SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586)

From THE DEFENCE OF POESY

Chaucer, undoubtedly, did excellently in his Troilus and Criseyde; of whom, truly, I know not whether to marvel more, either that he in that misty time could see so clearly, or that we in this clear age walk so stumblingly after him. Yet had he great wants, fit to be forgiven in so reverend antiquity. I account the Mirror of Magistrates meetly furnished of beautiful parts; and in the Earl of [10 Surrey's lyrics many things tasting of a noble birth, and worthy of a noble mind. The Shepherd's Calendar hath much poetry in his eclogues, indeed worthy the reading, if I be not deceived. That same framing of his style to an old rustic language I dare not allow, since neither Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, nor Sannazzaro in Italian did affect it. Besides these, I do not remember to have [20 seen but few (to speak boldly) printed, that have poetical sinews in them. For proof whereof, let but most of the verses be put in prose, and then ask the meaning, and it will be found that one verse did but beget another, without ordering at the first what should be at the last; which becomes a confused mass of words, with a tinkling sound of rime, barely accompanied with reason.

[30

Which

Our tragedies and comedies not without cause cried out against, observing rules neither of honest civility nor of skilful poetry, excepting Gorboduc,-again I say of those that I have seen. notwithstanding as it is full of stately speeches and well-sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca's style, and as full of notable morality, which it doth most delightfully teach, and so obtain [40 the very end of poesy; yet in truth it is very defectious in the circumstances, which grieveth me, because it might not remain as an exact model of all tragedies. For it is faulty both in place and time, the two necessary companions of all corporal actions. For where the stage should always represent but one place, and the uttermost time presupposed in it should

be, both by Aristotle's precept and [50 common reason, but one day; there is both many days and many places inartificially imagined.

But if it be so in Gorboduc, how much more in all the rest? where you shall have Asia of the one side, and Afric of the other, and so many other underkingdoms, that the player, when he cometh in, must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale will not be [60 conceived. Now ye shall have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by we hear news of shipwreck in the same place, and then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave. While in the meantime two armies fly [70 in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field?

Now of time they are much more liberal. For ordinary it is that two young princes fall in love; after many traverses she is got with child, delivered of a fair boy, he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to get another child,— and all this in two hours' space; which [80 how absurd it is in sense even sense may imagine, and art hath taught, and all ancient examples. justified, and at this day the ordinary players in Italy will not err in. Yet will some bring in an example of Eunuchus in Terence, that containeth matter of two days, yet far short of twenty years. True it is, and so was it to be played in two days, and so fitted to the time it set forth. And though [90 Plautus have in one place done amiss, let us hit with him, and not miss with him. But they will say, How then shall we set forth a story which containeth both many places and many times? And do they not know that a tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and not of history; not bound to follow the story, but having liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to [100 the most tragical conveniency? Again, many things may be told which cannot be showed,-if they know the difference be

As

twixt reporting and representing. for example I may speak, though I am here, of Peru, and in speech digress from that to the description of Calicut; but in action I cannot represent it without Pacolet's horse. And so was the manner the ancients took, by some Nuntius [110 to recount things done in former time or other place.

Lastly, if they will represent a history, they must not, as Horace saith, begin ab ovo, but they must come to the principal point of that one action which they will represent. By example this will be best expressed. I have a story of young Polydorus, delivered for safety's sake, with great riches, by his father [120 Priamus to Polymnestor, King of Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He, after some years, hearing the overthrow of Priamus, for to make the treasure his own, murdereth the child; the body of the child is taken up by Hecuba; she, the same day, findeth a sleight to be revenged most cruelly of the tyrant. Where now would one of our tragedy-writers begin, but with the delivery of the child? Then should [130 he sail over into Thrace, and so spend I know not how many years, and travel numbers of places. But where doth Euripides? Even with the finding of the body, leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of Polydorus. This needs no further to be enlarged; the dullest wit may conceive it.

