Chapter IV: Inviting Guests
I sent out invitationsTo summon guests.I collected togetherAll my friends.Loud talkAnd simple feasting:Discussion of philosophy,Investigation of subtleties.Tongues loosenedAnd minds at one.Hearts refreshedBy discharge of emotion!
About this text
Chapter IV: Inviting Guests is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, the Arthur Waley translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, Chapter IV: Inviting Guests, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/chapter-iv-inviting-guests.html, id L18790.
Form and metre
Chapter IV: Inviting Guests is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.2 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 42% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic dimeter.
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.
- 1 ---------A-A invitations · guests · together · friends · talk · feasting · philosophy · subtleties · loosened · oneA · refreshed · emotionA
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I sent out invitations | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| To summon guests. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| I collected together | 7 | ·˘/˘˘/˘ |
| All my friends. | 3 | ··· |
| Loud talk | 2 | ·· |
| And simple feasting: | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| Discussion of philosophy, | 8 | ˘/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| Investigation of subtleties. | 9 | ˘·˘/˘·/˘˘ |
| Tongues loosened | 3 | ·/˘ |
| And minds at one. | 4 | ···· |
| Hearts refreshed | 3 | ·˘/ |
| By discharge of emotion! | 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.