Henry King's reply likes me not a great deal, but I do like the original Herbert poem. I would venture that it is probably at least partly inspired by Nigra sum sed formosa.
Yes absolutely. As I mention in the piece, the Song of Songs was particularly fashionable in Latin poetry of just this period. I think this scripturally obvious source, which also makes sense in terms of literary fashions of the period, has generally been underemphasised in the criticism. But of course Herbert was nothing if not a scriptural poet, even in his most apparently secular pieces.
I agree with you about the reply, and in fact I don't really like any of the (many) 'replies' to the poem. There's even a Latin one in a Yale manuscript which is (wrongly, I am 99% sure, though you can see how it happened) attributed to Herbert himself. But none of the replies have any of the lightness of touch of the originals (Latin and English).
I should have made more of it maybe, since I think a lot of contemporary readers don't realise that this would have been by *far* the most obvious connection at the time. Jeremiah 13:23 ('can the Aethiop change his skin, or the leopard his spots?') perhaps also relevant.
There's a whole genre of 'dark lady' poems -- in fact Polwhele includes another one in his notebook, attributed by him to Donne (though it's not in fact by Donne). But the great majority of those poems are, like Sh's sonnets, about a woman of dark complexion -- dark hair and eyes -- rather than of non-European heritage. The Herbert is unusual because it is clearly a poem about a woman of African ethnicity. (Actually the Reynolds translation is more ambiguous -- when it circulates, as in the Polwhele manuscript, without a title, you could take it either way; but it is often titled something like 'A blackamoor maid wooing a fair boy', which makes the racial element clear.)
I'm also put in mind of Othello and the racial nuances in that play. Othello is described multiple times as simply "black"—e.g., "Her name, that was as fresh / As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black / As mine own face"— and yet was probably intended to appear as a Mediterranean African with relatively light skin. In any case, I enjoyed this article and am intrigued by "Aethiopissa," a poem previously unknown to me and engaging with race in a way that I rarely if ever encounter in early modern literature. The last four lines are quite evocative even in translation, and the penultimate has a fine example of the great concision of which poetic Latin is capable: "Dure, negas?" -> "O hard-hearted one, do you (still) refuse me?"
Yes definitely re: Othello, really interesting comparison and not far apart in time at all, though Othello has obvs attracted hundreds of times more commentary. Bacon himself distinguishes between "black" (he mentions Ethiopia, Congo and Nigeria as examples) and "tawny" (he mentions Abyssinia and Barbary, i.e. eastern North Africa, and central/western North Africa respectively). I'm afraid I know very little about how common such distinctions were in Western European writing of this period however. The 'dure' perhaps suggests an allusion to the final line of Horace Odes 4.1 ('te per aquas, dure, volubilis'), also a poem of hopeless longing.
Really enjoyed this! How different from our own culture of versions and “after” poems, where the assumption is usually that the reader *can’t* read the original.
(I’ll have to buy that Herbert book now; I had no idea it included the Latin poems!)
When I started learning Latin, I did so with the intent of reading the classics. That’s still my main motivator, but over time I’ve also become interested in Neo-Latin. As an Indian I hoped I would feel an affinity with a bunch of late arrivals in a literary tradition operating somewhat artificially within a lingua franca, but the more I learn the weaker that prospect of affinity grows. There’s too much distance between us and them. Still, that’s its own source of fascination, maybe a more profound source.
Yes I have no idea how we got away with including all the Latin (and Greek!). It’s pretty unprecedented for a modern Penguin. Apparently even the Oxford edition refused to do all the Latin and Greek poems. I honestly think it was because John Drury was a kindly senior clergyman (chaplain of All Souls) and the (very junior) commissioning editor at Penguin just couldn’t work out how to say no to him when he said “but we must have all the Latin & Greek”!
Herbert's poem is genuinely mysterious. Ultimately, I suspect there was a personal reference of some kind -- that it links to a conversation or in-joke or something of the sort with Bacon. Occasional verse for a specific person is often the hardest to interpret for this reason.
I spent ages this week trying to work out whether a Latin poem about being saved by a dolphin (!) written by an English chaplain in Russia in 1618 for a Dutch envoy who was passing through was actually a poem about being saved by a dolphin, or some sort of elaborate allegory of European politics. Still have no idea!
Henry King's reply likes me not a great deal, but I do like the original Herbert poem. I would venture that it is probably at least partly inspired by Nigra sum sed formosa.
Yes absolutely. As I mention in the piece, the Song of Songs was particularly fashionable in Latin poetry of just this period. I think this scripturally obvious source, which also makes sense in terms of literary fashions of the period, has generally been underemphasised in the criticism. But of course Herbert was nothing if not a scriptural poet, even in his most apparently secular pieces.
