Hæmon
No, no, old men, Creon I curse not!I weep, Thebans,One than Creon crueller far!For he, he, at least, by slaying her,August laws doth mightily vindicate;But thou, too bold, headstrong, pitiless!--Ah me!--honorest more than thy lover,O Antigone!A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse.
Words in this poem
- mightily adv.
- In a mighty manner; with might; with great earnestness; vigorously; powerfully. [From Mighty.]
- thankless a.
- Not acknowledging favors; not expressing thankfulness; unthankful; ungrateful.
- corpse n.
- A human body in general, whether living or dead; -- sometimes contemptuosly. [OF. cors (sometimes written corps), F. corps, L. corpus; akin to AS. hrif womb. See Midriff, and cf. Corse, Corselet, Corps, Cuerpo.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hæmon is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #54985; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Matthew Arnold, Hæmon, in Poems (1849–1867), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #54985, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/arnold-poems/h-mon.html, id L07003.
Form and metre
Hæmon is 9 lines in a single stanza. 83% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 A---A---- notA · thebans · far · her · vindicateA · pitiless · lover · antigone · corpse
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| No, no, old men, Creon I curse not! | 8 | ········ |
| I weep, Thebans, | 4 | ···· |
| One than Creon crueller far! | 6 | ······ |
| For he, he, at least, by slaying her, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| August laws doth mightily vindicate; | 9 | /˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| But thou, too bold, headstrong, pitiless!-- | 9 | ····/·/˘˘ |
| Ah me!--honorest more than thy lover, | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| O Antigone! | 5 | ·˘/˘˘ |
| A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse. | 8 | ··/˘˘/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.