This is the attractive wall monument in Romsey Abbey, Hampshire, to John St Barbe and his wife Grissell. (‘Griselda’, for here’s a 17th century Englishwoman whose name testifies that the martyrdom in matrimony suffered by ‘Patient Griselda’ was still considered a suitable reference and example). Everyone looks somewhat alike on the monument: John is Grissell with a wispy Cavalier moustache and tuft, the boys below look like two pairs of twins – which they may have been, of course.
But the monument does so much with symmetry that whoever penned the epitaph attempted, with some success, a symmetrical poem for this symmetrical couple.
I have been puzzling over how best to read the interlaced verses on the monument. Read strictly left to right and then downwards, in the normal fashion of eye movement across a text, it is mainly a jumble that strongly suggests that you have to do something else:
Earth’s Rich in Mines of Precious Dust
Whom Nature Wedlock Grace did tie
And faithfull ones
Since in her Bowels rest these Just
In one fast Chain of unity
Whose silent bones
Dead here do Rest yet Left not Earth
Because such Righteous & theire seed
In fame & state
But brought fower sonns to Perfect Birth
Shall Florish here and shall in Deed
Tryumph o’re fate
It goes a bit better if, after a long line on the left, you dip to the short central line beneath, and then rise to the long line on the right:
Earth’s Rich in Mines of Precious Dust
And faithfull ones
Whom Nature Wedlock Grace did tie
Since in her Bowels rest these Just
Whose silent bones
In one fast Chain of unity
Dead here do Rest yet Left not Earth
In fame & state
Because such Righteous & theire seed
But brought fower sonns to Perfect Birth
Tryumph o’re fate
Shall Florish here and shall in Deed
If you think of the verses as corresponding to his left side of the monument, and her right side, then you can read just down the left and centre to produce the verses for John St Barbe (I editorialise a little):
Earth’s Rich in Mines of Precious Dust
And faithful ones
Since in her Bowels rest these Just
Whose silent bones
Dead here do Rest yet Left not Earth
In fame & state
But brought four sons to Perfect Birth:
Triumph o’re Fate!
It doesn’t work at all for a composite of centre lines and Grissell’s right hand side. One might say that is as you’d expect: that it makes sense from the man’s side, no sense at all from the woman’s.
I tried to produce an optimum text in which the reading eye jiggles up and down. I am now editing the verses more heavily still, and introducing a repetition for effect:
Earth’s rich in mines of precious dust
and faithful ones
Since in her bowels rest these Just
whom Nature, Wedlock, Grace did tie
in one fast chain of unity.
Whose silent bones
Dead here do rest, yet left not Earth
but brought four sons to perfect birth
shall flourish here and shall indeed
in fame & state
Triumph o’re Fate:
Because such righteous & their seed
Triumph o’re Fate!
I suppose that the poet wanted you to do something like this, and the point of the poem wasn’t so much sequential sense as an interlacing that paid tribute to two lives lived as one flesh, so we have two poems as one poem.
He (or she) then produced an interlacing of two into one in an anagram that is fairly strict by the generally loose 17th century standards. Again, as a product from their two names, the poet produces an idea of unity, them both partaking equally of glory. I think there’s an A left over from the names, an E from the anagram.
All this reminded me of George Herbert’s poem, ‘The Watercourse’, in that it’s a poem you can’t actually read out loud, but which exists for the eye, as we take in visually those alternatives which can’t be simultaneously pronounced, but which are the rhyme, ‘life’ and ‘strife’, ‘salvation’ and ‘damnation’.
The St Barbe family were Hampshire gentry, perhaps originally from Somerset, but living at Broadlands. How the married couple came to be buried on the same day (2nd Sept 1658) is a minor mystery. Smallpox might have done for them both.
No comments:
Post a Comment