Phryne
Thy flattering picture, Phryne, is like thee,Onely in this, that you both painted be.
Philo, with twelve yeares study, hath beene griev'dTo be understood; when will hee be beleev'd?
About this text
Phryne is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts, Project Gutenberg ebook #48688; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Donne, Phryne, in Poems (1633), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #48688, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/donne-poems/phryne.html, id L04916.
Form and metre
Phryne is 4 lines in 2 stanzas of 2 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 65% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables.
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 AA theeA · beA
- 2 AA griev'dA · beleev'dA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thy flattering picture, Phryne, is like thee, | 10 | ·/˘˘/˘···· |
| Onely in this, that you both painted be. | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Philo, with twelve yeares study, hath beene griev'd | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| To be understood; when will hee be beleev'd? | 11 | ···˘/······ |
Notes from the edition 2
Herbert Grierson's record of the readings of the early editions and manuscripts, from his Poems of John Donne (Oxford, 1912; Project Gutenberg #48688).
- Stanza 1, line 1 like thee,] like to thee, 1650-69
- Stanza 2, line 1 griev'd Ed: griev'd, 1633-69
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.