Achilles
"Nur ein Wunder kann dich tragenIn das schoene Wunderland."--SCHILLER, Sehnsucht.Duke Bernard of Weimar, one of the heroes of the Thirty Years' war.
These verses were sent by Schiller to the then Electoral HighChancellor, with a copy of his "William Tell."
Addressed in the original to Mdlle. Slevoigt, on her marriage toDr. Sturm.
Words in this poem
- kann v. t.
- To know; to ken. See Ken.
- duke n.
- A leader; a chief; a prince. [F. duc, fr. L. dux, ducis, leader, commander, fr. ducere to lead; akin to AS. teón to draw; cf. AS. heretoga (here army) an army leader, general, G. herzog duke]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Achilles is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Schiller — Third period, Project Gutenberg ebook #6796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Friedrich Schiller, Achilles, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/achilles.html, id L21931.
Form and metre
Achilles is 7 lines in 3 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "Nur ein Wunder kann dich tragen | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| In das schoene Wunderland."--SCHILLER, Sehnsucht. | 11 | ··/˘···/˘·· |
| Duke Bernard of Weimar, one of the heroes of the Thirty Years' war. | 17 | ·/˘·/˘···/˘··/˘·· |
| These verses were sent by Schiller to the then Electoral High | 15 | ·/˘···/˘···˘/˘· |
| Chancellor, with a copy of his "William Tell." | 11 | /˘··/˘··/˘· |
| Addressed in the original to Mdlle. Slevoigt, on her marriage to | 16 | ˘/··˘/˘······/˘· |
| Dr. Sturm. | 2 | ·· |
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.