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.
Q2 Romes worst Philenis, and Pasiphaes dust
Notes. Of all the Castlehaven libels, this verse most nearly approximates the moralizing horror found in the prosecutorial descriptions of the Earl’s alleged crimes. The poet insists that Castlehaven’s sexual offences are, without the aid of royal justice, simply inexplicable, transcending even the worst acts recorded in classical mythology and biblical history. In our chosen source, this poem is attributed to “ Jo: R:”.
“Uppon the Lord Audleys1 Convictio Aprill 1631”
Romes worst Philenis,2 and Pasiphaes3 dust
Are now chast Fictions and noe longer lust
This wilder age hath monstred out a sinne
That vertues them and saints an Aretine4
Scorning to owe a studyed vice to times
5example burnes out with more noble crimes
Such as weake Gibeahs Fire,5 or that loose Flame
Lot durst not looke at,6 want a sinne to name
This blacker engine7 is soe hardly scand
That vertue hath not witt to understand
10How sinne can bee soe learned, that man should know
To rape himselfe and make one rape proove too8
That lust should grow more barren9 than the grave
it merrits, for to a wise man, and slave
And how at onc’d a strange incestuous love
15Should both a Father and an husband proove
That soe high blood should prompt soe base a spirit
To gett an heir...to disinheritt10
If yet thy chast beleife cannot discerne
The monster Know a King will make thee learne
20whose justice thus the riddle doth untye
was such a crime for such an earle must dye
And yet this sinne above dispayre may sit
Since ther’s a King11 can pardon it
Source. Bodleian MS Ashmole 47, fols. 88v-89r
Other known sources. Bodleian MS Eng. Poet. e.97, p. 67; Bodleian MS Rawl. A. 346, fol. 141v; Beinecke MS Osborn b.125, fols. 38r
Q2
1 Lord Audleys: this is technically incorrect. Lord Audley was the title of Castlehaven’s son, James Touchet. <back>
2 Romes worst Philenis: the lesbian Philaenis, attacked in several epigrams by the Roman poet Martial. <back>
3 Pasiphaes: in Greek myth, Pasiphae, wife of King Minos, lusted for and then mated with a bull, later giving birth to the Minotaur. <back>
4 Aretine: Pietro Aretino, author of the most notorious works of Renaissance pornography, the Sonnetti lussuriosi (1527) and the Ragionamenti (1534-36). <back>
5 Gibeahs Fire: allusion to the biblical story of a travelling Levite’s stay in Gibeah, where his concubine was brutally raped and murdered (Judges 19). <back>
6 Lot durst not looke at: allusion to the story of God’s destruction of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19). God allowed Lot and his family to flee Sodom before its destruction. As they fled, Lot’s wife looked back at the burning cities and was turned into “a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19.26). <back>
7 blacker engine: “black...Ænigma” is a variant reading (Bodleian MS Eng. Poet. e.97). <back>
8 To rape himselfe...proove too: reference to Castlehaven’s crime in commissioning the rape of his own wife. The line suggests that this bizarre action meant that Castlehaven was not only in effect raping himself, but also making one rape—Giles Broadway’s actual physical assault on the Countess—into “two” rapes, one by Broadway, the other (by proxy) by Castlehaven. <back>
9 That lust should grow more barren: perhaps an allusion to Castlehaven’s alleged sodomy with his servant, Fitzpatrick. <back>
10 To gett an heir his blood to disinheritt: one of the allegations against Castlehaven was that he had encouraged a servant, Henry Skipwith, to sleep with the Earl’s own daughter-in-law, Lady Audley, in order to produce an illegitimate heir. <back>
11 a King: “a higher King”—i.e. God—is a variant, and preferable, reading (Bodleian MS Eng. Poet. e.97). <back>
Web Marketing & Design
by FourSquare Innovations 