I agree with you about the reply, and in fact I don't really like any of the (many) 'replies' to the poem. There's even a Latin one in a Yale manuscript which is (wrongly, I am 99% sure, though you can see how it happened) attributed to Herbert himself. But none of the replies have any of the lightness of touch of the originals (Latin and English).
My eyes skipped your mention of the Song of Songs when I first read the piece!
I should have made more of it maybe, since I think a lot of contemporary readers don't realise that this would have been by *far* the most obvious connection at the time. Jeremiah 13:23 ('can the Aethiop change his skin, or the leopard his spots?') perhaps also relevant.
And perhaps Shakespeare's Dark Lady sonnets.
There's a whole genre of 'dark lady' poems -- in fact Polwhele includes another one in his notebook, attributed by him to Donne (though it's not in fact by Donne). But the great majority of those poems are, like Sh's sonnets, about a woman of dark complexion -- dark hair and eyes -- rather than of non-European heritage. The Herbert is unusual because it is clearly a poem about a woman of African ethnicity. (Actually the Reynolds translation is more ambiguous -- when it circulates, as in the Polwhele manuscript, without a title, you could take it either way; but it is often titled something like 'A blackamoor maid wooing a fair boy', which makes the racial element clear.)
I'm also put in mind of Othello and the racial nuances in that play. Othello is described multiple times as simply "black"—e.g., "Her name, that was as fresh / As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black / As mine own face"— and yet was probably intended to appear as a Mediterranean African with relatively light skin. In any case, I enjoyed this article and am intrigued by "Aethiopissa," a poem previously unknown to me and engaging with race in a way that I rarely if ever encounter in early modern literature. The last four lines are quite evocative even in translation, and the penultimate has a fine example of the great concision of which poetic Latin is capable: "Dure, negas?" -> "O hard-hearted one, do you (still) refuse me?"
Yes definitely re: Othello, really interesting comparison and not far apart in time at all, though Othello has obvs attracted hundreds of times more commentary. Bacon himself distinguishes between "black" (he mentions Ethiopia, Congo and Nigeria as examples) and "tawny" (he mentions Abyssinia and Barbary, i.e. eastern North Africa, and central/western North Africa respectively). I'm afraid I know very little about how common such distinctions were in Western European writing of this period however. The 'dure' perhaps suggests an allusion to the final line of Horace Odes 4.1 ('te per aquas, dure, volubilis'), also a poem of hopeless longing.
I enjoyed this so much. Not least for the tour of a long-gone notebook. Wonderful.
I'm sure I'm not the only one, on reading this, to think of William Blake. (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43671/the-little-black-boy. ) Would Blake have known the Herbert poem (or the English translation), do you know?
Really enjoyed this! How different from our own culture of versions and “after” poems, where the assumption is usually that the reader *can’t* read the original.
(I’ll have to buy that Herbert book now; I had no idea it included the Latin poems!)
When I started learning Latin, I did so with the intent of reading the classics. That’s still my main motivator, but over time I’ve also become interested in Neo-Latin. As an Indian I hoped I would feel an affinity with a bunch of late arrivals in a literary tradition operating somewhat artificially within a lingua franca, but the more I learn the weaker that prospect of affinity grows. There’s too much distance between us and them. Still, that’s its own source of fascination, maybe a more profound source.
Yes I have no idea how we got away with including all the Latin (and Greek!). It’s pretty unprecedented for a modern Penguin. Apparently even the Oxford edition refused to do all the Latin and Greek poems. I honestly think it was because John Drury was a kindly senior clergyman (chaplain of All Souls) and the (very junior) commissioning editor at Penguin just couldn’t work out how to say no to him when he said “but we must have all the Latin & Greek”!
I’ll confess I read this as a sleep aid- I had galloping insomnia and it looked dry as dust. How wrong can you be. Beautiful and fascinating.
Ha! That made me laugh. Thank you.
No, thank you! Still turning the poem over in my head.
Herbert's poem is genuinely mysterious. Ultimately, I suspect there was a personal reference of some kind -- that it links to a conversation or in-joke or something of the sort with Bacon. Occasional verse for a specific person is often the hardest to interpret for this reason.
Lost in time… how frustrating. Or perhaps leaves more room for the imagination.
I spent ages this week trying to work out whether a Latin poem about being saved by a dolphin (!) written by an English chaplain in Russia in 1618 for a Dutch envoy who was passing through was actually a poem about being saved by a dolphin, or some sort of elaborate allegory of European politics. Still have no idea!
What the….?? Please make that your next stack!
Very much looking forward to it.