Carmen XXVII: To His Cup-Boy
Thou youngling drawer of Falernian oldCrown me the goblets with a bitterer wineAs was Postumia's law that rules the feastThan ebriate grape-stone more inebriate.But ye fare whither please ye (water-nymphs!)To wine pernicious, and to sober folkMigrate ye: mere Thyonian juice be here!
Words in this poem
- youngling n.
- A young person; a youth; also, any animal in its early life. [AS. geongling.]
- falernian a.
- Of or pertaining to Mount Falernus, in Italy; as, Falernianwine.
- inebriate v. i.
- To become drunk.
- whither adv.
- To what place; -- used interrogatively; as, whither goest thou [OE. whider. AS. hwider; akin to E. where, who; cf. Goth. hvadre whither. See Who, and cf. Hither, Thither.]
- 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.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carmen XXVII: To His Cup-Boy 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 XXVII: To His Cup-Boy, in The Carmina (1894), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #20732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/catullus-carmina/carmen-xxvii-to-his-cup-boy.html, id L13810.
Form and metre
Carmen XXVII: To His Cup-Boy 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 83%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thou youngling drawer of Falernian old | 10 | ·/˘··˘/˘˘· |
| Crown me the goblets with a bitterer wine | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| As was Postumia's law that rules the feast | 10 | ·········· |
| Than ebriate grape-stone more inebriate. | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| But ye fare whither please ye (water-nymphs!) | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| To wine pernicious, and to sober folk | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Migrate ye: mere Thyonian juice be here! | 9 | /········ |
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.