Hausschatz englischer Poesie

Die

gabe seiner sämmtlichen Werke ist die von Todd besorgte, London 1806, 8 Bde. in 8.
Faerie queene ward oft besonders aufgelegt; die beste Ausgabe erschien London 1751, 3 Bde. in 4.
Es ist ein romantisches allegorisirendes Epos, dessen Inhalt der Dichter dem Sagenkreise des
Königs Arthur entlehnte.

Under that porch a comely dame did rest Clad in fayre weedes but fowle disordered,

So she to Guyon offred it to tast;
Who, taking it out of her tender hond,
The cup to ground did violently cast,
That all in peeces it was broken fond,
And with the liquor stained all the lond:
Whereat Excesse exceedinly was wroth,
Yet no'te the same amend, ne yet withstond,
But suffered him to passe, all were she loth;
Who, nought regarding her displeasure, forward
goth.

There the most daintie paradise on ground
Itselfe doth offer to his sober eye,
In which all pleasures plenteously abownd,
And none does others happinesse envye;
The painted flowres; the trees upshooting hye;
The dales for shade; the hilles for breathing

space;

The trembling groves; the christall running by; And, that which all faire workes doth most aggrace, The art, which all that wrought appeared in no place.

One would have thought (so cunningly the rude
And scorned partes were mingled with the fine),
That Nature had for wantonesse ensude
Art, and that Art at Nature did repine;
So striving each th' other to undermine,
Each did the others worke more beautify;
So diff`ring both in willes agreed in fine;
So all agreed, through sweete diversity,
This gardin to adorne with all variety.

And garments loose that seemd unmeet for And in the midst of all a fountaine stood,

womanhed:

In her left hand a cup of gold she held,
And with her right the riper fruit did reach,
Whose sappy liquor, that with fulnesse sweld,
Into her cup she scruzd with daintie breach
Of her fine fingers, without fowle empeach,
That so faire winepresse made the wine more]

sweet:

Of richest substance that on Earth might bee,
So pure and shiny that the silver flood
Through every channell running one might see;
Most goodly it with curious ymageree
Was over-wrought, and shapes of naked boyes,
Of which some seemd with lively jollitee
To fly about, playing their wanton toyes,
Whylest others did themselves embay in liquid
joyes.

And over all of purest gold was spred A trayle of yvie in his native hew:

Thereof she usd to give to drinke to each,
Whom passing by she happened to meet:
It was her guise all straungers goodly so to For the rich metall was so coloured,

Would surely deeme it to bee yvie trew;
Low his lascivious armes adown did creepe,
That themselves dipping in the silver dew
Their fleecy flowres they fearefully did steepe,
Which drops of christall seemd for wantones to

weep.

Infinit streames continually did well

Out of this fountaine, sweet and faire to see,
The which into an ample laver fell,
And shortly grew to so great quantitie,
That like a litle lake it seemd to bee,
Whose depth exceeded not three cubits hight,
That through the waves one might the bottom
see,

All pav'd beneath with jaspar shining bright,' That seemd the fountaine in that sea did sayle upright.

And all the margent round about was sett
With shady laurell trees, thence to defend
The sunny beames which on the billowes bett,
And those which therein bathed mote offend.
As Guyon hapned by the same to wend,
Two naked damzelles he therein espyde,

Which therein bathing seemed to contend
And wrestle wantonly, ne car'd to hyde

Such seemed they, and so their yellow heare
Christalline humor dropped downe apace.
Whom such when Guyon saw, he drew him
neare,

And somewhat gan relent his earnest pace;
His stubborne brest gan secret pleasaunce to

embrace.

The wanton maidens him espying, stood
Gazing awhile at his unwonted guise;
Then th' one herselfe low ducked in the flood,
Abasht that her a straunger did avise:
But th' other rather higher did arise
And her two lilly paps aloft displayd,
And all, that might his melting hart entyse
To her delights, she unto him bewrayd;
The rest, hidd underneath, him more desirous
made.

