Anything That Reminds Him of Laura Renews His Torments
Not Dian to her lover was more dear,When fortune 'mid the waters cold and clear,Gave him her naked beauties all to see,Than seem'd the rustic ruddy nymph to me,Who, in yon flashing stream, the light veil laved,Whence Laura's lovely tresses lately waved;I saw, and through me felt an amorous chill,Though summer burn, to tremble and to thrill.
About this text
Anything That Reminds Him of Laura Renews His Torments is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, the various hands 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: Petrarch, Anything That Reminds Him of Laura Renews His Torments, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/anything-that-reminds-him-of-laura-renews-his-torments.html, id L14543.
Form and metre
Anything That Reminds Him of Laura Renews His Torments is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCCDD dearA · clearA · seeB · meB · lavedC · wavedC · chillD · thrillD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Not Dian to her lover was more dear, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| When fortune 'mid the waters cold and clear, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Gave him her naked beauties all to see, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Than seem'd the rustic ruddy nymph to me, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Who, in yon flashing stream, the light veil laved, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Whence Laura's lovely tresses lately waved; | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘/˘· |
| I saw, and through me felt an amorous chill, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Though summer burn, to tremble and to thrill. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
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.