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JOHN STRADLING’S EPIGRAMS
BOOK THREE
That his books will sell the better, a
bookseller makes trial of all the arts. He requests that a
distinguished patron be sought out, he proposes more alluring titles,
he seeks for a poem of commendation, and his prentices shout over and
over before your doors, Paul, “Hey, will any learned man buy a slim
volume on the cheap? It’s refined, elegant, novel, and crammed with
jokes.” There’s a profit (for such a master of these arts you are) in
whetting the keen edge of wit for fools. I forbid you to hawk my books
this way, I want them to be printed tersely and elegantly. If they have
anything in them of undiluted sweetness, they will require less ivy
garlands to be draped over them.
You snigger
at elegant poets, more laughable yourself. For you have a silly,
inelegant head.
“Nothing is
fair but that which is difficult.”
It befits great men to conquer arduous things, but small men to
undertake small things. Being very troublesome, the water of the sea
which is your neighbor aroused your mind and your wit. The farmsteads
where they touch the rivers Ogmor and Thaw
as they descend, here was the greatest casus belli. Here the
water was snatching, there it was spitefully casting up yellow sand,
but, bested in this tract, it yielded to you on both counts.
Then
it furiously raged closer at hand, and it made an attempt on the
borders of St.
Donat’s, but receded, being routed by hard work. With
its waves it washed the nearby walls,
and your garden was drenched with the spray which it spewed with an
ill will. Here it was partially conquered, but in part the victorious
water triumphed, and savagely shook off the yoke that had been placed
upon it. Lo, here a trusty quay had been constructed for boats, a
great work!
But the sea, being greater, defeated this work. Then, content with
its freedom, it quickly subsided, nor marched against your authority.
Thus peace between it and you exists (and may it last forever). It
holds its own, and you must hold yours.
Since man and
woman are one, it would be the mark of a fool to praise himself, or
to rail at a misbehavior. Perhaps my verses cannot pronounce your
praises (through they be) without blame. If it is a crime to speak or
write the truth, let it be so. Yet it would be a greater fault for me
to have held my silence, even if your own virtue speaks for itself,
so that it is enough to speak a few words in summary. I scarce know
what is to be praise first, or what second. In you, each of the
virtues is the greatest, none is second.
You exclaim
that I err in uttering solecisms, Marianus. Ipsa ego is a
wife, alter ego is a friend.
I admit that there is a solecism about you and your wife. For you are
fidus (faithful) to nobody, nor is she fida to you.
The beauty
scarce to be scorned by chaste girls, the sobriety which is a
matron’s greatest praise, these both you show you to be a matron and
a girl. The one is acquired, the other innate.
Here, where
was the first school of my wanton youth, take to yourself the
firstfruits of my study. Lo, I give you the firstfruits, and I
rightly owe you the second. If there is anything in me of art or
judgment, it is yours.
You have as
many lions, James, as you have kingdoms. But one lion rightly
presides over these four. Who is so great a lion? You? No, but One
who protects you and yours. You, Christ, are a lion of the tribe of
Judah.
From the
throne upon which you learnedly sit you give precepts to the
congregation, which your mind and zeal are prompt to follow. Teaching
by word and example, you perform the two duties of a great doctor,
not without the highest praise.
You are a
prelate for a clergy and a vice-president for the laity, and you
mould them both with your precepts and govern them with your
judgment. The reward for you is double, and the praise owed to you is
twofold. For the labor is double, and your care is twofold.
Prelate, you
rule God’s flock, of which you are yourself a part, and pasture your
tender sheep on green grass. When the great Prelate comes, the
Shepherd of souls, he will give you safe pasturage amidst your
sheep.
God’s harvest
is bountiful, the rewards of being busied with it are great.
Therefore you must toil, nor can you ever speak enough. It is not
nothing to transmit mysteries to the congregation, and to say what
things must be piously done. But to have taught others that which you
do not do yourselves is to construct an ark for other men, and for
you yourself to die in the wave of the sea.
As a suitor,
Marcus, you have often pursued many girls. So far not one has yielded
to your wishes. You are wealthy and young, handsome, sturdy, and
bold. Yet fortune alone (as you suppose) is hostile to you. He
struggles in vain, you say, who fights against the fates. You
complain that to you the Fates are always unkind. Thus at length,
compelled to end your life with a noose, you exclaim that the Fates
are harsh on you!
When your
quarreling neighbor calls you a donkey, “Not so!” says your wife. For
you wear horns.
Lately a
horse-leech, Rowland are you not a skilled man, when you become a
physician? Doling out his drugs to the commons and the ignorant folk,
he who was a doctor of horses is now a doctor of donkeys.
