The Penguin Book of English Song Page 5

  He was released from the Tower in 1616 in order to track down the gold mine he claimed to have discovered in Guiana during 1595; the expedition was a disaster, he was accused of treason and then executed on 29 October 1618, on the charge that he was an ‘agent of Spain’. John Aubrey tells us that he ‘tooke a pipe of Tobacco a little before he went to the scaffold, which some formall persons were scandalized at’. According to one Thomas Lorkin, who was present at the execution, Ralegh refused to be blindfolded, and forgave the hangman. When asked if he wished to place his head on the block facing east, he replied that it was of no significance which way the head lay, ‘so the heart be right’. The poems, though a few survive in his own handwriting, are not always easy to date or authenticate. Prose works include his ‘Report on the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of Açores’ (1591), which inspired Tennyson’s ‘The Revenge’ (1878), and Discoverie of Guiana (1596), with its celebrated description of ‘Eldorado’.

  ORLANDO GIBBONS: from The First Set of Madrigals and Mottets (1612)

  On the life of man

  [What is our life?]

  What is our life? a play of passion:

  Our mirth the musicke of diuision,

  Our mothers wombes the tyring houses1 be,

  Where we are drest for this short Comedy,

  Heauen the Iudicious sharpe spectator is,

  That sits and markes still who do act amisse,

  Our graues that hide vs from the searching Sun,

  Are like drawne curtaynes when the play is done,

  Thus march we playing to our latest rest;

  Onley we dye in earnest; that’s no Iest.

  IVOR GURNEY

  Euen such is tyme (1917/1959)1

  [Even such is time]

  Euen such is tyme, which takes in trust

  Our yowth, our Ioyes, and all we haue,

  And payes vs butt with age and dust,

  Who in the darke and silent graue

  When we haue wandred all our wayes

  Shutts up the storye of our dayes.

  And from which earth and graue and dust

  The Lord shall rayse me up I trust.

  DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH: from Six Romances on Verses by Raleigh, Burns and Shakespeare, Op. 62 (1942)1

  Sir Walter Ravleigh to his sonne

  [To the son]2

  [translated by Boris Pasternak]

  Three thinges there bee that prosper vp apace

  And flourish, whilest they growe a sunder farr,

  But on a day, they meet all in one place,

  And when they meet, they one an other marr;

  And they be theise, the wood, the weede, the wagg.

  The wood is that, which makes the Gallow tree,

  The weed is that, which stringes the Hangmans bagg,

  The wagg my pritty knave betokeneth thee.

  Marke well deare boy whilest theise assemble not,

  Green springs the tree, hempe growes, the wagg is wilde,

  But when they meet, it makes the timber rott,

  It fretts the halter, and it choakes the childe.

  Then bless thee, and beware, and lett vs praye,

  Wee part not with the at this meeting day.

  EDMUND SPENSER

  (1552–99)

  A silver trumpet Spenser blows,

  And, as its martial notes to silence flee,

  From a virgin chorus flows

  A hymn in praise of spotless Chastity.

  ’Tis still! Wild warblings from the Æolian lyre

  Enchantment softly breathe, and tremblingly expire.

  JOHN KEATS: ‘Ode to Apollo’ (1815)

  Spenser was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he was a ‘sizar’, a student who undertook menial tasks in return for free ‘sizes’ or rations. He obtained a place in the Earl of Leicester’s household, where he met Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he dedicated his Shepheardes Calender (1579), and with whom he founded a literary club, the Areopagus, one of the purposes of which was to naturalize classical metres in English verse. Having been appointed secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, he went to Ireland and settled in Munster, where he acquired Kilcolman Castle in County Cork as a reward for crushing a rebellion. It was here that he lived and wrote his elegy Astrophell on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, and prepared The Faerie Queene, begun in 1579, for press. He visited London in 1589 to give three books of The Faerie Queene to the printer, and was introduced by Sir Walter Ralegh to Queen Elizabeth, who awarded him a pension of fifty pounds, despite his previously published attack on her match with the Duc d’Alençon. There was, however, to be no preferment, and he returned to his Irish ‘exile’.

  It was there in 1591 that he wrote Colin Clovt’s Come Home Againe, dedicated to Sir Walter Ralegh: ‘The which I humbly beseech you to accept in part of paiment of the infinite debt in which I acknowledge my selfe bounden unto you, for your singular fauours and sundrie good turnes shewed to me at my late being in England’. This charming and, at times, satirical allegory describes how Ralegh travelled to Ireland to persuade Spenser to come to England ‘his Cynthia to see’ – in other words Queen Elizabeth. Ralegh appears as the Shepheard of the Ocean, and the court comes in for a deal of criticism. The work was published in 1595 and contains lines that Wilhelm Müller – a celebrated translator who rendered Marlowe’s Dr Faustus into memorable German – echoes in ‘Ungeduld’ from Die schöne Müllerin:

  Her name in euery tree I will endosse,

  That as the trees do grow, her name may grow:

  And in the ground each where will it engrosse,

  And fill with stones, that all men may it know.

