II proem proper] correct. A secondary sense of the word can be ‘elegant’ familiar] Deriving primarily from its use as a rubric in Cicero’s collection of letters “ad familiares”, the term here signifies personal rather than official letters. Cicero’s Epistolae ad Familiares is the earliest surviving collection of such letters to friends, and the most influential. They date from 62 to 43 B.C. and cover subjects from politics and the law to the more personal details of friendship. Petrarch revived the genre with a collection composed between 1325 and 1366, and, in the sixteenth century, Erasmus and Roger Ascham sustained the tradition by publishing collections of familiar letters. In his De conscribendis epistolis (On the Writing of Letters) of 1522, Erasmus lists the kinds of letters which included the familiar along with the persuasive, encomiastic, and judicial as recognizable epistolary forms. touching] touching on, respecting. Aprill last] The earthquake occurred on 6 April 1580. Versifying] poetry organized primarily by metrical quantity. Spenser uses the term to contrast with rhyming, just as Ascham does in the Scholemaster (1570), ‘The noble Lord Th. Earle of Surrey, first of all English men, in translating the fourth booke of Virgill: and Gonsalvo Periz that excellent learned man, and Secretarie to kyng Philip of Spaine, in translating the Ulisses of Homer out of Greke into Spanish, have both, by good judgement, avoyded the fault of Ryming, yet neither of them hath fullie hite perfite and trew versifiyng’ (S1-S1v). Bynneman] Bynneman had published van der Noot’s Theatre just a few years after he was made free of the stationers. One of London’s most productive stationers, Bynneman had moved his main shop to the Thames Street site in 1579. Baynardes Castle] On the north side Thames, the castle, property of the Earl of Pembroke, was located between Blackfriars to the west and Burley House to the east. Wellwiller] Wellwisher Carper] Critic happe] fortune nowe lately] quite recently a faithfull friende] The friend has not been identified. copying . . . handes] The Wellwiller here claims to have received the letters, which had passed from hand to hand four or five times, in a copy written out by Immerito himself at the behest of the faithfull friende. Spenser first adopts the pseudonym, Immerito, as the signature for his envoy to SC, ‘Goe little booke’. am onely to crave] seeks [by way of recompense] only friendely] in a friendly way In exiguo quandoque cespite latet lepus] ‘Sometimes a hare hides in the short grass’; i.e., sometimes it takes a bit of effort to uncover things of worth. Not a common proverb, though adduced in Book I of Marsilio Ficino’s Epistles. liketh] pleaseth mettall] aptitude, mettle partes] abilities, capacities But shewe me . . . liues.] Implying that it will be difficult to come up with comparable letters, the Wellwiller alleges that if the reader can find only two such letters, then the reader may justly say that Immerito and the Wellwiller have effectively no experience of English epistolary achievement. the other two] i.e., the two letters by Harvey in the first of the two collections of letters. certified] assured, made certain himselfe] i.e., Harvey. stampe] character, type matter . . . importance] Political matters, presumably, as opposed to the prosodic and geological concerns of Harvey’s letters here. hable] capable [hablar?] in Writing] i.e., in manuscript. these two following] again, Harvey’s two letters in the first of the two collections. rarest] most distinguished. devising] conception uttering] expression in this Tongue] The Wellwiller maintains a focus on a central theme of the letters, the defense of the vernacular. While the letters assert that literary achievement in English can rival that in other European vernaculars and, indeed, in Latin, the Wellwiller argues that these letters instance the literary excellence of which English is capable. so little harme] Although Harvey would later develop a reputation for splenetic expression, his letters are here singled out for what is characterized as an unusually mild and non-polemic manner. whych . . . writing] The clause is restrictive. conceyted] clever, witty If they . . . curious] i.e., if the correspondence had been composed especially for print publication the letters would have been more elaborately or beautifully wrought. garnish] embellish, enhance their displeasure] i.e., the displeasure of the two authors made . . . faulte] done them a disservice. privy to] aware of betake] commend long aprooved] tried and true, found trustworthy over a long period that . . . faulte] i.e. letter-writing in hatching] under secret preparation happly] by chance dwell . . . Courte] utterly devote yourself to legal studies. The Corpus Juris Civilis, Justinian’s compilation and codification of the various Roman laws and legal writings, was published in 529 and revised in 534. Harvey had been elected a fellow of Trinity Hall, one of the most important places for the study of Civil Law in Britain, on 18 December 1578, a year and a half before this letter was written. devoured of] devoured by in a manner] very nearly Little newes] The sentences on news interrupt the discussion of Harvey’s literary activities. This sort of self-distraction is hardly at odds with normal epistolary habits, but the sentence on the Earthquake of 6 April, – as well as those on that olde great matter and His Honoure – may well be a later interpolation meant to reconcile Harvey’s desire to make this a pamphlet on geology with Spenser’s desire to make it a pamphlet on prosody. For the possibility of interpolation, see the headnote. olde great matter] Probably the controversy over Queen Elizabeth’s entertainment of a possible marriage to the French king’s brother, Francis, Duke d’Alençon, later Duke of Anjou. If so, His Honoure, to whom Spenser turns, would almost certainly be Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who was deeply opposed to the union. That Leicester was “never better” in April 1580 may derive from the fact of Anjou’s absence – he had left England in November 1579 – but the remark may entail some cautious archness: certainly Leicester could not have felt that his relations with his sovereign had never been better, for although she remained attached to him, her anger at his opposition to the proposed match was undisguised. depending] pending, hanging. also there] The epicenter of the earthquake was somewhere in the English Channel, between Dover and Calais, but was felt across northern France and the Low Contries and at least as far north as York. overthrowing . . . Churches] According to Churchyard’s Warning for the Wise, an account written two days after the earthquake, chimneys fell across London and Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s were both damaged; debris that fell from the ceiling of Christ’s Church in Newgate market injured an apprentice shoemaker named Thomas Gray together with “his fellow servaunt” Mabel Everite were injured by (B1v-B2). in their dayes.] This probably refers to the Midlands earthquake of 1575; the more violent, more widespread event of 1508 surely lay beyond living memory. Sed quid vobis videtur magnis Philosophis?] What do you think, Great Philosopher? late] recent Englishe Hexameters] Along with several other of their contemporaries, Spenser and Harvey were attempting to adapt for English verse the rules of the dactylic hexameter, the hexameter being perhaps the most prestigious of classical meters on account of its use as the medium of epic poetry. Harvey and Spenser are not the first English poets to attempt to naturalize the Latin hexameter. A generation earlier, Surrey had begun experimenting with how to adapt classical forms to vernacular poetry. enure] employ, habituate in worde] orally whyche] i.e., the hexameter as a prosodic form. For the onely . . . legge.] A crucial passage on the difficulty of adapting classical prosody to English verse. Greek and Latin prosody is a system that organizes syllable quantity, “length”, into patterns, the prosodic length of a word’s syllables – the measure of the Number – being determined by a set of rules based on the spelling, stress, and grammatical inflection of the word as well as its position in a sequence of words. Whereas speech-stress and syllable length are only loosely related from the standpoint of classical prosody, several early English quantitative poets, Spenser included, seemed to regard stressed syllables in English as the proper candidates for treatment as metrically long. (This confusion of stress and quantity is still with us, leading us to speak of stressed syllables as “long”.) According to the rules of Latin prosody, a syllable preceding the juncture of ‘n’ and ‘t’ should be long, but Spenser’s ear tells him that it is unstressed and, because of the notional equivalence of stress and length, he speaks of the unstressed syllable as used shorte in speache. This clash is roughly what Spenser refers to when he speaks of the Accente as comming shorte of that it should. It should be noted that Spenser would have experienced the difficulty with Carpenter as a deeper one, for in this particular case of the equivalence of stress and length was more than notional, since a rule of Latin prosody dictated that the penultimate syllable in words of more than two syllables is always stressed if long and unstressed if short, so the deeper problem here is a clash of two rules, one that assigns length according to spelling and one that regards stress as a function of length and position. Spenser adduces Heaven as a problem similar to Carpenter. The entire word is used – i.e., pronounced – shorte as one sillable (hence its frequent spelling as ‘heaven’ or ‘heau’n’). But a rule of Latin prosody marks syllables containing diphthongs as long, and because Spenser apparently regards the ‘ea’ (or the ‘eau’) of Heauen as a diphtong-equivalent, he finds himself again facing a clash between customary pronunciation and metrical rule. (Diastole can have many meanings in classical prosody, but Spenser adduces it here as the term for the irregular use of a short syllable as if it were metrical long.) In the case of both Carpenter and Heaven, a reader attempting to adapt her pronuncation to the claims of prosodic rule must give a word customarily pronounced one way – unstressed in the case of the second syllable of Carpenter; a single, short syllable in the case of Heaven – an unnatural stress or lengthening. Spenser registers the fact that the unnatural adjustment in each case is slightly different by adopting different similes to describe them – like a lame Gosling and like a lame Dogge. ilfavoredly] unattactively But it . . . Use.] It seemed to Harvey, as it has to many subsequent interpreters of this letter, that Spenser was here arguing that the adjustment of accente to number was to be achieved by cultivating the habit (custome) of pronouncing rough English words in such a way as to subdue normal accent and to bring out prosodic quantity, hence Harvey’s outraged response: you shal never have my subscription or consent (though you should charge me wyth the authoritie of five hundreth Maister Drants,) to make your Carpēnter, our Carpĕnter, an inche longer, or bigger, than God and his Englishe people have made him. (It is not clear whether Harvey supposed Spenser to be proposing that his countrymen and women pronounce English verses in classical metres according to unnatural rules, that they undertake a wholesale reform of English speech, or that they simply accept a prosodic rule that clashed with “native” quantity.) But Harvey may be partly misunderstanding Spenser. In his next sentence, Spenser proposes, in tones of national pride that match Harvey’s, that his countrymen and women measure our Accentes, by the sounde, reserving the Quantitie to the Verse] that is, Spenser seems to be proposing a custom of reading English verse – measuring accents -- according to the patterns of standard English pronunciation of prose, with the patterning implicit in quantitative English prosody to be regarded as no more than implicit, and not to be pronounced. This would not be strange: in Ludus Literarius (1612), the schoolmaster Richard Brinsley explains that Latin verse was properly to be recited according to normal prose accent, with no effort to “bring out” prosodic quantity. Brinsley also attests to the utility of a form of recitation that he refers to as “scanning,” in which quantitative values are exaggerated, but he regards this chiefly as an aid to memorizing verse and as a means of demonstrating alertness to the underlying metrical structure. When Spenser says that Carpenter is read long in Verse or that Heaven is stretched out with a Diastole he may especially be referring both to the underlying metrical design and to the exceptional practice of scanning aloud, which was meant to render the metre artificially prominent. Thus, although Harvey misunderstands him, when Spenser says that the accommodation of Accente and Number, pronunciation and prosody, is to be wonne with Custome, and rough words . . . subdued with Use he means that customary pronunciation is to win out over number. In the previous sentences, used short means ‘pronounced as short (or unaccented)’; here “use” seems to mean ‘customary pronunciation’. artificial] artful Rymes . . . Verse] Spenser’s Rymes ally him with the dominant contemporary tradition of English poetry, the lines of which were organized by regularities of length and by patterns of alternating stress and the stanzas of which were organized by rhyme; Verse refers to the new quantitative poetry, the lines of which are organized by patterns of line length and syllable duration. straightnesse] constraint Tetrasticon] quatrain. In this case, the quatrain is in elegiacs, alternating pairs of (quantitative) hexameters and pentameters. The classical pentameter is a bipartite line comprising two feet of either dactyls or spondees, a long syllable followed by a caesura, and then two dactylic feet, followed in turn by a long syllable – in effect, two half-lines containing two-and-a-half feet, and, in this particular sense, a pentameter. Here is a proposed scansion _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ || _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x See yee the blindefoulded pretie God, that feathered Archer, _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ || _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ Of Louers Miseries which maketh his bloodie Game? _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ || ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Wote ye why, his Moother with a Veale hath coouered his Face? _ _ _ ̮ ̮ | _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ Trust me, least he my Looue happely chaunce to beholde. For Harvey’s effort in the same metre, and for his metrical criticism of these lines, see [cross-ref] below. pretie] cunning, crafty Wote] know Veale] i.e., veil, blind-fold least] i.e., lest happely] by chance, by happenstance those two] i.e., those two hexameters ex tempore] extemporaneously. Spenser may also intend some word play, since quantitative prosody is especially concerned with verbal duration. in bed . . . togither] The tone here is hardly salacious, though the riddling character of the distich following and its concern with indulgence and over-indulgence have an insinuating effect. It was not uncommon for people to share beds, especially for those in straitened circumstances, but the evocation of verse composition in what could be an erotically charged situation might be taken as suggesting that these two witty university men have revived not only the prosody, but also the rakish homoeroticism especially associated with Greco-Roman culture. For EK’s censorious approval of the implied pæderastice attachment of Hobbinol (associated with Harvey at September, gl. [176]) and Colin (associated with Spenser in the same gloss), see the gloss to January [59]. That which . . . for others] The apparent quantitative scansion of these hexameter lines is _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ || _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x That which I eate, did I ioy, and that which I greedily gorged; _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x As for those many goodly matters leaft I for others. At Maye, gl. [69], E.K. quotes, without attribution, a slightly different, but no less opaque version of the distich; both versions awkwardly translate what Cicero describes as his own translation of the epitaph at the tomb of Sardanapalus, the sense of which is that the speaker has enjoyed his self-indulgence – before death, in the case of Sardanapalus. I would . . . rest.] The sentence suggests that one of Spenser’s chief goals in bringing these letters into wider circulation is to standardize English quantitative practice. By adducing the authority of Sidney and Drant, he seems to be stacking the deck against Harvey’s rules and precepts, but the sentence implies that Spenser had adopted a pragmatic approach to quantitative prosody: instead of pursuing an ideal quantitative system, he seems to be seeking consensus on a set of practicable metrical conventions among the interested parties. While it is impossible to reconstruct the precise principles that Sidney imparted to Spenser, Sidney did write out a list of rules for ‘English measurde verses’ that are preserved in a MS of the Old Arcadia at St John’s, Cambridge that was written in 1581; see Ringler, 391. Thomas Drant, the imputed source for Sidney’s rules, was a clergyman and poet educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He had published translations of Greek and Latin poetry in the 1560s and at the end of that decade had become a chaplain to Bishop Grindal. This letter offers the only evidence that Drant had developed a set of rules for quantitative versifying in English. The evocation of a slightly competitive environment in which disagreeing proponents of quantitative practice might be overthrown by its opponents is intriguing, especially since no evidence survives of opposition, formal or informal, to such versifying. Like EK’s commentary in SC, such remarks might be understood as meant to stimulate interest by conferring on in literary practice the glamour of mystery and controversy. estimation] esteem Maister Dyer] After Drant’s death in 1578, Sir Edward Dyer became the eldest member of a group of poets including Spenser, Sidney, Harvey, and Fulke Greville who seemed to have been especially interested in the quantitative project. Dyer had been a member of Leicester’s retinue since at least 1567. of my selfe] unprompted minde] intend in this kinde] Not, that is, in the genre of satire, but in English quantitative metres. Epithalamion Thamesis] Thames’s epithalamium or wedding poem. undertake] affirm rare] extraordinary Invention] Topic. Invention could also refer to the process of settling on a topic and developing approaches to that topic; the craft of such discovery and elaboration was one of the five basic skills imparted by classical and Renaissance education in rhetoric. profitable . . . knowledge] instructive For . . . passage, etc.] No Epithalamion Thamesis survives, although the description here corresponds precisely to the content of FQ IV.x, the account of the Marriage of Thames and Medway. offspring] Although the term can also mean ancestry, the meaning here, source or well-head need not be regarded as metaphorical. Holinshed] An Historical Description of the Island of Britain, which constitutes the opening section of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1577), was the work of William Harrison. dogging oute] pursuing O . . . pretii?] ‘O Titus, if I [do this], what will be my reward’. The lines abridge the passage from Ennius’ Annales quoted at the beginning of Cicero’s De Senectute. Dreames . . . Pellicane] The latter title must be presumed lost, as my Dreames may be: no works attributed to Spenser or Immerito were presentlye imprinted. Over a decade later, in the epistle preliminary to Complaints (1591), the printer attests to his intention to publish The dying Pellican along with some other Pamphlets looselie scattered abroad, i.e. circulating in manuscript, as soon as he can acquire copies. We do not know precisely when Spenser began revising the poems first printed in Theatre, but Dreames may be the first name he gave to the revisions, which eventually appeared, in Complaints, as the Visions of Bellay and Visions of Petrarch. But the work or works here referred to as Dreames may in fact be something different altogether; it or they may be known to us by other titles: Vanitie, Rome, Bellay, Petrarch, or even Time or Proth. signified] suggested in hande . . . with] immediately be concerned with. Faery Queene] This is Spenser’s first recorded reference to the FQ. Harvey’s reply below suggests that Spenser had sent Harvey a substantial portion of the poem, perhaps even a complete poem, although we need not assume that the poem or portion that Spenser had sent much resembled the FQ as it would be printed a decade later. It may also be observed that the exchange may be puffery for a poem that Spenser was yet to compose. expedition] speed wythal] in addition suche . . . use] In the course of his later feud with Harvey, Thomas Nashe drew satiric attention to Harvey’s prolixity as a letter-writer; see Have With You to Saffron Walden (1596), F1-F1v. Multum vale.] A hearty farewell. Quarto Nonas Aprilis] 2 April. Since this date precedes the earthquake by 4 days, Child proposed that Harvey must have meant not ‘Quarto Nonas’, but ‘Quarto Idus’, 10 April. Sed . . . saepe] 'But, as I love you, my sweetheart commends herself to you with all her heart, and wonders why you’ve sent no reply to her letters. Be careful, I beg you, lest this be mortal to you. To me it surely will be; nor do I think you will go unscathed. Once more – and as often as you like – farewell.' The sweetheart (Corculum) mentioned here has not been identified. take best] possibly an error for ‘take it best’. alone] presumably, without The Dying Pellicane accompanying. growen . . . worst] While the reference to this work (and to The Dying Pellicane) may be facetious – for Spenser may never have seriously contemplated writing either of these works – it is worth observing that the publication described here, with illustrations and commentary by E.K., is plainly modeled on the SC. (And, if Dreames were indeed a revision of the translations for the Theatre, we might say that both the SC and Dreames are modeled on the Theatre, with its woodcuts and commentary.) We may suppose that Spenser imagined that he was building a properly intellectual literary profile for himself by producing such volumes and a properly intellectual literary culture for England. E.K.] referring to the otherwise unidentified author of the commentary for the SC. The reference to E.K. here neither bolsters nor weakens the case for regarding E.K. as a real person. If he is a fabrication, Spenser here sustains the fiction; if he is simply an unidentifiable person, this passage protects the secrecy of that identity. See the discussion of E.K. at . . . Michael Angelo] Although the printed commentary on Michelangelo's achievement by such eminent Italian commentators as Dolce, Aretino, and Vasari was unavailable in English by the early 1580s, Castiglione's praise was available by 1561 in Hoby's translation of the Courtier. Michelangelo's work was widely known in engraved renderings; by the 1540s engraved portraits of Michelangelo were in circulation, often conjoined with engravings of The Last Judgment from the Sistine Chapel. nor amende] neither improve upon Stemmata Dudleiana] The Lineage of the Dudleys. Like the Dying Pellicane, this work never appeared, but despite Spenser's professed opinion that it was the best thing he'd written to date ('I never dyd better') it is less difficult to propose theories for the advisement that may have inhibited him from publishing the Stemmata. In the ensuing Latin sentence, Spenser alleges that he is following (sequor) Harvey; Orwen suggested (N&Q, 1946) that Spenser's Stemmata imitates the second book of Harvey's Gratulationes (1578) a collection of poems in praise of Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, several of which urge Leicester's worthiness as a spouse for the queen. It was a gaffe, for unbeknownst to Harvey, Leicester had married Lettice Knollys, Countess of Essex. So Spenser's advisement may be traced to his having followed Harvey in promoting a match that was no longer possible, especially if the apostrophes were addressed to the queen. And even if Spenser had not followed Harvey quite so closely in the Stemmata as to propose a royal match, the publication of a volume of sustained praise for Leicester might have seemed ill-advised, since for years the queen remained nettled at Leicester over the clandestine marriage and Spenser seems already to have hoped for the queen's patronage as well as Leicester's. Finally, Orwen reminds us that the Dudleys had not long been numbered among the gentry and the heralds did not agree as to the foundations of Leicester's aristocratic claims: Spenser may have decided to hold back the Stemmata until the genealogical dispute was settled. Veruntamen te sequor solùm: nunquam verò assequar] 'Nonetheless I'm only following you, although I'll never catch you.' Note that Spenser here picks up and reworks a line he had already used in his letter to Harvey of 16 October 1579. sweete Harte] see Corculum above, l. 000. dispense with] make allowances for. The phrase can have technical legal force involving the relaxation of a law or exemption from a penalty; here, by slight figurative extension, Harvey seeks relaxation of the rule of rhetorical decorum that dictates serious treatment of serious matters. pleasurably] lightheartedly sad] grave, serious shrewde] clever. The word is sometimes used as a slightly disparaging intensifier, as it seems to be here: shrewde wittie meaning 'especially clever' prettie conceited] both words can mean clever Gentlemans . . . Essex] fourmes] benches wrangling] arguing woonderful] marvelously it shoulde . . . deede] it really were an earthquake remooving] moving onely in effect] is really all that set at] committed to taking on] i.e. making much adoo. presently] immediately recomforted] reassured misdoubting] worrying be happened] had happened goodlyer] more imposing praying] i.e., preying forsooth] indeed in the House toppe] exasperated, quarrelsome. Cf. Gervase Babington’s advice in A Briefe Conference Betwixt Mans Frailtie and Faith (1584), that we should cultivate ‘a patient and meeke nature in our selues able to beare and tolerate something, without mounting into the house top immediatly, and flashing out all on fire by and by vppon the sight or hearing of it’ (H5) By my truely] Truly (an oath) All-in] the last tolling of church bells prior to the commencement of service our Ladyes Mattins] the early morning prayer service. The version of the service designated , since the Middle Ages, as our Ladyes is simpler than that of the traditional divine office because it was invariant across most of the liturgical calendar; was therefore included in the Primer, which was the anchor of lay piety. affectionate] willful And you say it] with your permission dispute] debate cunningly] knowledgeably, cleverly clearkly] in a scholarly fashion mystresse] used as a verb here, by comic analogy with master. Philosophers] the term can denote 'natural philosophers', i.e. scientific thinkers. to this] concerning this sensible Naturall cause] The first adjective is somewhat recklessly chosen, since sensible usually denotes the obvious or perceptible, and is frequently contrasted with intelligible, whereas Harvey’s interlocutor imagines a cause beyond the reach of the senses; the force of the phrase here is ‘a hypothetical cause so plausible as to seem obviously correct’. Harvey’s response that the cause may be intelligible is simply corrective, although his use of Supernaturall, also corrective, seems at first to be a comic provocation. He takes up the question of Supernatural causation below. Eruption of wynde] This is the standard theory within a meteorological tradition dominated by Aristotle; the most influential version of the theory available in English may be found in William Fuller’s A Goodly Gallery (1563) in both the chapters “Of