Barbara is my
friend, but this friend is not barbarous, my Barbara is wholly free
of barbarity. The name sounds of barbarism, but the thing is most
elegant. The thing is elegant, though the name is rather horrid. My
Barbara subsists per se, she is pure girl. What does not
subsist, I deny to be my girl. I am speaking grammatically, my
Barbara is not a barbarian. Mine is a proper noun, ergo she’s
a good girl.
Lucilla walks
chastely and talks modestly. Maidenly in her gait, girlish in her
voice — that suffices.
Marcus’ wit
provides him with clothing and food. His with supplies the wealth,
Satan supplies the wit.
Having
committed a crime, Largus lamented when clapped in the stocks, and
many tears fell from his eyes. His wife said, “My husband, many a
citizen more honest than you has sat here before now.” What a
consolation!
Long bereft,
happy with Prince Henry. By him, I trust, Wales will be an
everlasting light.
Inasmuch as
Britain is divided from the whole world,
it should therefore be more undivided in itself. The empire which,
torn into scraps, countless toparchs possessed, you rightly possess
united as a monarch. For that the harmonious Britons might become a
single race is due, King James, to your genius.
Greatest
king, by giving your small son the greatest gifts, you teach him how
he may be the greatest. To be schooled well and born well, these are
the two greatest things, and in this world it is a rare father that
bestows them both. You are like Solomon, instructed in every art.
Your genius is an ocean, King James. Though rivers may stream from
them both, the return, and, with others filled, both remain full.
Learn, lad, the things that such a great professor and father
teaches, so that you may be like your father.
What does it
matter if, after so many lustra have past, no prince (whom they might
love in return) has been in the mouths of the Welsh? Since God gives
an accomplish one to all these numbers, it is sufficient to have him
after lengthy delays.
Wit does not
suffice for the experienced bard, the deeds of heroes should provide
a subject. To fob off untrue things as true is an effort for a lying
poet, but a shame for an honest one. I may speak of you whatever my
Muse may wish in a finished poem, without effort or shame. In you (as
located in their proper residence) reside religion, old-time faith,
prudence, and the conjoined virtues. In many men it is an effort to
discover one, but it is an effort to extricate one out of your
many.
What many
have learned at the risk of the souls, you learn by the harm of your
body: to scorn this transitory world, to aspire to higher things, how
lightly death comes to the weary, these you learn before death.
Although it
may seem wrong for the statutes to be coerced, and always to deny the
laws their power, yet this is made your highest power, so that you
may impose a limit on laws. Without you as judge, justice would
sometimes be unjust, and by giving laws to the laws you make them
fair. Nearest to the first, you ply the laws’ reins, and do not allow
straight laws to take a curving path.
Among the
labors of Hercules this one is reported, that he boldly overcame the
Maenalian boar. But many an Erymanthian ravaging our
fields has yielded to you. Thus in this you are greater than
Hercules.
You have
experienced good fortune and bad. Every prudent, brave man has borne
both.
You ask what
kind of reader I want, Gellius? An honorable one, unlike
yourself.
I knew that
your genius is such a river, that I imagined it could scarce be
consumed by flames. Butt fire has in part swallowed the river of your
genius. What kind fire was it that could devour a river? A forest
people cast on it forest fires. No rivers withstand such
conflagrations.
You too are a
bard not least among our bards, laurel wreaths are due your brow.
While you sing of Mars, Mars becomes fiercer than himself. And when
you sing of Venus, Venus more graceful.
Your first
Muse came to greet James, this was not your last glory as a bard.
Singing of heroes and heroines, your Clio places them among the
semigods and semigoddesses. And what you grant to them rebounds upon
yourself: as it is given them to live through you, so through them
you yourself cannot die.
Troy
flourished with its Hector, Greece with its Homer. You have many a
Hector, many a son of Maeon.
Gellia does
not lie save when business is involved, and she believes that to lie
about her business is no crime.
Oh the shame,
armed you attack your unarmed wife, since she has no horns, and you
have great ones.
You call the
epigrams I write trifles. What then? Am I not permitted to write what
you do?
Neither Mopsa
nor Ida is assigned to the feminine class, no matter how the rule of
grammar opposes. They both are of uncertain class, since they have no
idea what parents, family, or ancestors they have had.
You boast
that you are designated by these three letters, Battus. Assume this
is so, see how your name is written in three.
Going abroad,
Marianus, you gave your wife a maid. Returning, you found two men.