With that the other likewise up arose, And her faire lockes, which formerly were bownd

Up in one knott, she low adowne did lose, Which flowing long and thick her cloth'd arownd,

And th' yvorie in golden mantle gownd:

Their dainty partes from vew of any which them So that faire spectacle from him was reft,

eyd.

Sometimes the one would lift the other quight Above the waters, and then downe againe

Her plong, as over-maystered by might,

Where both awhile would covered remaine,

And each the other from to rise restraine;

Yet that which reft it no lesse faire was fownd:

So hidd in lockes and waves from lookers theft, Nought but her lovely face she for his looking left.

The whiles their snowy limbes, as through a Withall she laughed, and she blusht withall,

vele,

So through the christall waves appeared plaine: Then suddeinly both would themselves unhele, And th' amorous sweet spoiles to greedy eyes revele.

As that faire starre, the messenger of morne,
His deawy face out of the sea doth reare:
Or as the Cyprian goddesse, newly borne

Of th' ocean's fruitfull froth, did first appeare:

That blushing to her laughter gave more grace,
And laughter to her blushing, as did fall.
Now when they spyde the knight to slacke his
pace

Them to behold, and in his sparkling face
The secrete signs of kindled lust appeare,
Their wanton merriments they did encreace,
And to him beckned to approch more neare,
And shewd him many sights that corage cold

could reare.

Sidney.

Einer der grossartigsten und ausgezeichnetsten Männer der bedeutenden Zeit, der er angehörte, ward Sir Philipp Sidney am 20. November 1554 zu Penshurst in Kent geboren, studirte noch sehr jung in Oxford und machte dann eine grosse Raise durch Europa. Bei seiner Rückkehr vermählte er sich, aber seine Gattin, so schön sie auch sein mochte, war nicht die Dame seines Herzens, dies gehörte der Lady Penelope Devereux (der Philoclea seines Arkadiens und der Stella seines Astrophel) welche Familienrücksichten ihm verwehrt hatten als Gemahlin heimzuführen. Die Königin Elisabeth schenkte ihm schon früh ihre Gunst und Sidney zeigte sich als tapferer Krieger wie als umsichtiger Staatsmann derselben fortwährend im höchsten Grade würdig. Er starb an einer, bei der Schlacht von Zütphen am 22. September 1586 erhaltenen tödtlichen Wunde und wurde mit grosser Pracht in der St. Paulskirche zu London beigesetzt.

Sidney hinterliess einen mit Versen untermischten Schäferroman, Arkadia, eine zusammenhängende Reihe von Sonetten, Astrophel and Stella betitelt, viele kleinere, besonders lyrische Gedichte und einige prosaische Schriften. Die beste Ausgabe seiner sämmtlichen Werke ist die vierzehnte, London 1725, 3 Bde. in 8. — Eine ausführliche Biographie des vortrefflichen Mannes lieferte Th. Zouch, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Ph. S. York 1809. 1 Bd. in 4.

Als Dichter zeichnet er sich durch Eleganz, Zartheit, Gedankenreichthum, Phantasie und tiefes Gefühl, so wie durch Herrschaft über Form und Sprache sehr ehrenvoll aus; doch ist er auch nicht frei von dem herrschenden Geschmack seiner Zeit und sein Bestreben das Klassische mit dem Romantischen zu verbinden, führte ihn mitunter zu Verirrungen. Dahin gehört z. B. sein Versuch, englische Hexameter und Alexandriner zu bilden, den man als gänzlich misglückt betrachten muss. Unter seinen kleinen Liedern findet sich dagegen mehr als ein Meisterwerk.

Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.

Dieser ausgezeichnete Staatsmann, ein Liebling der Königin Elisabeth und Jakob's I. ward 1554 zu Alcaster in Warwickshire geboren, studirte zu Oxford und Cambridge und trat dann in Staatsdienste, in welchen er bis zum Staatskanzler und Pair emporstieg. Er starb am 30. September 1628, von einem seiner Diener, wahrscheinlich in einem Anfall von Wahnsinn, erstochen.

