25 Poems and Lyrics of Edward de Vere

(Arranged alphabetically by first line, first key word)

1. Come hither, shepherd swain! (Fond Desire)
2. A crown of bays shall that man wear (Song: The Forsaken Man)
3. Doth sorrow fret thy soul?
4. Even as the wax doth melt, or dew consume away (Care and Disappointment)
5. Faction that ever dwells (Fortune and Love)
6. Fain would I sing, but fury makes me fret (Revenge of Wrong)
7. Fram’d in the front of forlorn hope past all recovery (Loss of Good Name)
8. I am not as I seem to be
9. If care or skill could conquer vain desire, (Reason and Affection)
10. If women could be fair and yet not fond (Woman’s Changeableness)
11. The labouring man that tills the fertile soil, (Part of preface to Bedingfield’s Cardanus Comfort)
12. The lively lark stretched forth her wing (The Meeting with Desire)
13. Love is a discord and a strange divorce (Love is a Discord)
14. My meaning is to work (Love and Wit)
15. My mind to me a kingdom is
16. Sitting alone upon my thought in melancholy mood (Echo Verses)
17. The trickling tears that fall along my cheeks (Love and Antagonism)
18. Were I a king I might command content (Wert thou a King yet not command content)
19. What cunning can express
20. What is Desire, which doth approve (What is Desire?)
21. What plague is greater than grief of mind? (Grief of Mind)
22. When I was fair and young then favour graced me (Verses ascribed to Queen Elizabeth)
23. Whenas the heart at tennis plays (Love compared to a tennis-play)
24. Who taught thee first to sigh, alas my heart? (Love Thy Choice)
25. Winged with desire, I seek to mount on high

Appendices
Glossary
Connections
Sources and Suggested Reading

Modern spelling transcriptions by B.F. and R.B. copyright © 2002
Underlined words are in the Glossary.
Note on Sources: Fuller’s = Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies’ Library, Vol. IV (1872);
JTL = De Vere’s poems arranged by JT Looney

 

Poems and Lyrics of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

1. Come hither, shepherd swain (Fond Desire)

   [song lyrics – to be performed by two singers]

Come hither, shepherd swain!
Sir, what do you require?
I pray thee show to me thy name;
My name is Fond Desire.

When wert thou born, Desire?
In pride and pomp of May.
By whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot?
By fond conceit men say.

Tell me who was thy nurse?
Fresh youth, in sugar’d joy.
What was thy meat and daily food?
Sad sighs and great annoy.

What had’st thou then to drink?
Unfeign’d lover’s tears.
What cradle wert thou rocked in?
In hope devoid of fears.

What lulled thee to thy sleep?
Sweet thoughts that liked one best.
and where is now thy dwelling place?
In gentle hearts I rest.

Doth company displease?
It doth in many one.
Where would Desire then choose to be?
He loves to muse alone.

What feedeth most thy sight?
To gaze on beauty still.
Whom find’st thou most thy foe?
Disdain of my good will.

Will ever age or death
Bring thee unto decay?
No, no, Desire, farewell;
A thousand times a day.

The, Fond Desire, farewell;
Thou art no mate for me;
I should be loathe, methinks, to dwell
With such a one as thee.
Earle of Oxenforde

Sources: Fuller’s #10; JTL #6
A less complete version of this song appeared in the anonymous Arte of English Poesy 1589.
Complete version from Rawlinson MS. folio 15. Similar copy in Harleian MS 6910.
Steven May uses the variant version.

2. A crown of bays shall that man wear (Song: The Forsaken Man)

   [song lyrics]

A crown of bays shall that man wear,
That triumphs over me;
For black and tawny will I wear,
Which mourning colors be.
The more I follow’d one,
The more she fled away,
As Daphne did full long agone
Apollo’s wishful prey.
The more my plaints I do resound
The less she pities me;
The more I sought the less I found,
Yet mine she meant to be.
Melpomene alas, with doleful tunes help then
And sing Bis, woe worth on me forsaken man.

Then Daphne’s bays shall that man wear,
That triumphs over me;
For black and tawny will I wear,
Which mourning colors be.
Drown me with trickling tears,
You wailful wights of woe;
Come help these hands to rend my hairs,
My rueful hap to show.

On whom the scorching flame
Of love doth feed you see;
Ah a lalalantida, my dear dame
Hath thus tormented me.
Wherefore you muses nine, with doleful tunes help than,
And sing, Bis, woe worth on me forsaken man.

Then Daphne’s bays shall that man wear,
That triumphs over me;
For black and tawny will I wear,
Which mourning colors be;
An anchor’s life to lead,
With nails to scratch my grave,
Where earthly worms on me shall feed,
Is all the joy I crave;
And hide myself from shame,
Since that mine eyes do see,
Ah a lalalantida, my dear dame
Hath thus tormented me.
And all that present be, with doleful tunes help than,
And sing Bis, woe worth on me, forsaken man.
Finis. E. O.

Sources: Fuller’s #6; JTL #13
1st printed in Paradyse of Dainty Devices, 1576
Note similarities to Sonnets 133, 89

3. Doth sorrow fret thy soul?

   [song lyrics]

Doth sorrow fret thy soul?      O direful sprite.
Doth pleasure feed thy heart? O blessed man.
Hast thou been happy once?  O heavy plight.
Are thy mishaps forepast?      O happy than (then)
Or hast thou bliss in eld?        O bliss too late:
But hast thou bliss in youth?    O sweet estate.
E. of O.

Sources: Fuller’s #17, called “Questions and Answers”; JTL #22
Published in England’s Parnassus, 1600. The poem also appears in Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella
Attribution: Prof. May lists this poem as “wrongly attributed” to Oxford.

4. Even as the wax doth melt, or dew consume away (Care and Disappointment)

   [ His Mynde not Quietly Settled, he Writeth thus ]

Even as the wax doth melt, or dew consume away
Before the sun, so I, behold, through careful thoughts decay;
For my best luck leads me to such sinister state,
That I do waste with others’ love, that hath myself in hate.
And he that beats the bush the wished bird not gets,
But such, I see, as sitteth still and holds the fowling nets.

The drone more honey sucks, that laboureth not at all,
Than doth the bee, to whose most pain least pleasure doth befall:
The gard’ner sows the seeds, whereof the flowers do grow,
And others yet do gather them, that took less pain I trow.
So I the pleasant grape have pulled from the vine,
And yet I languish in great thirst, while others drink the wine.

Thus like a woeful wight I wove the web of woe,
The more I would weed out my cares, the more they seemed to grow:
The which betokeneth, forsaken is of me,
That with the careful culver climbs the worn and withered tree,
To entertain my thoughts, and there my hap to moan,
That never am less idle, lo! than when I am alone.
Finis. E. Ox.

Sources: Fuller’s #3; JTL #15
1st printed in Paradyse of Dainty Devices, 1576

5. Faction that ever dwells (Fortune and Love)

   [song lyrics]

Faction that ever dwells
In court, where wit excels.
Hath set defiance:
Fortune and Love have sworn,
That they were never born
Of one alliance.

Cupid, which doth aspire,
To be God of Desire,
Swears he gives laws;
That where his arrows hit,
Some joy, some sorrow it,
Fortune no cause.

Fortune swears weakest hearts
(The books of Cupid’s arts)
Turn’d with her wheel.
Senseless themselves shall prove
Venter hath place in love,
Ask them that feel.

This discord it begot
Atheists, that honour not.
Stature thought good,
Fortune should ever dwell
In court, where wits excel,
Love keep the wood.

So to the wood went I,
With love to live and lie,
Fortune’s forlorn.
Experience of my youth,
Made me think humble Truth
In deserts born.

My saint I keep to me,
And Joan herself is she,
Joan fair and true.
She that doth only move
Passions of love with love
Fortune adieu !

Sources: Fuller’s #14 called “Cupid and Fortune”; JTL #7
Attribution: Prof. May: ‘wrongly attributed’ to Oxford; accepted as Oxford by Dr. Grosart.
First published as by Sidney in Astrophel and Stella (1591).
Sometimes attributed to Fulke Greville

6. Fain would I sing, but fury makes me fret (Revenge of Wrong)

Fain would I sing, but fury makes me fret,
And Rage hath sworn to seek revenge of wrong;
My mazed mind in malice so is set,
As Death shall daunt my deadly dolours long;
Patience perforce is such a pinching pain,
As die I will, or suffer wrong again.

I am no sot, to suffer such abuse
As doth bereave my heart of his delight;
Nor will I frame myself to such as use,
With calm consent, to suffer such despite;
No quiet sleep shall once possess mine eye
Till Wit have wrought his will on Injury.

