Signalling Virtue - The fact that Anne Clifford's Great Picture does not display the First Folio of Shakespeare (dedicated to her second husband) signals her discretion.
******************************
From "A Summary of the Records and a True Memorial of the Life of Me the Lady Anne Clifford"
...I must confess with unexpressible thankfulness that though through the goodness of almighty God and the mercies of my saviour Christ Jesus, redeemer of the world, I was born a happy creature in mind, body and fortune, and that those two lords of mine, to whom I was afterwards by the divine providence married, were in their several kinds worthy noblemen as any then were in this kingdom ; yet was it my misfortune to have contradictions and crosses with them both: with my first lord about the desire he had to make me sell my rights in the lands of my ancient inheritance for money, which I never did, nor never would consent unto, insomuch as this matter was the cause of a long contention betwixt us, as also for his profuseness in consuming his estate, and some other extravagancies of his; and with my second lord, because my youngest daughter, the Lady Isabella Sackville, would not be brought to marry one of his younger sons, and that I would not relinquish my interest I had in 5000 pounds, being part of her portion, out of my lands in Craven. Nor did there want diverse malicious illwillers to blow and foment the coals of dissention betwixt us, so as in both their life times, the marble pillars of Knowle in Kent and Wilton in Wiltshire were to me often times but the gay arbour of anguish. Insomuch as a wise man that knew the insides of my fortune would often say that I lived in both these my lords' great families as the river of Roan or Rodamus runs through the lake of Geneva, without mingling any part of its streams with that Lake; for I gave myself wholly to retiredness, as much as I could, in both those great families, and made good books and virtuous thoughts my companions, which can never discern affliction, nor be daunted when it unjustly happens.
*********************************
Re-writing Patriarchy and Patronage: Margaret Clifford, Anne Clifford, and Aemilia Lanyer
Barbara K.Lewalski
...(Clifford) was able to maintain great pride in, and a primary identification with, her father by persuading herself that he really intended and expected her ultimately to inherit the property. This strengthened her to resist the authority and claims of uncles, husbands, courtiers, and kings, and to detach herself (she asserts with some pride, and a deft quotation from Sidney's Arcadia) from her two husbands' families and concerns:
The marble pillars of Knowle in Kent and Wilton in Wiltshire were to me often times but the gay arbour of anguish...(snip)
The Countess of Pembrokes' Arcadia (The Old Arcadia) - Dorus, The First Eclogues - 'Come from marble bowers, many times the gay harbour of anguish'.
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"Say They Are Saints Although That Saints They Show Not": John Weever's 1599 Epigrams to Marston, Jonson, and Shakespeare
William R Jones.
ABSTRACT
John Weever's 1599 poem to Shakespeare has frequently been used to support the case that Shakespeare was celebrated by his contemporaries. William R. Jones examines the language of the poem as well as its context (particularly Weever's role in the exchanges known as the Poets' War and in the 1599 ban on satire and epigram) to suggest that the poem deserves a more nuanced reading. Beginning with Weever's epigram to John Marston and Ben Jonson, Jones argues that Weever's apparently adulatory poems to these three playwrights in fact assert the moral deficiency of their works, consistent with Puritan anti-theatrical rhetoric.
