Tuesday, June 2, 2015

A Note On Melophilus/The Brother


A NOTE ON Melophilus/ The Davisons  & “To his Lady, who had vowed Virginity,” © Eric Miller, 2006

 
Dear Albert,

I have read the ten sonnets of Melophilus (from the “Ten Sonets To Philomel”) again, today, three times, and, of course, I’ve read them a number of times before. A couple words about the form, before I make any comments. As I said before, I have to visualize the poems in modern English form before I can make literary comparisons with “Shakespeare” because, as you know, Shakespeare aint Shakespeare in many regards. The plays and sonnets, all are engraved in modern consciousness and memory, not in their Elizabethan form, but in the form given them in the 18th century. So when I read the Melophilus sonnets today, I change in my minds eye the capitalization punctuation, and sometimes other punctuation too—it is minor but, for me, very important. Otherwise I cannot get the native fluency. Once I have the modern form translated and assimilated, then I can re-put into the poems the original form, to get a flavor of dialectic accents, etc. (like trying to recreate the original music after I’ve first comprehended it and my ear has mastered it in the modern form).

I mention the above, as you will see, because it plays into my opinion of the matter. I can only say, after repeated readings, I think all 10 of the sonnets are E OX sonnets. I base my opinion on intrinsic and extrinsic literary evidence, a couple of main points I’ll touch on here. Bearing in mind, as I’m sure you do, that no one can afford to be very dogmatic about these things. It is most likely possible that Francis Davison could have studied Lord Oxford’s sonnets in MS and “like a dyer’s hand” soaked his poetic sensibilities in them (i.e., Shakespeare’s Sonnets) so that by “mimicry” he could accomplish some of the effects. That is what I did for my plays and to some extent even my Marie Sonnets.

There is an ineluctable modality of grace in Shakespeare’s sonnets which is beyond my ability to articulate or emulate, however. The same spirit that imbues his plays such that his drama is, for many, an almost religious experience (and for many of us it is a religious experience), imbues his sonnets in a special vibrancy. With the sonnets we have before us a frame of fourteeners, and one would think the eye can see, the mind can think, surely we must be able to put our finger on the elements of language that constitute its special grace. It should be easy enough, one would think, to grasp what it is that gives his poetry, not only its beautiful quickened sense of high art, but that heightened sense that there is, indeed, a “divinity in the life of man” and his poetry, in the field of literature, itself stands proof of it.

Below are some comments on the Melophilus sonnets.

 Sonnet I

The first thing I notice is the varied usage of images or references to human organs and faculties, and the conceit of one faculty serving as vent, adjunct, or opponent to another. In the first two lines, to be more precise, we have the faculty of “hearing,” mention of “Eyes,” as passages of entry into the organ of the heart. The next two lines speaks of “guarding” passages and neglecting defenses (almost as if, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s own phrase, “his heart is at a civil war.”). The simile is continued, into the kind of exaggerated, hyperbole so often found, not only in Shakespeare, but Oxford and many of the Elizabethans—none more notably, however, than by Shakespeare/Oxford himself.

Whereas in the first two couplets we dealt with the conceit of a either conflation of organs and faculties or double service as adjuncts to each other, the next two lines (5,6) introduce the organ (“Eare”) of the faculty (“hearing” of the first line) and the discovery of a by-way to that organ (i.e., of the “ear”). A fascination of this conceit of mixing the images of offices of the organs is found less often in the plays (this from Hamlet,: “Feeling without sight/Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all.” And in the Shakespeare Sonnets, for example such as the following abound: “Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest;” “To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit,” etc. Tis conceit, naturally, is much more frequently found in the poems and in the sonnets than in the dramatic language of the plays. 

Before you had me fix on these Melophilus poems, I had already made note (in other writings) of this interesting and rather phenomenal usage in comparing Oxford and Shakespeare, and here we have it in the first of the sonnets under examination.  (That is not to say this conceit is not found here and there in Sidney or Spenser, for example, but, on examination, we see they are treated in a different sense. Both may well be imitators of Oxford’s usage—as I think they are, in fact. But, to consider, “Ears without hands or eyes”? Did anyone expect ears to have hands and eyes? Obviously, unique. To continue.

Love, we are told, as the poem continues, seeking found a by-way to his ear and entered it, and took his Hart pris’ner and he was taken to the goddess of tragedy, Philomel. Phrases such as, forgive me, “Yet let my heart, thy heart to pity move,” is one of those phrases that could unquestionably come right out of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, so simple, elegantly articulated and musical it is, though it be of the simplest stuff. (it is frequently in the smallest things I see what I regard as that which is most distinctively Shakespearean). 

from Sonnet #1
 
Yet let my heart, thy heart to pity move,
Whose pain is great, although small fault appear:
First it lies bound in fett’ring chains of Love,
Then each day it is racked with hope and fear.
   And then with Loves flames ‘tis evermore consumed,
   Only, because to love thee it presumed.
 
Could “evermore” be here a pun on his own name, again? He himself is “ever” and he is the one who is “more consumed.” Whether tis so or not, one thing is sure, and that is that the very sum and substance of the Anomos poems, as well as the Ignoto poems (and of course, the A.W. poems), is that he, E.ver, lost out in his contest for the Queens heart and was rejected by her. Whether this was, in fact, a deeply real, personal, autobiographical love, or merely the required professed “emblematic” love for the Queen, via cult of the Virgin with all its shibboleths and accoutrements of ritualistic statement, I leave for you to determine. My point is, as, for example, the opening, deals with guarding, defending, neglecting, the offices of the senses, and at the end those same faculties are in conflagration because of “presuming” to love her. The image of fettering chains of Love, though certainly not unique, is found in Anne Oxfords letters to her husband, of 1581, Lord Oxford, and in the Amonos poems. (“Be it lawful, I love thee,” Shakespeare in a sonnet writes).

