384. To His Nephew, to Be Prosperous in His Art of Painting
On, as thou hast begun, brave youth, and getThe palm from Urbin, Titian, Tintoret,Brugel and Coxu, and the works outdoOf Holbein and that mighty Rubens too.So draw and paint as none may do the like,No, not the glory of the world, Vandyke.
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- outdo v. t.
- To go beyond in performance; to excel; to surpass.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
384. To His Nephew, to Be Prosperous in His Art of Painting 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, 384. To His Nephew, to Be Prosperous in His Art of Painting, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/384-to-his-nephew-to-be-prosperous-in-his-art-of-painting.html, id L05392.
Form and metre
384. To His Nephew, to Be Prosperous in His Art of Painting is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 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 --AABB get · tintoret · outdoA · tooA · likeB · vandykeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| On, as thou hast begun, brave youth, and get | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| The palm from Urbin, Titian, Tintoret, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Brugel and Coxu, and the works outdo | 10 | ·········/ |
| Of Holbein and that mighty Rubens too. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| So draw and paint as none may do the like, | 10 | ·········· |
| No, not the glory of the world, Vandyke. | 10 | ···/˘····/ |
Notes from the edition 1
Word-glosses from Pollard's edition (Muses' Library, 1891; Project Gutenberg #22421).
- Urbin: Raphael · Brugel: Jan Breughel, Dutch landscape painter (1569-1625), or his · Coxu: Michael van Coxcie, Flemish painter (1497-1592)
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