Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature Tudor Rose Michael Drayton

Renaissance English Literature | Michael Drayton | Biography | Works | Essays | Resources | Bookstore | Search

Medieval

Renaissance

Seventeenth Century

Eighteenth Century

Encyclopedia



 

Works of Michael Drayton

Engraving of the effigy of Robert, Duke of Normandy, called 'Curthose' in the presbytery of Gloucester Cathedral. c1677.

 An Excerpt from
 Michael Drayton's

Excerpt from 'Robert, Duke of Normandy'

10

Betwixt two Ladies came a goodly Knight,
As newly brought from some distresfull place,
Itseem'd to mee he was some noble wight,
Though his attyre were miserable and base,
    And care made furrowes in his manly face :
And though cold age had frosted his faire haires,
It rather seem'd for sorrow then for yeares.

11

The one a princely Lady did support
This feeble Image which coulde scarcly stand :
The other, fleering in disdainfull sort,
With scornefull jesture drew him by the hand,
    Who being blind, yet bound with many a band.
At length, I found this proude disdainefull Dame
Was F O R TU N E, and the other, glorious F A M E.

12

F A M E on his right hand, in a robe of gold,
Whose stately trayne, Time as her Page did beare,
On which, for rich embrawdery was enrold,
The deedes of all the Worthies ever were,
    So strongly wrought, as wrong could not empeire,
Whose large memorialls shee did still rehearse,
In Poets man-immortalizing verse.

13

Two Tables on her goodly breast shee bore,
The one of Christall, th'other Ebony,
Engrav'd with names of all that liv'd before
That ; the faire booke of heavenly memory,
    Th'other, the black scrowle of infamy :
One stuffd with Poets, Saints, & Conquerers,
Th 'other with Atheists, Tyrants, Usurers.

14

And in her words appeared as a wonder,
Her during force, and never-failing might,
Which softly spake, farre of were as a thunder,
And round about the world wold take their flight,
    And bring the most obscurest things to light ;
That still the farther of, the greater still
Did ever sound our good, or make our ill.

15

Fortune, as blinde as he whom she doth leade,
Her feature chang'd each minute of the hower,
Her riggish feet fantastickly would tread,
Now would shee smile, & suddainly would lower,
    And with one breth, her words were sweet & sower.
Upon her foes, she amorously would glaunce,
And on her followers, coylie looke a scaunce.

16

About her necke, (it seem'd as for a chaine)
Some Princes crownes & broken scepters hong,
Upon her arme a lazie youth did leane,
Which scornfully unto the ground shee flong ;
    And with a wanton grace passing along,
Great bags of gold from out her bosome drew,
And to base Pesants and fond Ideots threw.

17

A dusky vaile which hid her sightles eyes,
Like clowds, which cover our uncertaine lives,
Painted about with bloody Tragedies,
Fooles wearing crownes, & wisemen clogd in gives,
    Now, how she gives, againe, how she deprives ;
In this black Map thus shee her might discovers,
In Campes, and Courts, on soldiers, kings, & lovers.

18

An easie rysing little banck there was,
The seate fayre F L O R A somtime sat upon,
Curling her locks in lovely Isis glasse,
To revell in the Springs pavilion,
    Here was her court, and this her princely throne ;
Here set they downe this poore distressed man,
And in this sort proude Fortune first began.





Source:
Drayton, Michael. The Works of Michael Drayton. Volume I.
J. William Hebel, ed. Oxford: Shakespeare Head Press, 1931. 255-257.




Backto the Works of Michael Drayton

Site copyright ©1996-2022 Anniina Jokinen. All Rights Reserved.
Created by Anniina Jokinen on November 7, 1998. Last updated on August 9, 2022.


 



The Tudors

King Henry VII
Elizabeth of York

King Henry VIII
Queen Catherine of Aragon
Queen Anne Boleyn
Queen Jane Seymour
Queen Anne of Cleves
Queen Catherine Howard
Queen Katherine Parr

King Edward VI
Lady Jane Grey
Queen Mary I
Queen Elizabeth I


Renaissance English Writers
Bishop John Fisher
William Tyndale
Sir Thomas More
John Heywood
Thomas Sackville
John Bale
Nicholas Udall
John Skelton
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Henry Howard
Hugh Latimer
Thomas Cranmer
Roger Ascham
Sir Thomas Hoby
John Foxe
George Gascoigne
John Lyly
Thomas Nashe
Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
Richard Hooker
Robert Southwell
Robert Greene
George Peele
Thomas Kyd
Edward de Vere
Christopher Marlowe
Anthony Munday
Sir Walter Ralegh
Thomas Hariot
Thomas Campion
Mary Sidney Herbert
Sir John Davies
Samuel Daniel
Michael Drayton
Fulke Greville
Emilia Lanyer
William Shakespeare


Persons of Interest
Visit Encyclopedia


Historical Events
Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520
Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536
The Babington Plot, 1586
The Spanish Armada, 1588


Elizabethan Theatre
See section
English Renaissance Drama


Images of London:
London in the time of Henry VII. MS. Roy. 16 F. ii.
London, 1510, the earliest view in print
Map of England from Saxton's Descriptio Angliae, 1579
Location Map of Elizabethan London
Plan of the Bankside, Southwark, in Shakespeare's time
Detail of Norden's Map of the Bankside, 1593
Bull and Bear Baiting Rings from the Agas Map (1569-1590, pub. 1631)
Sketch of the Swan Theatre, c. 1596
Westminster in the Seventeenth Century, by Hollar
Visscher's Panoramic View of London, 1616. COLOR



Search | Luminarium | Encyclopedia | What's New | Letter from the Editor | Bookstore | Poster Store | Discussion Forums