The line “Yet let my heart, thy heart to pity move,” immediately reminds one of Shakespeare’s, “Pity me then and wish I were renew’d;”  “Pity me then my friend assure me,” “And suit thy pity like in every part,” etc. What they have in common, certainly that the use of the word “pity” is in the case where they the poets are recipients of it, not its dispensers.   
 

Sonnet #2

Here again, in the second poem, we find the poet again using the personification of emotions and faculties:

Oh! why did Fame my heart to Love betray,
By telling my Dear’s virtue and perfection?
Why did my traitor ears to it convey,
That siren-song, cause of my heart’s infection?
Had I been deaf, or fame her gifts concealed,
Then had my heart been free from hopeless love:
Or were my state likewise by it revealed,
Well might it Philomel to pity move.
Then should she know how love doth make me languish,
Distracting me ‘twixt hope and dreadful fear:
Then should she know my care, my ‘plaints, and anguish,
All for her dear sake I meekly bear.
   Yea, I could quietly death’s pains abide,
   So that she knew that for her sake I died.

Now what prevents this poem, modernized, from being Shakespeare, I do not know. We have here, once again, a poet of extraordinary confidence. One who is not in the least bashful to admit that he is very famous. “Had I been deaf,” the poet tells us, “of fame her gifts concealed…” To not conceal her gifts to fame, is to make them famous. Whoever wrote this  poem, he here admits, en passant, that he is a famous person for apparently writing “love” poetry,--at least this much we can deduce.

Albert, you can perhaps hear yourself the reminiscent music of “Were I a king I might command content” with the cadence of  “Had I been deaf, or fame her gifts concealed.” In any case, he tells us that had he the skill of the tragic muse of  poetry, then would he have been able to communicate his state. Then he would proclaim that he lives and suffers and would die for her sake, if only she knew how much he loved her, and that he is dying for her sake. This is the same tune played in the Shakespeare Sonnets. Again, lines like: “Then would she know how love doth make me languish” have such a finished musical natural flow, it is the kind of thing I personally love in Shakespeare. The next line needed only (in my view) the slightest but important arrangement, not ‘plants but ‘plaints—the reader knows the idea is complaints, which if paused or stumbled over at this point in the poem completely destroys it as a completely fluent piece of verse. “That should she know my care, my ‘plaints, my anguish”—.

The level of intellectual complication of the poem is shown in the simple words of the second stanza:

Had I been deaf, or fame her gifts concealed,
Then had my heart been free from hopeless love:
Or were my state likewise by it revealed,
Well might it Philomel to pity move.

The poet tells us if he had not been able to hear and if he did not have the skill or the gifts to make famous his love, then his heart might have been free from “hopeless love”—why we cannot imagine. The second two lines takes the statement to an intellectual exercise. “Or,” the poet says, “were my state likewise by it [his gifts] revealed”—by which he means to say if his own feeling with his gifted skills could have revealed him, shown his heart to her, then what might have happened? Why, Philomel, herself, the muse of tragic poetry, might have been moved to pity. The intellectual content, I mean to refer to, is the idea of the first two lines contrasted with the second. “Had I been deaf . . . /Or were my state likewise by it revealed…” In the first case lacking his gifts, or in the observe case his gifts not lacking, then he would be revealed to his love with all his suffering, such that Philomel “might” be moved to pity. The transposition of the idea of a famous gift being unable to reveal, is the idea of which I speak. That I find Shakespearean. And again, “Or were my state likewise by it revealed,” are just simple straight forward words of a declarative sentence but somehow there is something magisterial about them, all by themselves—the use of the liquid “l” not likely totally lacking in our consideration. 

Of course Philomel herself is one of Shakespeare’s favorite goddesses and is mentioned in the Sonnets, Lucrece and Passionate Pilgrim and in three plays. And, is also mentioned by Anomos, which should be no surprise.  Indeed, the Melophilus sonnets could as well have been called the “Philomela Sonnets” for they are all about Philomela. The next one is:
 

Sonnet #III
 
Sickness intending my love to betray,
Before I should sight of my Dear obtain:
Did his pale colors in my face display,
Lest that my favor might her favor gain.
Yet not content herewith, like means it wrought,
My Philomel bright beauty to deface:
And Nature’s glory to disgrace it sought,
That my conceived love it might displace.
But my firm love could this assault well bear,
Which virtue had, not beauty for his ground:
And yet bright beams of beauty did appear,
Through sickness’ vale, which made my love abound.
   If sick (thought I) her beauty so excel
   How matchless would it be if she were well?  

This is a perfect conventional, event trite sonnet, witty to wit’s end, musical, and at the same time playing off an ordinary fact of ordinary life, the fact that people get sick. Here, again, incidentally, and as I have written in the book, we have our poet always being foiled in his effort to obtain the favor of his lady, now by this, now by that. Here, now with sickness.  The manner of stating complicated concepts with very clipped, abbreviated phrases, “Yet not content herewith, like means it wrought. . . ”  What does that mean, “like means it wrought”? It means “in the same manner that this happened that happened.” It is the kind of thing that Shakespeare is a master of, the cutting away the non-essential words, going to the core of the matter, whether it be an image or the juxtaposition of an oppositional set of “mighty opposites.” This sonnet, too, has that well-packed quality to it that is true of Shakespeare’s sonnets—as though they were packed by a skillful Japanese artisan; everything folded perfectly into the next layer, no wrinkles, perfectly correct edges, -- the packaging itself, often the greater art than the object.

Sonnet #IV

Pale Death himself did love my Philomel,
When he her virtues and rare beauty saw:
Therefore she sickness sent, which should expel,
His rival Life, and my dear to him draw.
But her bright beauty dazzled so his eyes,
That his dart Life did miss, though her it hit;
Yet not therewith content, new means he tries,
To bring her unto Death, and make life flit.
But Nature soon perceiving, that he meant
To spoil her only Phoenix, her chief pride,
Assembles all her force, and did prevent
The greatest mischief that could her betide.
   So both our lives and loves Nature defended,
   For had she died, my love and life were ended.

