The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is a poetic form spanning four lines. The form is three hendecasyllabic lines of trochee, trochee, dactyl, trochee, trochee and a concluding line of dactyl, trochee, known as the Adonic or adonean line. Using "-" for a long syllable, "u" for a short and "x" for an "anceps" (or free syllable):
- u - x - u u - u - x
- u - x - u u - u - x
- u - x - u u - u - x
- u u - x
While Sappho used several metrical forms for her poetry, she is most famous for the Sapphic stanza. It is not clear if she created it or if it was already part of the Aeolic tradition.
Use by other poets
Sappho's contemporary and countryman, Alcaeus, also used the Sapphic stanza. A few centuries later, the Roman poet Catullus admired Sappho's work and used the Sapphic meter in two poems, Catullus 11 and Catullus 51. The latter is a rough translation of Sappho's poem 31. Sapphics were also used by Horace in several of his Odes. The Sapphic stanza was imitated in English by Algernon Charles Swinburne in a poem he simply called Sapphics:
- Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,
- Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled
- Shine as fire of sunset on western waters;
- Saw the reluctant. . .
Allen Ginsberg also experimented with the form:
- Red cheeked boyfriends tenderly kiss me sweet mouthed
- under Boulder coverlets winter springtime
- hug me naked laughing & telling girl friends
- gossip til autumn
