Poem II
As Diane hunted on a day,She chaunst to come where Cupid lay,His quiver by his head:One of his shafts she stole away,And one of hers did close convay,Into the others stead:With that Love wounded my Loves hart,But Diane, beasts with Cupids dart.
Words in this poem
- cupid
- The god of love, son of Venus; usually represented as a naked, winged boy with bow and arrow. [L.Cupido, fr. cupido desire, desire of love, fr. cupidus. See Cupidity.]
- stole n.
- A long, loose garment reaching to the feet. [AS. stole, L. stola, Gr. stall. See Stall.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poem II is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5, Project Gutenberg ebook #10602; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edmund Spenser, Poem II, in Amoretti and Epithalamion, and Other Poems (1595), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10602, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/spenser-amoretti/poem-ii-4.html, id L23786.
Form and metre
Poem II is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABA-BCC dayA · layA · headB · awayA · convay · steadB · hartC · dartC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| As Diane hunted on a day, | 8 | ·˘//˘··· |
| She chaunst to come where Cupid lay, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| His quiver by his head: | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| One of his shafts she stole away, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| And one of hers did close convay, | 8 | ········ |
| Into the others stead: | 6 | ···/˘· |
| With that Love wounded my Loves hart, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But Diane, beasts with Cupids dart. | 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.