Carmen XLIX: To Marcus Tullius Cicero
Most eloquent 'mid race of RomulusThat is or ever was (Marc Tullius!)Or in the coming years the light shall see,His thanks, the warmest, offers unto theeCatullus, poet sorriest that be,And by such measure poet sorriest,As thou of pleaders art the bestest best.
Words in this poem
- marc n.
- The refuse matter which remains after the pressure of fruit, particularly of grapes. [F.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carmen XLIX: To Marcus Tullius Cicero 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 XLIX: To Marcus Tullius Cicero, in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-xlix-to-marcus-tullius-cicero.html, id L13832.
Form and metre
Carmen XLIX: To Marcus Tullius Cicero is 7 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.7 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 --AAABB romulus · tullius · seeA · theeA · beA · sorriestB · bestB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Most eloquent 'mid race of Romulus | 10 | ·/˘˘···/˘˘ |
| That is or ever was (Marc Tullius!) | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
| Or in the coming years the light shall see, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| His thanks, the warmest, offers unto thee | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Catullus, poet sorriest that be, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| And by such measure poet sorriest, | 9 | ···/˘/˘·· |
| As thou of pleaders art the bestest best. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
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.