A Song by Carew
Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty's orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
By Jove is a way of swearing. Usually the color of the rose is either pink or red. He says when does the color of the rose fade?
Usually in spring roses flourish. May is the last month in spring and after it June comes which is the beginning of summer and in summer the flowers begin to fade.
He says that in June where does the color of the rose go? He said that these flowers after fading they sleep in his beloved’s face. It means that her face has the color of the rose. So it goes and stay in her cheeks.
Ask me no more whither doth stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.
Look in the rays of the sun, you see small atoms. Don't ask where do they go after the day ends. After the day light fades, it goes to his beloved’s hair. So her hair is golden, so he repeats the same idea saying that her hair is bright like the rays of the sun.
Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet, dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.
The nightingale is a kind of bird with a very sweet and beautiful voice, so now he's going to speak about their voice. So he says don't ask me where does the nightingale goes after May which is the time of the meeting of birds. When the season ends, we usually don't see the birds, so don't ask me where does that nightingale go. It goes to stay in her throat to get warm. So here he is describing her voice that she has a good voice or a beautiful voice like the nightingale. So he is repeating the same idea describing the beauty of his beloved.
Ask me no more where those stars light,
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become, as in their sphere.
He is describing her eyes as shinning stars …… what happens after the night has gone? The stars disappear from the sky and her eye becomes the sphere of the stars and this is a scientific conceit taken from astrology.
Ask me no more if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies
The phoenix is a kind of imaginary bird, it's male and a female together, so it has the ability of being reborn again but not out of eggs but out of ashes of course this is mythical taken from mythology. It's not touched and it doesn't come out of the eggs, so it's not touched, it's like a virgin, so it's a symbol of purity and chastity.
He says don't ask me where it builds its nest in the east or in the west. At last it builds a nest in you, so you are the symbol of virtue, like this bird. It disappears in your bosom
Compare between the ****************physical poets and the Cavaliers.
We noticed that all stanzas are describing the beauty of his beloved in the same manner. We have the same kind of questions repeated in all stanzas. Each time he gets an item which is going to describe.
1- We don't have deep meanings, it's direct and clear. It's a very light poem. But those cavaliers are poets, they do not just say simple poems but there must be something in their poetry that makes it good poetry. They are not speaking about something very deep but they have certain meanings in their poetry
2- We said that they are playful …. what is playful here in this poem? He is describing her physical beauty; this is what we said in the characteristics of the cavaliers. He's not describing her soul or how she behaves or what she really is. He is only describing her physical appearance and it is all temporary because the physical beauty doesn't stay forever.
3- Remember when we talked about Ben Jonson's poem Chairs, it was the same, so it was physical beauty - but before that when we took the ****************physical poets, they were interested in spiritual love, so this is a difference between the ****************physical poets and the cavaliers although they share some qualities. They are not as deep and philosophic as the ****************physical.
The whole poem is based on the idea that beauty does not stay forever but it is temporary. This is how he is playful. He is giving us examples of the beautiful things that has a very short life such as a rose that only flourishes during spring and not all spring but for only few days.
How many hours do the stars stay in the sky only during the night? How many days does the nightingale sing? All examples that he's giving are short and temporary.
There is also an influence of Spenser. The idea of swearing and using mythological references come from Spenser and the use of stanzas which have the same regular Rhyme. We don't have variation of stanzas.
Thomas Carew went to Italy and it means that he read the Italian literature and the Italian poetry and was influenced by it.
Why we consider him a cavalier?
He was influenced by Ben Jonson and he belongs to this school of the Sons of Ben the influence of Ben Jonson was in the neatness of style. We said about Ben Jonson that he was very neat and was very accurate in his choice of words, so the cavaliers are the same.
He wrote country house poems. When you have a country house, you go to it from time to time to enjoy yourself. This means that country house poems are poems that can be recited while people are enjoying time in a country house. It's a light kind of verse which is used for enjoyment.
All the cavaliers were not interested in the spiritual love but they were interested more in making fun and taking things lightly and they spoke about the physical kind of love more than the spiritual one.
They are very systematic, so every poet will choose for himself stanza forms that he will use to write his poetry. He does not use it in many stanza forms like John Donne for example but they were very precise.
He wrote elegies and he wrote different kinds of poetry. He used heroic couplets. Country house poetry means the light poetry which is mostly lyrics and full of songs. It's not serious but it's for enjoyment.
He was described as a brilliant wit and all the cavaliers depended upon their wits. He is considered second only to Herrick in his passion. He was a very passionate writer and most his poems were about love but light not serious. He did not have the wide range of topics.
He writes in a polished way. Remember that we said that Ben Jonson was mainly interested in the form. He was after perfection as you said especially perfection of form and style. And of course he is very accurate and this is something he took from Ben Jonson. His lyrical poetry was full of music and he was influenced by Ben Jonson who was influenced by John Donne. We said that Ben Jonson himself was influenced by John Donne and the ****************physical poetry. We have a poem called "A song" by Carew.
We said that he is a cavalier….. what is a cavalier?
They are a group of poets that formed school and they were influenced by Ben Jonson. What are the characteristics of their style and their school ….. what made them "cavaliers?
They are known as the courtiers of the King Charles the first. They are famous and they were called the sons of Ben because they used to meet with Ben Jonson sit together and discuss matters of poetry. They followed his example.
The spoke about poetry and contemporary literature and they believed that writing poetry is for enjoyment. They do not write it as a way of living. They were just writing for enjoyment because they were originally rich and that's why they wrote a certain kind of light poetry. And because they were courtiers, they were highly educated. At that time the educated person read classical works, so they were interested in the Latin. They took from those Latin classics the accuracy of form and the way of writing and what is known as the urban civilized wit.
As we said they were influenced by Ben Jonson who was influenced by Donne. So they were influenced by John Donne. They took from John Donne conceits and they derive them like him from scientific fields, philosophy and theology but they didn't use as many conceits as John Donne.
And we said that they took the best of John Donne and they combined it with the best of Ben Jonson and they added to both their elegant urban wit. They were influenced by Ben Jonson in his accuracy of form and they added to both of them their elegant wit. They were aristocrats, so they were writing in an elegant and aristocratic way of writing.