 Again, everything polished, neat, well arranged and well-sounded, playing off a single conceit of Death trying to take his Life and his love. Interestingly, I would note the line that Nature soon perceived that Death meant “To spoil her only Phoenix, her chief pride:”

Queen Elizabeth was frequently referred to as the Phoenix, as well as other notables, including Lord Oxford himself (as I argue in “Spenser’s Calendar”). Another conceit, such as we find in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, spun out in yarns of trivial devises, but excellently executed, of that there can be little doubt.

 
Sonnet #V

My Llove is sail’d, against Dislike to fight,   
Which like vild monster, threatens his decay:
The ship is Hope, which by Desire’s great might,
Is swiftly born toward the wished bay.
The company which with my love doth fare,
(Though met in one) is a dissenting crew;
They are Joy, Grief, and never-sleeping Care,
And Doubt, which nere believes good news for true;
Black Fear the flag is, which my ship doth bear,
Which, Dear, take down, if my Love victor be:
And let white Comfort in his place appear,
When love victoriously returns to me,
   Lest I from rock Despair come tumbling down,
   And in a sea of tears be forc’d to drown.

This appears to be to be another from that series of four (I think) in APR, dealing with the theme of Lord Oxford’s flight by ship away from the Queen, because he did not want to fight with her and he knew she was furious over the business with Anne Vavasour. I see a recounting, to some extent, of Lord Oxford’s personal characteristics. The company with which his love fared (in his flight) was a “dissenting crew,” and he gives their names, Joy, Grief, Care, Doubt. It is doubt, that he says of that he “never believes good news for true,” – is that “good news fore vere”, as well? But, it is true, that Lord Oxford vented more than once the idea that it was not easy for him to actually have confidence that what is right will ever be done to him, as his plaintiff letters to Queen Elizabeth amply prove. The “fight” which he wished to avoid, he compares to a “wild monster.” “Vild” used in SS. 

Sonnet #V also tells a simple story of a simple and ordinary event of a suitor catching the look of the object of his eye secretly spying him out. The next sonnet has a little more interest for our purposes.

Sonnet #VII

When time nor place would let me often view
Nature’s chief mirror and my sole delight;
Her lively picture in my heart I drew,
That I might it behold both day and night:
But she, like Phillip’s son, scorning that I
Should portray her wanting Apelles’ Art
Commanded Love (who nought dare her deny)
To burn the picture which was in my heart.
The more love burn’d the more her picture shin’d;
The more it shin’d the more my heart did burn:
So what to hurt her picture was assign’d
To my heart’s ruin and decay did turn.
   Love could not burn the Saint, it was divine,
   And therefore fir’d my heart, the Saint’s poor shrine.

 “Nature’s chief mirror, and my sole delight” seems a phrase Ben Johnson (birth name spelled as shown) might have lifted from this poem (just change to something like, “Nature’s chief mirror and the world’s delight”). This poem, of course, reminds us of Shakespeare’s poems wherein he lovingly hides and retrieves the picture of his love which hangs in his “bosom’s shop.” (“With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast”; ). We see too that “wanting Apelles Art” is perhaps an allusion to the dedication by Munday (?) or was it Thomas Watson, which deals with the same literary reference of Apelles. In this poem his heart is the “Saint’s poor shrine.”  In the Anomos collection he ends with his heart as a depicted “altar.”

 Sonnet VIII

Whenas the sun eclipsed is, some say,
It thunder, lightning, rain, and wind portendeth:
And not unlike but such things happen may,
Sith like effects my Sun eclipsed sendeth.
Witness my throat made hoarse with thundering cries,
And heart with love’s hot flashing lightnings fired:
Witness the showers which still fall from mine eyes,
And breast with sighs like stormy winds near rived
Shine then once again, sweet Sun on me,
And with thy beams disclose clouds of despair,
Whereof these raging meteors famed be,
In my poor heart by absence of my fair:
   So shalt thou prove thy beams, thy heat, thy light,
   To match the Sun in glory, grace, and might.

[Of course the accent on eclipsed (ed)]

 The first line with silky fluency leads into the dramatic, “It thunder, lightening, rain, and wind portendeth,” succeeded with a comparison to his own state, “And not unlike but such things, happen may,/Sith like effects my sun eclipsed sendeth.” What admirable cogency and tersely apt expression. He likens himself, his own state, his inner state’s reaction to himself, like the sun, being eclipsed. He experiences, he tells us, the internalized like effects. What outwardly doth show/He inwardly doth know, and so he tell us, with the kind of ever present blunt reality in every word—even ditties done for forms delight and to practice the scales of enchantment.

 We do learn, however, that our poet’s voice is made “hoarse” by “thunderous cries,” being made “hoarse” also being mentioned by Anomos. It is interesting how the poet takes a simple image of what happens, or what is claimed to happen by eclipses, and interiorizes them so that the very phenomenon of the outside world becomes the poet’s inside world.  

Sonnet X

My cruel Dear, having captiv’d my heart,
And bound it fast in chains of restless love;
Requires it out of bondage to depart,
Yet is she sure from her it cannot move.
“Draw back,” said she, “your hopeless love from me,
You worth requireth a more worthy place:
Unto your suit though I cannot agree,
Full many will it lovingly embrace.”
“It may be so, my Dear, but as the Sun
When it appears doth make the stars to vanish:
So when your self into my thoughts do run,
All others quite out of my heart you banish.
   The beams of your perfections shine so bright,
   That straightway they dispel all other’s light.”

Again, we have the image of the captive being bound in chains. The “it” is apparently the heart, his heart, which she is sure he (it) will not be able to move. “Yet is she sure from her it cannot move.” He is commanded to draw back his “hopeless love” for him a greater place of worth is due. She rejects his suit for her love, while saying the “Full many will it lovingly embrace.” The poet, after this statement, which is really in quotations, and is the speech of his beloved, speaks again, in his own person. “It may be so, my Dear, but as the sun/When it appears doth make the stars to vanish: so when your self into my thoughts do run, All others quite out of my heart you banish.” Another silky smooth conceit, expertly conceived, euphoniously sounded. In short, she rejects him, tells him he is better due another, of which she is sure there are many and he gallantly replies that, yes, there are others but as the sun banishes the many bright stars when it appears, so thoughts of her banishes thoughts of all of the “others” of the starry seas. And the couple is rather a redundancy over the previously said, but again wraps it all up in simple but elegant language: “The beams of your perfections shine so bright/That straightway they dispel all others’ light.”

