[For the next 4 1/2 pgs. of the text we use a less compressed format]
[Many notes are from Prof. Ellen Moody's 1989 article as indicated]
[Begin Pg. 20]
[Grape leaf symbol] Foure Epytaphes, / made by the Countes of Oxenford / after the death of her young Sonne, / the Lord Bulbecke, & c. /
33.HAd with moorning the Gods, left their willes undon, / They had not so soone [in]herited such a soule: / Or if the mouth, tyme dyd not glotton by all. / Nor I, nor the world, were depriv'd of my Sonne, / Whose brest Venus, with a face dolefull and milde, / Dooth washe with golden teares, inveying the skies: / And when the water of the Goddesses eyes, / Makes almost alive, the Marble, of my Childe: / One byds her leane styll, he dollor so extreme, / Telling her it is not, her young sonne Papherne, / To which she makes aunswer with a voice inflamed, / (Feeling there with her venime, to be more bitter) / As I was of Cupid, even so of it mother: / ,, And a womans last chylde, is the most beloved. //
An other. /
34.IN dolefull wayes I spend the wealth of my time: / Feeding on my heart, that ever comes agen. / Since the ordinaunce, of the Destin[y]'s, hath ben, / To end of the Saissons [seasons], of my yeeres the prime. / With my Sone, my Gold, my Nightingale, and Rose, / Is gone: for t'was in him and no other where: / And well though mine eies run downe like fountaines (here, / The stone wil not speak yet, that doth it inclose. / And Destin[y]'s, and Gods, you might rather have ta[k]nne, / My twentie yeeres: then the two daies of my sonne. [End Pg. 20] ///
[Begin Pg. 21, Continue Stanza # 34]
And of this world what shall I hope, since I knowe, / That in his respect, it can yeeld me but mosse: /Or what should I consume any more in woe, / When Destin[y]s, Gods, and worlds, are all in my losse. //
An other. /
35.THe hevens, death, and life ? have conjured my yll: / For death hath take away the breath of my sonne: / The hevens receve, and consent, that he hath donne: / And my life dooth keepe mee heere against my will. / But if our life be caus'de with moisture and heate. / I care neither for the death, the life, nor skyes: / For I'll sigh him warmth, and weat him with my eies: / (And thus I shall be thought a second Promet[heus]) / And as for life, let it doo me all despite: / For if it leave me, I shall goe to my childe: / And it in the hevens, there is all my delyght. / and if I live, my vertue is immortall. / ,, So that the hevens, death and life, when they doo all / ,, Their force: by sorrowfull vertue th'are beguild. //
An other. /
36.IDall, for Adon[is], nev'r shed so many teares: / Nor Thet'[is], for Pelid: nor Phoebus, for Hyacinthus: / Nor for Atis, the mother of Prophetesses: / As for the death of Bulbecke, the Gods have cares. / At the brute of it, the Aphroditan Queene, / Caused more silver to distyll fro[m] her eyes: / Then when the droppes of her cheekes raysed Daisyes: / And to die with him, mortall, she would have beene. / The Chari[o]ts, for it breake their Peruqs, of golde: 1 / The Muses, and the Nymphes of Caves: I beholde: [No Printer's Mark] / [End Pg. 21] ///
Copyright © 1997-2005
by Mark Alexander.
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