earthquakes” (C3v) and “How so great wyndes come to be vnder the earth” (C6). By here insinuating that earthquakes are a kind of terrestrial farting, Harvey’s interlocutor may intend smugly to outrage the gentlewomen, but the analogy is also traceable to Aristotle, who elaborates the analogy in Meteorologica II.8.366b. the great aboundaunce . . . Originall place] Harvey here summarizes the theory propounded in Meteorologica, II.8.366b (and cf. Fuller, 1563, C6). The idea that water has a Naturall place above the earth permeates Aristotles De Caelo, deriving from the more fundamental principle that earth seeks to occupy the cosmic center and, hence, a place beneath the other elements (see, in particular, De Caelo, IV.4.311b). Harvey's description of the Naturall Originall place of water may be more informal, a reference to the fact that the windie Exhalations and Vapors seek ascent to the place from which the rainwater from which they are generated originally came, yet he seems to return to this notion below, when he speaks of winde, or vapors, seeking . . . to geth them home to their Naturall lodgings [cross-ref.] peradventure] perhaps Michaelmas] 29 September windie Exhalations] Although Aristotle and Seneca gave currency to the idea that most meteorological and geological phenomena are traceable to the exhalations produced when water or earth are heated, the concept of exhalations is almost certainly pre-socratic, deriving both from Heraclitus and Anaximander. Aristotle's treatment of earthquakes in the Meteorologica follows directly from a longer treatment of wind (II.4-6.359b-365a, and see also I.13.349a) Termes of Arte] technical vocabulary (here, of meteorology). to] adapted to allgates] no matter what with a good will] [I'll do so] willingly doctorally] in a learned fashion members] components, body-parts absurditie] logical impossibility most] i.e., must store] quantity substantiall matter . . . spirites] Harvey's vocabulary has strong philosophical associations, although he appears to be using his terms loosely. In many popularizing discussions of natural philosophy, as here, the terms, humours, fumes, and spirites are used interchangeably to represent exhalations of matter; when used in series, as here, they are never carefully distinguished. (Technically speaking, humours is a term usually, but not exculsively, associated with the medical tradition, fumes with the alchemical and meteorological traditions, and spirites with a range of scientific and philosophical traditions, but carrying distinct meanings in each.) Similarly, the strict distinction in Aristotelean metaphysics between substance and accident seems not to operate here; rather, Harvey seems to be using the contrastive terms substantiall and accidentall to distinguish the primary material state of the elements contained within the earth and the various, largely gaseous derivatives of those elements. either good . . . or other.] Harvey rejects the idea that the accidental vapors are good, on the grounds that they generate bad effects; he rejects the idea that the vapors are uniformly bad, on the grounds that if they were so, they would simply be inert. He therefore concludes that they must manifest themselves in mixed compounds and that the mixtures are sometimes imbalanced, with bad vapors working against good ones and, overpowering them, bursting forth. whereout] out of which poysonfull] On the poisonous vapors of earthquakes, see Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones, 27.1-28.3 infective] infectious Temperature] compound (in this case, of good and evil). As in humoural medicine, in which health depends on the temperate balance of different humours, so geological stability would depend on the proportionable balance of those humours, and fumes, and spirites that are contained in the earth's channels and cavities. divels] devil's interchaungeably] alternatively. Although in many places and times the earth's mixture of the earth's vapors is balanced, sometimes it is not. vehemently] violently malitiously] fiercely fostred] nourished putrified Humors] The process of humoral putrefaction is given its fullest description in Galenic medicine -- for Galen, humoural putrefaction, which predisposes the body to disease, takes place when a stagnant humour is heated without the possibility of evaporation. Aristotle devotes the opening of the fourth book of the Meteorologica to an account of putrefaction, which he treats as the fundamental process of destruction. ylfavoured] ugly grosse] thick, indelicate brust] burst voyding] evacuation flatuous] windy, flatulent chill] chilly grossely, and homely] plainly and in simple terms Terrae metus] Harvey is not adopting language from the Vulgate – indeed, the phrase probably owes more to Virgil, Aen. 1.280, where Juno roils air, sea, and land with fear – but the idea of the earth cowering in terror owes a good deal to recurrent images in Psalms; see, for example, Ps. 18.7 and 68.8 terrified . . . scarcely mooved] The gnomic formulation seems to suggest that the gentlewomen are too shallow truly to be moved, that their terror is superficial, especially when compared to the graver intellectual motion of scholars. quidditie] essence. not wooman] because Eve was fashioned from Adam’s rib liker] more like I am flatly . . . for feare.] Harvey’s larger argument against supernatural causation here begins to emerge more sharply: this is not the earth of the psalter, trembling before the Lord; it is Aristotle’s earth, suffering from natural distemper. Harvey’s argument is pitched against that of the likes of Arthur Golding, whose Discourse Upon the Late Earthquake urged that ‘this miracle proceeded not of the course of any naturall causes, but of Gods only determinate purpose, who maketh even the verye foundations and pillers of the earthe to shake, the mountaines to melte lyke wax, and the seas to dry vp and to becom as a drie field, when he listeth to shewe the greatenesse of his glorious power’ (B2v). Harvey’s naturalist argument echoes echoes that of Seneca: Illud quoque proderit praesumere animo nihil horum deos facere nec ira numinum aut caelum converti aut terram; suas ista causas habent nec ex imperio saeviunt sed quibusdam vitiis, ut corpora nastra turbantur, et tunc, cum facere videntur, iniuriam accipiunt (It will help also to keep in mind that gods cause none of these things and that neither heaven nor earth is overturned by the wrath of divinities. These phenomena have causes of their own; they do not range on command but are disturbed by certain defects, just as our bodies are; Naturales Quaestiones, VI.3.1). only . . . force] it moves only by virtue of the specific power dastardly] craven glistereth] glitters little helpe] to no useful end. ‘Much ado and little help’ was proverbial; cf. [ref.] below trim] neatly composed Tale of Robinhood] (prov.) a fantastic tale, ‘moonshine’ I knowe not what] I don’t know what, i.e. ‘some such nonsense’ suer] sure I dowte . . . beleefe] I fear I hold heterodox beliefs. would . . .presume of] must you trust in, i.e. what compels you to trust in per fidem implicitam] by implicit faith nigh] nearly presently] immediately. pottle] pot, tankard Hyppocrase] a spiced wine drink be layed] have gone to bed as well in . . . as in] both in . . . and in pleasurable] mirthful marvellous . . . to] remarkably intimate with in . . . earnest] to be a bit serious even] just wherin . . . here.] Harvey refers the question of the breadth of consensus to the other men in attendance. finest conceited] most intellectually subtle in my fancie] to my way of thinking too much drinke] According to Aristotle, Democritus also held that earthquakes resulted from super-saturation of the earth (Meteorologica, II.7.365b). For the idea of earthquakes as a kind of terrestrial drunkenness, see Is. 24.18-20. sensibly] undeniably, as is easily apprehended. sort] manner payneth] (painfully) exerts, takes pains that] that ‘drinke’ that neesing] sneezing wherewithall] by which Physicall, and Naturall] medical and scientific lightly] readily diet] pattern or habit of feeding. Harvey sustains the idea of the Earth as a body and of its absorption of precipitation as a kind of ingestion. Alebench Rhetorick . . . Pottypôsis] Alebench Rhetorick would be Harvey’s joking name for the “art” of drunken speech; Pottypôsis is a fabricated name for a figure of Alebench speech, built from both pot, an English word for ’tankard’ and potare, ‘to drink’ in Latin ,and poesis, Greek for 'poetic composition’. as namely] as namely at deepest] most penetrating Secretaries of Nature] Usually denotes those charged with managing secret information without disclosing the secrets; in this case, those who disclose secrets. Harvey may be translating Suidas’ description of Aristotle as γραμματεὺς τῆς ϕύσεως. marvellous reasonable] The oxymoron sustains Harvey’s facetious tone. stately] domineering eft soones] repeatedly professed] explicit set] resolute, pitched furniture] equipment vengibly] vengefully frowardly bent] perversely, in ill temper Cunnyes] rabbits highminded] proud, arrogant Bellona] the Roman goddess of war. debate] struggle faction] factious quarrels go me] go. In this construction, me is an ethical dative Peece] firearm dub a dubbe] (a phrase used to imitate the sound of drums) monstrous] monstrously hoysed] raised up even Enough] quite enough bowgets] pouches occupie] make use of aspect] the influential ‘gaze’ of a star or planet, particularized by its position, as it looks upon earth (astrol.) our . . . Venus] associating the god of eloquence with the male graduates of Cambridge and the goddess of Love with the ladies in the room. Perhaps cued by this, the Gentleman of the House [ref forward a few lines] will request a differently gendered account of the cause of earthquakes: let us men learne some thing of you too. made] prepared herself plausible] pleasant, worthy of applause takes her selfe] regards herself as happely] perhaps counte of] regard Naturall, or Supernaturall] Harvey’s interlocutor invites him to resume the central concern that animates Book VI of Seneca’s Natural Questions] Illud quoque proderit praesumere animo, nihil horum deos facere, nec ira numinum aut caelum concuti aut terram: suas ista causas habent (It will help to keep in mind that gods cause none of these things and that neither heaven nor earth is overturned by the wrath of divinities. These phenomena have causes of their own; 3.1) under correction] unless I’m mistaken fancie] estimation Causes] These are the four causes that Aristotle enumerates in Metaphysics 1013a. For Aristotle, the material cause is that from which a thing is made: wood is the material cause of a table. Its formal cause is that which makes it what it is and not something else: in Aristotle’s formulation, the formal cause of the octave is a ratio of 2:1. The efficient cause is that which brings a thing into being, as parents do children, while the final cause is that towards which a thing is moves as, or as if to, its fruition, so that a mature plant is the final cause of a seed. Harvey seems to use the term, Materiall Cause, slightly differently; see the next note. Materiall Cause . . . wynde] Actually, Aristotle designates wind as the efficient cause of earthquakes and earth and water as their material causes (Meteor 368a). This is a momentary lapse: as Harvey refines his treatment of earthquakes here, his etiological account draws closer to Aristotle’s; cf. Meteor366b. grosse and drye vapors, and spirites] The formulation may represent Harvey’s attempt to render Aristotle’s difficult theory of the two exhalations, moist and dry: see Meteor 341b and 365b. It may be worth noting that in the Nat Quaest, Seneca persistently uses the term spiritus when he speaks of air as the efficient cause of earthquakes. See also the semantic analysis in the Aetna, a pseudo-Virgilian poem on seismic activity, probably indebted to Seneca: spiritus inflatis nomen, languentibus aer (its name is ‘spirit’ in a state of tension, and ‘air’ when it is at ease [my translation]; 212). seeking . . . lodgings] cf. [cross ref. to Originall place] prison] The figure of subterranean air as imprisoned is ubiquitous in ancient writing on earthquakes; see Seneca, Nat Quaest, VI.18.4-5, Diogenes Laertius, Lives, III.vii.154 and IV.x.105, and the passage from Ovid, Met cited below. Vis . . . solet] The wild forces of the winds, shut up in dark regions underground, seeking an outlet for their flowing and striving vainly to obtain a freer space since there was no chink in all their prison through which their breath could go, puffed out and stretched the ground, just as when one inflates a bladder with his breath; Met XV.299-304. onely voyce] voice alone, unassisted voice. reverend] deserving reverence. text] Scriptural text Locutus . . . Terra] 'The Lord spake and the earth trembled'. But the text is improvised: Harvey splices together two phrases that appear in various places in the Vulgate, but never together. howbeit] although for . . . motions] Harvey's syntax here is extremely artful: one might at first suppose that he is proposing that we take seriously -- because 'it is not to be gainesayd' and because it is the opinion of ancient scientists -- the assertion that stellar and solar heat and influence are the 'principall and sole Efficient' cause of earthquakes, and not 'God himselfe'. But as the sentence proceeds, we are obliged to reconsider the force of 'for' in the phrase, 'for the principall, or rather sole Efficient', understanding it to mean 'on account of' (OED 21b): the force of the sentence is thus 'although God is the principal efficient cause, it is not to be gainsaid that solar, stellar, and planetary influence and heat are secondary, instrumental, efficient causes." Harvey tempts us to suspect him guilty of doubting that God is the efficient cause of earthquakes, and then dispels the suspicion. superior Planets] In the Ptolemaic system, the inferior planets, Mercury and Venus, were distinguished from the three superior planets by two main features: unlike the superior planets, the centers of their epicycles were collinear with the earth and sun, and their paths never took them in opposition to the position of the sun. which] i.e., which