In all our Britanny There's not a fairer, Nor can you fit any, Should you compare her. Angels her eyelids keep, All hearts surprising; Which look whilst she doth sleep Like the Sun's rising: She alone of her kind Knoweth true measure, Let thy swans sing her, Along let them bring her. Tow'rds the full fountains, And the Peak mountains; Nor would she none should dream Where she abideth, Humble as is the stream, Which by her slideth. cao. On thy bank, In a rank, Let thy swans sing her, And with their music Along let them bring her. Yet my poor rustic Muse, Nothing can move her, Nor the means I can use, Though her true lover: Many a long winter's night Have I wak'd for her, Yet this my piteous plight Nothing can stir her. All thy sands, silver Trent, Down to the Humber, The sighs that I have spent Never can number. cao. On thy bank, In a rank, Let thy swans sing her, Along let then bring her. "Is this time for mirth, "(quoth he) "Get thee up, thou arrant beast, We our sheep-walks sold for naught. Which though whelps shall lug their hogs, THE POLY-OLBION. PREFACE. TO THE GENERAL READER, [WHEN MR. DRAYTON PUBLISHED EIGHTEEN SONGS ONLY OF THIS POEM.] Is publishing this my poem, there is this great disadvantage against me, that it cometh out at this time, when verses are wholly deduced to chambers, and nothing esteemed in this Immatic age, but what is kept in cabinets, and inust only pass by transcription. In such a season, when the idle humourous world must hear of nothing that either savours of antiquity, or may awake it to seek after more than dull and slothful ignorance may easily reach unto: these, I say, make much against me; and especially in a poem, from any example, either of ancient, or modern, that have proved in this kind: whose unusual tract may perhaps seem difficult to the female scx; yea, and I fear, to some that think themselves not meanly learned, being not rightly inspired by the Muses: such I mean, as had rather read the fantasies of foreign inventions, than to see the rarities and history of their own country delivered by a true native muse. Then, whosoever thou be, possessed with such stupidity and dulness, that, rather than thou wilt take pains to search into ancient and noble things, choosest to remain in the thick fogs and mists of ignorance, as near the common laystall of a city; refusing to walk forth into the Tempe and fields of the Muses; where, through most delightful groves, the angelic harmony of birds shall steal thee to the top of an easy hill, where in artificial caves, cut out of the most natural rock, thou shalt see the ancient people of this isle delivered thee in their lively images; from whose height thou may'st behold both the old and later times, as in thy prospect, lying far under thee; then conveying thee down by a soul-pleasing descent through delicate embroidered meadows, often veined with gentle-gliding brooks; in which thou may'st fully view the dainty nymphs in their simple naked beauties, bathing them in crystalline streams; which shall lead thee to most pleasant downs, where harmless shepherds are, some exercising their pipes, some singing roundelays to their gazing flocks. If, as I say, thou hadst rather (because it asks thy labour) remain where thou wert, than strain thyself to walk forth with the Muses, the fault proceeds from thy idleness, not from any want in my industry. And to any that shall demand wherefore, having promised this poem of the general island so many years, I now publish only this part of it; I plainly answer, that many times I had determined with myself to have left it off, and have neglected my papers sometimes two years together, finding the times since his majesty's happy coming in, to all so heavily upon my distressed fortunes, after my zealous soul had laboured so long in that, which, with the general happiness of the kingdom, seemed not then impossible somewhat also to have advanced me. But I instantly saw all my long-nourished hopes even buried alive before my face: so uncertain in this world be the ends of our clearest endeavours! And whatever is herein that tastes of a free spirit, I thankfully confess to proceed from the continual bounty of my truly noble friend sir Walter Aston; which hath given me the best of those hours, whose leisure hath effected this which I now publish. Sundry other songs I have also, though yet not so perfect that I dare com mit them to public censure; and the rest I determine to go forward with, God enabling me, may I find means to assist my endeavour. Now, reader, for the farther understanding of my poem, thon hast two especial helps: First, the argument, to direct thee still where thon art, and through what shires the Muse makes her journey, and what she chiefly handles in the song thereto belonging, Next, hast thou the illustration of this learned gentleman, my friend, to explain every hard matter of history, that, lying far from the way of common reading, may (without question) seem difficult unto thee. Thus