See the Introduction to this presentation of early poems by Edward de Vere. Click here to go to the next poem or the previous poem in the series. All the poems, and a printable pdf version of the entire presentation, may also be accessed from the Introduction. See also Note on Sources, Titles, and Presentation of Parallels, Key to Abbreviations, and Bibliography of Works Cited.
Poem No. 6: “If Care or Skill Could Conquer Vain Desire”
1 If care or skill could conquer vain desire,
2 Or reason’s reins my strong affection stay,
3 Then should my sighs to quiet breast retire,
4 And shun such signs as secret thoughts bewray;
5 Uncomely love, which now lurks in my breast,
6 Should cease my grief, through wisdom’s power oppressed.
7 But who can leave to look on Venus’ face,
8 Or yieldeth not to Juno’s high estate?
9 What wit so wise as gives not Pallas place?
10 These virtues rare each God did yield a mate,
11 Save her alone who yet on earth doth reign,
12 Whose beauty’s string no Gods can well distrain.
13 What worldly wight can hope for heavenly hire
14 When only sighs must make his secret moan?
15 A silent suit doth seld to Grace aspire;
16 My hapless hap doth roll the restless stone;
17 Yet Phoebe fair disdained the heavens above,
18 To joy on earth her poor Endymion’s love.
19 Rare is reward where none can justly crave,
20 For chance is choice where reason makes no claim;
21 Yet luck sometimes despairing souls doth save:
22 A happy star made Gyges joy attain;
23 A slavish smith of rude and rascal race
24 Found means in time to gain a Goddess’ grace.
25 Then lofty Love thy sacred sails advance;
26 My seething seas shall flow with streams of tears.
27 Amidst disdain drive forth my doleful chance;
28 A valiant mind no deadly danger fears.
29 Who loves aloft and sets his heart on high,
30 Deserves no pain, though he do pine and die.
Textual sources: Poems 2 through 9 were first published in The Paradise of Dainty Devices (Richard Edwards ed. 1576). See Hannah (241, text not provided); Grosart (399-400); Looney (1921, 34-35, Miller ed. 1975, 1: 592-93); May (#6) (1980, 29-30, 68-69, 71, 118; 1991, 274-75).
Many of the poems in Paradise (perhaps most of the eight by de Vere) were apparently written as song lyrics to be put to music (see May 1980, 70). Since Edwards, the editor who apparently collected them, died in 1566, they may all date to the 1560s, when de Vere was still a teenager.
Structure: Five six-line stanzas of iambic pentameter rhyming ABABCC.
Looney’s title: “Reason and Affection”
Past commentaries on parallels: Ogburn (588); Sobran (242-43); Brazil & Flues.
Clarifications of the text:
(7) Venus is the Roman goddess of love (Aphrodite to the Greeks), married to Vulcan (see below on lines 23-24).
(8) Juno refers to the Roman goddess, wife of Jupiter and equivalent to the Greek queen of the gods, Hera (wife of Zeus).
(9) The term wit as used here refers to intelligence or mental sharpness, not humor (OED 20: 432-34). Pallas is another name for the Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare, Athena (known to the Romans by the Latin name Minerva).
(13) A wight means a person (who can be male or female), with some connotation of commiseration or contempt (OED 20: 328).
(17) Phoebe is a Greek goddess associated with the moon.
(18) Endymion, in Greek mythology, is a handsome young shepherd or astronomer.
(22) Gyges, in Greek mythology, is a shepherd who seizes the throne of Lydia and is said to possess a magic ring rendering him invisible.
(23-24) The “slavish smith” refers to Vulcan, Roman god of metallurgy and crafts, married to Venus (see above on line 7).
Strongest parallels to No. 6:
(16) My hapless hap doth roll the restless stone
‘giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel—That goddess blind, That stands upon the rolling restless stone’ (Hen. V, 3.6.26-28); cf. ‘I told ye all, When we first put this dangerous stone a-rolling, ’Twould fall upon ourselves’ (Hen. VIII, 5.3.103-05).
