Act the Third: Scene XIV
CLARIN. Fear, for any one who wants it,Wholesale or retail I'll furnish.
CYPRIAN. Stay! funereal shadow, stay!Now for other ends I urge thee.
CLARIN. I am a funereal body:--Don't you see it by my bulk here?
CYPRIAN. Ah! who are you?
CLARIN. Who I am, sir,Or am not, myself doth puzzle.
CYPRIAN. Did you in the air's void spaces,Or earth's caverns yawning under,See an icy corse here vanish,See to dust and ashes turningAll the freshness and the beautyThat it promised in its coming?
CLARIN. Do you take me, sir, for oneOf those pitiful poor lurkersMen call spies?
CYPRIAN. What could it be?
CLARIN. And not be, in such a hurry.
CYPRIAN. Let us seek it.
CLARIN. Let's not seek it.
CYPRIAN. I must sift this matter further.
CLARIN. I would rather not.
Words in this poem
- cyprian a.
- Belonging to Cyprus.
- corse n.
- A living body or its bulk. [OF. cors, F. corps. See Corpse.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Act the Third: 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 Third: Scene XIV, in The Wonder-Working Magician (1873), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6372, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/calderon-magico-prodigioso/act-the-third-scene-xiv.html, id L26645.
Form and metre
Act the Third: Scene XIV is 24 lines in 13 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
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 |
|---|---|---|
| CLARIN. Fear, for any one who wants it, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| Wholesale or retail I'll furnish. | 8 | /··/··/˘ |
| CYPRIAN. Stay! funereal shadow, stay! | 10 | /˘·˘/˘˘/·· |
| Now for other ends I urge thee. | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| CLARIN. I am a funereal body:-- | 11 | ·····˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Don't you see it by my bulk here? | 8 | ········ |
| CYPRIAN. Ah! who are you? | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| CLARIN. Who I am, sir, | 6 | ······ |
| Or am not, myself doth puzzle. | 8 | ····/·/˘ |
| CYPRIAN. Did you in the air's void spaces, | 10 | /˘······/˘ |
| Or earth's caverns yawning under, | 8 | ··/˘/˘·· |
| See an icy corse here vanish, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| See to dust and ashes turning | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| All the freshness and the beauty | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| That it promised in its coming? | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| CLARIN. Do you take me, sir, for one | 9 | ········· |
| Of those pitiful poor lurkers | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| Men call spies? | 3 | ··· |
| CYPRIAN. What could it be? | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| CLARIN. And not be, in such a hurry. | 10 | ········/˘ |
| CYPRIAN. Let us seek it. | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| CLARIN. Let's not seek it. | 6 | ······ |
| CYPRIAN. I must sift this matter further. | 10 | /˘····/˘/˘ |
| CLARIN. I would rather not. | 7 | ····/˘· |
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.