1ff. Gager may have been thinking of Ovid, Metamorphoses I.506 - 8:
sic agna lupum, sic cerva leonem,
sic aquilam penna fugiunt trepidante columbae
hostes quaeque suos.
This sort of imagery describing relations of prey such as lambs and doves to predators such as wolves and hawks is employed repeatedly in Gager’s political odes; it is especially common in Ovid. Cf., for example, Ars Amatoria I.18 and II.363, Epistolae ex Ponto II. vii 1, Fasti II.85, II.90, and II.800, Metamorphoses I.505, V.605f., and VI.527, Tristia I.i 75, I.i 78, I.ix 7, and II.xi 12. Cf. also the perversion of this natural order of things described by Horace at Epodes xvi.32ff.
10 Cf. CL.120, turbae lux unica nostrae.
17 Parry was born in Flintshire, Wales. As Brooke observed, silices in the next stanza is probably a pun on the name of the county.
21f. Here Gager is of course imitating Horace, Odes I.iii.9f. (also echoed at Meleager 1361 and Ulysses Redux 1064):
illi robur et aes triplex
circa pectus erat.
27f. Parry allegedly had seduced his wife’s daughter by a prior marriage.
29f. Parry had wounded one Hugh Hare, a creditor bringing suit against him, during a nocturnal affray at the Temple. Cf. *VII below.
37f. This refers to Leicester’s Act of Association of November, 1584, according to which all English subjects were expected to subscribe to a loyalty oath.
39 Cf. Ovid, Tristia I.iii.73, in genus auctoris miseri fortuna redundat, and Ps. - Seneca, Oct. 429f.:
collecta vitia per tot aetates diu
in nos redundant.
42f. For non ego perfidum / dixi sacramentum cf. Horace, Odes II.xviii.9f.
45ff. By all accounts, Parry was well endowed with talents.
IV.
Sources: (1) A pp. 154 - 6, edited by Brooke, ib. 164 - 7; (2) ib., sigs. A 2v - 3v. Date: 1585. Meter: Sapphic stanzas.
1ff. The device of praising the day on which the plot was detected was subsequently reemployed as one of the organizing ideas for Pyramis. Cf. especially Pyramis 63 - 7:
grata redis nobis, qua nec vitalior ulla
illuxit, nec qua natalis gratior hora est.
non etenim minus illa solet iucunda videri
illustrisque dies, qua conservamur et Orci
faucibus eripimur, quam qua pronascimur almam
in lucem.
13ff. The idea that God has a special interest in, and relation with, sovereigns, is enunciated here and in V.17ff. It is set forth more fully at Pyramis 82ff., in a work that reflects James I’s thinking on the divine right of kings.
37ff. Cf. the Introduction to Gager’s poetry for a description of the poet’s family (the uncle in question could be his paternal uncle John Gager or his maternal uncle Edward Cordell).
53ff. At the moment Gager was thirty years old, and the Queen was fifty-two. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses VII.168, deme meis annis et demptos adde parenti.
59f. As if she were a Caesar, deified upon death.
V.
Sources: (1) A pp. 156 - 7, edited by Brooke, ib. 167 - 70; (2) ib., sigs. A 3v - 4v. Date: 1585. Meter: Alcaic stanzas.
3ff. Cf. the note on III.1ff.
17ff. Cf. the note on IV.12ff.
18 For the idea that a sovereign is God’s image on earth (a favorite conceit of King James) cf. the Introduction to Pyramis.
29f. I do not know of any precedent for this remarkable idea that sleep is somehow ingested through the ears.
33 William Cecil, Lord Burleigh.
34 For almaeque pacis cf. the choral apostrophe at Meleager 766ff.
35 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his brother Ambrose, Earl of Warwick.
38 Thus we must understand redimit. The alternative, that they atone for the sins of their forefathers (committed, perhaps, in the War of the Roses), seems excluded by the surrounding context.
41f. In a stanza that must have had special meaning for the University community, Gager writes of two Christ Church contemporaries, Sir Thomas Clinton, grandson of the Earl of Lincoln (cf. CXLIV and CLIV) and Sir Walter Devereux, younger brother of the Earl of Essex (cf. XXXVIII.104ff.). It is especially fitting that these two names thus be linked: cf. CXLIV, which memorializes their friendship.
42f. In the preliminary version in A, Gager had first written a pair of lines, “Thus Walter Devereux seeks to surpass the fame of his line.” As Brooke observed, he tried to revise the stanza so as to work in a reference to his older brother, but could not hit on a verb that would fit in the metrical scheme.
44 Patrizo = patrisso. For the verb, the Oxford Latin Dictionary cites Plautus, Mostellaria 639, Pseudolus 442, Terence, Andria 564, and Apuleius, Florida 3.
*VI.
Source: Ib., sig. A 5r. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
J. W. Binns (Humanistica Lovaniensia 21, 1972, 222 n.7) expressed uncertainty as to the authorship of the epigrams printed here as *VI - *XVII; although in his printed edition of the odes in this set of poems he had stated the view that they are probably written by a variety of hands, Tucker Brooke did include them in his unfinished edition of Gager’s complete works. Some details support the authenticity of at least two of the following epigrams. The insistent punning on Parry’s name in the present one finds a close counterpart in the punning on the name Dexter in CLXIV. Again, in a different way, the punning on Parry’s name finds a match in the punning on the word par in the first few lines of a late poem to (now) Bishop Martin Heton, CLXXIX. A echo of *VIII in Pyramis guarantees its authenticity. The only reason for thinking that Gager is not responsible for all of these is they, unlike the preceding odes, do not appear in A. But, although inclusion of an item in that notebook guarantees the authorship of a poem, the converse is not necessarily true. By his own testimony Gager wrote unprinted poetry which he did not preserve in his notebook (CXIII, and cf. also *XCVI), so failure to appear in A is not probative evidence against Gager’s authorship.
In the case of these epigrams there is a superior solution: the notebook versions of the odes look like preliminary versions, not finished products (note especially V.42f.) Therefore they must have been written before their appearance in print. May we not think that Gager entered these three odes in his notebook before the possibility of their publication had arisen? Then he wrote the following epigrams to pad out the volume, but did not include them in the notebook because he knew they were going to be printed.
Nonetheless, poems whose authorship is not proven beyond all doubt are marked with an asterisk in this edition.
*VII.
Source: Ib., sig. A 5r. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
Parry went through his own fortune and that of his wife, and fell into debt. In 1580 he had stabbed his creditor Harry Hare, who was currently bringing suit against him, in an affray at the Temple.
*VIII.
Source: Ib., sig. A 5r. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
1 Parry had been condemned to death on a charge of common burglary for his assault on Hare, but had been granted a royal pardon.
2f. Evidently these lines reflect a proverb: cf. Pyramis 1212 - 4:
latronem furca servaveris, aut cruce furem,
ille tibi primus iugulum petit improbus, Anglis
communis vox est.
*IX.
Source: Ib., sig. A 5r. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
*X.
Source: Ib., sig. A 5v. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplet.
1 Gregory XIII until April, 1585, then Sixtus V until 1590. But no matter: to Gager the Pope is a personified institution, scarcely an individual.
2 Although at Oxford terrae filius was a phrase with special connotations (Thomas Secombe and H. Spencer Scott, In Praise of Oxford, An Anthology in Prose and Verse (London, 1912), here and in *XII below it simply means “a man of no account, a nobody” (cf. XXXIV.16, telluris alumnos). In his unpublished manuscript Tucker Brooke it as “the son of naught.”
*XI.
Source: Ib., sig. A 5v. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
Parry’s father was Harry ap David, so by rights he should have called himself William ap Harry. However, he had Anglicized this by inventing for himself an English-sounding surname.
Despite the Welsh origin of the Tudors, Wales was still considered a remote and uncouth region. Cf. Thomas Legge’s Richardus Tertius I.iv.iii 934f.:
ut aleret saeva regem Wallia
et barbaros luceret inter filius.
*XII.
Source: Ib., sig. A 5v. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
2f. Cf. Juvenal, Sat. i.73f.:
aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris et carcere dignum,
si vis esse aliquid.
5 Herostratus burned down the temple of Artemis at Ephesus in 359 B. C., supposedly on the day Alexander the Great was born: cf. Valerius Maximus XIV.v and Aulus Gellius, II. vi.18.
*XIII.
Source: Ib., sig. A 5v. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplet.
*XIV.
Source: Ib., sig. A 6v. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
*XV.
Source: Ib., sig. A 6v. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
4 Gager0 is of course thinking of the Whore of Babylon, for whom cf. Revelations 17:5.
5 The separation of the Anglican Church from Rome can be dated to June 27, 1534, if one chooses to regard the pivotal date as the occasion on which the faculty of the University of Oxford voted that the Bishop of Rome possessed no greater authority over the English church than did any other foreign bishop.
9 Sinon was the Greek left behind with the Trojan horse, instructed to tell the Trojans a lying tale about his countrymen’s departure.
12 Presumably he means the wind and weather of public opinion.
13ff. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid II.114 - 7:
suspensi Eurypylum scitatum oracula Phoebi
mittimus, isque adytis haec tristia dicta reportat:
"sanguine placastis ventos et virgine caesa,
cum primum Iliacas, Danai, venistis ad oras.
