Grosart gives a full
collation
on pp.
Robert Herrick - Hesperide and Noble Numbers
Herrick sings:--
"Of crackling laurel, which foresounds
A plenteous harvest to your grounds":
where compare Tibull. II. v. 81-84. It was also used by maids as a love
omen.
_Thyrse . . . sacred Orgies. _ Herrick's glosses show that the passage he
had in mind was Catullus, lxiv. 256-269:--
Harum pars tecta quatiebant cuspide thyrsos
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Pars obscura cavis celebrabant orgia cistis,
Orgia, quæ frustra cupiunt audire profani.
10. _No man at one time can be wise and love. _ Amare et sapere vix deo
conceditur. (Publius Syrus. ) The quotation is found in both Burton and
Montaigne.
12. _Who fears to ask_, etc. From Seneca, _Hippol. _ 594-95. Qui timide
rogat . . . docet negare.
15. _Goddess Isis . . . with her scent. _ Cp. Plutarch, _De Iside et
Osiride_, 15.
17. _He acts the crime. _ Seneca: Nil interest faveas sceleri an illud
facias.
18. _Two things odious. _ From Ecclus. xxv. 2.
31. _A Sister . . . about I'll lead. _ "Have we not power to lead about a
sister, a wife? " 1 Cor. ix. 5.
35. _Mercy and Truth live with thee. _ 2 Sam. xv. 20.
38. _To please those babies in your eyes. _ The phrase "babies [_i. e. _,
dolls] in the eyes" is probably only a translation of its metaphor,
involved in the use of the Latin _pupilla_ (a little girl), or "pupil,"
for the central spot of the eye. The metaphor doubtless arose from the
small reflections of the inlooker, which appear in the eyes of the
person gazed at; but we meet with it both intensified, as in the phrase
"to look babies in the eyes" (= to peer amorously), and with its origin
disregarded, as in Herrick, where the "babies" are the pupils, and have
an existence independent of any inlooker.
_Small griefs find tongue. _ Seneca, _Hippol. _ 608:
Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.
_Full casks. _ So G. Herbert, _Jacula Prudentum_ (1640): Empty vessels
sound most.
48. _Thus woe succeeds a woe as wave a wave. _ Horace, Ep. II. ii. 176:
Velut unda supervenit unda. Κύματα κακῶν and κακῶν τρικυμία are common
phrases in Greek tragedy.
49. _Cherry-pit. _ Printed in the 1654 edition of _Witts Recreations_,
where it appears as:--
"_Nicholas_ and _Nell_ did lately sit
Playing for sport at cherry-pit;
They both did throw, and, having thrown,
He got the pit and she the stone".
51. _Ennobled numbers. _ This poem is often quoted to prove that
Herrick's country incumbency was good for his verse; but if the
reference be only to his sacred poems or _Noble Numbers_ these would
rather prove the opposite.
52. _O earth, earth, earth, hear thou my voice. _ Jerem. xxii. 29: O
earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.
56. _Love give me more such nights as these. _ A reminiscence of
Marlowe's version of Ovid, _Amor_. I. v. 26: "Jove send me more such
afternoons as this".
72. _Upon his Sister-in-law, Mistress Elizabeth Herrick_, wife to his
brother Thomas (see _infra_, 106).
74. _Love makes me write what shame forbids to speak. _ Ovid, _Phædra to
Hippol. _: Dicere quæ puduit scribere jussit amor.
_Give me a kiss. _ Herrick is here imitating the well-known lines of
Catullus to Lesbia (_Carm. _ v. ):--
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum,
Dein, cum millia multa fecerimus,
Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, etc.
77. _To the King, upon his coming with his army into the west. _ Essex
had marched into the west in June, 1644, relieved Lyme, and captured
royal fortresses in Dorset and Devon. Charles followed him into "the
drooping west," and, in September, the Parliamentary infantry were
forced to surrender, while Essex himself escaped by sea. Herrick's
"white omens" were thus fulfilled.
79. _To the King and Queen upon their unhappy distances. _ Henrietta
Maria escaped abroad with the crown jewels in 1642, returned the next
year and rejoined Charles in the west in 1644, whence she escaped again
to France. This poem has been supposed to refer to domestic dissensions;
but the "ball of strife" is surely the Civil War in general, and the
reference to the parting of 1644.
81. _The Cheat of Cupid. _ Herrick is here translating "Anacreon," 31
[3]:--
Μεσονυκτίοις ποθ' ὥραις
στρέφεθ' ἡνίκ' Ἄρκτος ἤδη
κατὰ χεῖρα τὴν Βοώτου,
μερόπων δὲ φῦλα πάντα
κέαται κόπῳ δαμέντα, 5
τότ' Ἔρως ἐπισταθείς μευ
θυρέων ἔκοπτ' ὀχῆας.
