108. To the Painter, to Draw Him a Picture
Come, skilful Lupo, now, and takeThy bice, thy umber, pink, and lake;And let it be thy pencil's strife,To paint a Bridgeman to the life:Draw him as like too, as you can,An old, poor, lying, flattering man:His cheeks bepimpled, red and blue;His nose and lips of mulberry hue.Then, for an easy fancy, placeA burling iron for his face:Next, make his cheeks with breath to swell,And for to speak, if possible:But do not so, for fear lest heShould by his breathing, poison thee.
Words in this poem
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
108. To the Painter, to Draw Him a Picture is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #22421; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Herrick, 108. To the Painter, to Draw Him a Picture, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/108-to-the-painter-to-draw-him-a-picture.html, id L05168.
Form and metre
108. To the Painter, to Draw Him a Picture is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AABBCCDDEEFFGG takeA · lakeA · strifeB · lifeB · canC · manC · blueD · hueD · placeE · faceE · swellF · possibleF · heG · theeG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Come, skilful Lupo, now, and take | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Thy bice, thy umber, pink, and lake; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And let it be thy pencil's strife, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To paint a Bridgeman to the life: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Draw him as like too, as you can, | 8 | ········ |
| An old, poor, lying, flattering man: | 9 | ···/˘/˘˘· |
| His cheeks bepimpled, red and blue; | 7 | ······· |
| His nose and lips of mulberry hue. | 9 | ·····/·˘· |
| Then, for an easy fancy, place | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| A burling iron for his face: | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Next, make his cheeks with breath to swell, | 8 | ········ |
| And for to speak, if possible: | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| But do not so, for fear lest he | 8 | ········ |
| Should by his breathing, poison thee. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
Notes from the edition 1
Word-glosses from Pollard's edition (Muses' Library, 1891; Project Gutenberg #22421).
- Bice: properly a brown grey, but by transference from "blue bice" and · Burling iron: pincers for extracting knots
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