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sporadic examples in Alcman, Bacchylides, and tragedy,33 it was mainly used in Old Comedy. Aristophanes particularly liked fourbar verses of the form  . As in all other Greek rhythms, we observe that the final note before a pause must either be long or, if short, coupled with a rest to make up the value of a long. The paeonic series therefore may end with  or  (or, in Alcman,  .) but not with  .34 |
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A peculiarity of this rhythm as it appears in Aristophanes is the freedom with which paeonic feet of the form  can alternate with, or even respond antistrophically with, trochaic metra ( ).35 The same ambiguity besets the term 'Cretic', which the comic poets apparently associate both with paeonic and with trochaic dance-rhythm.36 The metricians apply it to the foot  ,37 whereas the rhythmicians assign it to the trochaic measure  .38 It seems that there was a type of music and dance, believed to be of Cretan origin, or especially characteristic of Crete, in which there was a certain fluidity as between the two rhythms. A similar fluidity has been noted in certain modern Greek dance-songs, the same song being rendered on different occasions in  or in  .39 |
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In the Hellenistic period no such uncertainty prevails: paeonic compositions keep strictly to quintuple time. In addition to the Classical patterns  ,  ,  , we now also encounter  . The two Delphic paeans of the late second century BC which are the most extensive musically notated texts that we have are almost entirely in paeonic rhythm. Here a long syllable is not infrequently divided between two notes, so that what appears as  or  |
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33 My Greek Metre, 106. |
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34 Cf. Arist. Rh. 1409a17, who advises that the  paeon is suitable as a closing rhythm in oratory, but not  because a long syllable is needed to make a clear and full-sounding ending. |
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35Greek Metre, 106-8. |
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36 Cratinus fr. 237, Ar. Eccl. 1165, cf. Ran. 1356, Anon. PMG 967; 'very energetic' according to Ephorus, FGrH 70 F 149 p. 86. 20 J.; cf. Ar. Ach. 665f. |
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37 Heph. pp. 11. 13 (specifying quintuple time), 40. 3 ff., Anon. Ambros. p. 225. 27, 228. 5, 11, etc. |
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38 Aristox. ap. Anon. Ambros. p. 229. 13; POxy. 2687 ii 7, iii 32, v 12; Aristid. Quint. p. 38. 3. |
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39 S. Baud-Bovy, Revue de musicologie 54 (1968), 3-8; cf. Reinach, La Musique grecque, 82; Georgiades, 84-6. |
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