And that great Cov’nant which we still transgress
c
Entirely satisfi’d,
d
And the full wrath beside
d
Of vengeful Justice bore for our excess
c
And seals obedience first with wounding smart
e
This day; but Oh! Ere long
f
Huge pangs and strong
f
Will pierce more near his heart.
e
WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT (1611–43)
Cartwright was one of ‘The Tribe of Ben’ Jonson. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He took Holy Orders and was made Reader in Metaphysics at Christ Church. Text from Comedies, Tragi-comedies, with other Poems (1651).
P153: Ite, caldi sospiri, al freddo core
Absence
Fly, O fly sad Sigh, and bear
These few Words into his Ear;
Blest where e’r thou dost remain,
Worthier of a softer chain,
Still I live, if it be true
The Turtle lives that’s cleft in two
Tears and Sorrows I have store,
But O thine do grieve me more;
Dye I would, but that I do
10 Fear my Fate would kill thee too.
THOMAS STANLEY (1625–78)
After his education at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, Stanley travelled before retiring to lodgings in the Middle Temple for a life of leisure and benevolence towards his literary friends. He was primarily a translator and imitator. In his later life, he returned to scholarship, and is credited with writing the first history of philosophy in English (1655–62). Text from Poems and Translations (1647).
P324: Amor, quando fioria
On His Mistresse’s Death
Love the Ripe Harvest of my toils
Began to cherish with his Smiles
Preparing me to be indued
With all the Joyes I long pursued,
When my fresh Hopes fair and full blown
Death blasts ere I could call my own.
Malicious Death why with rude Force
Dost thou my fair from me divorce?
False Life why in this loathed Chain
10 Me from my fair dost thou detain?
In whom assistance shall I Finde?
Alike are life and Death unkinde.
Pardon me Love thy power outshines,
And laughs at their infirm designes.
She is not wedded to a Tomb,
Nor I to sorrow in her room.
They what thou joyn’st can nere divide:
She lives in me in her I dy’d.
JOHN DRYDEN (1631–1700)
Poet-laureate, dramatist, and the most financially successful poet before Alexander Pope, Dryden did not specifically translate Petrarch nor write sonnets, but these three songs are deeply entrenched in the Petrarchan mode, especially the ‘wet dream’ of the third. Text from The Conquest of Granada (1672).
Song
WHEREVER I am, and whatever I doe;
My Phillis is still in my mind:
When angry I mean not to Phillis to goe,
My Feet of themselves the way find:
Unknown to my self I am just at her door,
And when I would raile, I can bring out no more,
Than Phillis too fair and unkind!
When Phillis I see, my Heart bounds in my Breast,
And the Love I would stifle is shown:
10 But asleep, or awake, I am never at rest
When from my Eyes Phillis is gone!
Sometimes a sweet Dream does delude my sad mind,
But, alas, when I wake and no Phillis I find
How I sigh to my self all alone.
Should a King be my Rival in her I adore
He should offer his Treasure in vain:
O let me alone to be happy and poor,
And give me my Phillis again:
Let Phillis be mine, and for ever be kind
20 I could to a Desart with her be confin’d,
And envy no Monarch his Raign.
Alas, I discover too much of my Love,
And she too well knows her own power!
She makes me each day a new Martyrdom prove,
And makes me grow jealous each hour:
But let her each minute torment my poor mind
I had rather love Phillis both False and Unkind,
Then ever be freed from her Pow’r.
Song, In Two Parts
He. How unhappy a Lover am I
While I sigh for my Phillis in vain;
All my hopes of Delight
Are another man’s Right,
Who is happy while I am in pain!
She. Since her Honour allows no Relief,
But to pity the pains which you bear,
’Tis the best of your Fate,
(In a hopeless Estate,)
10 To give o’re, and betimes to despair.
He. I have try’d the false Med’cine in vain;
For I wish what I hope not to win:
From without, my desire
Has no Food to its Fire,
But it burns and consumes me within.
She. Yet at least ’tis a pleasure to know
That you are not unhappy alone:
For the Nymph you adore
Is as wretched and more,
20 And accounts all your suff’rings her own.
He. O ye Gods, let me suffer for both;
At the feet of my Phillis I’lelye:
I’le resign up my Breath,
And take pleasure in Death,
To be pity’d by her when I dye.
She. What her Honour deny’d you in Life
In her Death she will give to your Love.
Such a Flame as is true
After Fate will renew,
30 For the Souls to meet closer above.
Song
BENEATH a Myrtle shade
Which love for none but happy Lovers made,
I slept, and straight my Love before me brought
Phillis the object of my waking thought;
Undress’d she came my flames to meet,
While love strow’d flow’rs beneath her feet;
Flow’rs, which so press’d by her, became more sweet.
