#nicholas grimald

[theotherpages]

National Poetry Month #8 - Nicholas Grimald - To His Familiar Friend

[Image: Couldn’t find an image of Grimald I liked, so here is Lady Jane Seymour]

Please don’t get whiplash as we jump from the 21st century back to the 16th. Five hundred years back to pre-Elizabethan England, a time full of intrigue and betrayal, the end of the Reformation, the death of Henry VIII, the short reign of Queen Jane, and the bloody ascension of Mary I to the English throne. I’m no expert in this time period. Bob Blair probably is. I was, however, intrigued with Nicholas Grimald, who, while not a member of the nobility, seems to have ingratiated himself to many of it members of the time period. 

This is a time when poetry was going through significant changes, and when it was one of the forms of messaging between the younger people at court. I base this partly on a volume known as Tottel’s Miscellany (“Songs and Sonnettes”) which was the first general poetry anthology of its day, and was widely popular in Elizabethan times -  even quoted by Shakespeare in his plays.

The larger share of Richard Tottel’s volume was made up of poems by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Wyatt. Grimald’s poems show up heavily in the first edition, which he probably helped edit, and sparsely in others. He fell out of favor when he renounced his Protestant faith after being imprisoned when Mary took the throne, and betrayed his mentor Bishop Nicholas Ridley and two others who was later burned at the stake. (I’m skipping over a lot of details here). He also may have composed some of the first blank verse published in English. The few poems by Grimald that weren’t tossed out in later editions were marked only with his initials, N.G..

In addition to the sonnets that the book is most noted for, there were many other poems. About 39 were originally by Grimald, and a few by other known authors, but over ninety were miscellaneous pieces of unknown authorship (hence the original name of the book). Some are essentially love letters, some are gossip, some are insults - it’s quite a grab-bag of forms and topics. Some of them make sense, and some of them, well, imagine what a historian might think when dredging through your text messages five hundred years from now.

My theory (based on no expertise whatsoever) was that Grimald either collected these and gave them to Tottel, or perhaps the reason he was tolerated at Court was that he penned them for the gentry. Some of the likely pieces written by Grimald are to Lady Jane Seymour (third wife of Henry VIII) and her sisters, and two probable romantic interests, Carrie Day and Damascene Awdley. He never married, and little is documented about his later life. Perhaps by sharing the court notes he made himself more of a social pariah than his betrayal or his conversion to Catholicism. 

So what is today’s poem? After such a long introduction it is something very short: an Epigram - one based on a work by a French author of the period,  Marc Antoine Muret:

To His Familiar Friend

[Proofed against the 1557 'A' edition of Tottel's Miscellany, #148; based on an epigram by Muretus --Steve]

NO IMAGE carved with cunning hand, no cloth of purple dye, No precious weight of metal bright, no silver plate give I: Such gear allures not heavily hearts: such gifts no grace they bring: I lo, yet know your mind, will send none such, what then? nothing. -- Nicholas Grimald

Or, in short, I knew you wouldn’t want anything fancy as a gift, so I didn’t get you anything. 

-- Steve

[poemoftheday]

Poem of the Day 18 October 2022

A True Love BY Nicholas Grimald WHAT sweet relief the showers to thirsty plants we see, What dear delight the blooms to bees, my true love is to me! As fresh and lusty Ver foul Winter doth exceed— As morning bright, with scarlet sky, doth pass the evening's weed— As mellow pears above the crabs esteemèd be— 5 So doth my love surmount them all, whom yet I hap to see! The oak shall olives bear, the lamb the lion fray, The owl shall match the nightingale in tuning of her lay, Or I my love let slip out of mine entire heart, So deep reposèd in my breast is she for her desart! 10 For many blessèd gifts, O happy, happy land! Where Mars and Pallas strive to make their glory most to stand! Yet, land, more is thy bliss that, in this cruel age, A Venus' imp thou hast brought forth, so steadfast and so sage. Among the Muses Nine a tenth if Jove would make, 15 And to the Graces Three a fourth, her would Apollo take. Let some for honour hunt, and hoard the massy gold: With her so I may live and die, my weal cannot be told.

[cackieo]

Pretties from the garden to cheer you today. And a bit of a poem by Nicholas Grimald to cheer you: “The garden it allures, it feeds, it glads the sprite; From heavy hearts all doleful dumps the garden chaseth quite. Strength it restores to limbs, draws and fulfills the sight; with cheer revives the senses all and maketh labour light. O, what deights to us the garden ground doth bring!” . . . . . . . . . . #garden #gardening #spring #daffodil #narcissus #leucojum #primrose #cowslip #home #poem #gardenpoem #nicholasgrimald #mothernature (at Laburnum Park Historic District) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9wtHOTgLUj/?igshid=2ayo7cej268a

[snarkchester]

What path list you tred? What trade will you assaye? The courts of plea, by braul, & bate drive gentle peace away. In house, for wife, and childe, there is but cark and care: With travail, and with toyl ynough, in feelds wee use to fare. Upon the seas lieth dreed: the riche, in foraine land, Doo fear the losse: and there, the poore, like misers poorly stand. Strife, with a wife, without, your thrift full hard to see: Yong brats, a trouble: none at all, a maym it seems to bee: Youth, fond: age hath no hert, and pincheth all to nye. Choose then the leefer of these twoo, no life, or soon to dye.

Nicholas Grimald, "Man's life after Possidonius, or Crates"

[childrenofthetao]

Of all the heavenly gifts that mortal men commend, What trusty treasure in the world can counterfail a friend?

Nicholas Grimald (1519 - 1562)

[morvencann]

A Bequest of His Heart

HENCE, heart, with her that must depart,     And hald thee with thy soverane!  For I had liever want ane heart,     Nor have the heart that dois me pain.     Therefore, go, with thy love remain,  And let me leif thus unmolest;     And see that thou come not again,  But bide with her thou luvis best.  Sen she that I have servit lang     Is to depart so suddenly,  Address thee now, for thou sall gang     And bear thy lady company.     Fra she be gone, heartless am I,  For quhy? thou art with her possest.     Therefore, my heart, go hence in high,  And bide with her thou luvis best.  Though this belappit body here     Be bound to servitude and thrall,  My faithful heart is free entier     And mind to serve my lady at all.     Would God that I were perigall  Under that redolent rose to rest!     Yet at the least, my heart, thou sall  Abide with her thou luvis best.  Sen in your garth the lily quhyte     May not remain amang the laif,  Adieu the flower of whole delite!     Adieu the succour that may me saif!     Adieu the fragrant balme suaif,  And lamp of ladies lustiest!     My faithful heart she shall it haif  To bide with her it luvis best.  Deploir, ye ladies cleir of hue,     Her absence, sen she must depart!  And, specially, ye luveris true     That wounded bene with Luvis dart.     For some of you sall want ane heart  As well as I; therefore at last     Do go with mine, with mind inwart,  And bide with her thou luvis best!