SOURCE: Johnson, Ronald C. “The Love Lyrics.” In George Gascoigne, pp. 36-55. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1972.

[In the excerpt below, Johnson discusses Gascoigne's love lyrics, noting that while some display the conventions of courtly love poems, some are unusual for their examination of the psychology of love.]

A discussion of Gascoigne's lyric poems falls naturally into two sections, those concerning love and those concerning his insights into himself and his society. The love lyrics grew out of his life at court, and they include the forms we expect from the courtly love tradition, such as the praise of a lady, the disclosure of love, and the lament of an absent lover. However, a number of his love lyrics deal with the psychology of love. For example, the absent-lover's lament was usually an exercise in rhetoric, but Gascoigne turns it into an examination of the feelings inherent in the situation. Again, Gascoigne was quite concerned with aging, and in his poetry he reflects the basic, real emotions of an aging lover instead of the pleasant moralizing which we usually find written on this theme. Gascoigne wrote much courtly love poetry, but his most interesting poems focus on the individual rather than on the convention.

In his other lyrics, Gascoigne attempted to understand himself or to orient what he saw around him to his own sense of values. The resulting conflict produced several disturbing lyrics which border on satire, as well as two longer poems—“The Complaint of the green knight” and “Gascoigne's wodmanship”—which look into the poet's own mind and personality for answers to his perplexing problems. In this section of his poems, Gascoigne seeks truth; and the poetry is much less concerned with decoration or sweetness of expression than with accuracy of statement. Therefore, in the second group of Gascoigne's lyrics, those not concerned primarily with love, whatever there is of poetic beauty in the poems comes largely from the degree of accuracy with which he touches the emotions or truths he examines. The expression is secondary, but in his better poems it is restrained and economical, and there are lines which achieve great poetic power as a result of his restraint.

Gascoigne's lyrics create or explore a wide variety of emotions. They include humor, pathos, bitterness, helpless irony, sensuality, light praise, and others. Also, with a few exceptions, his lyrics speak in a definite voice; they are seldom bland or frivolous. The poet's voice is heard in irony, cynicism, lusty pleasure, pessimism, or scorn. At times, his tone interferes with the mood his poem—through imagery or description—has established. But the tone is Gascoigne's peculiar signature to his poems, and it is basically pessimistic. When it interrupts the mood, as in “Spreta tamen viiunt,” it impairs the poem's effect; but, when it supports the mood, as in “Lullabye of a lover,” the result is highly successful. The wide variety of mood and the consistent and dominant tone, or poetic voice, are characteristics which make Gascoigne distinct from many of the poets of his age.

In this chapter, for the sake of convenience and also to avoid unnecessary conflict, I use the term “lyric” in its loosest sense. I include in it all his poems concerning any aspect of love. But, even more broadly, I exclude from it only The Steele Glas, the narrative poems such as “Gascoigne's voyage into Holland,” and Dan Bartholomew of Bath (although I do refer to his “Last will and Testament”), and the didactic poems such as “Dulce Bellum Inexpertis” (perhaps more appropriately narrative), and “Counsell to Douglas Dive.” The body of poems could be broken into smaller and more cogent segments, but my purpose is to analyze them rather than to divide and classify them. Therefore, I use the term “lyric” rather broadly and as a means to classify largely instead of minutely.

THE RHETORIC OF LOVE

Although the relationship between the love poetry of Petrarch and that of Gascoigne was discussed in Chapter 2, a few points should be reiterated here. The first is that, when Gascoigne attempted to copy Petrarch's method, his poetry is generally unsuccessful. For example, his poem, “The shield of Love” on the theme of absence, is a general adaptation of a Petrarchan sonnet. In it he manages to work out a rather pleasing courtly figure: “That trustie targe hath long borne off the blowes, / And broke the thrusts which absence at me throwes.” Yet, he was compelled to use well-worn Petrarchan phrases, and the development of the theme is subjugated to them:

In dolefull dayes I lead an absent life,
And wound my will with many a weary thought:
I plead for peace, yet sterve in stormes of strife,
I find debate, where quiet rest was sought. …
So that I live, and dye in one degree,
Healed by hope, and hurt againe with dread:
Fast bound by fayth when fansie would be free,
Untyed by trust, though thoughts enthrall my head:
Reviv'd by joyes, when hope doth most abound,
And yet with grief, in depth of dollors drownd.

(Prouty, [C.T. “George Gascoigne's A Hundreth Sundry Flowers.” The University of Missouri Studies 17, no. 2 (1942).] 142-43)

The expression is by no means unpleasing, but the content is trite and the conceit worked out in the beginning of the poem is almost completely neglected.

