England's Heroicall Epistles, Part IX
This one's a bit late, I know, if any of you were awaiting it with bated breath -- I had trouble working up sufficient energy to transcribe it last week.
It's also a bit of an odd installment, as I think it's the only one featuring a woman who gives in to someone soliciting her for Activities of Dubious Virtue (the Countess of Salisbury, you may recall, said yes to the Black Prince, but he was asking her to marry him, so the only real problem there is consanguinity. Anent that letter, there are some interesting structural and thematic parallels between the epistles of the Countess of Salisbury and Mistress Shore, not least that Drayton gives both of them a noticeable level of generic awareness), and this leads to a lot of really interesting twitchiness from the editorial voice in the footnotes -- although I am convinced on no evidence whatsoever that the reason for this is not so much a sense of anxiety that the text must be Morally Uplifting so much as that Drayton had been turned down by somebody or other and is thus bitter. ;)
To the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Munson, Knight.
Sir, amongst many which most deservedly love you, though I the least, yet am I loath to be the last whose endeavors may make known how highly they esteem of your noble and kind disposition. Let this epistle, sir, I beseech you, which unworthily wears the badge of your worthy name, acknowledge my zeal with the rest, though much less deserving, which for your sake do honour the house of the Munsons. I know true generosity accepteth what is zealously offered, though not ever deservingly excellent, yet for love of the art from whence it receiveth resemblance. The light Phrygian harmony stirreth delight, as well as the melancholy Doric moveth passion; both have they their motion in the spirit, as the liking of the soul moveth the affection. Your kind acceptance of my labor shall give me some life to my Muse, which yet hovers in the uncertainty of the general censure.
Michael Drayton.
Edward the Fourth to Shore's Wife
The Argument.
This Mistress Shore, King Edward the Fourth's beauteous paramour, was so called of her husband, a goldsmith dwelling in Lombard Street. Edward the Fourth, son to Richard Duke of York, after he had obtained the crown by deposing Henry the Sixth (which Henry was after murdered in the Tower by Richard Crookback), and after the battle fought at Barnet, where the famous Earl of Warwick was slain, and that King Edward quietly possessed the crown, hearing, by report of many, the rare and and wonderful beauty of the aforesaid Shore's wife, cometh himself disguised to London to see her, where after he had once beheld her, he was so surprised with her admirable beauty as not long after he robbed her husband of his dearest jewel; but first by this epistle he writeth unto her.
Unto the fair'st that ever breathed this air,
From English Edward to that fairest fair;
Ah, would to God thy title were no more,
That no remembrance might remain of Shore
To countermand a monarch's high desire,
And bar mine eyes of what they most admire.
O why should Fortune make the city proud,
To give that more than is the court allowed,
Where they, like wretches, hoard it up to spare
And do engross it, as they do their ware?
When fame first blazed thy beauty here in court,
Mine ears repulsed it as a light report,
But when mine eyes saw what mine ear had heard,
They thought report too niggardly had spared,
And, strucken dumb with wonder, did but mutter,
Conceiving more than she had words to utter.
Then think of what thy husband is possessed,
When I envy that Shore should be so blessed,
When much abundance makes the needy mad,
And, having all, yet knows not what is had;
Into fools' bosoms this good fortune creeps,
And wealth comes in the whilst the miser sleeps.
If now thy beauty be of such esteem
Which all so rare of excellency deem,
What would it be, and prizèd at what rate,
Were it adornèd with a kingly state?
Which, being now but in so mean a bed,
Is like an uncut diamond in lead
Ere it be set in some high-prizèd ring,
Or garnishèd with rich enameling;
The sparkling lustr of the stone is spilt
If that the beauty be not showed in gilt.
When first attracted by thy heavenly eyes,
I came to see thee in a strange disguise;
Passing thy shop, thy husband calls me back,
Demanding what rare jewel I did lack.
"I want," thought I, "one that I dare not crave,
And one, I fear, thou wilt not let me have";
He calls for caskets forth, and shows me store,
But yet I knew he had one jewel more,
And deadly cursed him that he did deny it,
That I might not for love or money buy it.
O might I come a diamond to buy
Whose sparkling radiance shadowed but thine eye,
Would not my treasure serve, my crown should go
If any jewel could be prizèd so;
An agate branchèd with thy blushing strains,
A sapphire but so azured as thy veins,
My kingly scepter only should redeem it
At such a price if judgment could esteem it.
How fond and senseless be those strangers, then,
Who bring in toys to please the Englishmen!
I smile to think how fond th'Italians are
To judge their artificial gardens rare,
When London in thy cheeks can show them here
Roses and lilies growing all the year;
The Portugal, that only hopes to win
By bringing stones from farthest India in,
When happy Shore can bring them forth a girl
Whose lips be rubies, and her teeth be pearl.
How silly is the Polander and Dane
To bring us crystal from the frozen main,
When thy clear skin's transparence doth surpass
Their crystal, as the diamond doth glass.
The foolish French, which brings in trash and toys
To turn our women men, our girls to boys,
When with what tire thou dost thyself adorn
That for a fashion only shall be worn,
Which, though it were a garment but of hair,
More rich than robe that ever empress ware.
Methinks thy husband takes his mark awry
To set his plate to sale when thou art by,
When they which do thy angel locks behold
Like basest dross do but respect his gold,
And with one hair before that massy heap,
And but one lock before the wealth of Cheap,
And for no cause else hold we gold so dear
But that it is so like unto thy hair.