My heart shall fail, and hand shall lose his force,
But some device shall pay Despite his due;
And Fury shall consume my careful course,
Or raze the ground whereon my sorrow grew.
Lo, thus in rage of ruthful mind refused,
I rest revenged on whom I am abused.
Finis. Earle of Oxenforde.

Sources: Fuller’s #20 [Longings]; JTL #11
Tann. MS. 306

7. Framed in the front of forlorn hope past all recovery (Loss of Good Name)

   [song lyrics]

Fram’d in the front of forlorn hope past all recovery,
I stayless stand, to abide the shock of shame and infamy.
My life, through ling’ring long, is lodg’d in lair of loathsome ways;
My death delay’d to keep from life the harm of hapless days.
My sprites, my heart, my wit and force, in deep distress are drown’d;
The only loss of my good name is of these griefs the ground.

And since my mind, my wit, my head, my voice and tongue are weak,
To utter, move, devise, conceive, sound forth, declare and speak,
Such piercing plaints as answer might, or would my woeful case,
Help crave I must, and crave I will, with tears upon my face,
Of all that may in heaven or hell, in earth or air be found,
To wail with me this loss of mine, as of these griefs the ground.

Help Gods, help saints, help sprites and powers that in the heaven do dwell,
Help ye that are aye wont to wail, ye howling hounds of hell;
Help man, help beasts, help birds and worms, that on the earth do toil;
Help fish, help fowl, that flock and feed upon the salt sea soil,
Help echo that in air doth flee, shrill voices to resound,
To wail this loss of my good name, as of these griefs the ground.
Finis. E.O.

Sources: Fuller’s #5 [His good name being blemished he bewaileth]; JTL #10
1st printed in Paradyse of Dainty Devices, 1576 & updated in 1596 edition
See Connections file below for especially interesting literary parallels to this poem.

8. I am not as I seem to be

   [song lyrics]

I am not as I seem to be,
For when I smile I am not glad;
A thrall, although you count me free,
I, most in mirth, most pensive sad,
I smile to shade my bitter spite
As Hannibal that saw in sight
His country soil with Carthage town,
By Roman force defaced down.

And Caesar that presented was,
With noble Pompey’s princely head;
As ’twere some judge to rule the case,
A flood of tears he seemed to shed;
Although indeed it sprung of joy;
Yet others thought it was annoy.
Thus contraries be used I find,
Of wise to cloak the covert mind

I, Hannibal that smile for grief;
And let you Caesar’s tears suffice;
The one that laughs at his mischief;
The other all for joy that cries.
I smile to see me scorned so,
You weep for joy to see me woe;
And I, a heart by Love slain dead,
Present in place of Pompey’s head.

O cruel hap and hard estate,
That forceth me to love my foe;
Accursed be so foul a fate,
My choice for to prefix it so.
So long to fight with secret sore
And find no secret salve therefore;
Some purge their pain by plaint I find,
But I in vain do breathe my wind.
Finis. E.O.

Sources: Fuller’s #2 [Not Attaining to his Desire he complaineth]; JTL #14
1st printed in Paradyse of Dainty Devices, 1576 & updated in 1596 edition
Similar to the closing song of Love’s Labors Lost

9. If care or skill could conquer vain desire (Reason and Affection)

If care or skill could conquer vain desire,
Or Reason’s reins my strong affection stay:
There should my sighs to quiet breast retire,
And shun such signs as secret thoughts betray;
Uncomely Love which now lurks in my breast
Should cease, my grief through Wisdom’s power oppress’d.

But who can leave to look on Venus’ face,
Or yieldeth not to Juno’s high estate ?
What wit so wise as gives not Pallas place ?
These virtues rare each Gods did yield a mate;
Save her alone, who yet on earth doth reign,
Whose beauty’s string no God can well destrain.

What worldly wight can hope for heavenly hire,
When only sighs must make his secret moan ?
A silent suit doth seld to grace aspire,
My hapless hap doth roll the restless stone.
Yet Phoebe fair disdained the heavens above,
To joy on earth her poor Endymion’s love.

Rare is reward where none can justly crave,
For chance is choice where Reason makes no claim;
Yet luck sometimes despairing souls doth save,
A happy star made Giges joy attain.
A slavish smith, of rude and rascal race,
Found means in time to gain a Godess’ grace.

Then lofty Love thy sacred sails advance,
My sighing seas shall flow with streams of tears;
Amidst disdains drive forth thy doleful chance,
A valiant mind no deadly danger fears;
Who loves aloft and sets his heart on high
Deserves no pain, though he do pine and die.
Finis. E.O.

Sources: Fuller’s #4 [Coelum non Solum]; JTL #17
1st printed in Paradyse of Dainty Devices, 1576 & updated in 1596 edition
Also called “Being in Love he complaineth”

10. If women could be fair and yet not fond (Woman’s Changeableness)

    [song lyrics]

If women could be fair and yet not fond,
Or that their love were firm not fickle, still,
I would not marvel that they make men bond,
By service long to purchase their good will;
But when I see how frail those creatures are,
I muse that men forget themselves so far.

To mark the choice they make, and how they change,
How oft from Phoebus do they flee to Pan,
Unsettled still like haggards wild they range,
These gentle birds that fly from man to man;
Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist
And let them fly fair fools which way they list.

Yet for disport we fawn and flatter both,
To pass the time when nothing else can please,
And train them to our lure with subtle oath,
Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease;
And then we say when we their fancy try,
To play with fools, O what a fool was I.
Finis. Earle of Oxenforde.

Sources: Fuller’s #19 [Fayre Fooles] ; JTL #19
From Rawlinson MS 85 Folio 16
A variation printed as a song lyric by Oxford – by Byrd in 1587
Prof. May lists this poem as “possibly” by Oxford.
Note: This poem has important literary connections.

11. The labouring man that tills the fertile soil   (Labour and its Reward)

    (Part of the preface to Bedingfield’s Cardanus Comfort, 1576)

The labouring man that tills the fertile soil,
And reaps the harvest fruit, hath not indeed
The gain, but pain; and if for all his toil
He gets the straw, the lord will have the seed.
The manchet fine falls not unto his share;
On coarsest cheat his hungry stomach feeds.
The landlord doth possess the finest fare;
He pulls the flowers, he plucks but weeds.
The mason poor that builds the lordly halls,
Dwells not in them; they are for high degree;
His cottage is compact in paper walls,
And not with brick or stone, as others be.
The idle drone that labours not at all,
Sucks up the sweet of honey from the bee;
Who worketh most to their share least doth fall,
With due desert reward will never be.
The swiftest hare unto the mastive slow
Oft-times doth fall, to him as for a prey;
The greyhound thereby doth miss his game we know
For which he made such speedy haste away.
So he that takes the pain to pen the book,
Reaps not the gifts of goodly golden muse;
But those gain that, who on the work shall look,
And from the sour the sweet by skill doth choose,
For he that beats the bush the bird not gets,
But who sits still and holdeth fast the nets.

Sources: The Earl of Oxford to the Reader in Bedingfield’s Cardanus’s Comfort (1576).
Fuller’s #21; JTL #8

12. The lively lark stretched forth her wing    (Desire)

    [song lyrics]

The lively lark stretched forth her wing
The messenger of Morning bright;
And with her cheerful voice did sing
The Day’s approach, discharging Night;
When that Aurora blushing red,
Descried the guilt of Thetis’ bed.
    Laradon tan tan, Tedriton teight

I went abroad to take the air,
And in the meads I met a knight,
Clad in carnation color fair;
I did salute this gentle wight:
Of him I did his name inquire,
He sighed and said it was Desire.
    Laradon tan tan, Tedriton teight

Desire I did desire to stay;
And while with him I craved talk,
The courteous knight said me no nay,
But hand in hand with me did walk;
Then of Desire I ask’d again,
What things did please and what did pain.
    Laradon tan tan

He smiled and thus he answered than [then]:
Desire can have no greater pain,
Than for to see another man,
The things desired to attain;
Nor greater joy can be than this:
That to enjoy that others miss.
    Laridon tan tan
                                Finis. Earle of Oxforde.

Sources: Fuller’s #7; JTL #4
From the Rawlinson MS. 85 folio 14
Appeared also in Paradyse of Dainty Devices, 1576 as “Judgement of Desire by EO”
The “nonsense” tags, sung for effect, were left out by JTL and Grosart.
They are in the Paradyse 1576 version

13. Love is a discord and a strange divorce (Love is a Discord)

    [song lyrics]

Love is a discord and a strange divorce
Betwixt our sense and rest, by whose power,
As mad with reason, we admit that force
Which wit or labour never may divorce (?):
It is a will that brooketh no consent;
It would refuse yet never may repent.

