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{{Short description|Literary device}}
A '''priamel''' ({{IPAc-en|p|r|i|ˈ|æ|m|əl}})<ref>[Oxford English Dictionary].</ref> is a literary and rhetorical device consisting of a series of listed alternatives that serve as [[Foil (literature)|foils]] to the true subject of the poem, which is revealed in a climax.  For example, [[Sappho's Fragment 16|Fragment 16]] by the Greek poet [[Sappho]] (translated by Mary Barnard) begins with a priamel:
:Οἰ μὲν ἰππήων στρότον οἰ δὲ πέσδων
:οἰ δὲ νάων φαῖσ᾽ ἐπὶ γᾶν μέλαιναν
:ἔμμεναι κάλλιστον ἔγω δὲ κῆν᾽
::ὄττω τὶς ἔραται.
::Some say a cavalry corps,
::some infantry, some, again,
::will maintain that the swift oars
::of our fleet are the finest
::sight on dark earth; but I say
::that whatever one loves, is.
Other examples are found in Pindar's First Olympian, [[Horace]], [[François Villon|Villon]], [[Shakespeare]], and [[Baudelaire]], as well as in the [[Bible]],<ref>W.H. Race, ''The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius'' (Leiden, 1982: {{ISBN|90-04-06515-6}}), pp. ix-x.</ref> both Old Testament and New Testament:
:Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. ([[King James Version|AV]]) (Psalms 20:7)
:And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air ''have'' nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay ''his'' head. ([[King James Version|AV]]) ([[Gospel of Luke|Luke]] 9:58)
William H. Race, in his book on the subject, writes:
:As for the term itself, "priamel" was unknown to ancient writers. There is no word in Greek or Latin which describes it, and no discussion in the voluminous writings on rhetoric which indicates any theoretical knowledge of it. It is, in short, an invention of the twentieth century and applied anachronistically to classical poetry and prose.<ref>Race, ''The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius'', p. x.</ref>
The German term ''Priamel'' (from Latin ''praeambulum''<ref>Race, ''The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius'', p. 1.</ref>) was introduced to classical studies by the German philologist [[Franz Dornseiff]] in his ''Pindars Stil'' (1921);<ref>William A. Johnson, "Hesiod's ''Theogony'': Reading the Proem as a Priamel," ''Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies'' 46 (2008): 231.</ref> it originally referred to "a minor poetic genre composed primarily in Germany from the 12th to the 16th centuries. Such ''Priameln'' are, on the whole, short poems consisting of a series of seemingly unrelated, often paradoxical statements which are cleverly brought together at the end, usually in the final verse."<ref>Race, The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius, p. 1</ref> Compare the anonymous Priamel "Ich leb und weiss nit, wie lang ..." that was attributed to [[Martinus von Biberach]].
While the name "priamel" is modern, the form itself may be ancient.  [[Martin L. West]]'s  ''Indo-European Poetry and Myth''<ref>(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-19-928075-9}})</ref> collects examples from a wide ranging set of rhetorical figures in Indo-European languages, from [[Sanskrit]] to [[Old Irish]], as well as Latin and Greek.  West relates the priamel to the "augmented <!-- not [[augmented triad]] --> triads" found in other ancient Indo-European literatures, a form in which three items are listed, and the third item on the list is described by an adjective to give it extra weight:
:ἢ Αἴας ἢ Ἰδομενεὺς ἢ δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς
::Whether Ajax, or Idomeneus, or godlike Odysseus<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Iliad]]'' 1.145</ref>
West also relates the priamel to [[Behaghel's laws|Behaghel's law]] of increasing terms, which states that the longest and most important of a series of listed phrases tends to appear at the end.
==See also==
*[[Welsh Triads]]
*[[Behaghel's laws]]
==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Rhetorical techniques]]