Compare in English (but see [2561] ad fin.):
“These lame hexameters the strong-winged music of Homer!
No—but a most burlesque, barbarous experiment . . .
Hexameters no worse than daring Germany gave us,
Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexameters.” (Tennyson).
[2575.] The Elegiac Distich was introduced into Roman poetry by Ennius, who used it in epigrams. Varro employed it in his Saturae, and Catullus seems to have been the first of the Latins who used it in Elegiac poetry. The elegiac and amatory poets of the Augustan age, especially Ovid, perfected it, and wielded it with unequalled grace and ease.
[2576.] Ovid nearly always closes the pentameter with a disyllabic word; but earlier poets, especially Catullus, are less careful in this regard. Elision is less frequent in the pentameter than in the hexameter. It sometimes occurs in the main diaeresis of the pentameter, though rarely.
[The Dactylic Tetrameter Acatalectic (or Alcmanian).]
[2577.] This verse is chiefly used in composition with a trochaic tripody to form the Greater Archilochian verse ([2677]); but it occurs alone once in Terence (Andria 625), and is employed in stichic series ([2546]) by Seneca. The scheme is:
–́ ⏔ | –́ ⏔ | –́ ⏔ | –́ ⏑ ⏑