And sure I think Shore cannot choose but flout
Such as would find the great elixir out,
And laugh to see the alchemists, that choke
Themselves with fumes, and waste their wealth in smoke,
When if thy hand but touch the basest mold,
It is converted into purest gold,
When theirs is chaffered at an easy rate,
Well known to all to be adulterate,
And is no more when it by thine is set
Than paltry bugle or light-prizèd jet.
Let others wear perfumes, for thee unmeet;
If there were none, thou could'st make all things sweet.
Thou comfort'st sense, and yet all sense dost waste,
To hear, to see, to smell, to feel, to taste;
Thou a rich ship, whose very refuse ware
Aromatics and precious odors are.
If thou but please to walk into the pawn
To buy thee cambric, calico, or lawn,
If thou the whiteness of the same wouldst prove,
From thy more whiter hand pluck off thy glove,
And those which by as the beholders stand
Will take thy hand for lawn, lawn for thy hand.
A thousand eyes, closed up by envious night,
Do wish for day, but to enjoy thy sight,
And when they once have blest their eyes with thee,
Scorn every object else whate'er they see;
So like a goddess beauty still controls,
And hath such powerful working in our souls.
The merchant, which in traffic spends his life,
Yet loves at home to have a dainty wife;
The blunt-spoke cynic, poring on his book,
Sometimes aside at beauty loves to look.
The churchman, by whose teaching we are led,
Allows what keeps love in the marriage-bed;
The bloody soldier, spent in arms and broils,
With beauty yet content to share his spoils;
The busy lawyer, wrangling in his pleas,
Findeth that beauty gives his labor ease;
The troiling tradesman, and the sweating clown,
Would have his wench fair, though his bread be brown;
So much is beauty pleasing unto all,
To prince and peasant, one in general,
Nor ever yet did any man despise it,
Except too dear, and that he could not prize it.
Unlearned is learning, artless be all arts
If not employed to praise thy several parts;
Poor plodding schoolmen, they are far too low
Which by probations, rules, and axioms go;
He must be still familiar with the skies
Which notes the revolutions of thine eyes,
And by that skill which measures sea and land
See beauty's world, thy waist, thy foot, thy hand,
Where he may find, the more that he doth view,
Such rare delights as are both strange and new,
And other worlds of beauty more and more
Which never were discoverèd before;
And to thy rare proportion to apply
The lines and circles in geometry,
Using alone arithmetic's strong ground,
Numb'ring the virtues that in thee are found.
And when these all have done what they can do,
For thy perfections all to little, too.
When from the east the dawn hath broken out,
And gone to seek thee all the world about,
Within thy chamber hath she fixed her light,
Where, but that place, the world hath all been night;
Then is it fit that every vulgar eye
Should see love banquet in her majesty?
We deem those things our sight doth most frequent
To be but mean, although most excellent;
For strangers still the streets are swept and strowed;
Few look on such as daily come abroad;
Things much restrained doth make us much desire them,
And beauties seldom seen makes us admire them.
Nor is it fit a city shop should hide
The world's delight, and nature's only pride,
But in a prince's sumptuous gallery,
Hung all with tissue, floored with tapestry,
Where thou shalt sit, and from thy state shalt see
The tilts and triumphs that are done for thee.
Then know the difference, if thou list to prove,
Betwixt a vulgar and a kingly love,
And when thou find'st, as now thou doubt'st, the troth,
Be thou thyself unpartial judge of both.
Where hearts be knit, what helps if not enjoy?
Delays breed doubts; no cunning to be coy.
Whilst lazy Time his turn by tarriance serves,
Love still grows sickly, and hope daily starves.
Meanwhile, receive that warrant by these lines
Which princely rule and sovereignty resigns;
Till when these papers, by their lord's command,
By me shall kiss thy sweet and dainty hand.
Notes of the Chronicle History.
This epistle of Edward to Shore's wife, and of hers to him, being of unlawful affection, ministreth small occasion of historical notes, for had he mentioned the many battles betwixt the Lancastrian faction and him, or other warlike dangers, it had been more like to Plautus' boasting soldier than a kingly courtier. Notwithstanding, it shall not be amiss to annex a line or two.
From English Edward to the fairest fair
Edward the Fourth was by nature very chivalrous and very amorous, applying his sweet and amiable aspect to attain his wanton appetite the rather, which was so well known to Louis the French King, who at their interview invited him to Pris, that as [?] reports, being taken at his word, he notwithstanding brake off the matter, fearing the Parisian dames, with their witty conversation, would detain him longer than should be for his benefit, by which means Edward was disappointed of his journey; and albeit princes whilst they live have nothing in them but what is admirable, yet we need not mistrust the flattery of the court in those times, for certain it is that his shape was excellent, his hair drew near to a black, making his face's favor seem more delectable. Though the smallness of his eyes full of a shining moisture, as it took away some comeliness, so it argued much sharpness of understanding, and cruelty mingled therewith. And indeed George Buchanan, that imperious Scot, chargeth him, and other princes of those times, with affectation of tyranny, as Richard the Third manifestly did. [Back to text]
When first attracted by thy heavenly eyes,
Edward's intemperate desires, with which he was wholly overcome, how tragically they in his offspring were punished, is universally known. A mirror representing their oversight that rather leave their children what to possess than what to imitate. [Back to text]
How silly is the Polander and Dane,
To bring us crystal from the frozen main.