From the bright Vision’s head
A careless veil of lawn was loosely spread:
10 From her white temples fell her shaded hair,
Like cloudy sunshine not too brown nor fair:
Her hands, her lips did love inspire;
Her every grace my heart did fire:
But most her eyes which languish’d with desire.
Ah, Charming fair, said I,
How long can you my bliss and yours deny?
By Nature and by love this lonely shade
Was for revenge of suffering Lovers made:
Silence and shades with love agree:
20 Both shelter you and favour me;
You cannot blush because I cannot see.
No, let me dye, she said,
Rather than loose the spotless name of Maid:
Faintly methought she spoke, for all the while
She bid me not believe her, with a smile.
Then dye said I, she still deny’d:
And is it thus, thus, thus she cried
You use a harmless Maid, and so she died!
I wak’d, and straight I knew
30 I lov’d so well it made my dream prove true:
Fancy, the kinder Mistress of the two,
Fancy had done what Phillis wou’d not do!
Ah, cruel nymph, cease your disdain,
While I can dream you scorn in vain;
Asleep or waking you must ease my pain.
PHILIP AYRES (1638–1712)
A friend of Dryden and ‘prolific translator from several languages, and almost the only English translator from the Canzoniere in the period 1625–1765. His versions a
re loose and sentimental, and apparently designed to be sung’ (Watson, English Petrarchans, p. 7). That he converted P19, a sonnet, into a sestina shows his interest in Petrarchan form for its own sake. From Lyric Poems Made in Imitation of the Italians (1687); text from Bohn’s Illustrated Library (1859).
P132: S’amor non è, che dunque è quel ch’io sento?
A Sonnet. Of Love
If Love it be not, what is this I feel?
If it be Love, what Love is, fain I’d know?
If good, why the effects severe and ill?
If bad, why do its torments please me so?
If willingly I burn, should I complain?
If’gainst my will, what helps it to lament?
Oh living Death! oh most delightful pain!
How comes all this, if I do not consent?
If I consent, ’tis madness then to grieve;
10 Amidst these storms, in a weak Boat I’m tost
Upon a dangerous Sea, without relief
No help from Reason, but in Error lost.
Which way in this distraction shall I turn,
That freeze in Summer, and in Winter burn?
P106: Nova angeletta sovra l’ale accorta
The Pleas’d Captive
A Glorious Angel coming on the Wing,
From Heav’n descended near a River side,
Where me alone my Destiny did bring;
To view the pleasant Fields without a Guide;
A Net she’d laid, drawn by a silken String,
So hid in grass, it could not be espy’d,
There was I captive taken in her snare,
But Cynthia’s chains who would not chuse to wear?
P121: Or vedi, Amor, che giovenetta donna
Revenge against Cynthia
See, Cupid, we have found our lovely foe,
Who slights thy pow’r and does my flame despise,
Now thou art arm’d with all thy shafts and bow,
And she at mercy ’twixt two enemies.
Asleep she’s laid upon this bed of flowers,
Her charms the sole defence to save her breast;
Thoughtless of injur’d me, or of thy powers;
Oh, that guilty soul can take such rest!
Now may’st thou eas’ly with a single dart
10 Revenge thyself, and me, upon her heart.
P134: Pace non trovo, e non ò da far guerra
Love’s Contrariety
I make no war, and yet no peace have found,
With heat I melt, when starv’d to death with cold.
I soar to heav’n, while grovelling on the ground,
Embrace the world, yet nothing do I hold.
I’m not confin’d, yet cannot I depart,
Nor loose the chain, tho’ not a captive led;
Love kills me not, yet wounds me to the heart,
Will neither have m’ alive, nor have me dead.
Being blind, I see; not having voice, I cry:
10 I wish for Death, while I of Life make choice;
I hate myself, yet love you tenderly;
Do feed of tears, and in my grief rejoice.
Thus, Cynthia, all my health is but disease;
Both life and death do equally displease.
P355: O tempo, o ciel volubil, che fuggendo
The Resolution
Oh Time! Oh rolling heavens, that fly so fast,
And cheat us mortals ignorant and blind!
Oh fugitive Day, swifter than bird or wind!
Your frauds I see, by all my suff’rings past.
But pardon me, ’tis I myself must blame,
Nature that spreads your wings, and makes you fly,
To me give eyes, that I my ills might spy:
Yet I retain’d them to my grief, and shame.
Time was I might, and Time is still I may
10 Direct my steps in a securer way,
And end this sad infinity of ill;
Yet ’tis not from thy yoke, O Love, I part,
But the effects; I will reclaim my heart:
Virtue’s no chance, but is acquir’d by skill.
