Maxims, Songs & Poems: Miscellaneous Notes in Renaissance Books
Read More![Tucked inside the cover of this sixteenth-century Latin dictionary by Etienne Bellengard has been found an unknown seventeenth-century handwritten poem. Translated from its original Latin into English, it opens thus: ‘As soon as Charles had fled his native shores, every corner was filled with tears’. The Charles referred to is the future King Charles I (then Prince of Wales), whose clandestine visit to Spain to secure a marriage between him and the Infanta Maria Anna (an episode known as the Spanish Match) inspired these verses. <br><br>
The poem seems to have been the work of a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Forth Winthrop (1609–1630). The fifth line of the poem, ‘Telemacho salvo nunquam visendum Ulysses’, also appears in a letter written by Forth Winthrop to his brother John, in c. 1627–8. Forth Winthrop’s father was John Winthrop (1588–1649) who in 1630 led a large group of immigrants to the New World, becoming the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later its first governor. <br><br>
(First of two pages)
<br><br>
<b>Author:</b> Etienne Bellengard <br>
<b>Title:</b><i> Sententiarum volumen absolutissimum </i>[Complete volume of opinions] (Geneva, 1587)<br>
<b>Shelfmark:</b> I.5.21 <a href="http://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44CAM_ALMA21394400550003606&context=L&vid=44CAM_PROD&search_scope=SCOP_QUE&tab=cam_lib_coll&lang=en_US"> (catalogue record)</a>](https://photos.smugmug.com/Exhibitions/Not-A-Day-exhibition/Miscellaneous-Gallery/i-S2nqRJS/0/39cba86b/M/I-005-21-007-M.jpg)
Tucked inside the cover of this sixteenth-century Latin dictionary by Etienne Bellengard has been found an unknown seventeenth-century handwritten poem. Translated from its original Latin into English, it opens thus: ‘As soon as Charles had fled his native shores, every corner was filled with tears’. The Charles referred to is the future King Charles I (then Prince of Wales), whose clandestine visit to Spain to secure a marriage between him and the Infanta Maria Anna (an episode known as the Spanish Match) inspired these verses.
The poem seems to have been the work of a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Forth Winthrop (1609–1630). The fifth line of the poem, ‘Telemacho salvo nunquam visendum Ulysses’, also appears in a letter written by Forth Winthrop to his brother John, in c. 1627–8. Forth Winthrop’s father was John Winthrop (1588–1649) who in 1630 led a large group of immigrants to the New World, becoming the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later its first governor.
(First of two pages)
Author: Etienne Bellengard
Title: Sententiarum volumen absolutissimum [Complete volume of opinions] (Geneva, 1587)
Shelfmark: I.5.21 (catalogue record)
![(Detail of the quatrains)
<br><br>
<b>Author:</b> Joachim Mynsinger von Frundeck <br>
<b>Title:</b><i> Apotelesma, sive Corpus perfectum scholiorum ad quatuor libros institutionem juris civilis </i> [Exposition, or the perfect corpus for scholars on the four books of the institutions of civil law] (Basel, 1563)<br>
<b>Shelfmark:</b> C.5.4 <a href="http://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44CAM_ALMA21413502970003606&context=L&vid=44CAM_PROD&search_scope=SCOP_QUE&tab=cam_lib_coll&lang=en_US"> (catalogue record)</a>](https://photos.smugmug.com/Exhibitions/Not-A-Day-exhibition/Miscellaneous-Gallery/i-wZpbpgD/0/f50c705f/Ti/C-005-004-002-Ti.jpg)
![The volume bears the signature of two previous owners: on this page we see that of Johannes Goodluck, 'Joh[ann]es Goodluck est custos huius libri' (‘the keeper of this book’). Below this inscription, another hand has added a price and a very interesting poem in Latin entitled ‘De matre sua Edwardi’ (‘On Edward’s mother’). The following verses are indeed the epitaph of Queen Emma of Normandy (d. 1054), mother of Edward the Confessor. In early modern England, as well as providing material evidence for historians, epitaphs such as this bore devotional value as a means to relate to the dead.<br><br>
<br>
'Duxit Ethelredus __ ha[n]c, & postea Knutus.
