Bartholomew Griffin

“ Why should not I thy fame and beauty sing?
XI
Winged with sad woes, why doth fair zephyr blow
⁠Upon my face, the map of discontent?
⁠Is it to have the weeds of sorrow grow
⁠So long and thick, that they will ne'er be spent?
No, fondling, no! It is to cool the fire
⁠Which hot desire within thy breast hath made.
⁠Check him but once and he will soon retire.
⁠O but he sorrows brought which cannot fade!
The sorrows that he brought, he took from thee,
⁠Which fair Fidessa span and thou must wear! ”

“ Whom in their rage they shall no sooner kill
Than they themselves themselves unjustly spill.
IX
My spotless love that never yet was tainted,
⁠My loyal heart that never can be moved,
⁠My growing hope that never yet hath fainted,
⁠My constancy that you full well have proved,
All these consented have to plead for grace
⁠These all lie crying at the door of beauty;
⁠This wails, this sends out tears, this cries apace,
⁠All do reward expect of faith and duty ”

“ Fidessa, which doth these as weapons use,
⁠To make the greatest heart her will obey;
⁠And yet the most obedient to refuse
⁠As having power poor lovers to betray.
With these she wounds, she heals, gives life and death;
More power hath none that lives by mortal breath. ”

“ Shows nought avail me!
⁠Mine own conceit doth glad me, more I crave not;
⁠Yet wanting substance, woe doth still assail me.
Babies do children please, and shadows fools;
⁠Shows have deceived the wisest many a time.
⁠Ever to want our wish, our courage cools.
⁠The ladder broken, 'tis in vain to climb.
But I must wish, and crave, and seek, and climb;
It's hard if I obtain not grace in time. ”

“ Yet for they friendly are, I entertain them,
⁠And they too well are pleasèd with their host.
⁠But I, had not Fidessa been, ere now had slain them;
⁠It's for her cause they live, in her they boast;
They promise help but when they see her face;
They fainting yield, and dare not sue for grace. ”

“ Shall Phœbus hinder little stars to shine,
⁠Or lofty cedar mushrooms leave to grow?
⁠Sure mighty men at little ones repine,
⁠The rich is to the poor a common foe.
Fidessa, seeing how the world doth go,
Joineth with fortune in my overthrow. ”

“ Oft have mine eyes, the agents of mine heart,
⁠False traitor eyes conspiring my decay,
⁠Pleaded for grace with dumb and silent art,
⁠Streaming forth tears my sorrows to allay;
Moaning the wrong they do unto their lord,
⁠Forcing the cruel fair by means to yield;
⁠Making her 'gainst her will some grace t' afford,
⁠And striving sore at length to win the field;
Thus work they means to feed my fainting hope,
⁠And strengthened hope adds matter to each thought ”

“ Intreat her mildly, words have pleasing charms
⁠Of force to move the most obdurate heart,
⁠To take relenting pity of my harms,
⁠And with unfeignèd tears to wail my smart.
Is she a stock, a block, a stone, a flint?
⁠Hath she nor ears to hear nor eyes to see?
⁠If so my cries, my prayers, my tears shall stint!
⁠Lord! how can lovers so bewitchèd be!
I took her to be beauty's queen alone;
But now I see she is a senseless stone.
LVI
Is trust betrayed? Doth kindness grow unkind?
⁠Can beauty both at once give life and kill?
⁠Shall fortune alter the most constant mind? ”

“ Thus am I pleased to rid myself of crime
⁠And stop the mouth of all-reporting fame,
⁠Counting my greatest cross the loss of time
⁠And all my private grief her public shame.
Ah, but to speak the truth, hence are my cares,
⁠And in this comfort all discomfort resteth;
⁠My harms I cause her scandal unawares;
⁠Thus love procures the thing that love detesteth. ”

“ It's fair Fidessa that this comfort bringeth,
⁠Who sorry for the wrongs by her procured,
⁠Delightful tunes of love, of true love singeth,
⁠Wherewith her too chaste thoughts were ne'er inured.
She loves, she saith, but with a love not blind.
⁠Her love is counsel that I should not love,
⁠But upon virtues fix a stayèd mind.
⁠But what! This new-coined love, love doth reprove?
If this be love of which you make such store,
Sweet, love me less, that you may love me more!
XXI
He that will Cæsar be, or else not be—
⁠Who can aspire to Cæsar's bleeding fame,
⁠Must be of high resolve ”

