The Self-Tormentor: Act the Fourth: Scene VII

Terence · 1765

iambic pentameter · 8 lines · from The Comedies of Terence

CHREM. Have youInform'd him of the business? (To SYRUS.)SYRUS. In good part.

CLIT. Give it me. (Awkwardly.)

SYRUS. Now in with me immediately!--You, Sir, (To CHREMES.)Be pleas'd meanwhile to wait our coming here;There's nothing to detain us very long.(Exit CLITIPHO and SYRUS.

Words in this poem

meanwhile n.
The intervening time; as, in the meantime (or mean time).

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

About this text

The Self-Tormentor: Act the Fourth: Scene VII 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 Self-Tormentor: Act the Fourth: Scene VII, in The Comedies of Terence (1765), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22695, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/terence-comedies/the-self-tormentor-act-the-fourth-scene-vii.html, id L25807.

Form and metre

The Self-Tormentor: Act the Fourth: Scene VII is 8 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).

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.

LineSyl.Stress
CHREM. Have you3···
Inform'd him of the business? (To SYRUS.)10˘/···/˘···
SYRUS. In good part.5·····
CLIT. Give it me. (Awkwardly.)7····/˘˘
SYRUS. Now in with me immediately!--You, Sir, (To CHREMES.)13······˘/˘····
Be pleas'd meanwhile to wait our coming here;10··/···//˘·
There's nothing to detain us very long.10·/˘·˘/·/˘·
(Exit CLITIPHO and SYRUS.8/˘······

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