PENTAMETER  , the name given to the second and shorter

line of the classical elegaic verse . It is composed of five (mine) feet or measures (,Erpa), and is divided into two equal parts of two and a half feet each: the second of these parts must be dactylic, and the first may be either dactylic or spondaic . The first part must never overlap into the second, but there must be a break between them . Thus: - V V I-V V I I IV V I-U VI In the best Latin poets, the first foot of each part of the pentameter is a dactyl . The pentameter scarcely exists except in conjunction with the hexameter, to which it always succeeds in elegaic verse . The invention of the rigidly dactylic form was attributed by the Greeks to Archilochus . Schiller described the sound and method of the elegaic couplet in two very skilful verses, which have been copied in many languages: Im Hexameter steigt des Springquells flussige Saule, Im Pentameter drauf fallt sie melodisch herab . The pentameter was always considered to add a melancholy air to verse, and it was especially beloved by the Greeks in those recitations (/lasPybeIrai) to the sound of the flute, which formed the earliest melodic performances at Delphi and else-where .