(snip)
BIOGRAPHERS OF SHAKESPEARE have often numbered John Weever’s sonnet to William Shakespeare in his Epigrammes in the oldest cut, and newest fashion (1599) among a triad of works demonstrating the universal admiration accorded to Shakespeare at the end of the sixteenth century.1 James Shapiro, however, calls attention to Weever's puzzling failure to name more than two of Shakespeare's plays in the poem ("Romea Richard; more whose names I know not"; line 9), concluding that "Shakespeare would not have been flattered" by such a clumsy tribute.2 Perhaps he was not meant to be. In his 1598 work Palladis Tamia, Francis Meres names no fewer than twelve plays by "mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakespeare," as well as his sonnets and the two Ovidian poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrèce. Although he does not mention the plays, Richard Barnfield (the third contributor to the triad) praises Shakespeare's "hony- flowing Vaine," proclaiming that Venus and Lucrèce have earned Shakespeare a place in "fame's immortal Booke." Weever's epithet, "Honietong'd Shakespeare," because it directly echoes the laudatory language of both Meres and Barnfield, seems at first to join in the adulation.3 Here I suggest that the poem's multivalent language and contentious context (in particular, Weever's role in the Poetomachia, or Poets' War, and the influence of the Bishops' Ban)4 call for a more nuanced reading. *Weever's poem emerges not as unalloyed praise but as a kind of rhetorical Janus, safely displaying the fashionable face of praise while simultaneously engaging with the anti-theatrical discourses of the period, a posture that also informs his later works, Faunus and Melliflora (1600) and The Whipping of the Satyre (1601).* Weever defines himself in opposition to the vogue for licentious excess, particularly in drama and formal verse satire, an ideological position that doubtless helped the Epigrammes avoid the Bishops' Ban on the publication of satires, epigrams, and unlicensed histories and plays, issued on 1 June 1599. Weever's subtle critiques serve not only to mock those he judges to be negative moral influences (the avant-garde group of recently banned satirists representing the most egregious offenders) but also to proffer, even to enact, what he considers a more appropriate style of poetic wit.
(snip)
Meres's characterization of Shakespeare as harboring "the sweete wittie soule of Ovid " ( Wits Treasury, 281) is clear praise, and Weever's apparently laudatory epigram similarly foregrounds the Ovidian aspects of Shakespeare's work. Yet at the time, as Jonathan Bate argues, "ways of reading Ovid underwent radical transformation, as a newly unapologetic delight in the poetic and erotic qualities of the Metamorphoses came to compete with the predominant medieval practice of moralizing and even Christianizing them."24 Such a tension is evident in the dedication to Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of the Metamorphoses, where he admonishes the reader to seek the underlying moral lesson and not be "provoked to vice and wantonness."25 Heather James has broadened the picture beyond such polarizations, positing that intellectuals of the era were drawn to Ovid as the "counter-classical" love poet, in a self-conscious effort to transform the literary scene. Thus, just as the banned satirists had employed Juvenal as a means to distinguish their style from traditional modes, *experimenters such as Shakespeare saw in Ovid, argues James, an alternative to the Horatian ideal of decorum.* With the Ovidian narrative poems Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrèce (1594), Shakespeare is signaling the choice to explore and to challenge conventional wisdom, to illuminate the "erotic possessions of the will," yet to revel in the power of the individual wit to reshape the world.26 The Ovidian was moral, literary, and political at the same time - and was as culturally dangerous as the Juvenalian mode in satire.
****************************
Weever - Epigrammes
Epig 22. Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare.
Honie-tong'd Shakespeare when I saw thine issue
I swore Apollo got them and none other,
Their rosie-tainted features cloth'd in tissue,
Some heauen born goddesse said to be their mo|ther:
Rose-checkt Adonis with his amber tresses,
Faire fire-hot Uenus charming him to loue her,
Chaste Lucretia virgine-like her dresses,
Prowd lust-stung Tarquine seeking still to proue her:
Romea Richard; more whose names I know not,
Their sugred tongues, and power attractiue beuty
Say they are Saints althogh that Sts they shew not
For thousands vowes to them subiectiue dutie:
They burn in loue thy childre Shakespear het the,
Go, wo thy Muse more Nymphish brood beget them.
***********************
Warbling Wood-notes Wild:
Samuel Daniel
THE Tragedie of Cleopatra.
AEtas prima canat veneres postrema tumultus.
1594.
To the Right Honourable, the Lady Marie, Countesse of PEMBROOKE.
...O that the Ocean did not bound our stile
VVithin these strict and narrow limmits so:
But that the melody of our sweet Ile,
Might now be heard to Tyber, Arne, and Po.
That they might know how far THAMES doth out-go
The musique of Declyned Italie:
And listning to our songs another while,
Might learne of thee, their notes to PURIFIE.
