Carmen XLVII: To Porcius and Socration
Porcius and Socration, pair sinisterOf Piso, scabs and starvelings of the world,You to Fabullus and my Verianolus,Hath dared yon snipt Priapus to prefer?Upon rich banquets sumptuously spreadStill gorge you daily while my comrades mustGo seek invitals where the three roads fork?
About this text
Carmen XLVII: To Porcius and Socration 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 XLVII: To Porcius and Socration, in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-xlvii-to-porcius-and-socration.html, id L13830.
Form and metre
Carmen XLVII: To Porcius and Socration is 7 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic pentameter, other poems in blank verse.
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 iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Porcius and Socration, pair sinister | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| Of Piso, scabs and starvelings of the world, | 11 | ··········· |
| You to Fabullus and my Verianolus, | 11 | ··········· |
| Hath dared yon snipt Priapus to prefer? | 10 | ··˘·····˘/ |
| Upon rich banquets sumptuously spread | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Still gorge you daily while my comrades must | 10 | ···/˘··/·· |
| Go seek invitals where the three roads fork? | 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.