Amoebean
verses is a poetic form in which two characters chant alternate
lines, couplets, or stanzas, in competition or debate with one another. This
form is found in the pastoral poetry of Theocritus and Virgil, and was
imitated by Spenser in his Shepheardes Calender (1579); it is similar to the
debat, and sometimes resembles stichomythia.