O why may not some after-comming hand,
Vnlock these limits, open our confines:
And breake a sunder this imprisoning band,
T'inlarge our spirits, and publish our dissignes;
Planting our Roses on the Apenines?
And teach to Rhene, to Loyre, and Rhodanus,
Our accents, and the wonders of our Land,
That they might all admire and honour vs.
Wherby great SYDNEY & our SPENCER might,
VVith those Po-singers beeing equalled,
Enchaunt the world with such a sweet delight,
That theyr eternall songs (for euer read,)
May shew what great ELIZAS raigne hath bred.
VVhat musique in the kingdome of her peace.
Hath now beene made to her, and by her might,
VVhereby her glorious fame shall neuer cease.
THE Tragedie of Cleopatra.
AEtas prima canat veneres postrema tumultus.
1594.
To the Right Honourable, the Lady Marie, Countesse of PEMBROOKE.
...O that the Ocean did not bound our stile
VVithin these strict and narrow limmits so:
But that the melody of our sweet Ile,
Might now be heard to Tyber, Arne, and Po.
That they might know how far THAMES doth out-go
The musique of Declyned Italie:
And listning to our songs another while,
Might learne of thee, their notes to PURIFIE.
O why may not some after-comming hand,
Vnlock these limits, open our confines:
And breake a sunder this imprisoning band,
T'inlarge our spirits, and publish our dissignes;
Planting our Roses on the Apenines?
And teach to Rhene, to Loyre, and Rhodanus,
Our accents, and the wonders of our Land,
That they might all admire and honour vs.
Wherby great SYDNEY & our SPENCER might,
VVith those Po-singers beeing equalled,
Enchaunt the world with such a sweet delight,
That theyr eternall songs (for euer read,)
May shew what great ELIZAS raigne hath bred.
VVhat musique in the kingdome of her peace.
Hath now beene made to her, and by her might,
VVhereby her glorious fame shall neuer cease.
*******************************
Shakespeare not Po-worthy (or Thames-worthy):
Delia. Containing certaine sonnets: with the complaynt of
Rosamond. ,
At London, : Printed by J.C. for S. Watersonne., 1592
Then when confusion in her course shall bring,
Sad desolation on the times to come:
When mirth-lesse THAMES shal haue no SWAN to sing,
All Musique silent, and the Muses dombe.
And yet euen then it must be knowne to some,
That once they florisht, though not cherisht so,
And THAMES had Swannes as well as euer Po.
At London, : Printed by J.C. for S. Watersonne., 1592
Then when confusion in her course shall bring,
Sad desolation on the times to come:
When mirth-lesse THAMES shal haue no SWAN to sing,
All Musique silent, and the Muses dombe.
And yet euen then it must be knowne to some,
That once they florisht, though not cherisht so,
And THAMES had Swannes as well as euer Po.
***************************
Speculum Tuscanismi - Satire on Earl of Oxford/Signior Amorphus
Gabriel Harvey:
See Venus, archegoddess, howe trimly she masterith owld
Mars.
See litle CUPIDE, howe he bewitcheth lernid Apollo.
Bravery in apparell, and maiesty in hawty behaviour,
Hath conquerd manhood, and gotten a victory in Inglande.
Ferse Bellona, she lyes enclosd at Westminster in leade.
Dowtines is dulnes ; currage mistermid is outrage.
Manlines is madnes ; beshrowe Lady Curtisy therefore.
Most valorous enforced to be vassals to Lady Pleasure.
And Lady Nicity rules like a soveran emperes of all.
TYMES, MANNERS, FRENCH, ITALISH ENGLISHE.
Where be ye mindes and men that woont to terrify strangers
?
Where that constant zeale to thy cuntry glory, to vertu ?
Where labor and prowes very founders of quiet and peace,
Champions of warr, trompetours of fame, treasurers of welth
?
Where owld Inglande ? Where owld Inglish fortitude and
might ?
Oh, we ar owte of the way, that Theseus, Hercules, Arthur,
And many a worthy British knight were woo'nte to triumphe
in.