Love’s a desire, which, for to wait a time,
Doth lose an age of years, and so doth pass
As doth the shadow sever’d from his prime;
Seeming as though it were, yet never was;
leaving behind naught but repentant thought
Of days ill spent of that which profits nought.

It’s now a peace and then a sudden war,
A hope consumed before it is conceived;
At hand it fears, and menaceth afar;
And he that gains is most of all deceived.
Love whets the dullest wits, his plagues be such,
But makes the wise by pleasing dote as much.

Sources: Fuller’s #16; JTL #16
Published in England’s Parnassus, 1600.
Attribution: Prof. May lists this poem as “wrongly attributed” to Oxford.

14. My meaning is to work (Love and Wit)

    [song lyrics]

My meaning is to work
What wonders love hath wrought,
Wherein I muse, why men of wit
Have love so dearly bought.

For love is worse than hate,
And eke more harm hath done;
Record I take of those that rede
Of Paris, Priam’s son.

It seemed the god of sleep
Had mazed so much his wits,
When he refused wit for love,
Which cometh but by fits.

But why accuse I him,
Whom th’ earth hath covered long?
There be of his posterity
Alive, I do him wrong.

Whom I might well condemn,
To be a cruel judge
Unto myself, who hath the crime
In others that I grudge.
Finis.  E.O.

Sources: Fuller’s #11; JTL #18
1st printed in a 19th century edition of Paradyse of Dainty Devices, [1810]
It is not clear where the editor (Brydges) of that edition found the lost lyric.

15. My mind to me a kingdom is

    [song lyrics]

My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
That it excels all other bliss
That world affords or grows by kind.
Though much I want which most men have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

No princely pomp, no wealthy store,
No force to win the victory,
No wily wit to salve a sore,
No shape to feed each gazing eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall.
For why my mind doth serve for all.

I see how plenty suffers oft,
How hasty climbers soon do fall;
I see that those that are aloft
Mishap doth threaten most of all;
They get with toil, they keep with fear.
Such cares my mind could never bear.

Content I live, this is my stay;
I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look what I lack my mind supplies;
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.
I little have, and seek no more.
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store.
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I leave, they pine, I live.

I laugh not at another’s loss;
I grudge not at another’s gain:
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
My state at one doth still remain.
I fear no foe, nor fawning friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread my end.

Some weigh their pleasure by their lust,
Their wisdom by their rage of will,
Their treasure is their only trust;
And cloaked craft their store of skill.
But all the pleasure that I find
Is to maintain a quiet mind.

My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clear my chief defense;
I neither seek by bribes to please,
Nor by deceit to breed offense.
Thus do I live; thus will I die.
Would all did so as well as I!

Attribution: Dr. Stephen W. May [Studies in Philology, 1980] [R.E.S. 36, 104 (1975)]
Poem has also appeared in collections attributed to Sir Edward Dyer

16. Sitting alone upon my thought in melancholy mood (Echo Verses)

Sitting alone upon my thought in melancholy mood,
In sight of sea, and at my back an ancient hoary wood,
I saw a fair young lady come, her secret fears to wail,
Clad all in color of a nun, and covered with a veil;
Yet (for the day was calm and clear) I might discern her face,
As one might see a damask rose hid under crystal glass.

Three times, with her soft hand, full hard on her left side she knocks,
And sigh’d so sore as might have mov’d some pity in the rocks;
From sighs and shedding amber tears into sweet song she brake,
When thus the echo answered her to every word she spake:

[Ann Vavasour’s Echo]

Oh heavens ! who was the first that bred in me this fever ?                Vere
Who was the first that gave the wound whose fear I wear for ever ?  Vere.
What tyrant, Cupid, to my harm usurps thy golden quiver ?               Vere.
What sight first caught this heart and can from bondage it deliver ?    Vere.

Yet who doth most adore this sight, oh hollow caves tell true ?            You.
What nymph deserves his liking best, yet doth in sorrow rue ?             You.
What makes him not reward good will with some reward or ruth ?       Youth.
What makes him show besides his birth, such pride and such untruth ? Youth.

May I his favour match
May I his favour match with love, if he my love will try?    Ay.
May I requite his birth with faith ? Then faithful will I die ? Ay.
And I, that knew this lady well,
Said, Lord how great a miracle,
To her how Echo told the truth,
As true as Phoebus’ oracle.
The Earle of Oxforde.

Sources: Fuller’s #12 [Vision of a Fair Maid, with Echo-Verses]; JTL #1
Rawlinson MS.85 folio 11 “Verses made by the earle of Oxforde”
Attribution: Prof. May lists this poem as “possibly” by Oxford; accepted by Dr. Grosart.
The heading ” Ann Vavasour’s Echo” is in the MS.

17. The trickling tears that fall along my cheeks (Love and Antagonism)

    [song lyrics]

The trickling tears that fall along my cheeks,
The secret sighs that show my inward grief,
The present pains perforce that Love aye seeks,
Bid me renew my cares without relief;
In woeful song, in dole display,
My pensive heart for to betray.

Betray thy grief, thy woeful heart with speed;
Resign thy voice to her that caused thee woe;
With irksome cries, bewail thy late done deed,
For she thou lov’st is sure thy mortal foe;
And help for thee there is none sure,
But still in pain thou must endure.

The stricken deer hath help to heal his wound,
The haggard hawk with toil is made full tame;
The strongest tower, the cannon lays on ground,
The wisest wit that ever had the fame,
Was thrall to Love by Cupid’s slights;
Then weigh my cause with equal wights (weights).

She is my joy, she is my care and woe;
She is my pain, she is my ease therefore;
She is my death, she is my life also,
She is my salve, she is my wounded sore:
In fine, she hath the hand and knife,
That may both save and end my life.

And shall I live on earth to be her thrall?
And shall I live and serve her all in vain?
And kiss the steps that she lets fall,
And shall I pray the Gods to keep the pain
From her that is so cruel still?
No, no, on her work all your will.

And let her feel the power of all your might,
And let her have her most desire with speed,
And let her pine away both day and night,
And let her moan, and none lament her need;
And let all those that shall her see,
Despise her state and pity me.
Finis. E. O.

Sources: Fuller’s #1 [A Lover rejected Complaineth]; JTL #12
Appeared also in Paradyse of Dainty Devices, 1576 and updated in 1596
Note: Another poem with specially interesting connections.

18. Were I a king I might command content

    JTL’s version:

Were I a king I might command content;
Were I obscure unknown would be my cares,
And were I dead no thoughts should me torment,
Nor words, nor wrongs, nor love, nor hate, nor fears
A doubtful choice of these things which to crave,
A kingdom or a cottage or a grave.                     Vere

Fuller’s version:

Were I a king I might command content;
Were I obscure unknown should be my cares,
And were I dead no thoughts should me torment,
Nor words, nor wrongs, nor love, nor hate, nor fears
A doubtful choice for me of three things one to crave,
A kingdom or a cottage or a grave.                     Vere

Sources: Fuller’s #22 [Epigram]; JTL #20
(See also 2H6, 3H6, Rich2.)

In the Chetham MS.8012 is Philip Sidney’s reply to this poem.

Sidney’s Answer:
Wert thou a King yet not command content,
Since empire none thy mind could yet suffice,
Wert thou obscure still cares would thee torment;
But wert thou dead, all care and sorrow dies;
An easy choice of these things which to crave,
No kingdom nor a cottage but a grave.

19. What cunning can express

What cunning can express
The favour of her face ?
To whom in this distress,
I do appeal for grace.
A thousand Cupids fly
About her gentle eye.

From which each throws a dart,
That kindleth soft sweet fire:
Within my sighing heart,
Possessed by Desire.
No sweeter life I try,
Than in her love to die.

The lily in the field,
That glories in his white,
For pureness now must yield,
And render up his right;
Heaven pictured in her face,
Doth promise joy and grace.

Fair Cynthia’s silver light,
That beats on running streams,
Compares not with her white,
Whose hairs are all sun-beams;
So bright my Nymph doth shine,
As day unto my eyne.

With this there is a red,
Exceeds the Damask-Rose;
Which in her cheeks is spread,
Whence every favour grows.
In sky there is no star,
But she surmounts it far.

When Phoebus from the bed
Of Thetis doth arise,
The morning blushing red,
In fair carnation wise;
He shows in my Nymph’s face,
As Queen of every grace.

This pleasant lily white,
This taint of roseate red;
This Cynthia’s silver light,
This sweet fair Dea spread;
These sunbeams in mine eye,
These beauties make me die.
Finis. Earle of Oxenford.

Sources: Fuller’s #18 [The Shepherds commendation of his Nymph]; JTL #3
First appeared in this format in Phoenix Nest (1593), then England’s Helicon (1600)
as “What Shepherd can Express”. Fuller’s follows Helicon and has the poem begin:
What shepherd can express
The favor of her face ?

