Isocolon is a rhetorical scheme in which parallel elements possess the same number of words or syllables. As in any form of parallelism, the pairs or series must enumerate like things to achieve symmetry. The scheme is called bicolon, tricolon, or tetracolon depending on whether they are two, three, or four parallel elements. Etymology The term, a compound of ísos 'equal' and kôlon 'member, clause' was used in the classical Greek rhetorical literature: The Greek plural is 'isocola', but 'isocolons' is also used in English. Bicolon An example of bicolon is the advertising slogan "buy one, get one free" (you pay for one item but you get another free). In Biblical poetry it is standard to see a pair of adjacent lines of poetry in which the second echoes the meaning of the first. This can be considered a bicolon. For example: <blockquote> When Israel went out of Egypt, * the house of Jacob from a barbarous people: Judea made his sanctuary, * Israel his dominion. The sea saw and fled: * Jordan was turned back. The mountains skipped like rams, * and the hills like the lambs of the flock. What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou didst flee: * and thou, O Jordan, that thou wast turned back? Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams, * and ye hills, like lambs of the flock? At the presence of the Lord the earth was moved, * at the presence of the God of Jacob: Who turned the rock into pools of water, * and the stony hill into fountains of waters. —Psalm 113:1-8 (Psalm 114 Hebrew) </blockquote> Tricolon Veni, vidi, vici— (Julius Caesar) "I came; I saw; I conquered." A tricolon that comprises parts in increasing size, magnitude or intensity is called a tricolon crescens, or an ascending tricolon. Tricolon can sometimes be a hendiatris. Similarly, tricolon that comprises parts that decrease in size, magnitude, intensity, or word length is called a tricolon diminuens, or a descending tricolon. Abraham Lincoln used tricolon in many of his speeches. His Gettysburg Address has the following phrase: "We cannot dedicate – we cannot consecrate – we cannot hallow..." Lincoln wrote in his second inaugural address, "with malice toward none, with charity toward all, with firmness in the right...". Winston Churchill used the tricolon frequently, as in his June 1941 speech regarding the German invasion of the Soviet Union, when he stated