Carmen XLI: On Mamurra's Mistress
That Ametina, worn-out whore,Me for a myriad oft would bore,That strumpet of th' ignoble nose,To leman, rakehell Formian chose.An ye would guard her (kinsmen folk)Your friends and leaches d'ye convoke:The girl's not sound-sens'd; ask ye naughtOf her complaint: she's love-distraught.
Words in this poem
- whore n.
- A woman who practices unlawful sexual commerce with men, especially one who prostitutes her body for hire; a prostitute; a harlot. Wyclif. [OE. hore, AS. h; akin to D. hoer, hoere, G. hure, OHG. huora, huorra, Icel. h, Dan. hore, Sw. hora, Goth. h an adulterer, AS. h adultery, OHG. huor, and probabl]
- myriad n.
- The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things. [Gr. myriade.]
- leman n.
- A sweetheart, of either sex; a gallant, or a mistress; -- usually in a bad sense. Chaucer. Spenser. [OE. lemman, legman; AS.leóf dear + mann man. See Lief, and Man.]
- rakehell a.
- Dissolute; wild; lewd; rakish. Spenser. B. Jonson.
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- convoke v. t.
- To call together; to summon to meet; to assemble by summons. [L. convocare: cf. F. convoquer. See Convocate.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carmen XLI: On Mamurra's Mistress 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 XLI: On Mamurra's Mistress, in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-xli-on-mamurra-s-mistress.html, id L13824.
Form and metre
Carmen XLI: On Mamurra's Mistress is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 whoreA · boreA · noseB · choseB · folkC · convokeC · naughtD · distraughtD
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| That Ametina, worn-out whore, | 8 | ········ |
| Me for a myriad oft would bore, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That strumpet of th' ignoble nose, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| To leman, rakehell Formian chose. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| An ye would guard her (kinsmen folk) | 8 | ········ |
| Your friends and leaches d'ye convoke: | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| The girl's not sound-sens'd; ask ye naught | 8 | ········ |
| Of her complaint: she's love-distraught. | 8 | ··˘/··˘/ |
Notes from the edition 1
Leonard C. Smithers's explanatory and illustrative notes to the Burton/Smithers translation of the Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus (1894; Project Gutenberg #20732), keyed "Carmen N, v. N" to the Latin verse.
- Line 3 Turpiculo naso. The kind of nose alluded to is such as sheep or goats have. Cf. Lucretius, lib. iv. v. 1152.
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