A Battle
SOLDIERS. (Run in disorder.) Woe, woe! The Tsarevich!The Poles! There they are! There they are!
MARZHERET. Qu'est-ce a dire "orthodox"? Sacres gueux,maudite canaille! Mordieu, mein Herr, j'enrage; ondirait que ca n'a pas de bras pour frapper, ca n'a que desjambes pour fuir.
MARZHERET. He! Voyez donc, voyez donc! L'action s'engagesur les derrieres de l'ennemi. Ce doit etre le braveBasmanov, qui aurait fait une sortie.
MARZHERET. Ha, ha! Voici nos allemands. Messieurs!Mein Herr, dites-leur donc de se raillier et, sacrebleu,chargeons!ROZEN. Sehr gut. Halt! (The Germans halt.) Marsch!
Words in this poem
- dire a.
- Ill-boding; portentous; as, dire omens. [L. dirus; of uncertain origin.]
- canaille n.
- The lowest class of people; the rabble; the vulgar. [F. canaille (cf. It. canaglia), prop. and orig. a pack of dogs, fr. L. Canis dog.]
- herr n.
- A title of respect given to gentlemen in Germany, equivalent to the English Mister.
- jambes n.
- In the Middle Ages, armor for the legs below the knees. [From F. jambe a leg: cf. OF. jambiere. See Jamb, n.]
- doit n.
- A small Dutch coin, worth about half a farthing; also, a similar small coin once used in Scotland; hence, any small piece of money. [D. duit, Icel. pveit, prop., a piece cut off. See Thwaite a piece of ground, Thwite.]
- sortie n.
- The sudden issuing of a body of troops, usually small, from a besieged place to attack or harass the besiegers; a sally. [F., fr. sortir to go out, to issue, probably fr. L. sortus, for surrectus, p.p. of surgere to raise up, to rise up. See Source.]
- messieurs n.
- Sirs; gentlemen; -- abbreviated to Messrs., which is used as the plural of Mr. [F.; pl. of monsieur.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Battle is in the public domain. This text is taken from Boris Godunov: a drama in verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #5089; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alexander Pushkin, A Battle, in Boris Godunov (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5089, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pushkin-boris-godunov/a-battle.html, id L25962.
Form and metre
A Battle is 13 lines in 4 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| SOLDIERS. (Run in disorder.) Woe, woe! The Tsarevich! | 13 | /˘··˘/˘······ |
| The Poles! There they are! There they are! | 8 | ········ |
| MARZHERET. Qu'est-ce a dire "orthodox"? Sacres gueux, | 12 | ·······/˘··· |
| maudite canaille! Mordieu, mein Herr, j'enrage; on | 11 | ··˘/······· |
| dirait que ca n'a pas de bras pour frapper, ca n'a que des | 15 | ··············· |
| jambes pour fuir. | 3 | ··· |
| MARZHERET. He! Voyez donc, voyez donc! L'action s'engage | 12 | ············ |
| sur les derrieres de l'ennemi. Ce doit etre le brave | 13 | ············· |
| Basmanov, qui aurait fait une sortie. | 10 | ········/˘ |
| MARZHERET. Ha, ha! Voici nos allemands. Messieurs! | 12 | ········/˘˘/ |
| Mein Herr, dites-leur donc de se raillier et, sacrebleu, | 14 | ·······/······ |
| chargeons! | 2 | ·· |
| ROZEN. Sehr gut. Halt! (The Germans halt.) Marsch! | 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.