GORGON, (1) or the wonderfull (2) yeare.

St Fame (3) dispos'd to cunnycatch (4) the world,
       Uprear'd a wonderment of Eighty Eight: (5)
       The Earth addreading (6) to be overwhurld, (7)
What now availes, quoth She, my ballance (8) weight?
The Circle (9) smyl'd to see the Center feare:
The wonder was, no wonder fell that yeare. (10)

Wonders enhaunse their powre in numbers odd:
       The fatall yeare of yeares is Ninety Three:
       Parma hath kist: De-Maine entreates the rodd: (11)
       Warre wondreth, Peace in Spaine and Fraunce to see. (12)
       Brave Eckenberg, the dowty Bassa shames:
       The Christian Neptune, Turkish Vulcane tames. (13)

Navarre wooes Roome: (14) Charlmaine gives Guise the Phy: (15)
       Weepe Powles, (16) thy Tamberlaine (17) voutsafes (18) to dye.

The hugest miracle remaines behinde,
       The second Shakerley (19) Rash-Swash to binde. (20)

Pleased it hath, a Gentlewoman rare,
       With Phenix quill in diamant hand of Art, (21)
       To muzzle (22) the redoubtable (23) Bull-bare, (24)
       And play the galiard Championesses part. (25)
Though miracles surcease, (26) yet Wonder see
       The mightiest miracle of Ninety Three. (27)

Slumbring I lay in melancholy bed,
       Before the dawning of the sanguin light: (29)
       When Echo shrill, (30) or some Familiar Spright
Buzzed (31) an Epitaph into my hed.

Magnifique Mindes, bred of Gargantuas (32) race,
In grisly weedes (33) His Obsequies waiment. (34)
Whose Corps (35) on Powles, (36) whose mind triumph'd on Kent,
Scorning to bate Sir Rodomont (37) an ace. (38)

I mus'd awhile: and having mus'd awhile,
Jesu, (quoth I) is that Gargantua minde
Conquer'd, and left no Scanderbeg (39) behinde?
Vow'd he not to Powles A Second bile? (40)

What bile, or kibe? (41) (quoth that same early Spright ?)
Have you forgot the Scanderbegging (42) wight?

Is it a Dreame? or is the Highest minde,
That ever haunted Powles, or hunted winde,
Bereaft of that same sky-surmounting breath,
That breath, that taught the Timpany (44) to swell?

He, and the Plague contended for the game:
The hawty man extolled his hideous thoughtes,
And gloriously insultes upon poore soules,
That plague themselves: for faint harts plague themselves.

The tyrant Sicknesse of base-minded slaves
Oh how it dominers in Coward Lane? (45)
So Surquidry (46) rang-out his larum bell,
When he had girn'd (47) at many a dolefull knell.

The graund Dissease disdain'd his toade (48) Conceit,
And smiling at his tamberlaine contempt,
Sternely struck-home the peremptory stroke.
He that nor feared God, nor dreaded Div'll,
Nor ought admired, but his wondrous selfe:
Like Junos gawdy Bird, (49) that prowdly stares
On glittring fan of his triumphant taile:
Or like the ugly Bugg, that scorn'd to dy, (50)
And mountes (51) of Glory rear'd in towring witt:
Alas: but Babell (52) Pride must kisse the pitt. (53)

Powles steeple, and a hugyer thing is downe: (54)
Beware the next Bull-beggar (55) of the towne.

NOTES

1 There seem to be two possible associations for this title:
    (a) The Prince of Hell, as in Tamburlaine - "As monstrous as Gorgon, Prince of Hell"
    (b) The mythical monster(s) of that name.
(Click on the note number to return to the same place in the text)

2 "Wonderful" meaning full of wonders.

3 Fama (latin) or Pheme (greek) is the personification of popular rumour.

4 To dupe or trick.

5 In the 15th century, the scientist and astrologer Regiomontanus predicted that in 1588 the world would suffer upheaval, if not total catastrophe; that empires would dwindle; and there would be great lamentation. Then Melancthon in the 16th century, basing his conclusions upon passages from the Bible (The Books of Revelation, Daniel and Isaiah), predicted the Last Judgement for the same year.

