The Appeal Of The Chorus Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBBCCDD EEFF CCGGHHIJIK CLALMENEOEPE QQRSTUVWX VYZ VA2VSVB2B2 C2KVVD2CA2A2 E2E2VF2C2G2H2V IILLI2I2J2 VVK2K2L2L2L2L2A2VA2A 2A2RLIf A veteran author had wished to engage | A |
Our assistance to day for a speech from the stage | A |
We scarce should have granted so bold a request | B |
But this author of ours as the bravest and best | B |
Deserves an indulgence denied to the rest | B |
For the courage and vigor the scorn and the hate | C |
With which he encounters the pests of the State | C |
A thoroughbred seaman intrepid and warm | D |
Steering outright in the face of the storm | D |
- | |
But now for the gentle reproaches he bore | E |
On the part of his friends for refraining before | E |
To embrace the profession embarking for life | F |
In theatrical storms and poetical strife | F |
- | |
He begs us to state that for reasons of weight | C |
He has lingered so long and determined so late | C |
For he deemed the achievements of comedy hard | G |
The boldest attempt of a desperate bard | G |
The Muse he perceived was capricious and coy | H |
Though many were courting her few could enjoy | H |
And he saw without reason from season to season | I |
Your humor would shift and turn poets adrift | J |
Requiting old friends with unkindness and treason | I |
Discarded in scorn as exhausted and worn | K |
- | |
Seeing Magnes's fate who was reckoned of late | C |
For the conduct of comedy captain and head | L |
That so oft on the stage in the flower of his age | A |
Had defeated the Chorus his rivals had led | L |
With his sounds of all sort that were uttered in sport | M |
With whims and vagaries unheard of before | E |
With feathers and wings and a thousand gay things | N |
That in frolicsome fancies his Choruses wore | E |
When his humor was spent did your temper relent | O |
To requite the delight that he gave you before | E |
We beheld him displaced and expelled and disgraced | P |
When his hair and his wit were grown aged and hoar | E |
- | |
Then he saw for a sample the dismal example | Q |
Of noble Cratinus so splendid and ample | Q |
Full of spirit and blood and enlarged like a flood | R |
Whose copious current tore down with its torrent | S |
Oaks ashes and yew with the ground where they grew | T |
And his rivals to boot wrenched up by the root | U |
And his personal foes who presumed to oppose | V |
All drowned and abolished dispersed and demolished | W |
And drifted headlong with a deluge of song | X |
- | |
And his airs and his tunes and his songs and lampoons | V |
Were recited and sung by the old and the young | Y |
At our feasts and carousals what poet but he | Z |
And 'The fair Amphibribe' and 'The Sycophant Tree ' | - |
'Masters and masons and builders of verse ' | - |
Those were the tunes that all tongues could rehearse | V |
But since in decay you have cast him away | A2 |
Stript of his stops and his musical strings | V |
Battered and shattered a broken old instrument | S |
Shoved out of sight among rubbishy things | V |
His garlands are faded and what he deems worst | B2 |
His tongue and his palate are parching with thirst | B2 |
- | |
And now you may meet him alone in the street | C2 |
Wearied and worn tattered and torn | K |
All decayed and forlorn in his person and dress | V |
Whom his former success should exempt from distress | V |
With subsistence at large at the general charge | D2 |
And a seat with the great at the table of State | C |
There to feast every day and preside at the play | A2 |
In splendid apparel triumphant and gay | A2 |
- | |
Seeing Crates the next always teased and perplexed | E2 |
With your tyrannous temper tormented and vexed | E2 |
That with taste and good sense without waste or expense | V |
From his snug little hoard provided your board | F2 |
With a delicate treat economic and neat | C2 |
Thus hitting or missing with crowns or with hissing | G2 |
Year after year he pursued his career | H2 |
For better or worse till he finished his course | V |
- | |
These precedents held him in long hesitation | I |
He replied to his friends with a just observation | I |
'That a seaman in regular order is bred | L |
To the oar to the helm and to look out ahead | L |
With diligent practice has fixed in his mind | I2 |
The signs of the weather and changes of wind | I2 |
And when every point of the service is known | J2 |
Undertakes the command of a ship of his own ' | - |
- | |
For reasons like these | V |
If your judgment agrees | V |
That he did not embark | K2 |
Like an ignorant spark | K2 |
Or a troublesome lout | L2 |
To puzzle and bother and blunder about | L2 |
Give him a shout | L2 |
At his first setting out | L2 |
And all pull away | A2 |
With a hearty huzza | V |
For success to the play | A2 |
Send him away | A2 |
Smiling and gay | A2 |
Shining and florid | R |
With his bald forehead | L |
Aristophanes
(1)
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