wishing thee thy heart's desire, and committing my poem to thy charitable censure, I take my leave. Thine, as thou art mine, MICHAEL DRAYTON. TO MY FRIENDS THE CAMBRO-BRITONS. To have you without difficulty understand, how in this my intended progress through these united kingdoms of Great Britain, I have placed your (and, I must confess, my) loved Wales, you shall perceive, that after the three first songs beginning with our French islands, Guernsey and Jersey, with the rest; and perfecting in those first three the survey of these six our most western counties, Cornwal, Devon, Dorset, Hants, Wilts, and Somerset; I then make over Severn into Wales, not far from the midst of her broad-side that lieth against England. I term it her broadside, because it lieth from Shrewsbury still along with Severn, till she lastly turn sea. And to explain two lines of mine (which you shall find in the fourth song of my poem, but it is the first of Wales) which are these: And ere seven books have end, I'll strike so high a string, [I sing. Thy bards shall stand amaz'd with wonder whilst Speaking of seven books, you shall understand that I continue Wales through so many; beginning in the fourth song (where the nymphs of England and Wales contend for the isle of Lundy) and ending in the tenth; striving, as my muchloved the learned Humphry Floyd, in his description of Cambria to Abraham Ortelius, to uphold her ancient bounds, Severn and Dee, and therefore have included the parts of those three English shires of Gloucester, Worcester, and Salop, that lie on the west of Severn, within their ancient mother Wales: in which if I have not done her right, the want is in my ability, not in my love. And beside my natural inclination to love antiquity (which Wales may highly boast of) I confess, the free and gentle company of that true lover of his country, (as of all ancient and noble things) Mr. John Williams, his majesty's goldsmith, my dear and worthy friend, hath made me the more seek into ' the antiquities of your country. Thus wishing your favourable construction of these my faithful endeavours, I bid you farewel. MICHAEL DRAYTON. FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS. PERMIT me thus much of these notes to my What the verse oft, with allusion, as supfriend. posing a full knowing reader, lets slip; or in winding steps of personating fictions as sometimes) so infolds, that sudden conceit cannot abstract a form of the clothed truth, I have, as I might, illustrated. Brevity and plainness (as the one endured the other) I have joined; purposely avoiding frequent commixture of different language; and whensoever it happens, either (the page or margin (especially for gentlewomen's sake) summarily interprets it, except where interpretation aids not. Being not very prodigal of my historical faith, after explanation, I oft adventure on examination and censure. The author, in passages of first inhabitants' name, state, and monarchic succession in this isle, follows Geffrey ap Arthur, Polychronicon, Matthew of Westminster, and such more. Of their traditions, for that one so much controverted, and by Cambr Britons still maintained, touching the Trojan Brute, I have (but as an advocate for the Muse) argued; disclaiming it, if alledged for my own opinion. In most of the rest, upon weighing the reporters' credit, comparison with more persuading authority, and synchromism (the best touch-stone in this kind of trial) I leave note of suspicion, or add conjectural For amendment: as for particular examples, among as our excellent wit, Joseph of Excester (published other, in Brennus mistook by all writers of later falsely under name of Cornelius Nepos) singeth: time, following Justin's epitome of Trogus ill con- which are even equally warrantable, as Ariosto's ceived; in Robert of Swapham's story of king narrations of persons and places in his Rowland's Wulpher's murdering his children, in Rollo, first Spenser's elfir story, or Rablais's strange discoduke of Normandy, his time; none of them yet veries. Yet the capricious faction will (I know) rectified (although the first hath been adventured never quit their belief of wrong; although some on) by any that I have seen; and such more. Elias or Delian diver should make open what is so And indeed my jealousy hath oft vext me with inquired after. Briefly, until Polybius, who wrote particular inquisition of whatsoever occurs, bear- near 1800 since (for Aristotle wig) Kérμov is clearly ing not a mark of most apparent truth, ever since counterfeited in title) no Greek mentions the isle; I found so intolerable antichronisms, incredible until Lucretius (some hundred years later) no reports, and bardish impostures, as well from ig- Roman hath expressed a thought of us; until norance as assumed liberty of invention in some Cæsar's commentaries, no piece of its description of our ancients; and read also such palpable falsi- was known, that is now left to posterity. tics of our nation, thrust into the