CHAPTER IV ELIZABETHAN LYRIC AND SONNET-DONNE Contents of chapter-The Phonix Nest-England's Helicon and Davison's Poetical Rhapsody-Music and prosody-The Songs from the Plays-Those from the Romances-And from the Song-books-Campion-His "versings "-His rhymed poems -The Sonnet-outburst-Community of its phenomenaInstance from Zepheria-And of its goodness-Method of operation-Licences and variations-In line-length-In linenumber-Other freaks-Canzons, madrigals, etc.-BarnesThe moral of sonnet and song-Jonson's lyrics-The Celia Song-The epitaphs-Others-The In Memoriam metre-The problem of Donne-His double prosodic aspect-The anarchy of the Satires-The "middle" poems-The lyrics. Contents of IT was pointed out in the last volume that, at a time chapter. contemporary with Spenser, if not necessarily in all cases through his direct influence, a great change comes over the miscellaneous verse that we find, whether in so-called "Miscellany," or in any special poet. According to the mixed mode, which has been sketched in the Preface of this present volume, we have already seen something of this; but we must now fill in and complete the outline. This will best be done by taking up first the actual Miscellanies at the point at which we left them—that is to say, with The Phonix Nest; then by noticing the prosodically most interesting of the scattered lyrics of the time in Romance and Drama and Song-book; then by dwelling a little on the great sonnet-outburst of the decade mainly succeeding the Armada; and lastly, by considering in particular the lyrical work of the two greatest of the younger Elizabethans, Jonson and Donne, whose influence, and in part their production, reaches forward to the "time of lilies," the late summer of the whole Elizabethan period in the wide sense, the extraordinary outburst of Jacobean and Caroline song which, in its perfect blossoming, will not come under our notice till the next Book. In Donne's case one of those licences of exception in method of which readers have been forewarned will be taken; and his whole prosody will be considered together, for reasons which the treatment must, if it can, make clear and justify. The identification of "R. S.," the editor of The Phonix The Phonix Nest, and of the further initials which indicate or conceal Nest. the authors of the fourteen most specially "woorthie wurkes" that compose this remarkable collection, is fortunately not in the least necessary to the present inquiry. Whether "R. S." was the ghost of Shakespeare's grandfather, and "W. S." Shakespeare himself, are questions which we may leave to those who like them. The prosodic and poetic facts fortunately remain. The opening pieces1 on Sidney's death are not of the most immortal garlands devoted to the tombeau of Astrophel;2 and some not immediately following verses of "N. B." (whether Nicholas Breton or No Body) retain the blunted music of the Turbervillian period. But with the "Excellent Ditties of Divers Kinds and Rare Inventions written by Sundry Gentlemen" we come to metal more attractive. The opening sixains remind us of the overture of the Shepherd's Kalendar thirteen years earlier, and are not equal to it. But, with the next piece in quatrains of trochaic dimeter, they are worth sampling. 1 I follow the Heliconia reprint, vol. ii., London, 1815. 2 The second, however, has the quatrain with inclosed rhyme abba, which, though decasyllabic, is always to be noticed when it comes early, for the sake of its In Memoriam derivative. 3 Weep you, my lines, for sorrow while I write ; There is some 1 This and still more the next (whether Lodge's or not) show us that their author had the secret-that the ball is opened, that the dancing has begun, and that the days of stumbling and hirpling are over. And there is no relapse as long as "T. L. gent" is with us. The beautiful short line, like the Adonic of a Sapphic, added to "All day I weep my weary woes"; the graceful wasp-waisted sixains of "Oh woods! unto your walks my body hies"; the actual Sapphics, at least in intention (which escape the jauntiness or the awkwardness of the usual English travesty of that metre almost as well as Greville's); and the delightful carillon of “ My bonny lass," all show that we are really in the rosegarden, that the carols in the old sense are begun. Things less good things positively bad-follow. But store of good 4 Muses! help me: sorrow swarmeth, Eyes are fraught with seas of languish, Let it be remembered that "languish" and "anguish partners then. 1 All day I weep my weary woes, " were not such old Then when that night approacheth near, And every one his eyes doth close, And passed pains no more appear— 2 Oh woods! unto your walks my body hies, From forth their tender stalks, to help mine eyes; where it is again just as well to remember that "flowers-pours' was not recognised as a false concord by the grammar of the time, nor as a false rhyme by its prosody. 