She encountered you in your wrath: “My husband, rhetoric is a fine
thing — number for number, gender for gender.”
That you may
have a candid reader, let your stuff be candid. Write with black ink,
but without a black mind.
I bequeath my
soul to Christ, my body to the tomb, my sons to my nation, my wife
and little daughters to their management. I consign my epigrams to
water and fire (and the rest of my goods to the clergy), if in any
way they please bad men, or displease good.
You ask that
I write something of you, Furia, and that your name be in my verses.
And so, that the wish of such a sweet friend not be in vain, here I
insert these things about you, Furia, and your name.
I have no
idea what to write about you, good Furia, save this one thing, that
you have nothing worthy to be commemorated.
All things
are full of fools, but everything is not full for you. For your head
is empty.
Everything
hidden is unknown, unknown is everything that hides. Hiding, Gellia,
you alone are very well known.
You go lean thanks to the wives and maids
of your neighbors. Ah you sin, you are
an unpopular man. But your stallion grows fatter in your neighbor’s
cultivated fields, he is not an unpopular horse.
Tell me
what’s the part of the world where cold things are hot? The splendid
city of Bath issues warm waters. But you ask where hot things are
cold? Everywhere brotherly love waxes cold, which ought to be
warm.
Maurus often
recounts to his friends all the battles he fought as a youth, and the
wounds he suffered. Then, in what lands he earned his wages as a
soldier, how much he accomplished on foot, and how much as a brave
cavalryman. Unhappy Maurus, why not describe the squabble which you
lately had with fair Phyllis? It was a doubtful battle, the outcome
was damaging to both: she lost her fingernails, he his hair.
I had the
highest hopes for you, but the crop withered while still in its
shoots, and my hope was dashed. Yet in you I was not deceived;
deceiving death, envious of your beginnings, imposed on me. But
though it is deceptive, death is deceived. For I have the highest
hopes for you, and now this hope is not vain.
Another
Stradling has fallen! Another hope of the Stradlings has perished!
Alas, he has fallen, he has perished. Thus, death ripe and unripe, do
you often snatch old men and boys on the same terms? Ah, you spare
nobody. Nobody has been helped by age, wit, strength, glory, candor,
or wealth. Thus, since death spares nobody, our sole hope is thus to
live that you have no concern about dying.
He who
understands much in few words may say “Elisa.” A great virgin lies
beneath this small marble.
You exist
amidst bees, Aemilianus, yet you are a drone. You have neither a
sting in your tail, or honey in your mouth.
In life, a
bevy of Gnathos pursued you, now when your dead not one is at hand.
The worms you fed in life have abandoned you, only the worm attends
such a great funeral.
Galla, you
never sleep on your back. But, keeping awake at nights, you often lie
on your back.
You compare
your wife to an eel. Angrily she shouts back, “Every fish is mute,
but I talk.”
Learned and
unlearned, we all write poetry. Why not? Whatever manner of man you
are, reader, you have verse fit for yourself.
Fleeing
poverty over the sea I am made destitute, the unstable wave does not
stabilize my estate.
Since nature
abhors a vacuum, why are your purse and your head empty? Nature erred
when you created you, a monstrosity, but the defect of the other,
Carinus, is your own fault.
Like the dog
running along the Nile who loses most of what he carries, what wonder
if he begets blind puppies?
You are not
born only for yourself. Part of your birth is due to your father,
part to your nation, and part to your people.
While you
wish to be a deemed a healer of souls and bodies, you ruin the bodies
and souls of many a man.
All the poems
you give us you pour forth ex tempore. Of what quality (by the
Muses) will be the ones you have prepared?
Solomon was
not the eighth wise man, but the first. For he by himself was more
learned than the other seven.
I recall that
you call that you call the sun the eye and light of the world. I see
that the greatest error is in these words. Two govern by turns, the
sun and the moon, she more dimly the night, he more brightly the day.
Christ is the light of the world. Only those things shine which have
anything of light within themselves. Omnipotent, He thus brightens
the shadows with light, that both the night and the day are equal in
brightness.
You do not
sanctify the Sabbath by doing nothing, but the whole day ought to be
spent in doing good. Since it is right for holy people to live
sacredly every day, thus for the pious every day is a Sabbath.
Grammarians
err when they write “religion” in the plural, for religion is
singular. Theologians err in making the word in the second person,
when it should only be in the first.
When religion
shuns moderation and the Mean, and rests on vain things, it is made
into superstition.
You shaped
the Jews and the gentiles into a single faith. Ah, why do we refuse
to follow what these men have taught?
Slavery to
Christ is the greatest freedom. The world’s freedom is the mind’s
ruinous yoke.