What should I speake of Talbotts, Brandons, Grayes, with a
thousande
Such and such ? Let Edwards go ; letts blott ye
remem-braunce
Of puissant Henryes ; or letts exemplify there actes.
Since Galateo came in and Tuscanismo gan usurpe
Vanity above all ; villanye next her ; Statelynes empresse,
NO MAN but minion : stowte, lowte, playne,
swayne, quoth a
LORDINGE...
*****************************
Review by: Sarah
Dewar-Watson
...In exploring representations of the Italianate
Englishman, Redmond suggests that the Italophobia of the period is a marker for
the instability of English identity.
*****************************
The First Booke of the Preservation of King Henry
VII (1599) Anonymous
You fine metricians, that verses skillfully compile,
(As fine artificers hard iron do refile on an anvile)
This verse irregular, this rustick rythmery bannish,
Which doth abase poetry; such verse, such meter abolish,
For lily mikle-white swannes flote on streams cleare as a crystall,
And in a fowle mud-y lake donguehill ducks strive for an offall
************************************
Ben Jonson and Cervantes
Yumiko Yamada
...We have proved the hypothesis proposed at the start of this chapter: that the texture of Jonson's poem [Shakespeare's First Folio poem] has been woven for its meaning to be wholly reversible. What is whole-hearted praise in the eyes of certain readers can be read as pungent criticism from the viewpoints of others.
Elsewhere Jonson wrote for different readers: in the 1612 quarto of Catiline, he prepared two kinds of dedication, i.e. to "The Reader in Ordinarie" and to "the Reader Extraordinarie". Yet there the stress was laid only on the degree of comprehension, and there was no reversal of meaning, according to the ability of the reader.
Whatever his motive, writing poetry to celebrate Shakespeare's 1623 Folio risked undermining Jonson's 1616 Folio - intended as the antithesis of Shakespearean dramaturgy. If he were to be faithful to the readers of his Folio, he must remain critical. On the other hand, were the tone of mockery discernible to all, it would have been excluded from the commemorative folio of the deceased poet. Obliged to satisfy both sides' opposing values, Jonson probably thought of using the two parties' differing speech habits, as adroitly summed up in Sackton's brief account:
*In Shakespeare (and most other writers) emphasis is on what is said: often, in Jonson, the dramatic effect depends much more on how it is said.*
Heir to Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe, Shakespeare sought a flamboyant and intricate style to attract public attention, but rarely adjusted tthe style to the character and occasion, or varied the meaning to suit the style adopted. On the other hand, Jonson demands careful examination of the style of each speech: literal interpretation is often misleading.
The tribute seems "Jonson's finest poem of praise of another poet" (van den Berg) in the eyes of people used to stressing "what is said"; and immortal poet blessed with "Nature" and "Art", Shakespeare surpasses Chaucer, Spenser and Beaumont, overshadows Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe and cast ancient writers back into the shade. No doubt Jonson would have classified Shakespeare with this category of readers. When the same poem was read by those who care "how it is said", Shakespeare became a huge, abortive flower of the loathed age, falling far below Chaucer, Penser and Beaumont in rank, but became the wonder (or monster) of the stage by outdoing Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe i the use of hyperbole, and by devastating the classical drama tradition. (pp. 81-82)
*********************************
Here sits the prodigall Children, the younger brothers (Luk. 15.12.) acting the parts of hot-spur Cavaliers and disguised ding-thrifts, habiting themselves after the fashions of the world, as one that is to travaile into a farre Countrey. Nisi hominibus placuerit Deus, non erit eorum, Deus. Because his father humors him not, with the Idolatrous Ceremonies to follow Popish Innovations, he becomes an errand Peripateticke, flying in a dudgeon and discontent from Gods household, and consequently from the Almighties direction and protection. Not having God for his guide, hee hath the Devill for his conducter, walking now not only after the lusts of the flesh, and of his mind, fulfilling the desires of both; but after the Prince of the ayre, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. 3 With the debaucht Gallants of these lascivious and loose-living times, he drawes his Patrimony through his throat, bequeathing the creatures to consumption for consummation of his intemperate voracity, delicate luxury, and wastfull prodigality, spending all either upon his belly or his backe, following the proud, apish, anticke, and disguised fashions of the times, to present himselfe a painted Puppet on the stage of vanity.
*********************************
William Shakespeare
You fine metricians, that verses skillfully compile,
(As fine artificers hard iron do refile on an anvile)
This verse irregular, this rustick rythmery bannish,
Which doth abase poetry; such verse, such meter abolish,
For lily mikle-white swannes flote on streams cleare as a crystall,
And in a fowle mud-y lake donguehill ducks strive for an offall
************************************
Ben Jonson and Cervantes
Yumiko Yamada
...We have proved the hypothesis proposed at the start of this chapter: that the texture of Jonson's poem [Shakespeare's First Folio poem] has been woven for its meaning to be wholly reversible. What is whole-hearted praise in the eyes of certain readers can be read as pungent criticism from the viewpoints of others.
Elsewhere Jonson wrote for different readers: in the 1612 quarto of Catiline, he prepared two kinds of dedication, i.e. to "The Reader in Ordinarie" and to "the Reader Extraordinarie". Yet there the stress was laid only on the degree of comprehension, and there was no reversal of meaning, according to the ability of the reader.
Whatever his motive, writing poetry to celebrate Shakespeare's 1623 Folio risked undermining Jonson's 1616 Folio - intended as the antithesis of Shakespearean dramaturgy. If he were to be faithful to the readers of his Folio, he must remain critical. On the other hand, were the tone of mockery discernible to all, it would have been excluded from the commemorative folio of the deceased poet. Obliged to satisfy both sides' opposing values, Jonson probably thought of using the two parties' differing speech habits, as adroitly summed up in Sackton's brief account:
*In Shakespeare (and most other writers) emphasis is on what is said: often, in Jonson, the dramatic effect depends much more on how it is said.*
Heir to Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe, Shakespeare sought a flamboyant and intricate style to attract public attention, but rarely adjusted tthe style to the character and occasion, or varied the meaning to suit the style adopted. On the other hand, Jonson demands careful examination of the style of each speech: literal interpretation is often misleading.
The tribute seems "Jonson's finest poem of praise of another poet" (van den Berg) in the eyes of people used to stressing "what is said"; and immortal poet blessed with "Nature" and "Art", Shakespeare surpasses Chaucer, Spenser and Beaumont, overshadows Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe and cast ancient writers back into the shade. No doubt Jonson would have classified Shakespeare with this category of readers. When the same poem was read by those who care "how it is said", Shakespeare became a huge, abortive flower of the loathed age, falling far below Chaucer, Penser and Beaumont in rank, but became the wonder (or monster) of the stage by outdoing Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe i the use of hyperbole, and by devastating the classical drama tradition. (pp. 81-82)
*********************************
THE SVCKLINGTON FACTION: OR ( SUCKLINGS ) Roaring
Boyes.
Here sits the prodigall Children, the younger brothers (Luk. 15.12.) acting the parts of hot-spur Cavaliers and disguised ding-thrifts, habiting themselves after the fashions of the world, as one that is to travaile into a farre Countrey. Nisi hominibus placuerit Deus, non erit eorum, Deus. Because his father humors him not, with the Idolatrous Ceremonies to follow Popish Innovations, he becomes an errand Peripateticke, flying in a dudgeon and discontent from Gods household, and consequently from the Almighties direction and protection. Not having God for his guide, hee hath the Devill for his conducter, walking now not only after the lusts of the flesh, and of his mind, fulfilling the desires of both; but after the Prince of the ayre, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. 3 With the debaucht Gallants of these lascivious and loose-living times, he drawes his Patrimony through his throat, bequeathing the creatures to consumption for consummation of his intemperate voracity, delicate luxury, and wastfull prodigality, spending all either upon his belly or his backe, following the proud, apish, anticke, and disguised fashions of the times, to present himselfe a painted Puppet on the stage of vanity.