τίς, ἔφην, θύρας ἀράσσει;
κατά μευ σχίζεις ὀνείρους.
ὁ δ' Ἔρως, ἄνοιγε, φησίν· 10
βρέφος εἰμί, μὴ φόβησαι·
βρέχομαι δὲ κἀσέληνον
κατὰ νύκτα πεπλάνημαι.
ἐλέησα ταῦτ' ἀκούσας,
ἀνὰ δ' εὐθὺ λύχνον ἅψας 15
ἀνέῳξα, καὶ βρέφος μέν
ἐσορῶ φἐροντα τόξον
πτέρυγάς τε καὶ φαρέτρην.
παρὰ δ' ἱστίην καθῖσα,
παλάμαις τε χεῖρας αὐτοῦ 20
ἀνέθαλπον, ἐκ δὲ χαίτης
ἀπέθλιβον ὑγρὸν ὕδωρ.
ὁ δ', ἐπεὶ κρύος μεθῆκεν,
φέρε, φησί, πειράσωμεν
τόδε τόξον, εἴ τι μοι νῦν 25
βλάβεται βραχεῖσα νευρή.
τανύει δὲ καί με τύπτει
μέσον ἡπαρ, ὥσπερ οἶστρος·
ἀνὰ δ' ἅλλεται καχάζων,
ξένε δ', εἶπε, συγχάρηθι· 30
κέρας ἀβλαβὲς μὲν ἡμῖν,
σὺ δὲ καρδίην πονήσεις.
Some of his phrases, however, prove that he was occasionally more
indebted to the Latin version of Stephanus than to the original.
82. _That for seven lusters I did never come. _ The fall of Herrick's
father from a window, fifteen months after the poet's birth, was imputed
at the time to suicide; and it has been reasonably conjectured that some
mystery may have attached to the place of his burial. If "seven
lusters" can be taken literally for thirty-five years, this poem was
written in 1627.
83. _Delight in Disorder. _ Cp. Ben Jonson's "Still to be neat, still to
be drest," in its turn imitated from one of the _Basia_ of Johannes
Bonefonius.
85. _Upon Love. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1654. The only variant
is "To tell me" for "To signifie" in the third line.
86. _To Dean Bourn. _ "We found many persons in the village who could
repeat some of his lines, and none who were not acquainted with his
'Farewell to Dean Bourn,' which they said he uttered as he crossed the
brook upon being ejected by Cromwell from the vicarage, to which he had
been presented by Charles the First. But they added, with an air of
innocent triumph, 'he did see it again,' as was the fact after the
restoration. " Barron Field in _Quarterly Review_, August, 1810. Herrick
was ejected in 1648.
_A rocky generation! a people currish. _ Cp. Burton, II. iii. 2: a rude
. . . uncivil, wild, currish generation.
91. _That man loves not who is not zealous too. _ Augustine, _Adv.
Adimant. _ 13: Qui non zelat, non amat.
92. _The Bag of the Bee. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1654, and in
Henry Bold's _Wit a-sporting in a Pleasant Grove of new Fancies_, 1657.
Set to music by Henry Lawes.
93. _Luxurious love by wealth is nourished. _ Ovid, _Remed. Amor. _ 746:
Divitiis alitur luxuriosus amor.
95. _Homer himself. _ Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. Horace,
_De Art. Poet. _ 359.
100. _To bread and water none is poor. _ Seneca, _Excerpt. _ ii. 887:
Panem et aquam Natura desiderat; nemo ad haec pauper est.
_Nature with little is content. _ Seneca, _Ep. _ xvi. : Exiguum Natura
desiderat. _Ep. _ lx. : parvo Natura dimittitur.
106. _A Country Life: To his brother, M. Tho. Herrick. _ "Thomas,
baptized May 12, 1588, was placed by his uncle and guardian, Sir William
Heyrick, with Mr. Massam, a merchant in London; but in 1610 he appears
to have returned into the country and to have settled in a small farm.
It is supposed that this Thomas was the father of Thomas Heyrick, who in
1668 resided at Market Harborough and issued a trader's token there, and
grandfather to the Thomas who was curate of Harborough and published
some sermons and poems. " Hill's _Market Harborough_, p. 122.
A MS. version of this poem is contained in Ashmole 38, from which Dr.
Grosart gives a full collation on pp. cli. -cliii. of his Memorial
Introduction. The MS. appears to follow an unrevised version of the
poem, and contains a few couplets which Herrick afterwards thought fit
to omit. The most important passage comes after line 92: "Virtue had,
and mov'd her sphere".
"Nor know thy happy and unenvied state
Owes more to virtue than to fate,
Or fortune too; for what the first secures,
That as herself, or heaven, endures.
