Their Reign

This poem was written for the occasion of the Coronation of Valharic and Arielle and is meant to be for their honor. The poem is presented in the ‘political’ style of late period Byzantine Poetry.

Later Byzantine poetry followed several different forms, of which one of the better known is what was called ‘political poetry’. Political poetry first became prominent in the tenth century and continued through the thirteenth and 14th century and beyond. It could follow many forms. Eusthathios of Tessalonica, who wrote opinions on demotic, or political poetry in the mid twelfth century, classified this type of poetry as being usually composed of lines of 15 syllables (though he himself notes that some poets squeezed as many as 17 syllables into a line).(Jeffries, page 147) . Each line is split into two distinct groups of syllables- The first is of eight syllables and the second of seven The two groups of syllables did not have to have a definitive gap but sometimes denoted a place to pause called a caesura.

(It is of interest to note that one of the primary differences between political and court poetry of this place and time was that the political poetry often referenced greek mythology. ‘Political’ poetry was not called this because it was rooted in governmental bodies- it was called this because it was ‘of the people’. A meaning of the word which is often lost to the contemporary poetry reader.

While this style of verse has been called ‘Trochaic’ in rhythm, Jeffries notes that it is more often properly read (or chanted) in iambic rhythm, meaning that the even numbered syllables are usually stressed. (the exception to this most often is the 8th syllable, which is often unstressed). Thus the most typical form of meter and line length, as put down on paper, was 15 syllables accented as follows: (Note: x is unaccented, / is accented and the hyphen is the caesura)

Syllable - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 -- 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

           x / x / x / x x -- x  /  x  /  x  /  x

Thus, a line in English might be read:

     /          /          /                   /          /         /
The King will fight with Knightly grace, his sword will swing with fury.

     /         /      /           /     /       /
He proves himself in every way to be a man of greatness.

It is important to note that while the above is probably the most common form of ‘Political’ Poetry, there are many, many exceptions to this form. Lauxtermann’s ‘The Spring of Rhythm is an entire book on Political verse, and it is full of tables detailing alternate forms of this type of verse. If anything can be said to be fairly consistent about this type of poetry it is this:

• It still usually follows hexameter (6 stressed or long syllables)
• It usually has fifteen syllables.
• It often is divided into hemistichs, or half lines (as in the above example, divided into a group of 8 syllables and a group of seven).

Therefore it is very important that the 8th syllable in the line is in no way attached to the ninth syllable in the line. (they should be parts of two separate words).

Rhythm was important but rhyme was not necessarily so in political poetry. My poetry does not rhyme, but I have made efforts to make it flow in a lyrical way and to match some consonant and vowel sounds to cause it to sound like it is almost rhyming. This is keeping with the idea that Greek (the language some of this poem was originally written in) has more of that quality in it’s language and word endings than English does.

REFERENCES
Bowra, C.M. Tradition and Design in the Iliad. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. E.V. Rieu. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Jeffries, E.M. and M.J. Popular Literature in Late Byzantium. London: Variorum Reprints, 1983.

Lauxtermann, Marc D. The Spring of Rhythm. Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien, 1999.