774. Blame the Reward of Princes
Among disasters that dissension brings,This not the least is, which belongs to kings:If wars go well, each for a part lays claim;If ill, then kings, not soldiers, bear the blame.
About this text
774. Blame the Reward of Princes is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #22421; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Herrick, 774. Blame the Reward of Princes, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/774-blame-the-reward-of-princes.html, id L05715.
Form and metre
774. Blame the Reward of Princes is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 AABB bringsA · kingsA · claimB · blameB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Among disasters that dissension brings, | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| This not the least is, which belongs to kings: | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| If wars go well, each for a part lays claim; | 10 | ·········· |
| If ill, then kings, not soldiers, bear the blame. | 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.