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.
Piii17 Death come thy selfe and let thy Image sleepe
Notes. This Buckingham elegy, attributed in the only known source to “ Mr AT” is especially notable for its references to libellers, depicted as snakes who bite what “once they kist”, and as cannibals who feed on the dead Duke’s remains.
“On the Death of the Duke of Bucckingam”
Death come thy selfe and let thy Image sleepe
Her quiet face and comick action keepe
Nor with strain’d lookes and gestures night by night
Thy trajedyes ere thou canst act recite
Let ies not blindfold search the booke of fate
5And sleeping our misfortunes antidate
Growst thou so feeble men must now ly still
And thou strike twice before thy dart can kill
Must shadowes and dumb showes in ambush lye
To wound the spirrit ere the body dye
10Then men most wretched and of men much more
Then all the rest, the deprived poore
Ours was the night though rich men gott the day
And must sweet sleepe our bedfellow betray
Our secret store and all times issue bee
15Our mortall foes and leave no minuet1 free
The morning dreames and midnight visions flye
A soule prepar’d for any trajedy.
Something mee thought did something to my eyes
That made mee sleeping see the destinyes
20Sett in an Amphitheater design’d
By no man’s hands, nor by a wall confin’de
But free and open as the æthereall skye
Bounded alone by the beholders eye
Clowdes were their cloathing here and there made fast
25With a small starr that sullen beames forth cast
The plannetts lent their aery actors light
And for ther sceanes they borrowd blackes of night
A shewer2 of threads each to a spindle ty’d
Like a small rayne fell thicke on ery3 side.
30Which never left twisting and turning round
Till most made dewes as they aproacht the ground
Some broke before some att the very touch
Some scarce halfe full some that were fil’d too much
All that lay still and soe forbore to spin
35Our mother earth strayt gap’t and tooke them in
Amoung the rest one lookt so cleare so bright
As round about it cast a liberall4 light
On whose outside no æquall eye could looke
But every turne and ev’ry motion tooke
40Soe gentle too as toucht one would have thought
The silkworme onely on that web had wrought
And yet soe firme as felt one might bee bould
Rather then thread to say t’was wire of gold
Nice virgins fear’d t’was part of that same shower
45That onrebuickd once pierct a golden tower5
Mirsirs6 beleev’d theire Mamon did descend
And chimists welcom’d their long look’d for frind7
Travellers thought the fam’d fleece8 scarce so fayre
And lovers tooke it for their mistrisse hayre.
50Poets would wright upon no other theame
Supposing it a flexible sun beame
Not what, but whose ambitious now to know
The Fates9 that seldome such a secrett show
Open their bookes and in their lists of names
55That lovely thread I found was Buckingams
Million of harts and myriads of eyes
Lighting upon it coverd it like flyes
Till one a sodayne one could hardly tell
Why ore wherefore thousands dropt of and fell
60Transform’d to snakes biting wher once they kist
Aloft they bus’d,10 but now beloy they hist
Rays’d by this spell out of the stygian lake11
Swifter then thought a fourth fell12 fury13 brake
Arm’d with a blade that in a trice dispatcht
65That web the world must longing leave unmatcht
Atropos scorning her prefixt decrees
Should stoupe to human mutabilityes
Snatcht up her sheeres14 intending in a rage
For that one stroake to leave an empty stage
70Cinthia15 drew back; and mercury let fall
His charming rod16 as of no use at all
Venus afresh bewayld Adonis slaine17
As twice alive and now new dead againe
The sun rose slowly and made hast to bedd
75And fiery mars18 never apear’d so redd
Tost lightning flasht out of the thunderers19 eye
And Saturne20 walkt like a sad mourner bye
Nature cry’d out and up sterne Justice21 stept
Ceres22 lay downe Heaven and the graces23 wept
80An universall compound shrieke and shoute
As if the worlds great soule were new breath’d out
Startle’d my senses then a sodayne ill
Apear’d as dismall as the sound was shrill
With sad presages frighted from my bed
85A rumour rays’d confusd of Duke and dead
Looking and lisoning I walkt on perplext
Till I had heard such comments on that text
As made me with Deucalions race of men
Rays’d out of stones24 newly reviv’d againe
90Ore thoese men monsters which though armed sprung
From dragons teeth25 wanted a killing toungue
Some wer to that excesse of bounty growne
They freely gave him faults that were their owne
And some to shame him with such slips26 began
95As to have mist hee had bin more then man
Some were so æquall to his actions still
They would condemne whether good or ill
And some were so with vigilance possest
When hee was dead they would not let him rest
100But did (like Anthropophagi)27 entreate
His very corps as if they kill’d to eate
