Item
Dextera, quid dubitas? durum est jugulare Catonem;Sed modo liber erit: jam puto non dubitas!Fas non est vivo quenquam servire Catone,Nedum ipsum vincit nunc Cato si moritur.
Words in this poem
- quid n.
- A portion suitable to be chewed; a cud; as, a quid of tobacco. [See Cud.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Item 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, Item, in Lucasta (1649), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #703, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lovelace-lucasta/item-3.html, id L13078.
Form and metre
Item is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 14.0 syllables.
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.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Dextera, quid dubitas? durum est jugulare Catonem; | 17 | ·······/˘˘/······ |
| Sed modo liber erit: jam puto non dubitas! | 14 | ···/˘········· |
| Fas non est vivo quenquam servire Catone, | 12 | ··˘//˘····˘/ |
| Nedum ipsum vincit nunc Cato si moritur. | 13 | ·······/˘···· |
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.