Fragment 28, tr. Anon. (Edinburgh Review) (1832)
Alcaeus.—I fain would speak, I fain would tell,But shame and fear my utterance quell.
Sappho.—If aught of good, if aught of fairThy tongue were labouring to declare,Nor shame should dash thy glance, nor fearForbid thy suit to reach my ear.
Words in this poem
- fain v. t.
- To be glad ; to wish or desire.
- quell v. t.
- To take the life of; to kill. [OE. quellen to kill, AS. cwellan, causative of cwelan to die; akin to OHG. quellen to torment, Icel. kvelja. See Quail to cower.]
- sappho n.
- Any one of several species of brilliant South American humming birds of the genus Sappho, having very bright-colored and deeply forked tails; -- called also firetail. [See Sapphic.]
- aught n.
- Property; possession. [AS. , fr. agan to own, p. p. ahte.]
- labouring a.
- That labors; performing labor; esp., performing coarse, heavy work, not requiring skill also, set apart for labor; as, laboring days.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Fragment 28, tr. Anon. (Edinburgh Review) (1832) is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sappho: Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings, and a Literal Translation (ed. Henry Thornton Wharton, John Lane, 1908, fifth edition), Project Gutenberg ebook #57390, the Various (ed. H. T. Wharton) 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: Sappho, Fragment 28, tr. Anon. (Edinburgh Review) (1832), in Sappho: Selected Renderings (1908), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #57390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sappho-wharton/fr-28.html, id L29179.
Form and metre
Fragment 28, tr. Anon. (Edinburgh Review) (1832) is 6 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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.
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 tellA · quellA
- 2 AABB fairA · declareA · fearB · earB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Alcaeus.—I fain would speak, I fain would tell, | 10 | ·········· |
| But shame and fear my utterance quell. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Sappho.—If aught of good, if aught of fair | 10 | /˘········ |
| Thy tongue were labouring to declare, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Nor shame should dash thy glance, nor fear | 8 | ········ |
| Forbid thy suit to reach my ear. | 8 | ˘/······ |
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.