[sig. Biiiir]
Complaint of the absence of
her louer being vpon
the sea. +Probably written in the voice of his wife while he was on military service in Boulogne; imitation of Serafino del Aquilo (1466-1500), Epist. V, Opera , (1516) fols. 62v-64, ‘Quella igannata, afflicta, & miserand/Donna, non donna piu, ma horrendo monstrio’, which in turn imitates Ovid, ‘Phyllis to Demophoon’, Heroides , II.1-148: ‘Hospita, Demophoon, tua et Rhodopeia Phyllis/ultra promissum tempus abesse queror/…’, ‘I, your Phyllis, who welcomed you to Rhodope, Demophoon, complain that the promised day is past, and you not here…’. For the music for this lyric, see Musical Settings . Other copies in L: Add. 17492, fol. 55-55v; L: Harl. 78, fol. 30v; PRO. SP. fols. 31v-2v. Author: Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; incorrectly attributed by Henry Harington to Sir John Harington (‘by John Harington, 1543, for a Ladie moche in Love’), in Nugae Antiquae , I.187-8. Structure: 42: 6×7 a8b6a8b6cc8c10
O Happy dames, that may embrace The frute of your belightprinter’s error for delight , Help to bewailelament the wofull case, And ekealso the heauy plight (5) Of me, that wonted to reioyce The fortune of my pleasant choyce: Good ladies, help to fill my moorningmourning voyce. In ship, freight with remembrance Of thoughts, and pleasures past, +Lines 8-9: ‘In ship ..past’, see also lines 12-13: borrowed by Melbancke, Philotimus (1583), p. 60: ‘thus did hee seeme to bee conueyde: in shipe fraught with remembraunce of pleasure past, with scaldinge sighes for want of gale, and stedfast hope that was his sayle’. (10) He sailes that hath in gouernance My life, while it will last: With scalding sighes, for lack of gale, Furdering his hope, that is his sail +See Petrarch, Rime 189.7-8, ‘la vela rompe un vento umido eterno/di sospir, di speranze et di desio’, ‘a wet, changeless wind of sighs, hopes, and desires breaks the sail’, translation Durling . Toward me, the swete port of his auaileadvantage, helpmeet (15) Alas, how oft in dreames I see Those eyes that were my food, Which somtime so delited me, That yet they do me good. Wherwith I wake with his returne, (20) Whose absent flame did make me burne. But when I finde the lacke, Lord how I mourne? When other louers in armes acrosse, Reioyce their chiefe delight: Drowned in teares to mourne my losse, (25) I stand the bitter night, In my window, where I may see, Before the windes how the clowdes flee. Lo, what a Mariner loue hath made me. +Lines 25-8: ‘I stand the bitter … love have made me’, ‘Alas, now drencheth my swete fo’: see Serafino, Epistle , VI.79-80: ‘E se affondato è alcun dal tempo rio/Chel sappia, dico, ohime, questo è summerso’. And in grene waues when the salt flood (30) Doth rise by rage of winde: A thousand fansies in that mood Assaile my restlesse minde. Alas, now drencheth my swete fo, +See Serafino, Epistle , VI.79-80: ‘E se affondato è alcun dal tempo rio/Chel sappia, dico, ohime, questo è summerso’. That with the spoyle of my hart did go,