The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works

by Thomas Nashe

  The French King, Francis the First, he kept in such awe, that to chain his tongue he sent him a huge chain of gold, in the form of tongues fashioned. Singularly hath he commented of the humanity of Christ.216 Besides, as Moses set forth his Genesis, so hath he set forth his Genesis also, including the contents of the whole Bible. A notable treatise hath he compiled, called I sette Psalmi poenetentiarii.217 All the Thomasos have cause to love him, because he hath dilated so magnificently of the life of Saint Thomas.218 There is a good thing that he hath set forth, La vita della virgine Maria,219 though it somewhat smell of superstition, with a number more, which here, for tediousness, I suppress. If lascivious he were, he may answer with Ovid, Vita vere–cunda est, musa iocosa mea est: ‘My life is chaste, though wanton be my verse.’ Tell me, who is travelled in histories: what good poet is, or ever was there, who hath not had a little spice of wantonness in his days? Even Beza220 himself, by your leave. Aretine, as long as the world lives, shalt thou live. Tully, Virgil, Ovid, Seneca were never such ornaments to Italy as thou hast been. I never thought of Italy more religiously than England till I heard of thee. Peace to thy ghost, and yet methinks so indefinite a spirit should have no peace or intermission of pains, but be penning ditties to the archangels in another world. Puritans, spew forth the venom of your dull inventions. A toad swells with thick troubled poison; you swell with poisonous perturbations. Your malice hath not a clear dram of any inspired disposition.

  My principal subject plucks me by the elbow. Diamante, Castaldo’s ye magnifico’s wife, after my enlargement, proved to be with child, at which instant there grew an unsatiable famine in Venice wherein, whether it were for mere niggardise or that Castaldo still ate out his heart with jealousy, Saint Anne be our record, he turned up the heels very devoutly. To Master Aretine after this once more very dutifully I appealed, requested him of favour, acknowledged former gratuities. He made no more humming or halting, but, in despite of her husband’s kinsfolks, gave her her Nunc dimittis, and so established her free of my company.

  Being out, and fully possessed of her husband’s goods, she invested me in the state of a monarch. Because the time of childbirth drew nigh, and she could not remain in Venice but discredited, she decreed to travel withersoever I would conduct her. To see Italy throughout was my proposed scope, and that way if she would travel, have with her, I had where–withal to relieve her.

  From my master by her full-hand provokement, I parted without leave: the state of an earl he had thrust upon me before, and now I would not abate him an ace of it. Through all the cities passed I by no other name but the young Earl of Surrey; my pomp, my apparel, train and expense was nothing inferior to his; my looks were as lofty, my words as magnifical. Memorandum: that Florence being the principal scope of my master’s course, missing me, he journeyed thither without interruption. By the way as he went, he heard of another Earl of Surrey besides himself, which caused him make more haste to fetch me in, whom he little dreamed of had such art in my budget to separate the shadow from the body. Overtake me at Florence he did, where, sitting in my pontificalibus221 with my courtesan at supper, like Antony and Cleopatra when they quaffed standing bowls of wine spiced with pearl together, he stole in ere we sent for him, and bad much good it us, and asked us whether we wanted any guests. If he had asked me whether I would have hanged myself, his question had been more acceptable. He that had then ungartered me might have plucked out my heart at my heels.

  My soul, which was made to soar upward, now sought for passage downward; my blood, as the rushing Sabine maids, surprised on the sudden by the soldiers of Romulus, ran to the noblest of blood amongst them for succour, that were in no less (if not greater) danger, so did it run for refuge to the noblest of his blood about my heart assembled, that stood in more need itself of comfort and refuge. A trembling earthquake or shaking fever assailed either of us; and I think unfeinedly, if he, seeing our faintheart agony, had not soon cheered and refreshed us, the dogs had gone together by the ears under the table for our fear-dropped limbs.

  Instead of menacing or affrighting me with his sword or his frowns for my superlative presumption, he burst out into laughter above ela,222 to think how bravely napping he had took us, and how notably we were damped and struck dead in the nest with the unexpected view of his presence.

  ‘Ah,’ quoth he, ‘my noble Lord’ (after his tongue had borrowed a little leave of his laughter), ‘is it my luck to visit you thus unlooked for? I am sure you will bid me welcome, if it be but for the name’s sake. It is a wonder to see two English earls of one house at one time together in Italy.’ I hearing him so pleasant, began to gather up my spirits, and replied as boldly as I durst: ‘Sir, you are welcome. Your name which I borrowed I have not abused. Some large, sums of money this my sweet mistress Diamante hath made me master of, which I knew not how better to employ for the honour of my country than by spending it munificently under your name. No Englishman would I have renowned for bounty, magnificence and courtesy but you; under your colours all my meritorious works I was desirous to shroud. Deem it no insolence to add increase to your fame. Had I basely and beggarly, wanting ability to support any part of your royalty, undertook the estimation of this high calling, your allegement of injury had been the greater, and my defence less authorized. It will be thought but a policy of yours thus to send one before you who, being a follower of yours, shall keep and uphold the estate and port of an earl. I have known many earls myself that in their own persons would go very plain, but delighted to have one that belonged to them (being loaden with jewels, apparelled in cloth of gold and all the rich embroidery that might be) to stand bareheaded unto him; arguing thus much, that if the greatest men went not more sumptuous, how more great than the greatest was he that could command one going so sumptuous. A nobleman’s glory appeareth in nothing so much as in the pomp of his attendants. What is the glory of the sun, but that the moon and so many millions of stars borrow their lights from him? If you can reprehend me of any one illiberal licentious action I have disparaged your name with, heap shame on me prodigally; I beg no pardon or pity.’

