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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The Shepheards Sirena, together with the Quest of Cynthia and the Nymphidia, was published in 1627. It is a conventional pastoral, in which is described the rueful condition of the shepherd Dorilus, who is pining over the separation from his beloved nymph, Sirena. While musing upon her absence, he reads a letter of Sirena's, in which she counsels him not to come to her, despite her sore affliction, because the ‘wilde waters’ which separate them would make it extremely hazardous. After reading the letter, Dorilus soliloquizes on his future course of action. While thus occupied, his fellow-shepherds gather round him and sing him one of the songs which he had once sent Sirena, when she lived near the Trent. Instead of driving his care away, the song makes him even more wretched, and he thereupon upbraids his companions for thus mocking his woe. At this juncture, a boisterous swain soundly reproves him for wasting his energies in lamenting the absence of his love, when the call of duty demands that he devote himself to more worthy pursuits. His companion reminds him that it is high time to withstand the inroads of the swineherds. In response to this stirring appeal, Dorilus joins his fellow-shepherds.
1 This name may have been suggested by the Dorylaus of Sidney's Arcadia.
2 Likewise, the interpolation of a song in the middle of a pastoral is not only characteristic of bucolic poetry in general, but of Drayton's former pastorals in particular.
3 See Morley, Barons' Wars etc., p. 8: 'We may understand the peril of the Shepherd's Sirena to whom her lover can go over only by his giving his life to save hers.' Morley then quotes lines 109-12 of the poem. 'We may understand why his fellow-shepherds, fellow-poets, warn him to be up and doing.' Morley then quotes lines 354-9. Also see Brett, Minor Poems of Michael Drayton, p. 19: “The Shepheards Sirena is a poem, apparently, 'where more is meant than meets the ear,' as so often in pastoral poetry; it is difficult to see exactly what is meant; but the Jacobean strain of doubt and fear is there, and the poem would seem to have been written some time earlier than 1627.”
4 An analogous situation, which may account for this departure from the conventional eclogue, occurs in the Sixth Elegy of Ovid's Third Book of the A mores. In this poem, the poet rails against a wild, tempestuous river which obstructs his journey to his mistress. It is possible that Drayton had a reminiscence of this situation in mind.
5 See Gaspary, Gesch. der Italien Litteratur I. 431 ff.
6 I. 18.
7 Such as Chambers, Bullen, Beeching, and Elton.
8 This attitude of many court poets, however, does not seem to have characterized the Jacobean wits alone; Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poesie (1589 Arber's Rpt. p. 37), calls attention to the same condition: ‘It is so come to passe that they (the nobility) have no courage to write, and if they have, yet are they loath to be a knowen of their skill. So as I know very many notable Gentlemen in the Court that have written commendably, and suppressed it agayne, or els suffred it to be publisht without their owne names to it: as if it were a discredit for a Gentleman to seeme learned, and to shew himself amorous of any good Art.‘
9 Cf. The Poetry of George Wither, ed. F. Sidgwich, Introd., p. 29.
10 xiii. 184-93.
11 Cf. Spenser, Mother Hubberds Tale 689ff. This may, of course, be considered a mere echo of the Spenserian tradition.
12 vv. 29-32.
13 vv. 867-70.
14 vv. 1001-04.
15 Drayton was much embittered by the reception of his Polyolbion. Cf. the dedication of the poems of 1627.
16 For a discussion of the probable dates of the Satyres, see Grierson, The Poems of John Donne II. 100-5.
17 Sat. ii, 17.
18 Cf. H. J. C. Grierson, The Poems of John Donne II. 102.
19 It is commonly said (a notion which, I think, is traceable to Gifford) that Donne was a member of that brilliant company of wits which met at the Mermaid Tavern. For this assumption, I have been unable to find any evidence. It is most unlikely that Donne, the founder of a new school of poetry which sought to overthrow the authority of the old poets, should deliberately seek them out at their favorite meeting-place.
