Help I don't under stand Spondee,

I am supposed to find the spondee in these lines...."Who loved his charge but never loved to lead; One whose meek flock the people loved to be, not lured by any cheat of birth."

http://www.uncg.edu/~htkirbys/meters.htm

A spondee is simply two syllables in a row that are stressed syllables.

who LOVED his CHARGE but NEver LOVED to LEAD = iambic pentameter

ONE whose MEEK FLOCK the PEOple LOVED to BE = almost iambic pentameter! The bold syllables make a spondee.

You have to read these aloud and actually exaggerate them. Read those lines and say the ALL-CAPS syllables more loudly than the others.

Spondee is a metrical foot in poetry that consists of two stressed syllables in a row. It creates a strong, heavy emphasis and is often used to convey emphasis or importance. To identify the spondees in the given lines, you'll need to analyze the stressed syllables.

Let's break down the lines:

"Who loved his charge but never loved to lead;"

In this line, we have two potential spondees:
- "loved his" (loved = stressed, his = stressed)
- "never loved" (never = stressed, loved = stressed)

"One whose meek flock the people loved to be, not lured by any cheat of birth."

In this line, we also have two potential spondees:
- "loved to" (loved = stressed, to = stressed)
- "cheat of" (cheat = stressed, of = stressed)

While it is important to note that scansion (the method of marking stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry) can be subjective and may vary depending on individual interpretation or the specific poetic style being analyzed, these potential spondees align with the common understanding of meter and stress in this poem.