 
Brother Walter:

But for all of that, I must confess, I find even more of the better “Shakespeare” in the alleged works of Francis’ young brother, Walter, who at 18 or 19 (if he was even alive as claimed at the time of publication) was pumping out the likes of this, Sonnet II:

But if my lines may not be held excused,
Nor yet my love find favor in your eyes,
But that your eyes as Judges has be used,
Even of the fault which from themselves doth rise,
Yet this my humble suite do not despise,
Let me be judged as I stand accused,
If but my fault my doom do equalize,
What e’er it be, it shall not be refused.
And since my love already is expressed,
And that I cannot stand upon denial,
I freely put my self upon my trial,
Let justice doom me as I have confessed.
   For in my doom if Justice be regarded,
   My love with love again shall be rewarded.

Here I would note a line from Anomos, [84], Ode III which contains the lines:

Desire and Hope have moved my mind,
To seek for that I cannot find,
Assured faith in woman-kind,
And love with love rewarded . . .

Indeed, so much in the W.D. poems reminds us of the very same expressions in Anomos that we can not trust in the claim all these poems (any?) were written by W.D. And this is especially true of Sonnet III,   

 
Fair is thy face and great thy wits perfection,
So fair, alas, so hard to be exprest,
That if my tired pen should never rest,
It should not blaze thy worth but my affection.
Yet let me say, the Muses make election,
Of your pure mind, there to erect their nest,
And that your face is such a flint-hard breast,
By force thereof, without force feels subjection.
Witness mine Ear, ravished when you it hears,
Witness mine eyes ravished when you they see,
Beauty and virtue, witness eyes and ears,
In you, sweet Saint, have equal sovereignty.
   But, if, nor eyes, nor ears, can prove it true,
   Witness my heart, there‘s none that equals you.

Again, we have the curious phrase, conflating the organs or physiognomy, “your face is such a flint-hard breast” and an elaborate use of “eyes” and “ears” which we commented on in the poems of Melophilus. The parenthetical (sweet Saint) is also used in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Is there a play upon words again, as well, with the “sweet Saint” have “equal sovereignty,” of both Beauty and Virtue. Well, that, of course, is the emblematic of the Queen, Beauty, Virtue, and Chaste, a “Saint.” We must continue to bear in mine, if the reader will look at the rime scheme, that it is not the Shakespearean form, so it will, naturally, not yield the same kind of music that a “Shakespearean” (L.Vaux, L. Surry) sonnet would. The above sonnet, for example, is abbacddcefefgg; the “Shakespearean” form is ababcdcdefefgg.
 
The next sonnet is especially “high minded” and reminds us of the famous, “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes/I all alone beweep my outcast state”

Let fate, my fortune, and my stars conspire,
Jointly to pour on me their worst disgrace;
So I be gracious in your heavenly face,
I weight not fates, nor stars, nor fortune’s ire.
Tis not the influence of Heaven’s Fire,
Hath power to make me blessed in my race,
Nor in my happiness hath fortune place,
Nor yet can fate my poor life’s date expire.
Tis your fair eyes (my stars) all bliss do give,
Tis your disdain (my fate) hath power to kill,
Tis you (my fortune) make me happy live,
Though fortune, fate, and stars conspire mine ill.
   Then (blessed Saint) into your favor take me,
   Fortune, nor fate, nor stars, can wretched make me.

The phrase “Nor yet can fate my poor life’s date expire,” is one of those many we find in the W.D. poems that have the compact content, such so that we stop to pause and consider the meaning in the smooth flowing words. Likewise, the “Tis not the influence of Heaven’s fire,/Hath power to make me blessed of my race.” Heaven’s fire is the Zodiac, with its constellations, the stars of fate. (“It is not in the stars, dear Brutus, that we are underlings…”). His love’s eyes, however, not the stars are his fate. In this poem sounded, too, the “killing disdain” of the loved one is highlighted along with a plea to be taken in and guarded from harm, a theme also sounded in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

 I have entreated and I have complained,
I have dispraised, and praise I like wise gave;
All meanness to win her Grace I tried have,
And still I love, and still I am disdained.
So long I have my tongue and pen constrain’d,
To praise, dispraise, complain and pity crave,
That now, nor tongue, or pen, to me her slave
Remains whereby her Grace may be obtain’d.
Yet you (my sighs) may purchase me relief,
And ye (my tears) her rocky heart may move;
Therefore my sighs sigh in her ears my grief,
And in her heart my tears imprint my love.
   But cease vain sighs, cease, cease ye fruitless tears
   Tears cannot pierce her heart, nor sighs her ears.

Her “Grace” keys this poem to being another to her grace, Queen Elizabeth. I have noted elsewhere the strong predilection of our “suspects” (L. Ox., Anomos, A.W., Shakespeare) to the addictive use of the word “grace.” Here and in other of these poems the presence of the words is more frequent than ever. It will be recalled that Lord Oxford was forbidden to express his feelings in poetry. This poem seems to touch on that very theme. “So long I have my tongue and pen constrain’d.”  

Sonnet

Like a sea-tossed bark, with tackling spent,
And stars obscur’d his watry journey’s guide,
By loud tempestuous winds and raging tide,
From wave to wave with dreadful fury sent,
Fares my poor heart; my heart-strings being rent,
And quite disabled your fierce wrath to bide,
Since your fair eyes my stars themselves do hide,
Clouding their light in frowns and discontent.
For from your frowns do spring my sighs and tears,
Tears flow like seas, and sighs like winds do blow,
Whose joined rage most violently bears
My tempest-beaten heart from woe to woe.
   And if your eyes shine not that I may shun it,
   Our rock, despair, my sighs, and tears will run it. 

