sceptral and tall, lovely for eyes to see;
    Thornless blossom of love, full of the sun, fruits that were reared for thee.
  • John Williams White, The Verse of Greek Comedy (Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1912), p. xx

• Professor Gilbert Murray, another good poet and Grecian, has kindly sent me verses composed in the same rhythm, but in what he ... believes was Sappho’s manner.
    An old eagle, a blind eagle, who waits hungry and cold and still;
    He seeks nothing, he fears nothing: he stands lone on a lonely hill.
  • John Williams White, The Verse of Greek Comedy (Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1912), p. xxi
  • T. F. Higham, C. M. Bowra, eds., The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation (1938), p. 745
  • Variant: "alone" for "lone"

• The choriambic hexaplet is the basis of the following lines from Swinburne's Hesperia:
    Out of the golden remote wild west where the sea without shore is,
    Full of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy,
    As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories,
    Blows with a perfume of songs and of memories beloved from a boy.
  • E. W. Scripture, "The Choriambus in English Verse", PMLA, vol. 43, no. 1 (1928), p. 319

• The heptaplet with [a different] formula ... is found in Burns's Where are The Joys, etc.:
    Where are the joys I have met in the morning, that danced to the lark's early song?
    Where is the peace that awaited my wand'ring at evening the wild woods among.
  • E. W. Scripture, "The Choriambus in English Verse", PMLA, vol. 43, no. 1 (1928), p. 319

• Rupert Brooke experimented with accentual versions of choriambs, ... Brooke came up with lines like:
    Light-foot dance in the woods, whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring
  • Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled (2006), p. 94