A Chaucerian Paraphrase of Horace
Syn that you, Chloe, to your moder sticken,Maketh all ye yonge bacheloures full sicken;Like as a lyttel deere you ben y-hidingWhenas come lovers with theyre pityse chiding;Sothly it ben faire to give up your moderFor to beare swete company with some oder;Your moder ben well enow so farre shee goeth,But that ben not farre enow, God knoweth;Wherefore it ben sayed that foolysh ladyesThat marrye not shall leade an aype in Hadys;But all that do with gode men wed full quickylyeWhen that they be on dead go to ye seints full sickerly.
Words in this poem
- sicken v. t.
- To make sick; to disease.
- enow
- A form of Enough.
- farre n.
- A young pig, or a litter of pigs. [See Farrow.]
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
- 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,]
- sickerly adv.
- Surely; securely.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Chaucerian Paraphrase of Horace is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Little Book of Western Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #9606; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eugene Field, A Chaucerian Paraphrase of Horace, in A Little Book of Western Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9606, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-western-verse/a-chaucerian-paraphrase-of-horace.html, id L24652.
Form and metre
A Chaucerian Paraphrase of Horace is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 83% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 AABBCCDDEE-- stickenA · sickenA · hidingB · chidingB · moderC · oderC · goethD · knowethD · ladyesE · hadysE · quickylye · sickerly
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Syn that you, Chloe, to your moder sticken, | 11 | ···/˘··/˘·· |
| Maketh all ye yonge bacheloures full sicken; | 11 | ·····/˘˘·/˘ |
| Like as a lyttel deere you ben y-hiding | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Whenas come lovers with theyre pityse chiding; | 11 | /˘·/˘····/˘ |
| Sothly it ben faire to give up your moder | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| For to beare swete company with some oder; | 11 | ····/˘˘··/˘ |
| Your moder ben well enow so farre shee goeth, | 11 | ·/˘··˘/···· |
| But that ben not farre enow, God knoweth; | 10 | ·····˘/·/˘ |
| Wherefore it ben sayed that foolysh ladyes | 11 | /˘···/···/˘ |
| That marrye not shall leade an aype in Hadys; | 11 | ··········· |
| But all that do with gode men wed full quickylye | 12 | ············ |
| When that they be on dead go to ye seints full sickerly. | 14 | ·············· |
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.