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. 9: “The Trickling Tears That Fall Along My Cheeks”
1 The trickling tears that fall along my cheeks,
2 The secret sighs that show my inward grief,
3 The present pains perforce that love ay seeks,
4 Bid me renew my cares without relief
5 In woeful song, in dole display,
6 My pensive heart for to bewray.
7 Bewray thy grief, thou woeful heart, with speed,
8 Resign thy voice to her that caused thy woe;
9 With irksome cries bewail thy late-done deed,
10 For she thou lovest is sure thy mortal foe,
11 And help for thee there is none sure,
12 But still in pain thou must endure.
13 The stricken Deer hath help to heal his wound,
14 The haggard hawk with toil is made full tame,
15 The strongest tower the Cannon lays on ground,
16 The wisest wit that ever had the fame
17 Was thrall to Love by Cupid’s sleights;
18 Then weigh my case with equal weights.
19 She is my joy, she is my care and woe,
20 She is my pain, she is my ease therefor,
21 She is my death, she is my life also,
22 She is my salve, she is my wounded sore;
23 In fine, she hath the hand and knife
24 That may both save and end my life.
25 And shall I live on earth to be her thrall?
26 And shall I sue and serve her all in vain?
27 And shall I kiss the steps that she lets fall?
28 And shall I pray the gods to keep the pain
29 From her, that is so cruel still?
30 No, no, on her work all your will.
31 And let her feel the power of all your might,
32 And let her have her most desire with speed,
33 And let her pine away both day and night,
34 And let her moan, and none lament her need,
35 And let all those that shall her see
36 Despise her state, and pity me.
Textual sources:
Poems 2 through 9 were first published in The Paradise of Dainty Devices (Richard Edwards ed. 1576). See Hannah (242, text not provided); Grosart (394-95); Looney (1921, 25-26, Miller ed. 1975, 1: 583-84); May (#9) (1980, 31-32, 68-69, 73, 118; 1991, 276-77).
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: Six stanzas of six lines rhyming ABABCC, each stanza containing four lines of iambic pentameter and two lines of iambic tetrameter.
Looney’s title: “Love and Antagonism”
Past commentaries on parallels: Looney (1920, 139-40, 153-56, 161, 163-64); Sobran (244-47); Brazil & Flues; May (2004, 223-24, 228); Goldstein (2016, 63); Eagan-Donovan.
Clarifications of the text:
(1-2, 4) The spellings of fall, show, and Bid are corrected from the original tears that falls, sighs that shows, and Bids me renew, consistently with our general approach to modernizing spelling (see Note on Sources, Titles, and Presentation of Parallels); the grammatical mismatches (according to modern usage) would likely trip up most readers.
(14) A haggard (a term of art in falconry) refers to a wild adult hawk (typically female) caught for training; it is thus mainly a noun in this context (not to be confused with the adjective indicating an exhausted appearance) (OED 6: 1013).
(16) The term wit as used here refers to intelligence or mental sharpness, not humor (OED 20: 432-34).
(17) Cupid, in classical mythology, is the god of love and desire. His sleights refers to his use of cunning or deception.
(20) The spelling of therefor is modernized from therefore, again consistently with our general approach to spelling, and also with the meaning here, which is not “therefore” as in modern usage (“for that reason” or “it follows that”), but rather, simply “for (something)” (i.e., she is the poet’s ease … for his pain; the very point seems to be to highlight this as a paradox, not what one would expect “therefore” to follow) (OED 17: 909).
Strongest parallels to No. 9:
(14) The haggard hawk with toil is made full tame
‘My falcon now is sharp and passing empty, And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged, For then she never looks upon her lure. Another way I have to man my haggard, To make her come and know her keeper’s call’ (Shrew, 4.1.177-81); cf. ‘If I do prove her haggard, Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings, I’d whistle her off and let her down the wind To prey at fortune’ (Oth., 3.3.260-63); ‘I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock’ (Much, 3.1.35-36).