world by later time therefore preceding Cæsar, I dare trust none; time. As (to give a taste) that of Randall Higden, but with others adhere to conjecture. In ancient affirming the beginning of wards in 6 Henry matter since, I rely on Tacitus and Dio especially, II. Polydore's assertion (upon mistaking of the Vopiscus, Capitolin, Spartian (for so much as statute of 1 Henry VII.) that it was death by they have, and the rest of the Augustan story) the English laws for any man to wear a vizard; afterward Gildas, Nennius, (but little is left of with many like errours in his history, of our trials them, and that of the last very imperfect) Bede, by twelve, sheriffs, coat of the kingdom, parlia-Asserio, Ethelwerd (near of blood to king Alfred) ments, and other like; Bartol's delivering the William of Malmsbury, Marian, Florence of Worcustom in this isle to be, quod primogenitus suc- cester (that published under name of Florence cedit in omnibus bonis. The Greek Chalcondy-hath the very syllables of most part of Marian, las Ins slanderous description of our usual form of the Scot's story, fraught with English antiquities; kind entertainment, to begin with the wives' cour- which will show you how easily to answer Buteous admission to that most affected pleasure of chanan's objection against our historians about lascivious fancy (he was deceived by misunder- Athelstan's being king of all Albion, being destanding the reports of our kissing salutations, ceived when he imagined that there was no other given and accepted amongst us with more free-of Marian but the common printed chronicle, dom than in any part of the southern world, er- which is indeed but an epitome or defloration roneously thinking, perhaps, that every kiss must made by Robert of Lorraine, bishop of Hereford, be thought seconded with that addition to the under Henry I.) and the numerous rest of our seven promised by Mercury in name of Venus to monkish and succeeding chronographers. In all, him that should find Psyche; or as wanton as I believe him most, which, freest from affection Aristophanes his Mavdaλarór:) and many untruths and hate (causes of corruption) might best know, of like nature in others. Concerning the Arcadian and hath with most likely assertion delivered his deduction of our British monarchy; within that report. Yet so, that, to explain the author, carrying time, from Brute, supposed about 2850 of the himself in this part an historical, as in the other world (Samuel then judge of Israel) unto some a chorographical poet, I insert oft, out of the fifty-four before Christ, (about when Julius Cæsar British story, what I importune you not to credit. visited the island) no relation was extant, which of that kind are those prophecies out of Merlin is now left to our use. How then are they, which sometime interwoven: I discharge myself; nor pretend chronologies of that age without any frag- impute you to me any serious respect of them. ment of authors before Gildas, Taliessin, and Nen-inviting, not wresting in occasion, I add somenius (the eldest of which was since 500 of Christ) to be credited? For my part, I believe as much in them as I do the finding of Hiero's ship-mast in our mountains, which is collected upon a corrupted place in Athenæus, cited out of Moschion; or that Ptolemy Philadelph sent to Reutha, king of Scots, some 1900 years since, for discovery of this country, which Claude Ptolemy afterward put in his geography: or that Julius Cæsar built Arthurs-hoffen in Stirling sheriffdom: or that Bri-which (some number) you often meet with, are of tons were at the rape of Hesione with Hercules, time what is different from my task, but such as I guess would any where please an understanding reader. To aid you in course of times, I have in fit places drawn chronologies upon credit of the ancients; and, for matter of that kind, have admonished (to the fourth canto) what as yet I never saw by any observed, for wary consideration of the Dionysian cycle, and misinterpreteď root of his dominical year. Those old rhymes, ered the willinger, both for variety of your mother tongue, as also because the author of them (Robert of Gloucester) never yet appeared in comnion He was, in time, an age before; but, in learning and wit, as most others, much behind our worthy Chaucer: whose name by the way occurring, and my work here being but to add plain song after Muses discanting, I cannot but digress to admonition of abuse, which this learned allusion in his Troilus, by ignorance hath endured: Ad C. de summ. Trinit. 1. 1. num. 42. 