Act IV: Scene II
DORINE (to Cleante)Sir, we beg youTo help us all you can in her behalf;She's suffering almost more than heart can bear;This match her father means to make to-nightDrives her each moment to despair. He's coming.Let us unite our efforts now, we beg you,And try by strength or skill to change his purpose.
About this text
Act IV: Scene II 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 IV: Scene II, in Tartuffe; Or, The Hypocrite (1908), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2027, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/moliere-tartuffe/act-iv-scene-ii.html, id L26939.
Form and metre
Act IV: Scene II is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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.
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 -A----A- cleante · youA · behalf · bear · night · coming · youA · purpose
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 |
|---|---|---|
| DORINE (to Cleante) | 5 | ˘/˘·· |
| Sir, we beg you | 4 | ···· |
| To help us all you can in her behalf; | 10 | ········˘/ |
| She's suffering almost more than heart can bear; | 10 | ·/˘/······ |
| This match her father means to make to-night | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Drives her each moment to despair. He's coming. | 11 | ···/˘·˘/·/˘ |
| Let us unite our efforts now, we beg you, | 11 | ··/·//˘···· |
| And try by strength or skill to change his purpose. | 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.