Phormio: Act the Fourth: Scene II

Terence · 1765

iambic pentameter · 11 lines · from The Comedies of Terence

The money's got for Phaedria: all is hush'd:And Phanium is not to depart as yet.What more then? where will all this end at last?--Alas! you're sticking in the same mire still:You've only chang'd hands, Geta. The disasterThat hung but now directly over you,Delay perhaps will bring more heavy on you.You're quite beset, unless you look about.--Now then I'll home; to lesson Phanium,That she mayn't stand in fear of Phormio,Nor dread this conf'rence with Nausistrata. (Exit.

Words in this poem

depart v. i.
To part; to divide; to separate. [OE. departen to divide, part, depart, F. départir to divide, distribute, se départir to separate one's self, depart; pref. dé- (L. de) + partir to part, depart,]
disaster n.
An unpropitious or baleful aspect of a planet or star; malevolent influence of a heavenly body; hence, an ill portent. [F. désastre; pref. dés- (L. dis-) + astre star, fr. L. astrum; a word of astrological origin. See Aster, Astral, Star.]

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

Phormio: Act the Fourth: Scene II 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 Fourth: Scene II, in The Comedies of Terence (1765), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22695, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/terence-comedies/phormio-act-the-fourth-scene-ii.html, id L25906.

Form and metre

Phormio: Act the Fourth: Scene II is 11 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).

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.

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. 1 -----AAB--B hush'd · yet · last · still · disaster · youA · youA · aboutB · phanium · phormio · exitB
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.

LineSyl.Stress
The money's got for Phaedria: all is hush'd:10·/˘·······
And Phanium is not to depart as yet.10······˘/··
What more then? where will all this end at last?10··········
--Alas! you're sticking in the same mire still:10˘/·/˘·····
You've only chang'd hands, Geta. The disaster11·/˘·····˘/˘
That hung but now directly over you,10····˘/˘···
Delay perhaps will bring more heavy on you.11˘/˘/···/˘··
You're quite beset, unless you look about.10··˘/······
--Now then I'll home; to lesson Phanium,9·····/˘··
That she mayn't stand in fear of Phormio,9·········
Nor dread this conf'rence with Nausistrata. (Exit.12··········/˘

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.

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