History & The Arts
Introducing Homer's Iliad
...change in the middle of the line. The third foot has been replaced with a spondee. So in the first line of the Iliad, we have two dactyls: Menin aeide the-. One spondee: -A pe-. Two more dactyls: -leia deo akhi-. And a final spondee: -leos. If you go back and listen to the Greek recording again now, you may be able to begin to hear the meter in the opening of the Iliad....