798. Orpheus
Orpheus he went, as poets tell,To fetch Eurydice from hell;And had her; but it was uponThis short but strict condition:Backward he should not look while heLed her through hell's obscurity:But ah! it happened, as he madeHis passage through that dreadful shade,Revolve he did his loving eye,For gentle fear or jealousy;And looking back, that look did severHim and Eurydice for ever.
Words in this poem
- orpheus n.
- The famous mythic Thracian poet, son of the Muse Calliope, and husband of Eurydice. He is reputed to have had power to entrance beasts and inanimate objects by the music of his lyre.
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- dreadful a.
- Full of dread or terror; fearful.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
798. Orpheus 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, 798. Orpheus, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/798-orpheus.html, id L05737.
Form and metre
798. Orpheus is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% 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 AABBC-DDC-EE tellA · hellA · uponB · conditionB · heC · obscurity · madeD · shadeD · eyeC · jealousy · severE · everE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Orpheus he went, as poets tell, | 9 | /˘˘···/˘· |
| To fetch Eurydice from hell; | 7 | ······· |
| And had her; but it was upon | 8 | ········ |
| This short but strict condition: | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Backward he should not look while he | 8 | /˘······ |
| Led her through hell's obscurity: | 8 | ····˘/˘˘ |
| But ah! it happened, as he made | 9 | ···/˘˘··· |
| His passage through that dreadful shade, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Revolve he did his loving eye, | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| For gentle fear or jealousy; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| And looking back, that look did sever | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| Him and Eurydice for ever. | 8 | ······/˘ |
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.