(26) My seething seas shall flow with streams of tears
Perhaps most telling is this parallel to Romeo & Juliet:
‘For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is, Sailing in this salt flood’ (R&J, 3.5.133-35).
See also No. 4.16 and Appendix A (discussing salt-sea and sea-salt), and Nos. 12.19 and 18.33 (associating motions of the sea, or objects on the sea, with emotions).
On the general theme of tears and weeping, see also Nos. 3.13, 4.10, 5.12, 9.1, and 17.8-9.
Compare also the following:
‘mine eyes … As from a mountain stream … Shall gush pure streams’ (Lucrece, 1076-78); ‘And round about her tear-distained eye Blue circles streamed’ (Lucrece, 1587-88); ‘My heart is drowned with grief, Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes’ (2 Hen. VI, 3.1.198-99); ‘Fain would I … drain Upon his face an ocean of salt tears’ (2 Hen. VI, 3.2.141-43); ‘just against thy heart make thou a hole, That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall May run into that sink, and soaking in, Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears’ (Titus, 3.2.17-20); cf. ‘my eye shall be the stream’ (Merch., 3.2.46); ‘Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds, Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood’ (Caes., 3.1.200-01).
In Shakespeare, according to Eric Sams (313), noting several references (including those above in Henry VI, Part 2, and Titus Andronicus): “Tears … resemble rivers or the sea in their drowning capacity …. Further, both elements are salt.”
Aside from the parallels, line 26 surely exhibits proto-Shakespearean power and beauty. Instead of the more predictably structured metaphor one might expect (e.g., “my tears flow like the seas” — a model actually followed by two Shakespearean samples above: “mine eyes … gush pure streams” and “drain upon his face an ocean”), the young de Vere deftly inverts his to first suggest seas of emotion within that are revealed through the external sign of tears.
Shakespeare, and originally the young de Vere, may deserve credit for influencing the signature lyric of the extraordinarily popular and durable lute song (“Flow, My Tears”), written after 1596 by John Dowland (1563–1626). That lyric actually seems to connect more directly and strongly to this particular line by de Vere than to any of the Shakespearean samples.
Additional parallels to No. 6:
(1) conquer vain desire
‘Therefore, brave conquerors—for so you are, That war against your own affections And the huge army of the world’s desires’ (LLL, 1.1.8-10).
(2) reason’s reins my strong affection stay
‘curb his heat, or rein his rash desire’ (Lucrece, 706); ‘for now I give my sensual race the rein’ (Meas., 2.4.160); ‘What rein can hold licentious wickedness’ (Hen. V, 3.3.22); ‘he cannot Be reined again to temperance’ (Cor., 3.3.28).
The image, found often in Shakespeare, is of emotion being reined in. The danger posed by emotion is construed in equestrian terms, as if one might relax or tighten the reins.
See also: ‘in all reason, we must stay the time’ (Dream, 5.1.248); ‘Stay yet; hear reason’ (Lear, 5.3.82); ‘Stay, my lord, And let your reason with your choler question’ (Hen. VIII, 1.1.129-30).
(3) to quiet breast retire
‘Into the quiet closure of my breast’ (Venus, 782); cf. ‘Truth hath a quiet breast’ (Rich. II, 1.3.96).
(4) secret thoughts
‘Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought’ (Lucrece, 1065); ‘the history of all her secret thoughts’ (Rich. II, 3.5.28).
On the leitmotif of dissimulation, a suggestive common interest seen in both samples, see also No. 5 (passim) and Nos. 9.2, 10.9-10, 12.16, and 18.40.
(5) Uncomely love, which now lurks in my breast
‘tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts’ (Lucrece, 851).
(6) my grief, through wisdom’s power oppressed
‘To counterfeit oppression of such grief’ (Rich. II, 1.4.14).
(7, 9) Venus’ face … Pallas place?
‘The shrine of Venus, or straight-pight [erect] Minerva’ (Cym., 5.5.164).
There are 33 references to the Roman goddess Venus (Aphrodite to the Greeks) in canonical Shakespeare, along with two to Minerva (one quoted above) and four to the Greek goddess Pallas (Spevack 826, 956, 1425). Minerva is the Roman name of Pallas (also known to the Greeks as Athena).
