What Makes a King
He who hath brush and colours, and chance-wiseDoth daub, befouling walls and canvases,Is not a painter; but, unhelped by these,He who in art is masterful and wise.Cowls and the tonsure do not make a friar;Nor make a king wide realms and pompous wars;But he who is all Jesus, Pallas, Mars,Though he be slave or base-born, wears the tiar.Man is not born crowned like the natural kingOf beasts, for beasts by this investitureHave need to know the head they must obey;Wherefore a commonwealth fits men, I say,Or else a prince whose worth is tried and sure,Not proved by sloth or false imagining.
Words in this poem
- masterful a.
- Inclined to play the master; domineering; imperious; arbitrary.
- tonsure n.
- The act of clipping the hair, or of shaving the crown of the head; also, the state of being shorn. [F., fr. L. tonsura a shearing, clipping, from tondere, tonsum, to shear, shave; cf. Gr. tome.]
- pallas n.
- Pallas Athene, the Grecian goddess of wisdom, called also Athene, and identified, at a later period, with the Roman Minerva.
- tiar n.
- A tiara. Milton. [Cf. F. tiare. See Tiara.]
- investiture n.
- The act or ceremony of investing, or the of being invested, as with an office; a giving possession; also, the right of so investing. [LL. investitura: cf. F. investiture.]
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
- commonwealth n.
- A state; a body politic consisting of a certain number of men, united, by compact or tacit agreement, under one form of government and system of laws. [Common + wealth well-being.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
What Makes a King 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, What Makes a King, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/what-makes-a-king.html, id L15235.
Form and metre
What Makes a King is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% 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 AAAAB--B--CC-- wiseA · canvasesA · theseA · wiseA · friarB · wars · mars · tiarB · king · investiture · obeyC · sayC · sure · imagining
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 |
|---|---|---|
| He who hath brush and colours, and chance-wise | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Doth daub, befouling walls and canvases, | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| Is not a painter; but, unhelped by these, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| He who in art is masterful and wise. | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| Cowls and the tonsure do not make a friar; | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Nor make a king wide realms and pompous wars; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| But he who is all Jesus, Pallas, Mars, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Though he be slave or base-born, wears the tiar. | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Man is not born crowned like the natural king | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Of beasts, for beasts by this investiture | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| Have need to know the head they must obey; | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Wherefore a commonwealth fits men, I say, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Or else a prince whose worth is tried and sure, | 10 | ·········· |
| Not proved by sloth or false imagining. | 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.