Act the Second: Scene V
CLARIN. Whither Moscon, do we roam?
MOSCON. When we've reached the end, we'll know.Leagues behind us lies the town,Still we go.
CLARIN. A strange proceeding!--Little time have we for reading,Idly pacing up and down.
CYPRIAN. Clarin, get thee home.
MOSCON. And I?
CLARIN. Sly-boots, would you rather stay?
CYPRIAN. Go: here leave me both; away!
CLARIN. Mind, he tells us both to fly.
Words in this poem
- whither adv.
- To what place; -- used interrogatively; as, whither goest thou [OE. whider. AS. hwider; akin to E. where, who; cf. Goth. hvadre whither. See Who, and cf. Hither, Thither.]
- cyprian a.
- Belonging to Cyprus.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Act the Second: Scene V is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Wonder-Working Magician, Project Gutenberg ebook #6372, the Denis Florence MacCarthy translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Act the Second: Scene V, in The Wonder-Working Magician (1873), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6372, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/calderon-magico-prodigioso/act-the-second-scene-v.html, id L26618.
Form and metre
Act the Second: Scene V is 12 lines in 8 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in trochaic tetrameter.
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 2 ABA knowA · townB · goA
- 3 --B proceeding · reading · downB
- 5 C iC
- 6 D stayD
- 7 D awayD
- 8 C flyC
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| CLARIN. Whither Moscon, do we roam? | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| MOSCON. When we've reached the end, we'll know. | 9 | ········· |
| Leagues behind us lies the town, | 7 | ······· |
| Still we go. | 3 | ··· |
| CLARIN. A strange proceeding!-- | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Little time have we for reading, | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Idly pacing up and down. | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| CYPRIAN. Clarin, get thee home. | 8 | /˘˘····· |
| MOSCON. And I? | 4 | ···· |
| CLARIN. Sly-boots, would you rather stay? | 9 | ······/˘· |
| CYPRIAN. Go: here leave me both; away! | 9 | /˘·····˘/ |
| CLARIN. Mind, he tells us both to fly. | 9 | ········· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.