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.
Q6 Blame not thy wife, for what thy selfe hath wrought
Notes. This is one of two answer-poems, written in the voice of Castlehaven’s wife, responding to the epitaph “I neade noe Trophies, to adorne my hearse”. Herrup argues that both answer-poems “reversed the epitaph’s moral trajectory”, and “reinstituted images created during the trial by the King’s officials” (122).
“The Ladyes answere”
Blame not thy wife, for what thy selfe hath wrought
Thou causd thy hornes in forcing me to nought1
For hadst thou beene but human, not A Beast
Thy Armes had bene Supportors to thy Creast
Nor needst you yet have had A Tombe, or Hearse
5Besmear’d with thy sensuall life in verse
Who then would take such A Lord unto her bedd
That to gaine hornes himsefe, would loose his head
Source. BL Add. MS 22591, fol. 89r
Other known sources.2 St. John’s MS S.32, fol. 32v; WCRO MS 413, fol. 401
Q6
1 Thou causd...nought: this line restates the accusation that Castlehaven had cuckolded himself by encouraging his servant Broadway to rape the Countess. <back>
2 Herrup (160) notes that copies of either this or “Its true you need noe trophees to your hearse” accompany copies of the Earl’s “epitaph” in BL MS Lans. 491, fol. 229v; Yale Osborn MS b.126; and TCD MS 731. <back>
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