Fragment 3, tr. J. H. Merivale
Planets, that around the beauteous moonAttendant wait, cast into shadeTheir ineffectual lustre, soonAs she, in full-orbed majesty arrayed,Her silver radiance poursUpon this world of ours.
Words in this poem
- beauteous a.
- Full of beauty; beautiful; very handsome. [Mostly poetic] -- Beau"te*ous*ly, adv. --
- lustre n.
- A period of five years; a lustrum. [L. lustrum: cf. F. lustre.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Fragment 3, tr. J. H. Merivale 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 3, tr. J. H. Merivale, in Sappho: Selected Renderings (1908), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #57390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sappho-wharton/fr-3.html, id L29171.
Form and metre
Fragment 3, tr. J. H. Merivale is 6 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABAB-- moonA · shadeB · soonA · arrayedB · pours · ours
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Planets, that around the beauteous moon | 10 | /˘····/˘˘· |
| Attendant wait, cast into shade | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| Their ineffectual lustre, soon | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| As she, in full-orbed majesty arrayed, | 9 | ·····/˘˘/ |
| Her silver radiance pours | 7 | ·/˘/˘˘· |
| Upon this world of ours. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
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.