I do not understand meter yet, so is this line anapestic tetrameter? How many short syllables are in a meter? How many long syllables are in a meter? I have no clue how many meters are in the last third part || τοῦτ’ εἶναι πᾶσιν ὁμοI
Maybe I should come back to this a lot later.
An Introduction to Greek and Latin Metre For when you are ready, but do dip your feet.
Yes maybe you should come back to this later. But here’s a brief rundown. And do bear in mind that all Aristophanes is in meter. It would seem perverse to ignore that fundamental fact.
Most Greek meters, anapests included, operate on a principle of equivalence: two adjacent short syllables is equivalent to one long one, and you often have a long syllable in place of two short ones. So the lines do not have a fixed number of syllables.
An anapest is basically a sequence of two shorts and a long (e.g. ὅτι τοὺς), but the basic unit of composition is two such sequences in succession; that’s an anapestic “metron” (plural “metra”). So φανερὸν μὲν ἔγωγ’ is one metron (short-short-long, short-short-long), and οἶμαι γνῶναι is another (four longs). And a tetrameter has four metra.
There’s a little more to it than that (the final metron is metrically distinct), but not much. There’s usually word-end between the metra in the first half of the line, giving the line a clearly defined shape.
φανερὸν μὲν ἔγωγ’ | οἶμαι γνῶναι | τοῦτ’ εἶναι πᾶσιν ὁμοίως, ||
ὅτι τοὺς χρηστοὺς | τῶν ἀνθρώπων | εὖ πράττειν ἐστὶ δίκαιον ||
Even an elementary understanding of meter adds immeasurably to the appreciation and enjoyment of Greek literature.