  Non veniunt in idem pudor et amor:223 he was loth to detract from one that he loved so. Beholding with his eyes that I clipped not the wings of his honour, but rather increased them with additions of expense, he entreated me as if I had been an ambassador. He gave me his hand and swore he had no more hearts but one, and I should have half of it, in that I so enhanced his obscured reputation. ‘One thing’, quoth he, ‘my sweet Jack, I will entreat thee (it shall be but one), that, though I am well pleased thou shouldest be the ape of my birthright – as what nobleman hath not his ape and his fool? – yet that thou be an ape without a clog,224 not carry thy courtesan with thee.’ I told him that a king could do nothing without his treasury; this courtesan was my purse-bearer, my countenance and supporter. My earldom I would sooner resign than part with such a special benefactor. ‘Resign it I will, however, since I am thus challenged of stolen goods by the true owner. Lo, into my former state I return again; poor Jack Wilton and your servant am I, as I was at the beginning, and so will I persever to my life’s ending.’

  That theme was quickly cut off, and other talk entered in place, of what I have forgot, but talk it was and talk let it be and talk it shall be, for I do not mean here to remember it. We supped, we got to bed, rose in the morning, on my master I waited, and the first thing he did after he was up, he went and visited the house where his Geraldine was born, at sight whereof he was so impassioned that in the open street, but for me, he would have made an oration in praise of it. Into it we were conducted, and shewed each several room thereto appertaining. Oh, but when he came to the chamber where his Geraldine’s clear sunbeams first thrust themselves into this cloud of flesh and acquainted mortality with the purity of angels, then did his mouth overthrow with magnificats; his tongue thrust the stars out of heaven, and eclipsed the sun and moon with comparisons. Geraldine was the soul of heaven, sole daughter and heir to primus motor.225 The alchemy of his
eloquence, out of the incomprehensible drossy matter of clouds and air distilled no more quintessence than would make his Geraldine complete fair. In praise of the chamber that was so illuminatively honoured with her radiant conception, he penned this sonnet:

  Fair room, the presence of sweet beauty’s pride,

  The place the sun upon the earth did hold,

  When Phaeton his chariot did misguide,

  The tower where Jove rain’d down himself in gold,

  Prostrate, as holy ground I’ll worship thee;

  Our Lady’s chapel henceforth be thou nam’d;

  Here first Love’s queen put on mortality,

  And with her beauty all the world inflam’d.

  Heaven’s chambers harbouring fiery cherubins,

  Are not with thee in glory to compare;

  lightning it is, not light, which in thee shines,

  None enter thee but straight intranced are.

  Oh, if Elizium be above the ground,

  Then here it is, where nought but joy is found.

  Many other poems and epigrams in that chamber’s patient alabaster enclosure, which her melting eyes long sithence had softened, were curiously engraved. Diamonds thought themselves Dii mundi226 if they might but carve her name on the naked glass. With them on it did he anatomize these body-wanting mots:227 Dulce puella malum est; Quod fugit ipse sequor; Amor est mihi causa sequendi; O infelix ego; Cur vidi? cur perii? Non patienter amo. Tantum patiatur amari. After the view of these venereal monuments, he published a proud challenge in the Duke of Florence’s court against all comers, whether Christians, Turks, Jews or Saracens, in defence of his Geraldine’s beauty. More mildly was it accepted in that she whom he defended was a town-born child of that city, or else the pride of the Italian would have prevented him ere he should have come to perform it. The Duke of Florence nevertheless sent for him and demanded him of his estate and the reason that drew him thereto, which when he was advertised of to the full, he granted all countries whatsoever, as well enemies and outlaws as friends and confederates, free access and regress into his dominions unmolested until that insolent trial were ended.

