Poem III
I saw, in secret to my dameHow little Cupid humbly came,And said to her, “All hayle, my mother!”But when he saw me laugh, for shameHis face with bashfull blood did flame,Not knowing Venus from the other.“Then, never blush, Cupid,” quoth I,“For many have err’d in this beauty.”
Words in this poem
- dame n.
- A mistress of a family, who is a lady; a womam in authority; especially, a lady. [F. dame, LL. domna, fr. L. domina mistress, lady, fem. of dominus master, ruler, lord; akin to domare to tame, subdue. See Tame, and cf. Dam mother, Dan, Danger]
- 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.]
- humbly adv.
- With humility; lowly.
- bashfull a.
- Abashed; daunted; dismayed. [See Bash.]
- quoth v. t.
- Said; spoke; uttered; -- used only in the first and third persons in the past tenses, and always followed by its nominative, the word or words said being the object; as, quoth I. quoth he. [AS.cweedhan, imp cwæedh, pl. cwædon; akin to OS. queedhan, OHG. quethan, quedan, Icel. kveedha, Goth. qiþan. sq. root22. Cf. Bequeath.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poem III 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 III, in Amoretti and Epithalamion, and Other Poems (1595), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10602, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/spenser-amoretti/poem-iii-4.html, id L23787.
Form and metre
Poem III is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 AABAAB-- dameA · cameA · motherB · shameA · flameA · otherB · i · beauty
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I saw, in secret to my dame | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| How little Cupid humbly came, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| And said to her, “All hayle, my mother!” | 10 | ········/˘ |
| But when he saw me laugh, for shame | 8 | ········ |
| His face with bashfull blood did flame, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Not knowing Venus from the other. | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| “Then, never blush, Cupid,” quoth I, | 8 | ·/˘·/˘·· |
| “For many have err’d in this beauty.” | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
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.