The Andrian: Act the Fourth: Scene VIII
MYSIS. Don't offer to touch me, you villain!If I don't tell my mistress every word----
DAVUS. Why you don't know, you fool, what good we've done.
MYSIS. How should I?
DAVUS. This is father to the bride:Nor could it otherwise have been contriv'dThat he should know what we would have him.
MYSIS. Well,You should have given me notice.
DAVUS. Is there thenNo diff'rence, think you, whether all you sayFalls natural from the heart, or comesFrom dull premeditation?
Words in this poem
- premeditation n.
- The act of meditating or contriving beforehand; previous deliberation; forethought. [L. praemeditatio: cf. F. préméditation.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Andrian: Act the Fourth: Scene VIII 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 VIII, 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-viii.html, id L25743.
Form and metre
The Andrian: Act the Fourth: Scene VIII is 13 lines in 6 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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.
- 6 A--A thenA · say · comes · premeditationA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| MYSIS. Don't offer to touch me, you villain! | 11 | /˘·/˘····/˘ |
| If I don't tell my mistress every word---- | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| DAVUS. Why you don't know, you fool, what good we've done. | 12 | ············ |
| MYSIS. How should I? | 5 | /˘··· |
| DAVUS. This is father to the bride: | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Nor could it otherwise have been contriv'd | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| That he should know what we would have him. | 9 | ········· |
| MYSIS. Well, | 3 | /˘· |
| You should have given me notice. | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| DAVUS. Is there then | 5 | ····· |
| No diff'rence, think you, whether all you say | 10 | ·········· |
| Falls natural from the heart, or comes | 9 | ·/˘˘····· |
| From dull premeditation? | 7 | ··˘·˘/˘ |
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.