 Lord Oxford was constrained from writing while in confinement (if not prison). This poem probably written while in prison is another of those by Anomos recounting the story of his escape flight from England upon the birth of A.V.’s son, alleged to have been his. Here he is saying that the forces of storm that he met with in the ship was but an outward expression of the storm raging inside his own heart. The Queen was furious with him, is the constant theme. Here we read, “Since your fair eyes my stars themselves do hide,/Clouding their light in frowns and discontents.” That her fury “joined” rage violently beat his heart from woe to woe (“And woe to woe tell o’re the sad account of sad bemoaned moan, which I new pay as if not paid before.”).

The last poem of “W.D.’s” entitled, “He desires leave to write of his Love,” our poet again begs for permission to write his feelings and his love for her.

Must my devoted heart desist to love her?
No, love I may, but I may not confess it.
What harder thing than love, and yet depress it?
Love most conceal’d, doth most it self discover.
Had I no pen to show that I approve her,
Were I tongue-tide that I might not address it,
In ‘plaints and prayers unfained to express it,
Yet could I not my deep affection cover.
Had I no pen, my very tears would show it,
Which write my true affection in my face.
Were I tong-tide, my sighs would made her know it,
Which witness that I grieve at my disgrace.
   Since then, though silent, I my love discover,
   O let my pen have leave to say, I love her!

Such phrases as “Love most conceal’d, doth most itself discover” is rather the quintessence, is it not, of the Shakespearean logic. To proceed in the subtleties of etymological progression, and at the same time to reveal secrets of the human heart. Such secrets that love, when it tries to hide itself the most from itself, experiences that very love all the more in its extremity.

W.D./Anonymous Elegy

Despite all else, that W.D., at eighteen wrote, the Elegie [66], “To his Lady, who had vowed Virginity,” I disbelieve. It is a very mature, skillful, if not masterful poem, with here and there magisterial control, even from the beginning:

 E’en as my hand my pen on paper lays,
My trembling hand my pen from paper stays,--

 At the outset the poet captures a moment of stayed action, resolution and dissolution hangs at the very edge of trembling. A few lines later, the conflict of opposites has already reached a great life and death intensity.  
 
What pleaseth hope, the same despair mislikes,
What hope sets down, those lines despair outstrikes,
So that my nursing-murthering pen affords,
A grave and cradle to my new-born words.

At the outset we have a kind of “to be or not to be” problem, a “nursing-murthering” pen which gives the poet both a “grave and a cradle” for his new born words. The richness of content is already apparent. In the lines following the above, he continues:

\But whil’st like clouds tossed up and down the air,
I racked hang, twixt hope and sad despair,
Despair is beaten, vanquished from the field,
And, unto conq’ring hope, my heart doth yield.

Our poet yields to “conq’ring hope.” The “yielding to” “conq’ring hope,” juxtaposes an interesting opposition of tensions and imagery. Even the contraction shows a sophistication, it seems to me, not only rarely found in the young but even rarely found in more experienced poets. Nothing gets in our poets way, if he needs fewer syllables for a word he just serves up what he needs, whether used by others before or not.

The poem, we must note, is, if the title be a guide (and it need not be in all these cases I have found), takes us to the most famous of all themes of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the theme, I mean, of a beautiful virgin who has vowed chastity and who is as cruel as murder, worse, but a totally seductive beauty. It is not at all surprising then, as the poet next moves into his main argument that he uses the classical images to describe Queen Elizabeth,

 For when mine eyes unpartially are fixed
On thy rose cheeks with lilies intermixed,
And on thy forehead like a cloud of snow,
From under which thine eyes like sun’s do show.

And this is followed by a famous description of Queen Elizabeth; she has “large-spreading hair and pretty feet.” It is only to a “Queen of Amorous Pleasure,” that beauty such as she has belongs. If that doesn’t ring the bells for identification with Queen Elizabeth perhaps the very next following words will:

(Treasure, which doth more than those riches please
For which men plow long furrows in the seas.)

Could this be a reference to those courtiers, like Ralegh, who plowed the furrows of the sea to bring back treasure to the Queen?  There then follows, exactly what one might expect in a poem addressed to the Queen, and that is the poet addresses her age and the issue of her chastity while her beauty is still intact. We guess it is intact, but, if so, why bring it up? Methinks my poet protests too much:

If you were wrinkled, old, or Nature’s scorn
Or time your beauty’s colors had outworn,
Or were you mewed up from gazing eyes,
Like to a cloistered nun, which living, dies,. . .
But you are fair, so passing, passing fair,
That love I must, though loving I despair.

Of course, one thinks of the “map of outworn days” and other Shakespearean phrases. In Shakespeare’s Sonnets, too, of course, we have a prayer for Beauty against the ravages of age and becoming the “scorn of Nature.” Why, the poet says, you are not old, wrinkled, etc., giving us to believe the poem was written (as one might guess) right at the tale end of the Queen’s imprecations to marry and produce progeny before being over taken by the ravages of time. And speaking of his love’s eyes, he says of them that,

For tis their light alone by which I live
And yet their sight alone my death’s wound give,
Looking upon your heart-entangling look,
I like a heedless bird was snar’d and took.

That is nice: to be snared, to be took, with an heart-entangling look, like a heedless bird o’retook.  That he lives by the light of his lover’s eye, and all of that. But, is it more than mere hyperbole? Can her sight, indeed, literally give a “death’s wound”? Queen Elizabeth’s we know could. We do not know of any other lovers of the time that had such powers, though some there may have been.

Such rich content, spun out easily in riming couplets, marks the poet with exceptional fluidity, for, in my judgment, it is just this kind of thing that can get the best of a poet—the facile rime leads to simple thinking; but, ah, to make facile rime on complicated thought structures, that is the mark of a master.  What comes next, can be considered a riming couple sonnet. Having ended on the above quoted note, our young poet then is given to philosophical reflection, musing on the meanings of the world.