The two last fail, and by experience make
Known, not they give again, they take. "
_Thrice and above blest. _ Felices ter et amplius, Hor. I. _Od. _ xiii. 7.
_My soul's half:_ Animæ dimidium meæ, Hor. I. _Od. _ iii. 8. The poem is
full of such reminiscences: "With holy meal and spirting (MS. crackling)
salt" is the "Farre pio et saliente mica" of III. _Od. _ xxiii. 20;
"Untaught to suffer poverty" the "Indocilis pauperiem pati" of I. _Od. _
i. 18; "A heart thrice wall'd" comes from I. _Od. _ iii. 9: Illi robur et
æs triplex, etc. Similar instances might be multiplied. Note, too, the
use of "Lar" and "Genius".
_Jove for our labour all things sells us. _ Epicharm. apud Xenoph.
_Memor. _ II. i. 20, τῶν πόνων Πωλοῦσιν ἡμῖν πάντα τἀγαθ' οἱ θεοί. Quoted
by Montaigne, II. xx.
_Wisely true to thine own self. _ Possibly a Shakespearian reminiscence
of the "to thine own self be true" in the speech of Polonius to Laertes,
Hamlet, I. iii. 78.
_A wise man every way lies square. _ Cp. Arist. _Eth. _ I. x. 11, ὡς ἀληθῶς
ἀγαθὸς καὶ τετράγωνος ἄνευ ψόγου.
_For seldom use commends the pleasure. _ Voluptates commendat rarior
usus. Juvenal, _Sat. _ xi. ad fin.
_Nor fear or wish your dying day. _ Summum nec metuas diem, nec optes.
Mart. X. xlvii. 13.
112. _To the Earl of Westmoreland. _ Mildmay Fane succeeded his father,
Thomas Fane, the first earl, in March, 1628. At the outbreak of the
Civil War he sided with the king, but after a short imprisonment made
his submission to the Parliament, and was relieved of the sequestration
of his estates. He subsequently printed privately a volume of poems,
called _Otia Sacra_, which has been re-edited by Dr. Grosart.
117. _To the Patron of Poets, M. End. Porter. _ Five of Herrick's poems
are addressed to Endymion Porter, who seems to have been looked to as a
patron by all the singers of his day. According to the inscription on a
medal of him executed by Varin in 1635, he was then forty-eight, so that
he was born in 1587, coming into the world at Aston-under-Hill in
Gloucestershire. He went with Charles on his trip to Spain, and after
his accession became groom of his bedchamber, was active in the king's
service during the Civil War, and died in 1649. He was a collector of
works of art both for himself and for the king, and encouraged Rob.
Dover's Cotswold games by presenting him with a suit of the king's
clothes. À Wood tells us this, and mentions also that he was a friend of
Donne, that Gervase Warmsely dedicated his _Virescit Vulnere Virtus_ to
him in 1628, and that in conjunction with the Earl of St. Alban's he
also received the dedication of Davenant's _Madagascar_.
_Let there be patrons_, etc. Burton, I. ii. 3, § 15. 'Tis an old saying:
"Sint Mæcenates, non deerunt, Flacce, Marones" (Mart. VIII. lvi. 5).
Fabius, Cotta, and Lentulus are examples of Roman patrons of poetry,
themselves distinguished. Cp. Juvenal, vii. 94.
119. _His tapers thus put out. _ So Ovid, _Am. _ iii. 9:--
Ecce puer Veneris fert eversamque pharetram
Et fractos arcus, et sine luce facem.
121. _Four things make us happy here. _ From
Ὑγιαίνειν μὲν ἄριστον ἀνδρὶ θνατῷ·
δεύτερον δὲ φυὰν καλὸν γενέσθαι·
τὸ τρίτον δὲ πλουτεῖν αδόλως·
καὶ τὸ τέταρτον, ἡβᾶν μετὰ τῶν φίλων.
(Bergk, _Anth. Lyr. _, _Scol. _ 8. )
123. _The Tear sent to her from Staines. _ This is printed in _Witts
Recreations_ with no other variation than in the title, which there
runs: "A Teare sent his Mistresse". Dr. Grosart notes that Staines was
at the time a royal residence.
128. _His Farewell to Sack. _ A manuscript version of this poem at the
British Museum omits many lines (7, 8, 11-22, 29-36), and contains few
important variants. "Of the yet chaste and undefiled bride" is a poor
anticipation of line 6, and "To raise the holy madness" for "To rouse
the sacred madness" is also weak. For the line and a half:--
"Prithee not smile
Or smile more inly, lest thy looks beguile,"
we have the very inferior passage:--
"I prithee draw in
Thy gazing fires, lest at their sight the sin
Of fierce idolatry shoot into me, and
I turn apostate to the strict command
Of nature; bid me now farewell, or smile
More ugly, lest thy tempting looks beguile".
