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The Guardian
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Poem of the week: A Sonnet to the Noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth by Ben Jonson
A Sonnet to the Noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth I that have been a lover, and could show it, Though not in these, in rithmes not wholly dumb, Since I exscribe your sonnets, am become A better lover, and much better poet. Nor is my Muse or I ashamed to owe it To those true numerous graces, whereof some But charm the senses, others overcome Both brains and hearts; and mine now best do know it: For in your verse all Cupid's armoury, His flames, his shafts, his quiver and his bow, His very eyes are yours to overthrow. But then his mother's sweets you so apply, Her joys, her smiles, as readers take For Venus' ceston every line you make. This tribute by the English poet and playwright Ben Jonson (1572-1637) to fellow poet Lady Mary Wroth (1587-1651), proclaims its intentions rather loudly and explicitly: A Sonnet to the Noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth. After the title, though, what struck me particularly was the choice of verb, 'exscribe', in line three. It means 'transcribe' and suggests Jonson's praise has a serious foundation of commitment and thought. By the time he printed the sonnet (1640-41) Jonson had, of course, read the published edition (1621) of the younger poet's magnum opus, her ambitious prose romance, The Countess of Montgomery's Urania. But his reference to transcription may suggest he had seen the earlier manuscript, a version that already included sonnets and songs for utterance by Wroth's major characters, Pamphilia ('all-lover') and Amphilanthus ('lover of two') Perhaps paying special attention to the sonnets spoken by Wroth's likely persona Pamphilia, Jonson had made sure to acquire his own copy. He may also have compared the earlier and later sonnets and noted down revisions. Jonson's sonnet begins with the assertion of his credentials: 'I that have been a lover, and could show it …' He moves on quickly to assure Mary Wroth he isn't writing as a lover or love poet here ('not in these … rithmes') and perhaps simultaneously admitting that he isn't himself a writer of love sonnets: 'these rithmes' could refer to the sonnet form in general. Nevertheless, Wroth's verse has made him a 'better lover, and much better poet'. The sonnets have taught him something about women and eroticism, but, more importantly, they have improved his poetic technique. It's a neat, tactful conclusion to a mildly flirtatious first quatrain. Those 'A' rhymes in his Petrarchan plan ('show it'/'poet'/'owe it'/'know it') are also nicely executed, and have a tone neither skittish nor over-solemn. They intensify as they progress from 'show it' to 'know it', and the sonnet's opening rationale is further developed. Neither the poet nor his 'Muse' are ashamed to be indebted to the 'true numerous graces' by which a poet does more than 'charm the senses' but can 'overcome / Both brains and hearts'. The rhyme-ending 'know it' asserts the lesson Jonson claims to have learned especially from Wroth: that a good sonnet demands intellectual sinew besides sensory and emotional appeal. Jonson takes advantage of the 'turn' in line nine to change key and heighten the rhetorical pitch, with familiar classical allusions as reinforcement. The addition of 'flames' to Cupid's armoury isn't a Jonson original: 'flames' were referenced by other poets, including Wroth herself, and represent the purification of love into gold, a finer material than flesh, and, of course, the desired product of the alchemist's crucible. Jonson's compliments catch fire, though, and come dangerously close to hyperbole. Wroth's verse can 'overthrow' Cupid, and even blind him. Moreover, Venus's softer power ('his mother's sweets') is included in her poetic strategy. Jonson closes with a particularly large-gestured generalisation: it's Wroth's 'readers' – himself included, but not only himself – who are empowered by Venus's 'ceston', the girdle which gave a wearer the ability to elicit love. And this is an effect Mary Wroth produces in 'every line'. Jonson's heart, if not his brain, seems to have been 'overcome'. When she published her 1621 version of Urania, Wroth added a further, independent song-and-sonnet sequence, Pamphilia and Amphilanthus. This no doubt was further fuel to the outbreak of disapproval that greeted the book. Among a number of charges against it were the allusions to certain non-fictional court scandals, including the relationship between the writer and her lover, William Herbert. Perhaps more shocking still was the fact that a woman had written a secular erotic sonnet sequence, trampling both on male poetic territory and the religious proprieties expected of female poets. Jonson's long-term support for Wroth (he also dedicated his 1610 play The Alchemist to her) may well have been influenced by self-interest. William Herbert had been his patron. He naturally wished to to keep on the right side of the nobility, the Sidneys and Pembrokes who were Wroth's close family members. But, from the overall tone and context of the sonnet, it seems most likely that, while he indulged in flights of flattery, genuine admiration and affection were also present. As an equally intelligent and complex reader, Mary Wroth, I expect, would have recognised the nuances, and found herself not displeased by Jonson's fundamentally sympathetic display.
