Hexameter

The hexameter is a six-foot dactylic measure of ancient metrics, the principal verse of heroic epic. In its classical quantitative form the hexameter consisted of six feet, where each dactyl could be replaced by a spondee and the last foot was truncated. It is precisely in hexameter that Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" and Virgil's "Aeneid" are written. In accentual languages the ancient hexameter is reproduced imitatively — mainly by dactylic hexameter with permitted trochaic substitutions. The hexameter has an expansive, solemn, epically smooth movement, and is therefore used in translations of ancient classics and in stylisations of high epic. Ukrainian classical translators expended considerable effort to render the hexameter in their native language.