Carmen IX: To Veranius Returned from Travel
Veranius! over every friend of meForestanding, owned I hundred thousands three,Home to Penates and to single-soul'dBrethren, returned art thou and mother old?Yes, thou art come. Oh, winsome news come well!Now shall I see thee, safely hear thee tellOf sites Iberian, deeds and nations 'spied,(As be thy wont) and neck-a-neck appliedI'll greet with kisses thy glad lips and eyne.Oh! Of all mortal men beatifiedWhose joy and gladness greater be than mine?
Words in this poem
- penates n.
- The household gods of the ancient Romans. They presided over the home and the family hearth. See Lar. [L.]
- winsome a.
- Cheerful; merry; gay; light-hearted. [AS. wynsum, fr. wynn joy; akin to OS. wunnia, OHG. wunna, wunni, G. wonne, Goth. wunan to rejoice (in unwunands sad), AS. wunian to dwell. Win, v. t., Wont, a.]
- 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,]
- iberian a.
- Of or pertaining to Iberia.
- eyne n.
- Plural of eye; obsolete, or used only in poetry.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carmen IX: To Veranius Returned from Travel 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 IX: To Veranius Returned from Travel, in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-ix-to-veranius-returned-from-travel.html, id L13792.
Form and metre
Carmen IX: To Veranius Returned from Travel is 11 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 73% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 46% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDD-D- meA · threeA · soul'dB · oldB · wellC · tellC · spiedD · appliedD · eyne · beatifiedD · mine
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Veranius! over every friend of me | 10 | ····/˘˘··· |
| Forestanding, owned I hundred thousands three, | 11 | ······/˘/˘· |
| Home to Penates and to single-soul'd | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Brethren, returned art thou and mother old? | 10 | /˘˘/···/˘· |
| Yes, thou art come. Oh, winsome news come well! | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Now shall I see thee, safely hear thee tell | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Of sites Iberian, deeds and nations 'spied, | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| (As be thy wont) and neck-a-neck applied | 10 | ········˘/ |
| I'll greet with kisses thy glad lips and eyne. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Oh! Of all mortal men beatified | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| Whose joy and gladness greater be than mine? | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
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.