There are no fights as bitter as those between members of the one family, and indeed no wars as bloody as those between citizens of the one country. Somehow we learn to hate more easily and more deeply those we are supposed to love the most. With respect to the poem I am going to discuss in these thoughts today - "Tichborne's Elegy" - I wish to paint in the historical background here firstly.
In the history of the royal families of England & Scotland there have been many gory intrigues and many bloody plots. One of those was the Babington plot, which occurred in 1586, whose purpose was the assassination of Queen Elizabeth 1, a Protestant with the intention of replacing her on the English throne with the rescued Mary, Queen of Scots, (aka Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland) her Roman Catholic cousin who had been imprisoned for 18 years since 1568 in England. Indeed, Mary had been incarcerated at the behest of her cousin Elizabeth 1 who feared for her throne. The discovery of this plot would lead eventually to the execution of Mary Stuart as one of her letters to one of the plotters revealed that she had consented directly to the assassination of Elizabeth 1.
Now, the long-term goal of the Babington plot was the invasion of England by the Spanish forces of King Philip II of Spain and the Catholic League in France and therefrom the restoration of the old religion. However, Elizabeth's notorious spymaster, one Sir Francis Walsingham discovered this plot, and he deviously used his discovery for the entrapment of Mary with the direct result that she would now forfeit any claims she might have on the English throne. The tragic Mary was beheaded at Fetherington Castle in 1587. She was only 44 years of age.
The author of the poem I have chosen for today's entry in these pages is one Chidiock Tichborne who was born into a devout Catholic family in Southampton around 1558 and he was destined to become involved in our aforementioned Babington plot. Like all Catholics, his life was to become increasingly difficult after Elizabeth 1 made the practice of the Roman Catholic Religion illegal, and he and his father, who had already spent time in prison, found themselves under constant surveillance by the Queen's spies.
Our poet author, Chidiock Tichborne joined the conspirators involved in the Babington plot which, as we have stated, sought to assassinate the Queen and supplant her with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. However, the plot was discovered and the conspirators all executed. As far as we know Chidiock only wrote three poems, or at least only three of his poems survive the ravages of time. His famous "Elegy" is by far the best of the three and I quote it in full hereunder. The unfortunate poet enclosed this poem in a letter he sent to his wife Agnes from the Tower of London on the eve of his execution for treason. Here is the poem and it is a masterful feat of poetry, replete with metaphors of an intensity that could only be forged in the mind of a talented and sensitive poet on the eve of his execution:
Tychbornes Elegie, written with his owne hand in the Tower before his execution
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of paine,
My Crop of corne is but a field of tares,
And al my good is but vaine hope of gaine.
The day is past, and yet I saw no sunne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My feast of joy is but a dish of paine,
My Crop of corne is but a field of tares,
And al my good is but vaine hope of gaine.
The day is past, and yet I saw no sunne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My tale was heard, and yet it was not told,
My fruite is falne [fallen], & yet my leaves are greene:
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,
I saw the world, and yet I was not seene.
My thred is cut, and yet it is not spunne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My fruite is falne [fallen], & yet my leaves are greene:
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,
I saw the world, and yet I was not seene.
My thred is cut, and yet it is not spunne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
I sought my death, and found it in my wombe,
I lookt for life, and saw it was a shade:
I trod the earth, and knew it was my Tombe,
And now I die, and now I was but made.
My glasse is full, and now my glasse is runne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
On reading this poem one is immediately struck by its sheer authenticity and depth, two factors no doubt influenced by a mind concentrated on its imminent demise. Indeed, the biographical and background information given also adds to the popularity of this much anthologized poem which I remember studying many years ago at college. The images are literally forged from a wonderfully sensitive mind under the sentence of death. We are aware that this man is speaking directly to us as he was then also directly speaking to the love of his life, her dear wife Agnes. Every line contains an antithesis, a polar opposite, a sheer paradox. These antithetical statements are woven into paradoxes that cut to the heart of the mystery that all human life faces us with - namely its ending in insuperable death. Again, for a moment just reflect on these antitheses in the first stanza:
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of paine,
My Crop of corne is but a field of tares,
And al my good is but vaine hope of gaine.