15 At Aulis the Greeks were obliged to sacrifice Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigeneia to gain fair sailing wind. Gager may also be alluding to this mythological parallel at XXIV. 57ff.
*XVI.
Source: Ib., sig. A 6v. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
*XVII.
Source: Ib., sig. A 6v. Date: 1585. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
8 Cf. CXLVI.26, cui tua non minus est chara salute sua.
XVIII.
Sources: This and the following five odes were published in the volume In Catlinarias Proditiones ac Proditores Domesticos Odae 6, printed by Joseph Barnes, Oxford, 1586; later in the same year they were reprinted with the addition of the next three odes as In Catilinarias Proditiones, ac Proditores Domesticos Odae 9, also issued by Barnes. This latter bears the dedication Odae 9 ornatissimis viris d. doctori Iameso, Aedis Christi Oxon. Decano, et d. doctori Hetono prodecano, caeterisque clarissimis atque optimis viris eiudem ecclesiae praebendariis, et privatae observantiae, et publicae pietatis ergo dicatae. Edited by C. F. Tucker Brooke, “Some Pre-Armada Propagandist Poetry in England (1585 - 1586),” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 85: 1 (1941) 73f. The text here, identified as b, is based on the later book; variant readings from the earlier printing are indicated by the sign a. The copy of a owned by Winchester College has been hand corrected (by the author himself, according to Brooke). The present ode occupies sigs. A 1r - A 1v of b, and pp.73f. of Brooke’s edition. Date: 1586. Meter: Alcaic stanzas.
1ff. Cf. Seneca, Thyestes 623 - 5:
quis me per auras turbo praecipitem vehet
atraque nube involvet, ut tantum nefas
eripiat oculis?
3f. Because a fellow student of Christ Church was Richard Hakluyt Gager must have been well aware of the oceanic exploration of his age. Cf. the note on line 1243 of the Epilogue to Dido and his tribute to Sir Francis Drake at CLXVIII below.
5ff. Cf. Seneca, Thyestes 412 - 14:
repete silvestres fugas
saltusque densos potius et mixtam feris
similemque vitam.
37f. Cf. XXI.54, sarcina criminis.
43 The reference to English defeats of Spain presumably refers to successful depredations against Spanish colonies and shipping in the New World, and similar efforts of harassment.
45 Perhaps this line was inspired by Juvenal, Satire vi.299f.:
et turpi fregerunt saecula luxu
divitiae molles.
The Act II chorus of Ulysses Redux (728ff.) is probably also intended as a denunciation of contemporary mores; compare the complaint about the corruptive influence of French fashions on English youth at XLVII.19 - 23.
48 For medicata fuco cf. Horace, Odes III.v 28. In speaking of “Italian guile,” Gager is perhaps thinking especially of Cardinal Como, who supposedly abetted William Parry in his plot to murder the Queen (so the contemporary Pareus, probably by Gager’s friend George Peele, represented him). Cf. also Pyramis 653, postquam (sc. Anglia) est Italo medicata veneno.
XIX.
Source: Ib., sigs. A1v - A2r (ed. by Brooke, ib. 74f.). Date: 1586. Meter: Alcaic stanzas.
21ff. Cf. Pyramis 136 - 40 (in this passage England is presented as a second Troy):
horret enim reputare animus, quam pene secundo
tantas urbis opes, et tam laetabile regnum
eruerant Danai, tantamque evertere gentem
institerant, iterumque aliud pene arserat ingens
Ilium, et omnis humo fumaverat altera Troia.
27ff. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid IX.433 - 7:
volvitur Euryalus leto, pulchrosque per artus
it cruor inque umeros cervix conlapsa recumbit:
purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro
languescit moriens, lassove papavera collo
demisere caput pluvia cum forte gravantur.
37f. Cf. Horace, Odes III.iii 70 - 2:
quo, Musa, tendis? desine pervicax
referre sermones deorum et
magna modis tenuare parvis.
Gager is very fond of this device of restraining his forward Muse. Cf. XXV.25ff., where this same Horatian passage is imitated.
39f. Archilochus was an early Greek poet who wrote harsh invectives against his enemies in iambic verse. Cf. Horace, Ars Poetica 79, Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo.
XX.
Source: Ib., sigs. A 2v - A 3v (ed. by Brooke, ib. 75f.) Date: 1586. Meter: Sapphic stanzas.
Gager repeatedly adopts the strategy of professing himself unable or unwilling to fashion a song for some occasion, and then of being taken over by the Muse in a sort of divine possession. Cf. also XXXVIII.6ff., LI.17ff., LXI.28ff., and CL.60. His frequent allusion to his Muse is illuminated by a remark in the Eloquentiae Encomium of 1584, nunc illo mihi poetarum praesido utendum est: ἕσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι.
1ff. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII.533 - 5:
non mihi si centum deus ora sonantia linguis
ingeniumque capax totumque Helicona dedisset,
tristia persequerer miserarum fata sororum.
This in turn is based on Vergil, Aeneid VI.625 - 8:
non, mihi si linguae centum sint oraque centum,
ferrea vox, omnis scelerum comprendere formas,
omnia poenarum percurrere nomina possim.
Gager also imitated this passage at LXIX.1 - 4 and Pyramis 164 - 6.
3f. Gager may have been thinking of Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto II.i.17f.:
gaudia Caesareae mentis pro parte virili
sunt mea.
5ff. Gager had in mind Horace’s Carmen Saeculare, an extended ode written in these same Sapphic stanzas. Cf. also Horace, Odes III.iv.1f.:
descende caelo et dic age tibia
regina longum Calliope melos.
9ff. This passage is modelled after Horace, Odes III.xxv.1 - 8:
quo me, Bacche, rapis tui
plenum? quae nemora aut quos agor in specus
velox mente nova? quibus
antris egregii Caesaris audiar
aeternum meditans decus
stellis inserere et consilio Iovis?
dicam insigne, recens, adhuc
indictum ore alio.
10 Cf. Horace, Odes I.xii 6, aut super Pindo gelidove in Haemo. Like Mt. Helicon in Boeotia, Mts. Pindus (between Thessaly and Epirus) and Haemus (in Thrace) were celebrated haunts of the Muses. Haemus also has special associations with Orpheus.
13 Tempe is the beautiful valley of the Peneus river in Thessaly, another place associated with the Muses.
15f. For Caballinus (“The Nag’s Spring”) = Hippocrene, cf. Persius, Proem 1. Gager is saying that he is being transformed into a poet in precisely the way that Perseus denies is happening to him (1 - 3):
nec fonte labra prolui caballino
nec in bicipiti somniasse Parnasso
memini, ut repente sic poeta prodirem.
17ff. Cf. CL.61f.:
novus unde mihi furor iste canendi
incessit? subito mihi mens in carmina gestit.
21ff. Cf. Statius, Silvae III.iii.174 - 6:
qualia nec Siculae moderantur carmina rupes
nec fati iam certus olor saevique marita
Tereos.
22 Daulis is a town in Phocia. The wicked Thracian king Tereus had married Procne and they had a son, Itys. He raped her sister Philomela and cut out Procne’s tongue so she would not blab. Procne retaliated by killing Itys and serving him to her husband. Then the entire family was transformed into various sorts of bird.
26 Quintus Horatius Flaccus, i.e., Horace. Catullus was notoriously the doctus poeta, the Neoteric poet educated in the poetry of the Alexandrians.
27f. Cf. Horace, Odes I.i.36, sublimi feriam sidera vertice.
29 For quid moror? cf. Horace, Odes II.xvii.6. Cf. also Vergil, Eclogue iv.55 - 7:
non me carminibus vincet nec Thracius Orpheus
nec Linus, huic mater quamvis atque huic pater adsit,
Orphei Calliopea, Lino formosus Apollo.
31 Like Orpheus, Linus was a celebrated bard of Greek mythology.
33f. Cf. Dido 268f. with the Commentary note ad loc.
35 An allusion to the climactic event in Meleager?
39f. Cf. Propertius I.xxi.7, Gallum per medios ereptum Caesaris enses.
41ff. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid V.51 - 4:
hunc ego Gaetulis agerem si Syrtibus exsul,
Argolicoue mari deprensus et urbe Mycenae,
annua vota tamen sollemnisque ordine pompas
exsequerer strueremque suis altaria donis.
Gager reemployed these lines at Pyramis 263 - 71:
ergo ego Pictorum si pauper et exul in oris
extremis agerem, si carcere conditus alto
compedibusque procul patria tellure tenerer,
si remo miser Hispano nudusque lacertos
aequora pulsarem, quinto redeunte Novembris,
gesiterem ad durae sonitum tractumque catenae,
aequalem remi canerem modulantis ad ictum,
exultarem amens, et patria gaudia toto
pectore testarer.
44 The Syrte was a huge sandbank off the coast of Libya.
58f. Cf. Vergil, Eclogue vii.26, invidia rumpantur ut ilia Codro, also imitated at Panniculus 610, disrumpantur ut Momo ilia.
61f. Gager was perhaps thinking of Ovid, Metamorphoses XIV.256 - 8:
mille lupi mixtaeque lupis ursaeque leaeque
occursu fecere metum, sed nulla timenda
nullaque erat nostro factura in corpore vulnus.