Also, Gascoigne often satirized the Petrarchan conventions in his love poetry. The poem, “The passion of a Lover,” suggests such an attitude; but in that poem his treatment of the conventions is mild. However, he handles the Petrarchan tradition most rudely in his “Anatomye of a lover.” In this poem, love reduces the lover limb by limb to the state of a wretched corpse. The exaggeration of the conventional effects of love turns the usually applied compliments to the lady into ugly ridicule, and it emphasizes the inherent insipidity of the whole tradition of Petrarchan copying during this part of the century:

To make a lover knowne, by plaine Anatomie,
You lovers all that list beware, lo here behold you me. …
These locks that hang unkempt, these hollowe dazled eyes,
These chattring teeth, this trembling tongue, wel tewed with careful cries.
These wan & wrinkled cheeks, wel washt with waves of wo,
May stand for patterne of a ghost, where so this carkasse go. …
My thighes, my knees, my legs, and last of all my feete,
To serve a lovers turne, are so unable and unmeete, …
Yet for a just rewarde of love so dearely bought,
I pray you say, lo this was he, whom love had worne to naught.

(Prouty, 143-44)

In most of the love poetry, however, Gascoigne exhibits very little of the Petrarchan influence. His love poems offer a wide variety of types ranging from the most earthy, at times bawdy poems, to delicate, almost philosophical statements on love. In his Certayne notes of Instruction, Gascoigne mentions several points concerning the writing of love poetry. His first note—“The first and most necessarie poynt that ever I found meete to be considered in making of a delectable poeme is this, to grounde it upon some fine invention.”—establishes the importance which he placed upon the “invention” or conceit of a poem; we see him developing it in the bed-grave analogy in “Gascoignes good nyghte,” in the figure of a court of law in “Gascoignes araignement,” and in the metaphor of a crow in “Counsell to Douglas Dive.” But the poetry of love and compliment offers more difficulty in expressing the intended mood and meaning, so he elaborates on the problem:

If I should undertake to wryte in prayse of a gentlewoman, I would neither praise hir christal eye, nor hir cherrie lippe, &c. For these things are trita & obvia. But I would either find some supernaturall cause wherby my penne might walke in the superlative degree, or els I would undertake to aunswere for any imperfection that shee hath, and thereupon rayse the prayse of hir commendacion. Likewise if I should disclose my pretence in love, I would eyther make a straunge discourse of some intollerable passion, or finde occasion to pleade by the example of some historie, or discover my disquiet in shadowes per Allegoriam, or use the covertest meane that I could to avoyde the uncomely customes of comon writers.

(Cunliffe, [J.W., ed. The Complete Works of George Gascoigne. 2 vols. Cambridge: The University Press, 1910.] I, 465-66)

The poem “An absent lover thus complayneth” demonstrates his “occasion to pleade by the example of some historie,” as does “The lover disdaynefully rejected,” in which he uses the example of Angelica and the ever-present Cressida to expose the shortcomings of his once-possessed mistress:

If Cressides name were not so knowen,
And written wyde on every wall;
If brute of pryde were not so blowen
Upon Angelica withall:
For hault disdain thou mightst be she,
Or Cressyde for inconstancie.

(Prouty, 131)

Another use of historical example, but with the intent instead to heighten the fame of the mistress, is the poem “Another shorter discourse”:

If ever man yit found the Bath of perfect blisse,
Then swim I now amid the Sea where nought but pleasure is.
I love and am beloved (without vaunt be it told)
Of one more fayre than shee of Grece for whom proud Troy was sold:
As bountifull and good as Cleopatra Queene:
As constant as Penelope unto hir make was seene.
What would you more? my pen unable is to write
The least desart that seemes to shine within this worthy wight.
So that for now I cease, with hands held up on hye,
And crave of God that when I chaunge, I may be forst to dye.

(Prouty, 131)

The two instructions which he gives for praising a gentlewoman in poetry are exemplified by the poems “This Praise of a Countess” and by “Gascoigne's prayse of Bridges, now Ladie Sandes.” The first poem devises a “supernaturall cause whereby my penne might walke in the superlative degree.” The poet calls upon the gods to help him praise his lady, but they refuse for several reasons, the first of which is jealousy: “For Pallas … / if once my Ladies gifts were knowen, / Pallas should loose the prayses of hir own.” The second reason is love:

And bloudy Mars by chaunge of his delight
Hath made Joves daughter now myne enemie. …
She may go home to Vulcane now agayne:
For Mars is sworne to be my Ladies swayne.

The third reason is loss of power: “Of hir bright beams Dan Phoebus stands in dread, … / Dame Cynthia holds in her horned head, / For feare to loose by like comparison” (Prouty, 129-30). The poet here uses the gods themselves to bring about the courtly compliment.

The second poem is an excellent example of the poet's using an imperfection in his lady to heighten his commendation of her. First, Gascoigne refers directly to the disfigurement, and then suggests a supernatural cause for it:

Although some lavishe lippes, which like some other best,
Will say the blemishe on hir browe disgraceth all the rest:
Thereto I thus replie, God wotte they little knowe
The hidden cause of that mishap, nor how the harm did grow.

