Love's Martyr - Courting the Queen for the Presidency of Wales

Gifting/Presenting "Shake-speare" to the Queen

At the time of the publication of Love's Martyr Oxford was angling hard for the Presidency of Wales. I believe he presented to the Queen the greatest thing in his gift: nothing less than literary immortality. Shake-speare, in an elaborate conceit and compliment, is the offspring of the marriage of true minds - the literary heir of a Queen and, arguably, her greatest Courtier. The elderly, suspicious and embattled Elizabeth is transfigured and elevated from the subject of poetry to the metaphysical role of co-creator. Two bodies are burnt, and one name rises.

Immediately following the Threnos, Marston celebrates the risen creature -the risen name. A transfiguration has occurred. The name William Shake-speare figures prominently on the opposing page. It is, of course, the name of the author of the poem known as The Phoenix and Turtle. For Marston, (and myself), it is a metaphysical wonder

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History and Etymology for creature - Merriam Webster

Middle English, borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Late Latin creātūra "act of bringing into being, something brought into being," from Latin creātus, past participle of creāre "to beget, give birth to

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Love's Martyr, Chester

Phoenix.

O wilfulnesse, see how with smiling cheare,

My poore deare hart hath flong himselfe to thrall,

Looke what a mirthfull countenance he doth beare,

Spreading his wings abroad, and joyes withall:

Learne thou corrupted world, learne, heare, and see,

Friendships unspotted true sincerity.

I come sweet Turtle, and with my bright wings,

I will embrace thy burnt bones as they lye,

*I hope of these another Creature springs,

That shall possesse both our authority:*

I stay too long, o take me to your glory,

And thus I end the Turtle Doves true story.

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Grosart edition ‘Love’s Martyr’

(d)What is the message or motif of these poems? I recall that the original title-page informs us that in Love’s Martyr, or Rosalins Complaint, we have poems “Allegorically shadowing the truth of Love.” I cannot take less out of this than that the author believed he was celebrating a ‘true love.’ More than that, I cannot explain away the so prominently-given chief title, of Love’s Martyr, or the subtitle, Rosalin’s Complaint; which so manifestly folds within it Elizabeth, as the ‘Tudor Rose' (just as Rosalind in As You Like It, is called ‘my sweet Rose, my dear Rose,’). To me all this means a ‘true love’ that ‘ran not smooth,’ that was defeated or never completed, and that led to such anguish as only the awful word ‘martyr’ could express. (snip) (footnote d - p.xlv)

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Love's Martyr printed by Richard Field for Edward Blount - 1601

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Connections to Wales - Salusbury and King Arthur:

Sir John Salusbury (1567 – 24 July 1612) was a Welsh knight, politician and poet of the Elizabethan era. He is notable for his opposition to the faction of Robert Devereaux, second Earl of Essex, and for his patronage of complex acrostic and allegorical poetry that anticipated the Metaphysical Movement

(snip)

Chester's main poem is a long allegory in which the relationship between the birds is explored, and its symbolism articulated. It incorporates the story of King Arthur [note - largely Welsh], and a history of ancient Britain, emphasising Welsh etymologies for British towns. It culminates with the joint immolation of the Phoenix and Turtledove, giving birth to a new and more beautiful bird from the ashes. It also includes several allegorical love poems within it, supposed to have been written by the Turtledove to the Phoenix. - Wikipedia

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Folger Facsimile: (Grosart's edition does not reproduce either the elaborate header and footer that contributes to a 'contained' (Urn-like?) appearance of the Threnos,  or the oversized and graceful font selected to present the name William Shake-speare.

 

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Much Ado About Nothing - unfortunately

(To Sir Robert Cecil:)

At this time, I am to try my friends: among which, considering our old acquaintance, familiarity heretofore, & alliance of houses (than which can be no straiter) as of my Brother, I presume especially. Wherefore at this time, *whereas some good fortune (if it be backed by friends)* doth in a manner present itself, I most earnestly crave your furtherance so far as the place and favor you hold may admit. And that is, as I conceive: that if her Majesty be willing to confer the Presidency of Wales to me that I may assure myself

of your voice in Council rather than a stranger. Not that I desire you should be a mover, but a furtherer; for as the time is, it were not reason. But if it shall please her Majesty in regard of my youth, time & fortune spent in her Court, adding thereto her Majesty's favors and promises which drew me on without any mistrust the more to presume in mine own expenses, to confer so good a turn to me that then with your good word, and brotherly friendship, you will encourage her forward, and further it as you may. For I know her Majesty is of that princely disposition that they shall not be deceived which put their trust in her, which good office in you I will never forget; and always to my power acknowledge in love & kindness, hoping that, as we be knit near in alliance; so hereafter more nearer by good and friendly offices. Thus most earnestly desiring you to have me in friendly remembrance, when time serveth: I take my leave, this 2nd of February. [1601]

"Your assured and loving Brother, Edward Oxeford" (Fowler transcription)

SUMMARY: The document [above] is a letter dated 2 February 1601 from Oxford to Sir Robert Cecil requesting his assistance in obtaining the Presidency of Wales, left vacant by the death on 19 January 1601 of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The Queen granted the post to Edward Zouche (1556?-1625), 11th Baron Zouche of Harringworth. He was appointed Lord President of Wales in June 1602; four months later John Chamberlain wrote that, ‘Lord Zouche *plays rex* in Wales with both council and justices, and with the poor Welshmen’. He remained Lord President until 13 July 1615, when he was made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. See the DNB entry for Edward Zouche. (comment by Nina Green)

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(To Sir Robert Cecil:)

"My very good Brother, I have received by Henry Lo(c)ke your most kind message, which I so effectually embrace, that what for the old love I have borne you, which I assure you was very great, what for the alliance which is between us, which is tied so fast by my children of your own sister, what for mine own disposition to yourself, which hath been rooted by long and many familiarities of a more youthful time, there could have been nothing so dearly welcome unto me. Wherefore not as a stranger but in the old style, I do assure you that you shall have no faster friend & well-wisher unto you than myself, either in kindness, which I find beyond mine expectation in you; or in kindred, whereby none is nearer allied than myself,  since of your sisters, of my wife only you have received Nieces. A sister I say not by any venter, but born of the same father and the same mother of yourself. I will say no more, for words in faithful minds are tedious, only this I protest, you shall do me wrong, and yourself greater, if either through fables, which are mischievous, or conceit, which is dangerous, you think otherwise of me than humanity, and consanguinity requireth. I desired Henry Lo(c)ke to speak unto you, for that I cannot so well urge mine own business to her M(ajes)ty that you would do me the favour, when these troublesome times give opportunity to her Magesty to think of the disposition of the President of Wales that I may understand it by you, lest neglecting through ignorance the time, by mishap I may lose the suit; *for as I have understood, and by good reason conceived I am not to use any friend to move it, so myself having moved it, and received good hope*, I fear nothing but through ignorance when to prosecute it lest I should lose the benefit of her good disposition on which I only depend. 

Your most assured & loving Brother, as ever in mine own affection, in all kindness and kindred, 

EDWARD OXENFORD

(Fowler)

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Loves Martyr - Chester

(snip)

Phoenix:

Why now my heart is light, this very doome

Hath banisht sorrow from pensive breast:

And in a manner sacrificingly,

*Burne both our bodies to revive one name*:

And in all humblenesse we will intreate

The hot earth parching Sunne to lend his heate.

(note – Phoenix calls upon Apollo to kindle the wood)

Phoenix:

O holy, sacred, and pure perfect fire,

More pure then that ore which faire Dido mones,

More sacred in my loving kind desire,

Then that which burnt old Esons aged bones,

*Accept into your ever hallowed flame,

Two bodies, from the which may spring one name.*

Turtle.

O sweet perfumed flame, made of those trees,

Under the which the *Muses nine* have song

The praises of vertuous maids in misteries,

To whom the faire fac’d Nymphes did often throng;

Accept my body as a *SACRIFICE*

Into your flame, *of whom one name may rise.*

*something given up

William Shake-speare - Ashes of Two Bodies and One Name

 ... in that which becks

Our ready minds to fellowship divine,

A fellowship with essence, till we shine

Fully alchemized, and free of space. 

(Keats, Endymion I)

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_Venus and Adonis_ - Epigram - Shakespeare

Vilia miretur vulgus: mihi flavus Apollo                      

Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.