XXI.
Source: Ib., sigs. A 3v - A 4v (ed. by Brooke, ib. 76 - 8). Date: 1586. Meter: Alcaic stanzas.
1 Gager may have written this line under the influence of Horace, Epistulae I.iii.6, quid studiosa cohors operum struit? But surely the beginning of this ode is also designed to recall Psalm 2, which begins:
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
9ff. Cf. Horace, Odes III.vi.13f.:
paene occupatam seditionibus
delevit urbem Dacus et Aethiops.
11ff. Cf. Seneca, Troades 870f.:
ad auctorem redit
sceleris coacti culpa.
19f. Cf. Seneca, Oedipus 875f.:
saeculi crimen vagor,
odium deorum, iuris exitium sacri.
21ff. The inspiration for this passage comes from Juvenal, Satire ix.102 - 8:
o Corydon, Corydon, secretum divitis ullum
esse putas? servi ut taceant, iumenta loquentur
et canis et postes et marmora. claude fenestras,
vela tegant rimas, iunge ostia, tollite lumen,
e medio fac eant omnes, prope nemo recumbat;
quod tamen ad cantum galli facit ille secundi
proximus ante diem caupo sciet.
29f. Cf. Ulysses Redux 1204, aurita domus est, et paries oculos habet.
49f. Cf. Ovid, Remedium Amoris 17f.:
cur aliquis laqueo collum nodatus amator
a trabe sublimi triste pependit onus?
And also Oedipus 175, Iocasta ab alta fregerat collum trabe.
54 Cf. XVII.37f. criminum…sarcina.
57 Cf. Seneca, Hercules Furens 385, sequitur superbos ultor a tergo deus.
60f. Cf. III.35f.:
quam nefandi
supplicium capitis sequetur.
XXII.
Source: Ib., sigs. A 4v - A 5r (ed. by Brooke, ib. 78). Date: 1586. Meter: Alcaic stanzas.
9f. David, frightened and exasperated by all of Saul’s attempts to kill him, defected to the Philistines and wished to fight on their side in the battle in which Saul was killed (I Kings 27 - 31).
13f. My translation stretches the Latin a bit (it literally says “for Saul’s garment to be rent while he was unawares”) to bring it into conformity with the accounts of Saul’s death at I Kings 31 and I Chronicles 10.
14ff. David’s reaction to the news of Saul’s defeat and death is described at II Samuel 1. The detail of his scarcely accepting a cup and spear is not given there. Perhaps, then, the cup in question is to be understood as that from which the Jewish kings were anointed (for the institution of this custom cf. I Samuel 10), and the tenor of the line is “David scarcely accepted the kingship.”
18f. David killed the messenger who brought the news of the defeat (II Samuel 1: 7 - 16). Presumably in the hope of receiving a reward, the individual in question falsely claimed to have killed Saul himself.
25ff. Sheba son of Bichri, who sought to foment a rebellion against David (II Samuel 20 - 22), also mentioned at Pyramis 673.
XXIII.
Source: Ib., sigs. A 5r - A 6rv (ed. by Brooke, ib. 78 - 80). Date: 1586. Meter: Alcaic stanzas.
1 Cf. Horace, Odes I.xvi.1, o matra pulchra filia pulchrior.
4 For columenque rerum cf. Horace, Odes II.xvii.4.
5 Cf. Horace, Odes IV.x.7, quae mens est hodie (?)
6 Cf. Vergil, Aen. II.286f.:
quae causa indigna serenos
foedavit vultus?
9f. Cf. Ps. - Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 1722, quid sedet pallor genis?
12 Cf. the note on III.1ff.
15f. Cf. Ulysses Redux 1827, paena comitatur scelus. Both passages are inspired by Horace, Odes IV.v.24, culpam poena premit comes.
21ff. Cf. Pyramis 1300 - 6:
quo minus extimeam, tanto securus asylo,
ne cineres videar gelidosque lacessere manes,
defunctosque gravi paena, legumque severo
imperio, tenuesque sequi mordacior umbras,
pyramide extructa, quasi (post tot acerba) trophaeo
in cives posito. post fata quiescere debet
supplicium, miserisque venit miseratio rebus.
22 Cf. mordeo manes at LXI.14.
27f. For a similar sentiment cf. III.43f.:
nec in te
carnificis maculam verebor.
32f. Chidiock Tichborne and the Marquess of Salisbury, two conspirators executed with Babington.
43f. For superbum…triumphum cf. Meleager 886f. etc.
46 As becomes clear in the next stanza, these are the giants Enceladus and Typhoeus, who mounted an assault on the Olympians and who were buried under mountains by way of punishment.
47f. The translation of these two lines, which is unbeatable, is Tucker Brooke’s.
49ff. Cf. Ps. - Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 1152 - 60:
non vana times, gnate Tonantis:
nunc Thessalicam Pelion Ossam
premet et Pindo congestus Athos
nemus aetheriis inseret astris;
vincet scopulos inde Typhoeus
et Tyrrhenam feret Inarimen;
feret Aetnaeos inde caminos
scindetque latus montis aperti
nondum Enceladus fulmine victus:
iam te caeli regna secuntur.
53f. Cf. Meleager 1064 (imitating Seneca, Thyestes 1089f. and Ps. - Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 1992 - 4), nec adhuc trisulcum dextera telum evolat?
55f. Cf. Ovid, Tristia V.ii.75, vel rapidae flammis urar patienter in Aetnae. There are also several references to the punishment of the giants in classical poetry, such as Vergil, Aeneid III.578 - 83:
fama est Enceladi semustum fulmine corpus
urgeri mole hac, ingentemque insuper Aetnam
impositam ruptis flammam exspirare caminis,
et fessum quotiens mutet latus, intremere omnem
murmure Trinacriam et caelum subtexere fumo.
58 Cf. Horace, Odes III.iv.65, vis consili expers mole ruit sua.
62 Cf. the note on IV.12ff.
69f. Cf.0 Horace, Sermones I.ix.31f.:
hunc neque dira venena nec hosticus auferet ensis
nec laterum dolor aut tussis nec tarda podagra.
XXIV.
Source: Ib. sigs. A 6r - A 7v (ed. by Brooke, ib. 80f.). Date: 1586. Meter: Alcaic stanzas.
1 For miretur aetas postera cf. also CLVI.5.
5 - 8 Her brother was Edward VI, her sister Mary, her father Henry VIII, and her grandfather, the latter called the “friend of peace” because his accession marked the end of the War of the Roses.
17ff. Mary, Queen of Scots, allegedly murdered her first husband Henry, Lord Darnley, by exploding him in 1567 (Gager was either singularly uninformed about Darnley’s personality, or he applied the adjective dulcem with heavy irony); he intimates that the episode contained the stuff of tragedy. Soon thereafter she abandoned her next husband, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, when she fled to England.
18f. This is a kind of inversion of Horace, Ars Poetica 90f.:
indignatur item privatis ac prope socco
dignis carminibus narrari cena Thyestae.
21ff. Presumably this stanza looks back to the execution of William Parry in the previous year.
23f. For the image, cf. Book X of Barletius’ Vita Scanderbergi quoted by Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, “Democritus to the Reader” (I.60 of the Everyman edition):
Void of all fear, they run into imminent dangers, cannon’s mouth, etc., ut vulneribus suis ferrum hostium hebetent.
35f. Cf. CL.48f.:
qualem nec vidit transacta, nec ista, nec unquam
aetas pastorem posthac ventura videbit.
38f. For livor edax cf. Ovid, Amores I.xv.1, Remedia Amoris 389, and Seneca, Hippolytus 493; cf. also LXXIX.34 and especially CLVI.14, absit Camaenis livor edax meis.
49 Cf. Ovid, Amores III.vii 8, bracchia Sithonia candidiora nive, and also Horace, Odes III.xxvi.10, Memphin carentem Sithonia nive. The Sithonians were a Thracian tribe, so that “Sithonian” came to be employed loosely as a synonym for “Thracian.”
51 For dulcedo morum cf. CXCVII.7.
54ff. Again, cf. the note on III.1ff.
57ff. On the basis of a single verbal imitation, it is perhaps possible to say that the entire stanza takes its inspiration from Seneca, Troades 750 - 4:
o machinator fraudis et scelerum artifex,
virtute cuius bellica nemo occidit,
dolis et astu maleficae mentis iacent
etiam Pelasgi, vatem et insontes deos
praetendis?
In Seneca these lines are hurled against Ulysses, the contriver of the sacrifice of the virgin Polyxena. Cf. the note on *XV.15.
66 Cf. Seneca, Phoenissae 467f.:
clude vagina impium
ensem.
XXV.
Source: Ib. sigs. A 7r - A 7v (ed. by Brooke, ib . 81f.). Date: 1586. Meter: Alcaic stanzas.
1 Cf. Catullus, lxiv.22 - 23b:
o nimis optato saeclorum tempore nati
heroes, salvete, deum genus! o bona matrum
progenies, salvete iterum, salvete, bonarum!
9f. Cf. Statius, Thebais I.300f.:
hospitiis, quod sponte cupit, procul impius aula
arceat.
10f. Cf. Horace, Odes III.v.16f.:
exemplo trahenti
perniciem veniens in aevum.
15f. Cf. Horace, Odes III.v.28f.:
neque amissos colores
lana refert medicata fuco.
18f. Cf. Lucretius V.1136 - 9:
ergo regibus occisis subversa iacebat
pristina maiestas soliorum et sceptra superba,
et capitis summi praeclarum insigne cruentum
sub pedibus vulgi magnum lugebat honorem.
25ff. Cf. the note on XIX.37f.
26 For summa brevis cf. Horace, Odes I.iv.15 and Ovid, Tristia V.vii.7.
XXVI.
Source: Ib. sigs. A 7v - A 8r (ed. by Brooke, ib. 82f.). Date: 1586. Meter: Alcaic stanzas.
1 This opening deliberately echoes that of XXIII; cf. the note to the first line of that poem.
10 Cf. Seneca, Phoenissae 555 - 9:
ne, precor, ferro erue
patriam ac penates neve, quae regere expetis,
everte Thebas. quis tenet mentem furor?
petendo patriam perdis? ut fiat tua,
vis esse nullam?
18 For indocilis pati cf. Horace, Odes I.i.18.
21ff. Cf. Vergil, Eclogue i.70f.:
impius haec tam culta novalia miles habebit,
barbarus has segetes?
24f. Cf. Vergil, Eclogue ix.4, “haec mea sunt; veteres migrate coloni.”
29 Cf. Seneca, Thyestes 1094, aeterna nox permaneat et tenebris tegat.
30 For ensisque…patrius cf. Vergil, Aeneid VII.636.
XXVII.
Source: William Gager (ed.), Exequiae Illustrissimi Equitis D. Philippi Sidnaei, Gratissimae Memoriae ac Nomini Impensae, printed by Joseph Barnes, Oxford, 1587, sigs. B 4v - C 1v (a photographic reproduction of the entire volume is given in Elegies for Sir Philip Sidney (1587), Facsimile Reproductions with an Introduction by A. J. Colaianne and W. L. Godshalk, Delmar, New York, 1980). Edited by J. W. Binns, “William Gager on the Death of Sir Philip Sidney,” Humanistica Lovaniensia 21 (1972) 225 - 30. Date: 1587. Meter: Dactylic hexameters.
Binns cited John Pointer, Oxoniensis Academia, or the Antiquities and Curiosities of the University of Oxford (London, 1744) vi:
As for the Antiquity of Oxford, it must have been a considerable place even in the time of the Romans, for we are told by some Historians, that it was called Bellositum, before the time of the Saxons.
Cf. also Anthony à Wood, The Antient and Present State of the City of Oxford (with additions by J. Peshall, London, 1773) 2, 4, 6f., and 10 note b, and also Survey of the Antiquities of the City of Oxford (edited by the Rev. Andrew Clark, Oxford, 1889 - 99) I.44, who cites various other antiquarians to the same effect, and quotes an anonymous epigram:
Bellositum te rite vocant, Oxonia, patres
namque situ bellum quid magis orbe tuo est?
This tradition is already found in the undated ms. treatise on the antiquities of Oxford by Gager’s contemporary Leonard Hutten, who writes of “…this place of Oxford, then knowne or called by the name of Bellesitum, propter montium, pratorum, et nemorum adiacentium amoenitatem” (cf. Charles Plummer, Elizabethan Oxford, Oxford, 1887, 39).
For the traditional image that Oxford was one’s alma mater cf. Thomas Seccombe and H. Scott, In Praise of Oxford (London, 1912) II.333f.
The idea for this poem is suggested by Vergil, Eclogue v.20 - 3:
exstinctum nymphae crudeli funere Daphnim
flebant (vos coryli testes et flumina nymphis),
cum complexa sui corpus miserabile nati
atque deos atque astra vocat crudelia mater.
5 Sidney was shot in the leg at the battle of Zutphen, September 22, 1586, and died of blood poisoning at Arnheim on October 17.
6ff. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses VI.582 - 7:
germanaeque suae fatum miserabile legit
et (mirum potuisse) silet: dolor ora repressit,
verbaque quaerenti satis indignantia linguae
defuerunt, nec flere vacat, sed fasque nefasque
confusura ruit poenaeque in imagine tota est.
This passage alludes to Oxford having been slow off the mark in issuing a commemorative volume (this chagrin is also reflected in Gager’s dedicatory epistle to Leicester). A similar volume had already been issued by Cambridge in February 1587. The anthology issued by New College, Oxford, had appeared in September of that year.
7 Besides Met. 583, cf. Seneca, Hippolytus 995, vocem dolori lingua luctificam negat.
9f. Niobe‘s children were killed by Artemis after she had boasted that they were superior to her own. Hector and Polydorus were two sons of Hecuba and Priam, killed by the Greeks.
10 In Hecube Gager employs the Greek nominative singular ending -e.
11f. Cf. Meleager 1856f.
14 The (very strained) logic is that if Oxford was Sidney’s mother, then Oxford’s sister university must be his aunt.
18 Cf. Lucretius III.505, paulatim redit in sensus animamque receptat.
19f. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid X.63f:
quid me alta silentia cogis
rumpere et obductum verbis vulgare dolorem?
22 Gager may have been thinking of Ovid, Fasti II.818 - 20:
cui paret exsequias, quoque sit icta malo.
illa diu reticet pudibundaque celat amictu
ora: fluunt lacrimae more perennis aquae.
And of Seneca, Hercules Furens 1177f.:
uterque tacitus ora pudibunda obtegit
furtimque lacrimas fundit.
23 For deliciae rerum cf. CLVII.2.
25 Cf. Ps. - Ovid, Epicedion Drusi 27 - 30:
maternaque sacros agitabas mente triumphos,
forsitan et curae iam tibi currus erat.
funera pro sacris tibi sunt ducenda triumphis
et tumulus Drusum pro Iovis arce manet.
31 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid XI.156f.:
primitiae iuvenis miserae bellique propinqui
dura rudimenta.
32 Cf. XXXIV.25, atra dies.
33 Sidney had already had one horse shot out from under him and received his fatal wound while leading a charge on a second.
34ff. A good deal of material in these lines comes from Vergil, Aeneid XI.153 - 8.
non haec, o Palla, dederas promissa parenti,
cautius ut saevo velles te credere Marti.
haud ignarus eram quantum nova gloria in armis
et praedulce decus primo certamine posset.
primitiae iuvenis miserae bellique propinqui
dura rudimenta, et nulli exaudita deorum
vota precesque meae!
Throughout this eclogue the comparison of Sir Philip with Vergil’s Pallas is pursued programmatically.
39 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid XI.155, primo certamine.
40 Cf. ib. XI.153, cautius ut saevo velles te credere Marti.
41 Cf. ib. X.812, incautum pietas tua. Cf. also Horace, Odes III.ii.17, virtus repulsae nescia sordidae.
45 Cf. Statius, Thebais VIII.406, vitae prodiga virtus. Binns compared these lines from a poem on the death of the diplomaticist Henry Unton (XXXVIII.115f.):
heu virtus, heu priscus honos, et prodiga vitae
gloria.
46 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid IX.200, solum te in tanta pericula mittam? (cf. also IX.663).
54 For crudelibus occubat umbris cf. Vergil, Aeneid I.547.
56f. Binns compared the final couplet of Gager’s epitaph for Leicester’s son, Robert Dudley (CLVII.5f., written in 1584):
iamque pudet facti Parcas, facinus nefandum
horrent, et damnant, quae rapuere, manus.
58ff. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid II.535 - 50:
“at tibi pro scelere,” exclamat, “pro talibus ausis
di, si qua est caelo pietas quae talia curet,
persolvant grates dignas et praemia reddant
debita, qui nati coram me cernere letum
fecisti et patrios foedasti funere vultus.”
58 For vulneris author cf. Vergil, Aeneid IX.748 and XII.159.
62 I assume nulli is a genitive of price.
77f. Binns compared two more lines of the same poem on Henry Unton (XXXVIII.140f.):
alme Deus, quid tu miseros meditaris in Anglos
robora dum carpis, dum passim fulcra revellis?
81 In the Aeneid, Euryalus and Nisus were two good friends. When Euryalus was killed, Nisus slew the enemy who did the deed and then died of his wounds, falling over his friend’s body. This is a reference to Sidney’s great friend Fulke Greville. In another poem in the same volume (sig. D 3r) Matthew Gwinne of St. John’s College wrote:
dole malo Grenville, Patroclus tuus,
mensura amoris, magna pars animi tui.
82f. Sidney had two brothers, Robert and Thomas. Robert had been knighted for distinguished service during the Lowlands campaign.
85 His sister, Mary, was married to Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Binns pointed out that no less than five of Sir Philip’s female relations were Countesses: the Countesses of Sussex and Huntington where his aunts by blood, and the Countesses of Warwick and Essex by marriage.
86 Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, were his uncles.
87f. Sidney was married to Frances, daughter of the statesman Sir Francis Walsingham.
89 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid X.507, o dolor atque decus magnum rediture parenti.
90f. Cf. pudendis / vulneribus at Vergil, Aeneid XI.55f.
91 - 3 Binns compared Vergil, Aeneid XII.648f.:
sancta ad vos anima atque istius nescia culpae
descendam, magnorum haut unquam indignus avorum.
94f. Binns compared Vergil, Aeneid XI.57f.:
et mihi, quantum
praesidium Ausonia et quantum tu perdis, Iule.
96 Cf. seu pacem seu bella geram at ib. IX.279.
97f. Binns compared ib. XI.97f.:
salve aeternum mihi, maxime Palla
aeternumque vale.
98f. It is worth bearing in mind that this volume was published only a couple of months before the beginning of the Armada year.
XXVIII.
Source: Ib. sig. C 2r. Edited by Binns, ib. 230. Date: 1587. Meter: Hendecasyllables.
Binns pointed out that this poem imitates Catullus xlix:
disertissime Romuli nepotum,
quot sunt quotque fuere, Marce Tulli,
quotque post aliis erunt in annis,
gratias tibi maximas Catullus
agit pessimus omnium poeta,
tanto pessimus omnium poeta,
quanto tu optimus omnium patronus.
It is a close adaptation of an earlier poem dedicated to Tobie Mathew, the Dean of Christ Church (LXXXIX).
2 Geoffrey of Monmouth and other writers fostered a tradition that New Troy (London) had been founded by a Trojan refugee, Brutus, the grandson of Aeneas, who was thus the eponymous hero of Britain.
XXIX.
Source: Ib. sig. C 2r. Edited by Binns, ib. 230. Date: 1587. Meter: Hendecasyllables.
XXX.
Source: Ib. sig. C 2r. Edited by Binns, ib. 231. Date: 1587. Meter: Iambic senarii.
The Greek Anthology contains several poems written out in shapes resembling physical objects: cf. XV.21f. and 24 - 7. The present anthology contains several similar exercises by other hands. Printed as normal iambics, the poem reads:
auferte, cives, marmor, et ferrum impotens,
et aes Philippo. cesset artificum labor,
peritura saeclis opera. non illis est opus
isto sepulchri genere. composita sua
pyramide, vivus ipse quam struxit sibi,
solida struem virtute, quadrata, ardua,
Aegyptiorum sola quae superet pyras
regum superbas, nulla cui par marmoris
ferrique et aeris esse durities potest.
quam nulla venti, nulla vis imbrium,
nec fulminantis ulla tempestas poli
eruere valeat, nulla quam minuat dies.
aeterna stabit, quam diu pietas, fides,
relligio, Musae, fama, nobilitas erunt.
annosa tanti memoria extabit viri,
tamen usque grata laude florescet recens,
viresque ab annis sumet et largum
sequens addet priori gloriae cumulum dies.
This poem anticipates the idea of Gager’s later hexameters on the Gunpowder Plot, Pyramis: the erection of a literary pyramid more enduring than any such monument made out of bronze or marble (the conceit is also used at XXXVIII.180ff.). The idea is of course taken from Horace, Odes III.xxx.1 - 5 (exegi monumentum aere perennius etc.) and Propertius III.ii.17 - 28.
XXXI.
Source: Ib. sig. C 2v. Edited by Binns, ib. 231f. Date: 1587. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
1f. Binns compared Vergil, Aen. IX.6f.:
Turne, quod optanti divom promittere nemo
auderet.
XXXII.
Source: Ib. sig. C 3r. Edited by Binns, ib. 232. Date: 1587. Meter: Hendecasyllables.
Although this poem is not modelled on any specific classical poem, the technique of repeating lines is found in several hendecasyllabic poems by Catullus, such as xvi and lvii.
XXXIII.
Source: Ib. sig. C 3r. Edited by Binns, ib. 232f. Date: 1587. Meter: Hendecasyllables.
This poem, too, is not based on any classical model. But once Sidney had been associated with Vergil’s Daphnis, then it is possible that Gager found his inspiration in that portion of Vergil’s fifth Eclogue in which Menalcus sings of Daphnis’ apotheosis. Cf. 56f.:
candidus inuetum miratur limen Olympi
sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera Daphnis.
XXXIV.
Source: Ib. sig. C 3v - D 1v. Edited by Binns, ib. 233 - 8. Date: 1587. Meter: Dactylic hexameters.
This eclogue is based on Mopsus’ lament for Daphnis in Vergil’s fifth Eclogue. At the same time, it contains a considerable amount of material taken from Gager’s earlier poem on the death of Edmund Grindall (CXIX) and his Aeglogum ad Matthaeum (CL).
1f. Cf. Vergil, Eclogue vii.20f.:
exstinctum nymphae crudeli fundere Daphnim
flebant.
The shepherd Meliboeus appears in Vergil’s seventh Eclogue.
2f. Cf. Anthony à Wood, The Antient and Present State of the City of Oxford 1, “Towards the East is a continual Ascent of two Miles to the Top of Shotover-Hill; from whence is an extensive Prospect of the City, Blenheim-House, and the adjacent County.”
5f. Cf. Vergil, Eclogue x.18, et formosus ovis ad flumina pauit Adonis.
10f. Cf. Juvenal, Satire i.42f.:
sic
palleat ut nudis pressit qui calcibus anguem.
This in turn is based on Vergil, Aeneid II.379f.:
improvisum aspris veluti qui sentibus anguem
pressit humi nitens trepidusque repente refugit.
12 Cf. Seneca, Hercules Furens 689f.:
horrent opaca fronde nigrantes comae
taxo imminente.
Cf. also CXXVIII.3, funereae taxi.
14 Binns compared Vergil, Eclogue vi.8, agrestem tenui meditabor harundine musam and Ec.i.2, silvestrem tenui musam meditaris avena. Cf. also LXXIX.1, carmina dum sero meditabar vespere mecum, and perhaps LI.18, quae pectore carmina volvo?
16 For telluris alumnos cf. Propertius, Elegies IV.iii.67, and Statius, Thebais X.900 and Silvae III.ii.62. Cf. also the note on X.2.
18f. Cf. CXXVIII.55, quid Musis cum Marte? tibi cum milite duro?
19f. For the picture cf. the Vergilian Copa, 9f.:
en et Maenalio quae garrit dulce sub antro
rustica pastoris fistula more sonat.
20 Cf. Juvenal, Satire vii.59, cantare sub antro.
24 For iuvenis…memorande cf. Vergil, Aeneid X.793.
25 Cf. ib. VI.429 = XI.28, abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo. Cf. also XXVII.32, ceptaeque dies aterrima pugnae.
26f. Cf. ib. IX.212, te superesse velim, tua vita dignior aetas.
30f. Binns compared two lines of Gager’s poem on the death of Sir Henry Unton (XXXVIII.68f.):
nobisque relictum est
nil praeter lacrymas, longosque in pectore luctus.
And also two lines from his Aegloga ad Matthaeum (CL.100f.):
nobisque relinquet
nil praeter lachrymas, desideriumque perenne.
And also his reaction to being disinherited by his uncle, Edward Cordell (CLXXI.21f.):
nobis nil aliud praeter plorare relictum est,
angoremque animi, pauperiemque pati?
36 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid X.152f.:
humanis quae sit fiducia rebus
admonet.
And also Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto IV.iii.49f.:
ludit in humanis divina potentia rebus
et certam praesens vix feret hora fidem.
Brainche, vive precor, silvamque cacumine vince
et terris umbram redde nemusque polo.
Both passages are imitative of Seneca,
Troades 543,
umbrasque terris reddit et caelo nemus.
46 Cf. Vergil,
Eclogue v.2,
tu calamos inflare levis, ego dicere versus.
49f. Cf.
ib. 36f.:
grandia saepe quibus mandavimus hordea sulcis,
infelix lolium et steriles nascuntur avenae.
51f. Binns compared ib. v.46f:
quale sopor fessis in gramine, quale per aestum
dulcis aquae saliente sitim restinguere rivo.
52f. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses XIII.793, solibus hibernis, aestiva gratior umbra.
67 Cf. CXXIX.1, quas patri exequias, quae solvam iusta sepulchro?
69ff. For such floral offerings to the dead cf., perhaps most memorably, Vergil, Aeneid VI.883f.:
manibus date lilia plenis
purpureos spargam flores.
70 For sponte sua tellus cf. Germanicus, Aratea 118 and Ovid, Metamorphoses I.417f.
71 Cf. Met. V.392, ludit et aut violas aut candida lilia carpit.
75 Binns compared a line from Gager’s poem on the death of Edmund Grindall (CXIX.10), nullius cecinit fistula dulce magis, and also one from the Aegloga ad Matthaeum (CL.106), nullius memini calamos tam dulce sonantes.
76ff. This passage is a modification of CL.107 - 16. Both passages are indebted to Ovid, Metamorphoses XIV.338 - 40:
silvas et saxa movere
et mulcere feras et flumina longa morari
ore suo volucresque vagas retinere solebat.
77 See the note on XX.31.
85f. Cf. CL.123, ergo te posthac nunquamne audire licebit?
89 Stowe-Wood and Beckley are two suburban Oxford parishes.
90 Woodstock is a town ten miles from Oxford. “Bartholemew” alludes to the district around St. Bartholemew’s Hospital, about a mile and a half to the east. For an antiquarian description of this suburb, cf. Anthony à Wood, The Antient and Present state of the City of Oxford 273 - 83.
