A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
Piii6 Yee snarling Satyrs, cease your horrid yells
Notes. This poem, addressed to the libellers—the “snarling Satyrs”—who celebrated Buckingham’s murder, invokes contemporary stereotypes of libels (raw in style, unreliable in content, socially disreputable and “popular”) to help delegitimate the posthumous attacks on the Duke and the concomitant lionization of his assassin.
“Thalassiarchiæ Manium Vindiciæ”1
Yee snarling Satyrs,2 cease your horrid yells
O’re this sad hearse, all such prodigious knells3
Be hush’t, and tongue-ty’d; but yet if your rymes
For issue itche, goe lash the petulant tymes
With whipps in salt, and sulphur steep’d the4 need
5A scorge to urge them either blush, or bleed.
And tell me men of misaffected braines,
What starr wrought your misguidance to these straines
Of sawetooth’d sarcasmes against the ghost of him
Whose hart did in a purple deluge swim?
10Is’t not enough to see a villaines steele
Gall’d5 in his gore? Doth’t not suffice to feele
His wounds wyde orifice, or viewe a flood?
Cannot ah! cannot all this satisfie
But you must wound his posthume memorie
15And retransfix his Manes6 with the dint7
Of sharpe invectives? Men (if men) of flint
Or adamantine hart strings know ’tis base
And fitly Emblems the dead lyons case
With whose beard-haires the fearefull Hares did play
20Or neere alludes those yelping currs,8 which bay
The midnight Moone caroching9 in her spheare
Toward the counter-pacers.10 can you heare
The ill tun’d organs of some tongues to chyme
Peans of joy in honor of a cryme
25Soe horrid and piaculer,11 yet lett the spiritt
Of passion paulle, and with them call’t a meritt,
Why? this is more then vice did ever doe
To love the Treason, and the Trator too.
Suppose him (as your fancie shap’s him) ill
30Leacher, and treacher;12 or what ere you will
In sootie language style him (though I knowe
You many, most, or all, such notions owe
To banques of common creditt; and are found
To take them upp at third, or fourth rebound)
35Yet, shall a phrenzi’d Miscreant13 that pretends
His countries good (mixt with sinister ends
Of private spleenie hartburns)14 darr to carve
Revenge to his owne trencher?15 May hee starve
(who ere that catiffe16 be) approves the dyett
40Which murther cook’d with sauce of blood & ryott.
I doe not wooe, nor court you to deplore
His lives breife sceane, or sadde deathrights17 more
Then that Hee had soe fewe short minutes given
To cast, and cleere the audit-booke of heaven;18
45I knowe the tydes of some ranke Gall19 swell highe
Cause Jove soe longe affected Mercurie20
And that his deepe ingagements in the Myene21
Of seacreet state, did wariely declyne
The damp22 of popular23 lungs; but lett this race
50of ulcer’d spiritt (giveing o’re the chace
Of Priviledg’d Fame beyond death’s verge)24 returne
And cease to cast foule urin to his urne
Lest they styrr hornetts: For, eclipsd Sunns
Result with double shaddowes; and their runns
55A thunderbolt with lightning. Nor do I
depricate His, but theire worse destiny
For what, if they (or one that basely shrouds
His face in foggs of thicke Tobacco clouds)
Shall pace the suburbes with aspurgal’d25 newes
60And sprinckle Pasquills26 in the Burse,27 or Stewes28
Alas! those gloewormes, elfe-fire29 flashes shall
But like faint sparkles, on danke tinder fall.
When there Producer (after all the throwes
Of his obstruct Minerva)30 never showes
65The spurious issues Parent, his great name
Shall Lawrell-like31 even crackle midd’st the flame
Of scorching calumnie, and Tyme relate
How rich hee dy’d in styles of powerfull state
Soe trodden greatnes shall ascend still higher
70And dyeing lamps with mounting flames expire.
Source. Bodleian MS Malone 23, pp. 128-130
Other known sources. BL Add. MS 15227, fol. 21r
Piii6
1 Thalassiarchiæ Manium Vindiciæ: “The Vindication of the Admiral’s Ghost”. <back>
2 snarling Satyrs: i.e. Buckingham’s libellers. <back>
3 knells: the sounds of funeral bells; here, the noise of the libellers’ verbal assaults, over the Duke’s dead body. <back>
4 the: probable scribal error; read “they”. <back>
5 Gall’d: probably intended literally as a reference to the knife penetrating the Duke’s body (one meaning of “gall” is “to break the surface of”), but perhaps also invoking a figurative meaning, to “vex, harass, oppress” (OED). <back>
6 retransfix his Manes: stab again his ghost, his shade. <back>
9 caroching: literally, riding in a carriage; here, more loosely, meaning travelling, journeying. <back>
10 counter-pacers: the Antipodes. <back>
11 piaculer: i.e. piacular; sinful, wicked, requiring atonement. <back>
13 phrenzi’d Miscreant: i.e. Felton. <back>
14 pretends...private spleenie hartburns: critics of Felton (including the prosecution at his trial) commonly made this allegation. Felton indeed had personal grievances against the Duke; in particular, he blamed Buckingham for repeatedly blocking his promotion from lieutenant to captain. <back>
16 catiffe: i.e. caitiff; villain. <back>
17 deathrights: i.e. death rites. <back>
18 that Hee had soe fewe...of heaven: even some of those who welcomed Buckingham’s death were troubled by the fact that the assassination left the Duke no time to repent his sins before dying. <back>
20 Cause Jove soe longe affected Mercurie: the god Mercury was the messenger for Jove, the king of the gods. Here Jove is the English king, Mercury the favourite Buckingham. <back>
22 damp: noxious exhalation. <back>
23 popular: the people’s. In seventeenth-century usage, “popular” also had connotations of seditious or unruly. <back>
24 verge: boundary, range, jurisdiction. <back>
25 aspurgal’d: i.e. asperged; sprinkled. <back>
27 the Burse: generally speaking, a meeting place for merchants; in seventeenth-century London, “the Burse” referred either to the Royal Exchange or the New Exchange. <back>
29 elfe-fire: will o’ the wisp or “ignis fatuus” (foolish fire); a deceitful thing. <back>
30 his obstruct Minerva: this curious phrase probably means something like “his impeded wisdom”; Minerva was the goddess of wisdom. <back>
31 Lawrell-like: the laurel leaf was believed to repel lightning. <back>
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