This MS. version is followed in the first published text in _Witts
Recreations_, 1645.
130. _Upon Mrs. Eliz. Wheeler. _ "The lady complimented in this poem was
probably a relation by marriage. Herrick's first cousin, Martha, the
seventh daughter of his uncle Robert, married Mr. John Wheeler. " Nott.
132. _Fold now thine arms. _ A sign of grief. Cp. "His arms in this sad
knot". _Tempest. _
134. _Mr. J. Warr. _ This John Warr is probably the same as the "honoured
friend, Mr. John Weare, Councellour," of a later poem. Dr. Grosart
quotes an "Epitaph upon his honoured friend, Master Warre," by Randolph.
Nothing is known of him, but I find in the Oxford Register that a John
Warr matriculated at Exeter College, 16th May, 1619, and proceeded M. A.
in 1624. He may possibly be Herrick's friend.
137. _Dowry with a wife. _ Cp. Ovid, _Ars Am. _ ii. 155: Dos est uxoria
lites.
139. _The Wounded Cupid. _ This is taken from Anacreon, 33 [40]:--
Ἔρως ποτ' ἐν ῥόδοισιν
κοιμωμένην μέλιτταν
οὐκ εἶδεν, ἀλλ' ἐτοώθη
τὸν δάκτυλον· παταχθείς
τὰς χεῖρας ὠλόλυξεν·
δραμὼν δὲ καὶ πετασθεις
πρὸς τὴν καλὴν Κυθήρην
ὄλωλα, μᾶτερ, εἶπεν,
ὄλωλα κἀποθνήσκω·
ὄφις μ' ἔτυψε μικρός
πτερωτός, ὃν καλοῦσιν
μέλιτταν οἱ γεωργοί.
ἁ δ' εἶπεν· εἰ τὸ κέντρον
πονεῖ τὸ τᾶς μελίττας,
πόσον δοκεῖς πονοῦσιν,
Ἔρως, ὅσους σὺ βάλλεις;
142. _A Virgin's face she had. _ Herrick is imitating a charming passage
from the first Æneid (ll. 315-320), in which Æneas is confronted by
Venus:--
Virginis os habitumque gerens et virginis arma,
Spartanae vel qualis equos Threissa fatigat
Harpalyce volucremque fuga praevertitur Eurum.
Namque umeris de more habilem suspenderat arcum
Venatrix, dederatque comam diffundere ventis,
Nuda genu nodoque sinus collecta fluentis.
_With a wand of myrtle_, etc. Cp. Anacreon, 7 [29]:--
Ὑακινθίνῃ με ῥάβδῳ
χαλέπως, Ἔρως ῥαπίζων . . . εἶπε·
Σὺ γὰρ οὐ δύνῃ φιλῆσαι.
146. _Upon the Bishop of Lincoln's Imprisonment. _ John Williams
(1582-1650), Bishop of Lincoln, 1621; Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal,
1621-1625; suspended and imprisoned, 1637-1640, on a frivolous charge of
having betrayed the king's secrets; Archbishop of York, 1641. Save from
this poem and the _Carol_ printed in the Appendix we know nothing of his
relations with Herrick. He had probably stood in the way of the poet's
obtaining holy orders or preferment. When Herrick was appointed to the
cure of Dean Prior in 1629, Williams had already lost favour at the
Court.
147. _Cynthius pluck ye by the ear. _ Cp. Virg. _Ecl. _ vi. 3: Cynthius
aurem Vellit et admonuit; and Milton's _Lycidas_, 77: "Phœbus replied
and touched my trembling ears".
_The lazy man the most doth love. _ Cp. Ovid, _Remed. Amor. _ 144: Cedit
amor rebus: res age, tutus eris. Nott. But Ovid could also write: Qui
nolet fieri desidiosus amet (1 _Am. _ ix. 46).
149. _Sir Thomas Southwell_, of Hangleton, Sussex, knighted 1615, died
before December 16, 1642.
_Those tapers five. _ Mentioned by Plutarch, _Qu. Rom. _ 2. For their
significance see Ben Jonson's _Masque of Hymen_.
_O'er the threshold force her in. _ The custom of lifting the bride over
the threshold, probably to avert an ill-omened stumble, has prevailed
among the most diverse races. For the anointing of the doorposts Brand
quotes Langley's translation of Polydore Vergil: "The bryde anoynted the
poostes of the doores with swynes' grease, because she thought by that
meanes to dryve awaye all misfortune, whereof she had her name in Latin
'Uxor ab unguendo'".
_To gather nuts. _ A Roman marriage custom mentioned in Catullus, _Carm. _
lxi. 124-127, the _In Nuptias Juliæ et Manlii_, which Herrick keeps in
mind all through this ode.