The one is
the Master of the house, the other the greatest of His servants. I
have trust in the other, but, Christ, I place my faith in You.
Faith without
works is nothing, and the other is nothing without it. And they are
both nothing, Christ, without Your merits.
You call
seven sins mortal, and many designate all sins by this title. No sin
is mortal. Sins live and thrive. We sinners die, they do not.
These four do
not get into heaven: the miser, the heretic, the adulterer, the
savage murderer.
Once there
was only one brother in the world who had a brother, and the two were
not able to live in brotherly love. Rather, a brother polluted his
hand with fraternal blood. Lo, once the friendship of brothers was
rare!
Why does
Scripture often associate fasting with prayer? Nobody is free at one
time both for the flesh and the spirit.
“Give your goods to the poor,” a fellow
religionist urges Camullus, “you will receive back a hundredfold with
interest.” Thus the vain fellow twists the devotee’s pious words: “I do
not care to be enriched by interest.”
One traitor
among twelve disciples. Out of many men scarce one is loyal.
Depraved
Judas sold Christ for money, the Simoniac wants to sell the Holy
Ghost. Buyer and seller are both depraved, Judas-like. Whoever sells
or buys the sacred is sacrilegious.
By joining
human nature to the divine, You are made man and God, yet You are
one. You are wholly man and wholly God, wholly one. For the pious,
these things are to be believed, not rejected.
The ancients
called the cross the “baleful wood.” But the unhappy tree is happy
because of Your blood, Christ.
Since Jesus
healed the deaf and the blind with a word, oh you men are blind who
are unmoved by these amazing signs!
By abjuring
faith what does Ponticus lose? He had no faith. See, he’s lost
nothing.
Your
death is death for death. You live, it is life. Nor do You ever allow
those You revive to die.
A
virgin, mother of God, Son without a Father, You acknowledge her as
Your mother, she worships You as God. Oh how great it is to have
given birth to God! But with the Judge born, it was more for the
mother to believe than to have given birth.
Holy
band, legion hateful to dire tyrants, this is for you to vanquish
your enemies — to suffer. No victory is more splendid, the enemies
are bested by your blood, and receive a wound by your wounding.
Stephen the
first martyr, receive this garland of martyrdom. Like an augury, this
name possesses an omen.
Bloody
man, by befouling your hand with the blood of children, when you
imagine you are strengthening your reign, you hasten ruin for your
miserable self, with Christ the avenger, and in vain you strive to go
against God.
Guiltily
condemning innocent Christ without guilt, why do you wash your hands
as if they were cleaned? Clean as your hand may be, for you in your
wretchedness your mind is polluted. The more you wish to dissimulate,
the more you are sinful.
Why
is faith rare in the world. Because these are now the last times,
there is scarcely a faithful man in the world. A royal prophet once
exclaimed this with his voice. This modern world falls into a worst
condition than that one was.
That
Christ’s resurrection might be more assured to us, in the beginning
you refused to let it be assured to you.
The
Baptist was the greatest of those born of men, by whose washing You
were willing to be touched, Christ. Although he was greater than
others, was is far less than You alone. He was great in this, that he
has served You more.
“Feed
my sheep and lambs.” Christ
said thrice, “This man will be a witness of unfeigned love for
Me.” Pastors, feed your flock, not yourselves. The see of St. Peter
befits learned, good men.
By
a change of name, you were transformed from Saul to Paul, great in
fact though that name has the sound of smallness (paulum).
With you the teacher, the profane nations learned a faith thrice
holy, and gave their hearts to Christ our God.
A
virgin mother gave birth to a boy, but without a father. What a
mother she was, and what a boy was he! A man lacking a father, God
with a mother. To comprehend such great mysteries is the work of
faith, not reason.
Beloved
servant of God, belovedness resounds in your writings. Christ
ordained this, and you yourself teach it.
Do
not the Law and the Gospel enjoin contrary things, when the Law says
“do this,” and the Gospel “believe this”?
There is one goal for them both. Neither thing avails us, work without
faith,
faith without
action.
“It
us written,” the Tempter thrust upon Christ, and,
answering him, the Lord likewise said it is written. Satan, mutilating
Scripture
and twisting its sense, moves heretics to argue
by this logic. Christ teach His own to answer, and that by Scripture
they undo Satan’s sophisms.
)
These
two were joined in friendship when the fought against Christ, their
hatred was not worse than this shameful love. Thus the concord of
sinners is hurtful to God, as the amity of brothers is amiable to a
pious father.
