The House Carpenter

"The house carpenter" is a ballad; right from the title we expect that the ballad concerns a Carpenter.

This ballad is organized into fourteen stanzas, each stanza has four lines and two of these four lines are longer than the others.

This is a love story and it tells us there are a Lady, a Carpenter and Sailor that is just returned from the see and when he saw the lady he tells her that he didn't married the King's daughter for her.

Then he asked her to go along with him and the Lady after some hesitations went with him. After that she asked him how he could maintain her so he lists her all his possessions. She left her babe with the house Carpenter and go away. The weeks have gone and she repented about her decision, she cried a lot because she knew that she never shall see her babe anymore. One day their boat sank and went to the bottom of the sea. Immediately they saw a hill fair and light and she thought that was the hill of the Heaven but the lady understood that that wasn't the hill for her and him, then they saw another hill dark and low so the sailor asked what hill was that and the Lady answered that was the hill of the Hell where she and him must go.

In the first stanza the first and second line create an incremental repetition "well met, well met, my own true love" and "well met, well met, cried he"; the second and fourth lines create a rhyme with the words "he" and "thee"; in the third line there is the repetition of the word "salt" that is repeated two times.

In the second stanza there is only the rhyme creates from the words "me" and " thee" of the second and fourth line.

In the third stanza there is the rhyme creates from the words "dear" and "carpenter" of the first and third line.

In the fourth stanza there is a repetition of the sound "gr" of the third line "grass grow green" that creates a sour sound. The second and fourth line creates an assonance of the sound "e" with the words "me" and "sea"; in the fourth line there is also the repetition of the same word "salt, salt sea".

In the fifth stanza the second and fourth lines create an assonance of the sound "e" from the words "thee" and "poverty".

In the sixth stanza there is in the first line the repetition of the words "six ships" that are repeated two times; the second and fourth line creates a rhyme with the words "land" and "command"; in the third line besides there is the assonance of the sound "en" from the words "ten" and "men".

In the seventh stanza there is only the assonance created from the words "three" and "company".

In the eight stanza there is an alternate assonance, the second line with the fourth "three" and "bitterly" that create the sound "e", and the first with the third "weeks" and "weep" that create the sound "wee".

The first stanza will use in the eleventh stanza and this creates an incremental repetition.

In the ninth stanza there is the rhyme between the second and fourth line with the words "store" and "anymore".

In the tenth stanza there is the incremental repetition of the last stanza in the second and fourth lines that create as before the rhyme with the words "store" and "anymore".

In the eleventh stanza there is the incremental repetition of the first verse of the eight stanza; the word "four" of the second line and the word "anymore" of the fourth line create again a rhyme. In the third line there is the alliteration of the sound "k" of the words "leak" and "sank".

In the twelfth stanza there is a rhyme, the first line with the third with the same word "ship"; the second and fourth line create a assonance that makes the sound "e" with the words "she" and "sea". In the first three verses there is the incremental repetition of the sentence "One time around the spun". The first and third line are equal indeed changes only the number (from one to three).

The thirteenth stanza has the repetition of the words "my love" in the first and third lines that create a rhyme. The word "high" of the second line and the word "I" of the fourth line create assonance of the sound "i".

The fourteenth stanza is similar to the thirteenth indeed the first line of the thirteenth stanza is equal to the fourteenth "what hills, what hills are those, my love"; the first and third lines create the rhyme, as in the thirteenth stanza, with the words "my love". In addition the second and fourth lines create assonance of the sound "o" with the words "low" and "go".