Arides
The bashful AridesHas married an ugly wife,He was bored with his manner of life,Indifferent and discouraged he thought he might asWell do this as anything else.
Saying within his heart, “I am no use to myself,Let her, if she wants me, take me.”He went to his doom.
Words in this poem
- bashful a.
- Abashed; daunted; dismayed. [See Bash.]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Arides is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lustra of Ezra Pound, Project Gutenberg ebook #55564; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ezra Pound, Arides, in Lustra (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #55564, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-lustra/arides.html, id L01272.
Form and metre
Arides is 8 lines in 2 stanzas. 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -AA-- arides · wifeA · lifeA · as · else
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The bashful Arides | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| Has married an ugly wife, | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| He was bored with his manner of life, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Indifferent and discouraged he thought he might as | 12 | ˘/˘·˘/˘····· |
| Well do this as anything else. | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Saying within his heart, “I am no use to myself, | 13 | /˘··········/ |
| Let her, if she wants me, take me.” | 8 | ········ |
| He went to his doom. | 5 | ····· |
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.