_With all lucky birds to side. _ Bona cum bona nubit alite virgo.
"Of crackling laurel, which foresounds
A plenteous harvest to your grounds":
where compare Tibull. II. v. 81-84. It was also used by maids as a love
omen.
_Thyrse . . . sacred Orgies. _ Herrick's glosses show that the passage he
had in mind was Catullus, lxiv. 256-269:--
Harum pars tecta quatiebant cuspide thyrsos
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Pars obscura cavis celebrabant orgia cistis,
Orgia, quæ frustra cupiunt audire profani.
10. _No man at one time can be wise and love. _ Amare et sapere vix deo
conceditur. (Publius Syrus. ) The quotation is found in both Burton and
Montaigne.
12. _Who fears to ask_, etc. From Seneca, _Hippol. _ 594-95. Qui timide
rogat . . . docet negare.
15. _Goddess Isis . . . with her scent. _ Cp. Plutarch, _De Iside et
Osiride_, 15.
17. _He acts the crime. _ Seneca: Nil interest faveas sceleri an illud
facias.
18. _Two things odious. _ From Ecclus. xxv. 2.
31. _A Sister . . . about I'll lead. _ "Have we not power to lead about a
sister, a wife? " 1 Cor. ix. 5.
35. _Mercy and Truth live with thee. _ 2 Sam. xv. 20.
38. _To please those babies in your eyes. _ The phrase "babies [_i. e. _,
dolls] in the eyes" is probably only a translation of its metaphor,
involved in the use of the Latin _pupilla_ (a little girl), or "pupil,"
for the central spot of the eye. The metaphor doubtless arose from the
small reflections of the inlooker, which appear in the eyes of the
person gazed at; but we meet with it both intensified, as in the phrase
"to look babies in the eyes" (= to peer amorously), and with its origin
disregarded, as in Herrick, where the "babies" are the pupils, and have
an existence independent of any inlooker.
_Small griefs find tongue. _ Seneca, _Hippol. _ 608:
Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.
_Full casks. _ So G. Herbert, _Jacula Prudentum_ (1640): Empty vessels
sound most.
48. _Thus woe succeeds a woe as wave a wave. _ Horace, Ep. II. ii. 176:
Velut unda supervenit unda. Κύματα κακῶν and κακῶν τρικυμία are common
phrases in Greek tragedy.
49. _Cherry-pit. _ Printed in the 1654 edition of _Witts Recreations_,
where it appears as:--
"_Nicholas_ and _Nell_ did lately sit
Playing for sport at cherry-pit;
They both did throw, and, having thrown,
He got the pit and she the stone".
51. _Ennobled numbers. _ This poem is often quoted to prove that
Herrick's country incumbency was good for his verse; but if the
reference be only to his sacred poems or _Noble Numbers_ these would
rather prove the opposite.
52. _O earth, earth, earth, hear thou my voice. _ Jerem. xxii. 29: O
earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.
56. _Love give me more such nights as these. _ A reminiscence of
Marlowe's version of Ovid, _Amor_. I. v. 26: "Jove send me more such
afternoons as this".
72. _Upon his Sister-in-law, Mistress Elizabeth Herrick_, wife to his
brother Thomas (see _infra_, 106).
74. _Love makes me write what shame forbids to speak. _ Ovid, _Phædra to
Hippol. _: Dicere quæ puduit scribere jussit amor.
_Give me a kiss. _ Herrick is here imitating the well-known lines of
Catullus to Lesbia (_Carm. _ v. ):--
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum,
Dein, cum millia multa fecerimus,
Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, etc.
77. _To the King, upon his coming with his army into the west. _ Essex
had marched into the west in June, 1644, relieved Lyme, and captured
royal fortresses in Dorset and Devon. Charles followed him into "the
drooping west," and, in September, the Parliamentary infantry were
forced to surrender, while Essex himself escaped by sea. Herrick's
"white omens" were thus fulfilled.
79. _To the King and Queen upon their unhappy distances. _ Henrietta
Maria escaped abroad with the crown jewels in 1642, returned the next
year and rejoined Charles in the west in 1644, whence she escaped again
to France. This poem has been supposed to refer to domestic dissensions;
but the "ball of strife" is surely the Civil War in general, and the
reference to the parting of 1644.
81. _The Cheat of Cupid. _ Herrick is here translating "Anacreon," 31
[3]:--
Μεσονυκτίοις ποθ' ὥραις
στρέφεθ' ἡνίκ' Ἄρκτος ἤδη
κατὰ χεῖρα τὴν Βοώτου,
μερόπων δὲ φῦλα πάντα
κέαται κόπῳ δαμέντα, 5
τότ' Ἔρως ἐπισταθείς μευ
θυρέων ἔκοπτ' ὀχῆας.
