Sonnet CLIII
Had tuneful Maro seen, and Homer old,The living sun which here mine eyes behold,The best powers they had join'd of either lyre,Sweetness and strength, that fame she might acquire;Unsung had been, with vex'd AEneas, thenAchilles and Ulysses, godlike men,And for nigh sixty years who ruled so wellThe world; and who before AEgysthus fell;Nay, that old flower of virtues and of arms,As this new flower of chastity and charms,A rival star, had scarce such radiance flung.In rugged verse him honour'd Ennius sung,I her in mine. Grant, Heaven! on my poor laysShe frown not, nor disdain my humble praise.
Words in this poem
- tuneful a.
- Harmonious; melodious; musical; as, tuneful notes.
- scarce a.
- Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet CLIII is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, the various hands 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: Petrarch, Sonnet CLIII, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/sonnet-cliii.html, id L14727.
Form and metre
Sonnet CLIII is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDCDCD, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other Italian sonnets, 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 ABBAABBACDCDCD oldA · beholdB · lyreB · acquireA · thenA · menB · wellB · fellA · armsC · charmsD · flungC · sungD · laysC · praiseD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Had tuneful Maro seen, and Homer old, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| The living sun which here mine eyes behold, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| The best powers they had join'd of either lyre, | 10 | ··/····/˘· |
| Sweetness and strength, that fame she might acquire; | 11 | /˘······˘/˘ |
| Unsung had been, with vex'd AEneas, then | 10 | ˘/····/˘˘· |
| Achilles and Ulysses, godlike men, | 10 | ˘/˘·˘/˘/˘· |
| And for nigh sixty years who ruled so well | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The world; and who before AEgysthus fell; | 10 | ·········· |
| Nay, that old flower of virtues and of arms, | 10 | ···/·/˘··· |
| As this new flower of chastity and charms, | 10 | ···/·/˘˘·· |
| A rival star, had scarce such radiance flung. | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| In rugged verse him honour'd Ennius sung, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| I her in mine. Grant, Heaven! on my poor lays | 10 | ·····/···· |
| She frown not, nor disdain my humble praise. | 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.