Act the Second: Scene XVII
JUSTINA. I reply but with my tears.
LYSANDER. Tears as vain as they are tardy.What an act was mine, Justina,When to thee my lips impartedWho thou art! Oh, would I neverTold thee, that upon the marginOf a rivulet in this forest,A dead mother's womb here cast thee!
LYSANDER. Do not attempt excuses.
JUSTINA. Heaven will make them, then, hereafter
LYSANDER. When too late, perhaps.
JUSTINA. No limitCan be late here while life lasteth.
LYSANDER. For the punishment of crimes.
JUSTINA. Injured truth to re-establish.
LYSANDER. I, from what I have seen, condemn thee.
JUSTINA. I thee, from what thou knowest not, rather.
LYSANDER. Leave me; I go forth to dieWhere my grief will soon dispatch me.
JUSTINA. At thy feet I would lose my life;But do not reject me, father.
Words in this poem
- womb n.
- The belly; the abdomen. [OE. wombe, wambe, AS. wamb, womb; akin to D. wam belly, OS. & OHG. wamba, G. wamme, wampe, Icel. vömb, Sw. v&mb, Dan. vom, Goth. wamba.]
- hereafter adv.
- In time to come; in some future time or state. [AS. hræfter.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Act the Second: Scene XVII 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 XVII, in The Wonder-Working Magician (1873), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6372, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/calderon-magico-prodigioso/act-the-second-scene-xvii.html, id L26630.
Form and metre
Act the Second: Scene XVII is 21 lines in 12 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.
- 11 AA dieA · meA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| JUSTINA. I reply but with my tears. | 10 | ˘/˘·˘/···· |
| LYSANDER. Tears as vain as they are tardy. | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| What an act was mine, Justina, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| When to thee my lips imparted | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Who thou art! Oh, would I never | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Told thee, that upon the margin | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Of a rivulet in this forest, | 9 | ··/˘˘··/˘ |
| A dead mother's womb here cast thee! | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| LYSANDER. Do not attempt excuses. | 10 | ·/˘··˘/˘/˘ |
| JUSTINA. Heaven will make them, then, hereafter | 11 | ˘/˘/····˘/˘ |
| LYSANDER. When too late, perhaps. | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| JUSTINA. No limit | 6 | ˘/˘·/˘ |
| Can be late here while life lasteth. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| LYSANDER. For the punishment of crimes. | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·· |
| JUSTINA. Injured truth to re-establish. | 11 | ˘/˘/˘···˘/˘ |
| LYSANDER. I, from what I have seen, condemn thee. | 12 | ·/˘······˘/· |
| JUSTINA. I thee, from what thou knowest not, rather. | 13 | ˘/˘·····/˘·/˘ |
| LYSANDER. Leave me; I go forth to die | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Where my grief will soon dispatch me. | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| JUSTINA. At thy feet I would lose my life; | 11 | ˘/˘········ |
| But do not reject me, father. | 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.