The Counter-Turn
This made you first to know the whyYou liked, then after, to applyThat liking; and approach so one the t’other,Till either grew a portion of the other:Each styled by his end,The copy of his friend.You lived to be the great sir-names,And titles, by which all made claimsUnto the virtue; nothing perfect done,But as a Cary, or a Morison.
About this text
The Counter-Turn is in the public domain. This text is taken from Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #5134; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ben Jonson, The Counter-Turn, in Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems (1616), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5134, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/jonson-poems/the-counter-turn-4.html, id L23819.
Form and metre
The Counter-Turn is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDDEE whyA · applyA · t'otherB · otherB · endC · friendC · namesD · claimsD · doneE · morisonE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| This made you first to know the why | 8 | ········ |
| You liked, then after, to apply | 9 | ··˘····˘/ |
| That liking; and approach so one the t’other, | 12 | ·/˘·˘/···˘/˘ |
| Till either grew a portion of the other: | 11 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| Each styled by his end, | 5 | ····· |
| The copy of his friend. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| You lived to be the great sir-names, | 9 | ··˘······ |
| And titles, by which all made claims | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Unto the virtue; nothing perfect done, | 10 | ···/˘/˘/·· |
| But as a Cary, or a Morison. | 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.