Complaint of the louer disdained. +Another copy in: L: Add. 36529, fol. 56. Author: Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Structure: 14: sur son
I N Ciprus, springes (where as dame Uenus dwelt) +Venus’s well, Cipres derives from Cyprus, an island sacred to Venus, see Ovid’s Metamorphoses , X.270. For other references to Cyprus, see also: Gorgeous Gallery , ‘The Louer vnto his Lady beloued’, l. 11: ‘Cipres Well’. *I Well so hotte is, that who tastes the same. Were he of stone, as thawed yseice should melt, And kindeled finde his brest with fired flame. (5) Whose moist poyson dissolued hath my hart. With crepyng fire my colde lymsar supprest, Feeleth the hart that harborde freedome smartharboured or in which lodged the pain of freedom , Endlesse dispaire long thraldome hath impreststamped [in my heart] . An other well of frosen yseice is founde, (10) Whose chilling venome of repugnant kindea type which counteracts The feruent heat doth quenche of Cupides wounde: And with the spot of change infectes the minde: Whereof my dere hath tasted, to my paine. Wherby my seruice growes into disdaine.
Description and praise of his loue Geraldine. +Written for ‘Geraldine’ or Elizabeth Fitzgerald; paraphrased in Drayton, ‘Annotations of the Chronicle Historie, Henry to the Lady Geraldine’, Englands Heroicall Epistles , Works , II, p. 284. Other copies in: L: Add. 36529, fol. 55; L: Cot. Vit. F.9, fol. 76v; C2: R.7.18/James 754, fol. 9v; C: Kk.1.3, pt. 4, fol. 4; C: Ii.4.33, fol. 64v. Reprinted in William Winstanley, The lives of the most famous English poets , (1687), p. 53. Author: Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Structure: 14: sur son
F Rom Tuskane came my Ladies worthy race: +Tuscany, the Fitzgerald family traced their descent from the Geraldi family of Florence, Tuscany. Faire Florence was sometime her auncient seate: The Western yleIreland , whose pleasant shore doth face Wilde CambersCambria, Wales clifs, furst gaue her liuely heate: (5) Fostred she was with milke of Irishe brest: Her sire, an Earle: her dame, of princes blood. +Lady Elizabeth Grey, Geraldine’s mother, was cousin to Henry VIII and the granddaughter of Elizabeth Woodville, queen of Edward IV. From tender yeres, in Britain did she rest, With a kinges child, who tasteth ghostly food. +Possibly a reference to Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, who died young; see also Surrey’s elegy: ‘Prisoned in Windsor, he recounteth his pleasure there passed’. *Honsdon did first present her to mine iyeneye : +Surrey possibly first saw Elizabeth Fitzgerald when she attended Princess Mary at Hunsdon in March, 1537. (10) Bright is her hewe, and Geraldine she hightis called . Hampton me taught to wishe her first for mine: +Hampton Court, also where Elizabeth attended Princess Mary in July, 1537. And Windsor, alas, doth chase me from her sight. +Surrey was confined at Windsor in July 1537 for striking a courtier on the royal grounds at the court in London, see also ‘How each thing save the lover in spring reviveth to pleasure’ * and ‘Prisoned in Windsor, he recounteth his pleasure there passed’. *Her beauty of kindefrom nature , her vertues from aboue. Happy is he, that can obtaine her loue. +For an alternative use of this motif see ‘The Louer in the prayse of his beloued’, l. 13: ‘For Beauties … aboue’. *
The frailtie and hurtfulnes of beautie. +Possibly inspired by Seneca, Hippolytus, or Phaedra : ‘Anceps forma bonum mortalibus,/exigui donum breve temporis/… confidat fragili? dum licet, utere’ (761-74), ‘O beauty, doubtful boon to mortals, brief gift for but a little time/… frail a blessing? Enjoy it while thou mayest’; Puttenham imitates the poem, without ascribing authorship, as an example of verses made all of bisyllables, or trisyllables or polysyllables ‘equally increasing’, see Art of English Poesie ; see also Whigham and Rebhorn’s edition , pp. 208-9. Another copy in ARUND: Harrington, Temp. Eliz., c. 1550-92, fol. 212v. Author: probably not by Surrey; Rollins supports the attribution to Lord Vaux given in ARUND: Harrington MS. Structure: 14: ababababababcc10
B Rittle beautie, that nature made so fraile, Wherof the gift is small, and short the season,