Act the Third: Scene XVIII
GOVERNOR. And since now this fair pretence,This hypocritical deceit,In my power at last doth lie,Wherefore my revenge postponeFor the sorrows I have knownThrough her fault? Yes, she shall dieBy the bloody headsman's hand.Bring her hither in my name.Let her punishment and shameBe a terror to the land.Let the palace she thought sweetBut her scaffold scene present.
Words in this poem
- pretence n.
- The act of laying claim; the claim laid; assumption; pretension. [LL. praetensus, for L. praetentus, p. p. of praetendere. See Pretend, and cf. Tension.]
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Act the Third: Scene XVIII 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 XVIII, in The Wonder-Working Magician (1873), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6372, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/calderon-magico-prodigioso/act-the-third-scene-xviii.html, id L26649.
Form and metre
Act the Third: Scene XVIII is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
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.
- 1 -ABCCBDEEDA- pretence · deceitA · lieB · postponeC · knownC · dieB · handD · nameE · shameE · landD · sweetA · present
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 |
|---|---|---|
| GOVERNOR. And since now this fair pretence, | 9 | /˘······· |
| This hypocritical deceit, | 8 | ··˘/˘˘˘/ |
| In my power at last doth lie, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Wherefore my revenge postpone | 7 | /˘·˘/˘/ |
| For the sorrows I have known | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Through her fault? Yes, she shall die | 7 | ······· |
| By the bloody headsman's hand. | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Bring her hither in my name. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Let her punishment and shame | 7 | ··/˘˘·· |
| Be a terror to the land. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Let the palace she thought sweet | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| But her scaffold scene present. | 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.