(_α_) With the richest originality this artistic form of Greek lyric poetry is perfected. In the first instance we may trace it in those _hymns_ possessing a content as yet more akin to the epic mode, which do not so much express in their epic metre a personal enthusiasm as they set before us a plastic image of gods in deliberately objective outlines. The next step, so far as metre is concerned, we mark in the _elegiac_ syllabic measure, which associates the pentameter with the hexameter, which, in the regular recurrence of its ending after the hexameter, and with its two equally divided sections, opens the way to the complete singularity of the verse strophe. The elegy is also throughout in its tone of the lyric type. This is so in the case of the political elegy no less than the erotic, although, particularly as gnomic elegy, it still closely approaches the epic insistence upon and expression of the substantive as such, and for this reason almost exclusively belongs to the Ionians, with whom the objective point of view was generally predominant. In respect also to its musical side, it is primarily the aspect of rhythm which is here successfully worked out. And, on parallel lines with it, we may observe, thirdly, the development of the _Iambic_ poem in a novel verse-measure. This, however, is, by reason of the keenness of its invectives, from the first of a more subjective or personal tendency. The genuine mode of lyrical reflection and passion, however, receives for the first time its full development in the so-called _Melisian_[20] lyric. The metres are more varied, more capable of change; the strophes are more rich; the suggestions of musical accompaniment are more complete in virtue of the nature of the accepted modulation. Each poet creates a syllabic measure which corresponds with his or her lyrical nature. Thus Sappho adapts one to a type of composition which is sensuous, inspired with the glow of passion and expressed with an effect which works up to a supreme crisis. Alcaeus moulds one in harmony with his masculine and bolder odes. To an exceptional degree, too, the Scoliasts supply many indications of the finer nuances of diction and metre by reason of the variety of their content and melodic utterance.