τίς, ἔφην, θύρας ἀράσσει;
κατά μευ σχίζεις ὀνείρους.
ὁ δ' Ἔρως, ἄνοιγε, φησίν· 10
βρέφος εἰμί, μὴ φόβησαι·
βρέχομαι δὲ κἀσέληνον
κατὰ νύκτα πεπλάνημαι.
ἐλέησα ταῦτ' ἀκούσας,
ἀνὰ δ' εὐθὺ λύχνον ἅψας 15
ἀνέῳξα, καὶ βρέφος μέν
ἐσορῶ φἐροντα τόξον
πτέρυγάς τε καὶ φαρέτρην.
παρὰ δ' ἱστίην καθῖσα,
παλάμαις τε χεῖρας αὐτοῦ 20
ἀνέθαλπον, ἐκ δὲ χαίτης
ἀπέθλιβον ὑγρὸν ὕδωρ.
ὁ δ', ἐπεὶ κρύος μεθῆκεν,
φέρε, φησί, πειράσωμεν
τόδε τόξον, εἴ τι μοι νῦν 25
βλάβεται βραχεῖσα νευρή.
τανύει δὲ καί με τύπτει
μέσον ἡπαρ, ὥσπερ οἶστρος·
ἀνὰ δ' ἅλλεται καχάζων,
ξένε δ', εἶπε, συγχάρηθι· 30
κέρας ἀβλαβὲς μὲν ἡμῖν,
σὺ δὲ καρδίην πονήσεις.
Some of his phrases, however, prove that he was occasionally more
indebted to the Latin version of Stephanus than to the original.
82. _That for seven lusters I did never come. _ The fall of Herrick's
father from a window, fifteen months after the poet's birth, was imputed
at the time to suicide; and it has been reasonably conjectured that some
mystery may have attached to the place of his burial. If "seven
lusters" can be taken literally for thirty-five years, this poem was
written in 1627.
83. _Delight in Disorder. _ Cp. Ben Jonson's "Still to be neat, still to
be drest," in its turn imitated from one of the _Basia_ of Johannes
Bonefonius.
85. _Upon Love. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1654. The only variant
is "To tell me" for "To signifie" in the third line.
86. _To Dean Bourn. _ "We found many persons in the village who could
repeat some of his lines, and none who were not acquainted with his
'Farewell to Dean Bourn,' which they said he uttered as he crossed the
brook upon being ejected by Cromwell from the vicarage, to which he had
been presented by Charles the First. But they added, with an air of
innocent triumph, 'he did see it again,' as was the fact after the
restoration. " Barron Field in _Quarterly Review_, August, 1810. Herrick
was ejected in 1648.
_A rocky generation! a people currish. _ Cp. Burton, II. iii. 2: a rude
. . . uncivil, wild, currish generation.
91. _That man loves not who is not zealous too. _ Augustine, _Adv.
Adimant. _ 13: Qui non zelat, non amat.
92. _The Bag of the Bee. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1654, and in
Henry Bold's _Wit a-sporting in a Pleasant Grove of new Fancies_, 1657.
Set to music by Henry Lawes.
93. _Luxurious love by wealth is nourished. _ Ovid, _Remed. Amor. _ 746:
Divitiis alitur luxuriosus amor.
95. _Homer himself. _ Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. Horace,
_De Art. Poet. _ 359.
100. _To bread and water none is poor. _ Seneca, _Excerpt. _ ii. 887:
Panem et aquam Natura desiderat; nemo ad haec pauper est.
_Nature with little is content. _ Seneca, _Ep. _ xvi. : Exiguum Natura
desiderat. _Ep. _ lx. : parvo Natura dimittitur.
106. _A Country Life: To his brother, M. Tho. Herrick. _ "Thomas,
baptized May 12, 1588, was placed by his uncle and guardian, Sir William
Heyrick, with Mr. Massam, a merchant in London; but in 1610 he appears
to have returned into the country and to have settled in a small farm.
It is supposed that this Thomas was the father of Thomas Heyrick, who in
1668 resided at Market Harborough and issued a trader's token there, and
grandfather to the Thomas who was curate of Harborough and published
some sermons and poems. " Hill's _Market Harborough_, p. 122.
A MS. version of this poem is contained in Ashmole 38, from which Dr.
Grosart gives a full collation on pp. cli. -cliii. of his Memorial
Introduction. The MS. appears to follow an unrevised version of the
poem, and contains a few couplets which Herrick afterwards thought fit
to omit. The most important passage comes after line 92: "Virtue had,
and mov'd her sphere".
"Nor know thy happy and unenvied state
Owes more to virtue than to fate,
Or fortune too; for what the first secures,
That as herself, or heaven, endures.
The two last fail, and by experience make
Known, not they give again, they take. "
_Thrice and above blest. _ Felices ter et amplius, Hor. I. _Od. _ xiii. 7.