But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right [140 tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in clowns by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragicomedy obtained. I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a thing re- [150 counted with space of time, not represented in one moment: and I know the ancients have one or two examples of tragi-comedies, as Plautus hath Amphitrio. But, if we mark them well, we shall find that they never, or very daintily, match hornpipes and funerals. So falleth

it out that, having indeed no right comedy in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing but scurrility, unworthy [160 of any chaste ears, or some extreme show of doltishness, indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing else; where the whole tract of a comedy should be full of delight, as the tragedy should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration.

But I have lavished out too many words of this play-matter. I do it, because as they are excelling parts of poesy, land, and none can be more pitifully so is there none so much used in Eng- [170 an unmannerly abused; which, like daughter, showing a bad education, causeth her mother Poesy's honesty to be called in question.

Other sorts of poetry almost have we none, but that lyrical kind of songs and sonnets, which, the Lord if he gave us so good minds, how well it might be employed, and with how heavenly fruits, [180 both private and public, in singing the praises of the immortal beauty, the immortal goodness of that God who giveth us hands to write, and wits to conceive; of which we might well want words, but never matter; of which we could turn our eyes to nothing, but we should ever have new-budding occasions.

But truly, many of such writings as come under the banner of unresistible [190 love, if I were a mistress would never persuade me they were in love; so coldly they apply fiery speeches, as men that had rather read lovers' writings, and so caught up certain swelling phrases-which hang together like a man which once told me the wind was at northwest and by south, because he would be sure to name winds enough-than that in truth they feel those passions, which easily, as I [200 think, may be bewrayed by that same forcibleness, or energia (as the Greeks call it), of the writer. But let this be a sufficient, though short note, that we miss the right use of the material point of poesy.

But what! methinks I deserve to be

pounded for straying from poetry to ora

tory. But both have such an affinity in this wordish consideration, that I [210 think this digression will make my meaning receive the fuller understanding: which is not to take upon me to teach poets how they should do, but only, finding myself sick among the rest, to show some one or two spots of the common infection grown among the most part of writers; that, acknowledging ourselves somewhat awry, we may bend to the right use both of matter and manner: whereto our lan- [220 guage giveth us great occasion, being, indeed, capable of any excellent exercising of it.

I know some will say it is a mingled language. And why not so much the better, taking the best of both the other? Another will say it wanteth grammar. Nay, truly, it hath that praise that it wanteth not grammar. For grammar it might have, but it needs it not; being [230 so easy in itself, and so void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses, which, I think, was a piece of the Tower of Babylon's curse, that a man should be put to school to learn his mother-tongue. But for the uttering sweetly and properly the conceits of the mind, which is the end of speech, that hath it equally with any other tongue in the world; and is par- [240 ticularly happy in compositions of two or three words together, near the Greek, far beyond the Latin,-which is one of the greatest beauties can be in a language.

Now of versifying there are two sorts, the one ancient, the other modern. The ancient marked the quantity of each syllable, and according to that, framed his verse; the modern observing only number, with some regard of the ac- [250 cent, the chief life of it standeth in that like sounding of the words, which we call rime. Whether of these be the more excellent, would bear many speeches; the ancient no doubt more fit for music, both words and tune observing quantity; and more fit lively to express divers passions, by the low and lofty sound of the wellweighed syllable. The latter likewise with his rime striketh a certain music [260 to the ear; and, in fine, since it doth delight, though by another way, it obtaineth

the same purpose; there being in either, sweetness, and wanting in neither, majesty. Truly the English, before any other vulgar language I know, is fit for both sorts. For, for the ancient, the Italian is so full of vowels that it must ever be cumbered with elisions; the Dutch so, of the other side, with con- [270 sonants, that they cannot yield the sweet sliding fit for a verse. The French, in his whole language, hath not one word that hath his accent in the last syllable saving two, called antepenultima, and little more hath the Spanish; and therefore very gracelessly may they use dactyls. The English is subject to none of these defects.