(Prouty, 146)

The poet then explains that Bridges' face was so fair that she kindled love in Cupid's breast. But his love quickly turned to hate when Cupid realized how busy she would make him and in anger, “with mightie mace, gan rap her on the pate.” Thus, the mark is the symbol of her perfection; and, far from being ugly, she was saved by Nature:

And quick with skin she covered it, yt whiter is than snow.
Wherwith Dan Cupide fled, for feare of further flame,
When angell like he saw hir shine, whome he had smit with shame. …
The skar still there remains, no force, there let it be,
There is no cloud that can eclipse so bright a sunne as she.

The device is cleverly worked out; and, by following his own advice, he creates a worthy compliment that, by another method, could have been quite awkward.

In contrast to Gascoigne's comments in his Certayne notes, some modern critics maintain that Elizabethan love poetry emphasizes the physical symptoms of love above all other aspects. One says:

To the Elizabethans … the expression “lovesick” meant literally what it said. … Literary characters affected by it are physically disordered and mentally unbalanced. Some of them go mad. Some of them die. In large part the Elizabethans owed their ideas concerning the love malady to psychological and medical theory. … Sometimes love is a hot and excited condition of body and mind which spurs to action; sometimes it is a cold, weak, and passive debility. In the first stage, desire is the dominant passion; in the second, grief is the dominant passion.¹

This excerpt creditably describes some of the mid-century poetry, but it does not indicate that many of these characteristics stem in part from an overemphasis of the Petrarchan convention of the suffering lover. Such criticism tends to overlook the period's non-Petrarchan love poetry; as a result, it misses the point and, of course, the value of much of the poetry.

The principles of Certayne notes of Instruction that we have mentioned are rhetorical ones familiar to every schoolboy of the period. Such techniques are used by the orator, or expository writer, to support and amplify a contention. Gascoigne puts the techniques into a metrical form. His purpose is at least as much to persuade as to delight; he is at least as much concerned with the result as with the means. Thus, when Gascoigne recites his woes, he uses them as a base for presenting a lesson or a truth, the ultimate aim of the poem. In the poem beginning “When I recorde within my musing mind / The noble names of wights bewitched in love,” his intent is to find a sense of security, even peace, in the fact that great men in history suffered in the same way. To prove his contention, he cites David and Bathsheba, Solomon and the Pharaoh's daughter, Holoferne and Judith, and Sampson and Delilah—all from biblical times; and he mentions Nasoes, Corinna, and Cressida from Classical times to emphasize the all-inclusiveness of love's weakening power. His final verse recites the lesson to be drawn from his examples:

So that to end my tale as I began,
I see the good, the wise, the stoute, the bolde:
The strongest champion and the learnedst man,
Have bene and be, by lust of love controlde.
Which when I thinke, I hold me well content
To live in love, and never to repent.

(Prouty, 142)

In his love poetry Gascoigne also often seeks out an intellectual relationship between the lover and the conditions of love. He states his contention, searches for supporting evidence, and draws conclusions that are psychologically sound, as in the poem, “The lamentation of a lover”:

Now have I found the waye, to weepe & wayle my fill,
Now can I end my dolefull dayes, & so content my will.
The way to weepe inough, for such as list to wayle,
Is this: to go abord y(e) ship, where pleasure beareth sayle.
And there to mark the jestes of every joyfull wight,
And with what wynde and wave they fleete, to nourish their delight.
For as the striken Deare, that seeth his fellowes feede
Amid the lustie heard (unhurt) & feeles himself to bleede.
Or as the seely byrd, that with the Bolte is brusd,
And lieth a loofe among the leaves, of al hir peeres refusd,
And heares them sing full shrill, yet cannot she rejoyce,
Nor frame one warbling note to pass out of hir mournfull voyce.
Even so I find by proofe, that pleasure dubleth payne
Unto a wretched wounded hart, which doth in woe remaine.
I passe where pleasure is, I heare some sing for joye,
I see som laugh, some other daunce, in spight of darke anoy.
But out alas my mind amends not by their myrth,
I deeme al pleasures to be paine, that dwel above y(e) earth.
Such heavy humors feede, y(e) bloud that lends me breath,
As mery medcins cannot serve, to kepe my corps from death.

(Prouty, 123-24)

This poem shows quite clearly the pattern Gascoigne uses to develop the statements he makes in many of his love poems. The contention, or truth, of the above poem is stated in the third and fourth lines. (He usually uses a metaphor or an analogy for the poetic effect.) Then he discovers examples from other aspects of life to heighten and establish the soundness of the second key statement of the truth, “I finde by proofe that pleasure doubleth payne / Unto a wretched wounded hart.” The transition from the examples to the poet is simply made with “I pass where pleasure is,” and from that point on the reader is brought to know one precise reality in the world of a lover.