It lies not in our will to hate or love,
For nature’s influence our will doth move.
And love of Beauty nature hath innated,
In hearts of men when first they were created.
For ev’n as rivers to the ocean run,
Returning back, from when they first begun,
Or as the sky about the earth doth wheel,
Or giddy air like to a drunkard reel,
So with the course of Nature doth agree,
That eyes which Beauty’s adamant do see,
Should, on affections line, trembling remain,
True-subject-like eying their Sovereign.

After some fairly standard fare, our poet again shows his intrepid spirit of invention of new contractions with these lines,
 
You likewise did m’inchaunted heart bewitch

 The contraction of “my” or “mine” into “inchaunted” or “enchanted” to give “m’enchanted” or “m’inchaunted” (if the reader wants to preserve the open sounds of the “aun” and the precision of “in” so that there is a penetrating sound which moves into the softer, lower key, drawn out sound of “aunted.” In any case, simpler, though perhaps not so euphoniously, “M’enchanted heart bewitch.” But, look how much content there is in the stanza. From its reflective, moralizing beginning, to its trembling eyeing of his “Sovereign.” Rivers are moving forward and backward, the tides of tension, of motion of change are ascendant. The air becomes giddy and like a drunkard reels, and remains on affections line, trembling. Quite a fare, really. The poem continues.

Or had in absence both these ills combined;
(For by your absence, I am deaf and blind,
And neither ears, nor eyes, in aught delight
But in your charming speech and gracious sight).
To root out love all means you can invent,
Were all but labor lost, and time ill spent.

Here we see described his love’s desire to root out love by all possible means but a lost labor and time ill spent. And, after spinning out more fare on the injustice of Nature to produce such a beautiful creature as herself and then to scorn the very creatures tempted, well, the poet says, in effect, that is not fair.

With scorn to quench a lawful kindled flame,
Or else unlawfully if love we must ,
And be unlov’d, then Nature is unjust,
Unjustly then Nature hath hearts created
There to love most, where most their love is hated.

Pretty Shakespearean it seems to me. In Shakespeare’s Sonnets, he speaks to his love, the Queen, as I recall, also the phrase, there he loves his mistress,

Be it lawful I love thee, as thou dost love those
Whom thine eyes woo. . .”    

And, do we have here, too, the Shakespearean play on the word “Will,” in the following lines?

But unto Cupid’s bent conform your will,
For will you, nil you, I must love you still.
But if your Will did swim with reason’s side,
Or followed Nature’s never-ending guide,
It cannot chose but bring you into this,
To tender that which by you gotten is.

Is this not another way of saying: call me your Will, and I will be your will—or some such, as we read in Shakespeare’s Sonnet,

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast they ‘Will’
And ‘Will’ to boot, and ‘Will’ in overplus . . .
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acdceptance shine?

Etc., there are many such plays on will in Shakespeare (and also some in Spenser and Sidney) as we well know. The last comment of our W.D. poet, is to the effect that she, his love, must follow Nature’s “never-ending” guide to right action, which is procreation: as she was gotten by birth so should she be begotten of birth. (“It cannot chose but bring you into this,/To tender that which by you gotten is.”). Exactly, of course, the sentiment of some of the Shakespeare procreation sonnets. And again, the poet continues with another section that seems but a 16 liner sonnet.

Think you that Beauty’s admirable worth
Was to no end, or idle end brought forth?
No, no; from Nature never deed did pass,
But it by wisdom’s hand subscribed was.
But you in vain are fair, if fair not viewed,
Or, being seen, men’s hearts be not subdued,
Or making each man’s heart your Beauty’s thrall,
You be enjoyed of no one at all.
For as the lion’s strength to seize his prey,
And fearful hares lightfoot do run away,
Are as an idle talent but abused,
And fruitless had, if had, they be not used,
So you (in vain) have Beauty’s bonds to show,
By which men’s eyes engaged hearts do owe,
If time shall cancel them before you gain
The’indebted tribute to your Beauty’s reign.

The simile that as a lions strength to catch his prey is useless if, like a hare, frightened it can easily run away from the lion, then the lion has a useless talent. So, too, being bonded in beauty but being unable to affect men’s hearts to fulfillment, as needs be. So, what good is beauty’s show if, then, following the poem’s great lines, “If time cancel them before you gain,/Th’indebted tribute of your Beauty’s reign.” Again, we have heard this same kind of stuff over and over, especially in the first 17 sonnets of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. It is the same scene. The Queen’s reign is a reign of Beauty. She should follow the course of nature, as other creatures and creations do—not give herself up to unnatural chastity. And, our young poet goes further, like Shakespeare, too, in telling his mistress that by being both the Great Beauty and the Cruel Tyrant, she will loose both allegiance and command, because “self-divided kingdoms” he tells her, “can’t stand.” What is that, self-divided kingdoms? Could it be that Kingdoms that don’t have successor rulers, are bound to have civil wars, “self-divided” kingdoms? Perhaps.

Our intrepid poet then tells his mistress, immediately after the above, she is like a spoiled child, fussing for this, fussing for that, never knowing what is want. This part of the poem, too, emerges out of his narrative and shows itself as a separate rift:

But as a child that knows not what is what,
Now craveth this, and now affecteth that,
And having, weighs not that which he requires,
But is unpleased, even in his pleased desires.
Chaste Beauty so, both will and will not have,
The self-same thing it childishly doth crave:
And wanton-like, now love, now hate affecteth,
And love, or hate obtain’d as fast neglecteth.
So (like the web Penelope did weave,
Which made by day, she did at night unreave)
Fruitless affections endless thread is spun,
And one self instant twisted, and undone.
Not yet is this chaste Beauty’s greatest ill,
For where it speaketh fair, it there doth kill.
A marble heart under an amorous look,
Is of a flattering bait the murthering hook:
For from a lady’s shining-frowning eyes,
Death’s fabled dart, and Cupid’s arrow flies.

