The chapter contains considerations about the function of Byzantine metrical texts as a means of instruction. Using examples taken from various disciplines, the author tries to demonstrate the great variety of texts serving more or less an explicit didactic purpose. Apart from dedicatory poems in the strict sense, it can be shown that poems of different genres and different literary and linguistic levels were used for instruction, be it from the very beginning or at a later stage in their use-life. Finally the question of the interrelationship between form and aesthetic value is discussed.