Carmen LXXXVII: To Lesbia
Never a woman could call herself so fondly belovedTruly as Lesbia mine has been beloved of myself.Never were Truth and Faith so firm in any one compactAs on the part of me kept I my love to thyself.Now is my mind to a pass, my Lesbia, brought by thy treason, LXXVSo in devotion to thee lost is the duty self due,Nor can I will thee well if best of women thou prove thee,Nor can I cease to love, do thou what doings thou wilt.
Words in this poem
- fondly adv.
- Foolishly. Verstegan (1673).
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carmen LXXXVII: To Lesbia 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 LXXXVII: To Lesbia, in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-lxxxvii-to-lesbia.html, id L13866.
Form and metre
Carmen LXXXVII: To Lesbia is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is dactylic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.6 syllables. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in dactylic 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 -A-A---- beloved · myselfA · compact · thyselfA · — · due · thee · wilt
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 dactylic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Never a woman could call herself so fondly beloved | 13 | /·/˘··˘/·/˘˘/ |
| Truly as Lesbia mine has been beloved of myself. | 13 | /˘······˘/··/ |
| Never were Truth and Faith so firm in any one compact | 13 | /·······/˘·˘/ |
| As on the part of me kept I my love to thyself. | 13 | ···········˘/ |
| Now is my mind to a pass, my Lesbia, brought by thy treason, LXXV | 16 | ·············/˘· |
| So in devotion to thee lost is the duty self due, | 14 | ··˘/˘·····/˘·· |
| Nor can I will thee well if best of women thou prove thee, | 14 | ·········/˘··· |
| Nor can I cease to love, do thou what doings thou wilt. | 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.