[from Ovid, Amores 1:15]

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Poetaster, Ben Jonson

(...)The suffering ploughshare or the flint may wear;

But heavenly poesy no death can fear.

Kings shall give place to it, and kingly shows,

The banks o'er which gold-bearing Tagus flows.

*Kneel hinds to trash: me let bright Phoebus swell

With cups full-flowing from the Muses' well!_

The frost-drad myrtle shall impale my head,

And of sad lovers I 'll be often read!

Envy the living not the dead doth bite,

For after death all men receive their right.

*Then when this body falls in funeral fire,

My name shall live and my best part aspire. *

[after Ovid, Amores 1:15]

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Aspire:

intransitive verb

1: to seek to attain or accomplish a particular goal

2: ASCEND, SOAR

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Best Part/Aspire:

Love's Martyr

[Marston's] "Perfectioni hymnus" begins:

What should I call this creature

That now is grown unto maturity?

[He] ends with a witty adaptation of a Senecan sententia - "the difference between gods and mortals: in ourselves, mind is the best part indeed; but for the gods, there is mind alone, nothing else: - which Marston gives as

no Suburbs, all is mind

As far from spot as possible defining.

(From Love's Martyr, Walter Oakshotte)

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My Shakespeare, rise! - Jonson

--thou art a monument without a tomb

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 Loves Martyr - Chester

(snip)

Phoenix:

Why now my heart is light, this very doome

Hath banisht sorrow from pensive breast:

And in a manner sacrificingly,

*Burne both our bodies to revive one name*:

And in all humblenesse we will intreate

The hot earth parching Sunne to lend his heate.

(note – Phoenix calls upon Apollo to kindle the wood)

Phoenix:

O holy, sacred, and pure perfect fire,

More pure then that ore which faire Dido mones,

More sacred in my loving kind desire,

Then that which burnt old Esons aged bones,

*Accept into your ever hallowed flame,

Two bodies, from the which may spring one name.*

Turtle.

O sweet perfumed flame, made of those trees,

Under the which the Muses nine have song

The praises of vertuous maids in misteries,

To whom the faire fac’d Nymphes did often throng;

Accept my body as a Sacrifice

Into your flame, *of whom one name may rise.*

Phoenix.

O wilfulnesse, see how with smiling cheare,

My poore deare hart hath flong himselfe to thrall,

Looke what a mirthfull countenance he doth beare,

Spreading his wings abroad, and joyes withall:

Learne thou corrupted world, learne, heare, and see,

Friendships unspotted true sincerity.

I come sweet Turtle, and with my bright wings,

I will embrace thy burnt bones as they lye,

*I hope of these another Creature springs,

That shall possesse both our authority:*

I stay too long, o take me to your glory,

And thus I end the Turtle Doves true story.

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Creature that rises from ashes - two bodies/one name, possessing the authority of both Phoenix (Elizabeth/Cynthia) and Turtle Dove (Oxford/Endymion) - William Shakespeare

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Love's Martyr, Marston poem

A narration and description of a most exact WONDROUS CREATURE, ARISING out of the Phoenix and Turtle Doues ashes.

O Twas a mouing Epicedium!

Can Fire? can Time? can blackest Fate consume

So rare creation? No; tis thwart to sence,

Corruption quakes to touch such excellence,

Nature exclaimes for Iustice, Iustice Fate,

Ought into nought can neuer remigrate.

Then looke; for see what glorious issue brighter

Then clearest fire, and beyond faith farre whiter

Then Dians tier) now springs from yonder flame?

Let me stand numb'd with WONDER, neuer came

So strong amazement on ASTONISH’D eie

As this, this measurelesse pure RARITIE.

Lo now; th'xtracture of deuinest ESSENCE,

The Soule of heauens labour'd Quintessence,

(Peans to Phoebus) from deare Louer's death,

Takes sweete creation and all blessing breath.

What STRANGENESS is't that from the Turtles ashes

Assumes such forme? (whose splendor clearer flashes,

Then mounted Delius) tell me genuine Muse.

Now yeeld your aides, you spirites that infuse

A sacred rapture, light my weaker eie:

Raise my inuention on swift Phantasie,

That whilft of this same Metaphisicall

God, Man, nor Woman, but elix'd of all

My labouring thoughts, with strained ardor sing,

My Muse may mount with an vncommon wing.