The Guardian
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Poem of the week: River Babble by Eugene Lee-Hamilton
River Babble I The wreathing of my rhymes has helped to chase Away despair from many a wingless day; And in the corners of my heart I pray That they may last, or leave at least some trace: Yet would I tear them all, could that replace The fly-rod in my hand, this eve of May; And watch the paper fragments float away Into oblivion on a trout-stream's face. Thou fool, thou fool! thou weary, crippled fool! Thou never more wilt leap from stone to stone Where rise the trout in every rocky pool; Thou never more wilt stand at dusk alone Beside the humming waters, in the cool, Where dance the flies, and make the trout thy own! II And yet I think — if ever years awoke My limbs to motion, so that I could stand Again beside a river, rod in hand, As Evening spread his solitary cloak — That I would leave the little speckled folk Their happy life — their marvellous command Of stream's wild ways — and break the cruel wand, To let them cleave the current at a stroke, As I myself once could. — Oh, it were sweet To ride the running ripple of the wave As long ago, when wanes the long day's heat; Or search, in daring headers, what gems pave The river bed, until the bold hands meet In depths of beryl what the trick'd eyes crave. Eugene Lee-Hamilton (1845 - 1907) is associated with the poets and artists of the Aesthetic movement, and the tenet of l'art pour l'art rather than art for the sake of realism or moral homily. He is remembered especially for his skill in the Petrarchan sonnet, a form of inherent aesthetic distinction, and also one amenable to the need for composing ('wreathing … my rhymes') mentally for others to write down. This was important, because Lee-Hamilton was disabled as a young man by a long-term condition that left him paralysed. He moved to Florence to be cared for by his half-sister, the writer Vernon Lee, and Matilda, their mother, and eventually he began a slow recovery which brought about a (sadly temporary) remission. The paired poems of River Babble come from his 1894 collection, Sonnets of the Wingless Hours, a later edition of which can be read here. River Babble belongs to the first of the five sections, A Wheeled Bed, voicing the frustration and time-heavy boredom of a once active and ambitious young man confined to what he addresses elsewhere as 'hybrid of rock and of Procrustes' bed, / Thou thing of wood, of leather and of steel…' River Babble is angry at times, but richer in memories and longing. The scenes recalled are not primarily there to be enjoyed by the aesthetic eye, however: beauty is embodied by movement and sensation, now irretrievable. It begins with the consolations of rhyme-wreathing and the secular 'prayer' that the poems 'leave at least some trace'. But the next quatrain gives voice to fierce denial: the poems and their posterity would mean nothing if the poet could only recover his ability to fish the trout-streams and pools. And, by the first tercet, the mood has darkened to self-castigating fury at those fantasies of recovered strength. The writing in the first sonnet is at its most vivid when it observes ordinary things: fragments of torn paper, the 'leap[ing] from stone to stone', the water 'humming' at dusk with insect life. In the second, equanimity is restored, and the meditation centres on the idea that, if he were cured, he would 'leave the little speckled folk / Their happy life — their marvellous command / Of stream's wild ways.' While 'little speckled folk' is almost childish, the image of the 'marvellous command / Of stream's wild ways' is redeemingly fine, giving renewed physicality to the narrator's remembrance of his own human body when it seemed to share the trout's 'marvellous command'. But now there's a flip from exultation ('daring headers') to mystery. Diving down to the river-bed, the poet feels its surface for gems, 'until the bold hands meet/ In depths of beryl what the trick'd eyes crave.' Beryl ('precious blue-green color-of-sea-water stone' as Wiki translates the classical Greek) is a mineral which includes precious stones, such as emerald. Perhaps he's imagined these shimmering in the river's depths, and that he could somehow gather up a sample. There may be a sexual metaphor buried here, but an aesthetic one is also likely. The beautiful form, the Petrarchan sonnet, is associated with precious stones and precious metals elsewhere. For instance, the poem, What the Sonnet Is, concludes, 'It is the pure white diamond Dante brought / To Beatrice; the sapphire Laura wore / When Petrarch cut it sparkling out of thought; // The ruby Shakespeare hewed from his heart's core; / The dark, deep emerald that Rossetti wrought / For his own soul to wear for evermore.' The 'dark, deep emerald' of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting The Day Dream might be relevant to What the Sonnet Is, and, possibly, in River Babble II, it's Rossetti's genius-guaranteed immortality that's encoded in the wishful dive for the beryl. Or perhaps the stone simply represents beauty itself – something whose perfect form, Lee-Hamilton acknowledges, can never be found exactly as 'the trick'd eyes crave'.
