Tawil
Ṭawīl (Arabic: طويل, literally 'long'), or al-Ṭawīl (الطويل), is a meter used in classical Arabic poetry.
It comprises distichs (bayt) of two 'lines'—in Arabic usually written side by side, with a space dividing them, the first being called the sadr (صدر, literally "chest") and the other the ʿajuz (عجز, literally "belly"). Its basic form is as follows (the symbol – representing a long syllable, ⏑ representing a short syllable, and x representing a syllable that can be short or long):
| ᴗ – x | ᴗ – – – | ᴗ – x | ᴗ – ᴗ – | (2×)
This form can be exemplified through the traditional mnemonic Faʿūlun Mafāʿīlun Faʿūlun Mafāʿilun (فَعولُن مَفاعيلُن فَعولُن مَفاعِلُن).
The final syllable of every distich rhymes throughout the whole poem; a long poem might comprise a hundred distichs. In Classical verse, each distich is a complete syntactic unit.
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