A NOTE ON Melophilus/ The Davisons & “To his Lady, who had vowed Virginity,” ©
Eric Miller, 2006
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.
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
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.
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.”
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)]
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.
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.
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:
My trembling hand my pen
from paper stays,--
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,
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
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.
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