Alluding to their opinions who imagine crystal to be a kind of ice, and therefore it is likely they who come from the frozen parts should bring great store of that transparent stone which is thought to be congealed with extreme cold. Whether crystal be ice or some other liquor I omit to dispute, yet by the examples of amber and coral there may be such an induration, for Solinus out of Pliny mentioneth that in the northerly regions a yellow jelly is taken up out of the sea at low tides, which he calles succinum, we amber; so likewise out of the Ligustic deep, a part of the Mediterranean Sea, a greenish stalk is gathered, which, hardened in the air, becomes to be coral, either white or red. Amber notwithstanding is thought to drop out of trees, as appears by Martial's epigram:
Et latet, et lucet Phaetontide gutta,
Ut videatur apis nectare clausa sue,
Dignum tantorum pretium tulit ille laborum,
Credibile est ipsam sic voluisse more.
To behold a bee enclosed in electrum is not so rare as that a boy's throat should be cut with the fall of an icicle, the which epigram is excellent, the 18.lib.4. He calls it Phaetontis gutta because of that fable which Ovid rehearseth, concerning the Heliades, or Phaeton's sisters metamorphosed into those trees, whose gum is amber, where flies alighting are oftentimes translucently imprisoned. [Back to text]
The Epistle of Shore's Wife to King Edward the Fourth.
As the weak child, that from the mother's wing
Is taught the lute's delicious fingering,
At every string's soft touch is moved with fear,
Nothing his master's curious listening ear,
Whose trembling hand at every strain bewrays
In what doubt he his new-set lesson plays;
As this poor child, so sit I to indite,
At every word still quaking as I write.
Would I had led an humble shepherd's life,
Nor known the name of Shore's admirèd wife,
And lived with them in country fields that range,
Nor seen the golden Cheap, nor glittering Change
To stand a comet gazed at in the skies,
Subject to all tongues, object to all eyes.
Oft have I heard my beauty praised of many,
But never yet so much admired of any;
A prince's eagle eye to find out that
Which vulgar sights do seldom wonder at
Makes me to think affection flatters sight
Or in the object something exquisite.
To housèd beauty seldom stoops report;
Fame must attend on that which lives in court.
What swan of great Apollo's brood doth sing
To vulgar love in courtly sonneting?
Or what immortal poet's sugared pen
Attends the glory of a citizen?
Oft have I wondered what should blind your eye,
Or what so far seducèd majesty,
That having choice of beauties so divine,
Amongst the most to choose this least of mine?
More glorious suns adorn fair London's pride
Than all rich England's continent beside;
Who takes in hand to make account of this
May number Romney's flowers, or Isis' fish;
Who doth frequent our temples, walks, and streets,
Noting the sundry beauties that he meets,
Thinks not that Nature left the wide world poor
And made this place the chequer of her store?
As heaven and earth were lately fall'n at jars,
And grown to vying wonders, dropping stars.
That if but some one beauty should incite
Some sacred muse, some ravished spirit to write,
Here might he fetch that true Promethean fire
As after ages should his lines admire,
Gathering the honey from the choicest flowers,
Scorning the withered weeds in country bowers.
Here in this garden only springs the rose;
In every common hedge the bramble grows;
Nor are we so turned Neapolitan
That might incite some foul-mouth Mantuan
To all the world to lay out our defects
And have just cause to rail upon our sex,
To prank old wrinkles up in new attire,
To alter nature's course, prove time a liar,
Abusing fate, and heaven's just doom reverse,
On beauty's grave to set a crimson hearse;
With a deceitful foil to lay a ground
To make a glass to seem a diamond.
Nor cannot, without hazard of our name,
In fashion follow the Venetian dame,
Nor the fantastic French to imitate,
Attired half Spanish, half Italianate,
Nor waist, nor curl, body nor brow adorn
That is in Florence nor in Genoa born.
But with vain boasts how witless-fond am I
Thus to draw on mine own indignity?
And what though married when I was but young,
Before I knew what did to love belong,
Yet he which now's possessèd of the room
Cropped beauty's flower when it was in the bloom,
And goes away enrichèd with the store
Whilst others glean, where he hath reaped before;
And he dares swear that I am true and just,
And shall I then deceive his honest trust?
Or what strange hope should make you to assail
Where strongest battery never could prevail?
Belike you think that I repulsed the rest
To leave a king the conquest of my breast,
Or have thus long preserved myself from all
A monarch now should glory in my fall.
Yet rather let me die the vildest death
Than live to draw that sin-polluted breath;
But our kind hearts men's tears cannot abide,
And we least angry oft when we most chide;
Too well know men what our creation made us,
And nature too well taught them to invade us.
They know but too well how, what, when, and where
To write, to speak, to sue, and to forbear;
By signs, by sighs, by motions, and by tears,
When vows should serve, when oaths, when smiles, when prayers;
What one delight our humors most doth move,
Only in that you make us nourish love.
If any natural blemish blot our face,
You do protest it gives our beauty grace,
And what attire we most are used to wear,
That, of all other, excellent'st you swear.
And if we walk, or sit, or stand, or lie,
It must resemble some one deity,
And what you know we take delight to hear,
That are you ever sounding in our ear,
And yet so shameless, when you tempt us thus,
To lay the fault on beauty, and on us.
Rome's wanton Ovid did those rules impart;
O that your nature should be helped with art!
Who would have thought a king, that cares to reign,
Enforced by love, so poet-like should feign?
To say that beauty, Time's stern rage to shun,
In my cheeks, lilies, hid her from the sun,
And when she meant to triumph in her May,
Made that her east, and here she broke her day,
And swear'st that summer still is in my sight,
And but where I am, all the world is night,
As though the fair'st e'er since the world began
To me a sunburnt, base Egyptian;
But yet I know more than I mean to tell --
O would to God you knew it not too well --
That women oft their most admirers raise,
Though publicly not flattering their own praise.
