Phormio: Act the First: Scene V
GETA. You shall be roundly chid;I soundly drubb'd; or I am much deceiv'd.--But what e'en now we counsel'd Antipho,It now behooves ourselves to practice, Phaedria.
PHAED. Talk not of what behooves, but say at onceWhat you would have me do.
GETA. Do you rememberThe plea whereon you both agreed to rest,At your first vent'ring on this enterprise?"That Phormio's suit was just, sure, equitable,Not to be controverted."----
GETA. Now then that plea! or, if it's possible,One better or more plausible.
GETA. Do you attack him first! I'll lie in ambush,To reinforce you, if you give ground.PHAED. Well. (They retire.)
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- roundly adv.
- In a round form or manner.
- whereon adv.
- On which; -- used relatively; as, the earth whereon we live.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Phormio: Act the First: Scene V is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Comedies of Terence, Project Gutenberg ebook #22695; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Terence, Phormio: Act the First: Scene V, in The Comedies of Terence (1765), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22695, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/terence-comedies/phormio-act-the-first-scene-v.html, id L25890.
Form and metre
Phormio: Act the First: Scene V is 16 lines in 5 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| GETA. You shall be roundly chid; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I soundly drubb'd; or I am much deceiv'd. | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| --But what e'en now we counsel'd Antipho, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| It now behooves ourselves to practice, Phaedria. | 11 | ··˘/˘/·/˘·· |
| PHAED. Talk not of what behooves, but say at once | 11 | ·····˘/···· |
| What you would have me do. | 6 | ······ |
| GETA. Do you remember | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| The plea whereon you both agreed to rest, | 10 | ··˘/··˘/·· |
| At your first vent'ring on this enterprise? | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| "That Phormio's suit was just, sure, equitable, | 11 | ·······/˘˘˘ |
| Not to be controverted."---- | 7 | ······· |
| GETA. Now then that plea! or, if it's possible, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| One better or more plausible. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| GETA. Do you attack him first! I'll lie in ambush, | 13 | ····˘/·····/· |
| To reinforce you, if you give ground. | 9 | ··˘/····· |
| PHAED. Well. (They retire.) | 5 | ···˘/ |
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.