The Sicilian octave is a verse form consisting of eight lines of eleven syllables each, called a hendecasyllable

Hendecasyllable

The hendecasyllable is a line of eleven syllables, used in Ancient Greek and Latin quantitative verse as well as in medieval and modern European poetry.-In quantitative verse:...

. The form is common in late medieval

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 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...

. In English poetry

English poetry

The history of English poetry stretches from the middle of the 7th century to the present day. Over this period, English poets have written some of the most enduring poems in Western culture, and the language and its poetry have spread around the globe. Consequently, the term English poetry is...

, iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter is a commonly used metrical line in traditional verse and verse drama. The term describes the particular rhythm that the words establish in that line. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables; these small groups of syllables are called "feet"...

 is often used instead of syllabics. The form has a prescribed rhyme scheme

Rhyme scheme

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme. In other words, it is the pattern of end rhymes or lines...

 of four rhymed couplets

Couplet

A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...

 (A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B). Although only the final two rhymes are different from the much more common ottava rima

Ottava rima

Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it later came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works. Its earliest known use is in the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio....

, the two eight-line forms evolved completely separately. According to the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, scholars disagree on the origin of the Sicilian octave, but all agree that it is related to the development of the first eight lines of the sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

 (called the octave). It is not clear whether the octave emerged first and influenced the sonnet or vice versa.

The form is a variant of the strambotto, which is one of the earliest verse forms in the Italian language. The strambotto was used in Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 and Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

, and consisted of either six or eight hendecasyllables. The rhyme scheme varied, but the Tuscan was form generally did not use the Sicilian octave scheme; the most common was A-B-A-B-C-C-D-D.

The Sicilian octave is rare in Italian after the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 and has seldom been used in English except as an illustration of the form. Before the 15th century, however, it was used often by poets in southern Italy, and was an important influence for Petrarch

Petrarch

Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...

 in his sonnets. Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...

, who popularized and may have invented the unrelated ottava rima, used the Sicilian octave a total of once, in his early romance

Romance (genre)

As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...

 Filocolo. The epitaph of Giulia Topazia is a Sicilian octave:

Qui, d'Atropos il colpo ricevuto,

giace di Roma Giulia Topazia,

dell'alto sangue di Cesare arguto

discesa, bella e piena d'ogni grazia,

che, in parto, abbandonati in non dovuto

modo ci ha: onde non fia giá mai sazia

l'anima nostra il suo non conosciuto

Dio biasimar che fè sí gran fallazia.

English (non-rhyming translation):

Here, having received Atropos

Atropos

Atropos or Aisa , in Greek mythology, was one of the three Moirae, goddesses of fate and destiny. Her Roman equivalent was Morta.Atropos or Aisa was the oldest of the Three Fates, and was known as the "inflexible" or "inevitable." It was Atropos who chose the mechanism of death and ended the life...

's blow,

lies Giulia Topazia of Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

descended from the high bloodline of witty Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

,

beautiful, and full of every grace,

who, in childbirth, abandoned us in a manner that ought not be:

thus, our minds will never have enough

of cursing her God, unknowable,

who might make such a great error.