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I. Greek [German version] A. Definition Poem in elegiac verse metre (alternating a dactylic catalectic hexameter and a pentameter). This important Greek literary genre is documented since c. 650 BC. Once the inscriptional  epigram had developed into the literary epigram and the elegiac distich had become its customary verse metre, often no difference was recognizable between the two genres. The Greek metric term for the couplet is elegeíon (ἐλεγείον; formed from élegos, ἔλεγος), first in Pherecrates PCG VII, fr. 162,10 (in plural) and Critias 4,3 West, later docume…