It was the metre naturally adapted to the national mode of dancing, in which each alternate step strongly marked the time,[[84]] and the rhythmical beat was repeated in a series of three bars, which gave to the dance the appellation of tripudium.
The Saturnian consists of two parts, each containing three feet, which fall upon the ear with the same effect as Greek trochees. The whole is preceded by a syllable in thesis technically called an anacrusis. For example—
Sum|más o|pés qui | régum ‖ régi|ás re|frégit ‖
The metre in its original form was perfectly independent of the rules of Greek prosody; its only essential requisite was the beat or ictus on the alternate syllable or its representative. The only law to regulate the stress was that of the common popular pronunciation. In fact, stress occupied the place of quantity. Two or three syllables, which, according to the rules of prosody would be long by position, might be slurred over or pronounced rapidly in the time of one, as in the following line:—
Amném Trojúgena Cánnam | fúge ne té alienígenæ.
Thus it is clear that the principles which regulated it were those of modern versification, without any of the niceties and delicacies of Greek quantity.
The anacrusis resembles the introductory note to a musical air, and does not interfere with the essential quality of the verse, namely, the three beats twice repeated, any more than it does in English poems, in which octosyllabic lines, having the stress on the even places, are intermingled with verses of seven syllables, as in the following passage of Milton’s L’Allegro:—
Come and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee