The lettin[g] of humours blood in the head-vaine with a new morissco, daunced by seauen satyres, vpon the bottome of Diog[e?]nes tubbe.
Rowlands, Samuel, 1570?-1630?
AT LONDON, Printed by W. White for W. F. 1600.
EPIG. 15.
Amorous Austin spendes much Balletting,
In rimeing Letters, and loue Sonnetting.
She that loues him, his Ynckehorne shall be paint her,
And with all Uenus tytles hee'le acquaint her:
Vowing she is a perfect Angell right,
When she by waight is many graines too light:
Nay all that do but touch her with the stone,
Will be depos'd that Angell she is none.
How can he proue her for an Angell them?
That proues her selfe a Diuell, tempting men,
And draweth many to the fierie pit,
Where they are burned for their en'tring it.
I know no cause wherefore he tearmes her so,
Vnlesse he meanes shee's one of them below,
Where Lucifer, chiefe Prince doth domineere:
If she be such, then good my hartes stand cleere,
Come not within the compasse of her flight,
For such as do, are haunted with a spright.
This Angell is not noted by her winges,
But by her tayle, as full of prickes and stinges.
And know this lustblind Louer's vaine is led,
To prayse his Diuell, in an Angels sted.
****************************
Sonnet 144 (Shakespeare)
Printed by Benson, as a single sonnet entitled 'A temptation', from the 1612 edition of The Passionate Pilgrim.
A version of this sonnet and of Sonnet 138 were first printed in 1599 in The Passionate Pilgrim. Most commentators read this sonnet as referring to the same situation as in Sonnets 40-42, a love triangle that also features in 133-34; J.Q. Adams (see Rollins 1944: 1.370) suggests that this sonnet is imitated by Samuel Rowlands in The Letting of Humours' Blood [In the Head-Vaine], Epigram 15. At the very least, as Duncan-Jones points out (1997a: 404), Rowlands' epigram, Sonnet 144 and the sections of King Lear 'all draw on a shared traditional association of the female genitalia with a fiery "hell"'. Drayton also plays on the dichotomy between angelic and diabolic spirits in Idea, 22.14, but there it is the mistress who embodies both contrarieties: 'this good wicked spirit, sweet angel devil' (1599). (from The Complete Poems of Shakespeare, ed. Cathy Shrank, Raphael Lyne)
**************************************
SONNET 144 - Shake-speare
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still;
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Suspect I may, but not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
*************************************
Austin/Augustus - great,magnificent, sublime
AUGERE comes from Latin and literally means “to increase” but it has a wealth of synonyms: to make grow, to take form, to develop… Growing more in the sense of internal movement, of development or own growth than a mechanical force or external action. Growing as developing a possibility that was already contained or inherent.
The Latin root AUC- comes from a wide semantic field. It can be very interesting to relate some of its derivatives.
AUTOR (from “auctor”)
Creator. He who executes, invents or is capable of making something from nothing.
AUTORITAS (from “auctoritas, atis”)
The word “authority” in its original form had a much richer meaning than now. To understand it, it is necessary to remember which concept of authority the Romans had and to pass it to another word such as power (potestas, atis). Let’s see.
The Roman “auctoritas” is not the simple condition of commanding power, it has more to do with the recognition of an ability. It is related with the capacity to make oneself respected and recognition by others, while the potestas or power is associated with an imposed exercise, force or control. Although the first gives social body and involves a recognition, the second is clearly imposing.
********************************
The lettin[g] of humours blood in the head-vaine with a new morissco, daunced by seauen satyres, vpon the bottome of Diog[e?]nes tubbe.
Rowlands, Samuel, 1570?-1630?
AT LONDON, Printed by W. White for W. F. 1600.
TO THE GENTLE∣MEN READERS.
HVmours, is late crown'd king of Caualeeres.
Fantastique-follies, grac'd with common fauour:
Ciuilitie, hath serued out his yeeres,
And scorreth now to waight on Good be hauour.
Gallants, like Richard the vsurper, swagger,
That had his hand continuall on his dagger.
Fashions is still consort with new fond shapes,
And feedeth dayly vpon strange disguise:
We shew our selues the imitating Apes
Of all the toyes that Strangers heades deuise:
For ther's no habite of hell-hatched sinne,
That we delight not to be clothed in.
Some sweare, as though they Stars from heauen could pull▪
And all their speach is poynted with the stabbe,
When all men know it is some coward gull,
That is but champion to a Shorditch drabbe:
Whose feather is his heades lightnes-proclaymer,
Although he seeme some mightie monster tamer.
Epicurisme cares not how he liues,
But still pursueth brutish Appetite.
Disdaine, regardes not what abuse he giues;
Carelesse of wronges, and vnregarding right.
Selfe-loue, (they say) to selfe-conceite is wed,
By which base match are vgly vices bred.
Pride, reuels like the roysting Pródigall;
Stretching his credite that his pursse strin•• cracke,
Untill in some distresfull Iayle he fall,
Which wore of late a Lordship on his backe:
Where he till death must he for debt,
"Griefes night is neare, when pleasures sunne is set,
Vaunting, hath got a mightie thundring voyce,
Looking that all men should applaude his sounde:
His deedes are singuler, his wordes be choyce;
On earth his equall is not to be founde.
Thus Vertu's hid with Follies iuggling mist,
And hee's no man, that is no Humourist.
TO POETS.
GOod honest Poets, let me craue a boone,
That you would write, I do not are how soone,
Against the bastard humours howerly bred,
In euery mad brain'd wit-worne giddie head:
At such grosse follies do not sit and wincke,
Belabour these same Gulles with pen and incke.
You see some striue for faire hand-writing fame,
As Peeter Bales his signe can proue the same,
Gracing his credite with a golden Pen:
I would haue Poets proue more taller men:
In perfect Letters rested his contention,
But yours consist's in Wits choyce rare inuention.
Will you stand spending your inuentions treasure,
To teach Stage parrats speake for pennie pleasure,
While you your selues like musicke sounding Lutes
fretted and strunge, gaine them their silken sutes.
Leaue Cupids cut, Womens face flatt'ring praise,
Loues subiect growes too thredbare now adayes.
Change *Venus Swannes*, to write of Vulcans Geese,
And you shall merite Golden Pennes a peece.
FINIS.
EPIG. 7.
Speake Gentlemen, what shall we do to day?
Drinke some braue health vpon the Dutch carous
*Or shall we to the Globe and see a Play?*
Or visit Shorditch for a bawdie house?
Lets call for Cardes or Dice, and haue a Game,
To sit thus idle, is both sinne and shame.
This speakes Sir Reuell, furnisht out with fashion,
From dish-crownd Hat, vnto the Shoo's square to
That haunts a Whore-house but for recreation,
Playes but at Dice to conny catch or so.
Drinkes drunke in kindnes, for good fellowship.
Or to Play goes but some Purse to nip.
***********************************
Edward de Vere - Ciceronian 'Humanism' and the Cult of Magnanimity
***********************************
From Pincombe, Elizabethan Humanism -
[According to Cicero], [it] is ratio which gives man the edge over beast because it makes him prudent and thus able to form complex social relationships to his own advantage, in which oratio plays a leading part by the communication of ideas:
And the said nature, thorough the power of reason [vis rationalis], winneth man to man, to a feloweshippe bothe in talke, and also of life [et ad orationem et ad vitam societas]; and engendreth a certain speciall favour chieflie to themward, that are of them begotten; and stirreth up the companies of men, that they bee willing bothe to bee assembled together, and also to bee servisable one to an other: and for those causes, that they studie to purveie such thinges, as maie furnish them for their apparaile, and for their sustinaunce: not onelie for themselves, but for their wives, children, and other, whom they holde dere, and ought to defende. Which care sturreth up also mennes sprites [animus], and makes them of more corage to doo their bysinesse [maior ad rem gerendam].
In other words, human beings are distinguished absolutely from the beasts not only by virtue of their unique possession of ratio and oratio, but also by the degree to which they exercise the 'spirit' (animus) which is shared by all animals (animantes). The word animus has many meanings in Latin: 'The minde: the : WILL: the soule: delectation, or affection, *winde or blast*, wrath' (Cooper, Thes.).Perhaps the modern psychological term 'drive' covers these nuances.
Here, in the last section of the passage, Cicero associates animus with a drive to rise above others and do more than these are capable or desirous of accomplishing. On the one hand, the emergence of humanity from mere animality can be seen as a biological advance. (Cicero is never very clear on this point, but elsewhere, as we shall see, he favours an evolutionary model of human history.) Human beings are distinguished from other animals because they are concerned more with their species than with themselves as individuals or as members of a small family unit. The next step, however, is taken only by certain individuals, not by the species at large. This is when a man (it is always a man) distinguishes himself from his fellows by extending his 'care' (cura) beyond the confines of the family and outwards towards the whole community. This may indeed make him appear 'superhuman' or 'heroic'. the ancient heros was a hybrid: half man, half god. In mythological terms, the heros was usually a man who had both mortal and immortal parents, but it is also frequently used to rever to a man who is seen as the defender of his people. Here the connection seems to have been that the heroic man was one who, whilst evidently human, also was driven or motivated by an animus which prompted him to do more than most human beings could or would. It made ordinary men maior ad rem gerendam: 'greater in terms of what men are meant to do'. This is what Cicero calls, very simply, a magnus animus: 'GREAT SPIRIT'.
Cicero's remarks gave rise to a cult of 'magnanimity' in the Renaissance (Greaves, 1954). But Cicero was all too well aware that the magnus animus could be destructive as well as protective of human society. On the one hand, the magnus animus aspires to a superhuman condition which is similar to divinity. Honestas, he remarks, seemes to shine brightest: which is wrought with a greate, and loftie corage [animus magnus], despising worldly vanities [humanae res]' (1.60, p.74). Here, 'human affairs' are relegated to the level of mediocrity: the wants and worries of the workaday world. The magnus animus, however, soars above these, since his overwhelming desire is to achieve gloria by heroic acts on behalf of the commonweal. However, as Cicero goes on to point out, it this 'corage' is directed towards personal ends, then the magnus animus is little better than a beast...(snip)
...Cicero sees the magnus animus in itself as a sort of animal energy, then, which must be trained by knowledge. If it submits to reason, then the man who has this great spirit will become a semi-divine hero; but if it breaks the leash, it rurns into a wild beast, savaging the very people it was supposed to protect, reducing the world once more to a wilderness, in which knowledge, despised and rejected, wanders like a beggar, wretched and alone. (Elizabethan Humanism, Mike Pincombe, p. 17-18)
*********************************
Perfectioni Hymnus. Marston
WHat should I call this creature,
Which now is growne vnto maturitie?
How should I blase this feature
As firme and constant as Eternitie?
Call it Perfection? Fie!
Tis perfecter the~ brightest names can light it:
Call it Heauens mirror? I.
Alas, best attributes can neuer right it.
Beauties resistlesse thunder?
All nomination is too straight of sence:
Deepe Contemplations wonder?
That appellation giue this excellence.
Within all best confin'd,
(Now feebler Genius end thy slighter riming)
No Suburbes *all is MIND*
As farre from spot, as possible defining.
Iohn Marston.
**********************************
From Bibliography, Complete Works of Samuel Rowlands
...On the 26th October, 1600, occurs the following order upon the records of the Stationers' Hall: - "Yt is orderd, that the next court-day two bookes lately printed, thone called The Letting of Humors Blood in the Head Vayne; thosther, A Mery Metinge, or 'tis Mery when Knaves mete; shal be publiquely burnt, for that they conteyne matters unfytt to be published; then to be burnd in the hall kytchen, with other popish bookes and thinges that were lately taken." From the severity of this sentence it would seem that the characters drawn by the author were understood to have reference to living persons.
