511. Another upon Her
First, for your shape, the curious cannot showAny one part that's dissonant in you:And 'gainst your chaste behaviour there's no plea,Since you are known to be Penelope.Thus fair and clean you are, although there beA mighty strife 'twixt form and chastity.
Words in this poem
- curious a.
- Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact. [OF. curios, curius, F. curieux, L. curiosus careful, inquisitive, fr. cura care. See Cure.]
- dissonant a.
- Sounding harshly; discordant; unharmonious. [L. dissonans, -antis, p. pr. of dissonare to disagree in sound, be discordant; dis- + sonare to sound: cf. F. dissonant. See Sonant.]
- penelope n.
- A genus of curassows, including the guans.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
511. Another upon Her 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, 511. Another upon Her, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/511-another-upon-her.html, id L05488.
Form and metre
511. Another upon Her is 6 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 --A-A- show · you · pleaA · penelope · beA · chastity
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 |
|---|---|---|
| First, for your shape, the curious cannot show | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Any one part that's dissonant in you: | 10 | /˘···/˘˘·· |
| And 'gainst your chaste behaviour there's no plea, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Since you are known to be Penelope. | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| Thus fair and clean you are, although there be | 10 | ·········· |
| A mighty strife 'twixt form and chastity. | 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.