Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy (12th c., Lombard script)

[I.] Alas, to what a steep [depth] he is plunged, submerged in the abyss. The sixth, the anacreontic, mourns for the miserable vows. The fifth consists of an iambic and a dactylic [meter], it terminates in an acatalectic [form]... at the end, with four perfect dactyls and no remaining syllable. It is called acatalectic when it is closed at the end of the measure, and the seventh is a dactylic [meter] beginning with a principal dactyl. It began with a spondee and ends with a trochee, so that these things might be visited as illustrious. Then he says... the darkness of the night; and the prior vigor of the mind, and it puts aside the fallacies, arises from a spondee, a dactyl, and three trochees, the first place of which is what it has. So that this composition resumes and... the eleventh, the anapaestic, for the first time arises from an iambic acatalectic, and the seventh is an anapaestic principal, arising from an anapaest. It began with a present spondee... for the work is... among the comic [poets] this is a dactylic [meter].

[X. I.] [This] is what [he] says: that [there] is to be a long syllable at the end; they wish it to be seen well in turn, with the proper habit. O creator of the starry world; who, relying on eternity, guide the reins; and who commanded the seasons of the most ferocious heaven.

[I. II.] The sixth, the glyconic, consists of a spondee and a choriamb. The first and the fifth, which he places here, are iambs. With the rays of Phoebus... the first with an unbearable faith. Happy is he who was able to follow the good... in turn that he might place; where. The seventh, the dactylic, [consists] of seven dactyls. To which we also add... the catalectic... when also [he] says to which one syllable is put down... in the dark clouds. The eighth, the iambic and hipponactean, arises from an iambic acatalectic. The iambic, truly, is imperfect in the even places; that it can receive in these places an iamb and a tribrach, a spondee, a dactyl, and an anapaest. In the even places, however, an iamb, a tribrach, which they bring among the comic poets, an anapaest... [he] placed it so. Alas, when he breaks... he conquers; he conquers; on account of Aetna. So that these first things might be reflected in the mind [as] true. Now the archpiadean, which is made of a spondee and two choriambs and first an iambic. And that which he says is reddish. It arises from a spondee and a dactyl...