  The right honourable and ever renowned Lord Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, my singular good lord and master, entered the lists after this order. His armour was ill intermixed with lilies and roses, and the bases thereof bordered with nettles and weeds, signifying stings, crosses and overgrowing encumbrances in his love; his helmet round-proportioned like a gardener’s water-pot, from which seemed to issue forth small threads of water, like cittern strings, that not only did moisten the lilies and roses, but did fructify as well the nettles and weeds, and made them overthrow their liege lords. Whereby he did import thus much, that the tears that issued from his brains, as those artificial distillations issued from the well-counterfeit water-pot on his head, watered and gave life as well to his mistress’ disdain (resembled to nettles and weeds) as increase of glory to her care-causing beauty (comprehended under the lilies and roses). The symbol thereto annexed was this: Ex lachrimis lachrimae.228 The trappings of his horse were pounced and bolstered out with rough-plumed silver plush, in full proportion and shape of an estrich. On the breast of the horse were the foreparts of this greedy bird advanced, whence, as his manner is, he reached out his long neck to the reins of the bridle, thinking they had been iron, and still seemed to gape after the golden bit, and ever as the courser did raise or curvet,229 to have swallowed it half in. His wings, which he never useth but running, being spread full sail, made his lusty steed as proud under him as he had been some other Pegasus, and so quiveringly and tenderly were these his broad wings bound to either side of him, that, as he paced up and down the tilt-yard in his majesty ere the knights were entered, they seemed wantonly to fan in his face and make a flickering sound, such as eagles do, swiftly pursuing their prey in the air. On either of his wings, as the estrich hath a sharp goad or prick wherewith he spurreth himself forward in his sail-assisted race, so this artificial estrich, on the inbent knuckle of the pinion of either wing, had embossed crystal eyes affixed, wherein wheelwise were circularly ingrafted sharp pointed diamonds, as rays from those eyes derived, that like the rowal of a spur ran deep into his horse sides, and made him more eager in his course.

  Such a fine dim shine did these crystal eyes and these round-enranked diamonds make through their bollen230 swelling bowers of feathers as if it had been a candle in a paper lantern, or a glow-worm in a bush by night, glistering through the leaves and briars. The tail of the estrich being short and thick served very fitly for a plume to trick up his horse-tail with, so that every part of him was as naturally coapted231 as might be. The word to this device was Aculeo alatus:232 ‘I spread my wings only spurred with her eyes’. The moral of the whole is this: that, as the cstrich, the most burning-sighted bird of all others, insomuch as the female of them hatcheth not her eggs by covering them but by the effectual rays of her eyes, as he, I say, outstrippeth the nimblest trippers of his feathered condition in footman-ship (only spurred on with the needle-quickening goad under his side), so he, no less burning-sighted than the estrich, spurred on to the race of honour by the sweet rays of his mistress’ eyes, persuaded himself he should outstrip all other in running to the goal of glory, only animated and incited by her excellence. And as the estrich will eat iron, swallow any hard metal whatsoever, so would he refuse no iron adventure, no hard task whatsoever, to sit in the grace of so fair a commander. The order of his shield was this: it was framed like a burning-glass, beset round with flame-coloured feathers, on the outside whereof was his mistress’ picture adorned as beautiful as art could portraiture; on the inside, a naked sword tied in a true loveknot; the mot, Militat omnis amans.233 Signifying that in a true-loveknot his sword was tied to defend and maintain the features of his mistress.

  Next him entered the Black Knight, whose beaver was pointed all torn and bloody, as though he had new come from combatting with a bear; his headpiece seemed to be a little oven fraught full with smothering flames, for nothing but sulphur and smoke voided out at the clefts of his beaver. His bases were all embroidered with snakes and adders, engendered of the abundance of innocent blood that was shed. His horse trappings were throughout bespangled with honey spots, which are no blemishes but ornaments. On his shield he bare the sun full shining on a dial at his going down; the word, Sufficit tandem.234

  After him followed the Knight of the Owl, whose armour was a stubbed tree overgrown with ivy, his helmet fashioned like an owl sitting on the top of this ivy. On his bases were wrought all kind of birds, as on the ground, wondering about him; the word, Idea mirum quia monstrum.235 His horse’s furniture was framed like a cart, scattering whole sheaves of corn amongst hogs; the word, Liberalitas liberalitate perit.236 On his shield, a bee entangled in sheep’s wool; the mot, Frontis nulla fides.237 The fourth that succeeded was a well-proportioned knight in an armour imitating rust, whose headpiece was prefigured like flowers growing in a narrow pot, where they had not any space to spread their roots or disperse their flourishing. His bases embellished with open armed hands scattering gold amongst truncheons; the word, Cura futuri est.238 His horse was harnessed with leaden chains, having the outside gilt, or at least saffroned instead of gilt, to decipher a holy or golden pretence of a covetous purpose; the sentence, Cani capilli mei compedes.239 On his target240 he had a number of crawling worms kept under by a block; the faburthen,241 Speramus lucent.242 The fifth was the Forsaken Knight, whose helmet was crowned with nothing but cypress and willow garlands. Over his armour he had Hymen’s nuptial robe, dyed in a dusky yellow, and all-to-be-defaced and discoloured with spots and stains. The enigma, Nos quoque floruimus, as who should say ‘We have been in fashion.’ His steed was adorned with orange tawny eyes, such as those have that have the yellow jandies,243 that make all things yellow they look upon; with this brief,244 Qui invident egent, ‘Those that envy are hungry.’ The sixth was the Knight of the Storms, whose helmet was round-moulded like the moon, and all his armour like waves, w
hereon the shine of the moon, sleightly silvered, perfectly represented moonshine in the water. His bases were the banks or shores that bounded in the streams. The spoke245 was this, Frustra pius, as much to say as ‘fruitless service’. On his shield he set forth a lion driven from his prey by a dunghill cock. The word, Non vi sed voce: ‘not by violence but by voice’.