Note that line 14 is explicitly echoed by the very title of The Taming of the Shrew. See also No. 19, lines 9 (like haggards wild they [women] range) and 15 (train them [women] to our lure). See the Introduction (Evaluating the Poetic Parallels) for more discussion.
Falconry was a distinctly aristocratic sport and status symbol in medieval and early modern Europe (and other parts of the world). In early English falconry literature, hawk, haggard, and “falcon” usually refer to females (a male hawk is known to falconers as a “tiercel”). A haggard, as noted above, refers to a wild adult hawk caught for training.
The haggard hawk in line 14 thus suggestively represents her that caused thy (the poet’s woeful heart’s) woe (lines 7-8) and she thou lovest (line 10), whom lines 30-36 urge the lovelorn male to tame. But in an interesting duality, other lines, e.g., 8 (Resign thy voice to her) and 12 (still in pain thou must endure), suggest that haggard hawk may also refer to the lovelorn poet himself (made full tame by his female love).
Such gender-bending is very typically Shakespearean. Indeed, a fourth canonical Shakespeare reference to haggard explicitly uses it as a metaphor for male behavior:
‘This fellow is wise enough to play the fool … And like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye’ (Twelfth, 3.1.58, 62-63).
There are at least five canonical Shakespearean references altogether to haggards (Spevack 528) — the four quoted above, plus another in Shrew. There is also a sixth passage which, though not referring to a haggard, flips the expected gender roles (as in Twelfth Night) to depict Juliet as a falconer trying to lure a flighty Romeo (see Looney 1920, 163-64):
‘this proud disdainful haggard’ (Shrew, 4.2.39); ‘[Juliet:] Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falc’ner’s voice To lure this tassel-gentle back again!’ (R&J, 2.2.159-60).
Beyond all those is a seventh reference in Edward III, which many scholars now view as a canonical Shakespeare play. It explicitly refers to a female haggard, but again (as in Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet) deploys the term as a metaphor for male behavior:
‘[King Edward:] dare a falcon when she’s in her flight And ever after she’ll be haggard-like. Let [Prince] Edward be delivered by our hands And still in danger he’ll expect the like’ (Edw. III, 8.46-49, Proudfoot & Bennett 275).
Update: Though Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece do not appear to expressly mention “haggards,” it is noteworthy, as discussed by Whittemore (57-58), that both of those epic Shakespearean poems also deploy vivid falconry metaphors. ‘As falcons to the lure, away she flies’ (Venus, 1027); ‘[Tarquin] shakes aloft his Roman blade, Which, like a falcon tow’ring in the skies, Coucheth the fowl below with his wings’ shade, Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies’ (Lucrece, 505-08). See also No. 19.9.
(15) The strongest tower the Cannon lays on ground
‘Who in a moment even with the earth Shall lay your stately and air-braving towers’ (1 Hen. VI, 4.2.12); ‘When sometime lofty towers I see down rased’ (Sonnets, 64.3); cf. ‘the teeming [i.e., quaking] earth … topples down Steeples and mossgrown towers’ (1 Hen. IV, 3.1.28, 32-33); ‘the king’s name is a tower of strength’ (Rich. III, 5.3.12).
See also, in “When as Thine Eye” (additional parallels to line 13 below): “The strongest castle, tower, and towne The golden bullet beats it down.”
(18) weigh my case with equal weights
‘I have in equal balance justly weighed’ (2 Hen. IV, 4.1.67); cf. ‘Commit my cause in balance to be weighed’ (Titus, 1.1.55); ‘Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh. Your vows to her and me, put in two scales, Will even weigh’ (Dream, 3.2.131-33); ‘equalities are so weighed’ (Lear, 1.1.6); ‘In equal scale weighing delight and dole’ (Ham., 1.2.13).
