The translation of songs is independent of the metric translation of written poetry. Indeed, the notion of 'syllabic mimicry' is relatively flexible in the translation of songs. This is due to the fact that sung verses must not be measured using the criteria of literary metrics, but according to the rules of musical tempo. For this reason, a written translation which is mimetic as to the metrics can be non-mimetic in the song, and vice versa: a translation can appear non-metric on paper but become metric and mimetic when it is sung. Therefore, there can be four methods for the translation of songs, all of them relatively metric: absolute/relative metric mimicry, syllabic alteration by excess/by default.