LOVE AND MUTABILITY

Gascoigne follows the same rhetorical pattern in his poem upon the theme, Spreta tamen viuunt; but he plunges more deeply into a type of stoical philosophy here. Again, he begins the poem with a statement of an observed truth: “Despysed things may live, although they pine in payne, / And things ofte trodden under foote may once yet rise againe”; and he develops it with a number of examples, such as “The rootes of rotten Reedes in swelling seas are seen, / And when eche tide hath tost his worst, they grow again ful greene.” But this theme is only preparatory to the major one; for the poet has been cast aside by his love, and, in order to learn, as did “trustie Troylus,” to accept his fate, he asks for help from philosophy. Thus, the poet is launched on his deeper theme, one which fully supports the theme at the poem's start:

I see no sight on earth but it to Chaunge enclines:
As little clowds oft overcast, the brightest sunne that shines.
No Flower is so fresh, but frost can it deface:
No man so sure in any seate but he maye leese his place.
So that I stand content (though much against my mind)
To take in worth this lothsome lot, which luck to me assynd,
And trust to see the time, when they that nowe are up:
May feele the whirle of fortunes wheele, and tast of sorrowes cup.
God knoweth I wish it not, it had ben bet for mee:
Still to have kept my quiet chayre in hap of high degree.
But since without recure, Dame Chaunge in love must raigne:
I now wish chaunge that sought no chaunge, but constant did remain.
And if such chaunge do chance, I vowe to clap my hands,
And laugh at them which laught at me: lo thus my fansy stands.

(Prouty, 126-27)

The question of thwarted love is secondary to the all-inclusiveness of the philosophical truth of mutability. The poet instinctively recognizes the depth of his theme, and in only three lines he applies it to the whole range of life: the “brightest sunne,” the sixteenth-century symbol of kingship, is checked or overthrown by a little cloud; the “Flower” is youth or life which is snuffed out by “frost” or death;² and one “sure in any seate” has worldly power or fame which can suffer sudden change. In the face of this truth, the poet knows he can do no more than wait and watch and at the same time review his misfortunes. The line “I now wish chaunge that sought no chaunge, but constant did remaine” is a pleasant play on words in which the poet would like his unhappy mood to pass in accordance with the principle of change so that he could escape. Thus, Gascoigne has proved that hope is an ever-present condition, at least in lovers, and that its philosophical basis is the principle of mutability.

The somewhat cynical tone near the end of the poem which appears in his desire to see the high brought low and in his wish to have the last laugh makes this poem more than just one about vagaries of love. In fact, the tone conflicts with the message of hope that the poet wants to convey; and it does so because the poet is so bitter about the way life has handled him that he cannot keep the expression of it out of his poems. We see it in “Lullaby of a lover,” in “The divorce of a lover,” in “Gascoignes wodmanship,” and in many others; it appears as cynicism, bitterness, and pessimism.

His pessimism is often reflected in his expression of the loverloved one relationship. The poem “The Partridge in the pretie Merlines foot” is a love poem which uses an analogy to make clear the terms of the lover's involvement. In the first half of the poem, the partridge, who is the lover, has been caught in the foot of the Merlin plant and finds herself prey to the hawk above and to the dogs below. Her wings, therefore, cannot save her from the dogs, and her protective coloring does not hide her from the hawk; her position is hopeless because of the Merlin: “But nature made the Merlyne mee to kyll, / And me to yeeld unto the Merlines will.” The poet then compares his state in each respect to the preceding description:

Desire thy dogge, did spring me up in hast:
Thou wert the Hauke, whose tallents caught me fast. …
Thou are that Hauke, whom nature made to hent me,
And I the Byrd, that must therewith content me.
And since Dame Nature hath ordayned so,
Her happie heast I gladly shall embrace:
I yeeld my will, although it were to wo,
I stand content to take my griefe for grace: …

(Prouty, 121)

The point of interest here is the concept underlying the analogy: the lover is the helpless prey; the loved one, a cruel bird of prey. The Merlin, usually a symbol of lust, suggests the whole condition of love as a trap. Desire is a low animal, a dog, which forces the lover into the trap; physical charms are cruel and deadly. Yet, the situation is natural and, therefore, to be accepted. There is a complete absence of chivalric or romantic ideals of love in the poem; nature, the very terms of existence, is cruel and devouring. Even the greatest pleasure, physical love, brings pain; it is described in terms of captive and tormentor; and it can be accepted only fatalistically, without joy and, ultimately, without hope.

The group of poems which lament the absence of a lover, although quite conventional, maintain the pessimistic tone of Gascoigne's poetry. Such complaints have been a familiar poetic theme, extending at least as far back as the early French Troubadours; and Gascoigne has some success with it. The lamenting lover may be either male or female, but we would expect the woman's lament to be more poignant as she can do nothing but wait, whereas the man has available to him at least the distractions of worldly business. As a result, when the poet assumes the woman's point of view, his poem is usually more successful than with the man's. With Gascoigne, this observation certainly holds. In one lament in which he takes the man's position, he produces one of his tritest, most poorly written poems. The poem shows a lover bidding his lady to be patient; the first verse contains the inanity which is diffused throughout the poem:

Content thy selfe with patience perforce,
And quench no love with droppes of darke mistrust:
Let absence have no power to divorce,
Thy faithfull freend which meaneth to be just.
Beare but a while thy constance to declare,
For when I come one ynche shall breake no square.