In this section of the poem, we have the simile of the child, reminding us of the Shakespeare Sonnet of the child at play and the domestic scene caught in that sonnet. Here, in this “sonnet” we likewise have a child, but this child is spoiled! Interestingly, the use of opposites, so like Shakespeare, and so much in tune with his habitual character, here “With what I most enjoy, contented least,” is the very theme of it, again. “But is unpleased even in his pleased desires.” Most importantly, it is in these lines that our poet states that for all her faults, the affecting love and hate, and all of it, one thing is worst yet, “Nor yet is this chaste Beauty’s greatest ill/For where it speaketh fair, it there doth kill.” His lover, in the last breath, is a killer, with a “marble heart” under “an amorous look.” He continues to continue speaking of the great (“But when as Contraries are mixt together”) conflicts of her person. Which, he tell us, like colors mixed, yield not this or that color but something yet again, not pure as the others before. Since the Queen has shown herself to be a bloody killing tyrant, since then, both Chastity and Beauty became muddied.

Since then, from Chastity and Beauty spring,
Such muddy streams, where each doth reign as king;
Let Tyrant Chastity’s usurped throne,
Be made the seat of Beauty’s grace alone;
And let your Beauty be with this suffic’d,
That my heart’s city is by it surpriz’d:
Raze not my heart, nor to your Beauty raise,
Blood-guilded trophies of your Beauty’s praise;
   For wisest conquerors do towns desire,
   On honorable terms and not with fire.

“Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,” we are reminded in one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, where the fair youth is being reprimanded for betraying him with his love. Beauty and Chastity, the poet tells us cannot live purely together, where “each doth reign as king.” Like a captured city is his heart, which he pleads that it be not razed, nor, he pleads, that she not from him raise “Blood-guilded trophies of your Beauty’s praise.” She should conquer not with destroying fire the very town won in the conflict.

I cannot think this poem was conceived or written by the eighteen year old poet, younger brother of Walter.

Young Davision

On of the more interesting aspects of the history of the corruption of A Poetical Rhapsody, and the intentionally corrupt author attributions, is the proof offered that the date of publication is correct, as shown on the title page. One would have hardly thought that a “case” was needed to prove the publication date of 1602, as no one had ever challenged it. But, “critical editions” shadow all these details for many reasons, not the least is much confusion in the records. Rollins (as well as others) observes that there is proof of the correct date of publication of APR because of a surviving letter mentioning the “young Davison.” Here is the comment from Rollins: "John Chamberlain refers to his [i.e., Francis Davison’s?] dismissal in letters of May 8 and June 17, 1602. Again, on July 8 he wrote: “It seems younge Davison means to take another course, and turn poet, for he hath lately set out certain sonnets and epigrams” 

Rollins provides a footnote to this text, which states: “Yonge’ is a curious adjective for an Elizabethan to apply to a man of about twenty-seven.” This, of course, assumes, that the “yonge” Davison is not Walter, who is 21 at the time, but Francis, who is 27 at the time. Perhaps in context this is certain, I don’t know. But, what is certain, for sure, is that there is something wrong with the date of 1602, prior to July 8, as the date positive by which time APR was published. The simple fact is there are no “epigrams” of Francis in the 1602 edition, nor anyone else. But, there is a whole section of epigrams of F.D. in the 1608 edition! Was the quotation a  “plant,” another of those oft met with among fraudulent entries in the Elizabethan records. Or was there yet another book circulated, or yet, indeed, perhaps a manuscript? The point is that in offering proof where none before had sought it, we are not left to wonder if the “proof” itself is an act of fraud. Perhaps the matter out to be further explored, as to the true date of the publication of APR. 
 
On the title page of the 1602 edition there is no mention whatsoever, either, of any epigrams. But, in the 1608 edition the word “Epigrams” is part of the title on the cover page in bold letters and the epigrams come in the first part of the book and are attributed to Francis Davison. Why would a correspondent speak of “epigrams” when there were none? Perhaps, we might speculate, the scholars got the date wrong of the letter quoted from, or perhaps, there was another book, not APR but another book by the “young” Davison in circulation. If so, obviously, the letter is no proof at all that APR  was published by July 8, 1602. Why does it matter? I don’t know that it does. 
 
As I recall there are only three editions surviving of the 1602 edition, and only one complete edition. One edition is called the A* edition, indicating that changes were made during press runs. Could it be that after the run of a few copies, the 1602 volume was suppressed and a copy with “sonnets and epigrams,” printed in its place. Or, perhaps a book of sonnets and epigrams appeared first, and it was suppressed in favor of A. Idle speculation perhaps, but even here something seems fishy. 
 
Rollins himself only states that it is “presumed” what W.A. was alive, in 1602 when the APR first appeared. He “was almost certainly dead before December 18, 1608, the date of his father’s will, which contains no reference to  him.”
 
The DNB informs us about Walter that he was only 17 years old when he wrote his poems (“not yet eighteen years”) . Francis says that he wrote most of his poems in 1596 or 1597 (“six of seven years since.”). Walter was born in 1581, and Francis was born in 1575. So, Walter was allegedly writing his poems in 1596 and he, Francis, was writing his poems in 1595. In 1`595 Walter was in traveling in Europe and didn’t return until the end of 1597. So, we can conclude that most of the poems written by Francis were completed before he returned from his travels. Indeed, as he left for his travels in May of 1595, it may be that he had written most of them by that time, before he left. At that time, Walter was probably 14 years old.  

A fellow commoner at Kings College, Walter left the university in 1596, presumably to enter in the war efforts in the Netherlands. He left without taking a degree. So, we may further surmise that Walter at the time when he was 15 or 16 had just entered the university at the time of his writing the poems that appear under his name or intials, W.D.

 Also challenge that Francis wrote the Eubulus poem.

