Carmen CIX: To Lesbia on Her Vow of Constancy
Gladsome to me, O my life, this love whose offer thou deignestBetween us twain lively and lusty to last soothfast.(Great Gods!) grant ye the boon that prove her promises loyal,Saying her say in truth spoken with spirit sincere;So be it lawful for us to protract through length of our life-tideMutual pact of our love, pledges of holy good will!
Words in this poem
- gladsome a.
- Pleased; joyful; cheerful.
- twain a.
- Two;- nearly obsolete in common discourse, but used in poetry and burlesque. [OE. twein, tweien, tweyne, AS. twegen, masc. See Two.]
- soothfast a.
- Firmly fixed in, or founded upon, the thruth; true; genuine; real; also, truthful; faithful. -- Sooth"fast`ness, n. [Sooth + fast, that is, fast or firm with respect to truth.]
- boon n.
- A prayer or petition. [OE. bone, boin, a petition, fr. Icel. b; akin to Sw. & Dan. b, AS. b, and perh. to E. ban; but influenced by F. bon good, fr. L. bonus. Ban, Bounty.]
- pact n.
- An agreement; a league; a compact; a covenant. [L. pactum, fr. paciscere to make a bargain or contract, fr. pacere to settle, or agree upon; cf. pangere to fasten, Gr. paca bond, and E. fang: cf. F. pacie. Cf]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carmen CIX: To Lesbia on Her Vow of Constancy 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 CIX: To Lesbia on Her Vow of Constancy, in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-cix-to-lesbia-on-her-vow-of-constancy.html, id L13889.
Form and metre
Carmen CIX: To Lesbia on Her Vow of Constancy is 6 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%). 77% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.7 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic heptameter.
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 AAB--B deignestA · soothfastA · loyalB · sincere · tide · willB
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 iambic heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Gladsome to me, O my life, this love whose offer thou deignest | 15 | /˘········/˘·/˘ |
| Between us twain lively and lusty to last soothfast. | 13 | ····/˘·/˘··/˘ |
| (Great Gods!) grant ye the boon that prove her promises loyal, | 13 | ·········/˘/˘ |
| Saying her say in truth spoken with spirit sincere; | 12 | /˘····/˘·/˘/ |
| So be it lawful for us to protract through length of our life-tide | 16 | ···/˘···˘/···/·· |
| Mutual pact of our love, pledges of holy good will! | 13 | /˘··/·/˘·/˘·· |
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.