To Ridolfo di Bina
Wisdom and love, O Bina, gave thee wings,Before the blossom of thy years had faded,To fly with Adam for thy guide, God-aided,Through many lands in divers journeyings.Pure virtue is thy guerdon: virtue bringsGlory to thee, death to the foes degraded,Who through long years of darkness have invadedThy Germany, mother of slaves not kings.Yet, gazing on heaven's book, heroic child,My soul discerns graces divine in thee:--Leave toys and playthings to the crowd of fools!Do thou with heart fervent and proudly mildMake war upon those fraud-engendering schools!I see thee victor, and in God I see.
Words in this poem
- divers a.
- Different in kind or species; diverse. [F. divers, L. diversus turned in different directions, different, p. p. of divertere. See Divert, and cf. Diverse.]
- guerdon n.
- A reward; requital; recompense; -- used in both a good and a bad sense. [OF. guerdon, guerredon, LL. widerdonum (influenced by L. donum gift, cf. Donation ), fr. OHG. widarl; widar again, against (G. wider wieder) + lon reward, G. lo]
- fervent a.
- Hot; glowing; boiling; burning; as, a fervent summer. [F. fervent, L. fervens, -entis. p.pr. of fervere o the boiling hot, to boil, glow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Ridolfo di Bina 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, To Ridolfo di Bina, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/campanella-sonnets/to-ridolfo-di-bina.html, id L27858.
Form and metre
To Ridolfo di Bina is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDECED. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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 ABBAABBACDECED wingsA · fadedB · aidedB · journeyingsA · bringsA · degradedB · invadedB · kingsA · childC · theeD · foolsE · mildC · schoolsE · seeD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Wisdom and love, O Bina, gave thee wings, | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Before the blossom of thy years had faded, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| To fly with Adam for thy guide, God-aided, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Through many lands in divers journeyings. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| Pure virtue is thy guerdon: virtue brings | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Glory to thee, death to the foes degraded, | 11 | /˘······˘/˘ |
| Who through long years of darkness have invaded | 11 | ·····/˘·˘/˘ |
| Thy Germany, mother of slaves not kings. | 10 | ·/˘˘/˘···· |
| Yet, gazing on heaven's book, heroic child, | 11 | ·/˘·/˘·˘/˘· |
| My soul discerns graces divine in thee:-- | 10 | ··˘//˘˘/·· |
| Leave toys and playthings to the crowd of fools! | 10 | ···/······ |
| Do thou with heart fervent and proudly mild | 10 | ····/˘·/˘· |
| Make war upon those fraud-engendering schools! | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| I see thee victor, and in God I see. | 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.