The
pious thief nailed on the cross nailed his faith upon Christ. Faith
is rare, so he was more dear. When all waver, one believed more. Oh
faith never too much commemorated! He believed, and confessed in
Christ, which nobody admitted at that point. Hence he got the point
of religion.
Famous
men of the sacred nation, thanks to your virtue the face of God shone
for the profane nations. Supreme, you fought Jehovah’s sacred
battles, and the reprobate throng fled from the pious people. With
God the avenger, your hand smote the rebels, and you destroyed false
gods in the dancing fire.
The
ark is like Christ’s Church, this one and that are borne on heaving
waves. Their condition is the same. That one is full of clean and
unclean animals, here is the pious, but here the deceitful hypocrite
lurks. Outside of that one, there is no hope of safety, no hope of
salvation outside this. This one is one, as that is unique. That one
was built at God’s command, whatever is in this one that Christ did
not ordain is an evil.
Your
virtues are as many as your kingdoms, one virtue scarce suffices for
you, ruling one kingdom. Yet you with these four virtues suffice to
have ruled the whole world, but it is not more sufficient for
you.
You
were a great mouse, and he a small one. But whether the one of these
was larger, or the other smaller, is obscure.
You
rail against my friends applauding my verse, you accuse them of
laughing at pure folly. You growl but you never grin. So you are not
a laughing animal. What then? An ape or a puppy.
If
woman is not involved in it, an epigram is the same as a woman
herself when her husband lacks his procreative part.
If
only every woman who reads this is candid, what matters whether the
male reader will be white or black?
Why
are you thus squabbling over a black fleece, fair ladies? Whether the
wool be hers or yours, it merely comes from a goat.
Tell
me, ye learned, what is this element which clever Gellia wears on her
false cheeks. The ancients counted four, but Gellia carries about a
fifth, which the pharmacist supplied.
Praised
modesty commends Larga, because not unwillingly she underlies her
man.
What
if epigrams use wit to poke fun at fictitious persons? We attack
morals, not men. It is permitted surgeons and physicians to hurt
poets with impunity, are poets not permitted to poke fun at them?
First
lawsuits gave birth to you, and soon (in a marvelous and new manner)
you engendered your own parent.
You’re
bursting with envy because the people read me. But I pity you as much
as you envy me.
By
the esteem of the people you furtively rise on high, and the
popularity you pursue feeds you. Your reputation is neither inherited
or acquired. It is manufactured, and wholly lacks reason and
substance. Thus as your glory has grown out of nothing, thus it has
returned to nothing, because it was nothing before.
Hector,
Alexander, Caesar, three great men. But Aristotle, Homer, and
Hippocrates were greater than them.
When
with raucous voice the frog (RANA) croaks its GAMMA, it thus sings a
completely reversed ANAGRAM.
When you
don’t praise me, you praise me. For, Sextilianus, the greatest praise
is not to be praised by you.
Lucius, who
learned the ways and the cities of men, is ignorant of his own
character.
Such great shadows lurk in his heart that he is unknown to others and
to himself.
Your nobility
is not bequeathed by birth, but earned. Your descendants will garner
great rewards from your virtue.
You wish
suddenly to be transformed from a pauper to a rich man. You have no
idea what a ruinous thing is suddenly to become enriched.
The republic
is compared to a ship: the tumults of the unstable rabble will be the
wind and wave.
Gallus
courted a wife, and the resisting woman replied she wished to marry a
man, not a bird, and demanded proof that he was human. To whom he
replied, “Don’t you see I’m a featherless biped?”
Since sordid
baldness deforms you as a bard, if you are smart you should wreath
your head with laurel.
He who
laughed at you as a comic actor would repeat “ha ha ha,” now, with
you his doctor, groans out “ah ah ah.”
Although
modulated music can bewitch the senses of beasts, and drag along with
itself trees and rocks, how savage you are that it does not move you!
You are harder than the very trees, rocks, and savage tigers.
We are taught
that one should not sport with the saints, nor with the female ones.
This injunction does not pertain to you.
If I have
adored you as a goddess, if I have dedicated myself wholly to you and
fallen down before your image, I seem to be guilty of heresy, and so
it befits me to be purged of this sin with fire. Send against me the
flame of your kindled love, Julia, let my sin be purged by your
flames.
Why mention
to me the joys of the coming life? Give to me today, I’ll bestow
tomorrow on you.
Great is your
mind, in a body not great. One may rightly call you a midget, yet
great-minded.
Your mind is
burdened by the weight of your body. A one-eyed man has small acuity
in a great body.
