Translation of a Speech of Aquileio, in the Adriano of Metastasio
Grown old in courts, thou surely art not oneWho keeps the rigid rules of ancient honour;Well skill'd to sooth a foe with looks of kindness,To sink the fatal precipice before him,And then lament his fall, with seeming friendship:Open to all, true only to thyself,Thou know'st those arts, which blast with envious praise,Which aggravate a fault, with feign'd excuses,And drive discountenanc'd virtue from the throne;That leave the blame of rigour to the prince,And of his ev'ry gift usurp the merit;That hide, in seeming zeal, a wicked purpose,And only build upon another's ruin.
Words in this poem
- honour n.
- Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]
- sooth a.
- True; faithful; trustworthy. [OE. soth, AS. s, for san; akin to OS. s, OHG. sand, Icel. sannr, Sw. sann, Dan. sand, Skr. sat, sant, real, genuine, present, being; properly p. pr. from a root]
- precipice n.
- A sudden or headlong fall. Fuller. [F. précipice, L. praecipitium, fr. praeceps, - cipitis, headlong; prae before + caput, capitis, the head. See Pre-, and Chief.]
- envious a.
- Malignant; mischievous; spiteful. [OF. envios, F. envieux, fr. L. invidiosus, fr. invidia envy. See Envy, and cf. Invidious.]
- aggravate v. t.
- To make heavy or heavier; to add to; to increase. [L. aggravatus, p. p. of aggravare. See Aggrieve.]
- rigour n.
- Rigidity; stiffness. [L. See Rigor., below.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Translation of a Speech of Aquileio, in the Adriano of Metastasio is in the public domain. This text is taken from Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 (The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes, 1825), Project Gutenberg ebook #10835; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Samuel Johnson, Translation of a Speech of Aquileio, in the Adriano of Metastasio, in Poems (1825), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10835, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-poems/translation-of-a-speech-of-aquileio-in-the-adriano-of.html, id L27170.
Form and metre
Translation of a Speech of Aquileio, in the Adriano of Metastasio is 13 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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 ------AAB---B one · honour · kindness · him · friendship · thyself · praiseA · excusesA · throneB · prince · merit · purpose · ruinB
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Grown old in courts, thou surely art not one | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Who keeps the rigid rules of ancient honour; | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Well skill'd to sooth a foe with looks of kindness, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| To sink the fatal precipice before him, | 11 | ···/˘/˘˘··· |
| And then lament his fall, with seeming friendship: | 11 | ··˘/···/˘/˘ |
| Open to all, true only to thyself, | 10 | /˘···/˘·˘/ |
| Thou know'st those arts, which blast with envious praise, | 11 | ·······/˘˘· |
| Which aggravate a fault, with feign'd excuses, | 11 | ·/˘·····˘/˘ |
| And drive discountenanc'd virtue from the throne; | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| That leave the blame of rigour to the prince, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And of his ev'ry gift usurp the merit; | 11 | ·······/·/˘ |
| That hide, in seeming zeal, a wicked purpose, | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| And only build upon another's ruin. | 11 | ·/˘···˘/˘/˘ |
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.