Alia [sic], vina, Venus, tribus his sum factus
egenus 4
What with wine and women, horses, hounds, and whores,
dauncing, dicing, drabbing, drinking, may the prodigall man say: I am brought
unto a morsel of bread, yea unto the very huskes of Swine. 5
Pride of spirit makes him to scorne an Alehouse, and therefore with
greater eagernesse hee daily haunts Tavernes: where sometimes he sits by his
liquor, and bloud of the Vine, and the spirits of the Celler, exhausting, and
infusing them unto mad ebriety: thus drinking ad modum sine mensura,
6
whole ones, by measure, without measure, like the Elephant through the
juice of Mulberries, he is enraged unto bloud, and most damnable resolutions and
designes, terminated in the death and destruction of the next man he meetes,
that never did, neither thought him harme. Or having a noyse of renegade
Fidlers, Musicke-abusers, they with him, and he with them, sings and danceth,
danceth and sings like a Nightingale*, or Canarie bird. He is profuse and
lavish.
— — Donec deceptus & exspes,
Necquicquam fundo suspiret nummus in imo 7
Necquicquam fundo suspiret nummus in imo 7
Never sparing till all be spent, dancing, and drinking away
both wit and wealth. Now he acts his ryots, anon his revels, and forthwith
ferries to a Play-house, or Bawdy-house, where the woman with the attire of an
harlot kissing him, allures this simple sot, voyd of understanding, to solace
himselfe, (ver. 18.) and take his fill of love vntill the morning.
Lust leades him to dalliance, till a dart (Ver. 23.) strike thorow his
liver, until hee be cast downe and wounded, yea and slaine by her. 8
This notorious good-fellow (corruptly so called) being a
confederate of the Greekes, Titeretus, or joviall roaring Boyes, is of
the Poets mind, when he said: Fœcundi calices quem non fecere disertum?
Whom hath not wine made witty? 9
He drinkes that he may be eloquent and facete, after his cup of nimis,
10
he harps on Barnabies Hymne, 11
or Bacchus his inebriating Catch, bousing verily, and chanting on
this wise merrily:
Æsculapi tandem sapi,
quid medelas blateras?
Mithridatum est potatum
inter vini pateras.
Ad liquors & humores
tandum [sic] crescunt salices
Si quis ægrotet, mox epotet
decem vini calices.
Qui emblema, aut poema
vult acuté texere,
Ordiatur, vino satur,
& uvarum nectare.
Nil acuté, nil argutè,
dictum sine dolio;
Audivi sales, nunquam tales
ac in ænopolio.
Quorsum plura, hæc figura
satis rem nobilitat.
Vas rotundum totum mundum
plene consignificat.
quid medelas blateras?
Mithridatum est potatum
inter vini pateras.
Ad liquors & humores
tandum [sic] crescunt salices
Si quis ægrotet, mox epotet
decem vini calices.
Qui emblema, aut poema
vult acuté texere,
Ordiatur, vino satur,
& uvarum nectare.
Nil acuté, nil argutè,
dictum sine dolio;
Audivi sales, nunquam tales
ac in ænopolio.
Quorsum plura, hæc figura
satis rem nobilitat.
Vas rotundum totum mundum
plene consignificat.
These are children of Spirituall fornication, such as goe a
Whoring from God after the idols of their owne braines: Hos. I.2. such
are superstitious Romanists, tutoured by their Ghostly Fathers, to beleeve in
grosse as the Church beleeveth, which (as Luther saith) is grosse
Divinity. These fall not onely from piety to impuritie, but also from Christian
verities, to Antichristian vanities, fopperies, and trumperies.
FINIS.
Printed in the Yeare, MDC.XLI.
***********************************
William Shakespeare
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;
And yet methinks I have Astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
And yet methinks I have Astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
*********************************
William Shakespeare
THRENOS.
Beauty, truth, and rarity.
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd in cinders lie.
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd in cinders lie.
Death is now the phoenix' nest;
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
To eternity doth rest,
Leaving no posterity:--
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
Truth may seem, but cannot be:
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
