Act the Second: Scene XIV
LIVIA. Sir, the Governor, who is waitingAt the door of the house, commandedMe to call you to his presence.
FLORUS. Best I wait for his departure:--(Meantime my excuse I'll think of.)So 'tis well that you despatch him.
LYSANDER. I appreciate your politeness.Here I will return instanter.
Words in this poem
- departure n.
- Division; separation; putting away. [From Depart.]
- appreciate v. t.
- To set a price or value on; to estimate justly; to value. [L. appretiatus, p. p. of appretiare to value at a price, appraise; ad + pretiare to prize, pretium price. Cf. Appraise.]
- politeness n.
- High finish; smoothness; burnished elegance. Evelyn.
- instanter adv.
- Immediately; instantly; at once; as, he left instanter. [L., vehemently, earnestly. See Instant, n. & a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Act the Second: Scene XIV 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 XIV, in The Wonder-Working Magician (1873), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6372, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/calderon-magico-prodigioso/act-the-second-scene-xiv.html, id L26627.
Form and metre
Act the Second: Scene XIV is 8 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| LIVIA. Sir, the Governor, who is waiting | 10 | /˘··/˘··/˘ |
| At the door of the house, commanded | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| Me to call you to his presence. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| FLORUS. Best I wait for his departure:-- | 10 | ·······˘/˘ |
| (Meantime my excuse I'll think of.) | 8 | /··˘/··· |
| So 'tis well that you despatch him. | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| LYSANDER. I appreciate your politeness. | 12 | ·/˘·˘/˘··˘/˘ |
| Here I will return instanter. | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
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.