analysis of final causaility natural reasonable] both 'simply reasonable' and 'satisfied with reasons involving natural processes'. The problem of the final causes of meteorological phenomena was hotly contested in the sixteenth century. In his Peripateticarum Quæstionum (1571) Andrea Cesalpino went so far as to imply that meteora did not have final causes, by excluding them from his causal account (H8v-I3). denounce] proclaim sensible] poignant whereon you stande] about which you are especially concerned purposed] has as the goal nevertheless is] i.e. nevertheless, God's work is qualifying, and conforming] modification and adaptation very Nature selfe] Nature iself. The Stoic idea that God and Nature were one and the same had been given renewed currency in the work of Francesco Patrizi and Giordano Bruno. schoolemen] university scholars, in this case those specializing in theology. Natura Naturans] lit., 'Nature naturing'; Nature in its creative or active aspect. sensible, and unsensible] sensate and insensate Natura naturata] lit., ‘Nature natured’; Nature as the product of Divine creation. in . . . dayes] Harvey here invokes the Protestant idea that miracles had ceased at some determinate historical moment. The moment of Cessation was variously assigned. Some thinkers associated the cessation with the moment at which the canonical books of the New Testament were completed; others held that miracles ceased with the death of John, the last of the Apostles; still others dated the cessation from the fourth-century establishment of Christendom sensibly] to the senses Creatures] created things in the same Number] of the same kind manacing] menacing great latter day] Apocalypse out of controversie] indisputably Eventes, and sequeles] a pleonasm for 'consequences' collection] inference discourse of . . . Reason] faculty of reasoning such] such-and-such (OED 16a) Roma . . . Eventus] 'Rome never trembled, that it didn't portend some notable future event.' Harvey seems to be quoting the Nat Hist from memory; his version does not match Pliny's 'numquam urbs roma tremuit, ut non futuri eventus alicuius id praenuntium esset' ('The city of Rome never experienced a shock, which was not the forerunner of some great calamity'; 2.86). In the passage in question, from his chapter on earthquakes, Pliny refers to fifty-seven earthquakes in one year at the outset of the Second Punic War; at 2.85, Pliny refers to an earthquake of 90 B.C., the year before the 'bellum Sociale' or Social War that disrupted centuries-old peninsular alliances. in Genere, or in specie] taken as a class or as individual instances Cause . . . End] Harvey is here referring to the two 'external' causes, the efficient and final causes. preternaturall, or supernaturall] The two terms were occasionally used interchangeably, and the distinctions implied when they were used contrastively were various. Supernatural causation is almost always understood to be divine, whereas preternatural causation could refer to the agency of angels (or demons), or simply to causation thought neither to be natural, on the one hand, nor immediately divine, on the other. See Lorraine Daston, "Marvelous Facts" (1999), 78-85. for the nonce] for this purpose his priuie Counsell] With what seems fairly light derision, Harvey likens God to an English king who confides his 'secret and inscrutable purposes' to the intimate and august advisors appointed as members of his Privy Council. resolute] certain Eclipse . . . Novilunio] Because solar eclipses can take place only during a new moon (Lat., novilunium), whereas Passover begins with a full moon (Lat., plenilunium), the three hours of darkness that covered the land on the occasion of the crucifixion (Matt 27:45, Mark 15:33, and Luke 23:44) were best explained as miraculous, although many chronographers, seeking to settle the date of the crucifixion, sought various means to resolve the apparent natural impossibility. Metaphysically] supernaturally Aut . . . destruetur] 'Either the nature of things is suffering or the structure of the world is being destroyed'. The exclamation attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite (now better known as Pseudo-Dionysius) is variously reported, though it appears nowhere in the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius; perhaps its most familiar form was that given in the Roman Breviary: aut Deus naturae patitur, aut mundi machina dissolvitur ('Either the God of nature is suffering, or the frame of the universe is being dissolved'). In his 'Letter to Polycarp' (Epist. 7), Pseudo-Dionysius reports on his struggle to convince one Apollophanes of the existence of supernatural signs, reminding him that they together witnessed the crucifixion eclipse, which eclipse Apollophanes knows was a natural impossibility, given the lunar cycle (AA6v, Opera, 1555; PG, 1081A-B). Patheticall] impassioned my . . . me] it seems to me unskilfuller] less learned goe . . . doe] nearly do agony] painful writhing Marry] Indeed the Errour . . . tollerable] I grant that the error is the more tolerable otherwhiles] in other circumstances if so be . . . reformation] 'if it happen that it' -- i.e., the error of unwarranted confidence that natural calamaties are divine admonitions would be more tolerable -- 'secure our inward reformation (and not the merely hypocritical and pharisaical show of reformation)' especially . . . places.] In this slightly obscure passage, Harvey casts doubt on the idea that earthquakes that vary so widely in duration and spatial extent could all have the same general cautionary import. Poenitentiam agite] 'Do penance!' Harvey here quotes Matt 4:17, but the phrase may have special significance here as having been the focus of attention in the first of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses: Dominus et magister noster Iesus Christus dicendo `Penitentiam
agite &c.’ omnem vitam fidelium penitentiam esse voluit ('By saying "Do penance, etc." our Lord and Master Jesus Christ willed that the entire life of the faithful should be repentance' [ed. trans.]; WA 1.233) prosecuted] investigated Seigniories] domains of Experience] from observation. hoyse] raise withall] besides allowed] approved coursed over] passed over ominous] conveying omens flatly] decisively verdit] verdict namely] especially auncient . . . Lawyer] an 'ancient' was one of the senior members of the governing body of the Inns of Court. turn] search through schoole] academic (and, by implication, fussily so) poase] puzzle ministered] provided in manner] somewhat tyhyhing] laughing, tee-hee-ing runne of] occupy itself with marvelous] marvelously paulting] paltry Balductum] trashy Ballet] ballad Eldertons] The ballad writer William Elderton was a frequent object of Harvey’s scorn; in his Foure Letters and Certaine Sonnets (1592), Harvey calls him a ‘drunken rimester’ (A4) and links him with Robert Greene, referring to the two of them as 'the very ringleaders of the riming, and scribbling crew" (A4v). material] important division] i.e., into categories or into noteworthy particular instances Induction] the systematic consideration of a number of particular instances. sine omni exceptione] without any exception significative] significant ut supra] (Lat.) as discussed above as wel . . .the other] i.e., concerning both material and formal causes Effectuall and substaunciall] conclusive and weighty self] itself dispositions] Several senses are relevant: temperaments (OED 6), attitudes (OED 7a), and situations (OED 1b). Non causam pro causam] (Lat.) not-cause for cause. The error of incorrectly inferring a cause is the sixth of the seven "extra-linguistic fallacies" analyzed in Aristotle's De Sophisticis Elenchis (On Sophistical Refutations) Elencho Finium] (Lat.) by a refutation of ends. Harvey's meaning here is obscure: he seems to be speaking of the fallacy of assigning ends or purposes without sufficient warrant, but he may be proposing something more radical, either that there is no intelligible purpose for earthquakes or that the final cause of earthquakes is beyond the limits of our knowledge. If the latter, Harvey's treatise would take its place in that body of Early Modern scientific literature that resists reference to final causation in accounts of natural phenomena. Still . . . Byng] John Still (c.1544–1608), fellow of Christ’s Church Cambridge (1562), proceeded MA in 1565, the year before Harvey matriculated there. Awarded a Bachelor's of Divinity degree in 1570 and made Doctor of Divinity in 1575, Still was highly reputed as a controversialist. By 1577, Still was Master of Trinity and Harvey, having some hope of Still’s patronage, had therefore recommended his appointment to a bishopric in a letter written to Leicester in April of 1579. Thomas Byng was a bit senior to Still, having begun his Cambridge career in 1552; he became a fellow of Peterhouse in 1558 and earned the LLD in 1570. In 1565 he was made university orator and in 1574 became Regius Professor of Civil Law. contentation] satisfaction safely] without risk of error (OED 2b). Lord . . . Picus] Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, the distinguished philosophical skeptic, was the nephew and biographer of the famous Neoplatonist Giovanni Pico. The work to which Harvey now turns is much indebted to the uncle's posthumously published attack on astrology, the Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (Arguments Against Divinatory Astrology), which Gianfrancesco edited for publication in 1496. There is, indeed, some reason to believe that Harvey confused uncle and nephew; see below. cogging] cheating De . . . vanitates] On Foreknowledge, on Behalf of True Religion, and Against Vain Superstitions. Naturae. . . Aristoteles] 'It can't be that a natural phenomenon portends future events, whether by signs or portents nor can these events depend on some proximate cause that could also reveal future things. It seems possible that this happens by the deceit of demons. But a great many things not marvellous or strange in themselves can still be regarded as omens and portents by those who have not adequately grasped the nature of things -- and usually are so regarded. For ignorance of the causes of an unusual event excites wonder on account of which, as Aristotle observes in the opening of his Metaphysics, people began to engage in philosophy.' Impostura . . . causarum] deceptions of demons and the ignorance of causes. Pico's reflection on the latter paraphrases Cicero's observation that ignorance of the causes of extraordinary events produces wonder (Causarum enim ignoratio in re nova mirationem facit; 'On Divination' 2.49). presentlye] immediately the white] the center of a target; the bull's eye. the pin] the peg or nail at the very center of a target. Idem . . . deductum est] 'Antiquity understood earthquakes just as it did lightning and thunder. An eloquent book on the subject of earthquakes in Greek recently fell into my hands, its author supposedly Orpheus. And while it often happens that people look to the diverse exhalations of the ground, to the violence of winds, to the turbulence of vapors -- mark you that? -- for signs indicating future events, it is absolutely absurd to do so, for those turbulences can be neither effects nor causes of future events -- except perhaps by bringing death to those struck by lightning or undone by the gaping of the earth. But they cannot be derived from the same proximate cause on which future events also depend, as was discussed above.' moste agreeable to] in full accord with Nec . . . Autoris] 'Certainly the renowned Orpheus -- if there really was an Orpheus -- does not propose any cause at all why anyone would be able to predict from earthquakes the futures of cities, people, or regions. He merely says, on the basis of an insubstantial judgment, what is portended if an earthquake happens at night or in the summer or winter or during the day. These predictions can certainly be refuted by a more rational judgment and indeed, on the testimony of experience, I judge them worthy to be laughed at just as we have laughed at the Portents of Tages, the founder of Divination.' Pico here continues to draw on Cicero whose mocking account of the legend of Tages ('On Divination' 2.50-51) immediately follows his discussion of the effects of ignorance of causes. Picus . . . Phoenix] Harvey has plainly confused Gianfrancesco Pico with his more eminent uncle, Giovanni Pico, who died in 1494 at age 31 and was widely known as the Phoenix of his age; see the brief life composed by the biographer, Paolo Giovio for his Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita, Venice, 1546, G1v. odde] unique onely singular] most tempering with] addressing himself to, dealing with. Harvey's use of "tempering" is idiosyncratic, but he seems to have chosen the term to bring in the connotation of dealing temperately with the philosophical challenge of the earthquake, an ideal consistent with his professed resolution, in the next clause, to maintain himself "in the meane". The philosophical disposition of temperate intellectual patience in the face of rational uncertainty approximates the Ἀταραξία (ataraxia) that was the psychological goal of skepticism. this probable . . . his] The 'Interim' of suspended judgement in the face of uncertainty to which Harvey refers, is as much a philosophical state as a period. Orphei] Orpheuses; (false) soothsayers. balde] paltry beetleheaded] dull-witted, thick-headed ('beetle' OED n.1.C1c. A ‘beetle’ was a heavy implement for driving wedges or setting paving stones (OED 1a); cf. Foxe’s rendering of Luther’s description of his Roman adversaries as "beetell headed asses” (Acts and Monuments, 1570, +++5) sturring] causing trouble ('stir' OED 14d). taking on] raging, agitating oneself ('take on' OED 10) sawe . . . Milstone] 'To see far in a millstone' is a proverb meaning 'to have great insight'; the proverb was customarily used ironically, to impugn someone's discernment. Bayarde] Generally, a bay-colored horse, but 'bayard' is frequently used to denote, or name, an old horse, often blind. Scribimus . . . passim] 'Unskilled or skilled, we all write poetry anyway'; Horace, Ep. 2.1.117. Harvey here returns to the subject of poetry and specifically addresses the details taken up in the last lines of the letter[cross reference] to which he is responding, where Spenser first reports having completed work on Dreames and The Dying Pellicane, proposes bringing out the Dreames, with illustrations and commentary, as an independent volume, and remarks on his uncertainty about whether the Stemmata Dudleiana is ready for publication.. the first . . .the laste] i.e., the unskilled . . . the skilled. O interim . . . miserabiles] 'Meanwhile, O wretched and miserable Muses . . .'