6 Dreading; fearing greatly.

7 Whirled or hurled over.

8 Ballast. "No otherwyse than the balans doth staye the shippes in tyme of tempest".

9 Circumference. Perhaps the celestial, as opposed to the earthly sphere - i.e. the stars, or heaven, where the future was already known.

10 A strange thing to say, given that this was the year of the Spanish Armada. It does become more understandable, however, when we discover that a learned discourse had been published that year "concerning prophecies, how far they are to be valued or credited... devised especially in abatement of the terrible threatenings and menaces peremptorily denounced against the kingdoms and states of the world this present famous year 1588, supposed the Great-wonderful and Fatel Yeare of our Age", and that it was written by Dr. John Harvey, the poet's younger brother.

11 The Duke of Parma, Governor-General of the Low Countries, died, and the Duke de Mayenne failed in his efforts to succeed him.

12 The new King of France, Henri IV, agreed a (shortlived) peace with Spain.

13 Prince Eckenberg (Eggenberg) of Austria defeated the Turks, by land and sea.

14 Henri IV (formerly Henri de Navarre) was 'converting' to Catholicism.

15 'Phy', probably 'Fie' - a sound of disgust or 'indignant reproach'. Emperor Charlemagne fell out with his kinsfolk - the de Guises.

16 Stationers and others, the habitués of St. Paul's cathedral and churchyard.

17 Most probably Marlowe, as this was one of his most famous characters.

18 To vouchsafe, deign, or condescend.

19 Peter Shakerley (a former fellow-student of the Bacon brothers, Anthony and Francis, at Grays Inn) was a well-known braggart with whom Harvey and Nashe had compared each other before, so this could well mean Nashe. Shakerley in fact died at about the same time as this was written, and Nicholl concluded that he was therefore the subject of the whole poem.

20 'Rash' = hasty, impetuous, reckless; 'Swash' = a swaggerer (used in this sense by Harvey in Pierce's Supererogation. It is suggested that whatever this "miracle" is, it "binds" him in some way. So presumably this 'binding' of him - the "hugest miracle" - means the same as the 'muzzling' of him - the "mightiest miracle" (below). If so, the "second Shakerley Rash-Swash" and the "redoubtable Bull-bare" would be one and the same person. 'Bind' appears to mean "to tie (a person) up in respect to action; to oblige by a covenant, oath, promise or vow" or "to lay under obligation to perform a stated act or pursue a line of conduct".

21 Artfully employing a Phoenix quill in a diamond bedecked hand. Although the word 'Gentlewoman' would put most people off the scent, the 'Pleased it hath', the 'rare', the 'diamant hand of Art', but most of all the 'Phenix' - which might mean either 'belonging to' or 'from' a Phoenix - seem to indicate the Queen. Here is Knolles in 1603: "Her late sacred Majestie...the rare Phoenix of her sex, who now resteth in glory". 'Phoenix' in this case is "a person of unique excellence or of matchless beauty". There could nevertheless be an element of falsehood implied here: a counterfeit "plume of the Phoenix" is one of the items which Nashe accuses 'Antiquaries' of selling as "rare and precious things" in his Pierce Penilesse. The other meaning of Phoenix is, of course, that of the bird which would be miraculously reborn from the ashes of its own funeral pyre, and whose quill, apparently, is here is being used to 'muzzle' someone.

22 To restrain from speaking; impose silence upon.

23 To be feared or dreaded; formidable.

24 One of several expressions in this poem meaning much the same thing, and apparently referring to the main person being spoken of. A 'bull-baear' is 'a spectre, bogy; ...a bugbear, or object of groundless terror'.

25 By doing so, she has been the champion of the 'galiard' (a man of courage and spirit), or the 'galiard' (lively, brisk, gay, full of high spirits) champion. Another meaning again points us to the Queen, who is said to have practised galliards (a lively dance) as her morning exercise.