20. What is Desire, which doth approve (What is Desire)

What is Desire, which doth approve,
To set on fire each gentle heart ?
A fancy strange, or God of Love,
Whose pining sweet delight doth smart;
In gentle minds his dwelling is.

Is he god of peace or war ?
What be his arms ? What is his might ?
His war is peace, his peace is war;
Each grief of his is but delight;
His bitter ball is sugared bliss.

What be his gifts ? How doth he pay ?
When is he seen ? or how conceived ?
Sweet dreams in sleep, new thoughts in day,
Beholding eyes, in mind received;
A god that rules and yet obeys.

Why is he naked painted? Blind?
His sides with shafts? His back with brands?
Plain without guile, by hap to find;
Pursuing with fair words that [withstands]
And when he craves he takes no nays.

What were his parents? Gods or no?
That living long is yet a child;
A goddess’ son? Who thinks not so?
A god begot, beguiled;
Venus his mother, Mars his sire.

What labours doth this god allow?
What fruits have lovers for their pains?
Sit still and muse to make a vow
T.’ their ladies, if they true remain;
A good reward for true desire.

Sources: Fuller’s #9 [Love Questions]; JTL #5
From Rawlinsons MS. 85 folio 15
Prof. May says this one is ‘wrongly attributed’ to Oxford; It was accepted by Dr. Grosart.

21. What plague is greater than the grief of mind? (Grief of Mind)

What plague is greater than the grief of mind?
The grief of mind that eats in every vein;
In every vein that leaves such clots behind;
Such clots behind as breed such bitter pain;
So bitter pain that none shall ever find,
What plague is greater than the grief of mind.
E. of Ox

Sources: Fuller’s #15; JTL #23
Published in England’s Parnassus, 1600.
The poem also appears in Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella
Prof. May lists this poem as “wrongly attributed” to Oxford.

22. When I was fair and young

When I was fair and young then favour graced me;
Of many was I sought their mistress for to be.
But I did scorn them all, and answered them therefore,
Go, go, go, seek some otherwhere,
Importune me no more.

How many weeping eyes I made to pine in woe;
How many sighing hearts I have no skill to show;
Yet I the prouder grew, and answered them therefore,
Go, go, go, seek some otherwhere,
Importune me no more.

Then spake fair Venus’ son, that proud victorious boy,
And said, you dainty dame, since that you be so coy,
I will so pluck your plumes that you shall say no more
Go, go, go, seek some otherwhere,
Importune me no more.

When he had spake these words such change grew in my breast,
That neither night nor day I could take any rest.
Then, lo ! I did repent, that I had said before
Go, go, go, seek some otherwhere,
Importune me no more.

Attribution: This poem was considered by both Dr. Grosart and Looney to be Oxford’s based on one extant manuscript copy, although another extant manuscript copy attributed it to Queen Elizabeth. Prof. May lists it as ‘wrongly attributed’ to Oxford and only ‘possibly’ by the Queen.
Sources: Fuller’s #23 [Love-Lay]; JTL #24

23. Whenas the heart at tennis plays (Love compared to a tennis-play)

Whenas the heart at tennis plays, and men to gaming fall,
Love is the court, hope is the house, and favour serves the ball.
The ball itself is true desert; the line ,which measure shows,
Is reason, whereon judgment looks how players win or lose.
The jetty is deceitful guile; the stopper, jealousy,
Which hath Sir Argus’ hundred eyes wherewith to watch and pry.
The fault, wherewith fifteen is lost, is want of wit and sense,
And he that brings the racket in is double diligence.
And lo, the racket is freewill, which makes the ball rebound;
And noble beauty is the chase, of every game the ground.
But rashness strikes the ball awry, and where is oversight?
and quote; A bandy ho,and quote; the people cry, and so the ball takes flight.
Now, in the end, good-liking proves content the game and gain.
Thus, in a tennis, knit I love, a pleasure mixed with pain.

Source: Steven May

24. Who taught thee first to sigh, alas, my heart? (Love Thy Choice)

Who taught thee first to sigh, alas, my heart ?
Who taught thy tongue the woeful words of plaint ?
Who filled your eyes with tears of bitter smart ?
Who gave thee grief and made thy joys to faint ?
Who first did paint with colors pale thy face ?
Who first did break thy sleeps of quiet rest?
Above the rest in court who gave thee grace ?
Who made thee strive in honour to be best ?
In constant truth to bide so firm and sure,
To scorn the world regarding but thy friends ?
With patient mind each passion to endure,
In one desire to settle to the end ?
Love then thy choice wherein such choice thou bind,
As nought but death may ever change thy mind.
Finis. Earle of Oxenforde.

Sources: Fuller’s #13 [Love thy Choice]; JTL #2
Rawlinson MS 85 folio 16
Note that this is a proper 14 line Sonnet.

25. Winged with desire, I seek to mount on high

Winged with desire, I seek to mount on high,
Clogged with mishap, yet am I kept full low;
Who seeks to live and finds the way to die,
Sith comfort ebbs and cares do daily flow,
But sad despair would have me to retire,
When smiling hope sets forward my desire.
I still do toil, and never am at rest,
Enjoying least when I do covet most;
With weary thoughts are my green years oppressed,
To danger drawn from my desired coast,
Now crazed with care, then haled up with hope,
With world at will, yet wanting wished scope.
I like in heart, yet dare not say I love,
And looks alone do lend me chief relief;
I dwelt sometimes at rest, yet must remove;
With feigned joy I hide my secret grief;
I would possess, yet needs must flee the place
Where I do seek to win my chiefest grace.
Lo, thus I live twixt fear and comfort tossed,
With least abode where best I feel content;
I seld resort where I should settle most;
My sliding times too soon with her are spent;
I hover high, and soar where hope doth tower,
Yet froward fate defers my happy hour.
I live abroad, but still in secret grief,
Then least alone when most I seem to lurk;
I speak of peace, and live in endless strife,
And when I play, then are my thoughts at work;
In person far, that am in mind full near,
Making light show where I esteem most dear.
A malcontent, yet seem I pleased still,
Bragging of heaven, yet feeling pains of hell;
But time shall frame a time unto my will,
Whenas in sport this earnest will I tell;
Till then, sweet friend, abide these storms with me
Which shall in joys of either fortunes be.

Source: Steven May

APPENDICES

Glossary

culver (n): dove, wood pigeon. NFS. Cf. Oxford poem; Spenser sonnet.

greyhound (greund/grewnde: sight hound, probably a bitch, valued for speed. FS (5-LLL, 1H4, Shrew, MWW, Corio); Golding Ovid; Oxford poem (Cardanus); illustration on title page of Watson Hek (Actaeon); illustration on title page of Willobie (Actaeon). Apparently adopted by the Earl of Oxford as a heraldic animal during the reign of Henry VIII.

manchet/mancheate (n): fine wheaten bread. NFS. Cf. Golding Ovid; Oxford Cardanus poem. OED also cites: 1577 Harrison England

pine, pine away (v): starve, waste away. FS (10+); Golding Ovid; Oxford poems; many others.

wight [wyght]: living being. FS (8-H5, LLL, MWW, Pericles, Oth); Golding Ovid, Abraham; Oxford poem; many others.

Connections

Marked means marked in Oxford’s copy of the Geneva Bible
Chris Paul deserves special thanks for contributions to this section.