3 The fatal star, that at my birthday shined, 4 My bonny lass, thine eye, So sly sonnets come to comfort us, and some common measure, 'The time when first I fell in love," which, in tone as well as in tune, is a far-off forecast of Suckling. Nor will the fact that the book closes with some Sapphics, quite as bad as Southey's, remove the comfortable impression. Qui a bu, boira; and others will follow him in drinking now that the fountain is once unsealed. Helicon and Of the three collections published in the last years of England's the Queen, England's Parnassus, being merely an anthology, Davison's or rather a commonplace book from published authors, Poetical Rhapsody. need not delay us long. But it is a prosodic document of the highest importance when we remember how absolutely impossible it would have been to get together anything like such a record of prosodic accomplishment only twenty years earlier; and what an astounding contrast would be presented by a parallel book dating not twenty but a hundred years sooner, and representing the entire English prosody of 1400-1500. England's Helicon, on the other hand, and the Poetical Rhapsody, but especially the latter, contain actual new stuff. As before, the authorship matters little, but the contrast of The Phoenix Nest with the earlier miscellanies is here repeated on a larger scale, and in more striking and intenser fashion. The waters of this Helicon rise from many springs, some of which we have traced to their actual founts already; but almost everywhere they run softly and smoothly, with no chafing against obnoxious pebbles or sand-banks. Even poor abused "Bar. Young writes, so far as numbers go, as much better poets could hardly have written a generation earlier. His notion of expanding common measure, or rather sandwiching a decasyllabic quatrain between two "C.M.'s" in "Melisea her Song," is no bad one.2 Whosoever "Shepherd Tony" was, 1 For easy access to both of which, as to much else in the contents of this chapter, we have to thank Mr. A. H. Bullen, whose edition of the Helicon originally appeared in 1887, and that of the Rhapsody in 1891. 2 Like the rest of Young's verse it comes from his translation—a most influential one-of Montemayor's Diana. Poetically, of course, it is no great thing-hardly anything at all. But the "twist" of the metre has, to my ear, a rather remarkable effect, as imaging the change from mocking to seriousness and back again :— he had not much to learn prosodically; and most of the others had shown, or were to show, this fact elsewhere. And it is still more the case in Davison's inestimable Rhapsody, with its mysterious "A. W." and its many known masters; so much so, indeed, that we may do better to generalise only on these, and on the songs from other sources which have been mentioned. Music and prosody. first. One point of extreme importance may be dealt with We have seen that, in the period of the novitiate before Spenser, music undoubtedly did good by suggesting fairly complicated but harmoniously concerted measures; yet that in some cases, in consequence of their prosodic nonage, the poets confused musical and poetical music, failing to achieve the latter in their anxiety to suit the former. In the time to which we have now come there can, of course, be no doubt that the popular fancy for music was at least equally powerful as a provoker. The cittern in the barber's shop was no bad sign for prosody; Young shepherd, turn aside and move For I will neither kill with love, Since I will live and never favour show, Then die not, for my love I will not give For I will never have thee love me so As I do mean to hate thee while I live. That [then?] since the lover so doth prove His death, as thou dost see, Be bold, I will not kill with love, Nor love shall not kill me! For a still more skilful and much more elaborate composition, with poetry added, take this of A. W. the Unknown, from the Rhapsody, ii. 79:— When Venus saw Desire must die, Whom high Disdain Had justly slain, For killing Truth with scornful eye : The earth she leaves and gets her to the sky; Her golden hair she tears; Black weeds of woe she wears; For help unto her father doth she cry: Who bids her stay a space And hope for better grace. These will illustrate the remarks which follow in the text with at least a bare sufficiency. |