In prosody

Prosody (linguistics)

In linguistics, prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance ; the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of...

 a paeon (or paean) is a metrical foot used in both poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

, or prose. It consists of four syllables, with one of the syllables being long and the other three short. Paeons were often used in the traditional Greek hymn to Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 called paean

Paean

A paean is a song or lyric poem expressing triumph or thanksgiving. In classical antiquity, it is usually performed by a chorus, but some examples seem intended for an individual voice...

s. Its use in English poetry is rare. Depending on the position of the long syllable, the four peaons are called a first, second, third, or fourth peaon.

The cretic

Cretic

A cretic is a metrical foot containing three syllables: long, short, long. In Greek poetry, the cretic was usually a form of paeonic or aeolic verse. However, any line mixing iambs and trochees could employ a cretic foot as a transition...

 or amphimacer metrical foot, with three syllables, the first and last of which are long and the second short, is sometimes also called a paeon diagyios.

Use in prose

The paeon (particularly the first and fourth) was favored by ancient prose writers since unlike the dactyl

Dactyl (poetry)

A dactyl is a foot in meter in poetry. In quantitative verse, such as Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight...

, spondee

Spondee

In poetry, a spondee is a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables, as determined by syllable weight in classical meters, or two stressed syllables, as determined by stress in modern meters...

, trochee

Trochee

A trochee or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one...

, and iamb, it was not associated with a particular poetic meter, such as hexameter

Hexameter

Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...

, tetrameter

Tetrameter

Tetrameter: [ti'tramitə]; te·tram·e·ter; a verse of four measuresOrigin: early 17th century : from late Latin tetrametrus, originally neuter from Greek tetrametros 'having four measures,' from tetra- 'four' + metron 'measure'....

, or trimeter

Trimeter

In poetry, a trimeter is a metre of three metrical feet per line—example:...

, and so produced a sound not overly poetical, nor familiar. Regarding the use of the peaon in prose, Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 writes:

All the other meters then are to be disregarded for the reasons stated, and also because they are metrical; but the paean should be retained, because it is the only one of the rhythms mentioned which is not adapted to a metrical system, so that it is most likely to be undetected.

This was of special importance to orators (and in particular forensic orators) where, on the one hand the use of rhythmic elements were thought to produce memorable and moving speech, the use of the less obvious paeonic rhythm were thought to help them seem less contrived and thus more sincere, rendering their speech more effective. According to the Roman rhetorician

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

 Quintilian

Quintilian

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing...

:

Above all it is necessary to conceal the care expended upon it so that our rhythms may seem to possess a spontaneous flow, not to have been the result of elaborate search or compulsion.

According to Quintilian, the first paeon, was considered particularly suitable at the beginning of a sentence, and the fourth at the end.