#1
Fond Desire
Brooke Romeus (2123): When love and fond desire were boiling in my breast,
Golding Ovid (Ep.130): … But pride and fond desire of praise have ever wrought …
(VI.61): And through a fond desire / Of glory, to her own decay …
(VIII.89): … For fortune works against the fond desire …
(VIII.302): … Of fond desire to fly to Heaven, above his bounds he stied.
(IX.744-45): … is much as in respect / My fond desire to satisfy, and little in effect
Watson Hek (LXIIII): Whome love doth force to follow fond desire …
Which fond desire no counsel can remove;
(LXXIX): And fond desire doth overmaster will:
(XCI): You suffer now by forced fond desire:
Gascoigne … Jocasta (Epi): O fond desire of princely …
Lyly Gallathea (I.3) MELEBEUS: … suffering thee to perish by a fond desire …
Shakes TGV (I.1)VAL: Thou art a votary to fond desire.
Lucrece (45): … But his hot heart, which fond desire doth scorch,
Greene (Prince’s Sonnet.7): The boy waxy bold, fired by fond desire (in poem)
Anon. Willobie (III.10): The root of woe is fond desire, …
(XXIII.4): To daunt the qualms of fond desire,
Penelope (XIV.5): My lightness breeds their fond desire

#2
Trickling … Tears
Brooke Romeus (1193): The nurse with trickling tears to witness inward smart,
(1540): Their trickling tears, as crystal clear, but bitterer far than gall.
Gascoigne … Jocasta (II.1.69) JOC: Naught else but tears have trickled from mine eyes,
(V.2.153) NUNCIUS: The trickling tears rained down his paled cheeks:
Golding Ovid Met (I.430): And with these words the bitter tears did trickle down their cheek,
(II.821): A sore deep sigh, and down her cheeks the tears did trickle wet.
Oxford (The Forsaken Man): Drown me with trickling tears,
(Love and Antagonism): The trickling tears that fall along my cheeks,
Greene Alphonsus (V.3.190) CARINUS: Then, dainty damsel, stint these trickling tears;
Shakes 1H4 (II.4) FALSTAFF: Weep not, sweet queen; for trickling tears are vain.
Anon. Willobie (XLVII.5): Your silent sighs & trickling tears,
(XLVIII.5): Where thinking on my helpless hap, / My trickling tears, like rivers flow,
Lyly MB (I.3) PRISCIUS: with tears trickling down thy cheeks and drops of blood falling from thy heart

Woeful wight … Hap
Golding Ovid (IX.562): Now woe is me, most wretched wight.
Brooke Romeus (2005): Her weary bed betime the woeful wight forsakes,
(2638): And them on divers parts beside, the woeful wight did hold.
Oxford poem (Song: The Forsaken Man): You wailful wights of woe;
(Care and Disappointment): Thus like a woeful wight I wove the web of woe.
Edwards Dam&Pith (Song, 588-91)): Awake ye woeful wights,
That long have wept in woe: / Resign to me your plaints and tears,
My hapless hap to show.
Greene Alphonsus (IV.2.51) CARI: Some woeful wight lamenting / his mischance:
Anon. Penelope (VI.3): For careless wights why do you care,
And causeless eke so woeful are?

Death … Worms
Geneva Bible Job 24.20 … The worm shall seal his sweetness: … (No Match)
Isaiah 51.8 the worm shall eat them (No Match)
Brooke Romeus (2893-95) My conscience inwardly should more torment me thrice,
Than all the outward deadly pain that all you could devise.
But (God I praise) I feel no worm that gnaweth me,
Golding Ovid Met. (IX.817): And Libyan worms whose stinging doth enforce continual sleep,
Oxford poem (The Forsaken Man): Where earthly worms on me shall feed,
Lyly Campaspe (III.5.54-55): APELLES: the feeding canker of my ear, the never-dying worm of my heart,
Midas (II.1) SOPH: love a worm which seeming to live in the eye, dies in the heart.
(V.2) PETULUS: He means you are the last of the stock alive; the rest the worms have eaten.
DELLO: A pox of those saucy worms, that eat men before they be dead.
Shakes 2H6 (III.2) SALIS: The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal;
Rich3 (I.3.221) The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!
As You (III.2.65): Thou worm’s-meat.
Hamlet (IV.3) HAM: Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us
HAM: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a / king, and …
MM (III.1.16-17): For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork / Of a poor worm.
V&A (154): Death,– / ‘Grim-grinning ghost, earth’s worm,
Nashe Summers (1595-96) SONG: Strength stoops unto the grave,
Worms feed on Hector brave, …
(1679-81) AUTUMN: For feasts thou keepest none, cankers thou feed’st;
The worms will curse thy flesh another day, / Because it yieldeth them no fatter prey.
Anon. Willobie (XIII.2): … and therein find / That gnawing worm that never lins
L. Gh. (2121): We fed on joys, but now for worms are food,
Disp. Cromwell (V.5.131) CROMWELL: The land of Worms, which dying men discover,

#4
Consume away
Golding Ovid Met.(III.617): Did he consume and melt away with Cupid’s secret fire.
(V.533): Until she melting into tears consumed away with smart.
Brooke, Romeus (106): Doth make thee thus consume away the / best part of thine age,
Oxford poem: Ev’n as the wax doth melt, or dew consume away
Before the sun, so I, behold, through careful thoughts decay;
Watson Hek (Comment: XXV): … her own miserable estate in / daily consuming away …
(XXVIII): … Whose hearts by Love once quite consum’d away, …
(XLVIII): Where so his willful wings consume away,
Shakes John (IV.1) ARTHUR: Nay, after that, consume away in rust
Much Ado (III.1) HERO: Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly:

#6
Pain … Patience
Brooke Romeus (612-13): The wounded man that now doth deadly pains endure,
Scarce patient tarryeth …
Gascoigne … Jocasta (V.5.218-19) ANT: Sustain the smart of these your present pains
With patience, that best may you preserve.
Oxford poem (Revenge of Wrong): Patience perforce is such a pinching pain,
Shakes Errors (II.1) ADRIANA: Patience unmoved! no marvel though she pause;
They can be meek that have no other cause. / A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; / But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much or more would we ourselves complain:
So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,
With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me,
But, if thou live to see like right bereft,
This fool-begg’d patience in thee will be left.
Sonnet (140): Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express / The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
Anon. Willobie (XXXIII.2): My patience must, my pain endure.

Wit … Will
Brooke Romeus (2296): And said that she had done right well by wit to order will.
Oxford poem (Revenge of Wrong): Till Wit have wrought his will on Injury.
Gascoigne et al Jocasta (III.2) MENEC: … Yet evil it were in this / to yield your will.
CREON: Thy wit is wily for to work thy woe.
Watson Hek (XXXVIII): And for whose sake I lost both will and wit,
(LXXVIII): That wit and will to Reason do retire:
Lyly MB (I.3) SPERANTUS: He hath wit at will.
Kyd Sp Tr (IV.3.307) HIERON: Erasto, Soliman saluteth thee,
And lets thee wit by me his Highness’ will,
Shakes TGV (II.6.12) PRO: And he wants wit that wants resolved will
To learn his wit t’exchange the bad for better.
LLL (II.1.49-50) MARIA: Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will,
Whose edge hath power cut, whose will still wills …
12th (I.5.29) FESTE: Wit, an’t be thy will, put me into good fooling!
Hamlet (I.5.44-46) GHOST: O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce — won to his shameful lust / The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
Corio (II.3.27-28) 3 CIT: Nay your wit will not so soon out as / another man’s will, …
Lucrece (1230:) What wit sets down is blotted straight with will;
Anon. Ironside (V.1.34) EDR: See, see, what wit and will can bring about.
Willobie (XXXII.2): If wit to will, will needs resign,
(LIII.1): If fear and sorrow sharp the wit, / And tip the tongue with sweeter grace,
Then will & style must finely fit, / To paint my grief, and wail my case:
(LVII.5): Can wit enthralled to will retire?
(Auth. Conc. 1): Whom gifts nor wills nor force of wit / Could vanquish once with all their shows:
Penelope (I.4): For what my wit cannot discharge, / My will surely supplies at large.
Nashe Summers (498-99) WINTER: Let him not talk; for he hath words at will,
And wit to make the baddest matter good.

#7
Framed … Forlorn … Miseries — Past all recovery
Oxford poem (Loss of Good Name): Fram’d in the front of forlorn hope, past all recovery
Watson (LXXXII/pyramid sonnet): So frames it with me now, that I confess
The life I led in Love devoid of rest / It was a Hell, where none felt more than I,
Nor any with like miseries forlorn.
Anon. Locrine (V.4.103) LOCRINE: Framed in the front of forlorn miseries!
Past all recovery
(II.5.68) ALBANACT: My self with wounds past all recovery
(IV.1.176) ASSARACHUS: Which is not yet past all remedy.
Fam Vic (650) HENRY 5: Past all recovery, and dead to my thinking
Shakes 2H6 (I.1) WARWICK: For grief that they are past recovery:
Disp. Oldcastle (I.1) SHERIFF: my Lord Powesse is gone / Past all recovery.

