Carmen XCIV: Against Mentula (Mamurra)

Catullus (84 BC–54 BC), translated by Richard Burton · 1894

iambic pentameter · 2 lines · from The Carmina

Mentula wooeth much: much wooeth he, be assured.That is, e'en as they say, the Pot gathers leeks for the pot.

About this text

Carmen XCIV: Against Mentula (Mamurra) 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 XCIV: Against Mentula (Mamurra), in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-xciv-against-mentula-mamurra.html, id L13874.

Form and metre

Carmen XCIV: Against Mentula (Mamurra) is 2 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 12.5 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.

LineSyl.Stress
Mentula wooeth much: much wooeth he, be assured.11·········˘/
That is, e'en as they say, the Pot gathers leeks for the pot.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.

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