THE LIFE AND LYRICS OF ANDREW MARVELL By the same author A HISTORY OF FELSTED SCHOOL 1564-1947 KING'S SCHOOL, WORCESTER 1541-1971 The Life and Lyrics of Andrew Marvell Michael Craze © Michael Craze 1979 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1St edition 1979 978-0-333-26250-4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1979 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Delhi Dublin Hong Kong Johannesburg Lagos Melbourne New York Singapore Tokyo British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Craze, Michael The life and lyrics of Andrew Marvell I. Marvell, Andrew - Criticism and interpretation I. Title II. Marvell, Andrew 821 '.4 PR3546 ISBN 978-1-349-04590-7 ISBN 978-1-349-04588-4 (eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-1-349-04588-4 This book is sold subject to the standard conditions of the Net Book Agreement To my wife Carol and our family Contents Preface lX THE LIFE I Notes 28 THE LYRICS 29 I 'A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda' (the early version) 3 I 2 'To his Noble Friend Mr Richard Lovelace, upon his Poems' 32 3 'Daphnis and Chloe' 3 7 4 'Young Love' 43 5 'The Match' 47 6 'The Fair Singer' 50 7 'An Elegy upon the Death of my Lord Francis Villiers' 54 8 'Mourning' 65 9 'The Nymph complaining for the death of her Faun' 69 IO 'The Definition of Love' 8I I I 'Eyes and Tears' 88 I2 'Upon the Death of Lord Hastings' 94 I 3 'A Dialogue between the Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure' 99 I 4 'The unfortunate Lover' I o6 I 5 'The Gallery' 113 I6 'An Horatian Ode upon Cromwel's Return from Ireland' I I9 I7 'The Mower against Gardens' I30 I8 'To his worthy Friend Doctor Wittie upon his Translation of the Popular Errours' I40 I9 'In Legationem Domini Oliveri St john ad Provincias Foederatas' I 42 20 'Epigramma in Duos montes Amosclivum et Bilboreum. Farfacio' I43 Vll Vlll Contents 2I 'Upon the Hill and Grove at Bill-borow'. To the Lord Fairfax I45 22 'The Mower's Song' I 5 I 23 'The Mower to the Glo-Worms' I54 24 'Damon the Mower' I 56 25 'Ametas and Thestylis making Hay-Ropes' I65 26 'The Garden' (and 'Hortus' translated) I68 27 'Upon Appleton House', to my Lord Fairfax I82 28 'Musicks Empire' 253 29 'A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda' (the later version) 258 30 'The Picture of little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers' 260 3 I 'Bermudas' 266 32 'The Coronet' 273 3 3 'On a Drop of Dew' (and 'Ros' translated) 277 34 'A Dialogue between the Soul and Body' 285 35 'Clorinda and Damon' 293 36 Two Songs at the Marriage of the Lord Fauconberg and the Lady Mary Cromwell 296 37 'An Epitaph upon ' 302 3 8 Seneca Translated 3o 5 39 'On Mr Milton's Paradise"lost' 308 40 'To his Coy Mistress' 3I2 Index 329 Preface Marvell's fame as a lyrical poet may have been 'slower than empires' to grow, but it is now worldwide. Every American and Commonwealth university's English faculty gives lectures on Marvell. Every fmal examination on seventeenth-century literature asks a question on him. His extra-mural admirers are legion. More and more teenagers in schools are studying him. The one pity at present is that so many see so few of his poems or, worse, see only excerpts. In this book all the lyrics are printed in full, in the order in which I suggest they were written. Each has its own chapter. Where relevant, I translate Marvell's Latin. 'He was a great master of the Latin tongue', wrote john Aubrey in the I68os. 'An excellent poet in Latin or English: for Latin verse there was no man could come into competition with him.' In 'The Garden' (26) I have translated 'Hortus', his Latin poem on the same theme. In 'On a Drop ofDew' (33) I have translated its Latin twin, 'Ros'. I have summarised the Latin lines on Oliver Stjohn's 'Embassy' (19) and translated the Latin 'Epigramma in Duos Montes' ('Epigram on Two Mounts') {20); half of it covers the same ground as 'Upon the Hill and Grove at Bill-borow' (2I). In my commentaries I have sought to bridge the gap of three centuries between his day and ours. He knew all his Bible, in the Authorised Version of I 6 I I. His readers did too. We do not. He had Greek and Latin literature and mythology at his finger tips. Many of his readers had too. We have not. In the actual arrangement of a chapter I have followed no set routine. Sometimes I print the whole lyric and then add my comment. Most often I divide the lyric into appropriate sections and comment on one at a time. I have printed no separate notes, but I am always concerned with the sense. Marvell knew what he meant and it ought to be possible to roll the years back and stand where he stood. I frequently disagree with the usual explanations. My own are sometimes novel, some times revolutionary; they are never made without thought. ix Preface X Except where specifically stated, my text is substantially that of H. M. Margoliouth in Volume I of The Poems and Letters of Andrew Marvell, second edition (Oxford University Press, I952), as modified by P. Legouis and E. E. Duncan-Jones in the third edition (I97I). But I have also taken full account of Bodleian MS. Eng. poet. d. 49, which I read at Oxford in I958 and which has been so much more accessible since I 969 when The Scolar Press Limited, Menston, Yorkshire, England, published the pages of inked corrections in their facsimile of Marvell's Miscellaneous Poems 1681. I have not accepted half the corrections that E. S. Donno did in her Andrew Marvell: The Complete Poems (Penguin Books, I972), but I accept many more than Legouis and Duncan-Jones. I began researching 'The Life' in I955· In the 23 years since then many persistent enquirers have uncovered many new facts. We know much more now about the I 640s, the ten years that took the poet from age I9 to age 29, a key decade in anyone's life. I write rather more than is usual about the poet's father, who in my view was not a Puritan, but an orthodox Anglican priest until Archbishop Laud altered orthodoxy. I give my authorities in my notes at the end of 'The Life'. In conclusion, I wish to thank my son Peter, an English specialist, for kindly reading my original typescript and making many helpful suggestions. And I should like to thank my friend Mrs Judith Lavalette for typing the whole book twice. 24 September 1978 Michael Craze