 *********

 To his Lady, who had vowed virginity

E’en as my hand my pen on paper lays,
My trembling hand my pen from paper stays,--
Lest that thine eyes which shining made me love you
Should frowning on my suit, bid cease to move you,
So that I fare like one at his wits’ end,
Hoping to gain, and fearing to offend. 
What pleaseth hope, the same despair mislikes,
What hope sets down, those lines despair outstrikes,
So that my nursing-murthering pen affords,
A grave and cradle to my new-born words.
But whil’st like clouds tossed up and down the air,
I racked hang, twixt hope and sad despair;
Despair is beaten, vanquished from the field,
And, unto conq’ring hope, my heart doth yield.
 
For when mine eyes unpartially are fixed,
On thy rose cheeks with lilies intermixed,
And on thy forehead like a cloud of snow,
From under which thine eyes like sun’s do show,
And all those parts which curiously do meet,
Twixt thy large-spreading hair and pretty feet,
Yet looking on them all, discern no one,
That owes not homage unto Cupid’s Throne;
Then Chastity (methinks) no claim should lay
To this fair realm, under Love’s scepter’s sway.
For only to the Queen of Amorous Pleasure
Belongs thy beauty’s tributary treasure;
(Treasure, which doth more than those riches please
For which men plough long furrows in the seas.) 

If you were wrinkled, old, or Nature’s scorn,
Or time your beauty’s colors had out-worn;
Or were you mewed up from gazing eyes,
Like to a cloistered nun, which living, dies,
Then might you wait on Chastity’s pale Queen.
Not being fair, or being fair, not seen.
But you are fair, so passing, passing fair,
That love I must, though loving I despair.
For when I saw your eyes (O, cursed bliss!)
Whose light I would not leave, nor yet would miss,
(For tis their light alone by which I live,
And yet their sight alone my death’s wound give.)
Looking upon you heart-entangling look,
I like a heedless bird was snar’d and took.
 
It lies not in our will to hate or love,
For nature’s influence our will doth move.
And love of Beauty nature hath innated,
In hearts of men when first they were created.
For ev’n as rivers to the ocean run,
Returning back, from when they first begun,
Or as the sky about the earth doth wheel,
Or giddy air like to a drunkard reel,
So with the course of Nature doth agree,
That eyes which Beauty’s adamant do see,
Should, on affections line, trembling remain,
True-subject-like eying their Sovereign.

If of mine eyes you also could bereave me,
As you already of my heart deceive me,
Or cold shut up my ravished ears, through which
You likewise did m’inchanted heart bewitch,
Or had in absence both these ills combined;
(For by your absence I am deaf and blind,
And, neither ears, nor eyes in aught delight,
But in your charming speech and gracious sight)
To root out love all means you can invent
Were all but labor lost, and time ill spent,
For as the sparks being spent, which fire procure,
The fire doth brightly-burning still endure:
Though absence of your sparkling eyes remove,
My heart still burns in endless flames of love.
 
Then strive not ‘gainst the stream to none effect,
But let due love yield love a due respect.
Nor seek to ruin what your self begun,
Or loose a knot that cannot be undone.
But unto Cupid’s bent conform your will,
For will you, nil you, I must love you still.
But if your Will did swim with reason’s tide,
Or followed Nature’s never-erring guide,
It cannot chose but bring you unto this
To tender that which by you gotten is.
Why were you fair to be besought of many,
If you live chaste, not to be won of any?
For if that Nature love to Beauty offers,
And Beauty shun the love that Nature proffers,
Then, either unjust Beauty is to blame,
With scorn to quench a lawful kindled flame,
Or else unlawfully if love we must,
And be unlov’d, then Nature is unjust.
Unjustly then, Nature hath hearts created,
There to love most, where most their love is hated
(And flattering them with a fair-seeming ill,
To poison them with Beauty’s sugar’d pill).

Think you that Beauty’s admirable worth
Was to no end, or idle end brought forth?
No, no; from Nature never deed did pass,
But it by wisdom’s hand subscribed was.
But you, in vain, are fair, if fair not view,
Or, being seen, men’s hearts be not subdued,
Or making each man’s heart your Beauty’s thrall,
You be enjoyed of no one at all.
For as the lion’s strength to seize his prey,
And fearful hares lightfoot do run away,
Are as an idle talent, but abused,
And fruitless had, if had, they be not used,
So you (in vain) have Beauty’s bonds to show,
By which men’s eyes engaged hearts do owe,
If time shall cancel them before you gain
The’indebted tribute to your Beauty’s reign.

But if (these reasons being vainly spent)
You fight it out to the last argument;
Tell me but how one body can enclose,
As loving friends two deadly hating foes.
But when as Contraries are mixed together,
The color made, doth differ much from either.
Whil’st mutually at strife they do impeach
The gloss and luster proper unto each.
So, where one body jointly doth invent
An angel’s face and cruel tiger’s breast,
There dieth both allegiance and command,
For self-divided kingdoms cannot stand.

But as a child that knows not what is what,
Now craveth this, and now affecteth that,
And having, weighs not that which he requires,
But is unpleased, even in his pleased desires.
Chaste Beauty so, both will and will not have,
The self-same thing it childishly doth crave:
And wanton-like, now love, now hate affecteth,
And love, or hate obtain’d as fast neglecteth.
So (like the web Penelope did weave,
Which made by day, she did at night unreave)
Fruitless affections endless thread is spun,
And one self instant twisted, and undone.
Not yet is this chaste Beauty’s greatest ill,
For where it speaketh faire, it there doth kill.
A marble heart under an amorous look,
Is of a flattering bait the murthering hook:
For from a lady’s shining-frowning eyes,
Death’s fabled dart, and Cupid’s arrow flies. 
 
Since then, from Chastity and Beauty spring,
Such muddy streams, where each doth reign as king;
Let Tyrant Chastity’s usurped throne,
Be made the seat of Beauty’s grace alone;
And let your Beauty be with this suffic’d,
That my heart’s city is by it surpriz’d:
Raze not my heart, nor to your Beauty raise,
Blood-guilded trophies of your Beauty’s praise;
   For wisest conquerors do towns desire,
   On honorable terms and not with fire.

 

 No more at this time, now, 6/2/2015

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