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.
F11 Heere lyes one nowe not worth despising
Notes. John Rous, the Suffolk parson, ardent consumer of news and ambivalent collector of libels, received a copy of this poem in April 1633 with an attribution to “Sir W. R.”, possibly Sir Walter Ralegh (70, 72). The poem’s hostility to Overbury, and lack of any allusion to the charge he had been murdered, fits with a composition date after Overbury’s death in September 1613 but before the September-October 1615 revelations that he had been poisoned.
“Upon Sir Thomas Overburie who dyed in the Tower”
Heere lyes one nowe not worth despising
Who Persian-like worshipt the Sunne ryseing1
Who Courtier-like embrac’d the brave
Nowe Lazarus-like lyes in his grave
Who Stoicke-like contemn’d a wife2
5God sheild heereafter it breed noe strife
Nowe read his fate though hee weere brave & bold
Yet Like a Jewe was bought, and sold3
O burie him, burie him quoth the higher power4
Least hee poyson court cittie, and tower
10And was it not sinne to burie him then
Who liveing stunck5 in the face of Men.
Source. Bodleian MS Malone 23, p. 6
Other known sources. Rous 72; BL Add. MS 22959, fol. 49r
F11
1 Persian-like...ryseing: refers to Overbury’s alliance and friendship with the rising royal favourite (the “Sunne”) Robert Carr. <back>
2 contemn’d a wife: Overbury was the author of a stereotypically misogynistic poem against marriage, “A Wife”, first printed early in 1614, but possibly known earlier in manuscript copies. Overbury’s rejection of marriage is here compared to the philosophical practice of stoicism. <back>
3 Like a Jewe...sold: this presumably refers at least in part to Overbury’s alleged fiscal corruption (the taking of bribes, etc.). The Jewish comparison probably works because of the contemporary anti-semitic association between Jews and corrupt fiscal practices. <back>
4 the higher power: could refer either to James I or to divine providence. <back>
5 stunck: this may well simply refer generally to Overbury’s moral corruption, but it may also extend the “jew-like” comparison of an earlier line by deploying the anti-semitic myth that Jews gave off a peculiar and offensive stench (Shapiro 36-7). <back>
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