P19: Son animali al mondo de sí altera
A Sestina, in Imitation of Sig. Fra. Petrarca
So many creatures live not in the sea,
Nor e’er above the circle of the Moon,
Did man behold so many stars at night,
Nor little birds do shelter in the woods,
Nor herbs, nor flow’rs e’er beautified the fields;
As anxious thoughts my heart feels ev’ry day.
I, wishing Death, pray each may be the day,
And seek in vain for quiet in the fields,
My griefs succeed like waves upon the sea;
10 Such torments sure, no man beneath the Moon
E’er felt as I; ’tis known amongst the woods,
Where to complain I oft retire at night.
I never could enjoy a quiet night,
And do in pain and sorrow spend the day,
Since angry Cynthia drove me to the woods;
Yet e’er I quit my Love I’ll weep a sea:
The Sun his light shall borrow of the Moon,
And May with flowers refuse to deck the fields.
Restless I wander up and down the fields,
20 And scarce can close my eyes to sleep at night:
So that my life’s unstable as the moon,
The air I fill with sights both night and day;
My show’rs of tears seem to augment the sea,
make the herbs green, and to refresh the woods.
I hating cities, ramble in the woods,
And thence I shift to solitary fields,
I rove and imitate the troubled sea,
And hope most quiet in the silent night.
So that I wish at the approach of day,
30 The Sun would set, and give his place to th’Moon.
Oh, that like him who long had lov’d the Moon,
I could in dreams be happy in the woods;
I’d wish an end to this most glorious day,
Then should I meet my Cynthia in the fields,
Court her, and entertain her all the night;
The day should stop, and Sol swell in the sea.
By day nor night, sea, moon, nor wood, nor field
Now Cynthia frowns, can ease or pleasure yeild.
P275: Occhi miei, oscurato è’l nostro sole
A Sonnet, of Petrarc, going to visit M. Laura
Oh eyes! Our Sun’s extinct, and at an end,
or rather florified in Heav’n does shine;
There shall we see her, there does she attend,
And at our long delay perchance repine.
Alas, my ears, the voice you lov’d to hear,
Is now rais’d up to the cœlestial choir;
And you, my feet, she’s gone that us’d to steer
Your course, where you till death can ne’er aspire.
Cannot my soul nor body yet be free?
10 ’Twas not my fault, you this occasion lost;
That seeing, hearing, finding her y’ are crost:
Blame Death, or rather blest be ever He,
who binds and looses, makes and can destroy,
And, when Life’s done, crowns with Eternal joy.
P145: Ponmi ove’l sole occide i fiori e l’erba
Constancy
Place me where Sol dries up the flow’ry fields,
or where he to the frosty winter yields:
Place me where he does mod’rate heat dispense,
And where his beams have a kind influence:
Place me in humble state, or place me high,
In a dark clime, or a serener sky;
Place me where days or nights are short or long,
In age mature, or be it old or young:
Place me in Heav’n, on earth, or in the main,
10 on a high hill, low vale, or level plain:
Let me have vigorous parts, or dullness have;
Place me in liberty, or as a slave:
Give me a black, or an illustrious fame:
As I have liv’d, I’ll ever live the same;
Where I at first did fix my constant love,
Nothing from Cynthia can it e’er remove.
BASIL KENNET (1674–1715)
Kennet was Fellow of and, in his last years, President of Corpus Christi, Oxford. He was named Chaplain to the British factory at Leghorn (Livorno) in 1706, but ill health forced his return to England. He published books on Roman antiquities, the lives of the Greek poets, theological subjects and translations from the French. Text from Bohn’s Illustrated Library (1859).
P4: Que’ch’ infinita providenzia et arte
He Celebrates the Birthplace of Laura
HE, that with wisdom, goodness, power divine,
Did ample Nature’s perfect book design,
Adorn’d this beauteous world, and those above,
Kindled fierce Mars, and soften’d milder Jove:
When seen on earth the shadows to fulfill
Of the less volume which conceal’d his will,
Took John and Peter from their homely care,
And made them pillars of his temple fair.
Nor in imperial Rome would He be born,
10 Whom servile Judah yet received with scorn:
E’en Bethlehem could her infant King disown,
And the rude manger was his early throne.
Victorious sufferings did his pomp display,
Nor other chariot or triumphal way.
At once by Heaven’s example and decree,
Such honour waits on such humility.
P99: Poi, che voi et io più volte abbiam provato
FRIEND, as we both in confidence complain
To see our ill-placed hopes return in vain,
Let that chief good which must for ever please
Exalt our thought and fix our happiness.
This world as some gay flowery field is spread,
Which hides a serpent in its painted bed,
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