  The speaking woods and murmuring waters fall,

  Her name Ile teach in knowen termes to frame:

  And eke my lambs when for their dams they call,

  Ile teach to call for Cynthia by name.

  In 1594, Spenser married Elizabeth Boyle, some twenty years his junior. A year later, he published his Amoretti and Epithalamion, which celebrate the couple’s courtship and marriage. Whereas Petrarch’s sonnets deal with the poet’s longing for an unattainable mistress, and spiritual torment, Spenser’s are predominantly ‘happy leaues’ (Sonnet I) which, despite some frustration and doubt, chart the development of a relationship which ends in fulfilment, as the lover-poet is finally granted his beloved. One year after his Epithalamion, Spenser published the second part of The Faerie Queene – but only six of the planned twelve books were eventually printed. The resultant prosperity was short-lived. Kilcolman Castle was burnt in 1598 during an insurrection by the Irish, his youngest child died in the attack and Spenser fled to Cork with his family. The rest of his life was spent in penury; he died at lodgings in King Street, Westminster, and was buried near his beloved Chaucer in Westminster Abbey, apostrophized in a celebrated line from Prothalamion: ‘Sweete Themmes runne softly, till I end my Song.’ John Aubrey, quoting a Mr Beeston, tells us that Spenser was ‘a little man, wore short haire, little band and little cuffs’.

  Spenser gave his name to the Spenserian stanza, a verse pattern of nine lines, made up of eight iambic lines of ten syllables and one of twelve, with the rhyming scheme ababbcbcc. Several English poets paid him the compliment of writing works in Spenserian stanzas: Byron (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage), Keats (‘The Eve of St Agnes’) and Shelley (‘Adonais’).

  WILLIAM HENRY HARRIS1: from An Hymne of Heavenly Beavtie [‘Faire is the heauen’], for unaccompanied double choir (1925)

  […]

  Faire is the heauen, where happy soules haue place,

  In full enioyment of felicitie,

  Whence they doe still behold the glorious face

  Of the diuine eternall Maiestie;

  […]

  Yet farre more faire be those bright Cherubins,

  Which all with golden wings are ouerdight,

  And those eternall burning Seraphins,

  Which from their faces dart out fierie light;

  Yet fairer th
en they both, and much more bright

  Be th’Angels and Archangels, which attend

  On Gods owne person, without rest or end.

  These thus in faire each other farre excelling,

  As to the Highest they approch more neare,

  Yet is that Highest farre beyond all telling,

  Fairer then all the rest which there appeare,

  Though all their beauties ioynd together were:

  How then can mortall tongue hope to expresse,

  The image of such endlesse perfectnesse?

  […]

  EDMUND RUBBRA: from Five Sonnets, Op. 42, for tenor and strings (1935/1949)

  Sonnet VI

  Be nought dismayd that her vnmoued mind

  doth still persist in her rebellious pride:

  such loue not lyke to lusts of baser kynd,

  the harder wonne, the firmer will abide.

  The durefull1 Oake, whose sap is not yet dride,

  is long ere it conceiue the kindling2 fyre:

  but when it once doth burne, it doth diuide3

  great heat, and makes his flames to heauen aspire4.

  So hard it is to kindle new desire

  in gentle brest that shall endure for euer:

  deepe is the wound, that dints5 the parts entire6

  with chast affects7, that naught but death can seuer.

  Then thinke not long in taking litle paine

  to knit the knot8, that euer shall remaine.

  EDMUND RUBBRA: from Amoretti: Five Sonnets (Second Series), Op. 43, for tenor and string quartet (1935/1942)

  Sonnet LXXVIII1

  Lackyng my loue I go from place to place,

  lyke a young fawne that late hath lost the hynd:

  and seeke each where, where last I sawe her face,

  whose ymage yet I carry fresh in mynd.

  I seeke the fields with her late footing synd,

  i seeke her bowre with her late presence deckt,

  yet nor in field nor bowre I her can fynd:

  yet field and bowre are full of her aspect2.

  But when myne eyes I thereunto direct,

  they ydly back returne to me agayne,

  and when I hope to see theyr trew obiect,

  i fynd my selfe but fed with fancies vayne.

  Cease then myne eyes, to seeke her selfe to see,

  and let my thoughts behold her selfe in mee.

  BENJAMIN BRITTEN: from Spring Symphony, Op. 44, for soprano, alto and tenor solos, chorus, boys’ choir and orchestra (1949/1949)

  Amoretti, Sonnet XIX

  [The merry cuckoo]

  The merry Cuckow1, messenger of Spring,

  His trompet shrill hath thrise already sounded:

  That warnes al louers wayt vpon their king2,

  Who now is comming forth with girland crouned.

  With noyse whereof the quyre of Byrds resounded

  Their anthemes3 sweet devized of loues prayse;

  That all the woods theyr ecchoes back rebounded,

  As if they knew the meaning of their layes.

  But mongst them all, which did Loues honor rayse,

  No word was heard of her that most it ought4:

  But she his precept5 proudly disobayes,

  And doth his ydle6 message set at nought.