Our churlish husbands, which our youth enjoyed,
Who with our dainties have their stomachs cloyed,
Do loath our smooth hand with their lips to feel,
T'enrich our favors, by our beds to kneel,
At our command to wait, to send, to go,
As every hour our amorous servants do,
Which makes a stol'n kiss often we bestow
In earnest of a greater good we owe;
When he all day torments us with a frown,
Yet sports with Venus in a bed of down,
Whose rude embracement but too ill beseems
Her span-broad waist, her white and dainty limbs,
And yet still preaching abstinence of meat
When he himself of every dish will eat.
Blame you our husbands, then, if they deny
Our public walking, our loose liberty;
If with exception still they us debar
The circuit of the public theater
To hear the smooth-tongued poet's siren vain
Sporting in his lascivious comic scene,
Or the young wanton wits when they applaud
The sly persuasions of some subtle bawd
Or passionate tragedian in his rage
Acting a lovesick passion on the stage;
When, though abroad restraining us to roam,
They very hardly keep us safe at home,
And oft are touched with fear and inward grief,
Knowing rich prizes soonest tempt a thief.
What sports have we whereon our minds to set?
Our dog, our parrot, or our marmoset,
Or once a week to walk into the field;
Small is the pleasure that those toys do yield;
But to this grief a medicine you apply
To cure restraint with that sweet liberty
And sovereignty, O that bewitching thing,
Yet made more great by promise of a king,
And more, that honor which doth most entice
The holiest nun, and she that's ne'er so nice.
Thus still we strive, yet, overcome at length,
For men want mercy, and poor women strength;
Yet grant that we could meaner men resist;
When kings once come, they conquer as they list.
Thou art the cause Shore pleaseth not my sight,
That his embraces give me no delight;
Thou art the cause I to myself am strange;
Thy coming is my full, thy set my change.
Long winter nights be minutes, if thou here;
Short minutes, if thou absent, be a year.
And thus by strength thou art become my fate,
And mak'st me love, even in the midst of hate.
Notes of the Chronicle History.
Would I had led an humble shepherd's life,
Nor known the name of Shore's admirèd wife.
Two or three poems written by sundry men have magnified this woman's beauty, whom that ornament of England and London's more particular glory, Sir Thomas More, very highly hath praised for her beauty, she being alive in his time, though being poor and aged. Her stature was mean, her hair of a dark yellow, her face round and full, her eye grey, delicate harmony being betwixt each part's proportion and each proportion's color, her body fat, white, and smooth, her countenance cheerful, and like to her condition. That picture which I have seen of hers, was such as she rose out of her bed in the morning having nothing on but a rich mantle cast under one arm over her shoulder, and sitting on a chair on which her naked arm did lie. What her father's name was, or where she was born, is not certainly known, but Shore, a young man of right good person, wealth, and behavior, abandoned her bed after the King had made her his concubine. Richard the Third, causing her to do open penance in Paul's churchyard, commanded that no man should relieve her, which the tyrant did not so much for his hatred to sin, but that by making his brother's life odious, he might cover his horrible treason the more cunningly. [Back to text]
May number Romney's flowers or Isis' fish.
Romney is that famous marsh in Kent at whose side Rye, a haven town, doth stand. Hereof the excellent English antiquary Master Camden and Master Lambarde in his Perambulation do make mention, and marshes are commonly called those low grounds which abut upon the sea, and from the Latin word are so denominated. Isis is here used for Thamesis by a synecdochical kind of speech, or by a poetical liberty in using one for another, for it is said that Thamesis is compounded of Tame and Isis, making when they are met that renowned water running by London, a city much more renowned than that water, which, being plentiful of fish, is the cause also why all things else are plentiful therein. Moreover, I am persuaded that there is no river in the world beholds more stately buildings on either side clean through than the Thames. Much is reported of the Grand Canal in Venice, for that the fronts on either side are so gorgeous. [Back to text]
That might entice some foul-mouthed Mantuan,
Mantuan, a pastoral poet, in one of his eclogues bitterly inveigheth against womankind, some of the which by way of an appendix might be here inserted, seeing the fantastic and insolent humors of many of that sex deserve much sharper physic, were it not that they are grown wiser than to amend for such an idle poet's speech as Mantuan, yea, or for Euripides himself, or Seneca's inflexible Hippolitus. [Back to text]
The circuit of the public theater.
Ovid, a most fit author for so dissolute a sectary, calls that place chastity's shipwreck, for though Shore's wife wantonly pled for liberty, which is the true humor of a courtesan, yet much more is the praise of modesty than of such liberty. Howbeit the vestal nuns had seats assigned them in the Roman theater, whereby it should appear it was counted no impeachment to modesty, though they offending therein were buried quick: a sharp law for them, who may say, as Shore's wife doth,
When though abroad restraining us to roam,
They very hardly keep us safe at home.
[Back to text]
NEXT TIME: Mary Tudor (Henry VIII's sister, not his daughter) writes about crushing on her brother's friends. Charles Brandon is delayed in picking her up after the death of her decrepit husband. Hopefully this is not in the universe of Showtime's The Tudors, as Mary would undoubtedly be disappointed to find out he's just late because he's been busy banging Thomas Tallis.
No, seriously, that's in there. But the guy playing Tallis is really pretty, so I can't blame him.
(ETA: Actually, no, he's not, that's somebody else who's banging Tallis. I'm getting this stuff second-hand. Never mind! But, as noted, I wouldn't blame him, since, also as noted, Tudors!Tallis is adorable, although jucundushomo tells me he can't act.)
