Thomas Lodge - Broadview Press Publisher's Blog

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His Ode.
Since that I must repose
Beyond th’ infernal lake, 1
What vails 2 me to compose
As many verses as Homer did make?
Choice numbers cannot keep
Me from my pointed grave,
But after lasting sleep
The doom of dreadful judge I needs must have.
I put the case my verse,
In lieu of all my pain,
Ten years my praise rehearse
Or somewhat longer time some glory gain.
What wants there to consume
Or take my lines from light,
But flame or fiery fume
Or threat’ning noise of war or bloody fight?
Excel I Anacreon 3
Stesicores, Simonides,
Antimachus or Bion, 4
Philetes, or the grave Bacchilides? 5
All these though Greeks they were
And used that fluent tongue,
In course of many a year
Their works are lost and have no biding long:
1 th’infernal lake the Stygian Lake in the classical underworld, Hades.
2 vails i.e., avails.
3 Anacreon (c. 575-490 BCE), Greek court poet, famed in the Renaissance
for his love lyrics.
4 Stesicores i.e, Stesichorus, ancient Greek lyric poet, most of whose
works have been lost, except for a few fragments; Simonides (fl. 529
BCE), celebrated Greek poet, author of elegies, epigrams, and epics,
whose works also survive only in fragments; Antimachus ancient
Greek poet and musician; Bion ancient Greek poet, of whose works
only six are fully extant.
5 Philetes Philetas, ancient Greek poet and grammarian, author of
celebrated elegies and epigrams, of which only fragments remain;
Bacchilides Bacchylides, an ancient Greek lyric poet, of whose celebrated
songs only fragments remain.
T HOMAS L ODGE
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Then I who want wit’s sap,
And write but bastard rhyme,
May I expect the hap, 6
That my endeavours may o’ercome the time?
No, no: ’tis far more meet 7
To follow merchant’s life,
Or at the judge’s feet
To sell my tongue for bribes to maintain strife,
Than haunt the idle train
Of poor Calliope, 8
Which leaves for hunger slain
The choicest men that her attendants be.
These and such like fruits of his fancy 9 may
sufficiently testify unto you both the high spirit
and deep invention of this crafty citizen, who
flourishing thus in the very fullness of love’s joy,
and revelling in the chiefest palaces of pleasure, at
last recalled to mind the ambitious desires that
were wont to accompany him, which having the
nature of fire (which no sooner catcheth hold of
dry matter but presently it consumeth it) from a
light smoke at last fell to so huge a flame, that
himself was confounded 10 therewith, and all his
hopes made frustrate: and thus it fell out.
The King’s Majesty, hearing of his 11 continual
assemblies and comparing his purposes with his
practice, began under no small grounds to conceive
his cursed intention: for considering with
himself the manner of his life, the busyness 12 of
his brain, the ’ticing 13 eloquence of his tongue,
and the mightiness of his mind, he imagined (as
afterward it fell out) that so great means of quick
and capable fuel would at last break out to an
unquenchable flame. Whereupon, the King with
6 hap fortune.
7 meet fitting, appropriate.
8 Calliope Muse of eloquence and heroic poetry.
9 fancy imagination.
10 confounded destroyed, consumed.
11 his William’s.
12 busyness active, restless working.
13 ’ticing i.e., enticing, alluring, seductive.