Carmen CI: On the Burial of His Brother
Faring thro' many a folk and plowing many a sea-plainThese sad funeral-rites (Brother!) to deal thee I come,So wi' the latest boons to the dead bestowed I may gift thee,And I may vainly address ashes that answer have none,Sithence of thee, very thee, to deprive me Fortune behested,Woe for thee, Brother forlore! Cruelly severed fro' me.Yet in the meanwhile now what olden usage of forbearsBrings as the boons that befit mournfullest funeral rites,Thine be these gifts which flow with tear-flood shed by thy brother,And, for ever and aye (Brother!) all hail and farewell.
Words in this poem
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- sithence adv.
- Since. See Sith, and Sithen. Piers Plowman.
- meanwhile n.
- The intervening time; as, in the meantime (or mean time).
- olden a.
- Old; ancient; as, the olden time.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carmen CI: On the Burial of His Brother is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Carmina, Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, the Richard Burton 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: Catullus, Carmen CI: On the Burial of His Brother, in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-ci-on-the-burial-of-his-brother.html, id L13881.
Form and metre
Carmen CI: On the Burial of His Brother is 10 lines in a single stanza. 71% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.5 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 --A--A---- plain · come · theeA · none · behested · meA · forbears · rites · brother · farewell
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Faring thro' many a folk and plowing many a sea-plain | 13 | /˘·/···/˘/··· |
| These sad funeral-rites (Brother!) to deal thee I come, | 12 | ··/˘·/˘····· |
| So wi' the latest boons to the dead bestowed I may gift thee, | 15 | ···/˘····˘/···· |
| And I may vainly address ashes that answer have none, | 14 | ···/˘/·/˘·/˘·· |
| Sithence of thee, very thee, to deprive me Fortune behested, | 16 | ····/˘··˘/·/˘˘/˘ |
| Woe for thee, Brother forlore! Cruelly severed fro' me. | 13 | ···/˘˘//˘/˘·· |
| Yet in the meanwhile now what olden usage of forbears | 14 | ···/···/˘/˘··· |
| Brings as the boons that befit mournfullest funeral rites, | 12 | ·····˘//˘/˘· |
| Thine be these gifts which flow with tear-flood shed by thy brother, | 14 | ············/˘ |
| And, for ever and aye (Brother!) all hail and farewell. | 12 | ··/··/˘····/ |
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.