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Marston, Love's Martyr

Then looke; for see what glorious issue brighter

Then clearest fire, and beyond faith farre whiter

Then Dians tier) now springs from yonder flame?

Let me stand numb'd with WONDER, neuer came

So strong amazement on ASTONISH’D eie

As this, this measurelesse pure RARITIE.

Lo now; th'xtracture of deuinest ESSENCE,

The Soule of heauens labour'd Quintessence,

(Peans to Phoebus) from deare Louer's death,

Takes sweete creation and all blessing breath.

What STRANGENESS is't that from the Turtles ashes

Assumes such forme?

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Jonson, on Shakespeare

From thence to honour thee, I would not seek

For names; but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus,

Euripides and Sophocles to us;

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,

To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,

And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,

Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

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Love's Martyr, Chester

With what a spirit did the Turtle fly

Into the fire, and cheerfully did die.

He looked more pleasant in his countenance

Within the flame, than when he did advance

His pleasant wings upon the natural ground

True perfect love has so his poor heart bound.

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Billy Budd/Beauty/Foundling and another martyr to Love:

Hawthorne and His Mosses

By Herman Melville

The Literary World, August 17 and 24, 1850

Would that all excellent books were FOUNDLINGS, without father or mother, that so it might be, we could glorify them, without including their ostensible authors. Nor would any true man take exception to this;--least of all, he who writes,--"When the Artist rises high enough to achieve the Beautiful, the symbol by which he makes it perceptible to mortal senses becomes of little value in his eyes, while his spirit possesses itself in the enjoyment of the reality."

But more than this, I know not what would be the right name to put on the title-page of an excellent book, but this I feel, that the names of all fine authors are fictitious ones, far more than that of Junius,--simply standing, as they do, for the mystical, ever-eluding SPIRIT of all BEAUTY, which ubiquitously possesses men of genius. Purely imaginative as this fancy may appear, it nevertheless seems to receive some warranty from the fact, that on a personal interview no great author has ever come up to the idea of his reader. But that dust of which our bodies are composed, how can it fitly express the nobler intelligences among us? With reverence be it spoken, that not even in the case of one deemed more than man, not even in our Saviour, did his visible frame betoken anything of the augustness of the nature within...

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Shakespeare - Sonnet 124

If my dear love were but the child of state,

It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered,

As subject to time’s love or to time’s hate,

Weeds among weeds, or flow’rs with flowers gathered.

No, it was builded far from accident;

It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls

Under the blow of thrallèd discontent,

Whereto th’ inviting time our fashion calls.

It fears not policy, that heretic,

Which works on leases of short numb’red hours.

But all alone stands hugely politic,

That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with showers.

To this I witness call the fools of time,

Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

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Cynthia! I cannot tell the greater blisses,

That follow'd thine, and thy dear shepherd's kisses:

Was there a Poet born? - but now no more,

My wand'ring spirit must no further soar. --

(Keats, I Stood *Tip-toe*)

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Jonson, Cynthia's Revels - censuring Amorphus/Oxford and his crew of courtly 

revellers?

O vanity, 

How are thy painted beauties doted on, 

By LIGHT, and empty Idiots how pursu'd 

With open and extended Appetite! 

How they do sweat, and run themselves from breath, 

*Rais'd on their Toes*, to catch thy AIRY FORMS, 

Still turning GIDDY, till they reel like Drunkards, 

That buy the merry madness of one hour, 

With the long irksomness of following time! 

O how despis'd and base a thing is a Man, 

If he not strive t'erect his groveling Thoughts 

Above the strain of Flesh! But how more cheap, 

When, even his best and understanding Part, 

(The crown and strength of all his Faculties) 

Floats like a dead drownd Body, on the Stream 

Of vulgar humour, mixt with common'st dregs? [note - Ophelia?]

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(...) in that which becks

Our ready minds to fellowship divine,

A fellowship with essence, till we shine

Fully alchemized, and free of space. (Keats, Endymion I)

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Of Mere Being

The palm at the end of the mind,

Beyond the last thought, rises

In the bronze distance.

A gold-feathered bird

Sings in the palm, without human meaning,

Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason

That makes us happy or unhappy.

The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.

The wind moves slowly in the branches.

The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

~Wallace Stevens, 1954~