(Prouty, 136-37)

The applicability of the last line leaves a little doubt. Further on, apparently running out of material, Gascoigne again resorts to nonsense:

Be thou a true Penelope to me,
And thou shalt soone thine owne Ulisses see.
What sayd I? soone? yea, soone I saye againe;
I wyll come soone, and sooner if I may:

Finally, he resorts to the Petrarchan tradition: “I fryse in hope, I thaw in hot desire, / Farre from the flame, and yet I burne like fire.” Yet even in such a worthless poem as this one, Gascoigne leaves his stamp upon the reader in his directness and in his attempt to express a truth, as given in the last verse:

Wherefore deare friend, thinke on the pleasures past,
And let my teares, for both our paynes suffise:
The lingring joyes, when as they come at last,
Are bet then those, which passe in posting wise.
And I my selfe, to prove this tale is true,
In hast, post hast, thy comfort will renew.

Gascoigne has significantly better success, as we have noted, when he assumes the woman's point of view. In his poem, “The vertue of Ver,” although some of the beauty is stifled by his constant use of “Ver” in place of “Spring,” his poetic technique is skillfully displayed. Gascoigne forms a framework around the central figure, a woman bewailing her lack of love, by having the poet approach her in a boat and overhear the lament; at the end, he hurries home to write the poem. The device is successful because it heightens the essential contrasts and levels of the poem—winter and spring, fertility and barrenness, gaiety and grief. The poet, as he sees that spring has come, “… crost the Thames to take the cherefull ayre / In open feeldes. …” As he approaches the opposite shore, he hears weeping and investigates:

Alas (quod she) behold eche pleasaunt greene,
Will now renew, his sommers livery;
The fragrant flowers, which have not long bene seene,
Will florish now, (ere long) in bravery:
The tender buddes, whom colde hath long kept in,
Will spring and sproute, as they do now begin.
But I (alas) within whose mourning mind
The graffes of grief, are onely given to growe,
Cannot enjoy the spring which others finde,
But still my will must wyther all in woe:
The cold of care so nippes my joyes at roote,
No sunne doth shine that well can do them boote.
The lustie Ver, which whillome might exchange
My griefe to joy, and then my joyes encrease,
Springs now elsewhere, and showes to me but strange,
My winters woe, therefore can never cease:
In other coasts his sunne full clere doth shine,
And comfort lends to ev'ry mould but mine.

(Prouty, 122-23)

Gascoigne shows a sensitivity to nature here that can be compared to Surrey's sonnet on spring that we quoted in the previous chapter. And he achieves a poignant irony in the verse beginning “But I, alas!” The poem captures the idea of fertility and birth which sets off the barrenness and hints of frigidity in the woman. The subject of the poem is unusual, for the woman has not merely lost a lover; she is incapable of love. She “Cannot enjoy the spring which others finde.” The fact that her desire (“will”) must wither and the words “The lustie Ver … showes to me but strange” suggest frigidity in the woman. The point is given a humorous turn as the lady blushes deeply upon discovering her spy: “By sight whereof, Lord, how she chaunged hew! / So that for shame I turned backe apace.” But the blush and the poet's shame at what he heard, rather than his sympathy or pity, again reinforce the suggestion of frigidity. It is strange that Gascoigne would write about this subject, but the poem undeniably presents effective contrasts on several levels of perception, and the most effective is the image of the frigid woman unable to receive warmth or life from the burgeonings around her.

In the poem “An absent Dame thus complayneth” nothing complicates the personality of the woman; she is simply waiting at home while her lover is away. Gascoigne makes the situation clear, for the woman says explicitly:

The droppes of dark disdayne, did never drench my hart,
For well I know I am belov'd, if that might ease my smart.
Ne yet the privy coales, of glowing jellosie
Could ever kindle needlesse feare, within my fantasie.
The rigor of repulse, doth not renew my playnt,
Nor choyce of change doth move my mone, nor force me thus to faynt,
Onely that pang of payne, which passeth all the rest,
And cankerlike doth fret the hart, within the giltlesse brest.