It's also a bit of an odd installment, as I think it's the only one featuring a woman who gives in to someone soliciting her for Activities of Dubious Virtue (the Countess of Salisbury, you may recall, said yes to the Black Prince, but he was asking her to marry him, so the only real problem there is consanguinity. Anent that letter, there are some interesting structural and thematic parallels between the epistles of the Countess of Salisbury and Mistress Shore, not least that Drayton gives both of them a noticeable level of generic awareness), and this leads to a lot of really interesting twitchiness from the editorial voice in the footnotes -- although I am convinced on no evidence whatsoever that the reason for this is not so much a sense of anxiety that the text must be Morally Uplifting so much as that Drayton had been turned down by somebody or other and is thus bitter. ;)
To the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Munson, Knight.
Sir, amongst many which most deservedly love you, though I the least, yet am I loath to be the last whose endeavors may make known how highly they esteem of your noble and kind disposition. Let this epistle, sir, I beseech you, which unworthily wears the badge of your worthy name, acknowledge my zeal with the rest, though much less deserving, which for your sake do honour the house of the Munsons. I know true generosity accepteth what is zealously offered, though not ever deservingly excellent, yet for love of the art from whence it receiveth resemblance. The light Phrygian harmony stirreth delight, as well as the melancholy Doric moveth passion; both have they their motion in the spirit, as the liking of the soul moveth the affection. Your kind acceptance of my labor shall give me some life to my Muse, which yet hovers in the uncertainty of the general censure.
Michael Drayton.
Edward the Fourth to Shore's Wife
The Argument.
This Mistress Shore, King Edward the Fourth's beauteous paramour, was so called of her husband, a goldsmith dwelling in Lombard Street. Edward the Fourth, son to Richard Duke of York, after he had obtained the crown by deposing Henry the Sixth (which Henry was after murdered in the Tower by Richard Crookback), and after the battle fought at Barnet, where the famous Earl of Warwick was slain, and that King Edward quietly possessed the crown, hearing, by report of many, the rare and and wonderful beauty of the aforesaid Shore's wife, cometh himself disguised to London to see her, where after he had once beheld her, he was so surprised with her admirable beauty as not long after he robbed her husband of his dearest jewel; but first by this epistle he writeth unto her.
Unto the fair'st that ever breathed this air,
From English Edward to that fairest fair;
Ah, would to God thy title were no more,
That no remembrance might remain of Shore
To countermand a monarch's high desire,
And bar mine eyes of what they most admire.
O why should Fortune make the city proud,
To give that more than is the court allowed,
Where they, like wretches, hoard it up to spare
And do engross it, as they do their ware?
When fame first blazed thy beauty here in court,
Mine ears repulsed it as a light report,
But when mine eyes saw what mine ear had heard,
They thought report too niggardly had spared,
And, strucken dumb with wonder, did but mutter,
Conceiving more than she had words to utter.
Then think of what thy husband is possessed,
When I envy that Shore should be so blessed,
When much abundance makes the needy mad,
And, having all, yet knows not what is had;
Into fools' bosoms this good fortune creeps,
And wealth comes in the whilst the miser sleeps.
If now thy beauty be of such esteem
Which all so rare of excellency deem,
What would it be, and prizèd at what rate,
Were it adornèd with a kingly state?
Which, being now but in so mean a bed,
Is like an uncut diamond in lead
Ere it be set in some high-prizèd ring,
Or garnishèd with rich enameling;
The sparkling lustr of the stone is spilt
If that the beauty be not showed in gilt.
When first attracted by thy heavenly eyes,
I came to see thee in a strange disguise;
Passing thy shop, thy husband calls me back,
Demanding what rare jewel I did lack.
"I want," thought I, "one that I dare not crave,
And one, I fear, thou wilt not let me have";
He calls for caskets forth, and shows me store,
But yet I knew he had one jewel more,
And deadly cursed him that he did deny it,
That I might not for love or money buy it.
O might I come a diamond to buy
Whose sparkling radiance shadowed but thine eye,
Would not my treasure serve, my crown should go
If any jewel could be prizèd so;
An agate branchèd with thy blushing strains,
A sapphire but so azured as thy veins,
My kingly scepter only should redeem it
At such a price if judgment could esteem it.
How fond and senseless be those strangers, then,
Who bring in toys to please the Englishmen!
I smile to think how fond th'Italians are
To judge their artificial gardens rare,
When London in thy cheeks can show them here
Roses and lilies growing all the year;
The Portugal, that only hopes to win
By bringing stones from farthest India in,
When happy Shore can bring them forth a girl
Whose lips be rubies, and her teeth be pearl.
How silly is the Polander and Dane
To bring us crystal from the frozen main,
When thy clear skin's transparence doth surpass
Their crystal, as the diamond doth glass.
The foolish French, which brings in trash and toys
To turn our women men, our girls to boys,
When with what tire thou dost thyself adorn
That for a fashion only shall be worn,
Which, though it were a garment but of hair,
More rich than robe that ever empress ware.
Methinks thy husband takes his mark awry
To set his plate to sale when thou art by,
When they which do thy angel locks behold
Like basest dross do but respect his gold,
And with one hair before that massy heap,
And but one lock before the wealth of Cheap,
And for no cause else hold we gold so dear
But that it is so like unto thy hair.
