Cupid Far Gone
What, so beyond all madnesse is the elf,Now he hath got out of himself!His fatal enemy the Bee,Nor his deceiv'd artillerie,His shackles, nor the roses boughNe'r half so netled him, as he is now.
See! at's own mother he is offering;His finger now fits any ring;Old Cybele he would enjoy,And now the girl, and now the boy.He proffers Jove a back caresse,And all his love in the antipodes.
Jealous of his chast Psyche, raging heQuarrels with student Mercurie,And with a proud submissive breathOffers to change his darts with Death.He strikes at the bright eye of day,And Juno tumbles in her milky way.
The dear sweet secrets of the gods he tells,And with loath'd hate lov'd heaven he swells;Now, like a fury, he beliesMyriads of pure virginities,And swears, with this false frenzy hurl'd,There's not a vertuous she in all the world.
Olympus he renownces, then descends,And makes a friendship with the fiends;Bids Charon be no more a slave,He Argos rigg'd with stars shall have,And triple Cerberus from belowMust leash'd t' himself with him a hunting go.
Words in this poem
- jove n.
- The chief divinity of the ancient Romans; Jupiter. [L. Jupiter, gen. Jovis, OL. Jovis, nom. & gen. for Djovis; akin to E. Tuesday. See Tuesday, and cf. Jupiter.]
- antipodes n.
- Those who live on the side of the globe diametrically opposite.
- psyche n.
- A lovely maiden, daughter of a king and mistress of Eros, or Cupid. She is regarded as the personification of the soul.
- vertuous a.
- Virtuous; powerful.
- charon n.
- The son of Erebus and Nox, whose office it was to ferry the souls of the dead over the Styx, a river of the infernal regions.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- cerberus n.
- A monster, in the shape, of a three-headed dog, guarding the entrance into the infernal regions, Hence: Any vigilant custodian or guardian, esp. if surly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cupid Far Gone is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lucasta, Project Gutenberg ebook #703; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Richard Lovelace, Cupid Far Gone, in Lucasta (1649), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #703, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lovelace-lucasta/cupid-far-gone.html, id L13050.
Form and metre
Cupid Far Gone is 30 lines in 5 stanzas of 6 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 73% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.8 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% 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 AA--BB elfA · himselfA · bee · artillerie · boughB · nowB
- 2 AABB-- offeringA · ringA · enjoyB · boyB · caresse · antipodes
- 3 --AABB he · mercurie · breathA · deathA · dayB · wayB
- 4 AABBCC tellsA · swellsA · beliesB · virginitiesB · hurl'dC · worldC
- 5 --AABB descends · fiends · slaveA · haveA · belowB · goB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| What, so beyond all madnesse is the elf, | 10 | ·········· |
| Now he hath got out of himself! | 8 | ······˘/ |
| His fatal enemy the Bee, | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘·· |
| Nor his deceiv'd artillerie, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| His shackles, nor the roses bough | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Ne'r half so netled him, as he is now. | 9 | ········· |
| See! at's own mother he is offering; | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| His finger now fits any ring; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Old Cybele he would enjoy, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| And now the girl, and now the boy. | 8 | ········ |
| He proffers Jove a back caresse, | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| And all his love in the antipodes. | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| Jealous of his chast Psyche, raging he | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘· |
| Quarrels with student Mercurie, | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| And with a proud submissive breath | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Offers to change his darts with Death. | 8 | /˘······ |
| He strikes at the bright eye of day, | 8 | ········ |
| And Juno tumbles in her milky way. | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| The dear sweet secrets of the gods he tells, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And with loath'd hate lov'd heaven he swells; | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Now, like a fury, he belies | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Myriads of pure virginities, | 9 | /˘˘··˘/˘˘ |
| And swears, with this false frenzy hurl'd, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| There's not a vertuous she in all the world. | 11 | ···/˘˘····· |
| Olympus he renownces, then descends, | 10 | ˘/˘·····˘/ |
| And makes a friendship with the fiends; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Bids Charon be no more a slave, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| He Argos rigg'd with stars shall have, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And triple Cerberus from below | 9 | ·/˘/˘˘··· |
| Must leash'd t' himself with him a hunting go. | 11 | ···˘/···/˘· |
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.