(Prouty, 125)

The mood or emotion of the woman is developed through a series of similes showing various aspects of her situation, as in the two below:

Much like the seely Byrd, which close in Cage is pent,
So sing I now, not notes of joye, but layes of deepe lament.
And as the hooded Hauke, which heares the Partrich spring,
Who though she feele hir self fast tyed, yet beats hir bating wing:
So strive I now to showe, my feeble forward will, …

The images can be analyzed to show explicitly the feelings which mingle within the woman. The frivolous, lighthearted bird contrasts dramatically with the hooded hawk and heightens the loss which each figure represents—the caged bird, joy; the hawk, sexual desire (“my feeble forward will”). Further on, she sings “Swallow-like,”—in a single plaintive note not sweet or joyful. The use of bird images to describe a woman left alone allows the reader to penetrate deeply into her emotions—her sadness, and her strong but blunted desire—and to determine to some extent their tone. However, the poem introduces other images—a greyhound restrained from chasing his game, love as seeds being sown and reaped—which destroy the poem's unity and nearly obliterate the good effects of the bird similes.

The most successful of this group of poems is “A Lady, being both wronged by false suspect …” in which Gascoigne suggests the accompaniment of a lute, with its occasional loud strums and twangs, as a sound background to the woman's frustrated emotions. He establishes the scene in the first verse and carries it throughout the entire poem:

Give me my Lute in bed now as I lye,
And lock the doores of mine unluckie bower:
So shall my voyce in mournefull verse descrie,
The secrete smart which causeth me to lower.
Resound, you walles an Eccho to my mone,
And thou, cold bed wherein I lie alone:
Beare witness yet what rest thy Lady takes,
When other sleepe which may enjoy their makes.

(The following five stanzas describe in order the first bloom of love and happiness, the slander and discord begun by persons envious of her state, the loss of her husband's confidence, and “the greatest grief of all”—her being forcibly kept from seeing her husband.)

Now have you heard the summe of all my grief,
Whereof to tell my hart (oh) rends in twayne:
Good Ladies yet lend you me some relief,
And beare a parte to ease me of my payne.
My sortes are such, that waying well my trueth,
They might provoke the craggy rocks to rueth,
And move these walles with teares for to lament,
The lothsome life wherin my youth is spent.
But thou, my Lute, be stil; now take thy rest,
Repose thy bones upon this bed of downe:
Thou hast dischargd some burden from my breast,
Wherefore take thou my place, here lie thee downe.
And let me walke to tyre my restlesse minde,
Untill I may entreate some curteous wynde:
To blow these wordes unto my noble make,
That he may see I sorowe for his sake.

(Prouty, 133-35)

Several places in the poem demand a sudden, loud strumming on the lute, as in the fifth line of the first stanza. The effect is that of a lute accompanying a sort of chant, producing a descant; and we can literally find levels of volume which stand for peaks of emotion in the singer. At the beginning, the woman is overwrought and loud; she is compelled to relieve herself through the descant. In the following stanzas, as she moves from the emotionally low-pitched history of her marriage through the appearance of slander and false suspect, she continually increases in volume, until she hits the peak of her misfortune—her lover's absence. At this point, she is loud and nearly incoherent; but she regains control, and the following stanza descends considerably in volume by means of such words as “weary” and “tyre” until, in that stanza, she gives up the song to her ladies in waiting, but not before she emphasizes one last surge of emotion with her lute “(oh).” The reference to the good ladies, of course, has a double meaning; not only are they asked to join her song literally, but they are also asked to spread the truth about their mistress. The images in the last stanzas reinforce the emotion very well, particularly when the lute and the woman change places, the lute becoming tired “bones” upon the bed and the woman becoming the restless instrument of a sorrowful melody.

Gascoigne, who does several things quite well in this poem, produces the effect of a musical instrument and uses it to underline the emotional peaks of the poem. He uses alliteration well, in places with great effect. His syntax is not crude nor artificial; in the last stanza, it is highly effective. And his images are vivid and successful. In all the poems of this group, he captures the mood and personality of the women quite accurately and effectively.

A number of Gascoigne's poems concern themselves with the problems of the lover as he grows old and as his capacity for physical love dries up. The stark reality of the loss of youth fills him with mingled feelings of awe and despair; and this pessimism is brought out strongly in the poem “A Lover often warned,” in which the poet, as an older man, gains as a reward for his search for love only a “sodain clappe.” In the poem, Gascoigne investigates the attitudes felt by a middle-aged man pursuing physical love. The man, who in his youth “had the fieldes of freedome woon, / And liv'd at large, and playde with pleasurs ball,” now desires again to live with the fast, loose crowd of his youth. He says:

My cares were cold, and craved comforts coale,
To warme my will with flakes of freendly flame.
I sought and found, I crav'd and did obtene,
I woon my wish, and yet I got no gaine.

(Prouty, 140-41)

His “will,” of course, is his lust, or sexual desire, which has diminished as he has grown older. Yet, in his attempts to revive the joys of his youth, he finds that he no longer is able to satisfy himself—“Dame pleasures plasters prov'd a corosive”—and, worse still, he is unable to attract the young women but must rely on those as jaded as he is old:

The cause is this, my lot did light too late,
The Byrdes were flowen, before I found the nest: …
And I fond foole with emptie hand must call,
The gorged Hauke, which likes no lure at all.
Thus still I toyle, to till the barreyne land,
And grope for grapes among the bramble briers:
I strive to sayle and yet I sticke on sand,
I deeme to live, yet drowne in deep desires.
These lots of love are fitte for wanton will,
Which findes too much, yet must be seeking still.