Amoung these weeds some eares of corne were found
That hung their heads after his fell to ground
Some Flowers soe full of Heavenly dew they bent
105Under their load though they retayn’d their sent
Some tempers taken from the truest steele
That still the touch of the lov’d loadstone28 feele
But that faire mirrour29 in whose spotlesse breast
Hee left an Image of himselfe impreast
110To whome all trees that in the garden grow
Sett by that cædar are meere shrubbs in show
All corne but chaff all flowers in garden sett
Smelt but like crowfoote30 to that violet
What hands held up what folded armes acrosse
115What sighes breathes she after her Deare Lords losse
Mee thinkes I see her like an Alpe of snow
Melt till her teares in to a torrent grow
Then by degrees the calme resemblance take
Not of a river but a standing lake
120Which if no frindly Diety bee bent
To turne in to a christall monument31
Like Arethusa she will shyly run
To worlds unknowne and meete the new sett sun32
Ore the mayne sea strive with her teares to swell
125Like sad Cornelia when her Pompey fell.33
I like poor Codrus that can onely picke
Up here a stone and ther a litle sticke
To build an Alter and to make a blaze
That a rude winde may soone put out ore rayse34
130Wish him a pile that sett on fire may light
His darkend fame thorough detractions night
And obeliske that might his urne convay
Shining in gold up to the gods halfe way
And when his tombe shall like a Trophy rise
135glorious enough to putt out envyes eyes
Such Epitaphs and Elegies as sung
By a sweet muse may silence slanders toungue.
Source. Huntington MS HM 904, fols. 49r-52r
Piii17
1 minuet: scribal error; read “minute”. <back>
5 Nice virgins fear’d...pierct a golden tower: allusion to the myth of Danae who, though locked in a tower by her father, was nevertheless impregnated by Zeus/Jove in the form of a golden shower. “Onrebuickd” here is “unrebuked” (unchecked). <back>
6 Mirsirs: i.e. misers. <back>
7 And chimists welcom’d...look’d for frind: allusion to alchemists, who endeavoured to turn base metals into gold. <back>
8 the fam’d fleece: the golden fleece of classical mythology. <back>
9 The Fates: the three goddesses who determined the fate of things and individuals: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. <back>
11 the stygian lake: the lake of Styx in the classical underworld. <back>
12 fell: cruel, fierce. <back>
13 fury: the furies were avenging goddesses who punished the dead in the afterlife. <back>
14 Atropos...sheeres: Atropos, one of the fates, was often depicted carrying the shears she used to cut the thread of life. <back>
15 Cinthia: Cynthia, goddess of the moon. <back>
16 mercury let fall / His charming rod: the messenger god Mercury carried a staff or caduceus. <back>
17 Venus afresh bewayld Adonis slaine: in classical myth, the goddess Venus became besotted with the beautiful youth Adonis, who was killed by a boar. <back>
19 the thunderers: i.e. Jove’s. <back>
20 Saturne: ancient king of the gods, father of Jove. <back>
21 Justice: the goddess Astraea is probably implied here. <back>
22 Ceres: goddess of the earth, corn and argiculture. <back>
23 the graces: the three goddesses of beauty. <back>
24 Deucalions race of men...stones: after a destructive flood sent by Jove to punish the wickedness of mankind, Deucalion and his wife created new men and women from stones. <back>
25 thoese men monsters...From dragons teeth: allusion to the myth of Cadmus, who sowed the teeth of a dragon, from which there grew armed men. <back>
27 Anthropophagi: cannibals. <back>
28 loadstone: i.e. lodestone; magnet. <back>
29 that faire mirrour: introduces a passage on Buckingham’s widow, Katherine. <back>
30 crowfoote: typically a name for the buttercup. <back>
31 if no frindly Diety...christall monument: probably an allusion to the myth of Niobe, who, having lost her fourteen children, was metamorphosed into a weeping stone. <back>
32 Arethusa...new sett sun: the nymph Arethusa, running from the river god Alpheus, became a fountain on the island of Ortygia. <back>
33 Like sad Cornelia when her Pompey fell: Book 8 of Lucan’s Pharsalia (sig.P3v ff.) describes how, in 48 BC, the Roman leader Pompey was assassinated as he approached the Egyptian shore in a boat. Pompey’s wife Cornelia witnessed the murder from a separate boat further out at sea. Katherine Villiers did not witness her husband’s murder, but she was elsewhere in the same building when the crime occurred. <back>
34 I like poor Codrus...put out ore rayse: the poet here compares himself to Pompey’s follower Codrus.According to Book 8 of Lucan’s Pharsalia, Codrus retrieved Pompey’s decapitated body from the sea and, using driftwood and borrowed fire, improvised a funeral pyre for the remains. <back>
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