Now for rime, though we do not [280 observe quantity, yet we observe the accent very precisely, which other languages either cannot do, or will not do so absolutely. That cæsura, or breathingplace in the midst of the verse, neither Italian nor Spanish have, the French and we never almost fail of. Lastly, even the very rime itself the Italian cannot put in the last syllable, by the French named the masculine rime, but still in the next [290 to the last, which the French call the female, or the next before that, which the Italians term sdrucciola. The example of the former is buono, suono; of the sdrucciola is femina, semina. The French, of the other side, hath both the male, as bon, son, and the female, as plaise, taise; but the sdrucciola he hath not. Where the English hath all three, as due, true; father, rather; motion, potion; with [300 much more which might be said, but that I find already the triflingness of this discourse is much too much enlarged.

So that since the ever praiseworthy poesy is full of virtue-breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in the noble name of learning; since the blames laid against it are either false or feeble; since the cause why it is not esteemed in England is the fault of [310 poet-apes, not poets; since, lastly, our tongue is most fit to honor poesy, and to be honored by poesy; I conjure you all that have had the evil luck to read this ink-wasting toy of mine, even in the name of the Nine Muses, no more to scorn the

sacred mysteries of poesy; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as though they were next inheritors to fools; no more to jest at the reverend title of a rimer; but [320 to believe, . . . with me, that there are many mysteries contained in poetry which of purpose were written darkly, lest by profane wits it should be abused; to believe, with Landin, that they are so beloved of the gods that whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury; lastly, to believe themselves, when they tell you they will make you immortal by their [330

verses.

Thus doing, your name shall flourish in the printers' shops. Thus doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical preface. Thus doing, you shall be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all: you shall dwell upon superlatives. Thus doing, though you be Libertino patre natus, you shall suddenly grow Herculea proles,

Si quid mea carmina possunt. Thus doing, your soul shall be placed [340 with Dante's Beatrice or Virgil's Anchises.

But if (fie of such a but!) you be born so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus, that you cannot hear the planet-like music of poetry; if you have so earthcreeping a mind, that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will become such a mome as to be a Momus of poetry; then, though I will not wish unto [350 you the ass's ears of Midas, nor to be driven by a poet's verses, as Bubonax was, to hang himself; nor to be rimed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland; yet thus much curse I must send you in the behalf of all poets: that while you live you live in love, and never get favor for lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph.

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SIR WALTER RALEIGH (1552?-1618) THE LAST FIGHT OF THE REVENGE

Because the rumors are diversely spread, as well in England as in the low countries and elsewhere, of this late encounter between her Majesty's ships and the Armada

of Spain; and that the Spaniards, according to their usual manner, fill the world with their vain-glorious vaunts, making great appearance of victories, when on the contrary themselves are most commonly and shamefully beaten and dis- [10 honored, thereby hoping to possess the ignorant multitude by anticipating and forerunning false reports: it is agreeable with all good reason (for manifestation of the truth, to overcome falsehood and untruth), that the beginning, continuance, and success of this late honorable encounter of Sir Richard Grenville, and other her Majesty's captains, with the Armada of Spain, should be truly set [20 down and published without partiality or false imaginations. And it is no marvel that the Spaniards should seek by false and slanderous pamphlets, advisos, and letters, to cover their own loss, and to derogate from others their due honors (especially in this fight, being performed far off), seeing they were not ashamed in the year 1588, when they purposed the invasion of this land, to publish in [30 sundry languages, in print, great victories (in words) which they pleaded to have obtained against this realm, and spread the same in a most false sort over all parts of France, Italy, and elsewhere..

The Lord Thomas Howard, with six of her Majesty's ships, six victuallers of London, the bark Raleigh, and two or three pinnaces, riding at anchor near unto Flores, one of the westerly islands of [40 the Azores, the last of August in the afternoon, had intelligence by one Captain. Middleton, of the approach of the Spanish Armada. Which Middleton, being in a very good sailer, had kept them company three days before, of good purpose both to discover their forces the more, as also to give advice to my Lord Thomas of their approach.

