Thomas Lodge - Broadview Press Publisher's Blog

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every plait were certain spheres of pearls and diamonds,
which, with the excellency of their pureness,
gave no little grace to her hair’s perfection;
her brows not so hard as ivory, but more whiter,
intermeddled with some delicate vermilion; her
eyes in purity like the carbuncle, 1 lightning the
darkest thoughts, in effect like the lodestone, 2
drawing the most indurate 3 hearts, concluding all
passions in themselves in that they were the roots
of passions; her cheeks like two orbs of rubies
participating 4 the whiteness of the lily; her lips
resembling the roses, being limits of more wonder
than either tongue can express or eye behold. Oh,
how may men that surfeit in conceit 5 express in
pen? Suppose the attire answerable to the person,
the person exceeding report, and in a word
imagine Aubert’s happiness, who might behold so
fair, and enjoy so fair and looking on the outward
perfections boldly aver 6 this:
Quae latent meliora puto 7
In this sort both these princes rode together, till
such time as their train had roused a mighty hart
and uncoupled 8 their hounds, when each one
intentively followed the game, enforcing himself
either to show his good horsemanship or woodmanship;
the rocks resounded with the cries, the
woods echoed at their clamours. In this sort spent
they the morning, till about noonstead, when the
sun was in the south at that time shining in his
1 carbuncle precious stone, red or fiery in colour; in the Middle Ages
and later, often a name for the ruby, but especially applied to a mythic
gem said to glow in the dark.
2 lodestone a stone which functions like a magnet drawing metal to it.
3 indurate hard, impervious.
4 participating showing.
5 surfeit in conceit i.e., be overwhelmed in imagination or conception.
6 aver assert the truth of [a statement].
7 Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.502 [“si qua latent, meliora putat”]: “and
what is hid, he deems still lovelier” (2 vols., trans. F.J. Miller, Cambridge,
MA, 1921, vol. 1). This comment concludes the sun-god
Apollo’s survey of the nymph Daphne’s beautiful body. She flees
from him, and (in response to her prayer for rescue from the
amorous god’s advances) her father, the river god Peneus, turns her
into a laurel tree.
8 uncoupled set free [for the chase].
T HOMAS L ODGE
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greatest mightiness, Aubert being attainted with
heat entered the thickest of the wood, hoping to
obtain some cold shelter, where he might rest
himself for awhile and rid himself of his weariness.
But the further he walked the more was his
wonder, for on every side nature had been so
prodigal of her power that the eye could not
behold too much, nor the thought imagine so
much. Here saw he a fair delicious brook, recording
music in his course, being crystal in clearness,
environed with fair cedars so orderly arranged as
art could not in more excellence exemplify the
effects of perfection. On that side a closed arbour
beautified with roses, paved with violets, on the
top whereof the birds with melodious music animated
the flowers, and the flowers assisted by the
Western cool winds seemed to dance for delight
and to flourish. Here within, for the selfsame
occasion of refection, 9 Editha had withdrawn
herself, who in her solitariness—bethinking
herself of her fortunes, her decaying beauty, her
detested barrenness, the lost labour of her
husband, the last limit of her happiness, her
imperfection the period 10 of his pleasure, his pensiveness
the only fruit of her imperfection—in
these terms bitterly bemoaned herself; whilst
Aubert, little suspecting her presence yet willing to
hear the sequel of her feminine complaint, closely
shrouded himself near the arbour, whilst in this
sort she desperately complained:
“O Nature, too natural unto some but too negligent
on my behalf, who, yielding the basest tree
his blossom, the tallest pine his apple, 11 the
weakest stalk his flower, the wasted field his
spring, hast bequeathed increase to all things and
bereaved me of increase. Thou hast made me fair
but unfortunate, a princess but impregnant, 12
making me in desire as rich as any, in defect as
wretched as the most. Oh, hadst thou been as
9 refection recreation or refreshment caused by some sensuous or
physical cause.
10 period end, conclusion, outcome.
11 apple in the Renaissance, the fruit or seed of any tree.
12 impregnant sterile (OED notes 1659 as the earliest such use of this
word).