Take this line from Shakespeare's 12th Night-' If music be the food of love , play on'- da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM. These iambs are called the five heartbeats because they sound like 'da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM.' That's one unstressed, one stressed word. It is a rhythmic pattern comprising five iambs in each line.
Iambic pentameter is a beat or foot that uses 10 syllables in every line. Iambic is a metrical foot in poetry, where an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable.
