A Prophecy of Judgment, No. 2: The Doom of the Impious
You sect most adverse to the good and true,Degenerate from your origin divine,Pastured on lies and shadows by the lineOf Thais, Sinon, Judas, Homer! You,Thus saith the Spirit, when the retinueOf saints with Christ returns on earth to shine,When the fifth angel's vial pours condignVengeance with awful ire and torments due,--You shall be girt with gloom; your lips profane,Disloyal tongues, and savage teeth shall grindAnd gnash with fury fell and anger vain:In Malebolge your damned souls confinedOn fiery marle, for increment of pain,Shall see the saved rejoice with mirth of mind.
Words in this poem
- saith
- 3d pers. sing. pres. of Say.
- condign a.
- Worthy; suitable; deserving; fit. [F. condigne, L. condignus very worthy; con- + dignus worthy. See Deign, and cf. Digne.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- girt v. t.
- To gird; to encircle; to invest by means of a girdle; to measure the girth of; as, to girt a tree. [From Girt, n., cf. Girth, v.]
- gnash v. t.
- To strike together, as in anger or pain; as, to gnash the teeth. [OE. gnasten, gnaisten, cf. Icel. gnastan a gnashing, gn to gnash, Dan.knaske, Sw. gnissla, D. knarsen, G. knirschen.]
- damned a.
- Sentenced to punishment in a future state; condemned; consigned to perdition.
- increment n.
- The act or process of increasing; growth in bulk, guantity, number, value, or amount; augmentation; enlargement. [L. incrementum: cf. F. incrément. See Increase.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Prophecy of Judgment, No. 2: The Doom of the Impious is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Tommaso Campanella, Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, the John Addington Symonds translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Tommaso Campanella, A Prophecy of Judgment, No. 2: The Doom of the Impious, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/campanella-sonnets/a-prophecy-of-judgment-no-2-the-doom-of-the-impious.html, id L27842.
Form and metre
A Prophecy of Judgment, No. 2: The Doom of the Impious is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDCDCD, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other Italian sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABBAABBACDCDCD trueA · divineB · lineB · youA · retinueA · shineB · condignB · dueA · profaneC · grindD · vainC · confinedD · painC · mindD
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. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| You sect most adverse to the good and true, | 10 | ···˘/····· |
| Degenerate from your origin divine, | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘˘˘/ |
| Pastured on lies and shadows by the line | 10 | /˘···/···· |
| Of Thais, Sinon, Judas, Homer! You, | 9 | ····/˘/˘· |
| Thus saith the Spirit, when the retinue | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Of saints with Christ returns on earth to shine, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| When the fifth angel's vial pours condign | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Vengeance with awful ire and torments due,-- | 10 | /˘·/˘··/·· |
| You shall be girt with gloom; your lips profane, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Disloyal tongues, and savage teeth shall grind | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘··· |
| And gnash with fury fell and anger vain: | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| In Malebolge your damned souls confined | 10 | ······˘·˘/ |
| On fiery marle, for increment of pain, | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| Shall see the saved rejoice with mirth of mind. | 10 | ····˘/···· |
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.