The day is past, and yet I saw no sunne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
One can easily list these antithetical words/images in the first stanza thus: youth/cares, joy/paine, corne/tares, good/vain hope, day/no sunne and live/is done and we may continue so to list them rather easily right on through the next two stanzas. I'll leave it to you, good reader, to do so if you wish.
In short, for this reader, this is a profound poem which plumbs the heights or the depths of our human predicament, the human condition where the theme of our mortality is a central one for all of us. I have already acknowledged in these poetical reflections that all literature, and consequently and most essentially poetry, is concerned with the basic ultimate concern of death as outlined by Professor Irvin Yalom. See Poems I Journey With 1: Here.
There is also an ingenious weaving of tenses together to suggest that time is a very complex entity as in: "And now I live, and now my life is done": In fact the poet repeats this line by three, once in each stanza at the end as a sort of paradoxical chorus that sums up our human predicament - our past and our future are somehow telescoped into the present "now" that is itself so elusive, one "now" that will be cut short by execution for our poet the following day.
If the reader gives voice to this poem by reading it aloud he or she will be greeted by the sheer drama of the declamation. One becomes a Hamlet or a Macbeth or an Othello or a Lear on the stage of one's own life. Indeed, one can imagine any one of these tragic heroes giving voice to Chidiock's moving and dramatic words. We are, as it were, presented with the dance of life with death in thes3 dramatic and moving words. What more quintessentially human drama could we be granted to behold upon a stage? Tichborne was only 28 when he wrote these words and "shuffled off his mortal coil" so tragically. Obviously these words brought the poor man some comfort as he faced his leaving of this painful world.
For sheer mastery of the English language, for poetry of such high and refined emotion, for dexterity of phrase and the forging power of metaphor I know no poet better than the tragic Chidiock Tichborne. His poem is a masterly composition where time shifts all too quickly and all too mysteriously, and if time could only shift such that we might meet him, I believe we should encounter a wonderfully sensitive individual.
I lookt for life, and saw it was a shade:
I trod the earth, and knew it was my Tombe,
And now I die, and now I was but made.
My glasse is full, and now my glasse is runne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
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| Portrait of Chidiock Tichborne |
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of paine,
My Crop of corne is but a field of tares,
And al my good is but vaine hope of gaine.
The day is past, and yet I saw no sunne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
One can easily list these antithetical words/images in the first stanza thus: youth/cares, joy/paine, corne/tares, good/vain hope, day/no sunne and live/is done and we may continue so to list them rather easily right on through the next two stanzas. I'll leave it to you, good reader, to do so if you wish.
In short, for this reader, this is a profound poem which plumbs the heights or the depths of our human predicament, the human condition where the theme of our mortality is a central one for all of us. I have already acknowledged in these poetical reflections that all literature, and consequently and most essentially poetry, is concerned with the basic ultimate concern of death as outlined by Professor Irvin Yalom. See Poems I Journey With 1: Here.
There is also an ingenious weaving of tenses together to suggest that time is a very complex entity as in: "And now I live, and now my life is done": In fact the poet repeats this line by three, once in each stanza at the end as a sort of paradoxical chorus that sums up our human predicament - our past and our future are somehow telescoped into the present "now" that is itself so elusive, one "now" that will be cut short by execution for our poet the following day.
If the reader gives voice to this poem by reading it aloud he or she will be greeted by the sheer drama of the declamation. One becomes a Hamlet or a Macbeth or an Othello or a Lear on the stage of one's own life. Indeed, one can imagine any one of these tragic heroes giving voice to Chidiock's moving and dramatic words. We are, as it were, presented with the dance of life with death in thes3 dramatic and moving words. What more quintessentially human drama could we be granted to behold upon a stage? Tichborne was only 28 when he wrote these words and "shuffled off his mortal coil" so tragically. Obviously these words brought the poor man some comfort as he faced his leaving of this painful world.
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| Queen Elizabeth 1 |
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