Analysis of Unfaithfulness
Constantine P. Cavafy 1863 (Alexandria) – 1933 (Alexandria)
When Thetis and Peleus got married
Apollo stood up at the sumptuous wedding feast
and blessed the bridal pair
for the son who would come from their union.
'Sickness will never visit him,' he said,
'and his life will be a long one.'
This pleased Thetis immensely:
the words of Apollo, expert in prophecies,
seemed a guarantee of security for her child.
And when Achilles grew up
and all Thessaly said how beautiful he was,
Thetis remembered the god's words.
But one day some elders came in with the news
that Achilles had been killed at Troy.
Thetis tore her purple robes,
pulled off rings, bracelets,
flung them to the ground.
And in her grief, remembering that wedding scene,
she asked what the wise Apollo was up to,
where was this poet who spouts
so eloquently at banquets, where was this prophet
when they killed her son in his prime?
And the elders answered that Apollo himself
had gone down to Troy
and with the Trojans had killed her son.
Scheme | ABCDEDFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVMD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11001110 010111010101 010101 1011111110 1011010111 01111011 1110010 011010100100 100110100101 0101011 0111110011 10010011 11111010101 101011111 1010101 11110 11101 000101001101 11101010111 1111011 1100011011110 11101011 001010101001 11111 010101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 929 |
Words | 174 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 25 |
Lines Amount | 25 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 750 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 170 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 51 sec read
- 129 Views
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"Unfaithfulness" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7279/unfaithfulness>.
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