And sure I think Shore cannot choose but flout
Such as would find the great elixir out,
And laugh to see the alchemists, that choke
Themselves with fumes, and waste their wealth in smoke,
When if thy hand but touch the basest mold,
It is converted into purest gold,
When theirs is chaffered at an easy rate,
Well known to all to be adulterate,
And is no more when it by thine is set
Than paltry bugle or light-prizèd jet.
Let others wear perfumes, for thee unmeet;
If there were none, thou could'st make all things sweet.
Thou comfort'st sense, and yet all sense dost waste,
To hear, to see, to smell, to feel, to taste;
Thou a rich ship, whose very refuse ware
Aromatics and precious odors are.
If thou but please to walk into the pawn
To buy thee cambric, calico, or lawn,
If thou the whiteness of the same wouldst prove,
From thy more whiter hand pluck off thy glove,
And those which by as the beholders stand
Will take thy hand for lawn, lawn for thy hand.
A thousand eyes, closed up by envious night,
Do wish for day, but to enjoy thy sight,
And when they once have blest their eyes with thee,
Scorn every object else whate'er they see;
So like a goddess beauty still controls,
And hath such powerful working in our souls.
The merchant, which in traffic spends his life,
Yet loves at home to have a dainty wife;
The blunt-spoke cynic, poring on his book,
Sometimes aside at beauty loves to look.
The churchman, by whose teaching we are led,
Allows what keeps love in the marriage-bed;
The bloody soldier, spent in arms and broils,
With beauty yet content to share his spoils;
The busy lawyer, wrangling in his pleas,
Findeth that beauty gives his labor ease;
The troiling tradesman, and the sweating clown,
Would have his wench fair, though his bread be brown;
So much is beauty pleasing unto all,
To prince and peasant, one in general,
Nor ever yet did any man despise it,
Except too dear, and that he could not prize it.
Unlearned is learning, artless be all arts
If not employed to praise thy several parts;
Poor plodding schoolmen, they are far too low
Which by probations, rules, and axioms go;
He must be still familiar with the skies
Which notes the revolutions of thine eyes,
And by that skill which measures sea and land
See beauty's world, thy waist, thy foot, thy hand,
Where he may find, the more that he doth view,
Such rare delights as are both strange and new,
And other worlds of beauty more and more
Which never were discoverèd before;
And to thy rare proportion to apply
The lines and circles in geometry,
Using alone arithmetic's strong ground,
Numb'ring the virtues that in thee are found.
And when these all have done what they can do,
For thy perfections all to little, too.
When from the east the dawn hath broken out,
And gone to seek thee all the world about,
Within thy chamber hath she fixed her light,
Where, but that place, the world hath all been night;
Then is it fit that every vulgar eye
Should see love banquet in her majesty?
We deem those things our sight doth most frequent
To be but mean, although most excellent;
For strangers still the streets are swept and strowed;
Few look on such as daily come abroad;
Things much restrained doth make us much desire them,
And beauties seldom seen makes us admire them.
Nor is it fit a city shop should hide
The world's delight, and nature's only pride,
But in a prince's sumptuous gallery,
Hung all with tissue, floored with tapestry,
Where thou shalt sit, and from thy state shalt see
The tilts and triumphs that are done for thee.
Then know the difference, if thou list to prove,
Betwixt a vulgar and a kingly love,
And when thou find'st, as now thou doubt'st, the troth,
Be thou thyself unpartial judge of both.
Where hearts be knit, what helps if not enjoy?
Delays breed doubts; no cunning to be coy.
Whilst lazy Time his turn by tarriance serves,
Love still grows sickly, and hope daily starves.
Meanwhile, receive that warrant by these lines
Which princely rule and sovereignty resigns;
Till when these papers, by their lord's command,
By me shall kiss thy sweet and dainty hand.
Notes of the Chronicle History.
This epistle of Edward to Shore's wife, and of hers to him, being of unlawful affection, ministreth small occasion of historical notes, for had he mentioned the many battles betwixt the Lancastrian faction and him, or other warlike dangers, it had been more like to Plautus' boasting soldier than a kingly courtier. Notwithstanding, it shall not be amiss to annex a line or two.
From English Edward to the fairest fair
Edward the Fourth was by nature very chivalrous and very amorous, applying his sweet and amiable aspect to attain his wanton appetite the rather, which was so well known to Louis the French King, who at their interview invited him to Pris, that as [?] reports, being taken at his word, he notwithstanding brake off the matter, fearing the Parisian dames, with their witty conversation, would detain him longer than should be for his benefit, by which means Edward was disappointed of his journey; and albeit princes whilst they live have nothing in them but what is admirable, yet we need not mistrust the flattery of the court in those times, for certain it is that his shape was excellent, his hair drew near to a black, making his face's favor seem more delectable. Though the smallness of his eyes full of a shining moisture, as it took away some comeliness, so it argued much sharpness of understanding, and cruelty mingled therewith. And indeed George Buchanan, that imperious Scot, chargeth him, and other princes of those times, with affectation of tyranny, as Richard the Third manifestly did. [Back to text]
When first attracted by thy heavenly eyes,
Edward's intemperate desires, with which he was wholly overcome, how tragically they in his offspring were punished, is universally known. A mirror representing their oversight that rather leave their children what to possess than what to imitate. [Back to text]
How silly is the Polander and Dane,
To bring us crystal from the frozen main.
