---
title: “Two men may on me safely sail, Ten men I surely will not fail; A hu… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Two men may on me safely sail, Ten men I surely will not fail; A hundred men with oars might row me; A thousand men could not o’erthrow me.” Who acts: boat, hundred men, thousand men. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Weeping Ship, with its dependency t
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/74/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old No…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/) / [The Weeping Ship](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/) / 74

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Weeping Ship, sentence 74

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Two men may on me safely sail, Ten men I surely will not fail; A hundred men with oars might row me; A thousand men could not o’erthrow me.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** boat, hundred men, thousand men · **What happens:** sail, not fail, row, not o'erthrow · **To what, where:** Ten men, boat

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Weeping Ship. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boat, hundred men, thousand men), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66819:33:74
# text = “Two men may on me safely sail, Ten men I surely will not fail; A hundred men with oars might row me; A thousand men could not o’erthrow me.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	_
7	safely	safely	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	sail	sail	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	Ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
13	surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
14	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	fail	fail	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
18	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	nummod	_	_
20	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nsubj	_	_
21	with	with	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	oars	oar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nmod	_	_
23	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	row	row	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
25	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
27	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	29	nummod	_	_
29	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	nsubj	_	_
30	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	32	aux	_	_
31	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	32	advmod	_	_
32	o’erthrow	o'erthrow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	conj	_	_
33	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	32	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sail** *in a quote* | may |  | Ten men |  |  |  | safely *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **fail** *in a quote* | future | the boat *= boat* | Ten men *not said here* |  |  |  | surely *property* | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Eventuality |
| 3 | **row** *in a quote* | might | a hundred men with oars | the boat *= boat* |  |  |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **o'erthrow** *in a quote* | could | a thousand men | the boat *= boat* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 66819 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 73](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/73/)
- next →: [sentence 75](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/75/)
- ↑ back to [The Weeping Ship](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/)