Act I: Scene IV
DAMIS.I wish you'd say a word to him aboutMy sister's marriage; I suspect TartuffeOpposes it, and puts my father upTo all these wretched shifts. You know, besides,How nearly I'm concerned in it myself;If love unites my sister and Valere,I love his sister too; and if this marriageWere to ...
DORINE.He's coming.
Words in this poem
- tartuffe n.
- A hypocritical devotee. See the Dictionary of Noted Names in Fiction. [F. tartufe.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Act I: Scene IV is in the public domain. This text is taken from Tartuffe; Or, The Hypocrite, Project Gutenberg ebook #2027, the Curtis Hidden Page 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: Molière, Act I: Scene IV, in Tartuffe; Or, The Hypocrite (1908), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2027, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/moliere-tartuffe/act-i-scene-iv.html, id L26924.
Form and metre
Act I: Scene IV is 11 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
See 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| DAMIS. | 2 | ·· |
| I wish you'd say a word to him about | 10 | ·········· |
| My sister's marriage; I suspect Tartuffe | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/·· |
| Opposes it, and puts my father up | 10 | ˘/˘····/˘· |
| To all these wretched shifts. You know, besides, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| How nearly I'm concerned in it myself; | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···/ |
| If love unites my sister and Valere, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| I love his sister too; and if this marriage | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Were to ... | 2 | ·· |
| DORINE. | 3 | ˘/˘ |
| He's coming. | 3 | ·/˘ |
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.