95 Binns plausibly thought this was a reference to Lady Penelope Devereux, daughter of the first Earl of Essex (Sidney’s Stella).
97 Cf. XXXVIII.73, non te fecere superbum.
98 - 104 Gager now describes the mourning of Christ Church personified. Binns compared an expression of the same anxiety about the College’s welfare in a poem entitled Discordiarum Domesticarum Nullam Esse Finem Querela (CXXII.15), illa fiet improbis praeda aulicis. Christ Church had been founded by Cardinal Wolsey, and was originally called Cardinal College.
For the particular difficulties that seem to have engendered this outburst, cf. the discussion of CXX - CXXII in the General Introduction to his poetry. The strength of Gager’s feelings about this situation obviously overcame any possible doubt that it would be inappropriate, if not tasteless, to ventilate them on the present occasion.
These four lines are printed with quotation marks at the beginning of each line. Often this was done in printed books to highlight memorable passages; in this case, possibly, Gager (often prone to write something rashly and then have second thoughts) marked them for omission and that the printer misunderstood his intentions.
103 For lac subducere cf. Vergil, Eclogue iii.6.
104 Binns noted the echo of Horace, Ars Poetica 476, non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo. Cf. also CXXXIII.5, sitiensque cruoris hirudo.
105 This is presumably another reference to Fulke Greville (cf. XXVII.81 with the note ad loc.).
108 Cf. CL.105, et iustum misera testatur voce dolorem. Cf. also CXIX.16, balatum tristi reddat ovile sono, and CL.132, balatum reddunt caules.
111ff. As Binns appreciated, this passage is an adaptaton of CL.127 - 31.
112 For geniique locorum cf. Vergil, Aeneid V.95 and VII.139 and Statius, Achilleis I.110.
113ff. Compare Ovid’s description of a tree weeping (Metamorphoses X.500f.):
flet tamen, et trepidae manant ex arbore guttae.
est honor et lacrimis, stillataque cortice murra.
And also Ars Amatoria III.38, depositis silvas Phyllida flesse comis.
116ff. All of this too is recycled from CL.68 - 85. Cf. also Meleager 409ff.:
prius
mergetur ortu, incipiet occasu dies,
paxque ante canibus alta cum damis erit,
quam victa facilem coniugi mentem dabo.
In Vergil’s first Eclogue Tityrus expresses his gratitude to Augustus (59 - 63):
ante leves ergo pascentur in aethere cervi,
et freta destituent nudos in litore piscis,
ante pererratis amborum finibus exsul
aut Ararim Parthus bibet aut Germania Tigrim,
quam nostro illius labatur pectore voltus.
Likewise, in Vergil’s fifth Eclogue Menalcus proclaims that this happy but impossible state of affairs has been achieved, now that Daphnis is deified (60f.):
nec lupus insidias pecori nec retia cervis
ullum dolum meditantur; amat bonus otia Daphnis.
Finally, one may also compare CXIII.13f. with the beginning of this passage:
meritorum nulla tuorum
arguet immemorem degeneremve dies.
119f. Cf. Meleager 918 - 20:
sive cum sylvas petam
memorabo sylvis, sive per montes eam
implebo montes, gratiae tantae memor.
121f. The Thracia pellex is Philomela: cf. the note on XX.22. For the line cf. XX.21f.:
Daulias non me Philomela cantu
non olor vincet.
124f. For the idea cf. Vergil, Eclogue v.13f.:
immo haec, in viridi nuper quae cortice fagi
carmina descripsi.
126f. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses X.92, fraxinus utilis hastis.
132 Cf. ib. VIII.488f.:
vos modo, fraterni manes animaeque recentes,
officium sentite meum.
And also Tristia III.iii 84, sentiet officium maesta favilla pium.
134f. Binns compared Vergil, Aeneid IX.446f. (about Euryalus and Nisus, for whom cf. the note on XXVII.81):
fortunati ambo! siquid mea carmina possunt,
nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo.
Cf. also CLXXXIII.3f.:
nulla dies memori, nobis spirantibus, aevo
unquam te rapiet. sic quoque vivus eris.
XXXV.
Source: Ib. sig. D 1v. Date: 1587. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
This poem is a reworking of one Gager had addressed to Robert Dorset in 1578 (cf. LXXIV). The same conceit had also been used at the beginning of the Meleager prologue.
XXXVa.
Source: 1.) A p. 163, 2.) John Case, Sphaera Civitatis (printed by Joseph Barnes at Oxford, 1588), sig. ¶¶ 6v, Date: 1588. Meter: Hendecasyllables. Note: This item was originally printed by me as poem CLXVIII.
Dr. John Case of St. John’s College was in all probability the “I. C.” who contributed a prefatory poem for the Meleager. For Case cf. Charles B. Schmitt, John Case and Aristotelianism in Renaissance England (Kingston - Montreal, 1983). Other than Schmitt’s book on Case, the most important available study is J. W. Binns, Intellectual Culture in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Latin Writings of the Age (Leeds, 1990), Chapter 19.
The present poem was written to preface Case’s Sphaera Civitatis, a commentary on Aristotle’s Politics. The idea is that he has fathered written three great books, on logic (Summa Veterum Interpretum in Universam Dialecticam Aristotelis, London, 1584), on ethics (Speculum Moralium Quaestionum in Universam Ethicen Aristotelis, Oxford, 1585), and now the present work, on political science.
3 Logice is a Greek first declension nominative.
14 An echo of Odyssey i.3: cf. the note on CXXIV.60.
18f. Cf. Horace, Odes IV.viii.28, dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori.
XXXVI.
Sources: 1.) A p. 167; 2.) The Pilgrimage to Paradise, Ioyned with the Countess of Penbrokes Love, Compiled in Verse by Nicholas Breton Gentleman, printed by Joseph Barnes, Oxford, 1592, with the advertisement and are to be solde in Paules Church-yeard, at the signe of the Tygres head, recto of page before sig. A 1 (edited by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, The Works in Verse and Prose of Nicholas Breton, London, 1879, repr. New York, 1966, vol. I, unpaginated). Date: 1592. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
Breton’s poem is an allegory of the soul reaching its goal of Paradise after overcoming the Seven Deadly Sins and the other obstacles adumbrated by Gager.
2 Cf. Horace, Epistulae I.ii.62, ira furor brevis est, also imitated at LXXXVI.1 and Praecepta Isocratis 23.3.
XXXVII.
Sources: 1.) A p. 167; 2.) ib., same page. Date: 1592. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
The poem in question is a work in praise of Breton’s patroness, Mary, Countess of Pembroke.
7 For o dea certe! cf. Vergil, Aeneid I.328.
8 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid VII.83f.:
nemorum quae maxima sacro
fonte sonat.
XXXVIIa
Sources: 1.) A p. 196, 2.) musical setting, without attribution of the text to Gager, at John Mundy, Songs and Psalmes composed into 3, 4, and 5 parts (printed at London by Thomas Est, “the assigne of William Byrd”, 1594), sig. E 1v etc. (the vocal parts are printed separately). Mundy was chapel organist at Windsor, and the volume is dedicated to Essex.
This poem is preserved by Chetham College (Manchester) ms. 8012, p. 94 and Folger ms. 1.112, fol. 6, attributed to the Earl of Oxford. The Manchester ms. also preserves a reply attributed to Sir Philip Sidney:
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.
In his The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney (Oxford, 1962), p. 352, William A. Ringler Jr. itemizes this as a wrongly attributed poem, with the admission that he had originally been inclined to consider them possibly authentic, but had been dissuaded, evidently because he subsequently discovered that this replies to lines by Gager, not Oxford. If this was indeed his logic, it is difficult to accept, since there are plenty of occasions on which Gager and Sidney could have met (such as when he attended performances of Dido and Meleager), and Sidney could just as well have written a reply to his verses as to Oxford’s.
Although Wert I a king is printed as authentic, or at least possibly so, in various editions of Oxford’s poetry, it should be expunged from the Oxford canon.
This is the only authentic musical setting of anything by Gager (see the Appendix to Panniculus)
XXXVIII.
Source: Funebria Nobilissimi ac Praestantissimi Equitis, D. Henrici Untoni, ad Gallos Bis Legati Regii, Ibique Nuper Fato Functi, Charissimae Memorae, ac Desiderio, a Musis Oxoniensibus Apparata, printed by Joseph Barnes, Oxford, 1596, sigs. A 3v - B 2r. Date: 1596. Meter: Dactylic hexameters.
1 Cf. Ovid, Tristia II.i.1, quid mihi vobiscum est, infelix cura (?)
4f. Cf. Statius, Silvae II.ii.68 - 70:
quos tibi cura sequi, quos toto pectore sentis
expers curarum atque animum virtute quieta
compositus semperque tuus.
6ff. Cf. the initial note on XX.
