Hypocrites
Who comes and saith: 'A Tyrant, lo, am I!'And, 'I am Antichrist!' what man will swear?The crafty rogue, hiding his poisonous ware,Sells you what slays your soul, for sanctity.Cheats, brigands, prostitutes, and all that fry,Not having fashioned so devout a snare,Appear worse sinners than perhaps they are;For where the craft's small, small's the villainy;You're on your guard. The meek SamaritanMakes way before those guileful Pharisees,Though God assigned to him the higher place.Not words nor wonders prove a virtuous man,But deeds and acts. How many deitiesHath this false standard given the human race!
Words in this poem
- saith
- 3d pers. sing. pres. of Say.
- antichrist n.
- A denier or opponent of Christ. Specif.: A great antagonist, person or power, expected to precede Christ's second coming.
- samaritan a.
- Of or pertaining to Samaria, in Palestine. [L. Samaritanus.]
- guileful a.
- Full of guile; characterized by cunning, deceit, or treachery; guilty.
- virtuous a.
- Possessing or exhibiting virtue. Specifically: -- (a) Exhibiting manly courage and strength; valorous; valiant; brave. [OE. vertuous, OF. vertuos, vertuous, F. vertueux, fr. L. Virtuous. See Virtue, and cf. Virtuoso.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hypocrites 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, Hypocrites, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/campanella-sonnets/hypocrites.html, id L27835.
Form and metre
Hypocrites is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See 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 ABB-AB--C-DC-D iA · swearB · wareB · sanctity · fryA · snareB · are · villainy · samaritanC · pharisees · placeD · manC · deities · raceD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Who comes and saith: 'A Tyrant, lo, am I!' | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And, 'I am Antichrist!' what man will swear? | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| The crafty rogue, hiding his poisonous ware, | 10 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘· |
| Sells you what slays your soul, for sanctity. | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| Cheats, brigands, prostitutes, and all that fry, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Not having fashioned so devout a snare, | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/·· |
| Appear worse sinners than perhaps they are; | 10 | ˘/·/˘·˘/·· |
| For where the craft's small, small's the villainy; | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| You're on your guard. The meek Samaritan | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| Makes way before those guileful Pharisees, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Though God assigned to him the higher place. | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Not words nor wonders prove a virtuous man, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| But deeds and acts. How many deities | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| Hath this false standard given the human race! | 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.