The metaphors in the concluding stanza transmit the sense of frustration and pathos very effectively. The state of the lover is more than ridiculous; it is hopeless, but he is doomed to continue the game.

In this poem, Gascoigne achieves certain poetic effects that deserve our attention. The “flakes of friendly flame” image is strongly suggestive of metaphysical poetry. The combination of “flame” with “flakes” produces a tension which is resolved only when we realize it is the “coale” which flakes to produce the warmth; for coals, when jostled, break up and shoot out small flames and heat. In terms of the metaphor, the coal is the warm, suggestive gestures and actions of others which the poet as an old man relies upon to arouse passion within himself. This type of intellectual density, one that critics so much admire in the Metaphysical poets, is frequently found in Gascoigne's poetry.

The other effect is contained in the lines: “And I, fond foole, with emptie hand must call, / The gorged Hauke, which likes no lure at all.” Here the poet heightens our sense of his futility by an order of three: first, the empty hand; beyond that, the already sated bird; and, further still, a bird which does not succumb to lures in the first place—and he succeeds without recourse to an artificial method such as hyperbole. Instead, he describes a level, or type of experience which, through metaphor, perfectly describes another level, or type. In expressing the lover's position in this poem, Gascoigne faces the reality of the world; he does not lose himself in a romantic dream. Of course, this reality is pessimistic, and he does not temper this pessimism with the fact that he has gained maturity and wisdom. It is painful to him; it, like the flaws he finds in his society, is another crack in the structure of the world of his youth.

The villain in these poems is time. It causes change and decay in both society and the individual; it is the great destroyer of all things; and it forces man to face the horrors of the grave. Yet, it is, at the same time, a democratic force, one which levels all people and all accomplishments. Viewed in this light, time becomes a teacher; and one who can understand time holds a certain wisdom which can be spread to others. In a fine long poem, The Grief of Joye, Gascoigne seeks to teach the superficiality of the pleasures found in youth, in beauty, in strength, and in activity. Each of these pleasures holds its own trap for an individual; beauty, for example, breeds lust, vanity, and physical weakness; but the inevitable loss of each pleasure is caused by the passage of time. He says of youth:

For youthe cannot, stande still in one estate,
But flieth us from, when most thereof is made
And age steales on, unto our privy gate,
And in y(e) darke, doth (silently) invade,
Youthes fortte unwares: w(ch) never knewe y(t) trade. /
So: when we thincke, age furthest from our lyfe,
Youthes doore breakes up, and yt steppes in by strife.

(Cunliffe II, 520)

Of beauty, the greatest grief is to watch it disappear, to see the eyes become dull, the ivory necks yellow, erect shoulders stoop, voices become hoarse, and so forth. The cause of all this change is time:

And yet all this (in tyme) will come to passe /
Whiche tyme flyes fast, as I (of late) did singe /
Yf wee would then, continew y(t) w(ch) was,
Stay tyme (in tyme) before away shee flyng /
But yf wee cannot, tyme (past) backward bring,
Then never hope, that Bewtie can remayne,
Yt came w(th) tyme, and goeth with tyme agayne. /

(Cunliffe, II, 536)

Strength, or force, is easily overcome:

Great laboure doth, deminish greatest force,
And darke dysease, decrease the strength as fast /
When bothe thes fayle, the mightiest massy corps,
Ys daunted downe, w(th) Ages Axe at last /
So that when wightest wrastlyng tricks be past,
Coomes crooked Eldd, and geves a selly trypp,
Tyll from deathes foote, no stowrdy strong can skypp /

(Cunliffe, II, 543)

Throughout the poem, the verses discussing time contain the most effective poetry; they are more concerned with death than are the other stanzas, and their imagery is stronger. The two stanzas given below handle the theme in different moods but with good effect:

Much lyke to them, who (sitting in a shipp)
Are borne forthright, and feele no footing sturr. /
In silent sleepes, the tyme awaie dothe slipp. /
Yt neither bawlethe (like a contrie curre)
Nor standeth styll, to byde a hasty spurre /
But slily slydes, and never maketh noyse,
And much bewrayes: with verie little voyce. /

(Cunliffe, II, 523)

Tell me but this, what mighty man hathe powre,
To drive S(r) deathe, one furlong from his doore?
What yowthe so strong, as to prolong his hower?
Or who can salve, S(r) surfetts festring soore?
Ys yt not trewe, that moyling more and more,
Awake, on sleepe, att ease, or bating breathe,
Wee steale (by steppes) unto the gates of deathe?

