In
the person of Fulke Greville, poet, statesman, and
soldier, and eminent in all three professions, the
chivalry of the era of the Maiden Queen found its
last harbour. He was the Sir Bedivere of that
romantic Court of the virgin Star of the North, who
sat, as he himself had said, with ‘The red and white
rose quartered in her face’.
The Friends who went as Enemies:
The Earle of Essex - Master Fulke Greville.
Then proudly shocks amid
the martial throng
Of lusty lanciers, all in
sable sad,
Drawn on with coal-black
steeds of dusky hue,
In stately chariot full
of deep devise,
Where gloomy Time sat
whipping on the team,
Just back to back with
this great champion;
Young Essex, that
thrice-honourable earl;
Y-clad in mighty arms of
mourner’s dye,
And plume as black as is
the raven’s wing
That from his armour
borrowed such a light
As boughs of yew receive
from shady stream:
His staves were such, or
of such hues at least,
As are those baneer-staves
that mourners bear;
And all his company in
funeral black;
As if he mourned to think
of him he missed,
Sweet Sidney, fairest
shepherd of our green,
Well-lettered warriour,
whose successor he
In love and arms had ever
vowed to be;
In love and arms, O, may
he so succeed
As his deserts, as his
desires would speed!
With this great lord must
gallant Greville run,
Fair man-at-arms, the
Muses’ favourite,
Lover of learning and of
chivalry,
Sage in his saws, sound
judge of poesy;
That lightly mounted
makes to him amain,
In armour gilt and bases
full of cost.
Together go these friends
as enemies;
As when a lion in a
thicket pent,
Spying the boar all bent
to combat him,
Makes through the shrubs
and thunders as he goes.
Polyhymnia,
George Peele
(1590). |