This strikingly Shakespearean sentiment of equipoised justice becomes, of course, the title and theme of an entire canonical play, Measure for Measure. See, e.g.:
‘you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale’ (Meas., 4.2.26-27).
(34-36) And let her moan, and none lament her need,
And let all those that shall her see
Despise her state, and pity me
Compare Lucrece:
Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
Let him have time against himself to rave,
Let him have time of Time’s help to despair,
Let him have time to live a loathed slave,
Let him have time a beggar’s orts to crave,
And time to see one that by alms doth live
Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.
(981-87)
The parallel above was first explored by Looney (1920, 155-56; 1921, Miller ed. 1975, 1: 584), and further discussed by Sobran in 1997 (246-47) and Eagan-Donovan in 2017.
Compare especially these eight words in line 34 — let her moan, and none lament her need — with the following eight words in Lucrece:
‘make him moan, but pity not his moans’ (Lucrece, 977).
Note the identical comma placement after the first three words, let/make her/him moan, which we double-checked to make sure the original versions were not affected by modern emendation or harmonization of punctuation — as to No. 9, May 1980, 32, 68-69; 1991, 277; as to Lucrece, a facsimile of the original 1594 edition.
Additional parallels to No. 9:
(1) The trickling tears that fall along my cheeks
‘tears fret channels in her cheeks’ (Lear, 1.4.285); ‘Weep not, sweet queen; for trickling tears are vain’ (1 Hen. IV, 2.4.391).
Tears and cheeks often occur together in Shakespeare. On trickling tears, see also No. 3.13. On the broader theme of tears and weeping, see also Nos. 4.10, 5.12, 6.26, and 17.8-9.
(2) The secret sighs that show my inward grief
‘my grief lies all within’ (Rich. II, 4.1.295); ‘A plague of sighing and grief!’ (1 Hen. IV, 2.4.332); ‘Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly’ (Much, 3.1.78).
On the broader theme of tears and sighs (linked by lines 1-2), see also No. 17.8-9. Line 2 is a strong example of the topos of emotional dissimulation.
On the leitmotif of dissimulation, a suggestive common interest seen in both samples, see also No. 5 (passim) and Nos. 6.4, 10.9-10, 12.16, and 18.40.
(3) present pains
‘put me to present pain’ (Per., 5.1.222); ‘Tis good for men to love their present pains’ (Hen. V, 4.1.18).
(4) Bid me renew my cares without relief
‘And by her presence still renew his sorrows’ (Titus, 5.3.82).
(10) thy mortal foe
‘I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe’ (3 Hen. VI, 5.1.94); cf. ‘But I return his sworn and mortal foe’ (3 Hen. VI, 3.3.257).
(13) The stricken Deer hath help to heal his wound
‘Why, let the stricken deer go weep’ (Ham., 3.2.287); ‘My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds’ (3 Hen. VI, 14.8.41).
Language very similar to this line is found in the “apocryphal” Shakespeare poem, “When as Thine Eye Had Chose the Dame” (Rollins 1938, 308-09) (e.g., “and stalde the deare that thou shouldst strike”). The earliest text of “When as Thine Eye” is the Cornwallis manuscript (Folger 1.112, c. 1585–90), with a spine labeled “Poems by the Earl of Oxford and Others.” Among the 33 poems contained in the manuscript are de Vere’s “echo” verses (No. 17) and a number of anonymous poems, some in the handwriting of King’s men actor John Bentley, who died in 1585 (see Miller, “Cornwallis”).
(16-17, 25) The wisest wit …
Was thrall to Love by Cupid’s sleights;
…
And shall I live on earth to be her thrall?
‘How love makes young men thrall, and old men dote’ (Venus, 837); cf. ‘my mistress’ thrall’ (Sonnets, 154.12). See also No. 6.9 (wit so wise), No. 10.12 (wit … will), and No. 18.9 (wily wit).
(19) She is my joy, she is my care and woe
‘Your tributary drops belong to woe, Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy’ (R&J, 3.2.103).
