I'm using this icon to be perverse
I've decided I'm not going to Texas after all -- I haven't finished the Milton paper and don't have time, plus I have things to do locally. Not that I've gotten anything done today, other than cleaning my apartment and prettying up earlymodern.
Also, I shall post some poetryspam, as I haven't done any (other than limericks) in a while. The other day I was talking to commodorified about Daniel's Civil Wars, which got me thinking about it again, and while flipping through the printout from EEBO that's sitting on my desk I happened across this passage, which I hadn't remembered (it's about Henry Bolingbroke's departure from England after having been banished).
At whose departure hence out of the Land,
How did the open multitude reueale
The wondrous loue they bare him vnder-hand!
Which now, in this hote passion of their zeale,
They plainely shew'd; that all might vnderstand
How deare he was vnto the common weale.
They feard not to exclaime against the King
As one, that sought all good mens ruining.
Vnto the shore, with teares, with sighes, with mone,
They him conduct; cursing the bounds that stay
Their willing feete, that would have further gone,
Had not the fearfull Ocean stopt their way:
"Why, Neptune, hast thou made vs stand alone
"Diuided from the world, for this, say they?
"Hemd-in, to be a spoyle to tyrannie,
"Leaving affliction hence no way to flie?
"Are we lockt up, poor soules, heere to abide
"Within the waterie prison of thy waues,
"As in a fold, where subject to the pride
"And lust of Rulers we remaine as slaues?
"Here in the reach of might, where none can hide
"From th'eye of wrath, but onely in their Graues?
"Happie confiners you of other landes,
"That shift your soyle, and oft scape tyrants hands.
"And must we leave him here, whom here were fit
"We should retaine, the pillar of our State?
"Whose vertues well deserve to gouerne it,
"And not this wanton young effeminate.
"Why should not he in Regall honour sit,
"That best knowes how a Realme to ordinate?
"But, one day yet, we hope thou shalt bring backe
"(Dear Bolingbroke) the Iustice that we lacke.
Thus muttred, loe, the malecontented sort;
That loue Kings best, before they haue them, still;
And neuer can the present State comport,
But would as often change, as they change will.
For, this good Duke had wonne them in this sort
By succ'ring them, and pittying of their ill,
That they supposed streight it was one thing,
To be both a good Man, and a good King.
After this passage we get a bit about how cooler heads find the whole thing dubious because of the fickleness of the mob, and so on and so forth -- you know, the usual business about the still-discordant wavering multitude. But I'd totally forgotten the first bit, where the "yay for our island status" trope gets flipped on its head: if nasty people from other countries can't get in, then discontented English people can't get out. I've never seen that before -- though Daniel's not so much endorsing that POV; it's sort of like the reaction you get (in both the U.S. and in Canada) to people who vowed to move to Canada if George W. Bush won the election without, you know, actually doing so. I think it's the only time I've seen an Elizabethan text that voices regret for English insularity, at least in these kinds of terms, even if that regret is mostly ironic. Granted the topic is generally a complex one -- there's a whole chapter about it in that Shakespeare's Tribe book I'm always on about -- you often get a lot of tension between self-containment and engagement with the larger European community (particularly when there's crusading imagery involved, like in John of Gaunt's big speech in Richard II 2.1).
I do love this poem, though. I need to write about it asap.
(For some reason, too, it seems like this passage would be fun to juxtapose with the bit in Macaulay where he says that in the Middle Ages, the English put up with a lot more shit from their rulers because they could always just depose them, whereas by the time Macaulay was writing that was just really, really unfeasible. I was always unduly amused by that comment.)
Also, on an unrelated note, upstart_crow would like some advice on a matter of interest to the Shakespeare fans out there. (Here's the explanatory post.) Go forth and click on tickyboxes!
Also, I shall post some poetryspam, as I haven't done any (other than limericks) in a while. The other day I was talking to commodorified about Daniel's Civil Wars, which got me thinking about it again, and while flipping through the printout from EEBO that's sitting on my desk I happened across this passage, which I hadn't remembered (it's about Henry Bolingbroke's departure from England after having been banished).
At whose departure hence out of the Land,
How did the open multitude reueale
The wondrous loue they bare him vnder-hand!
Which now, in this hote passion of their zeale,
They plainely shew'd; that all might vnderstand
How deare he was vnto the common weale.
They feard not to exclaime against the King
As one, that sought all good mens ruining.
Vnto the shore, with teares, with sighes, with mone,
They him conduct; cursing the bounds that stay
Their willing feete, that would have further gone,
Had not the fearfull Ocean stopt their way:
"Why, Neptune, hast thou made vs stand alone
"Diuided from the world, for this, say they?
"Hemd-in, to be a spoyle to tyrannie,
"Leaving affliction hence no way to flie?
"Are we lockt up, poor soules, heere to abide
"Within the waterie prison of thy waues,
"As in a fold, where subject to the pride
"And lust of Rulers we remaine as slaues?
"Here in the reach of might, where none can hide
"From th'eye of wrath, but onely in their Graues?
"Happie confiners you of other landes,
"That shift your soyle, and oft scape tyrants hands.
"And must we leave him here, whom here were fit
"We should retaine, the pillar of our State?
"Whose vertues well deserve to gouerne it,
"And not this wanton young effeminate.
"Why should not he in Regall honour sit,
"That best knowes how a Realme to ordinate?
"But, one day yet, we hope thou shalt bring backe
"(Dear Bolingbroke) the Iustice that we lacke.
Thus muttred, loe, the malecontented sort;
That loue Kings best, before they haue them, still;
And neuer can the present State comport,
But would as often change, as they change will.
For, this good Duke had wonne them in this sort
By succ'ring them, and pittying of their ill,
That they supposed streight it was one thing,
To be both a good Man, and a good King.
After this passage we get a bit about how cooler heads find the whole thing dubious because of the fickleness of the mob, and so on and so forth -- you know, the usual business about the still-discordant wavering multitude. But I'd totally forgotten the first bit, where the "yay for our island status" trope gets flipped on its head: if nasty people from other countries can't get in, then discontented English people can't get out. I've never seen that before -- though Daniel's not so much endorsing that POV; it's sort of like the reaction you get (in both the U.S. and in Canada) to people who vowed to move to Canada if George W. Bush won the election without, you know, actually doing so. I think it's the only time I've seen an Elizabethan text that voices regret for English insularity, at least in these kinds of terms, even if that regret is mostly ironic. Granted the topic is generally a complex one -- there's a whole chapter about it in that Shakespeare's Tribe book I'm always on about -- you often get a lot of tension between self-containment and engagement with the larger European community (particularly when there's crusading imagery involved, like in John of Gaunt's big speech in Richard II 2.1).
I do love this poem, though. I need to write about it asap.
(For some reason, too, it seems like this passage would be fun to juxtapose with the bit in Macaulay where he says that in the Middle Ages, the English put up with a lot more shit from their rulers because they could always just depose them, whereas by the time Macaulay was writing that was just really, really unfeasible. I was always unduly amused by that comment.)
Also, on an unrelated note, upstart_crow would like some advice on a matter of interest to the Shakespeare fans out there. (Here's the explanatory post.) Go forth and click on tickyboxes!