Alluding to their opinions who imagine crystal to be a kind of ice, and therefore it is likely they who come from the frozen parts should bring great store of that transparent stone which is thought to be congealed with extreme cold. Whether crystal be ice or some other liquor I omit to dispute, yet by the examples of amber and coral there may be such an induration, for Solinus out of Pliny mentioneth that in the northerly regions a yellow jelly is taken up out of the sea at low tides, which he calles succinum, we amber; so likewise out of the Ligustic deep, a part of the Mediterranean Sea, a greenish stalk is gathered, which, hardened in the air, becomes to be coral, either white or red. Amber notwithstanding is thought to drop out of trees, as appears by Martial's epigram:
Et latet, et lucet Phaetontide gutta,
Ut videatur apis nectare clausa sue,
Dignum tantorum pretium tulit ille laborum,
Credibile est ipsam sic voluisse more.
To behold a bee enclosed in electrum is not so rare as that a boy's throat should be cut with the fall of an icicle, the which epigram is excellent, the 18.lib.4. He calls it Phaetontis gutta because of that fable which Ovid rehearseth, concerning the Heliades, or Phaeton's sisters metamorphosed into those trees, whose gum is amber, where flies alighting are oftentimes translucently imprisoned. [Back to text]
The Epistle of Shore's Wife to King Edward the Fourth.
As the weak child, that from the mother's wing
Is taught the lute's delicious fingering,
At every string's soft touch is moved with fear,
Nothing his master's curious listening ear,
Whose trembling hand at every strain bewrays
In what doubt he his new-set lesson plays;
As this poor child, so sit I to indite,
At every word still quaking as I write.
Would I had led an humble shepherd's life,
Nor known the name of Shore's admirèd wife,
And lived with them in country fields that range,
Nor seen the golden Cheap, nor glittering Change
To stand a comet gazed at in the skies,
Subject to all tongues, object to all eyes.
Oft have I heard my beauty praised of many,
But never yet so much admired of any;
A prince's eagle eye to find out that
Which vulgar sights do seldom wonder at
Makes me to think affection flatters sight
Or in the object something exquisite.
To housèd beauty seldom stoops report;
Fame must attend on that which lives in court.
What swan of great Apollo's brood doth sing
To vulgar love in courtly sonneting?
Or what immortal poet's sugared pen
Attends the glory of a citizen?
Oft have I wondered what should blind your eye,
Or what so far seducèd majesty,
That having choice of beauties so divine,
Amongst the most to choose this least of mine?
More glorious suns adorn fair London's pride
Than all rich England's continent beside;
Who takes in hand to make account of this
May number Romney's flowers, or Isis' fish;
Who doth frequent our temples, walks, and streets,
Noting the sundry beauties that he meets,
Thinks not that Nature left the wide world poor
And made this place the chequer of her store?
As heaven and earth were lately fall'n at jars,
And grown to vying wonders, dropping stars.
That if but some one beauty should incite
Some sacred muse, some ravished spirit to write,
Here might he fetch that true Promethean fire
As after ages should his lines admire,
Gathering the honey from the choicest flowers,
Scorning the withered weeds in country bowers.
Here in this garden only springs the rose;
In every common hedge the bramble grows;
Nor are we so turned Neapolitan
That might incite some foul-mouth Mantuan
To all the world to lay out our defects
And have just cause to rail upon our sex,
To prank old wrinkles up in new attire,
To alter nature's course, prove time a liar,
Abusing fate, and heaven's just doom reverse,
On beauty's grave to set a crimson hearse;
With a deceitful foil to lay a ground
To make a glass to seem a diamond.
Nor cannot, without hazard of our name,
In fashion follow the Venetian dame,
Nor the fantastic French to imitate,
Attired half Spanish, half Italianate,
Nor waist, nor curl, body nor brow adorn
That is in Florence nor in Genoa born.
But with vain boasts how witless-fond am I
Thus to draw on mine own indignity?
And what though married when I was but young,
Before I knew what did to love belong,
Yet he which now's possessèd of the room
Cropped beauty's flower when it was in the bloom,
And goes away enrichèd with the store
Whilst others glean, where he hath reaped before;
And he dares swear that I am true and just,
And shall I then deceive his honest trust?
Or what strange hope should make you to assail
Where strongest battery never could prevail?
Belike you think that I repulsed the rest
To leave a king the conquest of my breast,
Or have thus long preserved myself from all
A monarch now should glory in my fall.
Yet rather let me die the vildest death
Than live to draw that sin-polluted breath;
But our kind hearts men's tears cannot abide,
And we least angry oft when we most chide;
Too well know men what our creation made us,
And nature too well taught them to invade us.
They know but too well how, what, when, and where
To write, to speak, to sue, and to forbear;
By signs, by sighs, by motions, and by tears,
When vows should serve, when oaths, when smiles, when prayers;
What one delight our humors most doth move,
Only in that you make us nourish love.
If any natural blemish blot our face,
You do protest it gives our beauty grace,
And what attire we most are used to wear,
That, of all other, excellent'st you swear.
And if we walk, or sit, or stand, or lie,
It must resemble some one deity,
And what you know we take delight to hear,
That are you ever sounding in our ear,
And yet so shameless, when you tempt us thus,
To lay the fault on beauty, and on us.
Rome's wanton Ovid did those rules impart;
O that your nature should be helped with art!
Who would have thought a king, that cares to reign,
Enforced by love, so poet-like should feign?
To say that beauty, Time's stern rage to shun,
In my cheeks, lilies, hid her from the sun,
And when she meant to triumph in her May,
Made that her east, and here she broke her day,
And swear'st that summer still is in my sight,
And but where I am, all the world is night,
As though the fair'st e'er since the world began
To me a sunburnt, base Egyptian;
But yet I know more than I mean to tell --
O would to God you knew it not too well --
That women oft their most admirers raise,
Though publicly not flattering their own praise.
