6.4 Pre-Spanish Poetry

• Epigrams are a short, often satirical poem dealing concisely with a single subject and usually ending with a witty or ingenious turn of thought.
• Epigrams have been customarily used and served as laws or rules on good behavior by our ancestors, these are like allegories or parables that impart lessons for the young.
• Chants are a short, simple melody, especially one characterized by single notes to which an indefinite number of syllables are intoned, used in singing psalms, canticles, etc., in church services.
• Chants are used in witchcraft or enchantment.
• Sayings are a short, clever expression that usually contains advice or expresses some obvious truth.
• Maxims are rhyming couplets with verses of 5, 6 or 8 syllables, each line having the same number of syllables.