Antistrophe
/ænˈtɪstrəfi/noun
The second half of a paired choral stanza, answering the strophe in the same metre.
The Greek roots
Literally: “a turning back”
The story of the word
Having crossed the orchestra singing the strophe, the chorus retraced its steps in the antistrophe, matching the first song syllable for syllable; Pindar's victory odes are still printed in those pairs, and the metre is the proof that the pairing is real. Rhetoric later took the word for a different figure, the repetition of the same word at the ends of successive clauses. Ἀντί means facing or in return rather than merely against, which is why the answering song is not an argument with the first.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
In a sentence
The antistrophe repeats the metre exactly, which is how editors reconstruct damaged lines.
His speech ended in a run of antistrophe, every sentence closing on the same word.