Many scholars have commented on Menander's facility in alternating between tragic and comic forms of the iambic trimeter, and the subtle effects he creates thereby in manipulating the mood of a scene. But characteristically these effects are interpreted solely in dramatic terms, and the statements made are rather vague, at the most detailed (and rarely then) merely noting that in a given line a particular tone is created by the overall form of metre used. What I aim to show is that deliberate metrical manipulation of a quite different kind is also involved, and in order to appreciate better Menander's art we need to attend to the metrical form of individual words.