The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works (39 page)

That theme was quickly cut off, and other talk entered in place, of what I have forgot, but talk it was and talk let it be and talk it shall be, for I do not mean here to remember it. We supped, we got to bed, rose in the morning, on my master I waited, and the first thing he did after he was up, he went and visited the house where his Geraldine was born, at sight whereof he was so impassioned that in the open street, but for me, he would have made an oration in praise of it. Into it we were conducted, and shewed each several room thereto appertaining. Oh, but when he came to the chamber where his Geraldine's clear sunbeams first thrust themselves into this cloud of flesh and acquainted mortality with the purity of angels, then did his mouth overthrow with magnificats; his tongue thrust the stars out of heaven, and eclipsed the sun and moon with comparisons. Geraldine was the soul of heaven, sole daughter and heir to
primus motor
.
²²⁵
The alchemy of his eloquence, out of the incomprehensible drossy matter of clouds and air distilled no more quintessence than would make his Geraldine complete fair. In praise of the chamber that was so illuminatively honoured with her radiant conception, he penned this sonnet:

           Fair room, the presence of sweet beauty's pride,
The place the sun upon the earth did hold,
When Phaeton his chariot did misguide,
The tower where Jove rain'd down himself in gold,

           Prostrate, as holy ground I'll worship thee;
Our Lady's chapel henceforth be thou nam'd;
Here first Love's queen put on mortality,
And with her beauty all the world inflam'd.

           Heaven's chambers harbouring fiery cherubins,
Are not with thee in glory to compare;
lightning it is, not light, which in thee shines,
None enter thee but straight intranced are.
     Oh, if Elizium be above the ground,
     Then here it is, where nought but joy is found.

Many other poems and epigrams in that chamber's patient alabaster enclosure, which her melting eyes long sithence had softened, were curiously engraved. Diamonds thought themselves
Dii mundi
²²⁶
if they might but carve her name on the naked glass. With them on it did he anatomize these body-wanting mots:
²²⁷
Dulce puella malum est; Quod fugit ipse sequor; Amor est mihi causa sequendi; O infelix ego; Cur vidi? cur perii? Non patienter amo. Tantum patiatur amari
. After the view of these venereal monuments, he published a proud challenge in the Duke of Florence's court against all comers, whether Christians, Turks, Jews or Saracens, in defence of his Geraldine's beauty. More mildly was it accepted in that she whom he defended was a town-born child of that city, or else the pride of the Italian would have prevented him ere he should have come to perform it. The Duke of Florence nevertheless sent for him and demanded him of his estate and the reason that drew him thereto, which when he was advertised of to the full, he granted all countries whatsoever, as well enemies and outlaws as friends and confederates, free access and regress into his dominions unmolested until that insolent trial were ended.

The right honourable and ever renowned Lord Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, my singular good lord and master, entered the lists after this order. His armour was ill intermixed with lilies and roses, and the bases thereof bordered with nettles and weeds, signifying stings, crosses and overgrowing encumbrances in his love; his helmet round-proportioned like a gardener's water-pot, from which seemed to issue forth small threads of water, like cittern strings, that not only did moisten the lilies and roses, but did fructify as well the nettles and weeds, and made them overthrow their
liege lords. Whereby he did import thus much, that the tears that issued from his brains, as those artificial distillations issued from the well-counterfeit water-pot on his head, watered and gave life as well to his mistress' disdain (resembled to nettles and weeds) as increase of glory to her care-causing beauty (comprehended under the lilies and roses). The symbol thereto annexed was this:
Ex lachrimis lachrimae
.
²²⁸
The trappings of his horse were pounced and bolstered out with rough-plumed silver plush, in full proportion and shape of an estrich. On the breast of the horse were the foreparts of this greedy bird advanced, whence, as his manner is, he reached out his long neck to the reins of the bridle, thinking they had been iron, and still seemed to gape after the golden bit, and ever as the courser did raise or curvet,
²²⁹
to have swallowed it half in. His wings, which he never useth but running, being spread full sail, made his lusty steed as proud under him as he had been some other Pegasus, and so quiveringly and tenderly were these his broad wings bound to either side of him, that, as he paced up and down the tilt-yard in his majesty ere the knights were entered, they seemed wantonly to fan in his face and make a flickering sound, such as eagles do, swiftly pursuing their prey in the air. On either of his wings, as the estrich hath a sharp goad or prick wherewith he spurreth himself forward in his sail-assisted race, so this artificial estrich, on the inbent knuckle of the pinion of either wing, had embossed crystal eyes affixed, wherein wheelwise were circularly ingrafted sharp pointed diamonds, as rays from those eyes derived, that like the rowal of a spur ran deep into his horse sides, and made him more eager in his course.

