Cento (poetry)

A cento is a poetical work wholly composed of verses or passages taken from other authors, especially the Greek poet Homer and the Roman poet Virgil, disposed in a new form or order.

The Latin term cento derives from Greek κέντρων (kentrōn), meaning "'to plant slips' (of trees)". A later word in Greek, κεντρόνη (kentronē), means "patchwork garment". According to Hugh Gerard Evelyn White, "A cento is therefore a poem composed of odd fragments".

The cento originated in the 3rd or 4th century AD. The first known cento is the Medea by Hosidius Geta, composed out of Virgilian lines, according to Tertullian. However, an earlier cento might be present in Irenaeus's late 2nd century work Adversus Haereses. He either cites or composes a cento as a demonstration of how heretical Christians modify canonical Gospels. Ausonius (310–395) is the only poet from Antiquity to comment on the form and content of the Virgilian cento; his statements are afterward regarded as authoritative. The pieces, he says, may be taken either from the same poet, or from several. The individual fragments of poetry used should be no shorter than one half line (one hemistich) and no longer than a full line and a half. In accordance with these rules, he made a cento from Virgil, the Cento Nuptialis. In the Greek World, centos, such as those by Aelia Eudocia, are mainly composed by verses taken from Homer. The Politics of Justus Lipsius (Politicorum Libri Sex, 1589) consists only of centos, there being nothing of his own but conjunctions and particles. Etienne de Pleure did the same as Proba in Sacra Aeneis (1618). Alexander Ross did the same thing in his Virgilii Evangelisantis Christiados (1634), his most celebrated work of poetry.