Carmen LXXXVI: Of Quintia
Quintia beautiful seems to the crowd; to me, fair, and tall,Straight; and merits as these readily thus I confess,But that she is beauteous all I deny, for nothing of lovesome,Never a grain of salt, shows in her person so large.Lesbia beautiful seems, and when all over she's fairest,Any Venus-gift stole she from every one.
Words in this poem
- beauteous a.
- Full of beauty; beautiful; very handsome. [Mostly poetic] -- Beau"te*ous*ly, adv. --
- stole n.
- A long, loose garment reaching to the feet. [AS. stole, L. stola, Gr. stall. See Stall.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carmen LXXXVI: Of Quintia 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 LXXXVI: Of Quintia, in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-lxxxvi-of-quintia.html, id L13865.
Form and metre
Carmen LXXXVI: Of Quintia is 6 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is trochaic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 71%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.8 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in trochaic 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.
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 heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Quintia beautiful seems to the crowd; to me, fair, and tall, | 13 | ··/˘········· |
| Straight; and merits as these readily thus I confess, | 12 | ··/˘··/˘··˘/ |
| But that she is beauteous all I deny, for nothing of lovesome, | 17 | ····/˘˘··˘/·/˘·/˘ |
| Never a grain of salt, shows in her person so large. | 12 | /·······/˘·· |
| Lesbia beautiful seems, and when all over she's fairest, | 12 | ··/˘······/˘ |
| Any Venus-gift stole she from every one. | 11 | /˘/˘····/˘· |
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.