Such a fine dim shine did these crystal eyes and these round-enranked diamonds make through their bollen
²³⁰
swelling bowers of feathers as if it had been a candle in a paper lantern, or a glow-worm in a bush by night, glistering through the leaves and briars. The tail of the estrich being short and thick served very fitly for a plume to trick up his
horse-tail with, so that every part of him was as naturally coapted
²³¹
as might be. The word to this device was
Aculeo alatus
:
²³²
‘I spread my wings only spurred with her eyes'. The moral of the whole is this: that, as the cstrich, the most burning-sighted bird of all others, insomuch as the female of them hatcheth not her eggs by covering them but by the effectual rays of her eyes, as he, I say, outstrippeth the nimblest trippers of his feathered condition in footman-ship (only spurred on with the needle-quickening goad under his side), so he, no less burning-sighted than the estrich, spurred on to the race of honour by the sweet rays of his mistress' eyes, persuaded himself he should outstrip all other in running to the goal of glory, only animated and incited by her excellence. And as the estrich will eat iron, swallow any hard metal whatsoever, so would he refuse no iron adventure, no hard task whatsoever, to sit in the grace of so fair a commander. The order of his shield was this: it was framed like a burning-glass, beset round with flame-coloured feathers, on the outside whereof was his mistress' picture adorned as beautiful as art could portraiture; on the inside, a naked sword tied in a true loveknot; the mot,
Militat omnis amans
.
²³³
Signifying that in a true-loveknot his sword was tied to defend and maintain the features of his mistress.

Next him entered the Black Knight, whose beaver was pointed all torn and bloody, as though he had new come from combatting with a bear; his headpiece seemed to be a little oven fraught full with smothering flames, for nothing but sulphur and smoke voided out at the clefts of his beaver. His bases were all embroidered with snakes and adders, engendered of the abundance of innocent blood that was shed. His horse trappings were throughout bespangled with honey spots, which are no blemishes but ornaments. On his shield he bare the sun full shining on a dial at his going down; the word,
Sufficit tandem
.
²³⁴

After him followed the Knight of the Owl, whose armour was a stubbed tree overgrown with ivy, his helmet fashioned like an owl sitting on the top of this ivy. On his bases were wrought all kind of birds, as on the ground, wondering about him; the word,
Idea mirum quia monstrum
.
²³⁵
His horse's furniture was framed like a cart, scattering whole sheaves of corn amongst hogs; the word,
Liberalitas liberalitate perit
.
²³⁶
On his shield, a bee entangled in sheep's wool; the mot,
Frontis nulla fides
.
²³⁷
The fourth that succeeded was a well-proportioned knight in an armour imitating rust, whose headpiece was prefigured like flowers growing in a narrow pot, where they had not any space to spread their roots or disperse their flourishing. His bases embellished with open armed hands scattering gold amongst truncheons; the word,
Cura futuri est
.
²³⁸
His horse was harnessed with leaden chains, having the outside gilt, or at least saffroned instead of gilt, to decipher a holy or golden pretence of a covetous purpose; the sentence,
Cani capilli mei compedes
.
²³⁹
On his target
²⁴⁰
he had a number of crawling worms kept under by a block; the faburthen,
²⁴¹
Speramus lucent
.
²⁴²
The fifth was the Forsaken Knight, whose helmet was crowned with nothing but cypress and willow garlands. Over his armour he had Hymen's nuptial robe, dyed in a dusky yellow, and all-to-be-defaced and discoloured with spots and stains. The enigma,
Nos quoque floruimus
, as who should say ‘We have been in fashion.' His steed was adorned with orange tawny eyes, such as those have that have the yellow jandies,
²⁴³
that make all things yellow they look upon; with this brief,
²⁴⁴
Qui invident egent
, ‘Those that envy are hungry.' The sixth was the Knight of
the Storms, whose helmet was round-moulded like the moon, and all his armour like waves, whereon the shine of the moon, sleightly silvered, perfectly represented moonshine in the water. His bases were the banks or shores that bounded in the streams. The spoke
²⁴⁵
was this,
Frustra pius
, as much to say as ‘fruitless service'. On his shield he set forth a lion driven from his prey by a dunghill cock. The word,
Non vi sed voce
: ‘not by violence but by voice'.

