The Human Comedy
Nature, by God directed, formed in spaceThe universal comedy we see;Wherein each star, each man, each entity,Each living creature, hath its part and place:
And when the play is over, it shall beThat God will judge with justice and with grace.--Aping this art divine, the human racePlans for itself on earth a comedy:
It makes kings, priests, slaves, heroes for the eyesOf vulgar folk; and gives them masks to playTheir several parts--not wisely, as we see;
For impious men too oft we canonise,And kill the saints; while spurious lords arrayTheir hosts against the real nobility.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- canonise v. t.
- To declare (a deceased person) a saint; to put in the catalogue of saints; as, Thomas a Becket was canonized. [F. canoniser or LL. canonizare, fr. L. canon.. See Canon.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Human Comedy is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets, 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: Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Human Comedy, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/the-human-comedy.html, id L15233.
Form and metre
The Human Comedy is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 43% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AB-A spaceA · seeB · entity · placeA
- 2 BAA- beB · graceA · raceA · comedy
- 3 CDB eyesC · playD · seeB
- 4 CD- canoniseC · arrayD · nobility
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Nature, by God directed, formed in space | 10 | /˘··˘/˘··· |
| The universal comedy we see; | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘˘·· |
| Wherein each star, each man, each entity, | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| Each living creature, hath its part and place: | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| And when the play is over, it shall be | 10 | ·········· |
| That God will judge with justice and with grace.-- | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Aping this art divine, the human race | 10 | /˘··˘/·/˘· |
| Plans for itself on earth a comedy: | 10 | ··˘/···/˘˘ |
| It makes kings, priests, slaves, heroes for the eyes | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Of vulgar folk; and gives them masks to play | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Their several parts--not wisely, as we see; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| For impious men too oft we canonise, | 11 | ·˘/˘····/˘· |
| And kill the saints; while spurious lords array | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Their hosts against the real nobility. | 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.