Epyllion

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An epyllion is a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme. The term was not used until the Nineteenth Century. It refers primarily to the type of erotic and mythological long elegy of which Ovid remains the master; to a lesser degree, the term includes some poems of the English Renaissance, particularly those influenced by Ovid. According to some, an example of a Classical epyllion may be seen in Aeneid IX: the story of Nisus and Euryalus.