The seventh had, like the giants that sought to scale heaven in despite of Jupiter, a mount overwhelming his head and whole body; his bases outlaid with arms and legs which the skirts of that mountain left uncovered. Under this did he characterize a man desirous to climb to the heaven of honour, kept under with the mountain of his prince's command; and yet had he arms and legs exempted from the suppression of that mountain. The word,
Tu mihi criminis author
²⁴⁶
(alluding to his prince's command): ‘Thou art the occasion of my imputed cowardice.' His horse was trapped in the earthly strings of tree-roots, which, though their increase was stubbed down to the ground, yet were they not utterly deaded, but hoped for an after-resurrection. The word,
Spe alor
:
²⁴⁷
‘I hope for a spring.' Upon his shield he bare a ball, stricken down with a man's hand that it might mount. The word,
Ferior ut efferar
: ‘I suffer myself to be contemned because I will climb.'

The eighth had all his armour throughout engrailed like a crabbed briary hawthorn bush, out of which notwithstanding sprung (as a good child of an ill father) fragrant blossoms of delightful may flowers, that made, according to the nature of may, a most odoriferous smell. In the midst of this, his snowy curled top, round wrapped together, on the ascending of his crest, sat a solitary nightingale close encaged, with a thorn at her breast, having this mot in her mouth:
Luctus monumenta manebunt
.
²⁴⁸
At the foot of
this bush represented on his bases lay a number of black swollen toads gasping for wind, and summer-lived grasshoppers gaping after dew, both which were choked with excessive drought for want of shade. The word,
Non sine vulnere viresco
:
²⁴⁹
‘I spring not without impediments', alluding to the toads and suchlike that erst lay sucking at his roots, but now were turned out and near choked with drought. His horse was suited in black sandy earth, as adjacent to this bush, which was here and there patched with short burnt grass, and as thick ink-dropped with toiling ants and emmets as ever it might crawl, who, in the full of the summer moon (ruddy garnished on his horse's forehead) hoarded up their provision of grain against winter. The word,
Victrix fortunae sapientia
:
²⁵⁰
‘Providence prevents misfortune.' On his shield he set forth the picture of death doing alms-deeds to a number of poor desolate children. The word,
Nemo alius explicat
:
²⁵¹
‘No other man takes pity upon us.' What his meaning was herein I cannot imagine, except death had done him and his brethren some great good turn in ridding them of some untoward parent or kinsman that would have been their confusion; for else I cannot see how death should have been said to do almsdeeds, except he had deprived them suddenly of their lives, to deliver them out of some further misery; which could not in any wise be, because they were yet living.

The ninth was the Infant Knight, who on his armour had enamelled a poor young infant put into a ship without tackling, masts, furniture, or anything. This weather-beaten or ill-apparelled ship was shadowed on his bases, and the slender compass of his body set forth the right picture of an infant. The waves wherein the ship was tossed were fretted on his steed's trappings so movingly that ever as he offered to bound or stir they seemed to bounce and toss and sparkle brine out of their hoary silver billows. The mot,
Inopem me
copia fecit
:
²⁵²
as much as to say as ‘The rich prey makes the thief.'

On his shield he expressed an old goat that made a young tree to wither only with biting it; the word thereto,
Primo extinguor in aevo
:
²⁵³
‘I am frost-bitten ere I come out of the blade.'