Question

“sonnet 18”
shall i compare thee to a summer’s day?
thou art more lovely and more temperate:
rough winds do shake the darling buds of may,
and summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
and often is his gold complexion dimm’d,
and every fair from fair sometime declines,
by chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
but thy eternal summer shall not fade,
nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
when in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
so long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
read the line from “sonnet 18.”
sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
how many iambs are in the line?
four five
eight ten

Explanation:

An iamb is a metrical foot with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Let's analyze the line "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines" by dividing it into syllables and identifying iambs:

• So (unstressed) - me (stressed) → 1st iamb
• time (unstressed) - too (stressed) → 2nd iamb
• hot (unstressed) - the (stressed) → 3rd iamb
• eye (unstressed) - of (stressed) → 4th iamb
• heav (unstressed) - en (stressed) → 5th iamb
• shines (Wait, no, let's do it properly. Let's split the line into syllables: So - met - ime - too - hot - the - eye - of - heav - en - shines? No, wait, the correct syllabification and iambic analysis: "Sometime" (So - met - ime? No, "Sometime" is So - time (two syllables: So (unstressed), time (stressed) → iamb. Then "too" (unstressed? No, "too" is stressed? Wait, no, let's use the standard iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's sonnets are in iambic pentameter, which has 5 iambs per line. Let's count the syllables with stress:

"Sometime" (So - time: unstressed - stressed → iamb 1)
"too" (unstressed? No, "too" is stressed? Wait, no, "too hot" → too (unstressed), hot (stressed) → iamb 2
"the" (unstressed), "eye" (stressed) → iamb 3
"of" (unstressed), "heaven" (stressed) → iamb 4
"shines" (Wait, no, "heaven shines" → heav (unstressed), en (stressed), shines? No, let's do it as per iambic pentameter. Each line in a Shakespearean sonnet (iambic pentameter) has 10 syllables, which is 5 iambs (since each iamb is 2 syllables). Let's count the syllables in the line: "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines"

Syllables: So - met - ime - too - hot - the - eye - of - heav - en - shines? No, that's 11. Wait, maybe I miscounted. Let's do it correctly:

"Sometime" (2 syllables: So - time)
"too" (1 syllable? No, "too" is 1 syllable? Wait, no, "too" is one syllable, but in iambic pentameter, we have 10 syllables. Let's write the line with syllable stress:

1. So (U) - met (S) → iamb 1
2. ime? No, "Sometime" is So - time (U - S). Then "too" (U) - hot (S) → iamb 2
3. the (U) - eye (S) → iamb 3
4. of (U) - heav (S) → iamb 4
5. en (U) - shines (S)? No, that's not right. Wait, maybe the correct way is to recognize that Shakespeare's sonnets are in iambic pentameter, which has 5 iambs per line (10 syllables). Let's count the syllables:

"Sometime" (2) + "too" (1) + "hot" (1) + "the" (1) + "eye" (1) + "of" (1) + "heaven" (2) + "shines" (1) → Wait, that's 2+1+1+1+1+1+2+1=10. Now stress:

So (U) - time (S) → iamb 1

too (U) - hot (S) → iamb 2

the (U) - eye (S) → iamb 3

of (U) - heav (S) → iamb 4

en (U) - shines (S) → iamb 5

Yes, that's 5 iambs. So the line has 5 iambs.

Answer:

five