99. Gotoba no In
How I regret my fallen friendsHow I despise my foes!And, tired of life, I only seekTo reach my long day's close,And gain at last repose.
Words in this poem
- despise v. t.
- To look down upon with disfavor or contempt; to contemn; to scorn; to disdain; to have a low opinion or contemptuous dislike of. [OF. despis-, in some forms of despire to despise, fr. L. despicere, despectum, to look down upon, despise; de- + spicere, specere, to look. See Spy, and cf. Des]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
99. Gotoba no In is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (the Hyaku-nin-isshiu), Internet Archive, the William N. Porter 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: Various, 99. Gotoba no In, in A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (1909), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hyakunin-isshu/99.html, id L28584.
Form and metre
99. Gotoba no In is 5 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes xaxaa. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic trimeter.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 xaxaa friendsx · foesa · seekx · closea · reposea
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| How I regret my fallen friends | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| How I despise my foes! | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| And, tired of life, I only seek | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| To reach my long day's close, | 6 | ······ |
| And gain at last repose. | 6 | ····˘/ |
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.