. In this pairing of miseras and miserabiles, Harvey may be recalling the line from Ovid's Ibis] sisque miser semper nec sis miserabilis ulli ('may you always be pitiful, but pitied of none'; 117). viderint . . . maxime] 'let the eyes and head of the state see. To my mind, this thing of yours is neither fully sown nor fully harvested. At any rate, my library certainly doesn't need any new books; it's quite content with the old ones. What else? Farewell, my Immerito, and assure yourself that it's something quite different from the things our booksellers hold to be most marketable.' Harvey's phrasing is a bit mysterious, perhaps intentionally so: it is unclear whether the incomplete enterprise (isthic) to which Harvey refers here, so out-of-step with what he regards as the debased output of the contemporary press, are the books to which he refers in the next lines -- The Dying Pellicane, Dreames, the Commoedies, and the Stemmata Dudleiana -- or the quantitative poems under discussion in these letters, or, perhaps, the entire joint output of these two university men: the quantitative poems, the letters (and the scientific treatise interpolated there), The Dying Pellicane, etc. One might suppose that Harvey is commenting on the state of the Stemmata alone, since Spenser himself had expressed reservations about whether it was ready for publication, but Harvey's protestations in the next sentence, that the Stemmata and the English comedies need, at most, only a week's polishing, seem to suggest that he is thinking of something else as neither fully sown nor reaped. thy dying . . . Dreames] see above, [cross-ref to concl of Sp's letter above] shal go] will pass as acceptable ('go' OED 15). Harvey's phrasing draws on the expression, 'he shall go [or 'he goes'] for my money', meaning 'he has my enthusiastic support' (OED 24b). trimming] making ready, adorning. The use of 'trim' to mean 'abridge' is a later development. Schollers . . . contraries] Harvey’s draft of this poem appears in BL Sloane MS 93, fols 58-67 ([add ref. to Scott’s Camden Soc’ty ed.]) . Harvey used this MS for drafts of a number of letters and poems composed between 1573 and 1580. shrunk in the wetting] depreciated shrunk in the wetting] depreciated, often with the implication that the depreciated thing was shoddily made. The expression was frequently used of depreciated intellectual products, and, occasionally, the phrase affords the suggestion that the shrinkage is effected by a 'wetting' from too much drink. Experto crede] 'Believe the experienced' Pluribus . . . sensus] 'The understanding of particular things is diminished by attention to many' a twelvemonth since] a year ago Anticosmopolita . . . Lorde there] Anticosmopolita is the title of Harvey’s unfinished epic poem, see September, gl 176. The poem had been entered in the Stationers’ Register in June of 1579, but Harvey here reports that the poem remains in its earlier unifinished state (‘in statu, quo’) and insinuates that his poetic labor has been especially frustrated by the failure of his suits for the patronage of the Earl of Leicester. In the same letter of April 1579 in which Harvey recommended Still for a bishopric, Harvey had written to ask Leicester’s support in an appeal to Elizabeth for a prebend at Litchfield (Stern, 1979, 49-50); the fiction of the poem’s attendance on ‘my Lorde’ at court may be evidence that Harvey had gotten so far as to follow Leicester to court in order to advance the appeal, albeit to no avail. Sat cito . . .bene] 'Soon enough, if good enough' Det mihi . . . esset] May my Mother [i.e., Cambridge] grant that one of her most obedient sons be allowed to reveal some of her secrets and that the revelation be kept, thus, to just a few words. More, perhaps, later, but to do so now would be unpleasant, I don't have time, it would be a nuisance. Tully] i.e. Marcus Tullius Cicero. Because Cicero and Demosthenes were the most renowned orators of ancient Rome and ancient Greece, the pair often stand for ‘Rhetoric’, as here. Livie, and Salust] Livy and Sallust may stand in, generally, for ‘Roman History’, although their pairing might also be taken as comprehending a triumphalist account of the rise of Rome in Livy and an account of Roman decline in Sallust’s Catiline Conspiracy and Jugurthine War. never so much] as much as possible Lucian] The second-century Greek author of satirical prose essays, dialogues, and short stories had a reputation for irreverence. Xenophon] This Greek historian and political philosopher was a contemporary of Plato. His Hiero, a dialogue between the poet Simonides and the tyrant Hieron, provided Early Modern thinkers with an idealized classical model for the proper relation between the prince and his more philosophical advisors; his fictional account of the education of Cyrus, the Cyropedia, was held in especially high regard in the Early Modern period. Comparing the author of the Cyropedia to the author of the Republic in the FQ Letter, Spenser alleges that ‘Xenophon [is] preferred before Plato’ both because of Xenophon’s greater practical orientation and because he seeks to teach by example rather than by rule. reckned amongest] classified as Discoursers] The term was sometimes used with pejorative connotations, suggesting obscurantism and misrepresentation; see, for example, ‘these discoursers that vse the word of God with as little conscience as they doe Machiauel’ (Stubbes, Gaping Gulf, 1579, A6v). conceited] witty verball] merely concerned with words (rather than with real things) and jangling] prating, squabbling effectuall] consequential noble . . . Angelles] I.e., the high style, the style associated with noblemen and rulerws, is regarded as the best and the most persuasive form of eloquence, -- and, Harvey seems thereby to imply, other stylistic practices are held in inappropriately low esteem -- [but] Orators capable of such eloquence are as rare as red-headed angels.’ An exceeding . . . none at all] Harvey contrasts the influence of apparel on bearing with the influence of learning thereon: these days, he says, people carry themselves proudly if they’re conspicuously well-dressed, but the well-educated don’t carry themselves any better than the unlearned. portes] forms of bearing or carriage brave and gallaunt] Although both terms can refer (approvingly) to character, when they are used as here to describe apparel, they can be either approving – ‘eye-catching and handsome’ – or dismissive – ‘flashy, showy’. Tom Towly] simpleton Tom Towly] Cf. Stanyhurst, ‘What Tom Towly is so simple, that wyl not attempt, too bee a rithmoure?’ (Virgil his Aeneis, 1582, A4). Matchiavell . . . Castilio . . . Petrach . . . Boccace . . . Galateo . . . Guazzo . . . Unico Aretino] Harvey here surveys the Italian authors who had the most obvious and, perhaps, unsettling effect on Harvey and Spenser’s generation of young intellectuals. Niccolò Machiavelli’s Prince (c. 1513, first printed in 1532) and Discourses on Livy (c. 1517, first printed in 1531) made him notorious for the bold amorality of his political thought. Baldassare’s Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier (1528) spawned a substantial output of books that described the proprieties of modern comportment and meditated on the relation of those proprieties to the exercise of social and political influence. (Among the most popular conduct-books indebted to Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier were Giovanni della Casa’s Galateo [1558], and Stefano Guazzo’s Civil Conversazione [1574], a book very different in temper from Castiglione’s.) The fourteenth-century poet Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch – and ‘Petrach’ seems also to have been an acceptable English spelling of the name – was most famous for the Italian amatory poems in his collection the Rime Sparse, although his Latin epic, the Africa, was fairly well-known and his published correspondence, the Familiares, distantly influenced Spenser’s and Harvey’s Letters. Petrarch’s friend Giovanni Boccaccio is now best known for his collection of novelle, the Decameron, and although Boccaccio’s notoriety at Cambridge may well have rested primarily on that work, but several of Boccaccio’s other writings had considerable influence: Chaucer was indebted to both his Filocolo and Filostrato, and several encyclopedic works – a synthetic treatise on Greco-Roman mythology, the Genealogia Deorum; a compendium of tragic narratives, the De Casibus Virorum Illustrium; and a collection of lives of famous women, De Mulieribus Claris – were still widely consulted. Last in Harvey’s list here is the satirist Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), whom Harvey, like E.K., the commentator of the SC, confused with the Aretine poet Bernardo Accolti (1458-1535), known to such contemporaries as Castiglione as Unico Aretino (see Jan gl XXX). Pietro Aretino wrote in a variety of genres, but his scurrilous reputation rested on the Ragionamenti, a collection of whores’ dialogues he wrote in the mid 1530s, and on a series of obscene sonnets written to accompany a set of pornographic prints by Marcantonio Raimondi, the poems and prints published together in 1524 as I Modi (‘The Postures’). in every mans mouth] spoken of by everyone. The French and Italian] Although Harvey has named no French authors in the foregoing list of modern writers especially esteemed at Cambridge, the phrasing here makes it clear that Harvey is not simply thinking of a few influential modern figures, but is reflecting also on the sudden prestige of continental scholarship and literature, much of it written in the vernacular, literature that advances intellectual developments sharply distinguishable from the traditions of the Greek and Latin academic curriculum. The Queene mother] Catherine de Medici (1519-89), who had wielded very great influence over her two eldest sons during their reigns as Francis II (1559-60) and Charles IX (1560-74). She was more of a partner to her third son, Henry III, assisting and advising him in a range of diplomatic maneuvers. When Sir Philip Sidney presumed to write to Elizabeth in 1579 to discourage her from entertaining a match with Catherine’s youngest son, the Duc d’Alençon, he referred to him as ‘the son of a Jezebel of our Age (Works 3:52). conference] conversation bargaines of] speculations concerning Mounsieur] perhaps the most common of the English sobriquets for Alençon during the period in which Elizabeth entertained him as a suitor. When he was finally sent away in February 1582, Elizabeth wrote a poem ‘On Monsieur’s Departure’. Shymeirs] Jean de Simier, an advisor to Alençon who was instrumental in advancing the prospective match between Alençon and the queen. He is satirized in the character of the Ape in Mother Hubberd. Newes] Whereas the term can denote what has come to be its primary modern sense, ‘information concerning recent public events’, that is not its primary sense here, for the collection and distribution of such information was not yet sufficiently developed to be recognizable as such. As is clear from the list that explicates the general term, Harvey refers to something vaguer and more encompassing: to information concerning affairs of moment; to gossip; to fashions in literature speech, and apparel; to discoveries and imaginings -- that is, to anything that might have the power to excite or unsettle. Officers] holders of offices newe Elementes . . . Helles to] Harvey here returns to the letter’s presiding concern with natural philosophy. The clause seems to refer to disruptions of Ptolemaic astronomy, with its limiting sphere of fixed stars, and its composition limited to sublunary bodies composed of four elements and celestial bodies composed primarily of a fifth, the ether. Harvey’s reference to ‘newe Heavens’, a phrase that echoes Is 65:17, seems to refer to the idea of multiple celestial worlds, first proposed in the fifth century, B.C.E. by Leucippus and by Democritus, and later taken up by Epicurus, whose ideas were transmitted to the Renaissance by means of both Diogenes Laertius biography and Lucretius’ De Rerum Naturae. (For Lucretius’ chief evocation of multiple heavens and multiple earths, see DRN, 2.1094-1105.) . The great sixteenth-century exponent of the idea of multiple worlds is Giordano Bruno, but Bruno did not arrive in England until 1583 and didn’t publish his treatise On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (De l'Infinito Universo et Mondi) until 1584. Although, as part of a consideration of the possibility of heliocentrism, Nicholas of Cusa had proposed that all stars might be considered like suns, Copernicus would not take this step: despite the revolutionary assertion of heliocentrism, he retained a single rigid firmament in his cosmological system. But Copernicus’ first important English exponent, Thomas Digges, imagined an infinite space, with the stars scattered throughout it, thus providing, before Bruno, a conceptual framework in which Cusanus’ idea of plural solar-systems could flourish. Turkishe affaires] Since the Ottoman invasion of Cyprus and the Battle of Lepanto, there had been no major military engagements with Turkish forces either in Eastern Europe or in the Mediterranean. While the previous decade had been fairly quiet in this respect, Harvey here attributes to the young men of Cambridge a gossipy preoccupation with an exotic, and perhaps glamorous Ottoman ‘threat’ to Christendom. Jacke] an undistinguished person favour] estimation so good silver] of such value Numbers . . . Ciphars] This means much the same thing as ‘Something made of Nothing’, but Harvey is insisting on the symbolic or ‘artful’ character of numbers and ciphers (‘0’, ‘.’ and other symbols of nullity that could also serve as multipliers). Geometricall . . . abused] The first half of Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics, the book in which Aristotle takes up the virtue of Justice, is devoted to the application of proportion to social relations. Aristotle carefully distinguishes arithmetic from geometric proportion, associating the former with rectification and simple market exchange and the latter with distributive justice and complex forms of economic valuation. The effect was to associate arithmetic proportion with crude political and moral thinking and geometrical proportion with more highly developed political and moral thought. Oxen . . . Yoke] At 2 Cor 6:14, Paul compares this mismatch with attempts to bring believers and non-believers into cooperative relations. In the Aulularia, Plautus’ poor Euclio uses the same metaphoric yoking together to evoke the folly of allying himself with the wealthy Megadorus (by means of the marriage of Megadorus to Euclio’s daughter Phædra; Aulularia, 28-35) Conclusio ferè sequitur deteriorem partem] ‘The conclusion usually follows the weaker premise’: that is, if one of the premises of a syllogism is negative or particular, then the conclusion must be negative or particular . This rule was Theophrastus’ famous contribution to Aristotelean logic. Harvey cites the logical rule metaphorically: the firmly limiting ‘deteriorem partem’ (weaker part) of the syllogism is like the asses that, when yoked to oxen, limit the ability of the oxen to draw. key colde] proverbial nothing . . . Imputation] Harvey seems to be observing the weakening of the idea of intrinsic, unconditional goodness, but his phrasing takes some colour from the theological use of ‘imputation’ to denote moral transfer between Christ and mankind: righteousness comes to mankind by ‘imputation’ from Christ and Christ takes on human sinfulness by a similar ‘imputation.’ Ceremoniall . . . abandoned] The ‘Ceremonial Lawe’ is that collection of ordinances thought to have been abrogated by Christ’s sacrifice. Harvey’s ‘in worde’, seems to imply ‘only’, and so to suggest that, whereas his fellow university men flouted judicial and moral law, they had an unregenerate fondness for Romanist ceremony and works. the Lighte . . . Egles] a difficult passage. Those who make verbal boast of spiritual illumination here seem to do so in the idiom of St. John the Evangelist (whose symbol was the eagle), who speaks of John the Baptist as sent ‘to beare witness of the light. That was the true light’ (John 1:7-8) even in the face of a mental ‘darkness [that] comprehended it not’ (1:5). Howlets] owls span] spun Humanitie] the study of ancient Greek and Latin literature, history, and other non-philosophical or non-scientific texts Doctors] advanced scholars; holders of the most advanced degrees; also, the early Church fathers knowen of moste] most well-known magnified] praised controlled of] overmastered by Will] desire; willfulness mastered of] mastered by Patient] a person acted upon; specifically, the recipient of pastoral care Agent . . . Herring] Agent and patient can have their general sense as ‘actor’ and ‘object of action’, but the specific sense of the phrase seems to be that ‘Ministers are not much better than the recipients of their pastoral care or correction.’ The proverb ‘never a barrel the better herring’ means ‘there’s no difference between them’, ‘six of one, half a dozen of the other’; Harvey has adjusted the phrasing to suggest, perhaps, that the ministering agent may retain some slight superiority to his patient. Cappes and Surplesses] One of the central goals of the English reformers was the reduction of superfluous Church ceremony and they had especially objected to the over-elaboration of ‘massing vestments’. There was general agreement that the so-called liturgical vestments, those ecclesiastical garments specifically associated with the Roman Catholic service of the mass were to be rejected, but the question of exactly which non-liturgical vestments to proscribe was vigorously argued, with Puritans objecting strenuously to the non-liturgical cap and surplice. In 1565, the year before Harvey matriculated at Christ’s College, William Fulke had led a protest against the wearing of the surplice and square ‘cater-cap’ at St. John’s College; during the year following, Archbishop Parker’s efforts to enforce vestiarian conformity precipitated a major confrontation with non-conforming clergy and may be regarded as a crucial moment in the propagation of Puritan separatism. If Harvey here attests to a diminution in the reforming clamor on this subject, at least in the environs of Cambridge, it was only a temporary lull. Cartwright] Thomas Cartwright, who had been ousted from his position as the Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge by Whitgift in 1570 (in which he was succeeded by John Still) and was balked in his candidacy for a chair in Hebrew for his support of the Puritan Admonitions to Parliament of 1572, which strongly opposed vestments and the episcopal efforts to impose conformity in vestiarian matters. Cartwright spent most of the 1570s as a minister to the English Protestant community in Antwerp. the man . . . at pleasure] Because Harvey is being cautious, ’the man you wot of’ is difficult to identify: probably a member of the Cambridge faculty; conforming to the terms of the 1559 Act of Uniformity and the Thirty-Nine Articles; acquiescent to Elizabethan efforts to maintain episcopal authority; and quite content to wear surplice and square cap -- but there were many such influential clergymen at Cambridge, and quite a few of them were non-resident holders of church benefices. Harvey may be referring to Andrew Perne, who also comes under oblique attack a few sentences later in this letter. Five times vice-chancellor of Cambridge, Perne held a range of very lucrative livings in addition to the deanery of Ely. Perne was a person of such flexible religious allegiances that his name became ‘a byword for a religious turncoat’ (Collinson, Elizabethans, 179). He was later much satirized in the Marprelate Tracts and Harvey would frequently speak of him as a fox; indeed, in 1592, when Harvey came to explain another obscure satiric moment in this letter [cross ref], he would designate Perne, ‘the olde Fox’ as the object of attack. Perne is almost certainly shadowed in the character of Palinode in Maye. conformable] conforming Non resident] regularly absent from the place where one has official clerical duties better bayted] more fiercely harassed Acte . . . purpose] actuality . . . intention sibbe . . . Women] full of bluster, like boastful men, but cowardly; ‘all talk and no action’. pregnantest] most imaginative, fullest of Hermogenes mettall] at bottom, vacuous. Hermogenes is one of Socrates’ two interlocutors in Plato’s Cratylus and he cuts an unimpressive intellectual figure there. That he espouses the merely conventional nature of verbal reference may have suggested to Harvey the linguistic equivalent of religious conformity; see the reference to ‘Jani’ and ‘Camelions’ immediately below. Olde men . . . olde men] ‘reputed wise only when compared to children and reputed only childish when compared to the wise’. Jani . . . Dormise] The central theme in this small exercise of Harvey’s considerable talent for slanging invective is lapsed integrity: many members of the clergy had found ways to adapt to the vicissitudes in English religious institutions across the reigns of Edward, Mary, and now Elizabeth and Harvey here insinuates that those now conforming did so not out of conviction, but out of a conspicuous lack thereof. Nashe will quote liberally from this passage in Strange Newes, in which Nashe takes Harvey to task for both misaimed attack and a lumbering satiric manner. Jani] pl. of Janus, the two-faced god of the New Year. Clawbackes, and Pickethanks] sycophants and flatterers Jackes . . . sides] trimmers Aspen leaves] persons of craven flexibility (because the aspen leaf ‘shivers’ even in a light breeze) painted . . . Sepulchres] hypocrites. Both the painted sheath and painted (or whited) sepulcher (for the later, see Matt. 23:27) were proverbial figures for those of gorgeous exterior and corrupt or unimpressive interiors. Asses . . . skins] Erasmus discusses this proverb, which derives from Aesop, in the Adages, I.iii.66 Dunglecockes] cowards Dunglecockes] Unlike the belligerent game-cock, a dunglecock (or dunghill-cock) is a common barnyard fowl, with no fight in it. Dormise] those who show no vigilance, drawsy people. fledge] fledged, mature callow] unfledged, inexperienced yonker] youth (from Germ. Junker) speak of] pronounce on, judge politique] produent, politically cunning Commonwealths man] public figure Bishoppe . . . Wutton] Stephen Gardiner (c.1495-1555) and Nicholas Wotton (1497-1567) figure here as men of the previous generation who survived complex political and religious vicissitudes, all the while occupying positions of considerable influence and making themselves vulnerable to the charge of temporizing. Wotton, a doctor of both canon and civil law, long held the deanships of Canterbury and York, but seems to have evaded episcopal appointments, spending much of his time during the reigns of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth on a range of diplomatic missions. Like Wotton, Gardiner had doctorates in canon and civil law, but his career was more vexed. Shortly after graduation he became Wolsey’s secretary and, six year’s later, Henry VIII’s; he became Bishop of Winchester in 1532. He soon came into conflict with Henry over matters of Episcopal authority and, thenceforth, he became a powerful conservative force with in the English Church, a defender of ceremony, advocated clerical celibacy, and dealt harshly, under Edward, with the most eager reformers. His conservatism earned him two imprisonments in 1548, and he was deprived of his see in 1551, though he was restored to his position in 1553, under Mary, whose religious agenda he served with energy until his death. having . . . commaundement] ‘choosing his own horoscope at will (rather than having it determined by his location and time of birth), were born in the tenth astrological house (decimo cœli domicilio) and so endowed with all possible gifts of political discernment’. The astrological influences of planets in the tenth house determine the orientation of individuals to government, career, and public affairs. As William Lilly describes the tenth house, “Commonly it personateth Kings, Princes, Dukes, Earles, Judges, prime Officers . . . ; all sorts of Magistracy and Officers in Authority (Christian Astrology, 1647, G4). Sed . . . Canopi] ‘But hark in your ear. Do you remember what Varro says? To ourselves we seem lovely and jolly, when we’re really a bunch of Egyptian sardines.’ Different versions of the fragment from Varro’s Menippean Satires appeared in a range of Renaissance compendia; although the meaning of saperdae was disputed, the general sense of the sentence as Harvey reports it is clear. David . . . madmen] For the feigned madness of David, see 1 Samuel 21:13. That Ulysses feigned madness to avoid the Trojen expedition is reported in a number of sources, see especially, Cicero, De officiis 3.26. Plutarch refers to Solon’s pretended madness briefly in his Solon 8.1-2; Diogenes Laertius is more expansive in his Solon, 2-3. fayned themselves . . . faine themselves] pretended that they were . . . imagine themselves goe nigh to] nearly Metoposcopus] one who practices the art of determining character by the interpretation of facial lines pity . . . hurt] proverbial pickstrawes] persons who waste time on trivial things Testiomoniall] report Controllers] steward’s. Controllers] Harvey quickly suffered for the incautiousness of this unspecific swipe. In Have With You to Saffron Walden (1596), Thomas Nashe reports that Sir James Croft, Controller of the Household, complained of this in the Privy Council as a personal insult, that Harvey was constrained to withdraw to the haven of Leicester’s house, and that Croft nonetheless had Harvey thrown into prison at the Fleet. In Foure Letters and Certaine Sonnets (1592), Harvey reports having insisted that the ‘Controller’ to whom he referred here was Andrew Perne, who had blocked Harvey’s appointment as University Orator. (Nashe accepts this as a reference to Perne in Strange Newes [1592].) For Perne, see above [cross-reference] brazen] brass brazen forehead] denoting stubbornness; see Is 48.4 copper face] probably denoting impudence (cf. ‘brazen’), but this may also be a disparaging physical description, since acne rosacea was sometimes referred to as copper-nose (cf. Theatre [cross-ref] and n). stony] pitiless elvish] crabbed, peevish novelties] unwarranted innovations maltworm] drunkard Juggler] magician fetches, casts] stratagems, tricks toyes . . . withal] fantastic deceptive contrivances that could only deceive the credulous. The phrase was proverbial; cf. Reginald Scot’s of the phrase to dismiss divination by sieve and shears (The Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, T3v) thou lyest . . . throate] you lie egregiously. Jesu] Jesus nigh hand] nearly ywis] truly Jack-mates] overly familiar friends; ‘Mr. Pal’ Many . . . Tutors] Resuming his survey of the state of things at Cambridge, Harvey notes both that students are on terms too familiar with their tutors and that the wealthier students are going unsupervised (‘their very own Tutors’). Ah mala . . . Vesperi] ‘Ah, wicked license; it was not this way in the beginning. Youthful learning without manly discipline is foolish. As if sternness were fitting only for the poorer boys and not so much more fitting for fine and noble youths in that pristine instruction and education that is liberal, wise, learned, and eminently suited as much to the person of the tutor as to the student. Wisdom in all things, that will be the keenest weapon. Other things are much as before: continuous war between the head and limbs of the university. Doxosophia sustained in our public halls, ratified within private walls, and flaunted everywhere. (You know that you know nothing if you know not this.) Everywhere Wealth is the only thing of worth, Modesty dismissed as measly, Letters discounted as nothing. Believe me, no one believes anyone, and friendship, my friend, means nothing. Where does that leave you, meanwhile? You ask how you should act? How, indeed? It is best to profit from others’ folly. I watch, I keep silent, I smile: I have spoken. And I’ll add what the famous satirist says: There are many reasons why one should live properly now, and above all so that one may scorn the tongues of slaves. ‘From my town, the day after the above conversation on the Earthquake, that is (if I’m not mistaken) on the evening of April seventh’ The ‘famous satirist’ (Satyricus ille), is Juvenal: the lines are adapted from his ninth Satire, 118-20. δοξοσοφία] ‘Doxosophia’, the presumption of wisdom. δοξοσοφία] In Plato’s Sophist, the Stranger identifies δοξοσοφία as one of the many manifestations of ignorance and makes the removal of this presumption one of the nobler aspects of sophistical education (231b). Nosti manum tanquam tuam] ‘You recognize the hand as if it were your own’ odd] special the two odde Gentlemen] probably Sidney and Dyer; see above [cross-ref] Non multis . . . unguem] ‘I am not asleep for many; I do not [write] for many; I do not desire to please everyone. Some praise, prefer, and admire some poems; others, other ones: of ours and of yours, I most prefer the ‘Trinity’. A word to the wise is sufficient; you know the rest – and you possess the three Graces to perfection.’ The first clause, adapted from Cicero, Familiares 7.24, means ‘I do not let all transgressions pass unremarked’; the second clause is attributed to Epicurus in Seneca, Epist. Morales 7.11. By nos . . . Trinitatem (‘our Trinity’), Harvey is referring to his own poem, ‘A New Yeeres Gift’, printed below, on the ‘three most precious Accidentes, Vertue, Fame, and Wealth; by vos . . . Trinitatem (‘your Trinity) he refers to Spenser’s ‘Iambicum Trimetrum’, poem organized around a set of triplicities. proper] appropriate complaint] See [cross-reference] in the first letter. presuppose] assume let my . . . came] Harvey’s affectation of lack of interest in the hexameters he has sent to Spenser works, in backhanded fashion, to solicit a more detailed reaction than the rather generalized approval Spenser offered at [cross-ref] rare] valuable forwarde] advance late] recent famous] capable of prompting fame Exchanging] replacement Balductum] trashy Artificial] artful ylfavoured] ugly Advertizement] precept Ascham . . . Scholemaister] Ascham makes the case for quantitative versifying in English in Book 2 of The Scholemaster (R4-S2). in respect . . . Motive] I would . . . Observations] Harvey here responds to Spenser’s reference to his own ‘Rules and Precepts of Arte’, which he has described as based on those ‘that M. Philip Sidney gave me, being the same which M. Drant devised, but enlarged with M. Sidneys own judgement, and augmented with my Observations.’ Harvey is asking for copies of Drant’s, Sidney’s, and Spenser’s rules, although his playful use of the language of polite social intercourse -- as if he were asking Spenser to introduce him to Drant’s Prosody, Sidney’s Judgement, and Immerito’s Observations -- slightly obscures his sense. gladly] eagerly peradventure] perhaps but I can] that I cannot reserve] forego consulted . . . pillow] ‘slept on it’ Sperienza] Experience (Ital.) meane] meantime mysterie] trade secret regular] orderly, pertaining to rules direction] plan into Arte] Since the fourteenth century many humanists had set themselves the goal of vernacular linguistic reform, meant to confer on language use a recognizably artifical elegance and richness. For a critical review of related programs of vernacular reform, see Peter Burke, Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2004) 17-21 and 89-95; also, Aldo Scaglione, The Emergence of National Languages (Ravenna, 1984). Ortographie] orthography, system of spelling proportionate] fitting our Common Naturall Prosodye] ‘Naturall’ is used here in contrast with ‘Artificiall’ earlier in the sentence. Harvey seems to be referring to the relatively informal accentual-syllabic system of most then-contemporary English ‘rhyming’. Sir Thomas Smithes] Born, like Harvey, in Saffron Walden, Smith was educated at Cambridge and held the first Regius Professorship of Civil Law. Under the influence of Sir John Cheke, Regius Professor of Greek, whose efforts at orthographic reform preceded his, Smith began a treatise on the subject in the 1540s, but that work was published only posthumously, as the De recta et emendata lingua anglicae scriptione (1568); see D. G. Scragg, A History of English Spelling (1974). perfit] perfect some other] Other systems of orthographic reform had been proposed or were being formulated by Cheke, Richard Mulcaster, John Hart, and William Bullokar. necessarie] unarguable absolute] authoritative hoppe] limp for Companie sake] for company’s sake Interim] in the meantime credit] believe Arte] a system of rules squaimishe of] stingy with respect to he that can . . . from the other] ‘Someone who can give good practical examples of versifying can easily sketch the general rules – the precepts and the ‘arte’ -- that govern such versifying, since the general art derives (‘fetcheth his original’) from the practice.’ (The next sentence makes it clear that Harvey regards precept as a derivation from practice, thus resolving the difficulty presented in this sentence – that the referent of ‘one’ in ‘skil of the one is ‘Examples’, whereas the referent of ‘one’ in ‘considering that the one’ is ‘Preceptes’ and ‘General Arte’.) fetcheth . . . offspring] derives his origins and lineage to say troth] to tell the truth the start] a head start are to frame] are obliged to frame President] precedent of us] from us Ennius] Although only fragments of his poetry survives, Quintus Ennius (c. 239 -169 BCE) was long regarded as the first important Roman poet. The phrase quoted below is taken from his epic poem in dactylic hexameters, the Annales, which traced Roman history from the fall of Troy to the present quantities] lengths onely] sole, unrivaled going] serving τῑ . . . nobis] Elizabethan grammarians recognized a number of rules by which orthography and position determined the quantity of a syllable, but these rules were not exhaustive: the length of many syllables could not be determined by rule. Harvey follows Lily (and others) in alleging that, in such cases, the practice of early poets confers quantity on otherwise indeterminate syllables: Quarum verò syllabarum quantitas sub praedictas rationes non cadit, à poetarum, exemplo atque autoritate petenda est, certissima omnium regula (‘As for syllables whose quantity doesn’t fall under the rules already mentioned, quantity is derived from the practice, example, and authority of poets, which are the most certain of rules’; Grammar, 1567, H1). According to Harvey, the first syllables of τιμὴ, timè (‘honor’) and unus (‘one’) to be short, Homer and Ennius made them long by the very act of beginning lines of their epics with those words. (Classical epic poems were usually composed in lines of dactylic hexameter, the first syllable of which must be long.) The half line from Homer may be rendered ‘Honour is from Zeus’ (Il. 2.197); the complete line from Ennius’ Annales is unus homo nobis cunctando, restituit rem, ‘one man, delaying, restored the state to us’. this by-disputation] the tangentially-related debate on the relation of precept and example Analitiques, and Metaphysikes] Aristotle’s fundamental work on scientific method is concentrated in the Prior Analytics, the Posterior Analytics, and the Metaphysics ἐμπειρία, ἱστορια, αἴσθησις, ἐπαγωγή] That empeiria (‘experience), istoria (‘inquiry, researches’), aisthesis (‘perception’), epagogé (‘intuitive induction’) are, in effect, the main anchors of knowledge, both informal and scientific, explains why Harvey refers to these as ‘Golden termes’. According to Aristotle, empeiria is built up in memory out of multiple perceptions; empeiria produces universals in the soul by means of epagoge (Post. An. B19). Although istoria is a term that appears most frequently in Aristotle’s biological works, it is used in the Prior Analytics to refer to the sort of systematic empirical investigation that supplies the first principles (mainly definitions) peculiar to each of the sciences (Pr. An. A30). Januarie gift . . . Christmas Gambowlde ] Alluding to the robust traditions of gift-giving on New Year’s Day and festive play on Christmas. Gambowlde] gambol, festive game. Plaudite and Gramercie] applause and thanks. but . . . is] but it being as it is (i.e., not very fine) fancie] critical opinion fancie] Although the word can mean ‘whimsical preference’, it can also be used to denote critical assessment. Harvey’s ‘A New Yeeres Gift’, to which he refers as nos Trinitatem (‘our Trinity’) at [cross-ref] above, may be scanned thus: _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ || _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x VErtue sendeth a man to Renowne, Fame lendeth Aboundaunce, _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ || _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Fame with Aboundaunce maketh a man thrise blessed and happie. _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x So the Rewarde of Famous Vertue makes many wealthy, _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x And the Regard of Wealthie Vertue makes many blessed: _ _ | _ _ | _ || _ | _ _ || _ ̮ ̮ | _ x O' blessed Vertue blessed Fame, blessed Aboundaunce, _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ || ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x O that I had you three, with the losse of thirtie Comencementes. _ _ | _ _ | _ || _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Nowe farewell Mistresse, whom lately I loved above all, _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x hese be my three bonny lasses, these be my three bonny Ladyes, _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ ^ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ ^ | _ x Not the like Trinitie againe, save onely the Trinitie above all: _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Worship and Honour, first to the one, and then to the other. _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x A thousand good leaves be for ever graunted Agrippa. _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x For squibbing and declayming against many fruitlesse _ _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ |_ x Artes, and Craftes, devisde by the Diuls and Sprites, for a torment, _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ || _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x And for a plague to the world: as both Pandora, Prometheus, _ _ | _ _ | _ || _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ ^ | _ x And that cursed good bad Tree, can testifie at all times. _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Meere Gewegawes and Bables, in comparison of these. _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ |_ x Toyes to mock Apes, and Woodcockes, in comparison of these. _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ |_ x Jugling castes, and knicknackes, in comparison of these. _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ |_ x Yet behinde there is one thing, worth a prayer at all tymes, _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x A good Tongue, in a mans Head, A good Tongue in a woomans. _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ |_ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ |_ x And what so precious matter, and foode for a good Tongue, _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x As blessed Vertue, blessed Fame, blessed Aboundaunce. Regard of] reputation for. leaves] permissions Agrippa . . . Craftes] Alluding to the satirically extravagant declamation against learning, De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum et artium (‘On the uncertainty and vanity of the sciences and arts’; composed 1526, published 1530) by Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535). squibbing] making sarcastic, incendiary utterances Diuls] devils Pandora . . . Tree] The tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:9), the ‘good bad Tree’, is yoked with Prometheus and Pandora because all three bring woe to mankind by transmitting that which is divine in origin. In both Theogony (507-616) and Works and Days (42-105) Hesiod tells the story of Prometheus’s theft of fire from Zeus. Although he glances at the Pandora story in the Theogony, he does not name her there; he offers a fuller account of Pandora in Works and Days (60-105), where tells of how the gods avenge the theft by creating the dangerously alluring Pandora, their revenge is completed when she opens a jar filled with the divine “gifts” of disease, toil, and other ills. For Pandora in Spenser, see Rome 260, Am. 24.8, and, unusually, Teares 578, where Elizabeth is compared to Pandora without implied pejorative force. Gewegawes and Bable] geegaws and baubles Toyes . . . Woodcockes] see above [cross-ref] Woodcockes] dupes, fools juggling castes] tricks involving sleight-of-hand knicknackes] trifling deceits behinde] in reserve L’Envoy] The envoy L’envoy] [cross-ref to SC] _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Marvell not, that I meane to send these Verses at Evensong : _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x On Neweyeeres Euen, and Oldyeeres End, as a Memento: _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Trust me, I know not a ritcher Jewell , newish or oldish, _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Than blessed Vertue, blessed Fame, blessed Abundaunce, _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x O blessed Vertue, blessed Fame, blessed Aboundaunce, _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x O that you had these three, with the losse of Fortie Valetes, Evensong] sunset Evensong] Vespers, the evening prayer service, is celebrated just before sunset. Valetes] farewells Valetes] Harvey seems to be referring specifically to the Valete, the formal farewell that concludes academic commencement exercises. requite] answer to requite] Harvey offers the following poem as a response to Spenser’s See yee the blindefoulded pretie God? in the first letter above. Garden . . . Lords] Harvey presumably refers specifically here to one of John Young’s gardens in the bishop’s palace at Bromley in Kent, a county generally celebrated for its horticulture. Master of Pembroke College and vice-chancellor of Cambridge, Young was consecrated bishop of Rochester in March 1578 and Spenser served as his secretary around this time. For more on Spenser’s ties to Bishop Young, see the note to September 171. demaunde ex tempore] inquire on that occasion demaunde . . . followeth] The inquiry following being ‘What might I call this Tree?’ Petrarches . . . Poete] alluding to Petrarch’s Rime sparse 423. The lines may be rendered ‘Victorious tree, triumphal, honor of emperors, and of poets.’ perhaps . . . higher] Because of the ambiguity of ‘conceite’ Harvey’s exhortation does double duty, encouraging Spenser both to imaginative reading and to imaginative writing: he exhorts Spenser to let Petrarch’s poem inspire him to higher imaginative conception (conceit) – higher than Harvey’s or, perhaps, higher than Petrarch’s own – but he also seeks to shape Spenser’s understanding (conceit) of Harvey’s own poem by suggesting that it was written under the influence of Petrarch’s poem and should therefore be esteemed the more highly for its emulous complexity. Rosalinde] unidentified; see Januarye 60 and n. Intelligences] In the tradition of Aristotelean metaphysics, the term denotes those spiritual entities, subordinate to the Prime Mover, that guide the motion of particular celestial spheres; sometimes the Intelligences were understood as a species of angel. Harvey may be using the term more casually here, as denoting intellectual faculties of an especially spiritual or heavenly orientation. Pegaso] Pegasus (It.) Pegaso] the winged horse that serves as a traditional figure for the poetic imagination. Encomium Lauri] ‘In Praise of the Laurel’ This poem, in quantitative hexameters, may be scanned as follows: _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ || _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x What might I call this Tree? A Laurell? O bonny Laurell: _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ |_ _ | _ || _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Needes to thy bowes will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto: > _ _ | _ || ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ || _ | _ ̮ ̮ _ x Who, but thou, the renowne of Prince, and Princely Poeta : ? _ _ | _ || _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Th'one for Crowne, for Garland th'other thanketh Apollo. _ _ | _ _ | _ || _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Thrice happy Daphne: that turned was to the Bay Tree, _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Whom such servauntes serve, as challenge service of all men. _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | _ _ | __ ̮ ̮ |_ x Who chiefe Lorde, and King of Kings, but th' Emperour only? _ ̮ ̮ |_ _ | _ | ̮ ̮ | _ _ | __ ̮ ̮ | _ x >And Poet of right stampe, overaweth th' Emperour himselfe. _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ |_ || _ Who, but knowes Aretyne? was he not halfe Prince to the Princes? _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ || _ |_ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ _ x And many a one there lives , as nobly minded at all poyntes. _ _ _ _ _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Now Farewell Bay Tree, very Queene, and Goddesse of all trees, _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ || _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Ritchest perle to the Crowne, and fayrest Floure to the Garland. _ ̮ ̮ | _ || _ |_ ̮ ̮ | _ || _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Faine wod I crave , might I so presume, some farther aquaintaunce, _ ̮ ̮ | _ || ̮ ̮ | _ _ || _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ x O that I might? but I may not: woe to my destinie therefore. _ ̮ ̮ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ || _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ _ ̮ ̮ Trust me, not one more loyall servaunt longes to thy Personage, _ _ | _ _ | _ || _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ _ _ But what sayes Daphne? Non omni dormio, worse lucke: _ _ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ | _ ̮ ̮ _ x Yet Farewell, Farewell, the Reward of those, that I honour: _ ̮ ̮ _ _ _ ̮ ̮ _ _ _ ̮ ̮ _ x Glory to Garden] Glory to Muses: Glory to Vertue. vayle] remove out of respect bonetto] i.e. bonnet, a man’s brimless cap. bonetto] Harvey here uses an Italian form for ‘bonnet’, a form not current in England, although it is difficult to decide whether he choses it for the slightly comic effect or because it fits the metrical schema. (‘Bonnet’ could also yield the catalectic final dactyl, although Harvey may regard the first syllable as short, for he systematically treats the first syllable of ‘bonny’ as short.) Poeta] poet (Lat.) Daphne] Ovid relates the tale of the enamoured Apollo’s pursuit of Daphne and her transformation into a laurel at Met 1.452-567. Aretyne] For Harvey’s confounding of Unico Aretino (Bernardo Accolti) and Pietro Aretino, the former a more prolific poet and the latter a more notorious literary figure, see above [cross-ref]. The disapproving tone of Harvey’s earlier reference leaves little doubt that Harvey was aware of Pietro Aretino’s reputation for literary mischief: his claim that many living poets are ‘as nobly minded’ as Aretino must be taken as deftly satiric. Indeed, to describe Aretino as ‘halfe Prince to the Princes’ is to suggest the political power of poetic satire. I crave . . . acquaintance] ‘I seek . . . acquaintance’; sometimes used idiomatically as a formula for introducing oneself longes to] belongs to, is affiliated with Personage] self Non omni dormio] ‘I am not asleep for all’ Non omni dormio] As he did in concluding his previous letter [cross-reference], Harvey again adapts a phrase from Cicero’s Familiares. In effect, Harvey’s Daphne denies her petitioner the leniency she allows some others. Partim . . . Musis] ‘Some for Jove and Pallas, / Some for Apollo and the Muses’ bewray] reveal store] inventory, stock conjure thee by] can mean either ‘entreat you by appeal to’ or ‘magically constrain you by the occult agency of’ Intelligible] intelligent in Tom Troth’s earnest] honestly, in a forthright manner Tom Troth] conventional personification of honesty Il fecondo . . . Immerito] ‘The fertile and famous Poet, Messer Immerito’ ‘Messer’ is an Italian honorific, slightly less formal than ‘Signore’ Satyriall] satirical instaunce] instigation a certayne . . . Gentleman,] The identity of this gentleman remains obscure. That Harvey wrote at another’s instigation may be a fiction, a weak attempt to distribute blame for the poem’s insults, the little community of blame itself intriguingly mysterious. in Gratiam . . . cutem] ‘to please certain Anglifrancitalians flitting here and everywhere among us. Come now: you know these fellows as you know yourselves, inside and out.’ Speculum Tuscanismi] ‘The Mirror of Tuscanism’. Although Harvey and John Lyly had been friends, Lyly (among others) apparently brought the poem to the attention of his patron, the Earl of Oxford, suggesting that the poem was meant as a personal satire on the Earl, which it surely was, although Harvey denied it (Foure Letters, 1592, C4). For troubles that the various provocations of the Letters brought on Harvey, see the Introduction, p. [cross-ref]. _ ̮ ̮ _ ̮ ̮ _ _ _ _ _ ̮ ̮ _ x Since Galateo came in, and Tuscanisme gan usurpe, _ ̮ ̮ _ _ _ ̮ ̮ _ _ _ ̮ ̮ | Vanitie above all: Villanie next her, Statelynes Empresse. No man, but Minion, Stowte, Lowte, Plaine, swayne, quoth a Lording: No wordes but valorous, no workes but woomanish onely. For life Magnificoes, not a beck but glorious in shew, In deede most frivolous, not a looke but Tuscanish alwayes. His cringing side necke, Eyes glauncing, Fisnamie smirking, With forefinger kisse, and brave embrace to the footewarde. _ ̮ ̮ | _ _ _ ̮ ̮ _ ̮ ̮ | _ x Largebelled Kodpeasd Dublet, unkodpeased halfe hose, Straite to the dock, like a shirte, and close to the britch, like a diveling. A little Apish Hatte, cowched fast to the pate, like an Oyster, French Camarick Ruffes, deepe with a witnesse, starched to the purpose. Every one A per se A, his termes, and braveries in Print, Delicate in speach, queynte in araye: conceited in all poyntes: In Courtly guyles, a passing singular odde man, For Gallantes a brave Myrrour, a Primerose of Honour, A Diamond for nonce, a fellowe perelesse in England. Not the like Discourser for Tongue, and head to be found out: Not the like resolute Man, for great and serious affayres, >Not the like Lynx, to spie out secretes, and privities of States. Eyed, like to Argus, Earde, like to Midas, Nosd, like to Naso, Wingd, like to Mercury, fittst of a Thousand for to be employde, This, nay more than this doth practise of Italy in one yeare. None doe I name, but some doe I know, that a peece of a twelvemonth: Hath so perfited outly, and inly, both body, both soule, That none for sense, and senses, halfe matchable with them. A Vulturs smelling, Apes tasting, sight of an Eagle, A spiders touching, Hartes hearing, might of a Lyon. Compoundes of wisedome, witte, prowes, bountie, behaviour, All gallant Vertues, all qualities of body and soule: O thrice tenne hundreth thousand times blessed and happy, >Blessed and happy Travaile, Travailer most blessed and happy. Penatibus Hetruscis laribusque nostris Inquilinis: Galateo] Giovanni della Casa’s treatise on etiquette of that name, first printed in Italian in 1558 and first printed in an English translation in 1576. Vanitie . . . Empresse] Since an empress ostensibly has absolute power, Statelinesse would seem fated to come squarely into conflict with Vanitie. No man . . . swayne] A difficult line. The punctuation suggests that it means ‘No real man can be found anywhere, only a minion; no stout person, only a lout; no straightforward person, only a swain’. But because the punctuation of the copy text is unreliable, and because both ‘stout’ and ‘plain’ are ambiguous, it may be that the line should be construed ‘No real man can be found anywhere, only a minion, an arrogant lout, and a mere swain’. Minion is often used to indicate the effeminate male lover of a man in a position of authority. Minion] favourite, hanger-on, lover stout] valiant, arrogant swain] servant, male rustic lording] petty lord beck] gesture, nod Fisnamie] physiognomy, face cringing] fawning brave] grandiose brave . . . footewarde] With its self-embrace, this vivid description of a particularly deep bow entails suggests both sycophantry and self-love. Largebellyed . . . hose] The continental fashion for the so-called peascod doublet, which swells like a peapod at its bottom-most point just at the belly, was quite new in England. Harvey is playing with the descriptive epithet, hinting that the peascod distention is a debased version of the related form of the codpiece. The ‘half-hose’ are breeches, as distinct from whole-hose, an integrated combination of either trunk-hose and stockings or trunk-hose, close-fitting canions, and stockings. The more traditional silhouette of trunk-hose is relatively full at the upper thighs, whereas breeches drop the apparent center of gravity farther down the leg. Breeches obviate the need for a codpiece. Straite . . diveling] Harvey turns his satiric attention to the rear of the new-fangled doublet. Whereas the Elizabethan undergarment (‘shirt’) was usually cut full, the comparison of the rear of the doublet to a shirt suggests some failure of decent concealment as the doublet descends to the buttocks, probably from being cut too tight. The doublet described here is certainly cut close at the breech, perhaps lacking any panels or skirts to mask the attachments of doublet and breeches, and thus suggesting the comic self-exposure of a diving duck. dock] rump diveling] a diving bird, usually a duck. cowched fast] fitted close Camarick] cambric, a fine white linen with a witnesse] especially, ‘with a vengeance’ Ruffes . . . witnesse] especially deeply folded ruffs. The plural ‘Ruffes’ suggests that this refers to a ‘suit of ruffs’, matching ruffs for neck and hands. starched] Although the fashion for starched ruffs had come in from the Low Countries in the 1560s, starching of large ruffs was an abiding object of mockery. See Phillip Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses, Pt. 1 (1583) A per se A] singularly excellent A per se A] A formula for spelling the single-lettered word aloud: ‘A per se, A’, i.e. ‘A itself, A’, the phrase came to designate pre-eminence. Thus Henryson’s description of Cresseide as ‘floure and A per se of Troie and Grece’ termes] words and phrases, terminology braveries] boasts in Print] precisely queynte] elegant, cunning conceited] clever in all poyntes] in all details, but with a pun on ‘points’, ribbons or cords for lacing together the parts of a garment, often quite decorative. guiles] tricks, wiles passing] surpassingly odde] remarkable, unique odde] The older sense of the term – unique, singular – was only beginning to find competition from a newer one – peculiar, eccentric. Myrrour] model, example primerose] primrose, primula primerose] the spelling emphasizes a common figurative use of the term to mean ‘the best’. for nonce] indeed Iambicum trimetrum] Spenser is adapting the rules of classical iambic trimeter, the most widely used meter in spoken passages of classical drama. Greek trimeter comprises three dipodies, or pairs of feet, each pair usually consisting of either two iambs or an iamb and a spondee, although a variety of substitutions were allowable, depending on the position of a given foot in the line. Though Spenser’s title refers to the Greek form, his lines seem to be based on the model of the Latin senarius, which derives from Greek iambic trimeter. The senarius is organized in six feet rather than in three dipodies and while the sixth foot is always an iamb, the preceding five feet often feature even greater freedom of substitution than was allowed in Greek trimeter.