Song by Lady Mary Wroth

Song by Lady Mary Wroth

LOVE, a child, is ever crying;
Please him, and he straight is flying;
Give him, he the more is craving,
Never satisfied with having.
His desires have no measure;
Endless folly is his treasure;
What he promiseth he breaketh;
Trust not one word that he speaketh.
He vows nothing but false matter;
And to cozen you will flatter;
Let him gain the hand, he’ll leave you
And still glory to deceive you.
He will triumph in your wailing;
And yet cause be of your failing:
These his virtues are, and slighter
Are his gifts, his favours lighter.
Feathers are as firm in staying;
Wolves no fiercer in their preying;
As a child then, leave him crying;
Nor seek him so given to flying.

Poem Analysis:

In the very first line of the 5-4 lined stanza poem, the writer, Lady Mary Wroth, has cleverly used personification to characterize love as a child who is “ever crying”. In my perspective, I believe that Lady Mary Wroth relates the poem to her husband, whose likes aren’t any similar to hers.The rhythm of the poem goes by couplets, with most works having 2 syllables. These heavily-rhymed lines are each end stopped by mostly commas and full-stops, except for line 3 of stanza 4. Clearly, the theme put out here is love, yet the fact that the imagery used makes us aware the poem is more about the negativity of love. Even with the personification used, the poem itself seems very straightforward, easy to understand. Not much effort of reading between the lines is needed to crack these phrases.

 Firstly, the title of the poem – “Song”, is selected with care since the rhythm of the poem is much like a song itself, moreover the rhyming of couplets used, gives the poem more harmony. Moving on, the first stanza shows us that love demands our immediate attention, much like the reason a baby cries; because it is seeking attention. Their demand for care is endless.

Nonetheless, stanza 2 starts a little confusion when Lady Wroth uses such ‘adult-like’ words, such as: folly, desire and later on through the poem, triumph. These vocab give the poem a new meaning. Gives the reader a thought that maybe this poem speaks of a one-sided relationship, since that would explain the use of the pronouns – he, him, and his. This change of thought gives a better meaning to the lines like “his desires have no measure”, where it shows that the wife is taken advantage of. The phrase “Trust not one word that he speaketh” warns us of the husband’s history of lies, which Mary would’ve been caught into. This saying is supported by the first line of stanza 3, “He vows nothing but false matter”

.

“His gifts and favors lighter”, shows the difference in the service of the man to the woman from the service of the woman to the man. Yet, I believe, that from the man’s opinion, he considers that his favors and gifts enough since the woman is just doing her job as a housewife and a partner.

My favorite line of the poem, “Feathers are as firm in staying” uses strong simile, in order to present that the husband does what he pleases and his words aren’t to be gambled upon. Feathers aren’t stable, they fly off whenever they please. The poem is concluded by advising us to not satisfy every need of our beloved in the phrase “As a child then, leave him crying”.

Research Content:

Born on October 18^th, 1587, as Mary Sidney, to a family connected to the Royal courts in the days of Elizabeth I and James I, Lady Mary Wroth was the first Englishwoman to write a complete sonnet sequence along with original work of pose fiction.  Being connected to the Royal family, she had access to education, which otherwise was quite rare for women of her time. Born to Sir Robert Sidney (had written a manuscript of 66 poems), later Earl of Leicester, and Lady Barbara Gamage (also known as the patron of arts). She didn’t attend school, like all other girls, however she was home schooled by private tutors. Wroth was heavily influenced by her father’s works. Even though Mary had quite a literary family, she was married to Sir Robert Wroth, who preferred hunting. Due to Roberts relation’s with the King, Mary grew close to the Queen Anne. She performed for the Queen in court masques during the years of 1605, 1608.

After 10 years of marriage, on February 1614, Mary’s first son James was born. Unfortunately, after 10 months of such a joyful incident, Mary’s husband passed away, leaving all his debts upon her shoulders. Wroth’s financial issued worsened when the child died on July 1616 causing her to lose the estate to John Wroth. To add to the problems, she had become deeply involved in a relationship with her first cousin, William, third Earl of Pembroke (the title which he had gained due to being a favorite of Queen Anne). Being the mistress of William, she bore him 2 children named William & Catherine.  

Urania, however, brought quite a lot of misunderstanding between the Queen and the politicians because it repeatedly refers to a powerful Queen, who is filled with jealousy and does what’s in her power to obtain her lover. Many at that time thought that the reference was made to the Queen and Lady Wroth, fighting over Herbert. Due to these reasons, Urania was drawn from sale on December 1621.

Wroth left King James's court and was later abandoned by William Herbert due to the publication issues that “Urania” had caused. Other than the fact that she still struggled with financial issues, no information has be discovered of her later life. Wroth died in either 1651 or 1653.