  Therefore O loue, vnlesse she turne to thee

  Ere Cuckow end, let her a rebell be.

  SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

  (1554–86)

  Such his appetite to Learning, that he could never be fed fast enough therewith; and so quick and strong his digestion, that he soon turned it to wholesome nourishment, and thrived healthfully thereon. His homebred abilities travel perfected with forraign accomplishments, and a sweet Nature set a glosse on both. He was so essential to the English Court, that it seemed maimed without his company, being a compleat Master of Matter and Language, as his Arcadia doth evidence.

  THOMAS FULLER: The History of the Worthies of England (1662)

  Born at Penshurst in Kent, he was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford. He left university without a degree, accompanied his uncle the Earl of Leicester from 1572 to 1575 throughout Europe and was made Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles IX in Paris. He became one of the most brilliant members of Elizabeth’s court, represented her on diplomatic missions in Europe and in 1578 wrote a masque, The Lady of May, in her honour. Having quarrelled with the Earl of Oxford, he left the court and stayed with his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, in the country. The anonymous painting of him in the National Portrait Gallery depicts him as an elegant young man with a beautiful face – a misrepresentation, since Sidney was ill with smallpox as a child and was described by Ben Jonson as ‘no pleasant man in countenance, his face being spoiled with pimples & of high blood & long’. Courtier, soldier and scholar, Sidney embodied the Renaissance ideal of a gentleman, who composed both music and songs. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth (his godparents included King Philip II of Spain), he was never short of influential friends. When Spenser wrote his Faerie Queene, he took Sidney as the model for Sir Calidore, the champion of Courtesy; and in Ben Jonson’s The Forrest (see ‘Drinke to me, onely, with thine eyes’) it is the ‘godlike Sidney’ that embodies ‘the virtuous life’. Hakluyt dedicated Voyages to him, Spenser the Shepheardes Calender. He became a Member of Parliament and was knighted in 1582. He had hoped to accompany Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Ralegh to the West Indies in 1585, but was instead sent to the Netherlands. It was there that he died at the age of thirty-two fighting in a religious war that culminated in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. ‘Thy necessity is yet greater than mine,’ he allegedly said, as on the battlefield he gave his water-bottle to another wounded soldier. He was mortally wounded at Zutphen in 1586, died some three weeks later and was buried with great pomp and circumstance in St Paul’s Cathedral.

  In the seventeenth century, Sidney’s poems were prized more than those by Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson or Donne: three editions of Spenser’s collected works were published, four of Shakespeare’s and nine of Sidney’s. And in the early years of the seventeenth century his Arcadia was translated into French, German, Dutch and Italian, at a time when no other Elizabethan literature was printed in a European vernacular. Sidney’s influence on the development of the English language was huge. The OED lists more than 2,000 quotes from his works, and attributes to him many first usages, such as ‘bug-bear’, ‘far-fetched’ and ‘miniature’ (for a small picture). He was convinced that English, not Latin, should be the language for important matters of state, and wrote in The Defense of Poesy (1579–80): ‘But for the uttering sweetly and properly the conceite of the minde, which is the ende of thought, [English] hath it equally with any other tongue in the world’. Though he became a living legend (he was painted by Veronese and apostrophized by Nashe and Spenser), it was not until after his death that his works were published: Arcadia in 1590 and Astrophil and Stella in 1591.

  Astrophil and Stella is a sequence of 108 sonnets and eleven songs, which were written around 1582 and describe the unhappy love of Astrophil (‘Lover of a star’ which also puns on Sidney’s Christian name) for ‘Stella’ (‘star’). A narrative thread weaves its way through the sonnets, charting the development of Astrophil’s courtship – thus providing a structure to the work that is absent in many Renaissance collections of sonnets. It is very probable that Stella refers to Lady Penelope Devereux, the woman that Sidney hoped to wed but who married Lord Rich in 1581 – there is much punning on the word ‘rich’, as in Sonnet 37, which refers to one who ‘Hath no misfortune, but that Rich she is’. Sidney did not allow the sonnets to be printed during his lifetime, though five of them (none of them revealing the identity of Stella) did circulate in manuscript form. In 1583 Sidney married Frances Walsingham, who bore him a daughter, Elizabeth, he was never to see: she was born during the Dutch campaign in which he died.

  WILLIAM BYRD: from Psalmes, Sonets, & Songs (1587)

  Sixt song

  [
O you that heare this voice]1

  O you that heare this voice,

  O you that see this face,

  Say whether of the choice

  Deserves the former place:

  Feare not to judge this bate2,

  For it is void of hate.

  This side doth beauty take,

  For that doth Musike speake,

  Fit oratours3 to make

  The strongest judgements weake:

  The barre4 to plead their right,

  Is only true delight.

  Thus doth the voice and face,

  These gentle Lawyers wage5,

  Like loving brothers’ case

  For father’s heritage,

  That each, while each contends,

  It selfe to other lends.

  For beautie beautifies,

  With heavenly hew and grace,

  The heavenly harmonies;

  And in this faultlesse face,

  The perfect beauties be

  A perfect harmony.