7 Cf. agnosco veteris vestigia flammae at Vergil, Aeneid IV.23.
10 An emeritus was a discharged veteran of the Roman army.
13ff. A possible reason why Gager contributed these poems to Unton’s anthology was his old Oxford friendship with Matthew Gwinne, latterly Unton’s physician. It is therefore worth noticing the evident echo of the present passage at the end of Gwinne’s 1603 tragedy Nero (4946ff.), in which the doomed emperor exclaims to his companion:
non repraesento mala
aliena ut olim, sed mea hic agitur mihi
tragaedia: Spore, facta, non ficta aspice.
verum dolorem vera iam causa exigit.
non in theatro nunc, nunc in scena sumus.
sed vita, vere vita, perdenda est mihi.
20 By the phrase inania luctus, surely, Gager did not intend to disparage other men’s contributions to this anthology; rather, he alludes to the inability of their lamentations to bring back the dead (cf. inani officio at 123f. below).
22f. Cf. CXIII.11 and CL.155, signa doloris.
32 This seems to echo the image used by Gager’s friend George Peele in his The Honour of the Garter (1593), 414f.:
Then Shalmes and Shakebutts sounded in the ayre,
But shrilst of all, the Trumpet of Renowne.
33 Cf. Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto III.iii 31, neque enim mihi notior alter.
43 For non tu corpus eras sine pectore cf. Horace, Epistulae I.iv.6.Cf. also sine re…nomen at Ovid, Amores III.iii 23.
49 Cf. Horace, Epistulae I.iv 7, di tibi divitias dederunt artemque fruendi.
56ff. These lines are inspired by Vergil, Aeneid IV.328 - 30 (also imitated at Meleager 397 - 401 and Dido 799 - 806):
si quis mihi parvulus aula
luderet Aeneas, qui te tamen ore referret,
non equidem omnino capta ac deserta viderer.
61 For a similar sentiment (about Sir Philip Sidney) cf. XXXIV.27. Cf. also CLXXII. 77, det precor longam quoque Parca vitam.
64ff. Compare the simile at XXXIV.39 - 43. This passage is then rounded off with another borrowing from the same poem (30f.):
tuisque
nil praeter lachrymas vestesque relinquitur atras.
69 Cf. Ovid, Heroides xi.81, nihil praeter lacrimas.
70f. Cf. Horace, Odes I.xxiv.1f.:
quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
tam cari capitis?
73 Cf. XXXIV.97, poterant fecisse superbam.
78f. Cf., of course, Matthew 26:11.
79 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid IX.641, sic itur ad astra. This phrase is used again at CXXXV.1.
83ff. A typical outburst against lawyers for the times (and a good example of Gager’s occasional willingness to swerve into irrelevancies). Cf. the similar passage in the introductory “Democritus to the Reader” of Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (I.83 - 6 of the Everyman edition), where the unnatural protraction of lawsuits so as to drain clients’ purses is stressed, and also Thomas Campion, Epigram I.150.
It is possible that our poet was somehow engaged in the legal profession after leaving Oxford, but not enjoying his work.
88 Cf. the Vergilian Lydia 125, at male tabescunt morientia membra.
89 For lues populi cf. Seneca, Troades 892f. Cf. also Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII.97, o nostri infamia saecli.
91ff. Although France was a Catholic country, it was allied with England against the Holy League dominated by France. Nevertheless, because of England’s long-standing enmity with France and more particularly because of the St. Bartholemew’s Day Massacre of 1572 and Henri IV’s abjuration of Protestantism at Saint-Denis in 1593, France was regarded with deep mistrust, as is abundantly documented in these poems.
98f. Cf. Seneca, Hercules Furens 326f.:
iniqua raro maximis virtutibus
fortuna parcit.
104f. Walter Devereux, the younger brother of the Earl of Essex, for whom cf. the note on IV.41f. He was killed during the siege of Rouen in 1591. Gager also speaks of their friendship in his dedicatory epistle to Leicester prefacing Meleager.
107f. Cf. Horace, Sermones I.v.40 - 2:
Plotius et Varius Sinuessae Vergiliusque
occurrunt, animae, qualis neque candidiores
terra tulit neque quis me sit devinctior alter.
110f. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid VI.869f.:
ostendent terris hunc tantum fata nec ultra
esse sinent.
113f. Cf. the note on XXVIII.2.
115f. Cf. XXVII.45f. with the note ad loc.
119ff. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid VI.883 - 6:
heu, miserande puer, si qua fata aspera rumpas,
tu Marcellus eris. manibus date lilia plenis
purpureos spargam flores animamque nepotis
his saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani
munere.
124f. Cf. the initial note on XX.
130 Ignava febre rather reminds one of Meleager’s anguish at dying in a less than heroic way (Meleager 1396ff.).
140f. Cf. XXVII.77f.:
magne Deus, quae tu gentem moliris in istam,
cui tam divinis iuvenem virtutibus aufers?
143ff. On June 1, 1586, an Anglo-Dutch expedition sailed from Portsmouth on a raiding expedition against Cadiz, under the command of the Earl of Essex (Robert Devereux), to whom this passage is addressed. Cf. also , perhaps, Vergil, Aeneid X.824, et mentem patriae subiit pietatis imago.
146 Cf., perhaps, ib. XII.812, traheremque inimica in proelia Teucros.
149ff. Cf. ib. I.385f. (of Neptune):
et alto
prospiciens summa placidum caput extulit unda.
167f. Philip II of Spain.
169 As the great storm helped destroy the Armada.
180ff. Cf. the note on XXIX. Cf. also CXXXVIII.14, tam longinqua tibi terra petenda fuit?
XXXIX.
Source: Ib., sig. B 2v. Date: 1596. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
1 Cf. Livy, IV.xiii.12, legum vinclis.
XL.
Source: Ib., sig. B 2v. Date: 1596. Meter: Elegiac couplet.
XLI.
Source: Ib., sig. B 2v. Date: 1596. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
2 And for atra diem as the conclusion of a hexameter or elegiac line, cf. LXXXII.2 and CLXV.4. Cf. also the note on XXIV.38.
3ff. Cf. XIX.39f. with the note ad loc. For animosa iuventus cf. Seneca, Phoenissae 444f.
4 Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses II.777, pectora felle virent. Cf. also LXI.30f.:
mens felle tumescens
nostra furit.
XLII.
Source: Ib., sig. B 2v. Date: 1596. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
2 Cf. the note on XXXVIII.104ff.
3 Cf. the note on IV.35. The Earl of Leicester died in September 1580, and his brother in 1590.
4 For the statesman Sir Francis Walsingham, cf. the note on XVII.87f. He died in April 1590. For vetus…malum cf. Seneca, Tr. 43.
8 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid VII.5, exsequiis…rite solutis.
11 Sir Francis Drake died in the West Indies in January 1595. Sir John Hawkins died at sea off Puerto Rico in November of the same year.
14 Cf. CLXXII.42, turba Musarum.
XLIII.
Source: Ib., sig. B 2v. Date: 1596. Meter: Elegiac couplet.
2 Deiphobus was a younger brother of Hector, killed after his death by Odysseus and Menelaus.
XLIV.
Source: Ib., sigs. B 2v - B 3r. Date: 1596. Meter: Hendecasyllables.
4 The Spanish occupied Calais in 1596.
6In his unpublished manuscript, Brooke managed to retain the pun: “by which they may always grow calescent.” This is obviously another poem in which Gager indulges his penchant for heavy, insistent punning.
XLV.
Source: Ib., sig. B 3r. Date: 1596. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
1 For the Roman cult of Febris, cf. such authorities as Valerius Maximus II.v.6, Cicero, de Natura Deorum III.63, Pliny, Natural History II.16, and Augustine, Civitas Dei III.25 and IV.15.
XLVI.
Source: Ib., sig. B 3r. Date: 1596. Meter Hendecasyllables.
1ff. For the tradition that Prometheus was responsible for creating Man: cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses I.76 - 88.
XLVII.
Source: Ib., sigs. B 3r - v. Date: 1596. Meter: Hendecasyllables.
10ff. Cf. the note on XXXVIII.104ff.
19ff. Cf. the note on XVIII.45.
21 This disdainful attitude towards the common man would have been reinforced by some of the aristocratic precepts Gager encountered in translating Isocrates’ Praecepta quaedam Isocratis, as well, of course, as his obvious identification with the Cordell side of his family.
24f. For the Roman proverb, cf. Terence, Phormio 506, immo, id quod aiunt, auribu' teneo lupum.
XLVIII.
Source: Ib., sigs. B 3v - B 4r. Date: 1596. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
14 Cf. the Vergilian Aetna 28, mens carminis haec est. For non ea mens animo est cf. CXIII.11.
19 Cf. Horace, Ars Poetica 111, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim.
XLIX.
Source: Ib., sig. B 4r. Date: 1596. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
3 Gager was misinformed: between the 1587 memorial volume for Sir Philip Sidney and the present one, Joseph Barnes had issued two similar anthologies, Στεναγμὸς in Obitum Illustrissimi Herois D. Christophori Hattoni (1592), and Epicedium in Obitum Hencrici Comitis Derbeiensis (1593). The latter, particularly, he should have known, since his friend Matthew Gwinne was a co-editor. Whatever he was doing during these missing years, he appears to have been out of touch with developments in Oxford.
