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.
A6 Go Eccho of the minde
Notes. This is another poem written in answer to Ralegh’s “Goe soule the bodies guest”. Like “Courts scorne, states disgracinge”, it has occasionally been attributed to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Although May has noted that this verse has a sing-song metre which is similar to a poem written by Essex (DeVere 106-08), the case for this attribution is weak, and its authorship remains uncertain. Nonetheless, the poem’s target is clearly Ralegh—a point made by the pun in the third line (“so rawe a lye”). Some copies even read this line as “that rude Rawly” (Ralegh, Poems 153).
“Another answere made by an unknowne author”
Go Eccho of the minde
A careles truth protest
Make answere that so rawe a lye
Noe stomacke can disgest
for why the lies discente
5Is ever base to tell
To us it came from Italye1
To them it came from hell
what reasons prove, confesse
what slaunder sayth, denye
10Lett not untruth with triumphe passe
yett never give the lye.
Confesse in glitteringe courte
All is not gold doth shine
yet say that pure and much fine gold
15Growes in that golden clime
Confesse that many tares2
May overspread the grownde
Yet saye within the fielde of golde
Pure corne is to bee founde
20Confesse some unjust judge
The widdowes right delaye
Yet say there ar some Samuells3
That will not say her naye
Admitte some man of state
25Doe pitch his thoughts too high
Is that a rule to all the rest
Their loyalty to trye
Your witt is in the wayne
your Autumne in the budd
30you argue from particulars
your reason is not good.
And still that men may see
Lesse reason to commend you
I marvaile much amonge the rest
35How schools & arts offend you.
But why pursue I thus
The waightles woords of winde
The more the Crabb doth seeke to creepe4
The more shee is behinde
40In courte & commonwealth
In church & countrey both
what? nothinge good, but all so badd
That every man may loath.
The farther that you raunge
45your error is the wider
The Bee sometime doth honey sucke
But sure you are the spider.
And this my counsell is
for that you want a name
50To seeke some corner in the darke
To hide your selfe from shame.
There wrappe the silly5 flye
within your spitefull webbe
But courte and church may coante6 you well
55They ar at no such ebbe.
As quarrells once begunne
Ar not so quickly ended
So many faults ar founde
But none so soone amended.
60But when you come againe
To give the worlde the lye
I pray you teach them how to live
And tell them how to dye.
Source. Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 212, fols. 90r-91r
Other known sources. DeVere 60; Dr Farmer Chetham Manuscript 118; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 172, fol. 13r ; Doctor Williams’s Library MS Jones B.60, p. 261 ; Folger MS V.a.103, fol. 67v
A6
1 from Italye: allusion to the works of Machiavelli, whose association with political dissimulation and irreligion made the term “Machiavel” an Elizabethan synonym for a scheming villain. <back>
2 tares: a species of vetch, which occurred in corn-fields as a weed. <back>
3 Samuells: reference to Samuel, the Old Testament prophet and law-giver. <back>
4 Crabb doth seeke to creepe: like a crab’s sidewise movement, the pen in the writer’s hand moves across the page. <back>
5 silly: weak, helpless; deserving of pity. <back>
6 coante: a textual problem. This may be “coame”, a verb meaning to split into fissures or gape open; however, some manuscripts read this word as “want” (i.e. court and Church can easily do without him (Ralegh, Poems 153)). <back>
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