2 Unum blandientis, ad pulsum linguæ longè mel-light. litum. Apuleius de Aur. Asin. 6. And you may Temember (as like enough he did) that in Plautus Curcul. Qui valt cubare pangit saltem suavium; and such more in other wanton poets, with the opinion of Baldus, that a kiss in those southern nations, is sufficient consent to imperfect espousals, nothing of that kind but copulation, with us and our neighbouring Dutch being so. 3 Ἐν τοῖς ὅρεσι τῆς Βρετανίας, ἀντὶ τοῦ Βριστιανῆς. quæ nempe verior videtur lectio. I am till God me better mind send, the Muses deadly hate me, when, in permitting occasion, I profess not by whom I learn! Let them vent judgment on me which understand: I justify all, by the self authors cited, crediting no transcribers, but when of necessity 1 must. My thirst compelled me always seek the fountains, and by that, if means grant it, judge the river's nature. Nor can any conversant in letters be ignorant what errour is oft-times fallen into, by trusting autho¬ were) from visual beams refracted through another's eye. In performance of this charge, (undertaken at request of my kind friead the author) brevity of time, which was but little more than since the poem first went to the press, and different studies seriously attended, and interrupting business, as enough can witness, might excuse great faults, especially of omission. But I take not thence advantage to desire more than common courtesy in censure, nor of this, nor of what else I heretofore have published, touching histo rical deduction of our ancient laws, wherein I scape not without tax. It is not Necham, or any else, that can make me entertain the least thought of the signification of Dulcarnon to be Pythagoras's sacrifice after his geometrical theorem in finding the squares of an orthogonal triangle's sides, or that it is a word of Latin deduction; but indeed by easier pronunciation it was made of i. e. two-horned: which the Mahometan Arabians use for a root in calculation, meaning Alexander, as that great dic-rities at second hand, and rash collecting, (as it tator of knowledge Joseph Scaliger (with some ancients) wills, but by warranted opinion of my learned friend Mr. Lydyat, in his Emendatio temporum, it began in Seleucus Nicanor, twelve years after Alexander's death. The name was applied, either because after time that Alexander had per-that daily discontinued, both by my other most suaded himself to be Jupiter Hammon's son, whose statue was with rams horns, both his own and his successors' coins were stampt with horned images: else in respect of his two pillars erected in the East, as a nihil ultra of his conquest; and some say, because he had in power the eastern and western world, signified in the two horns. But howsoever, it well fits the passage, either as if he had personated Creseide at the entrance of two ways, not knowing which to take; in like sense as that of Prodicus his Hercules, or Pythagoras his Y, or the logicians' dilemma express; or else, which is the truth of his conceit, that she was at a nonplus, as the interpretation in his next staff makes plain. How many of noble Chaucer's readers never so much as suspect this his short essay of knowledge, transcending the road? And by his treatise of the Astrolabe (which, I dare swear, was chiefly learned out of Messahalah) it is plain he was much acquainted with the mathematics, and amongst their authors had it. But I return to myself. From vain loading my margin with books, chapters, folios, or names of our historians, I abstain; course of time as readily directs to them. But where the place might not so easily occur, (chiefly in matter of philology) there only (for view of them which shall examine me) I have added assisting references. For most of what I use of chorography, join with me in thanks to that most learned nourice of antiquity', τόν τις καὶ τηλέθι νάιων Τιμᾶ ἀνὴρ Αγαθός, common my instructing friend Mr. Catnden Clarencieux. From him and Girald of Cambria also comes most of my British; and then may Mercury and all Epocha Seleucidarum. 'Christman. Commentar. in Alfragan. c. 11. Lysimachi Cornuum apud Col. Rhodigin. Antiq. lect. 20. c. 12. hic genuina interpretatio. 'Of whom even every ingenious stranger makes honourable mention. Comitem verò illum Palatinum R. Vitum Basingstochium (Cujus historiæ magnam partem quasi Bigyat Çevres chorographica substructio pleraq; ad antiquitatis amussim, ab eruditissimo hoc suo populari accepta, ne dicam suppilata, est) adeò inhumanum fuisse miror, ut bene merentem non tam libenter agnoscat, quàm clariss. viri syllabis et inventis codicem suum sæpius perquam ingratè suffarcinet. Atque id ferè genus plagiarios, rudes omninò, et 'Amourous, et vernaculos nimirum nostrates jam nunc imponere sarcinam video indignanter & ringor. Sunt quibus in verbis videorq; obscurior, hoc est, Evandri cum matre loqui, Faunisq; Numaq; Nec secus ac si auctor Saliaris carminis essem. I have read in Cicero, Agellius, Lucian's Lexiphanes, and others, much against that form: but withel, this later age, wherein so industrious search is among admired ruins of old monuments, hath, in our greatest Latin critics, Hans Douz, P. Merula, Lipsius, and such more, so revived that Saturnian language, that, to students in philology, it is now grown familiar; and, as he saith, Verba à vetustate repetita non solum magnos assertatores habent, scd etiam afferunt orationi majestatem aliquam, non sine