This reason
persuades me that you are not a good physician, that you do not heal
thyself. You give all gratis and take nothing. Tell me,
doctors, is this good medicine for yourselves? Follow my advice, and
henceforth sell it to the wealthy, but give it to the poor.
Patrick,
David, Andrew, Denys, and George.
The ancients placed these over your kingdoms. When you alone preside
over all of these as a monarch, divine king, this pentarchy defines
your empire.
Trust me, you
who have often lain together illicitly, there is no guilt in your
lying together here.
So that in
future you will have less enthusiasm for tobacco, recall the true
story of Dahanada. Tanto imbibed these fumes with the mad prince,
disappeared in a thunderclap, and was thought to be a god.
Pollus and
Hallus competed in sending gifts, anxious to see which one could send
the more splendid gifts. Both of them protested that their gifts were
given from the heart, and either one revealed his heart’s nature.
Although
death, greedy for all things, snatches at everything, she commits no
theft. For, bidden by her Master, she seeks to recover what is
hers.
A priest,
telling moribund Arnus of the joys of heaven, said, “All these things
will be granted the believer.” The impure fellow croaked, “Let
everything be granted to you, a believer. Let it be granted me to
enjoy in peace the things I can see.”
The ancients
used to speak of venom creeping through the veins. How little Venus
herself differs from this etymology!
My books will
be much in your debt, bald sir. For your baldness supplies them with
much matter.
Who could
deny you exist in nature? I do not know what you used to be, I know
you’re nothing now. You are constantly drunk, you live by drinking,
you eat nothing. So why should I not deny you exist?
We say that
good and bad disagree between themselves as much as contraries can.
Certain apples are good, but bad things are never good. Give me the
long syllable, you take the short.
Winter does
not drive the hairs from you, as leaves from trees, an opposite power
harms them and you. Sirius dries out the humors from your burning
head, lording it over the naked orb of your brow. Hence a constant
summer sits upon your face, and winter occupies the hidden places of
your body.
Tell me,
Tott, how many offices of the sacred clergy do you have? You
purchased them, therefore you say that as many as you have belong to
you.
With English
blood spilt, rejoicing was conducted in Irish, Ireland waxed proud,
elated by the splendid little spoils of its mistress. It people,
ignorant of law and right, preened itself. The mob, so given to base
flight, rose in revolt. Alas, the woodland folk thronged together
from all sides as they sensed the reins on their wantonness to have
been loosened, the people rushed into every manner of right and
wrong, a rustic band of wild beasts. Sent to the aid of these
renegades, the Spaniard rose up, and with vain hope arrogantly
promised himself all of Ireland. With martial bloodshed, the fight
was long conducted by both sides, and the die of shifting fate was
doubtfully cast. After various calamities, after so many dangers to
our affairs, you, our darling Charles, were despatched, and made all
their hopes, and all our fears to be vain. The rebel throng was
drenched with its own blood, with a small victorious band you
triumphed over many. Aquila the Spaniard, fierce and an enterprising
foe, who had a noble heart and a mind shut to base shame, when he saw
his allies’ disgrace and their ignoble war, their treacherous nature,
and that their efforts were fruitless, entered into a treaty with
you, and departed under fair terms, scorning these fleeing refugees.
Thus a Golden Age has returned to the yellow Irish,
and with you the avenger, the entire island exults in fostering
peace.
Both the
white and the red roses had their thorns, and, thorny, were sodden
with their own blood. The white and the red, joined together by you,
mingled their colors, and lacked the thorns they had possessed. The
virtue and color of the united roses was stronger, and their odor
remains better than it was before. You most peacefully remove
whatever was thorny, and there is no sharp thorn in your roses.
Whence this
name, that you are called the city of delights? Was there a second
paradise among the Scots? This high title did not arise by chance for
you, whence flow the delights of the human race. Most bright, you
have nothing to do with the dark shadows of Scotland, the entire
island shines with your beams.
If ever our farmers have a happy vintage,
and a returning sailor brings home good
wines, Hamman exclaims, “My mind turns to new things (pure wines),” and
quickly his innate form is renewed.
Why do you
hasten to produce verses poured forth ex tempore? Verses must
be altered beforehand ten times and nine. You are a versifier, will
you ever become a poet? Take care that what you pour out is produced
more nicely with art.
You say your
Muse imitates no man. And have no doubt that in after time no Muse
will imitate yours.
God has
joined together kingdoms and roses. Who will separate them? Only God
Who joins and associates. James joined the roots, Henry, flower of
the kingdoms, joined the flowers, but with God guiding. Thus may God
protect the united realms under a single king, so that there will be
a unity for people, empire, and religion.
