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.
A2 The Disease of the stomack, and the Terme of Disgrace
Notes. This couplet on Ralegh, attributed to “Dr. Noell”, is commonly collected with a corresponding couplet on Noel, attributed to Ralegh (see “The Word of Deniall, and the Letter of Fifty”). See further the introductory comments for “The Word of Deniall, and the Letter of Fifty”.
“On Sir W. Rawly”
The Disease of the stomack, and the Terme of Disgrace1
Makes the name of the man with the brazen face.
Source. Folger MS V.a.103, fol. 68r
Other known sources. Manningham 161; Ralegh, Poems 28; Bodleian MS Douce f.5, fol. 31r; Bodleian MS Malone 19, p. 52; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 84, fol. 72v; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 148, fol. 1r; BL MS Harley 5353, fol. 83r; Nottingham MS Portland PW V 37, p. 140; Houghton MS Eng 686, fol. 17v; Rosenbach MS 1083/16, p. 195
A2
1 The Disease...Disgrace: i.e. “Raw”, meaning uncooked and hence normally inedible, and “Lie”, creating “Rawlie” or “Rawly”. The “Lie” is “the terme of disgrace” because a challenge to a duel was usually incited by “giving the lie” (i.e. claiming that a rival had told an untruth). Although this verse was probably written in the late 1570s or 1580s, the allusion probably struck later readers as doubly appropriate because Ralegh’s poem “Goe soule the bodies guest” is best known as “The Lie”. <back>
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