The Brothers: Act the Fourth: Scene XII
DROMO. Here! hark ye, Syrus!Ctesipho begs that you'd come back.SYRUS. Away! (Pushes him off.)
DEM. What's this he says of Ctesipho?
SYRUS. Pshaw! nothing.
DEM. How! dog, is Ctesipho within?
DEM. Why does he name him then?
SYRUS. It is another.Of the same name--a little parasite----D'ye know him?
DEM. But I will immediately. (Going.)
SYRUS. (stopping him). What now? where now?
DEM. Let me alone.
SYRUS. Don't go!
DEM. Hands off! what won't you? must I brain you, rascal?(Disengages himself from SYRUS, and Exit.
Words in this poem
- pshaw interj.
- Pish! pooch! -- an exclamation used as an expression of contempt, disdain, dislike, etc. [Of imitative origin.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Brothers: Act the Fourth: Scene XII 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 Brothers: Act the Fourth: Scene XII, in The Comedies of Terence (1765), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22695, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/terence-comedies/the-brothers-act-the-fourth-scene-xii.html, id L25846.
Form and metre
The Brothers: Act the Fourth: Scene XII is 16 lines in 11 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 |
|---|---|---|
| DROMO. Here! hark ye, Syrus! | 7 | ······· |
| Ctesipho begs that you'd come back. | 8 | ········ |
| SYRUS. Away! (Pushes him off.) | 8 | ··˘//˘·· |
| DEM. What's this he says of Ctesipho? | 9 | ········· |
| SYRUS. Pshaw! nothing. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| DEM. How! dog, is Ctesipho within? | 9 | ········· |
| DEM. Why does he name him then? | 7 | ······· |
| SYRUS. It is another. | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Of the same name--a little parasite---- | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| D'ye know him? | 3 | ··· |
| DEM. But I will immediately. (Going.) | 11 | ····˘/˘˘˘/˘ |
| SYRUS. (stopping him). What now? where now? | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| DEM. Let me alone. | 5 | ···˘/ |
| SYRUS. Don't go! | 4 | ···· |
| DEM. Hands off! what won't you? must I brain you, rascal? | 12 | ··········/˘ |
| (Disengages himself from SYRUS, and Exit. | 11 | ˘/˘˘/····/˘ |
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.