Out of four
hundred prophets who predicted that there would be some commotion in
this great empire, scarce one was truthful, the greatest part of the
seers were liars. Evil men were hopeful, but good men were afraid.
Heaven-granted, you are able (the whirlwind banished) to deprive of
the evil of their hopes, and the good of their fears.
You do
nothing new, James, in making two kingdoms into one empire. This is a
great thing, but I deny it is a novelty. You are renewing what once
existed. One man divided it, countless men were unable to unite it.
So great a labor it was to join the British race,
that James was alone in the joining!
If ever my
business brings me to the marketplace of the world (but the
countryside pleases me more), in my curious mind’s firm coffers I
store up a bit about the many choice things there. Here I first look
up at those two churches consecrated to Sts. Peter and Paul, the
world has no fairer than them. Then I am borne in a skiff over the
waters of
the Thames, and Whitehall strikes my eyes, a house
worthy of a Caesar. Yet on all sides gleam the shining homes of our
magnates, rivals in pride to this great palace. My mind is captured
and goes flying to the Tower, and perceives its miracles, but it
wanders and does not remain in one place. I seek the city’s interior,
and likewise its delights and riches, while I walk through the Burse. It
is full enough of those, but the vain Exchange recedes in the distance:
whoever
comes there full leaves empty. So I return home, my
money spent, brooding on the splendor and magnificent wealth of the
City, its crowds of people, such great commerce and hubbub. As I pass
through small hamlets, should I shout out, “London thus surpasses all
you small towns as the high cypress is wont to overtop the lazy
viburnums”?
Although
treasures of the realm are entrusted to you alone, this is not done
rashly, nor does it lack reason. Previously you knew how to manage
your private wealth well, a sign that under you public matters would
be safe.
The care of
the realm and its secrets are charged to you. The commodities of this
are abundantly obvious to your kingdom and king. The laudable things
hidden in you are great. You would wish them to stay hidden, but
against your will they are manifest. The force of your virtue is like
fire: the more it is suppressed, the brighter it shines.
Noble pair of
brothers, to distinguish your praises here (since you two are as one)
would be an error. Of your praises (which are not few), the greatest
is, that you are equal in fraternal love: the same nobility, equal
virtue, a similar lot in life, one mind, one heart, bodies alone that
are two. Continue, like those brothers of the Swan-born,
two stars, shining to illuminate the world with the light of your
pairing.
A perfect
twofold nobility shines in you, though in many men even a single one
is defective. You have received the one from your ancestors, your
virtue grants you the other, and conjoined they give more delight
because they are less often wont to exist. In this I am mistaken. I
realize that both virtues are ancestral: let it be ample enough
praise for you that you enjoy the virtues of your forefathers.
Your father
disgorged so many gifts on such great friends, that I should imagine
nothing from him would remain for you. But to you are bequeathed what
were bestowed on the others, everything of your fathers that was
distinguished and fair is yours. Nature gave what she could, your
virtue supplies the rest, so that you may be your father’s sole
heir.
Why should I
recall your race and stock, your earlier forebears, although it would
be possible to list these distinguished men? A man who could serve
for many, let that Philip be more distinguished than the rest, that
noble brother of yours. You are the heir masculine of so great a
brother, and his masculine virtue is wholly your own. Like him, you
are well-disposed towards Mercury and Mars.
You love and cherish the sons of this god and of that.
As it may
keep silent about the rest, if my Muse were to keep silent about you,
it would be unreasonably lazy or invidious. A great part of your
tender youth was passed here, so one may count you among the citizens
of St. Donat’s. Here Sidney first embraced you in honeyed love, and
happily garnered love’s rewards. You gave him a splendid patrimony,
since your virtue and beauty served as a lavish dowry.
Fair lady, to
whom it befalls to draw out your life’s remaining thread among
maternal friends, drawn away by good auspices, enhanced by your
mother’s virtues, receive the praises which she engendered.
You two
brothers are the foundations of the Sidney name, and it is your
responsibility that that house rises. It behooves you first to plant
firm foundations, lest the structure built atop them turn out amiss.
Above these, whatever fair, and whatever handsome is erected will not
fall, shaken by any gale. So, good men, devote yourselves to such
pursuits, so that in the end you both will be equal to your ancestral
glories.
Learned, you
enter into a contest with yourself, no contest can be fairer. Genius
strives to best fortune, virtue strives to defeat power. You can
never win with greater praise.
