Note 16 — Chapter XXXI
Reading edition
This tour de force, which consists of laying stress in the beginning of each succeeding stanza upon the word which ended the last, is common in Irish and is called conachlonn. It is much used by Angus. It seems to be self-evolved in Irish, whose prosody is full of original terms unborrowed from the Latin, which, to my mind, tells strongly in favour of pre-Christian culture. It is curious that Horace who falls into conachlonn in his second ode, never returned to a form so well adapted to lyric purposes:—
"Dextera sacras jaculatus arces Terruit urbem. Terruit gentes," etc.