Life … Linger[ing]
Brooke Romeus (1924): You haste away my lingering death and double all my woe.
Gascoigne et al Jocasta (V.3.55) ANT: Shall linger life within thy luckless breast,
Supposes (II.1) DUL: … I shall be sure to linger and live in hope one fortnight longer:
Oxford poem (Loss of Good Name): My life, though ling’ring long,
is lodg’d in lair of loathsome ways
Anon. Locrine (IV.1.87): I, being conqueror, live a lingering life,
Mucedorus (I.4.16) SEGASTO: Accursed I in lingering life thus long!
(III.1.50) MUCE: I linger life, yet wish for speedy death.
Nashe Summers (137) SUMMER: For her doth Summer live, and linger here,
Shakes Cymb (V.5) CORNELIUS: She did confess she had
For you a mortal mineral; which, being took,
Should by the minute feed on life and lingering / By inches waste you

Shame … Infamy
Geneva Bible Prov. 25.9-10 … Discover not the secret to another, Lest he that heareth it, put thee to shame, and thine infamy do not cease. (No Match).
Golding Ovid Met. (VIII.207): Of double shape, an ugly thing. This shameful infamy,
Oxford (Framed in the front): I stayless stand, to abide the shock of shame and infamy.
Gascoigne Supposes (I.1) BALIA: a poor servant of your father’s,
by whom shame and infamy is the best dower you can look for to attain.
Anon. Locrine (IV.1.135-36) ESTRILD: Better to die renowned for chastity,
Than live with shame and endless infamy
Weakest (XVI.169) EPERNOUNE: Oh wherefore stain you virtue and renown
With such foul terms of ignomy and shame?
Shakes Ado (IV.1) LEONATO: Who smirch’d thus and mired with infamy,

Howl … Wail
Geneva Bible Micah 1.8 Therefore I will mourn & howl: …
(KJ uses howl and wail). Possible source; Shakespeare used Micah I.7 at least twice.
Oxford (Loss of Good Name): Help ye that are aye wont to wail, ye howling hounds of hell;
Gascoigne et al Jocasta (IV.1.87) NUNCIUS: With howling cries and woeful wailing plaints:
Anon. Locrine (II.5.106-07) TROMP: With howling & screeking, with wailing and weeping,
Shakes TGV (II.3) LAUNCE: … my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat

#8
I am that I am
Geneva Bible: Ex. 3.14. 1 Cor. 15.10 But by the grace of God, I am that I am. (Ch. MARKED)
Brooke Romeus (2886): To make me other than I am, how so I seem to be.
Oxford Letter (10-30-84, to Lord Burghley): I am that I am …
Poem: I am not as I seem to be, Nor when I smile I am not glad;
Lyly MB (II.3) SILENA: Though you be as old as you are, I am as young as I am;
(IV.2) SILENA: Because I did, and I am here because I am.
Shakes Edw3 (II.1) WARWICK: I am not Warwick as thou think’st I am,
Sonnet (122): I am that I am
12th-(III.1.141) Viola: I am not what I am.
Oth (I.1.65) Iago: I am not what I am.
Lear. (I.2) Edmund: I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest
star in the firmament twinked on my bastardizing.
Anon. Dodypoll (III.5.40) LUCILIA: I know not what I am nor where I am,
Nashe Summers (124): SUMMER: Summer I was, I am not as I was;

#9
Stone … Roll
Geneva Bible 1 Sam. 14.33 … Ye have transgressed: roll a great stone unto me this day
No Match, NEAR 14.27, 37). Prov. 26.27 Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him. (No Match)
Also intrinsic to the verse is an apparent reference to the classical myth of Sisyphus
A number of new Testament roll … stone finds seem inappropriate.
Most of the examples below refer to the classical/pagan rolling stone of Fortune/Fate,
or to the mythological punishment of Sisyphus.
Golding Ovid Met. (IV.569-70): There also labored Sisyphus that drave against the hill
A rolling stone that from the top came tumbling downward still.
(X.48-49): … and down sat Sisyphus upon / His rolling stone.
Oxford poem (Reason and Affection): My hapless hap doth roll the restless stone.
Watson Hek (LXII): [Comment] Sisyphus rolleth a great round stone up a steep hill, which being once at the top presently falleth down amain.
[Verse] By fear, like Sisyphus I labor still / To turle a rolling stone against the hill,
Kyd Sp Tr (I.1.316-18)VICEROY: What help can be expected at her hands,
Whose foot is standing on a rolling stone / and mind more mutable than fickle winds?
(IV.1.528-29) GHOST: Let Serberine go roll the fatal stone,
And take from Sisyphus his endless moan;
Greene Orl Fur (II.2.71) ORLANDO: The rolling stone, the tubs of the Belides —
Shakes H5 (III.6) PISTOL: Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,
And of buxom valor, hath, by cruel fate, / And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind, / That stands upon the rolling restless stone–
H8 (V.3) SUFF: … When ye first put this dangerous stone a-rolling,
‘Twould fall upon ourselves.
Anon. Locrine (III.2.50) HUBBA: Or roll the stone with wretched Sisiphos.
Ironside (770) EDRICUS: … for else in time you might dismount the queen
and throw her headlong from her rolling stone
and take her whirling wheel into your hand.
(1062-63) CANUTUS: What tell’st thou me of Fortune and her frowns,
of her sour visage and her rolling stone?
Willobie (LVI.2): To roll the stone that turns again.
(LVII.3): And shall I roll the restless stone?

#9
Reason … Stay
Oxford poem (Reason and Affection): Or Reason’s reins my strong / affection stay:
Greene James IV (V.6.104) SIR CUTH: Oh stay, with reason mitigate your rage;
Shakes MND (V.1) THESEUS: … in all reason, we must stay the time.
Lear (V.3) ALBANY: Stay yet; hear reason. …
H8 (I.1) NORFOLK: Stay, my lord, / And let your reason with your choler question
Anon. Dodypoll (V.2): He with youth’s fury, without reason’s stay;
Munday Huntington (III.230) QUEEN: So while with me a reasoning they stay,

Valiant … Mind
Oxford (Reason&Affection): A valiant mind no deadly danger fears;
Marlowe T1 (III.1.33) BAJAZETH: Because I hear he bears a valiant mind.
Greene James IV (III.2.107) ATEUKIN: For I espy in you a valiant mind,
Anon. Locrine (II.3.27)THRAS: There might we see the valiant-minded knights
Shakes T&C (III.3) THER: Would the fountain of your mind were clear again,
that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep / than such a valiant ignorance
Othello (I.3) DESDEMONA: I saw Othello’s visage in his mind
And to his honour and his valiant parts / Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.

#10
Hawk … Haggard (considered a Shakespeare marker)
Golding Abraham (680-81): SATAN: My case goes ill. O Cowl we must yet find
Some other way t’assault this haggard’s mind.
Oxford poems: (Women’s Changeableness: To mark the choice they make, and how they change,
How oft from Phoebus do they flee to Pan,
Unsettled still like haggards wild they range,
These gentle birds that fly from man to man;
Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist
And let them fly fair fools which way they list.
(Love and Antagonism): The stricken deer hath help to heal his wound,
The haggard hawk with toil is made full tame;
OED cites as first comparisons to women in Euphues and Shrew:
Lyly 1580 Euphues (Arb.) 114 Foolish and franticke louers, will deeme my precepts hard,
and esteeme my perswasions haggarde.
Watson Hek (XLVII): In time all haggard Hawks will stoop the Lures;
Kyd Sp Tr (II.1.4): … In time all haggard hawks will stoop to lure,
Shakes Shrew (1596) (IV.1) PET: … My falcon now is sharp and passing empty;
And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged, / For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard, / To make her come and know her keeper’s call,
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites
That bate and beat and will not be obedient. …
Edw3 (III.5)KING EDW: … And ever after she’ll be haggard-like.
(IV.2) HOR: I will be married to a wealthy widow,
As I have loved this proud disdainful haggard.
Oth (III.3): … If I do prove her haggard,
Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings,
I’ll whistle her off and let her down the wind, / That comes before his eye. …
Other early non-female-related OED citations for “haggard”: Stanyhurst Aeneas (1583);
Turberville (1567) Epitaphs: Live like a haggard still therefore, and for no luring;
that haggard wise doth love to live;
Nashe, Christ’s Tears (1593): Though Christ hold out never so moving lures unto us,
all of them (haggard-like) we will turn tail to
Anon. Willobie (X.2): In haggard Hawk that mounts so high
(LXIII.1): As haggard loving mirthless coup, / At friendly lure doth check and frown?
Blame not in this the Falconer’s skill, / But blame the Hawk’s unbridled will.
(LXVII.3): They do but fruitless pain procure / To haggard kites that cast the lure.
(LXXIIII.3): When fish as haggard Hawks shall fly,
(Res.17): Cease then your suits, ye lusty gallants all,
Think not I stoop at every Falconer’s call,
Truss up your lures, your luring is in vain, / Chosen is the Perch, whereon I will remain.
Willobie contains other related hawking terms.

