Written from Goletta XXXIII
My tongue goes as grief guides it, and I strayAlready in my grief without a guide;We both must go, howe'er dissatisfied,With hasty step in an unwished-for way.I, but companioned by the dark arrayOf images that frenzy does create,And that, as forced along by grief to stateA thousand things it never wished to say.The law to me is most severe--it knowsMy innocence, yet makes not mine alone,But others' faults, my torturers! why should ISmart for the madness of my tongue, when woesBeyond endurance lift the lash on high,And Reason trembles on her tottering throne?
About this text
Written from Goletta XXXIII is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Works of Garcilasso de la Vega, Project Gutenberg ebook #49410, the J. H. Wiffen 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: Garcilaso de la Vega, Written from Goletta XXXIII, in The Works of Garcilasso de la Vega (1823), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49410, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/garcilaso-works/written-from-goletta-xxxiii.html, id L18730.
Form and metre
Written from Goletta XXXIII is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAACCADEFDFE. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 43% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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.
- 1 ABBAACCADEFDFE strayA · guideB · dissatisfiedB · wayA · arrayA · createC · stateC · sayA · knowsD · aloneE · iF · woesD · highF · throneE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My tongue goes as grief guides it, and I stray | 10 | ·········· |
| Already in my grief without a guide; | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| We both must go, howe'er dissatisfied, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| With hasty step in an unwished-for way. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| I, but companioned by the dark array | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| Of images that frenzy does create, | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘·˘/ |
| And that, as forced along by grief to state | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| A thousand things it never wished to say. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| The law to me is most severe--it knows | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| My innocence, yet makes not mine alone, | 10 | ·/˘˘····˘/ |
| But others' faults, my torturers! why should I | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Smart for the madness of my tongue, when woes | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Beyond endurance lift the lash on high, | 10 | ··/˘˘····· |
| And Reason trembles on her tottering throne? | 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.