Robert Stonehouse
2004-05-16 06:30:08 UTC
2
Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed shot
Love gave the wound, which while I breathe will bleed:
But known worth did in mine of time proceed,
Till by degrees it had full conquest got.
I saw and liked, I liked but loved not,
I loved, but straight did not what Love decreed:
At length to Loves decrees, I forced, agreed,
Yet with repining at so partial lot.
Now even that footstep of lost liberty
Is gone, and now like slave-born Muscovite,
I call it praise to suffer tyranny;
And now employ the remnant of my wit
To make myself believe that all is well,
While with a feeling skill I paint my hell.
1. It was not love at first sight, nor on the other hand was it an
ineffectual shot with which
2. Cupid wounded me; a wound that will be with me all my life;
3. But my appreciation of her value went on by lengthy underground
excavation
4. Until gradually it had captured me completely.
5. I saw her, and liked her liked her, but did not love her;
6. Next, I loved her, but did not immediately follow all Cupids
commandments;
7. Finally, I surrendered under compulsion to obey Cupids laws,
8. But still regretted the one-sidedness of my fate.
9. Now even that toe-hold on my former freedom
10. Has disappeared; now like a Russian born in slavery
11. I look on loyalty to the tyrant as praiseworthy;
12. Now I use what wits I have left
13. To persuade myself that everything is normal
14. And use my sensitivity and expertise to describe the scene of my
degradation and torment.
Rhyme scheme ABBA, ABBA, CDCD, EE.
I have followed Ringlers indentation without knowing what the MSS do,
and without really understanding it. In the first two quatrains it
follows the rhyming, but line 11 is not indented as it would be
according to the rhyme-scheme. I do not see that it helps us with the
meaning rather the opposite.
Line 1: Not at first sight is a deliberate breach of convention:
compare Marlowes Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
Obeying the injunction of the previous sonnet, Look in thy heart and
write, implies treating the conventions with independence.
Ringler treats drib as a variant of dribble. But according to the
Shorter Oxford, drib (from drip) is the root word (so also Onions)
and dribble the frequentative form. So examples that imply
scattering arrows about the scene are not relevant. Cupid shoots once;
one shot could have been a bad shot, but his was not. So I take the
first line as setting limits on either side: it was not instant, but
neither was it a miss.
Lines 3-4 involve a siege metaphor: an underground tunnel gradually
approaching the walls until in the end it is the means for capturing
the whole fortress.
Line 6 what Love decreed. We are tempted to interpret this in a
physically sexual sense, but that must be wrong. Courtly love was
largely (perhaps essentially?) a way of avoiding such matters. He
means he did not do all the things laid down in The Art of Love, like
undertaking the most dangerous or repellent (or ridiculous) feats in
honour of his lady. Wout drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile?
Line 8, partial lot. The knight, in courtly love, undertook the most
extreme labours and privations, in return for which he might, or might
not, receive a single smile. His glory was in his faith, not in any
reward; hers was in the number and ardency of her admirers, all the
more honourable because unbribed. A court was a hotbed of repressed
sexuality, crowded with people aged 13 to 30, of both sexes in roughly
equal numbers. The convention partly sublimated this and partly (no
doubt) cloaked it.
Line 10, Muscovite. The absoluteness of the Tsars, and the universal
acceptance of it, was a surprise to English visitors. And moreover,
if there be any rich man amongst them, who in his owne person is unfit
for the warres, that thereby many Noble men and warriors might be
maintained, if any of the Courtiers present his name to the Emperour,
the unhappy man is by and by sent for, and in that instant, deprived
of all his riches, which with great paines and travell all his life
time he had gotten together: except perhaps some small portion thereof
be left him, to maintaine his wife, children and familie. But all this
is done of all the people so willingly at the Emperours commandement,
that a man would thinke, they rather make restitution of other mens
goods, then give that which is their owne to other men. Nowe the
Emperour having taken these goods into his hands, bestoweth them among
his Courtiers, according to their deserts: and oftener that a man is
sent to the warres, the more the favour he thinketh is borne to him by
the Emperour, although he goe upon his owne charge, as I said before.
So great is the obedience of all men generally to their Prince.
(Hakluyts Voyages, Willoughby and Chancellor, 1553. The expedition
was set up by the London merchants; hence a certain slant towards
commercial property and interests.)
Willoughby was lost at `sea and Richard Chancellor did the business.
On the selection of Chancellor as one of the officers: This man was
brought up by one Master Henry Sidney, a noble young Gentleman and
very much beloved of King Edward, who at this time comming to the
place where the Marchants were gathered together, beganne a very
eloquent speech or Oration . This must have been Philips father,
later Sir Henry, Lord President of the Marches of Wales and three
times Lord Deputy of Ireland.
Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed shot
Love gave the wound, which while I breathe will bleed:
But known worth did in mine of time proceed,
Till by degrees it had full conquest got.
I saw and liked, I liked but loved not,
I loved, but straight did not what Love decreed:
At length to Loves decrees, I forced, agreed,
Yet with repining at so partial lot.
Now even that footstep of lost liberty
Is gone, and now like slave-born Muscovite,
I call it praise to suffer tyranny;
And now employ the remnant of my wit
To make myself believe that all is well,
While with a feeling skill I paint my hell.
1. It was not love at first sight, nor on the other hand was it an
ineffectual shot with which
2. Cupid wounded me; a wound that will be with me all my life;
3. But my appreciation of her value went on by lengthy underground
excavation
4. Until gradually it had captured me completely.
5. I saw her, and liked her liked her, but did not love her;
6. Next, I loved her, but did not immediately follow all Cupids
commandments;
7. Finally, I surrendered under compulsion to obey Cupids laws,
8. But still regretted the one-sidedness of my fate.
9. Now even that toe-hold on my former freedom
10. Has disappeared; now like a Russian born in slavery
11. I look on loyalty to the tyrant as praiseworthy;
12. Now I use what wits I have left
13. To persuade myself that everything is normal
14. And use my sensitivity and expertise to describe the scene of my
degradation and torment.
Rhyme scheme ABBA, ABBA, CDCD, EE.
I have followed Ringlers indentation without knowing what the MSS do,
and without really understanding it. In the first two quatrains it
follows the rhyming, but line 11 is not indented as it would be
according to the rhyme-scheme. I do not see that it helps us with the
meaning rather the opposite.
Line 1: Not at first sight is a deliberate breach of convention:
compare Marlowes Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
Obeying the injunction of the previous sonnet, Look in thy heart and
write, implies treating the conventions with independence.
Ringler treats drib as a variant of dribble. But according to the
Shorter Oxford, drib (from drip) is the root word (so also Onions)
and dribble the frequentative form. So examples that imply
scattering arrows about the scene are not relevant. Cupid shoots once;
one shot could have been a bad shot, but his was not. So I take the
first line as setting limits on either side: it was not instant, but
neither was it a miss.
Lines 3-4 involve a siege metaphor: an underground tunnel gradually
approaching the walls until in the end it is the means for capturing
the whole fortress.
Line 6 what Love decreed. We are tempted to interpret this in a
physically sexual sense, but that must be wrong. Courtly love was
largely (perhaps essentially?) a way of avoiding such matters. He
means he did not do all the things laid down in The Art of Love, like
undertaking the most dangerous or repellent (or ridiculous) feats in
honour of his lady. Wout drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile?
Line 8, partial lot. The knight, in courtly love, undertook the most
extreme labours and privations, in return for which he might, or might
not, receive a single smile. His glory was in his faith, not in any
reward; hers was in the number and ardency of her admirers, all the
more honourable because unbribed. A court was a hotbed of repressed
sexuality, crowded with people aged 13 to 30, of both sexes in roughly
equal numbers. The convention partly sublimated this and partly (no
doubt) cloaked it.
Line 10, Muscovite. The absoluteness of the Tsars, and the universal
acceptance of it, was a surprise to English visitors. And moreover,
if there be any rich man amongst them, who in his owne person is unfit
for the warres, that thereby many Noble men and warriors might be
maintained, if any of the Courtiers present his name to the Emperour,
the unhappy man is by and by sent for, and in that instant, deprived
of all his riches, which with great paines and travell all his life
time he had gotten together: except perhaps some small portion thereof
be left him, to maintaine his wife, children and familie. But all this
is done of all the people so willingly at the Emperours commandement,
that a man would thinke, they rather make restitution of other mens
goods, then give that which is their owne to other men. Nowe the
Emperour having taken these goods into his hands, bestoweth them among
his Courtiers, according to their deserts: and oftener that a man is
sent to the warres, the more the favour he thinketh is borne to him by
the Emperour, although he goe upon his owne charge, as I said before.
So great is the obedience of all men generally to their Prince.
(Hakluyts Voyages, Willoughby and Chancellor, 1553. The expedition
was set up by the London merchants; hence a certain slant towards
commercial property and interests.)
Willoughby was lost at `sea and Richard Chancellor did the business.
On the selection of Chancellor as one of the officers: This man was
brought up by one Master Henry Sidney, a noble young Gentleman and
very much beloved of King Edward, who at this time comming to the
place where the Marchants were gathered together, beganne a very
eloquent speech or Oration . This must have been Philips father,
later Sir Henry, Lord President of the Marches of Wales and three
times Lord Deputy of Ireland.
--
Robert Stonehouse
To mail me, replace invalid with uk. Inconvenience regretted.
Robert Stonehouse
To mail me, replace invalid with uk. Inconvenience regretted.