Act II: Scene V
(Enter Cleon.)
CLEON.My lord, the altars burnWith holy fire. The victim they prepare;On thee alone they wait, our rites to share.
POLY.Go, we do follow thee!
PAUL.I cannot go;Severus flies my sight; to him I oweMy absence--not, alas! to him alone!Go thou, and oh, remember he is great;In his sole hands Severus holds thy fate!
POLY.A foe so great, so noble, is a friend,Oh, not from him the lance that Heaven will send!
(Exeunt Pauline, Stratonice and Cleon.)
Words in this poem
- exeunt
- They go out, or retire from the scene; as, exeunt all except Hamlet. See 1st Exit. [L., 3d pers. pl. pres. of exire to go out.]
- pauline a.
- Of or pertaining to the apostle Paul, or his writings; resembling, or conforming to, the writings of Paul; as, the Pauline epistles; Pauline doctrine. [L. Paulinus, fr. Paulus Paul.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Act II: Scene V is in the public domain. This text is taken from Polyeucte, Project Gutenberg ebook #2543, the Thomas Constable 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: Pierre Corneille, Act II: Scene V, in Polyeucte (1910), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/corneille-polyeucte/act-ii-scene-v.html, id L27783.
Form and metre
Act II: Scene V is 17 lines in 6 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See 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.
- 2 --AA cleon · burn · prepareA · shareA
- 4 -AA-BB paul · goA · oweA · alone · greatB · fateB
- 5 -AA poly · friendA · sendA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| (Enter Cleon.) | 3 | /˘· |
| CLEON. | 1 | · |
| My lord, the altars burn | 6 | ···/˘· |
| With holy fire. The victim they prepare; | 10 | ·/˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| On thee alone they wait, our rites to share. | 10 | ··˘/··/··· |
| POLY. | 2 | /˘ |
| Go, we do follow thee! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| PAUL. | 1 | · |
| I cannot go; | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Severus flies my sight; to him I owe | 10 | ·········· |
| My absence--not, alas! to him alone! | 10 | ·/˘·˘/··˘/ |
| Go thou, and oh, remember he is great; | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| In his sole hands Severus holds thy fate! | 10 | ·········· |
| POLY. | 2 | /˘ |
| A foe so great, so noble, is a friend, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Oh, not from him the lance that Heaven will send! | 10 | ·······/·· |
| (Exeunt Pauline, Stratonice and Cleon.) | 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.