Rufa, I
praise your good fortunes and your genius, for, if you are not
chaste, you know how to please a man discreetly, and you deceitfully
give birth to sons that resemble their father, of whom the madman
imagines himself to be father. For as often as your adulterous lover
sins, he thinks only about your husband, and hence your sons are made
to look like him.
A wanton wife
suffering (as she feigned) from black bile, imperiously bade the
physicians be fetched. They flocked from all sides. She paid
lavishly, but got no advantage from this. She retained her previous
disposition. Her husband was impatient with such an expense and such
efforts, and yellow bile, unfeigned, took hold of him. Angrily, he
administered a drubbing to his wife and the doctors, and thus he
removed the black bile from her, the yellow from himself.
Thraso the soldier proposed marriage to a
most learned girl, and the maiden readily agreed with his wishes. He
thus displayed his womanly genius: “I am Mars, you are Pallas, we are
sister and brother. May we marry?” She answered “Why not? She is
daughter of Jove, he of Juno, but you must know they share no blood.”
Reading the
witty epigrams you have written, praising the poet’s judgment, I
recognized his genius. I was surprised that you wrote no epigram
about Calvus, whom the poets traditionally tease.
This assured reason finally occurred to me, that Sextilianus, who did
the writing, was bald himself.
In the old
days, money was so called from “cow,”
for excessive love of this thing transforms those it seizes into
cattle.
To say much
in few words is a manly virtue. You will find few men who speak in
this manner. To say little in many words is a womanly vice, and you
will find many men who speak this way.
Your greatest
glory is your grey hairs, Faunus. Is such praise due to grey hairs?
And he soothes himself with his morality. Oh you, luckily grey in
your hair and in your morals!
A young
lawyer took a wife who had a keen enough wit and an eloquent tongue,
a hand ready with a pen, a breast trained to understand, all she
lacked was practice and experience. Day and night the man practiced
cases with her, until she might become a learned mistress. When a
quarrel arose (as often occurs between friend), he learnedly
admonished his wife of her duty. He expounded that she was not to
fuss, not to talk back, but that she should be subject to her own
husband. Roaring, she unexpectedly made answer, “I deny the bill,
because your indictment wrongly applies to me in the
absence of this.”
The wife who
once used to make your bed and your feather pillows now sadly
prepares this tomb, made of marble, and has given turf for your head.
Although his queen made a tomb for King Mausolus, proud and more
splendid, the loyalty of both wives is the same, the same desire for
honoring their husbands. Rest alone beneath this tomb, old man, in
after time your wife will sleep with you. Though it may be late, she
will come though the Fates detain her. She is not deserting you, but
is being detained.
Lo, at length
the matron follows her husband, advanced enough in years, and sleeps
with him. As a bride, she desired this one man, widowed, she lived
for this deceased man alone. She only demanded this marble as her
little bed, which she had modestly built as a common tomb for herself
and her husband, at no great expense. Oh how she is worthy of a more
noble tomb! But with you as her host, this is noble enough.
Do you lie
buried beneath this mass here, Stradling? Does its inert weight press
down upon your bones? I would have imagined that earth and heaven
would hardly have imprisoned you when buried, for both of them
yielded to you in life. Should earth be able to imprison him, whom
the sky could scarce contain? Your art (may it be right to say this)
was greater than either. Your genius traversed above the stars and
beneath the earth’s penetrable center. How can a small tomb hold you?
Your body had the character of earth, but your mind, aspiring after
heavenly things, disdained the earth, and possesses the sky for which
it yearned.
You,
traveler, who unwisely call me rude marble and inhospitable stone,
lo, see the inscriptions with which I am adorned on my front, and
what guests lie beneath. Portman and his consort (oh happy pair!) lie
beneath my covering. I do not hunt after other titles, my glory grows
from these noble guests. Both filled Somerset with their fame and
their deeds, good to known and unknown alike. Like their life, their
death was pious, pure, blessed, acceptable to men and to God.
Coming into
this world (mundus) unclean (immundus), having been
cleansed of your filth in the sacred font, quickly you fled to the
beings above. So that mud (lutum) would not afterwards befoul
you now washed (lotum), you are there, clean, where only
cleanliness (mundities ) exists.
Your manly
virtue has declared war on vices, and vice has constantly resisted
virtue. Your victory has kindled envy, there can be no surer
testimony to virtue. When you have the choice of being good or having
been pleasing to the bad, you should prefer to be good than to have
pleased the bad.
Lolianus, in
a brief space you skim the few poems I have written with no small
effort. Here the matter displeases you, there the method. This
epigram is over-long, that one too short. You, branding many of my
poems with your stigma, stigmatize
my book — as you are you yourself.