Analysis of Auguries
David Plantinga 1972 (Sherbrooke)
The ancients put tremendous matters
On oracles and auguries.
When godhood speaks, the priest agrees.
Glib cunning fails when trouble batters.
Calculations have a thousand ways
To err, while chance can cut the odds
To one in ten, or more if gods
Drop hints about our dossiers.
Augurs read events to come
From entrails, bones, and scattered sticks.
Their guesses are arithmetics
For problems reasoning can’t sum.
Scheme | AABACDDCEFAE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010101010 110001 1110101 110111010 01010101 11111101 11011111 1101101 1010111 11010101 11011 11010011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 429 |
Words | 78 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 12 |
Lines Amount | 12 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 332 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 67 |
About this poem
The idea for this poem came from Montaigne’s essay on prognostication. Agammemon slipped in later.
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"Auguries" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/117888/auguries>.
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