26 Even if miracles come to an end.

27 So, the 'mightiest miracle' of the year is that this person has been silenced, possibly by the stroke of a pen from the Queen. But this seems also to be referring to someone who died, most probably the 'Tamburlaine' who condescended to do so.

28 'Force without wisdom falls by its own weight'. Robert Stonehouse kindly provided this translation for me and identified it as coming from Horace's Odes (3.4.65). The context was apparently that of the war of the Titans against the Gods in which the Titans had piled up mountains to reach them. The subject of the present poem "nor feared God, nor dreaded Div'll" either, and was similarly brought down.

29 Blood-red light, but also a possible suggestion of the sanguine (courageous, hopeful, amorous) temperament.

30 Echo was the nymph struck dumb by Hera, other than being able to repeat only the last few words she had heard.

31 To tell in a low murmur; to whisper busily. The first example of a buzz being a rumour appeared only very early in the 17th century.

32 Rabelais's famous giant.

33 Clothing which is horrible or terrible to behold.

34 To bewail, lament for.

35 At this time - a (living) body, a person. Our idea of a 'corpse' came later.

36 St. Paul's Cathedral and churchyard, where most of the literary set met and did business.

37 Capitano Rodomante was one version of the stock "braggart soldier" character of the Commedia dell'Arte.

38 To bate an ace - to make the least abatement, to diminish in the slightest. Here, presumably, not yielding an inch to him in arrogance.

39 Byname of George Castriota, a Christian prince of Albania, who fought heroically against the Turks.

40 Our modern meaning for 'bile' was not yet in use. It was then a boil or tumour, or some other sort of swelling, and the verb 'to bile' was to build. It seems possible, but by no means certain, that this might therefore mean that the braggart being referred to had promised to write some poetical or theatrical version of the Scanderbeg story which would make so much money that he would replace the steeple of St Paul's, which, as mentioned later in the poem, had been destroyed some thirty years earlier.

41 A 'kibe' is a chilblain, which does seem to imply a switch of meaning for 'bile' this time, from 'swelling' to 'boil'.

42 As an adjective, 'Scanderbeg' was (surprisingly) used as an epithet of abuse; rascally. Hence 'scanderbegging'. The sense seems to be "You must be joking, there's nothing wrong with him!".

43 A gloss normally provides an explanation, but it can on occasion suggest an element of deception.

44 Not a set of drums, as we would imagine. Here is the S.O.E.D.'s definition. "A swelling, as of pride, arrogance, self-conceit, etc., figured as a disease; a condition of being inflated or puffed up; ...inflated style, turgidity, bombast".

45 Although these six lines start off apparently referring to the bubonic plague, it turns out instead to be metaphorical - the plague of faint-heartedness or cowardice.

46 Arrogance, haughty pride, presumption.

47 To show the teeth in rage, pain, disappointment, etc.; to snarl as a dog; to complain persistently.

48 Puffed up?

49 The peacock.

50 'Bug' did not have its modern meaning(s), but referred to any (imaginary) object of terror or monster of any size. This probably means, therefore, something like the Lernian Hydra. If one of its many heads was cut off, two more appeared in its place.

51 I can't place this reference. 'Mount' was not used to mean a horse, however, until the 19th century.

52 Lofty?

53 Perhaps this and the line before refer back to the Titans mentioned above (note 28), who piled up mountains to attack the Gods, and were punished by being pinned underground.

54 The steeple of St. Paul's cathedral had been destroyed by lightning. This is even bigger!

55 Generally assumed (OED) to be another version of 'bull-bear', or 'bug-bear' (above).

56 Literally, "premature deaths roam abroad". Robert Stonehouse found a quotation from Lucretius (mors immatura vagatur - premature death roams abroad) of which this seems to be a variation, but whether the change was deliberate or accidental is not clear. Fata could be a reference to the Fates who, for some reason, were "premature".

 
© Peter Farey, 2000