Analysis of On The Platonic 'Ideal' As It Was Understood By Aristotle. (Translated From Milton)
William Cowper 1731 (Berkhamsted) – 1800 (Dereham)
Ye sister Pow'rs who o'er the sacred groves
Preside, and, Thou, fair mother of them all
Mnemosyne, and thou, who in thy grot
Immense reclined at leisure, hast in charge
The Archives and the ord'nances of Jove,
And dost record the festivals of heav'n,
Eternity!--Inform us who is He,
That great Original by Nature chos'n
To be the Archetype of Human-kind,
Unchangeable, Immortal, with the poles
Themselves coaeval, One, yet ev'rywhere,
An image of the god, who gave him Being?
Twin-brother of the Goddess born from Jove,
He dwells not in his Father's mind, but, though
Of common nature with ourselves, exists
Apart, and occupies a local home.
Whether, companion of the stars, he spend
Eternal ages, roaming at his will
From sphere to sphere the tenfold heav'ns, or dwell
On the moon's side that nearest neighbours Earth,
Or torpid on the banks of Lethe sit
Among the multitude of souls ordair'd
To flesh and blood, or whether (as may chance)
That vast and giant model of our kind
In some far-distant region of this globe
Sequester'd stalk, with lifted head on high
O'ertow'ring Atlas, on whose shoulders rest
The stars, terrific even to the Gods.
Never the Theban Seer, whose blindness proved
His best illumination, Him beheld
In secret vision; never him the son
Of Pleione, amid the noiseless night
Descending, to the prophet-choir reveal'd;
Him never knew th' Assyrian priest, who yet
The ancestry of Ninus chronicles,
And Belus, and Osiris far-renown'd;
Nor even Thrice-great Hermes, although skill'd
So deep in myst'ry, to the worshippers
Of Isis show'd a prodigy like Him.
And thou, who hast immortalized the shades
Of Academus, if the school received
This monster of the Fancy first from Thee,
Either recall at once the banish'd bards
To thy Republic, or, thyself evinc'd
A wilder Fabulist, go also forth.
Scheme | ABCDEFGFCHIJEKLMCNOPCCQCRECSCCFCCCTCCUVWCGACX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11011100101 0101110111 1011011 0101110101 0100111 0101010011 0100011111 1101001101 110101101 1010101 011111 11010111110 1101010111 1110110111 11010100101 010100101 1001010111 0101010111 111101111 101111011 110101111 01010111 1101110111 11010101101 0111010111 0101110111 11011101 0101010101 100111101 11001011 0101010101 1101011 01010101001 1101110100111 010011100 0101101 110111011 110110100 1101010011 0111010001 1110101 1101010111 101110101 110101101 01011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,775 |
Words | 307 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 45 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,422 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 304 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:38 min read
- 80 Views
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"On The Platonic 'Ideal' As It Was Understood By Aristotle. (Translated From Milton)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40059/on-the-platonic-%27ideal%27-as-it-was-understood-by-aristotle.-%28translated-from-milton%29>.
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