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.
H19 Me thinks I see a lady sitt and mourne
Notes. This poem, copied in the commonplace book of John Holles, 2nd Earl of Clare (BL MS Harley 6383), invites readers to decode the thinly veiled contemporary identities of its Homeric characters. Lindley (190) prints the poem in full and places it in the context of other attacks on Frances Howard, noting the slight strains of sympathy for the widely calumniated Countess.
“A libell of the Countess of Summersett”
Me thinks I see a lady sitt and mourne
like Hellen,1 whose hott lust sett fyer on Troy,
Paris2 lyes wounded, Menelaus3 doth scorne
his amorous spouse, and makes her griefe his joy,
ould Tindarus4 sitts mourning all in black,
5Castor and Pollux5 hide their heads with shame
on every side her Trojans go to wrack
and the wide world exclaimes on Hellens name
eache drunken Greeke makes her his tale of mirth
and with her shame fills every strumpets eares,
10whylst shee poore soule sitts cursing of her birth
seasoning each word with sighs, each sighe with teares,
and to oblivious grave would gladly fly,
to steale away from the world’s calumny.
Source. BL MS Harley 6383, fol. 78r-v
H19
1 Hellen: wife of the Spartan Menelaus. Helen’s elopement with Paris to Troy sparked the Trojan war. Here she represents Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset. <back>
2 Paris: the Trojan prince who stole Helen away; here, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset. <back>
3 Menelaus: Helen’s husband; here, Frances Howard’s first husband, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex. <back>
4 Tindarus: Tyndareus, husband of Helen’s mother, Leda; here, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, Frances’s father. <back>
5 Castor and Pollux: Helen’s brothers; here, referring to two of Frances Howard’s brothers, perhaps the eldest brothers Theophilus and Thomas Howard. <back>
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