#10
Fair … Fond
Oxford Poetry: (Women’s Changeableness): If women could be fair and yet not fond,
Or that their love were firm not fickle, still, …
Disp. Greene’s Groat (177): and the most fair are commonly most fond, …

Play the fool
Oxford Poem (Women’s Changeableness): And then we say when we their fancy try,
To play with fools, O what a fool was I
Watson Hek (LXVIII): I sat in Folly’s ship, and play’d the fool,
(XCV): Or once again will play the loving fool,
Shakes MV (I.1) GRATIANO: Let me play the fool: …
But fish not, with this melancholy bait, / For this fool gudgeon, this opinion. …
(III.5) LORENZO: How every fool can play upon the word!
12th (III.1) VIOLA: This fellow is wise enough to play the fool
Hamlet (III.1) HAMLET: Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
fool no where but in’s own house.
AWEW (II.2) COUNTESS: I play the noble housewife with the time
To entertain’t so merrily with a fool.

#11
Honey … Drone
Oxford poem #11:
The idle drone that labours not at all,
Sucks up the sweet of honey from the bee;
Oxford poem #4:
The drone more honey sucks, that laboureth not at all,
Than doth the bee, to whose most pain least pleasure doth befall:
Shakes H5 (I.2) CANTERBURY: … The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o’er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone. …
Pericles (II.Pro.) GOWER: … Good Helicane, that stay’d at home,
Not to eat honey like a drone
Lucrece (120): My honour lost, and I, a drone-like bee,
Have no perfection of my summer left,
But robb’d and ransack’d by injurious theft:
In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept,
And suck’d the honey which thy chaste bee kept.

Gain … Pain
Shakes Lucrece (105) Even in this thought through the dark night he stealeth,
A captive victor that hath lost in gain;
Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth,
The scar that will, despite of cure, remain;
Leaving his spoil perplex’d in greater pain.
She bears the load of lust he left behind,
And he the burden of a guilty mind.
(123): ‘The aged man that coffers-up his gold
Is plagued with cramps and gouts and painful fits;
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,
But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless barns the harvest of his wits;
Having no other pleasure of his gain
But torment that it cannot cure his pain.
Sonnets (141): Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
PP (16): Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

Labor … Reap … Gain
Geneva Bible Leviticus 23.22 And when you reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not rid clean the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou make any after-gathering of thy harvest, but shalt leave them unto the poor and to the stranger: … (MARKED)
Oxford Letter (6-25-86): and not able to compass the end or reap the fruit of his travail
Memorandum (1601-02): and yet [so he] reaping no benefit to myself [for] / sythe her Majesty had given me nothing
Anon. Locrine (II.2.5) DOROTHY: Our ease is great, our labor small
And yet our gains be much withall
Shakes AsYou (III.5.103-04) SIL: To glean the broken ears after the man
That the main harvest reaps. …
That thou mightst repossess the crown in peace;
And of our labors thou shalt reap the gain
If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;
If lost, why then a grievous labor won
AWEW (II.1) KING: I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind maid;
Thy pains not used must by thyself be paid:
Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.
2H6 (III.1) YORK: And reap the harvest which that rascal sow’d;
LLL (IV.3.302) BIRON: Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil.
See also 3H6 (II.2.116 and V.2.15).

Beat the Bush … Get the Bird
Oxford poem (Care & Disappointment): And he that beats the bush the wished bird not gets,
Letter (3-20-95): Thus I was to have beaten the bush whil’st other holding the net, had taken the bird.
Flowers … Weeds
Lyly Sapho (I.1.97-99) SYBILLA: Anyta, which being a sweet flower at the rising of the sun becometh a weed if it be not plucked before the setting.
Greene James IV (II.1.22-25) IDA: … Some men like to the rose
Are fashion’d fresh; some in their stalks do close
And born, do sudden die; some are but weeds,
And yet from them a secret good proceeds.
Anon. Ironside (IV.1.71-72) MESS: Their flags and banners, yellow, blue and red,
resembles much the weeds in ripened corn.
Arden (III.5.142-43) ALICE: Flowers do sometimes spring in fallow lands,
Weeds in gardens, roses grow on thorns;
Willobie (X.1): Well then I see, you have decreed, / And this decree must light on me;
Unhappy Lily loves a weed, / That gives no scent, that yields no glee:
Thou art the first I ever tried, / Shall I at first be thus denied?
Shakes Sonnet (94): The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
Oth (IV.2) OTHELLO: O thou weed, / Who art so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst / ne’er been born!

Sweet … Sour
Shakes Rich2 (I.3) GAUNT: Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
(V.5) RICHARD: Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,
R&J (II.5) JULIET: … thou shamest the music of sweet news
By playing it to me with so sour a face.
AsYou AsYou (III.2.107) TOUCHSTONE: Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
Oth (IV.3) EMILIA: … And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
T&C (III.1) HELEN: And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offense.
Tempest (IV.1) PROSPERO: … No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow: but barren hate,
Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew …
H8 (IV.2) GRIFFITH: … Lofty and sour to them that loved him not;
But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.
Lucrece (867): The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours.
Sonnets (35): To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
(39) Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
Found also in Brooke Romeus; Watson Hek; Lyly Endymion, Bombie, anon. Supposes.

Due desert
Golding Ovid Met. (II.369): But put the case that my desert destruction duly crave,
(V.35): And which he hath by due desert of purchase dearly bought.
Disp. Greene’s Groat (265): He simply gave to due desert her right,
Anon. Willobie (commendation): But rather strive by due desert for like renown,
(LI.2): Love oft doth spring from due desert,
(LVII.2): Whose eyes discern the due deserts,
Penelope (I.2): Of those whom due desert doth crown
(I.5): His perfect zeal by due desert

#12
Aurora … Cheerful
Oxford (The Meeting with Desire) The messenger of Morning bright;
And with her cheerful voice did sing
The day’s approach, discharging Night;
Descried the guilt of Thetis’ bed.
Anon. Locrine (I.1.52-54) CORIN: Where ere Aurora, handmaid of the Sun,
Where ere the Sun, bright guardian of the day,
Where ere the joyful day with cheerful light,
(II.1.80) HUBBA: Whenas the morning shows his cheerful face,

#15
End … Life
Geneva Bible Wisdom 5.4 We fools thought his life madness, and his end without honor; Ecclus. 11.27: In a man’s end, his works are discovered; Job 34.36 (No Match).
Brooke Romeus (2026: Will bring the end of all her cares by ending careful life.
Golding Ovid Met. (XIV.156: Eternal and of worldly life I should none end have seen,
Gascoigne Jocasta (III.1.262) MENECEUS: Brings quiet end to this unquiet life.
(V.2.27) CREON: What hapless end thy life alas hath hent.
I loathe not life, nor dread my end.
Oxford poetry (My mind to me a kingdom is): I loathe not life, nor dread my end.
Watson Hek (XXXVI, comment): abandoning all further desire of life,
hath in request untimely death, as the only end of his infelicity.
Lyly Endymion (I.2) TELLUS: Ah Floscula, thou rendest my heart in sunder,
in putting me in remembrance of the end.
FLOSCULA: Why, if this be not the end, all the rest is to no end.
(II.1) TELLUS: She shall have an end.
ENDYMION: So shall the world.
Kyd Sp Tr (III.13.8-11) HIERONIMO: For evils unto ills conductors be,
And death’s the worst of resolution. / For he that thinks with patience to contend
To quiet life, his life shall easily end.
Sol&Per (V.2.120) SOLIMAN: So let their treasons with their lives have end.
Shakes Lucrece (1208): My life’s foul deed, my life’s fair end shall free it.
Anon. Willobie (III.4): That is to lead a filthy life, / Whereon attends a fearful end:

#17
Deer … Wounded/Hunted
Golding Ovid’s Met (Book III/Actaeon): This is the subject of Actaeon’s story.
Oxford Poem (Love and Antagonism): The stricken deer hath help to heal his wound,
Shakes Lucrece (1149-50): As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze,
Wildly determining which way to fly,
Anon Arden (III.3.8-27) ARDEN: This night I dreamt that, being in a park,
A toil was pitched to overthrow the deer, / And I upon a little rising hill
Stood wistly watching for the herd’s approach.
Even there, methoughts, a gentle slumber took me,
And summoned all my parts to sweet repose. / But in the pleasure of this golden rest,
An ill-thewed foster had removed the toil / And rounded me with that beguiling home
Which late, methought, was pitched to cast the deer.
With that he blew an evil-sounding horn, / And at the noise another herdman came
With falchion drawn, and bent it at my breast,
Crying aloud, ‘Thou art the game we seek.
With this I waked and trembled every joint, / Like one obscured in a little bush
That sees a lion foraging about; / And when the dreadful forest king is gone,
He pries about with timorous suspect / Throughout the thorny casements of the brake,
And will not think his person dangerless,
But quakes and shivers, though the cause be gone.
Weakest (VI.19-22): LEONTIUS: This other day, for hunting of the stag, …
Whenas the hounds had roused the trembling deer,
And every man spurred hard unto the cry,
Munday Huntington (IX.15) ROBIN; Shall ring a sad knell for the fearful deer,

Joy … Care
Brooke Romeus (1906) Of me your child (your jewel once, your only joy and care),
Golding Ovid Met. (II.797): And as the burthen brought some care the honor brought him joy.
Oxford poem (Love and Antagonism.): She is my joy, she is my care and woe;
Edwards Dam&Pith (891) DAMON: In whom my joy, my care, and life doth only remain.
Watson Hek. (XCIII): When others joy’d, to cares I did incline,
Anon. Locrine (IV.1.102): One dram of joy, must have a pound of care.