“ And I ne'er sick until my sickness ceased.
XXXIII
He that would fain Fidessa's image see,
⁠My face of force may be his looking-glass.
⁠There is she portrayed and her cruelty,
⁠Which as a wonder through the world must pass. ”

“ Are women woe to men, traps for their falls?
⁠Differ their words, their deeds, their looks, their lives?
⁠Have lovers ever been their tennis balls?
⁠Be husbands fearful of the chastest wives?
All men do these affirm, and so must I,
Unless Fidessa give to me the lie.
LVII
Three playfellows—such three were never seen
⁠In Venus' court—upon a summer's day,
⁠Met altogether on a pleasant green,
⁠Intending at some pretty game to play.
They Dian, Cupid, and Fidessa were.
⁠Their wager, beauty, bow, and cruelty ”

“ That gives to her, and she to it, a grace.
XXXVIII
Was never eye did see my mistress' face,
⁠Was never ear did hear Fidessa's tongue,
⁠Was never mind that once did mind her grace,
⁠That ever thought the travail to be long.
When her I see, no creature I behold,
⁠So plainly say these advocates of love,
⁠That now do fear and now to speak are bold,
⁠Trembling apace when they resolve to prove. ”

“ Myself with ceaseless tears my harms bewail,
⁠And her obdurate heart not to be moved;
⁠Though long-continued woes my senses fail,
⁠And curse the day, the hour when first I loved.
She takes the glass wherein herself she sees,
⁠In bloody colours cruelly depainted;
⁠And her poor prisoner humbly on his knees,
⁠Pleading for grace, with heart that never fainted.
She breaks the glass; alas, I cannot choose
But grieve that I should so my labour lose!
XX
Great is the joy that no tongue can express!
⁠Fair babe new born, how much dost thou delight me! ”

“ In seem a heaven, and yet from bliss exiling;
⁠Paying for truest service nought but pain;
⁠Young men's undoing, young and old beguiling;
⁠Man's greatest loss though thought his greatest gain!
True, that all this with pain enough I prove;
And yet most true, I will Fidessa love.
LIX
Do I unto a cruel tiger play,
⁠That preys on me as wolf upon the lambs,
⁠Who fear the danger both of night and day
⁠And run for succour to their tender dams? ”

“ Griffin shows great ingenuity in the manipulation of the stock-themes, and the lover of Petrarch and all the young Abraham-Slenders of the day must have been delighted with the familiar "designs" as they re-appeared in Fidessa.
Bartholomew Griffin was buried in Coventry in 1602. In 1596 he dedicated his "slender work" Fidessa to William Essex of Lamebourne in Berkshire. He adds an address to the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, whom he begs to "censure mildly as protectors of a poor stranger" and "judge the best as encouragers of a young beginner." Of the poet little further is known. ”

“ FIDESSA
MORE CHASTE THAN KIND
BY
B. GRIFFIN, Gent.
BARTHOLOMEW GRIFFIN
The author of Fidessa has gained undeserved notice from the fact that the piratical printer W. Jaggard, included a transcript of one of his sonnets in a volume that he put forth in 1599, under the name of Shakespeare. It would be easy to believe, in spite of the doubtful rimes characteristic of Fidessa, that sonnet three was not Griffin's, for no singer in the Elizabethan choir was more skilful in turning his voice to other people's melodies than was he. He has been called "a gross plagiary;" ”

“ From the sonnets themselves we learn that Fidessa was "of high regard," the child of a beautiful mother and of a renowned father; she sprang in fact from the same root with the poet himself, who writes "Gent." ”

“ His sonnets, while showing versatility and ingenuity, lack spontaneous feeling and have serious defects in form; yet these defects are in part offset by their conversational ease and dramatic vividness.
TO FIDESSA
I
Fertur Fortunam Fortuna favere ferenti
Fidessa fair, long live a happy maiden!
⁠Blest from thy cradle by a worthy mother,
⁠High-thoughted like to her, with bounty laden,
⁠Like pleasing grace affording, one and other ”