President of Council of Five Hundred
More literally translated thus by the author of the article onSchiller in the Foreign and Colonial Review, July, 1843--
"Thence all witnesses forever banishedOf poor human nakedness."
"But in God's sight submission is command." "Jonah," by the Rev.F. Hodgson. Quoted in Foreign and Colonial Review, July, 1843: Art.Schiller, p. 21.
"I call the living--I mourn the dead--I break the lightning."These words are inscribed on the great bell of the Minster ofSchaffhausen--also on that of the Church of Art near Lucerne. There wasan old belief in Switzerland that the undulation of air caused by thesound of a bell, broke the electric fluid of a thunder-cloud.
See "Piccolomini," act ii., scene 6; and "The Death ofWallenstein," act v., scene 3.
Words in this poem
- colonial a.
- Of or pertaining to a colony; as, colonial rights, traffic, wars. [Cf. F. colonial.]
- nakedness n.
- The condition of being naked.
- undulation n.
- The act of undulating; a waving motion or vibration; as, the undulations of a fluid, of water, or of air; the undulations of sound. [Cf. F. ondulation.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
President of Council of Five Hundred is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Schiller — Third period, Project Gutenberg ebook #6796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Friedrich Schiller, President of Council of Five Hundred, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/president-of-council-of-five-hundred.html, id L21930.
Form and metre
President of Council of Five Hundred is 14 lines in 5 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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.
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| More literally translated thus by the author of the article on | 16 | ·/˘˘/˘···/˘··/˘· |
| Schiller in the Foreign and Colonial Review, July, 1843-- | 14 | /˘··/˘·˘/˘·/·/ |
| "Thence all witnesses forever banished | 9 | ··/˘˘/˘/˘ |
| Of poor human nakedness." | 7 | ··/˘/˘˘ |
| "But in God's sight submission is command." "Jonah," by the Rev. | 15 | ····˘/˘·˘//˘··· |
| F. Hodgson. Quoted in Foreign and Colonial Review, July, 1843: Art. | 17 | ·/˘/˘·/˘·˘/˘·/˘/· |
| Schiller, p. 21. | 3 | /˘· |
| "I call the living--I mourn the dead--I break the lightning." | 14 | ···/˘·······/˘ |
| These words are inscribed on the great bell of the Minster of | 14 | ···˘/······/˘· |
| Schaffhausen--also on that of the Church of Art near Lucerne. There was | 17 | ···/˘········/˘·· |
| an old belief in Switzerland that the undulation of air caused by the | 18 | ··˘/·/˘··········· |
| sound of a bell, broke the electric fluid of a thunder-cloud. | 16 | ······˘/˘/˘··/˘· |
| See "Piccolomini," act ii., scene 6; and "The Death of | 13 | ············· |
| Wallenstein," act v., scene 3. | 6 | /˘···· |
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.