He had no sooner delivered the news [50 but the fleet was in sight. Many of our ships' companies were on shore in the island, some providing ballast for their ships, others filling of water and refreshing themselves from the land with such things as they could either for money or by force recover. By reason whereof our ships being all pestered, and rummag

ing, every thing out of order, very light for want of ballast. And that which [60 was most to our disadvantage, the one half part of the men of every ship sick and utterly unserviceable. For in the Revenge there were ninety diseased; in the Bonaventure, not so many in health as could handle her mainsail. For had not twenty men been taken out of a bark of Sir George Cary's, his being commanded to be sunk, and those appointed to her, she had hardly ever recovered England. [70 The rest, for the most part, were in little better state.

The names of her Majesty's ships were these, as followeth: the Defiance, which was Admiral; the Revenge, Vice Admiral; the Bonaventure, commanded by Captain Crosse; the Lion, by George Fenner; the Foresight, by Thomas Vavisour; and the Crane, by Duffield. The Foresight and the Crane being but small ships only; [so [80 the other were of middle size. The rest, besides the bark Raleigh, commanded by Captain Thin, were victuallers, and of small force or none.

The Spanish fleet, having shrouded their approach by reason of the island, were now so soon at hand as our ships had scarce time to weigh their anchors, but some of them were driven to let slip their cables and set sail. Sir Richard Gren- [90 ville was the last weighed, to recover the men that were upon the island, which otherwise had been lost. The Lord Thomas with the rest very hardly recovered the wind, which Sir Richard Grenville not being able to do, was persuaded by the master and others to cut his mainsail and cast about, and to trust to the sailing of his ship: for the squadron of Seville were on his weather bow. But Sir Richard [100 utterly refused to turn from the enemy, alleging that he would rather choose to die, than to dishonor himself, his country, and her Majesty's ship; persuading his company that he would pass through the two squadrons in despite of them, and enforce those of Seville to give him way. Which he performed upon divers of the foremost, who, as the mariners term it, sprang their luff, and fell under the [110 lee of the Revenge. But the other course had been the better, and might right well

have been answered in so great an impossibility of prevailing. Notwithstanding out of the greatness of his mind he could not be persuaded.

In the meanwhile, as he attended those which were nearest him, the great San Philip, being in the wind of him, and coming towards him, becalmed his [120 sails in such sort as the ship could neither way nor feel the helm: so huge and high carged was the Spanish ship, being of a thousand and five hundred tons; who after laid the Revenge aboard. When he was thus bereft of his sails, the ships that were under his lee, luffing up, also laid him aboard; of which the next was the admiral of the Biscayans, a very mighty and puissant ship commanded by [130 Brittan Dona. The said Philip carried three tier of ordinance on a side, and eleven pieces in every tier. She shot eight forthright out of her chase, besides those of her stern ports.

After the Revenge was entangled with this Philip, four other boarded her, two on her larboard, and two on her starboard. The fight thus beginning at three of the clock in the afternoon continued very [140 terrible all that evening. But the great San Philip, having received the lower tier of the Revenge, discharged with crossbarshot, shifted herself with all diligence from her sides, utterly misliking her first entertainment. Some say that the ship foundered, but we cannot report it for truth, unless we were assured.

The Spanish ships were filled with companies of soldiers, in some two hun- [150 dred besides the mariners, in some five, in others eight hundred. In ours there were none at all besides the mariners, but the servants of the commanders and some few voluntary gentlemen only. After many interchanged volleys of great ordinance and small shot, the Spaniards deliberated to enter the Revenge, and made divers attempts, hoping to force her by the multitudes of their armed soldiers [160 and musketeers, but were still repulsed again and again, and at all times beaten back into their own ships or into the seas. In the beginning of the fight, the George Noble of London, having received some shot through her by the armados, fell