Carthage
Oh thou degenerate child of the great and glorious mother,Who with the Romans' strong might couplest the Tyrians' deceit!But those ever governed with vigor the earth they had conquered,--These instructed the world that they with cunning had won.Say! what renown does history grant thee? Thou, Roman-like, gained'stThat with the steel, which with gold, Tyrian-like, then thou didst rule!
Words in this poem
- glorious a.
- Exhibiting attributes, qualities, or acts that are worthy of or receive glory; noble; praiseworthy; excellent; splendid; illustrious; inspiring admiration; as, glorious deeds. [OF. glorios, glorious, F. glorieux, fr. L. gloriosus. See Glory, n.]
- tyrian a.
- Of or pertaining to Tyre or its people.
- didst
- , the 2d pers. sing. imp. of Do.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carthage 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, Carthage, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/carthage.html, id L21864.
Form and metre
Carthage is 6 lines in a single stanza. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oh thou degenerate child of the great and glorious mother, | 14 | ··˘/˘·····/˘/˘ |
| Who with the Romans' strong might couplest the Tyrians' deceit! | 14 | ···/˘··/˘···˘/ |
| But those ever governed with vigor the earth they had conquered,-- | 14 | ··//˘·/˘····/˘ |
| These instructed the world that they with cunning had won. | 13 | ·˘/˘·····/˘·· |
| Say! what renown does history grant thee? Thou, Roman-like, gained'st | 15 | ··˘/·/˘···/˘··· |
| That with the steel, which with gold, Tyrian-like, then thou didst rule! | 15 | ·······/˘˘····· |
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.