_My soul's half:_ Animæ dimidium meæ, Hor. I. _Od. _ iii. 8. The poem is
full of such reminiscences: "With holy meal and spirting (MS. crackling)
salt" is the "Farre pio et saliente mica" of III. _Od. _ xxiii. 20;
"Untaught to suffer poverty" the "Indocilis pauperiem pati" of I. _Od. _
i. 18; "A heart thrice wall'd" comes from I. _Od. _ iii. 9: Illi robur et
æs triplex, etc. Similar instances might be multiplied. Note, too, the
use of "Lar" and "Genius".
_Jove for our labour all things sells us. _ Epicharm. apud Xenoph.
_Memor. _ II. i. 20, τῶν πόνων Πωλοῦσιν ἡμῖν πάντα τἀγαθ' οἱ θεοί. Quoted
by Montaigne, II. xx.
_Wisely true to thine own self. _ Possibly a Shakespearian reminiscence
of the "to thine own self be true" in the speech of Polonius to Laertes,
Hamlet, I. iii. 78.
_A wise man every way lies square. _ Cp. Arist. _Eth. _ I. x. 11, ὡς ἀληθῶς
ἀγαθὸς καὶ τετράγωνος ἄνευ ψόγου.
_For seldom use commends the pleasure. _ Voluptates commendat rarior
usus. Juvenal, _Sat. _ xi. ad fin.
_Nor fear or wish your dying day. _ Summum nec metuas diem, nec optes.
Mart. X. xlvii. 13.
112. _To the Earl of Westmoreland. _ Mildmay Fane succeeded his father,
Thomas Fane, the first earl, in March, 1628. At the outbreak of the
Civil War he sided with the king, but after a short imprisonment made
his submission to the Parliament, and was relieved of the sequestration
of his estates. He subsequently printed privately a volume of poems,
called _Otia Sacra_, which has been re-edited by Dr. Grosart.
117. _To the Patron of Poets, M. End. Porter. _ Five of Herrick's poems
are addressed to Endymion Porter, who seems to have been looked to as a
patron by all the singers of his day. According to the inscription on a
medal of him executed by Varin in 1635, he was then forty-eight, so that
he was born in 1587, coming into the world at Aston-under-Hill in
Gloucestershire. He went with Charles on his trip to Spain, and after
his accession became groom of his bedchamber, was active in the king's
service during the Civil War, and died in 1649. He was a collector of
works of art both for himself and for the king, and encouraged Rob.
Dover's Cotswold games by presenting him with a suit of the king's
clothes. À Wood tells us this, and mentions also that he was a friend of
Donne, that Gervase Warmsely dedicated his _Virescit Vulnere Virtus_ to
him in 1628, and that in conjunction with the Earl of St. Alban's he
also received the dedication of Davenant's _Madagascar_.
_Let there be patrons_, etc. Burton, I. ii. 3, § 15. 'Tis an old saying:
"Sint Mæcenates, non deerunt, Flacce, Marones" (Mart. VIII. lvi. 5).
Fabius, Cotta, and Lentulus are examples of Roman patrons of poetry,
themselves distinguished. Cp. Juvenal, vii. 94.
119. _His tapers thus put out. _ So Ovid, _Am. _ iii. 9:--
Ecce puer Veneris fert eversamque pharetram
Et fractos arcus, et sine luce facem.
121. _Four things make us happy here. _ From
Ὑγιαίνειν μὲν ἄριστον ἀνδρὶ θνατῷ·
δεύτερον δὲ φυὰν καλὸν γενέσθαι·
τὸ τρίτον δὲ πλουτεῖν αδόλως·
καὶ τὸ τέταρτον, ἡβᾶν μετὰ τῶν φίλων.
(Bergk, _Anth. Lyr. _, _Scol. _ 8. )
123. _The Tear sent to her from Staines. _ This is printed in _Witts
Recreations_ with no other variation than in the title, which there
runs: "A Teare sent his Mistresse". Dr. Grosart notes that Staines was
at the time a royal residence.
128. _His Farewell to Sack. _ A manuscript version of this poem at the
British Museum omits many lines (7, 8, 11-22, 29-36), and contains few
important variants. "Of the yet chaste and undefiled bride" is a poor
anticipation of line 6, and "To raise the holy madness" for "To rouse
the sacred madness" is also weak. For the line and a half:--
"Prithee not smile
Or smile more inly, lest thy looks beguile,"
we have the very inferior passage:--
"I prithee draw in
Thy gazing fires, lest at their sight the sin
Of fierce idolatry shoot into me, and
I turn apostate to the strict command
Of nature; bid me now farewell, or smile
More ugly, lest thy tempting looks beguile".