(Cunliffe, II, 544)

Even though Gascoigne criticizes at length various aspects of each subject—the boasting and wastefulness of youth, the traps of beauty mentioned above, the boorishness, recklessness, and mindlessness of strength, and the foolishnesses and perils of various activities—he does offer some constructive comments for each subject. For youth:

Whereas in deede, most comfort is compiled,
In things w(ch) seeme, to be but bytter bale /
Marke well my woordes and trust unto my tale,
“All is not golde, w(ch) glistereth faire and bright,
“Nor all things good, w(ch) fairest seeme in sight.
“Trew joye cannot, in trifleng toyes consist /
“Nor happines, in joyes w(ch) soone decaie /

(Cunliffe, II, 524)

and for beauty:

How muche were better (then) to decke the mynde,
And make that fayre, whose light might alwaies last?
Eternall fame, to wysdome is assignd /
And modesty, dothe purchase praise as fast / …
If Dames demaund, howe they the same might deeme?
I answere thus: the fayre which is content,
Withe natures gyftes / and neither dothe esteeme,
Yt selfe to muche: nor is to lightnes bent,
Nor woulde be loved, but with a true entent:
And strives in goodnes, likewise to excell,
I say that Bewtie, beares awaie the bell.

(Cunliffe, II, 524)

The underlying element in his advice is that man should take pleasure in those personal qualities which aging will not diminish: the qualities of character and mind. There is certainly a strong element of Classical philosophy, particularly Boethius, in the poem; but Gascoigne also learned from his own experience of growing older, and the lesson thus taught follows quite consistently from the experiences he describes in his lyrics. He shows that he has grasped the essential features of this life—unrelenting change and decay. His lesson is that we must accept these facts, learn from them, and guide our desires accordingly.

Yet Gascoigne himself does not submit to these laws without some regret. In a mood of pessimistic acceptance, he writes the exquisite lyric, “Lullabye of a lover.” In it, he lists all that he must give up as he grows old: his youth, his roving and vain eye, his lust, and his potency. The poet writes in the form of a lullaby:

Sing lullaby, as women do,
Wherewith they bring their babes to rest, …
Full many wanton babes have I
Which must be stilld with lullabie.

(Prouty, 150-51)

The eight-line iambic tetrameter stanza, with the first four lines cross-rhyming and with the last four rhyming as couplets, has a hushed, muted sound. The repetition of the word “lullaby,” appearing several times in each stanza, brings to the poem the effect of crooning, so that on the surface the poem is passive and tender. Yet, in each stanza there is one detail that intrudes into the peaceful tone; for example, he writes of his youth, “For crooked age and hoary heares, / Have wonne the haven within my head”; on his roving eye, “For every glasse may now suffise, / To shew the furrowes in my face”; on his lust, “Since all too late I fynde by skill, / How deare I have thy fansies bought”; and on his potency, “Synce Age is colde, and nothing coye, / Keepe close thy coyne, for so is beste.” The intrusions are the results of growing old, and they describe the reason why each pleasure is now passing. But, to soften the harshness, each detail is followed with the lullaby refrain, as in the stanza on his youth:

With Lullabye then youth be still,
With Lullabye content thy will,
Since courage quayles, and commes behynde,
Goe sleepe, and so beguyle thy mynde.

Much of the effectiveness of this poem lies in the irony of “Lullabye” and “sleepe.” A lullaby is for children and is meant to pacify and to bring to rest. But what the poet means to do is literally to dismiss from his awareness any recognition of youthful pleasures. However, the muted bitterness of the poem arises because he cannot beguile his mind, cannot help regretting bitterly the passing of his earlier joys; and thus what seems to be a pleasant call to sleep is a galling, heavy awareness of reality. The poet gives himself advice which he cannot accept. In the last stanza he, in effect, bids farewell to his pleasures and girds himself for the years of bitterness ahead:

Thus Lullabie my youth, myne eyes,
My will, my ware, and all that was,
I can no mo delayes devise,
But welcome payne, lette pleasure passe:
With Lullabye nowe take your leave,
With Lullabye youre dreames deceyve,
And when you rise with waking eye,
Remembre Gascoignes Lullabye.

The “welcome payne” and “rise with waking eye” show his complete acceptance of the reality of growing old. There are several ironies in the individual stanzas which show that the poet has learned from bitter experiences, such as finding by skill—that is, from the doctor—that his fancies bring disease now more than pleasure. But the overall tension results from the conflict between the dreamlike lullaby tone and the harsh, unrelentingly realistic content.

1. Lawrence Babb, The Elizabethan Malady (East Lansing: Michigan State College Press, 1951), p. 143.

2. He repeats this image more explicitly in the first song of The Grief of Joye:

   I see not I: whereof yong men should bost,
   Since hee that is, nor fonde nor madd owtright,
   Dothe knowe y(t) adge, will come at last like frost
   And nipp the flowers. …

   (Cunliffe, II, 520)