The Self-Tormentor: Act the Fourth: Scene VIII
My daughter now has had ten minae of me,Which I account laid out upon her board:Ten more her clothes will come to: and moreoverTwo talents for her portion.----How unjustAnd absolute is custom! I must nowLeave every thing, and find a stranger out,On whom I may bestow the sum of wealthWhich I have so much labor'd to acquire.
Words in this poem
- wealth n.
- Weal; welfare; prosperity; good. [OE. welthe, from wele; cf. D. weelde luxury. See Weal prosperity.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Self-Tormentor: 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 Self-Tormentor: 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-self-tormentor-act-the-fourth-scene-viii.html, id L25808.
Form and metre
The Self-Tormentor: Act the Fourth: Scene VIII is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My daughter now has had ten minae of me, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Which I account laid out upon her board: | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Ten more her clothes will come to: and moreover | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| Two talents for her portion.----How unjust | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| And absolute is custom! I must now | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Leave every thing, and find a stranger out, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| On whom I may bestow the sum of wealth | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Which I have so much labor'd to acquire. | 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.