Carmen LXXXV: How the Poet Loves
Hate I, and love I. Haps thou'lt ask me wherefore I do so.Wot I not, yet so I do feeling a torture of pain.
Words in this poem
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carmen LXXXV: How the Poet Loves 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 LXXXV: How the Poet Loves, in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-lxxxv-how-the-poet-loves.html, id L13864.
Form and metre
Carmen LXXXV: How the Poet Loves is 2 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 14.0 syllables.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Hate I, and love I. Haps thou'lt ask me wherefore I do so. | 14 | ·········/˘··· |
| Wot I not, yet so I do feeling a torture of pain. | 14 | ·······/˘·/˘·· |
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.