The Bad Prince
Organ of rut, not reason, is the lordWho from the body politic doth drainLust for himself, instead of toil and pain,Leaving us lean as crickets on dry sward.Well too if he like Love would filch our hoardWith pleasure to ourselves, sluicing our veinAnd vigour to perpetuate the strainOf life by spilth of life within us stored!Love's cheat yields joy and profit. Kings, less kind,Harm those they hoodwink; sow bare rock with seed;Nor use our waste to propagate the breed.Heaven help that body which a little mind,Housed in a head, lacking ears, tongue, and eyes,And senseless but for smell, can tyrannise!
Words in this poem
- lust v. i.
- To list; to like. [AS. lystan. See Lust, n., and cf. List to choose.]
- filch v. t.
- To steal or take privily (commonly, that which is of little value); to pilfer. [Cf. AS. feol to stick to, OHG. felhan, felahan, to hide, Icel. fela, Goth. filhan to hide, bury, Prov. E. feal to hide slyly, OE. felen.]
- vigour v. t.
- To invigorate. Feltham.
- perpetuate v. t.
- To make perpetual; to cause to endure, or to be continued, indefinitely; to preserve from extinction or oblivion; to eternize. [L. perpetuatus, p.p. of perpetuare to perpetuate. See Perpetual.]
- spilth n.
- Anything spilt, or freely poured out; slop; effusion. [From Spill.]
- hoodwink v. t.
- To blind by covering the eyes. [Hood + wink.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Bad Prince 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, The Bad Prince, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/campanella-sonnets/the-bad-prince.html, id L27828.
Form and metre
The Bad Prince is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABBAABBACDDC-- lordA · drainB · painB · swardA · hoardA · veinB · strainB · storedA · kindC · seedD · breedD · mindC · eyes · tyrannise
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Organ of rut, not reason, is the lord | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Who from the body politic doth drain | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Lust for himself, instead of toil and pain, | 10 | ··˘/˘/···· |
| Leaving us lean as crickets on dry sward. | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Well too if he like Love would filch our hoard | 10 | ········/· |
| With pleasure to ourselves, sluicing our vein | 10 | ·/˘·˘//˘/· |
| And vigour to perpetuate the strain | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| Of life by spilth of life within us stored! | 10 | ·········· |
| Love's cheat yields joy and profit. Kings, less kind, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Harm those they hoodwink; sow bare rock with seed; | 10 | ···/······ |
| Nor use our waste to propagate the breed. | 10 | ··/··/˘··· |
| Heaven help that body which a little mind, | 10 | /··/˘··/˘· |
| Housed in a head, lacking ears, tongue, and eyes, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| And senseless but for smell, can tyrannise! | 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.