delectatione'. Yet for antique terms, to the learned, I will not justify it without exception, disliking not that of Phavorin, Vive moribus præteritis, loquere ver bis præsentibus; and as coin, so words, of a public and known stamp, are to be used, although so much as that way I offend, is warranted by example of such, of whom to endeavour imitation allows me more than the bare title of blameless. The purblind ignorant I salute with the English of that monitory epigram, 'E. di γε πάμπαν Νῆς ἔφος Μουσίων, ῥίφον ἢ μὴ νοίεις 10 reprehension of them, whose language and best learning is purchased from such volumes as Rablais reckons saint Victor's library, or barbarous glosses, Quàm nihil ad genium, Papiniane, tuum! or which are furnished in our old story, only out of the common Polychronicon, Caxton, Fabian, Stow, Grafton, Lanquet, Cooper, Holingshed, (perhaps with gift of understanding) Polydore, and the rest of our later compilers; or, of any adventurous Thersites daring find fault even with the very Graces, in a strain Cornua quod vincatque tubas 1 regard as metamorphosed Lucius's looking out at window; I slight, scorn, and laugh at it. By sections [§] in the verses you know what I meddle with in the illustrations; but so, that with latitude, the direction admonishes sometimes as well for explaining a following or preceding passage, as its own. Ingenuous readers, to you I wish your best desires; to the author I wish, (as an old cosmographical poet did long since to himself) Αλλὰ σοι ὕμνων Αὐτων ἐκ μακάρων ἀντάξιος ἔτη ἀμοιβή 1. To gentlewomen and their loves is consecrated all the wooing language, allusions to love passions, and sweet enbracements feigned by the Muse amongst hills and rivers. Whatsoever tastes of description, battie, story, abstruse antiquity, and (which my particular study caused me sometime remember) law of the kingdom, to the more severe reader. To the one, be contenting enjoyments of their auspicious desires; to the other, happy attendance of their chosen Muses. From the Inner Temple, May 9, 1612, "That the godlike sort of men may worthily guerdon his labours. POLY-OLBION, THE FIRST SONG. THE ARGUMENT. The sprightly Muse her wing displays, Our Brute, and sings his first arrive: OF. Albion's glorious isle the wonders whilst I write, The sundry varying soils, the pleasures infinite, (Where heat kills not the cold, nor cold expels the heat, [great, The calms too mildly small, nor winds too roughly Nor night doth hinder day, nor day the night doth wrong, The summer not too short, the winter not too long) What help shall I invoke to aid my Muse the while? Thou genius of the place (this most renowned isle) Which lived'st long before the all-earth-drowning flood, [brood, Whilst yet the world did swarm with her gigantic Go thou before me still thy circling shores about, And in this wand'ring maze help to conduct me out : Direct my course so right, as with thy hand to show Which way thy forests range, which way thy rivers flow; Wise genius, by thy help that so I may descry How thy fair mountains stand, and how thy vallies lie; [ing's pride, From those clear pearly cliffs which see the mornAnd check the surly imps of Neptune when they chide, Unto the big-swoln waves in the Iberian stream1, Where Titan still unyokes his fiery-hoofed team, And oft his flaming locks in luscious nectar steeps, When from Olympus' top he plungeth in the deeps: 'That from th' Armoriç sands 2, on surging Nep tune's leas, [seas) Through the Hibernic gulf (those rough Vergivian My verse with wings of skill may fly a lofty gait, §. As Amphitrite clips this island fortunate, Till thro' the sleepy main to Thuly I have gone, And seen the frozen isles, the cold Dencalidon*, §. Amongst whose iron rocks grim Saturn yet remains, [chains. Bound in those gloomy caves with adamantine Ye sacred bards", that to your harps' melodious strings [kings) Sung th' ancient heroes' deeds (the monuments of And in your dreadful verse engrav'd the prophecies, The aged world's descents and genealogies; If, as those Druids taught, which kept the British rites, [with sprites And dwelt in darksome groves, there counselling (But their opinions fail'd, by errour led awry, As since clear truth hath show'd to their posterity) When these our souls by death our bodies do forsake, 6 Thow Ligon her belov'd, and Serk, that doth attend Her pleasure every hour; as Jethow, them at need, With pheasants, fallow deer, and conies, that dost feed: [see Ye seven small sister isles, and Sorlings, which to The half-sunk seaman joys; or whatsoe'er you be, From fruitful Aurney, near the ancient Celtic shore, To Ushant and the Seams, whereas those nuns of [shapes they please; §. Gave answers from their caves, and took what Ye happy islands set within the British seas, yore 1 The western or Spanish ocean. 2 Bretagny coasts. 3 The farthest isle in the British ocean. The sea upon the north of Scotland. 5 The old British poets. Priests of the ancient Britons. 7 The French seas. |