(20) She is my pain, she is my ease therefor
‘Give physic to the sick, ease to the pained’ (Lucrece, 901).
(21) She is my death, she is my life also
‘Showing life’s triumph in the map of death … life lived in death, and death in life’ (Lucrece, 402, 406); ‘life imprisoned in a body dead’ (Lucrece, 1456); ‘Yet in this life Lie hid more thousand deaths’ (Meas., 3.1.39); ‘seeking death, find life’ (Meas., 3.1.44); ‘That life is better life, past fearing death’ (Meas., 5.1.397).
(22) She is my salve, she is my wounded sore
‘To see the salve doth make the wound ache more’ (Lucrece, 1116); ‘A salve for any sore that may betide’ (3 Hen. VI, 4.6.88); ‘salve The long-grown wounds of my intemperance’ (1 Hen. IV, 3.2.155-56); ‘For no man well of such a salve can speak That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace’ (Sonnets, 34.7-8); ‘The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits!’ (Sonnets, 120.12).
See also No. 5.29-30 (So long to fight with secret sore, And find no secret salve therefor) and No. 18.9 (No wily wit to salve a sore).
The salve … sore motif (like some others) was echoed by some other Elizabethan poets and these parallels may not be that telling in and of themselves (see May 2004, 229), but as with many of the additional parallels noted, much of their significance is in the overall cumulative context.
(25-30) And shall I live on earth to be her thrall?
And shall I sue and serve her all in vain?
And shall I kiss the steps that she lets fall?
And shall I pray the gods to keep the pain
From her, that is so cruel still?
No, no, on her work all your will
Looney (1920, 153-54) pointed out structural similarities between these lines and passages in Henry VI, Part 3, and Lucrece. May (2004, 228) dismissed this point without fully engaging Looney’s argument or quoting the Shakespearean parallels:
Did I forget that by the House of York
My father came untimely to his death?
Did I let pass th’ abuse done to my niece?
Did I impale him with the regal crown?
Did I put Henry from his native right?
And am I guerdoned [i.e., rewarded] at the last with shame?
(3 Hen. VI, 3.3.186-91)
What’s worse than murderer, that I may name it?
No, no, my heart will burst an if I speak.
(3 Hen. VI, 5.5.58-59)
Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrow’s nests?
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?
Or kings be breakers of their own behests?
But no perfection is so absolute
That some impurity doth not pollute.
(Lucrece, 848-54)
(31) let her feel the power of all your might
‘O, from what power hast thou this powerful might’ (Sonnets, 150.1).
(32) let her have her most desire
‘There is a vice that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice’ (Meas., 2.2.29-30); cf. ‘our most just and right desires’ (2 Hen. IV, 4.2.40).
(33) let her pine away
‘There I’ll pine away’ (Rich. II, 3.2.209); ‘the fool hath much pined away’ (Lear, 1.4.71).
(36) pity me
Looney noted “the recurrence of what seems … a curious appeal for pity” (1920, 161) in these de Vere poems and the works of Shakespeare. The word pity (including variants) appears more than 300 times in the Shakespeare canon (Spevack 980-81). In addition to line 36, see No. 3.7 (the less she pities me) and No. 17.8 (some pity in the rocks), and compare, e.g.:
‘Melt at my tears, and be compassionate; Soft pity enters at an iron gate’ (Lucrece, 593); ‘This you should pity rather than despise’ (Dream, 3.2.235); ‘May move your hearts to pity’ (Rich. III, 1.3.348); ‘Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes’ (Rich. III, 4.1.98); ‘Pity me then’ (Sonnets, 111.8, 13); ‘Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me … And suit thy pity like in every part’ (Sonnets, 132.1, 12); ‘my pity-wanting pain’ (Sonnets, 140.4).
Continue to Poem No. 10, return to Poem No. 8, or return to the Introduction.
[published June 22, 2018, updated 2021]
