Orfeo
The first secular play in Italian, Orpheus and Eurydice in six short scenes at the root of opera, in Symonds's verse translation.
Measured across the book
Across its 448 lines, 93% of stressed syllables fall on the beat (95% interval 91% to 94%). Alliteration runs at 1.10 times what shuffling the words would give (0.43 observed against 0.39 expected). 22% of the lines have a feminine ending.
Baselines and intervals are described in the methods.
Contents
Prologueiambic pentameter · 16 linesScene Iiambic pentameter · 111 linesScene IItrochaic tetrameter · ABCABCCCCCDDC · 13 linesScene IIIiambic pentameter · 104 linesScene IViambic pentameter · 94 linesScene Viambic pentameter · 24 linesScene VIiambic pentameter · 86 lines
About this text
Public domain. Text from The 'Orfeo' of Poliziano, tr. John Addington Symonds (first printed in Sketches and Studies in Italy, 1879; this text is Horatio F. Brown's 1898 combined reprint), Project Gutenberg ebook #18893. Free to read, print, copy and reuse.