6 Cf. the similar comparison of such memorial poetry to a trumpet at LI.5f.
11 For the formula ite procul cf. Tibullus I.i.76, II.iv.15 and 20, III.iv.3, III.vi.7, Ovid, Met. XIII.466, Propertius IV.vi.9, and Statius, Silvae I.vi.2 and III.iii.13.
15f. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid IX.446f.:
si quid mea carmina possunt,
nulla dies umquam memori uos eximet aevo.
Cf. also LXI.5, aut forsan si quid pia carmina possent, and LXXVIII.13, ergo si quicquam, quod parvum est, carmine possim.
L.
Source: Ib., sig. B 4v. Date: 1596. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
1ff. For the myth in question, cf. Vergil, Aeneid VII.765 - 77 and Ovid, Metamorphoses XV.533 - 46.
3 Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses XV.543f.:
“qui” que “fuisti
Hippolytus,” dixit “nunc idem Virbius esto!"
4f. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid VII.776f.:
solus ubi in silvis Italis ignobilis aevum
exigeret versoque ubi nomine Virbius esset.
9 This painfully labored pun is based on the fact that Odysseus told the Cyclops that his name was Οὔτις (“Nobody”) in Book IX of the Odyssey.
15 Cf. Horace, Odes IV.viii.28 (a bracketed line in modern editions), dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori.
17f. This is what Achilles tells Odysseus when they meet in the Underworld in the Odyssey (xi.489 - 91). For traducere vitam cf. the Vergilian Culex 97.
LI.
Source: Oxoniensis Academiae Funebri Officium in Memoriam Honoratissimam Serenissimae et Beatissimae Elisabethae, Nuper Angliae, Franciae, et Hiberniae Reginae printed by Joseph Barnes, Oxford, 1603, pp. 8f. Date: 1603. Meter: Dactylic hexameters.
1 Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses XIII.128, si mea cum vestris valuissent vota, Pelasgi.
5f. Cf. the similar image of a trumpet for honorary poetry of this kind at XLIX.6.
7ff Cf. the Vergilian Ciris, 98 - 100:
nunc age, divae,
praecipue nostro nunc aspirate labori
atque novum aeterno praetexite honore volumen.
11 Cf. Horace, Odes III.iii.72, magna modis tenuare parvis. For ingentia facta cf. Horace, Epistles II.i.6.
18 The words quo feror? aut ubi sum? are repeated from a much earlier poem: cf. LX.28. Cf. the initial note on XX.
19 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid IV.284, quae prima exordia sumat?
20 Cf., perhaps, Ovid, Ars Amatoria II.112, ingenii dotes corporis adde bonis.
21 For miracula rerum cf. Vergil, Georgics IV.441.
22ff. For a man obliged to confess that he had never seen the sea (in the first paragraph of the Eloquentiae Encomium of 1584, Gager is rather fond of this type of nautical imagery. Cf., for example, the Epilogue to Panniculus (365 - 9):
huc usque vela dedimus, hoc terra procul
tenemur alto. lingua si forsan mala
dederit procellam, quo, nisi in vestrae uspiam
benignitatis, nostra stet portu ratis?
And also CLXX.31 - 4:
sed fallax favor est, qui postquam vela secundo
implevit flatu, littoribusque procul
avexit placide navem, mox languidus idem
deserit in medio carbasa laxa freto.
Gager employed a similar image to begin the final paragraph of the Eloquentiae Encomium: sed contrahem vela orationis meae, quo enim longius e portu remigo, eo magis magisque in alta provehor.
31ff. Cf. Ovid, Tristia I.i.39 - 42:
carmina proveniunt animo deducta sereno;
nubila sunt subitis pectora nostra malis.
carmina secessum scribentis et otia quaerunt.
35 Cf. Vergil, Eclogue i.6, deus nobis haec otia fecit.
39f. Cf. Horace, Epistulae II.i 439 - 41:
nequis se praeter Apellen
pingeret aut alius Lysippo duceret aera
fortis Alexandri voltum simulantia.
42 Cf. XXXII.13, rem magnam fateor, peto, arduamque.
45 Cf. XXIV.35f.:
regina virgo, cui quid aetas
nostra videt simile, aut videbit?
LII.
Source: Ib., p .9 Date: 1603. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
3f. Robert Parsons was elected a Fellow of Balliol College in 1568. Originally a Calvinist, he converted to Catholicism and was forced to resign in 1574. Like many other English Catholic scholars, he migrated to Louvain, but, now a Jesuit, joined Edward Campion in the disastrous return to England in 1583. Later he became Rector of the English College at Rome. He is also mentioned at Pyramis 669f.
Cf. XXXVIII.89, nostrique infamia saecli, with the note ad loc.
11 James was satisfactorily philoprogenitive. Gager is taunting his enemies with the fact that England is no longer beset by the fundamental weakness of Elizabeth’s reign: the lack of an heir.
LIII.
Source: Vatican ms. Palat. Lat. 1736. identified here as C p. 6r, edited by Philip Clarence Dust, Carmen Gratulans Adventu Serenissimi Principis Frederici Comitis Palatini ad Academiam Cantrabrigiensem: An Edition with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (2 volumes, published collectively as Vol. 8 of Salzburg Studies in English Literature: Elizabethan and Renaissance Studies, Salzburg, 1975) I.9. Date: 1613. Meter: Dactylic hexameters.
1f. In a note on line 892 of his edition of Pyramis, where the same word is used, Tucker Brooke suggested that Castrodunum is an old name for Ely, Cratendune. For Gager’s antiquarian interest in ancient place-names, cf. his use of Bellesita to personify Oxford in XXVII and the initial note on that poem.
For another description of Gager’s existence in Ely, cf. Pyramis 897 - 901:
tanta etenim nostris est facta vacatio rebus,
qua prohibente via, qua vique inhibente superna
quidlibet ut potius, quam quod par esset, agamus,
iudiciali opera vacui, strepituque forensi,
iustitium nobis, diludia, et otia fiunt.
8ff. Surely this is an allusion to the very English art of change-ringing (also described at CLXV.9).
10 One could of course translate, with Dust, “To a German husband, the best German wishes from all of us,” but I prefer to think that the habitual punster Gager is making a word-play on two meanings of germanus, “German” and “brother.” The question of course then arises whether Germana ought to be capitalized, as it is in C, or printed in lower case, as I have done here.
13 The socer is of course King James.
LIV.
Source: C p. 6r, edited by Dust, ib. I.10. Date: 1613. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
1f. As Dust appreciated, this refers to Horace, Odes III.iv 33, visam Britannos hospitibus feros.
6 Dust compared Ovid, Metamorphoses VII.296, capit hoc a Colchide munus.
7 Aesonidem literally means “son of Aeson,” i.e., Jason. See the General Introduction to the poetry for this comparison.
8 Dust compared Ovid, Heroides vii.2, auratae vellere dives ovis.
LV.
Source: C p. 28r - v, edited by Dust, ib. I.62f. Date: 1613. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
6 For the image of bride as hunter’s prey, Dust compared Ovid, Metamorphoses II.406, victor erat praedae praeda pudenda suae.
7 The copyist wrote modestia morqu est. In correcting this, Dust suggested that he meant to indicate the elisions.
12 Dust detected here an echo of Mark 10:29 - 30.
16 Cf. Ovid, Tristia II.i.175, dimidioque tui.
17f. Dust compared Vergil, Aeneid I.87, insequitur clamorque virum stridorque rudentum, and Ovid, Metamorphoses XI.495, quippe sonant clamore viri, stridore rudentes. For longa taedia cf. Met. XIV.158.
22 Cf. Ovid, Heroides ii.30, pondus et instar habet.
LVI.
Source: C p. 28v, edited by Dust, ib. I.64. Date: 1613. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
4 Cf. Statius, Silvae III.v.69f.:
iugales
conciliare toros.
5 Dust suggested that Gager was thinking of Proverbs 20:14, “true marriages are made in heaven.” For diverso…orbe cf. Ovid, Ars Amatoria I.685, Met. II.323, and Tristia III. xiv.26.
9ff. As Dust observed, Gager had in mind the wedding at Cana (John 2:1 - 11).
LVII.
Source: C p. 29r, edited by Dust, ib. I.65. Date: 1613. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
1 For digna puella cf. Ovid, Heroides xviii.168.
8 “At marriage feasts in the Roman Republic, it was customary to call the bridegroom Caius and the bride Caia”: Dust.
14 “Gager has been playing with scholastic logic. The major has been expressed in l.13. The logical principle which applies is that if a proposition is true, its contradictory is false. Expressed conditionally, the major says: If it is bad that two terms be separated, it is good that they be united. But the author has already shown that it is bad that Frederick and Elizabeth were separated. Therefore their union is not only the consequent but the con-sequence of the major”: Dust.
15 In Vergil, Iarbas was a local prince rejected by Dido in favor of Aeneas. Dust suggests that Gager may have been thinking of some former suitor of Elizabeth passed over in favor of Frederick.
For deprecor hoc unum cf. Ovid, Heroides ix.159 and Metamorphoses II.98.
LVIII.
Source: C p. 29r, edited by Dust, ib. I.66. Date: 1613. Meter: Elegiac couplets.
This poem is based on untranslatable punning between the two meanings of vir and mulier, “man, husband,” and “woman, wife.”