#24
Love Thy Choice
Oxford Sonnet: Love Thy Choice
Watson Hek (XXXVII): Then may I love my peerless choice by right,
Lyly Woman/Moon (III.2.121) LEARCHUS: Make me thy love, though Stesias be thy choice;
Greene James 4 (I.1.78) K. SCOTLAND: Misled by love, hath made another choice —
Shakes Shrew (I.2): That she’s the choice love of Signior Gremio.
Anon. Willobie (LII.7): True love is constant in her choice,
Dodypoll (V.2.94) ALPH: … go tell her so: / Or let her come, my choice is free in love.

Tongue … Woe
Oxford poem (Love thy choice): Who taught thy tongue / the woeful words of plaint ?
Edwards Dam&Pith (592, Song): My woe no tongue can tell.
Kyd Sol&Per (II.1.84) PER: My tongue to tell my woes is all too weak;
Shakes Rich3 (IV.4): That my woe-wearied tongue is mute and dumb.

Painted bait, words, faces, hooks
Geneva Bible Shaheen ascribes cosmetic references to Isa. 3.16 (No Match).
Oxford Sonnet: (Love thy Choice): Who first did paint with colours pale thy face ?
Lyly Sapho (II.1.22) SYBILLA: Be not proud of beauty’s painting,
whose colors consume themselves because they are beauty’s painting.
(III.4) VENUS: But truth is a she, and so always painted.
PHAO: I think a painted truth.
Anon. Locrine (IV.1.91): Oh that sweet face painted with nature’s dye,
Willobie (XLII.10): Esteem not this a painted bait,
(XXX.1): How fine they feign, how fair they paint,
(LVIII.4): Catch fools as fish, with painted hooks.
Shakes Shrew (I.1) KATH: And paint your face and use you like a fool.
Hamlet (III.1.51-53) CLAUDIUS: [Aside] The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it …
Hamlet (III.1.150): I have heard of your paintings, too.
Also see Hamlet (II.1.142.46)
Timon (IV.3) TIMON: No matter: — wear them, betray with them: whore still;
Paint till a horse may mire upon your face, / A pox of wrinkles!
Nashe Penniless: since her picture is set forth in so many painted faces here at home.
Absurdity: for fear of pricking their fingers when they are painting their faces;
Chapman D’Olive (I.1.203-5) RODERIGUE: Thou believst all’s natural beauty that shows
fair, though the painter enforce it, and sufferst in soul, I know, / for the honorable lady.

Crucifixion: Crown of thorns … Endure the end
Geneva Bible Matt. 10.22 (No Match); Mark 13.13 (No Match)
Crown of thorns: Matt. 27.29 (No Match, NEAR near marked 27.31); Mark 15.17 (No Match).
Oxford poem (Love thy Choice): With patient mind each passion to endure,
(#65, Jan. 1602): notwithstanding it hath endured all the crosses that can be possible
Anon. Dodypoll (IV.3.23-24): I must endure the end and show I live
Though this same plaintive wreath doth show me forsaken.
Disp. Oldcastle (V.10.4) COBHAM: Oh, give me patience to endure this scourge,

Quiet rest
Geneva Bible 1Kings Arg. Because the children of God should look for no continual rest and quietness in this world … (MARKED).
Brooke Romeus (1854): So we her parents in our age, shall live in quiet rest.
(2100): I never gave my weary limbs long time of quiet rest,
(2542): In heaven hath she sought to find a place of quiet rest.
Gascoigne et al Jocasta (V.5.43) OED: Have greatest need to crave their quiet rest.
Oxford Poem (Love Thy Choice): Who first did break thy sleeps of quiet rest ?
Kyd Sp Tr (III.13.1089-90) HIER: … will I rest me in unrest, / Dissembling quiet in unquietness.
Shakes: Rich3 (V.3) BLUNT: … And so, God give you quiet rest to-night!
King John (III.4) PANDULPH: One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest …
Greene Alphonsus (III.2.95) CALCHAS: Shall nere my ghost obtain his quiet rest?
James (V.1.80) Queen: How can it thrive or boast of quiet rest?
Anon. Woodstock (IV.3) BUSHY: her quiet soul rests in celestial peace:
Willobie (XLIIII.1): What sudden chance or change is this, / That doth bereave my quiet rest?
Disp. Greene’s Groat (526-27): that we might rest quietly / without … disturbing.
Oldcastle (V.8) L COB: But where, my Lord / Shall we find rest for our disquiet minds?

Connections: Technical

Anadiplosis
This device is self-explanatory. Examples are found in (in chronological order) the Earl of Oxford’s poetry, Lodge Civil War, Anon. Locrine, Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy and Soliman and Perseda, and Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. Thomas Watson translated a sonnet to illustrate the form, with explanatory comments, presumably by his patron the Earl of Oxford.
Watson Hek (XLI) This Passion is framed upon a somewhat tedious or too much affected continuation of that figure in Rhetoric, which of the Greeks is called paltlsgia or anadiplosis, of the Latins Reduplicatio; whereof Susenbrotus (if I well remember me) allegeth this example out of Virgil, …
O Happy men that find no lack in Love
I Love, and lack what most I do desire;
My deep desire no reason can remove;
All reason shuns my breast, that’s set on fire;
And so the fire maintains both force and flame,
That force availeth not against the same;
One only help can slake this burning heat,
Which burning heat proceedeth from her face,
Whose face by looks bewitched my conceit,
Through which conceit I live in woeful case;
O woeful case, which hath no end of woe,
Till woes have end by favor of my foe;
And yet my foe maintaineth such a War,
As all her War is nothing else but Peace;
But such a Peace as breedeth secret jar,
Which jar no wit, nor force, nor time can cease;
Yet cease despair: for time by wit, or force,
May force my friendly foe to take remorse.
Oxford (Grief of Mind): What plague is greater than the grief of mind?
The grief of mind that eats in every vein;
In every vein that leaves such clots behind;
Such clots behind as breed such bitter pain;
So bitter pain that none shall ever find,
What plague is greater than the grief of mind.
Lodge Wounds (IV.2.64-68): ANT: I wonder why my peasant stays so long,
And with my wonder hasteth on my woe,
And with my woe I am assail’d with fear,
And by my fear await with faintful breath
The final period of my pains by death.
Kyd Sp Tr (I.3.32): My late ambition hath distained my faith;
My breach of faith occasioned bloody wars;
These bloody wars have spent my treasure;
And with my treasure my people’s blood;
And with their blood, my joy and best-beloved,
My best-beloved, my sweet and only son.
(II.1.120): And with that sword he fiercely waged war,
And in that war he gave me dang’rous wounds,
And by those wounds he forced me to yield,
And by my yielding I became his slave.
Now in his mouth he carries pleasing words,
Which pleasing words do harbor sweet conceits,
Which sweet conceits are limed with sly deceits,
Which sly deceits smooth Bel-imperia’s ears
And through her ears dive down into her heart,
And in her heart set him where I should stand.
Sol&Per (V.2): No, no; my hope full long ago was lost,
And Rhodes itself is lost, or else destroyed;
If not destroyed, yet bound and captivate;
If captivate, then forced from holy faith;
If forced from faith, forever miserable;
For what is misery but want of God?
And God is lost, if faith be over-thrown.
See also opening of III.2.
Anon. Locrine (V.2.25) THRA: Sister, complaints are bootless in this cause;
This open wrong must have an open plague,
This plague must be repaid with grievous war,
This war must finish with Locrine’s death;
His death will soon extinguish our complaints.
Shakes Errors (I.2.47-52): She is so hot because the meat is cold.
The meat is cold because you come not home,
You come not home because you have no stomach,
You have no stomach, having broke your fast;
But we, that know what tis to fast and pray,
Are penitent for your default today

____________

Sources and Suggested Reading

Grosart, Dr. Alexander B. Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies’ Library, Vol. IV (1872). (Fuller)
Looney, John Thomas. “Shakespeare” Identified [with Oxford’s Poems]
(Ruth Loyd Miller, ed.) Jennings, La.: Minos Pub. Co.
Sobran, Joseph. Alias Shakespeare. New York: The Free Press (Simon & Schuster), 1997.