Ausser mehreren didactischen Gedichten hinterliess Lord Brooke zwei Trauerspiele: Alaham und Mustapha, welche ihn als Dichter am Längsten im Andenken der Nachwelt erhalten haben. Er war ein Mann von seltenen Fähigkeiten, aber der Verstand hatte bei Allem, was er that und schrieb, die Oberhand; was ein Poet durch geschickte Combination erreichen kann, das hat er, die Rücksicht auf seine Zeit nicht unbeachtet gelassen, erreicht, aber, allen seinen Leistungen fehlt der warme, lebendige Odem der Begeisterung und des Gefühls; sie, selbst die Trauerspiele, sind Untersuchungen und Abhandlungen in Versen, bei denen man den Scharfsinn des Verfassers bewundert, ohne vom Inhalt ergriffen zu werden.

Scene from Mustapha.
A Tragedy.

By Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.

(Rossa, Wife to Solyman the Turkish Emperor, persuades her Husband, that Mustapha, his Son by a former Marriage, and Heir to his crown, seeks his

While I see who conspire, I seem conspired
Against a husband, father, and a mother.
Truth bids me run, by truth I am retired;
Shame leads me both the one way, and the other.
In what a labyrinth is honour cast,

Drawn divers ways with sex, with time, with state, life that she may make way, by the death of Musta- In all which, error's course is infinite,

pha, for the advancement of her own children, Zanger By hope, by fear, by spite, by love, and hate; and Camena. Camena the virtuous Daughter of Rossa And but one only way unto the right, defends the Innocence of Mustapha in a Conference which she holds with the Emperor.)

Camena. Solyman.

A thorny way, where pain must be the guide,
Danger the light, offence of power the praise:
Such are the golden hopes of iron days.

Cam. They that from youth do suck at for- Yet virtue, I am thine, for thy sake grieved

tune's breast,

And nurse their empty hearts with seeking higher,
Like dropsy - fed, their thirst doth never rest;
For still, by getting, they beget desire:
Till thaughts, like wood, while they maintain
the flame

Of high desires, grow ashes in the same.
But virtue! those that can behold thy beauties,
Those that suck, from their youth, thy milk of

goodness,
fortune,

(Since basest thoughts, for their ill-plac'd desires,
In shame, in danger, death and torment, glory),
That I cannot with more pains write thy story.
Chance, therefore, if thou scornest those that
scorn thee;

Fame, if thou hatest those that force thy trumpet
To sound aloud, and yet despise thy sounding;
Laws, if you love not those that be examples
Of nature's laws, whence you are fall'n corrupted;
Conspire that I, against you all conspired,

Their minds grow strong against the storms of Joined with tyrant virtue, as you call her,

And stand, like rocks in winter-gusts, unshaken;
Not with the blindness of desire mistaken.
O virtue therefore! whose thrall I think fortune,
Thou who despisest not the sex of women,
Help me out of these riddles of my fortune,
Wherein (methinks) you with yourself do pose me:
Let fates go on: sweet virtue! do not lose me.
My mother and my husband have conspired,
For brother's good, the ruin of my brother:
My father by my mother is inspired,
For one child to seek ruin of another.

I that to help by nature am required,

That I, by your revenges may be named,
For virtue, to be ruin'd, and defamed.
My mother oft and diversly I warned,
What fortunes were upon such courses builded:
That fortune still must be with ill maintained,
Which at the first with any ill is gained.

I Rosten warn'd, that man's self-loving thought
Still creepeth to the rude - embracing might
Of princes' grace: a lease of glories let,
Which shining burns; beeds serenes when 'tis set.
And, by this creature of my mother's making,
This messenger, I Mustapha have warn'd,
That innocence is not enough to save,

While I do help, must needs still hurt a brother. Where good and greatness, fear and envy have.

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Hausschatz englischer Poesie: Auswahl aus den Werken der bedeutendsten ...