Analysis of The Horses of Achilles
Constantine P. Cavafy 1863 (Alexandria) – 1933 (Alexandria)
When they saw Patroklos dead
—so brave and strong, so young—
the horses of Achilles began to weep;
their immortal nature was upset deeply
by this work of death they had to look at.
They reared their heads, tossed their long manes,
beat the ground with their hooves, and mourned
Patroklos, seeing him lifeless, destroyed,
now mere flesh only, his spirit gone,
defenseless, without breath,
turned back from life to the great Nothingness.
Zeus saw the tears of those immortal horses and felt sorry.
"At the wedding of Peleus," he said,
"I should not have acted so thoughtlessly.
Better if we hadn't given you as a gift,
my unhappy horses. What business did you have down there,
among pathetic human beings, the toys of fate.
You are free of death, you will not get old,
yet ephemeral disasters torment you.
Men have caught you up in their misery."
But it was for the eternal disaster of death
that those two gallant horses shed their tears.
Scheme | AXXBXXXXXCX BABXXXXXBCX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111 110111 01010100111 10101010110 1111111111 11111111 10111101 11011001 111101101 010011 1111101100 110111010100110 10101111 11111011 101110101101 10101011011111 0101010100111 1111111111 1010001011 1111101100 1111001001011 1111010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 929 |
Words | 169 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 11 |
Lines Amount | 22 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 369 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 83 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 50 sec read
- 370 Views
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