This MS. version is followed in the first published text in _Witts
Recreations_, 1645.
130. _Upon Mrs. Eliz. Wheeler. _ "The lady complimented in this poem was
probably a relation by marriage. Herrick's first cousin, Martha, the
seventh daughter of his uncle Robert, married Mr. John Wheeler. " Nott.
132. _Fold now thine arms. _ A sign of grief. Cp. "His arms in this sad
knot". _Tempest. _
134. _Mr. J. Warr. _ This John Warr is probably the same as the "honoured
friend, Mr. John Weare, Councellour," of a later poem. Dr. Grosart
quotes an "Epitaph upon his honoured friend, Master Warre," by Randolph.
Nothing is known of him, but I find in the Oxford Register that a John
Warr matriculated at Exeter College, 16th May, 1619, and proceeded M. A.
in 1624. He may possibly be Herrick's friend.
137. _Dowry with a wife. _ Cp. Ovid, _Ars Am. _ ii. 155: Dos est uxoria
lites.
139. _The Wounded Cupid. _ This is taken from Anacreon, 33 [40]:--
Ἔρως ποτ' ἐν ῥόδοισιν
κοιμωμένην μέλιτταν
οὐκ εἶδεν, ἀλλ' ἐτοώθη
τὸν δάκτυλον· παταχθείς
τὰς χεῖρας ὠλόλυξεν·
δραμὼν δὲ καὶ πετασθεις
πρὸς τὴν καλὴν Κυθήρην
ὄλωλα, μᾶτερ, εἶπεν,
ὄλωλα κἀποθνήσκω·
ὄφις μ' ἔτυψε μικρός
πτερωτός, ὃν καλοῦσιν
μέλιτταν οἱ γεωργοί.
ἁ δ' εἶπεν· εἰ τὸ κέντρον
πονεῖ τὸ τᾶς μελίττας,
πόσον δοκεῖς πονοῦσιν,
Ἔρως, ὅσους σὺ βάλλεις;
142. _A Virgin's face she had. _ Herrick is imitating a charming passage
from the first Æneid (ll. 315-320), in which Æneas is confronted by
Venus:--
Virginis os habitumque gerens et virginis arma,
Spartanae vel qualis equos Threissa fatigat
Harpalyce volucremque fuga praevertitur Eurum.
Namque umeris de more habilem suspenderat arcum
Venatrix, dederatque comam diffundere ventis,
Nuda genu nodoque sinus collecta fluentis.
_With a wand of myrtle_, etc. Cp. Anacreon, 7 [29]:--
Ὑακινθίνῃ με ῥάβδῳ
χαλέπως, Ἔρως ῥαπίζων . . . εἶπε·
Σὺ γὰρ οὐ δύνῃ φιλῆσαι.
146. _Upon the Bishop of Lincoln's Imprisonment. _ John Williams
(1582-1650), Bishop of Lincoln, 1621; Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal,
1621-1625; suspended and imprisoned, 1637-1640, on a frivolous charge of
having betrayed the king's secrets; Archbishop of York, 1641. Save from
this poem and the _Carol_ printed in the Appendix we know nothing of his
relations with Herrick. He had probably stood in the way of the poet's
obtaining holy orders or preferment. When Herrick was appointed to the
cure of Dean Prior in 1629, Williams had already lost favour at the
Court.
147. _Cynthius pluck ye by the ear. _ Cp. Virg. _Ecl. _ vi. 3: Cynthius
aurem Vellit et admonuit; and Milton's _Lycidas_, 77: "Phœbus replied
and touched my trembling ears".
_The lazy man the most doth love. _ Cp. Ovid, _Remed. Amor. _ 144: Cedit
amor rebus: res age, tutus eris. Nott. But Ovid could also write: Qui
nolet fieri desidiosus amet (1 _Am. _ ix. 46).
149. _Sir Thomas Southwell_, of Hangleton, Sussex, knighted 1615, died
before December 16, 1642.
_Those tapers five. _ Mentioned by Plutarch, _Qu. Rom. _ 2. For their
significance see Ben Jonson's _Masque of Hymen_.
_O'er the threshold force her in. _ The custom of lifting the bride over
the threshold, probably to avert an ill-omened stumble, has prevailed
among the most diverse races. For the anointing of the doorposts Brand
quotes Langley's translation of Polydore Vergil: "The bryde anoynted the
poostes of the doores with swynes' grease, because she thought by that
meanes to dryve awaye all misfortune, whereof she had her name in Latin
'Uxor ab unguendo'".
_To gather nuts. _ A Roman marriage custom mentioned in Catullus, _Carm. _
lxi. 124-127, the _In Nuptias Juliæ et Manlii_, which Herrick keeps in
mind all through this ode.
_With all lucky birds to side. _ Bona cum bona nubit alite virgo.
