A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
Pi7 Thus Buck-in-game, Felt-one did soone abate
Notes. This couplet alludes to earlier violent fantasies of Buckingham’s death that also used the metaphor of the hunt to imagine the destruction of the “Buck-in-game” (see, e.g., “Of Brittish Beasts the Buck is King” and “To hunt the Doe I have refu’sd”). The sole extant copy of this couplet is in William Davenport’s commonplace book.
Thus Buck-in-game,1 Felt-one2 did soone abate
his pryde; the troble, off our English state
Source. CCRO MS CR 63/2/19, fol. 71r
Pi7
1 Buck-in-game: the pun is on the buck, or male deer, being hunted (in the game), and Buckingham. <back>
2 Felt-one: i.e. Felton. The couplet’s logic and transcription demand this be read as a pun. One possible reading of the pun would force us to paraphrase the couplet thus: “Thus Buck-in-game, being felt (here meaning something like ‘detected’), one man did soon abate his pride, which had been the trouble of our English state”. <back>
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