The Andrian: Act the Fourth: Scene V
Can we securely then count nothing ours?Oh all ye Gods! I thought this PamphilusThe greatest good my mistress could obtain,Friend, lover, husband, ev'ry way a blessing:And yet what woe, poor wretch, endures she notOn his account? Alas, more ill than good.But here comes Davus.
About this text
The Andrian: Act the Fourth: 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, The Andrian: Act the Fourth: Scene V, in The Comedies of Terence (1765), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22695, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/terence-comedies/the-andrian-act-the-fourth-scene-v.html, id L25740.
Form and metre
The Andrian: Act the Fourth: Scene V is 7 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Can we securely then count nothing ours? | 11 | ··˘/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Oh all ye Gods! I thought this Pamphilus | 10 | ·········· |
| The greatest good my mistress could obtain, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| Friend, lover, husband, ev'ry way a blessing: | 11 | ·/˘/˘····/˘ |
| And yet what woe, poor wretch, endures she not | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| On his account? Alas, more ill than good. | 10 | ··˘/˘/···· |
| But here comes Davus. | 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.