Untangling Syntax, Revisited

 

Sixteenth-century poets did great violence to English word order in order to make their verses scan smoothly and to maneuver rhyme words to the ends of lines. Their acquaintance with Latin, in which word order is much less rigidly determined than in English, partly justified this practice. Modern readers find this twisting of word order disconcerting at first, but a little practice can decrease its power to confuse.

Ignoring meter and rhyme, rearrange the words of the last verse of the following poem. The first four stanzas are already untangled for you. Study them carefully, noticing that many of the words do not change order although great chunks will move around. Notice also that word endings and pronoun case do not get changed. These are the only reliable clues to syntactic relationships left after word order has been abandoned as a guide.

You may find the exercise at this site helpful before you begin or if you find you are having trouble.

Of Death

Mary Sidney Herbert,
Countess of Pembroke
(1561-1621)

Syntactic Untangling Begun
Alas, with what tormenting fire
Us martyreth this blind desire
To stay our life from flying!
How ceaselessly our minds doth rack,
How heavy lies upon our back,
This dastard fear of dying!		 Alas, with what tormenting fire
this blind desire to stay our life from flying martyreth us!
How ceaslessly this dastard fear of dying doth rack our minds; how heavy [it] weighs upon our back!
Death rather healthful succour gives,
Death rather all mishaps relieves
That life upon us throweth;
And ever to us doth unclose
The door whereby from cureless woes
Our weary soul out goeth.

Rather, Death gives healthful succor,
Death relieves all mishaps that life throweth upon us
and [Death] ever doth unclose to us the door whereby our weary soul goeth out from cureless woes.
What goddess else more mild than she
To bury all our pains can be?
What remedy more pleasing?
Our painèd hearts when dolour stings
And nothing rest or respite brings,
What help have we more easing?		 What goddess else [i.e., what other goddess] can be more mild than she to bury all our pains?
What remedy [can be] more pleasing [than she is]?
When dolour stings our pained hearts and nothing brings rest or respite, what help more easing [than death] have we?
Hope, which to us doth comfort give
And doth our fainting hearts revive,
Hath not such force in anguish:
For, promising a vain relief,
She oft us fails in midst of grief,
And helpless lets us languish.		 Hope, which doth give comfort to us and doth revive our fainting hearts,
hath not such force [as Death has] in anguish;
for, promising a vain relief, she [i.e., Hope] oft fails us in midst of grief and lets us languish helpless.
But Death, who[1] call on her at need,
Doth never with vain semblant feed,
But, when them sorrow paineth,
So rids their souls of all distress,
Whose heavy weight did them oppress,
That not one grief remaineth.		 But Death . . .

[1] Note that when Iago says, "Who steals my purse steals trash,'' he means, "Whoever steals my purse steals trash.''