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.
L7 Arme, arme, in heaven there is a faction
Notes. This poem depicts the moral and political disorder that plagues the court of Jove, king of the gods, as a result of the King’s sexual infatuation with the Trojan boy Ganymede. According to the Greco-Roman myth, Jove, obsessed with the boy’s beauty, had assumed the form of an eagle and stolen Ganymede up to Olympus where he made the boy his cupbearer. The poem’s reimagining of the myth is in fact a coded depiction of the consequences of James I’s rumoured homosexual relationship with his youthful favourite Buckingham, who had held his first court office as royal cupbearer. Neither internal evidence nor copyists’ annotations allow us to date the poem with absolute precision, but c.1619-1622 is probably about right. The sexual and court politics of the poem have been discussed by a number of critics and historians: B. Smith (202-03), Perry (1075-77), Knowles (“To ‘scourge the arse’” 85-86), P. Hammond (143-46), and Bellany (Politics 255-57). One copy of the poem (Rosenbach MS 239/27) describes it as a “song”, but there is no evidence either of an assigned tune or of actual musical performance.
“The Warres of the Gods”
Arme, arme, in heaven there is a faction
And the Demy-Gods
Now are bent for Action;
They are at Odds
With him that rules the Thunder1
5And will destroy
His white fac’t Boy2
Or rend the heavens asunder.
Great Jove that swaies the emperiall Scepter
With’s upstart3 Love
10That makes him drunke with Nectar4
They will remove;
Harke how the Cyclops5 labour,
See Vulcan6 sweates
That gives the heates
15And forges Mars7 his Armour.
Marke how the glorious starry Border
That the heavens hath worne,
Till of late in Order
See how they turne
20Each Planets course doth alter,
The sun and moone
Are out of Tune
The spheares begin to faulter.
See how each petty starre stands gazinge
25And would fayne provoke
By theyr often blazinge
Flame to this smoke:
The dogge starre burnes with ire,
And Charles his Wayne8
30Would wondrous fayne
Bringe fuell to this fire.
Loves Queene9 stood disaffected
To what shee had seene
Or to what suspected
35As shee in spleene10
To Juno11 hath protested
Her servant Mars
Should scourge the Arse,12
Jove’s marrow13 so had wasted.
40The chast Diana14 by her Quiver
And ten thousand maydes
Have sworne, that they will never
Sporte in the shades,
Untill the heavens Creator
45Be quite displac’t
Or else disgrac’t
For lovinge so ’gainst nature.
The fayre Proserpine15 next whurryes
In fiery Coach
50Drawne by twelve blacke furies;
As they approach
They threaten without mercy
To have him burn’d
That thus hath turn’d
55Love’s pleasures Arse Verse.16
Slow pac’d Diana17 he doth follow
Hermes18 will make one
So will bright Apollo,19
Thetis20 hath wonne
60Rough Neptune21 to this action
Æolus22 huffes,
And Boreas23 puffes
To see the Fates24 protraction.
Still Jove with Ganymed lyes playinge,
65Here’s no Tritans25 sound
Nor yet horses neighinge
His Eares are bound,
The fidlinge God26 doth lull him
Bacchus27 quaffes
70And Momus28 laughes
To see how they can gull him
Source. BL Add. MS 22603, fols. 33r-34r
Other known sources. “Poems from a Seventeenth-Century Manuscript” 128; Bodleian MS Eng. Poet. c.50, fol. 41v; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 160, fol. 174r; Bodleian MS Tanner 306, fol. 261r; Brotherton MS Lt. q.44, fol. 43v; Beinecke MS Osborn b.197, p. 111; Rosenbach MS 239/27, p. 82
L7
1 him that rules the Thunder: i.e. Jove, king of the gods; and, by implication, James I. <back>
2 white fac’t Boy: Ganymede; and, by implication, Buckingham. The adjective “white-fac’t” may imply the use of cosmetics. <back>
3 upstart: alluding to Buckingham’s relatively low social status. <back>
4 Nectar: P. Hammond (144) glosses nectar as semen. <back>
5 Cyclops: assistants in Vulcan’s workshop. <back>
6 Vulcan: god of fire whose workshop forges metal. <back>
8 Charles his Wayne: a cart-shaped group of seven stars in the Great Bear constellation. “Charles”, the name of James I’s son, might have provoked certain political readings for contemporaries. <back>
9 Loves Queene: Venus, goddess of love. <back>
10 in spleene: in anger. <back>
11 Juno: queen of the gods. <back>
12 scourge the Arse: the poem here makes explict its allegation of sodomy between King and favourite. <back>
13 marrow: P. Hammond (145) glosses “marrow” as either semen or general sexual capacity. Marrow can also have the sense of vitality and bodily strength. <back>
14 Diana: chaste goddess of the hunt, armed with bow and arrows. <back>
15 Proserpine: Proserpina, queen of Hades. <back>
16 Arse Verse: upside down. <back>
17 Diana: a variant, “Saturne”, is perhaps a better reading (“Poems from a Seventeenth-Century Manuscript”). <back>
18 Hermes: Roman Mercury, messenger of the gods. <back>
19 Apollo: god of the sun. <back>
20 Thetis: a sea goddess. <back>
21 Neptune: god of the sea. <back>
22 Æolus: ruler of the winds. <back>
23 Boreas: the North Wind. <back>
24 Fates: the three Fates, who were believed to enforce the fate of both men and gods. <back>
25 Tritans: mythic sea creatures whose trumpets calmed the waves. It might be possible to read this and the following line in the context of early 1620s’ anxieties that James I was neglecting naval and military readiness. <back>
26 The fidlinge God: unclear; both Hermes and Apollo were associated with the lyre, but seem unlikely candidates given their roles earlier in the poem. <back>
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