Our churlish husbands, which our youth enjoyed,
Who with our dainties have their stomachs cloyed,
Do loath our smooth hand with their lips to feel,
T'enrich our favors, by our beds to kneel,
At our command to wait, to send, to go,
As every hour our amorous servants do,
Which makes a stol'n kiss often we bestow
In earnest of a greater good we owe;
When he all day torments us with a frown,
Yet sports with Venus in a bed of down,
Whose rude embracement but too ill beseems
Her span-broad waist, her white and dainty limbs,
And yet still preaching abstinence of meat
When he himself of every dish will eat.
Blame you our husbands, then, if they deny
Our public walking, our loose liberty;
If with exception still they us debar
The circuit of the public theater
To hear the smooth-tongued poet's siren vain
Sporting in his lascivious comic scene,
Or the young wanton wits when they applaud
The sly persuasions of some subtle bawd
Or passionate tragedian in his rage
Acting a lovesick passion on the stage;
When, though abroad restraining us to roam,
They very hardly keep us safe at home,
And oft are touched with fear and inward grief,
Knowing rich prizes soonest tempt a thief.
What sports have we whereon our minds to set?
Our dog, our parrot, or our marmoset,
Or once a week to walk into the field;
Small is the pleasure that those toys do yield;
But to this grief a medicine you apply
To cure restraint with that sweet liberty
And sovereignty, O that bewitching thing,
Yet made more great by promise of a king,
And more, that honor which doth most entice
The holiest nun, and she that's ne'er so nice.
Thus still we strive, yet, overcome at length,
For men want mercy, and poor women strength;
Yet grant that we could meaner men resist;
When kings once come, they conquer as they list.
Thou art the cause Shore pleaseth not my sight,
That his embraces give me no delight;
Thou art the cause I to myself am strange;
Thy coming is my full, thy set my change.
Long winter nights be minutes, if thou here;
Short minutes, if thou absent, be a year.
And thus by strength thou art become my fate,
And mak'st me love, even in the midst of hate.
Notes of the Chronicle History.
Would I had led an humble shepherd's life,
Nor known the name of Shore's admirèd wife.
Two or three poems written by sundry men have magnified this woman's beauty, whom that ornament of England and London's more particular glory, Sir Thomas More, very highly hath praised for her beauty, she being alive in his time, though being poor and aged. Her stature was mean, her hair of a dark yellow, her face round and full, her eye grey, delicate harmony being betwixt each part's proportion and each proportion's color, her body fat, white, and smooth, her countenance cheerful, and like to her condition. That picture which I have seen of hers, was such as she rose out of her bed in the morning having nothing on but a rich mantle cast under one arm over her shoulder, and sitting on a chair on which her naked arm did lie. What her father's name was, or where she was born, is not certainly known, but Shore, a young man of right good person, wealth, and behavior, abandoned her bed after the King had made her his concubine. Richard the Third, causing her to do open penance in Paul's churchyard, commanded that no man should relieve her, which the tyrant did not so much for his hatred to sin, but that by making his brother's life odious, he might cover his horrible treason the more cunningly. [Back to text]
May number Romney's flowers or Isis' fish.
Romney is that famous marsh in Kent at whose side Rye, a haven town, doth stand. Hereof the excellent English antiquary Master Camden and Master Lambarde in his Perambulation do make mention, and marshes are commonly called those low grounds which abut upon the sea, and from the Latin word are so denominated. Isis is here used for Thamesis by a synecdochical kind of speech, or by a poetical liberty in using one for another, for it is said that Thamesis is compounded of Tame and Isis, making when they are met that renowned water running by London, a city much more renowned than that water, which, being plentiful of fish, is the cause also why all things else are plentiful therein. Moreover, I am persuaded that there is no river in the world beholds more stately buildings on either side clean through than the Thames. Much is reported of the Grand Canal in Venice, for that the fronts on either side are so gorgeous. [Back to text]
That might entice some foul-mouthed Mantuan,
Mantuan, a pastoral poet, in one of his eclogues bitterly inveigheth against womankind, some of the which by way of an appendix might be here inserted, seeing the fantastic and insolent humors of many of that sex deserve much sharper physic, were it not that they are grown wiser than to amend for such an idle poet's speech as Mantuan, yea, or for Euripides himself, or Seneca's inflexible Hippolitus. [Back to text]
The circuit of the public theater.
Ovid, a most fit author for so dissolute a sectary, calls that place chastity's shipwreck, for though Shore's wife wantonly pled for liberty, which is the true humor of a courtesan, yet much more is the praise of modesty than of such liberty. Howbeit the vestal nuns had seats assigned them in the Roman theater, whereby it should appear it was counted no impeachment to modesty, though they offending therein were buried quick: a sharp law for them, who may say, as Shore's wife doth,
When though abroad restraining us to roam,
They very hardly keep us safe at home.
[Back to text]
NEXT TIME: Mary Tudor (Henry VIII's sister, not his daughter) writes about crushing on her brother's friends. Charles Brandon is delayed in picking her up after the death of her decrepit husband. Hopefully this is not in the universe of Showtime's The Tudors, as Mary would undoubtedly be disappointed to find out he's just late because he's been busy banging Thomas Tallis.
No, seriously, that's in there. But the guy playing Tallis is really pretty, so I can't blame him.
(ETA: Actually, no, he's not, that's somebody else who's banging Tallis. I'm getting this stuff second-hand. Never mind! But, as noted, I wouldn't blame him, since, also as noted, Tudors!Tallis is adorable, although jucundushomo tells me he can't act.)