Act IV: Scene VI
ORGON (crawling out from under the table)That is, I own, a man ... abominable!I can't get over it; the whole thing floors me.
ELMIRE.What? You come out so soon? You cannot mean it!Get back under the table; 'tis not time yet;Wait till the end, to see, and make quite certain,And don't believe a thing on mere conjecture.
ORGON.Nothing more wicked e'er came out of Hell.
ELMIRE.Dear me! Don't go and credit things too lightly.No, let yourself be thoroughly convinced;Don't yield too soon, for fear you'll be mistaken.(As Tartuffe enters, she makes her husband stand behind her.)
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 IV: Scene VI 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 VI, in Tartuffe; Or, The Hypocrite (1908), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2027, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/moliere-tartuffe/act-iv-scene-vi.html, id L26943.
Form and metre
Act IV: Scene VI is 15 lines in 4 stanzas. 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| ORGON (crawling out from under the table) | 11 | ··/˘·····/˘ |
| That is, I own, a man ... abominable! | 11 | ······˘/˘˘˘ |
| I can't get over it; the whole thing floors me. | 10 | ·········· |
| ELMIRE. | 2 | ·· |
| What? You come out so soon? You cannot mean it! | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Get back under the table; 'tis not time yet; | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| Wait till the end, to see, and make quite certain, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| And don't believe a thing on mere conjecture. | 11 | ··˘/····˘/˘ |
| ORGON. | 2 | ·· |
| Nothing more wicked e'er came out of Hell. | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| ELMIRE. | 2 | ·· |
| Dear me! Don't go and credit things too lightly. | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| No, let yourself be thoroughly convinced; | 10 | ··˘/·/˘˘˘/ |
| Don't yield too soon, for fear you'll be mistaken. | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| (As Tartuffe enters, she makes her husband stand behind her.) | 14 | ···/˘···/˘···· |
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.