ïambe was a servant woman in the house of Celeus of Eleusis who consoled
Demeter with her jokes. Her name seems to be closely linked to the iamb or iambus, the metrical foot in Greek verse that consisted of two syllables - a short one followed by a long one (as in the English word 'defeat').
Such verse was often jesting in nature, and it is not impossible that her name is the origin of the term for the foot. (According to some authorities, the Greek word for the foot, iambos, derives from iapto, 'to assail', 'shoot', that is, to lampoon.)