20 The fact that this dedication was not deleted till 1619 lessens the probability that Drayton ever had a serious and permanent rupture with the Countess.
21 Drayton wrote for Henslowe's company during these years (1598-1605), not merely in the hope of fame, but also for lack of funds.
22 Against such a supposition, one may allege that the Barons' Wars is so thoroughly revised that it may be considered an entirely new work, and that no offense was intended by Drayton in dedicating it to another patron.
23 These last words might be taken to mean that certain satirists had wronged Drayton.
24 Toward the end of the Eclogue, Drayton compliments some ladies under pastoral names, but sufficient details are given concerning their residence to obviate the possibility that any of the names might shadow the Countess of Bedford. The satire on Selena was withdrawn in the next edition of 1619. That on Olcon, however, remained.
25 This hypothesis is, of course, open to the objection, if we consider it probable that Drayton signified Donne under the guise of ‘angry Olcon’ in the Shepheards Sirena, that he would be more likely to satirize the same person under the same name in both poems. It is barely possible that Drayton was envious of Jonson at this time. Olcon may have shadowed him.
26 See Merrill, Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, p. 42: ‘Sir: Every Tuesday I make account that I turn a great hour-glass, and consider that a week's life is run out since I writ.‘
27 Another possible argument against this opinion appears in a letter written by Donne between 1608 and 1610. In this letter, it appears that the Countess was so intimate with Donne that she had composed some verses upon him. Requesting her to send them to him upon the promise of secrecy, he writes: ‘If I should confess a fault in the boldness of asking them, or make a fault by doing it in a longer letter, your Ladyship might use your style and old fashion of the court toward me, and pay me with a pardon.‘ Whether Donne merely means that the Countess was accustomed to pardon offenders at court, or whether Donne implies that she was wont to pardon his indiscretions at court, it is impossible to determine.
28 In this connection, we may call attention to the fact that Donne had no scruples in assiduously seeking to win the favor of Robert Carr, the all-powerful favorite of James. He wrote an epithalamion upon the marriage of Carr with the divorced wife of the Earl of Essex.
29 This idea is the central doctrine of the Spenserian school. It is the main thesis in Sidney's Defense of Poesy. See Cook, The Defense of Poesy, p. 13: ‘So that the ending end of all earthly learning being virtuous action, those skills that serve most to bring forth that have a most just title to be princes over all the rest; wherein, if we can show, the poet is worthy to have it before all other competitors.‘
30 Cf. Spenser, Shep. Cal. Oct. Argument; ‘Poetrie . . . having bene in all ages, and even amongst the barbarous, alwayes of singular accounpt and honor, and being indede so worthy and commendable an arte; or rather no arte, but a divine gift and heavenly instinct, not to bee gotten by laboure and learning, but adorned, with both, and poured into the witte by a certain ěthousiasmos and celestial inspiration.‘
31 Song xxi, 165ff,
32 One may note that three poems of Drayton may be said to be in the metaphysical vein: Sing We the Rose, The Heart, and To his Valentine. The first of these which is the most metaphysical was not reprinted by him in the edition of 1619, probably on this account. One of Drayton's tenets, expressed in one of his odes, was: . . . . things slight Not to clothe curiously
33 According to N. E. D., this word is derived from siren, arising from the confusion of siren with mermaid. It should not, therefore, be confused with Cyrenaic, meaning a follower of Aristippus, although the word may have developed from analogy with this word.
34 We do not know that Drayton was a member of the Club. His close acquaintance with Ben Jonson and with Francis Beaumont who wrote the famous lines on the ‘feats of wit done at the Mermaid’ almost justify such an assumption.
35 In this connection, one may note that the poems of 1627 are dedicated to ‘those noblest of gentlemen . . . who, out of the virtue of your minds, love and cherish neglected Poesy. . . .‘
36 Christopher Brooke was also a friend of Donne, though he did not write in Donne's manner. In view of Drayton's close intimacy with Browne and Wither, it is probable that he was also well acquainted with Brooke. ‘Gill’ may shadow George Sandys.