Interestingly, there are no canonical Shakespearean references (nor by de Vere in the poems studied here) to Aphrodite or Athena. Thus, both de Vere and canonical Shakespeare seem to prefer to refer to Venus (instead of Aphrodite) and to Pallas more than Athena or Minerva (the latter name is also not mentioned in these de Vere poems).
Line 9 is the only reference to Pallas in these de Vere poems; line 7 and No. 20.11 refer directly to Venus (and line 24 indirectly).
Lines 7-10 refer glancingly to the amours of the gods (a common interest of these de Vere poems and Shakespeare), also referenced in lines 17-18 and 23-24, and in Nos. 3.6, 8.6, and 14.31-32.
(9) What wit so wise as gives not Pallas place?
As noted above, wit refers here to intelligence or mental sharpness, not humor. The juxtaposition of wise (176 canonical references) and wit (268) (Spevack 1521, 1523) is typically Shakespearean (though these Shakespearean samples often use wit with a humorous connotation), e.g.:
‘Your wit makes wise things foolish, Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor (LLL, 5.2.95-99); ‘This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; And to do that well craves a kind of wit’ (Twelfth, 3.1.57-58); ‘For though it have holp madmen to their wits, In me it seems it will make wise men mad’ (Rich. II, 5.5.62-63).
See also No. 9.16 (wisest wit), No. 10.12 (wit … will), and No. 18.9 (wily wit).
(13) What worldly wight can hope for heavenly hire
‘My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love’ (LLL, 4.3.64); ‘a heavenly effect in an earthly actor’ (All’s Well, 2.3.23); ‘heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue’ (LLL, 4.2.118); ‘Between this heavenly and this earthly sun’ (Venus, 198); ‘Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces’ (Sonnets, 17.8).
The antithesis between worldly (“earthly”) and heavenly is another pattern found in both samples.
(17-18) Phoebe fair disdained the heavens above, To joy on earth her poor Endymion’s love
‘And the moon sleeps with Endymion’ (Merch., 5.1.109); cf. ‘A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon’ (LLL, 4.2.37).
Phoebe, a Greek goddess associated with the moon, is referred to three times by Shakespeare (Spevack 977). Endymion, as noted above, is a mythological Greek shepherd or astronomer; the only Shakespearean reference to him is quoted above (Spevack 353).
On the amours of the gods (a common interest of these de Vere poems and Shakespeare), see also lines 7-10 and 23-24, and Nos. 3.6, 8.6, and 14.31-32.
(22) A happy star made Gyges joy obtain
‘a happy star Led us to Rome’ (Titus, 4.2.32); cf. ‘my thwarting stars’ (3 Hen. VI, 4.6.22); ‘no comfortable star’ (Lucrece, 164); ‘constant stars’ (Sonnets, 14.1).
Adjectives used to personify stars are common in canonical Shakespeare. The word star (and related variants and compounds) occurs 147 times in the canon (Spevack 1203-04). Variants from de Vere’s letters include “I know not by what unfortunate star” (Fowler 652). Gyges, as noted above, is another mythological Greek shepherd. There is no reference to him in canonical Shakespeare.
(23-24) A slavish smith of rude and rascal race Found means in time to gain a Goddess’ grace
The references are to Vulcan, Roman god of metallurgy and crafts, and his wife Venus (see line 7). Vulcan is referred to six times in canonical Shakespeare (Spevack 1436), e.g.:
‘as like as Vulcan and his wife’ (Troil., 1.3.168).
On the amours of the gods (a common interest of these de Vere poems and Shakespeare), see also lines 7-10 and 17-18, and Nos. 3.6, 8.6, and 14.31-32.
(29-30) Who loves aloft and sets his heart on high, Deserves no pain, though he do pine and die
‘To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die’ (LLL, 1.1.31).
Continue to Poem No. 7, return to Poem No. 5, or return to the Introduction.
[published June 22, 2018, updated 2021]
