Book I: Ode XXVI: Musis Amicus
The Muses love me: fear and grief,The winds may blow them to the sea;Who quail before the wintry chiefOf Scythia's realm, is nought to me.What cloud o'er Tiridates lowers,I care not, I. O, nymph divineOf virgin springs, with sunniest flowersA chaplet for my Lamia twine,Pimplea sweet! my praise were vainWithout thee. String this maiden lyre,Attune for him the Lesbian strain,O goddess, with thy sister quire!
Words in this poem
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
- chaplet n.
- A garland or wreath to be worn on the head. [F. chapelet, dim. of OF. chapel hat, garland, dim. fr. LL. cappa. See Cap, and cf. Chapelet, Chapeau.]
- lamia n.
- A monster capable of assuming a woman's form, who was said to devour human beings or suck their blood; a vampire; a sorceress; a with.
- attune v. t.
- To tune or put in tune; to make melodious; to adjust, as one sound or musical instrument to another; as, to attune the voice to a harp. [Pref. ad- + tune.]
- lesbian a.
- Of or pertaining to the island anciently called Lesbos, now Mitylene, in the Grecian Archipelago.
- quire v. i.
- To sing in concert.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Book I: Ode XXVI: Musis Amicus is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Odes and Carmen Saeculare, Project Gutenberg ebook #5432, the John Conington 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: Horace, Book I: Ode XXVI: Musis Amicus, in The Odes and Carmen Saeculare (1863), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5432, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/horace-odes/book-i-ode-xxvi-musis-amicus.html, id L13921.
Form and metre
Book I: Ode XXVI: Musis Amicus is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.9 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABAB-C-CDEDE griefA · seaB · chiefA · meB · lowers · divineC · flowers · twineC · vainD · lyreE · strainD · quireE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The Muses love me: fear and grief, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The winds may blow them to the sea; | 8 | ········ |
| Who quail before the wintry chief | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Of Scythia's realm, is nought to me. | 8 | ········ |
| What cloud o'er Tiridates lowers, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| I care not, I. O, nymph divine | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Of virgin springs, with sunniest flowers | 8 | ·/˘··/˘/ |
| A chaplet for my Lamia twine, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Pimplea sweet! my praise were vain | 7 | ······· |
| Without thee. String this maiden lyre, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Attune for him the Lesbian strain, | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| O goddess, with thy sister quire! | 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.