Edwardum s[an]ct[u]m parit hoc atque Hardecanutu[m].
Quator hoc reges hec vidit sceptra fere[n]tes.
Angloru[m] regu[m] suit hec sic mater et uxor.'<br>
('She was first married to King Ethelred, and afterwards to King Canute. To the former she bore Edward, to the latter Hardincanute. She saw all these four kings wielding the royal sceptre; and thus was the wife and mother of English kings.' Translation from John Milner, <i>The History Civil and Ecclesiastical, & Suruey of the Antiquities</i>, Winchester, 1809.)<br><br>
'Si non sit auditor non est detractor.'<br>
'If one is not a listener, one is not a detractor.'
Saint Thomas Aquinas, <i>Exposition of the Psalms of David</i>, Psalm 14.
<br><br>
<b>Author:</b> Terence<br>
<b>Title:</b><i> Publij Terentij Aphri comicorum latinorum principis Comediae</i> (Lyon, 1520)<br>
<b>Shelfmark:</b> H.5.12<a href="https://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44CAM_ALMA21420890250003606&context=L&vid=44CAM_PROD&search_scope=SCOP_QUE&tab=cam_lib_coll&lang=en_US"> (catalogue record)</a>](https://photos.smugmug.com/Exhibitions/Not-A-Day-exhibition/Miscellaneous-Gallery/i-CQWsKKR/0/ccd9be93/Ti/H-005-012-046-Ti.jpg)
![Among all the pen trials and various names of former owners that cover the endpapers and the title page of this volume, two quatrains written in very neat handwriting stand out. The first, known as Quatrain 85, is by the French poet and lawyer, Guy de Faur, Seigneur de Pibrac. Inscribed below is its translation by Joshua Sylvester, the first poet to be granted an annual pension by Prince Henry of Wales who dedicated his work to the Prince in 1606. Pibrac’s background as a lawyer resonates in the quatrain, turning the poem into an appropriate quotation to illustrate Mynsinger’s legal volume.
<br><br>
<b>Author:</b> Joachim Mynsinger von Frundeck <br>
<b>Title:</b><i> Apotelesma, sive Corpus perfectum scholiorum ad quatuor libros institutionem juris civilis </i> [Exposition, or the perfect corpus for scholars on the four books of the institutions of civil law] (Basel, 1563)<br>
<b>Shelfmark:</b> C.5.4 <a href="http://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44CAM_ALMA21413502970003606&context=L&vid=44CAM_PROD&search_scope=SCOP_QUE&tab=cam_lib_coll&lang=en_US"> (catalogue record)</a>](https://photos.smugmug.com/Exhibitions/Not-A-Day-exhibition/Miscellaneous-Gallery/i-CmZggcK/0/c6148409/Ti/C-005-004-055-Ti.jpg)
![Tucked inside the cover of this sixteenth-century Latin dictionary by Etienne Bellengard has been found an unknown seventeenth-century handwritten poem. Translated from its original Latin into English, it opens thus: ‘As soon as Charles had fled his native shores, every corner was filled with tears’. The Charles referred to is the future King Charles I (then Prince of Wales), whose clandestine visit to Spain to secure a marriage between him and the Infanta Maria Anna (an episode known as the Spanish Match) inspired these verses. <br><br>
The poem seems to have been the work of a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Forth Winthrop (1609–1630). The fifth line of the poem, ‘Telemacho salvo nunquam visendum Ulysses’, also appears in a letter written by Forth Winthrop to his brother John, in c. 1627–8. Forth Winthrop’s father was John Winthrop (1588–1649) who in 1630 led a large group of immigrants to the New World, becoming the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later its first governor. <br><br>
(First of two pages)
<br><br>
<b>Author:</b> Etienne Bellengard <br>
<b>Title:</b><i> Sententiarum volumen absolutissimum </i>[Complete volume of opinions] (Geneva, 1587)<br>
<b>Shelfmark:</b> I.5.21 <a href="http://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44CAM_ALMA21394400550003606&context=L&vid=44CAM_PROD&search_scope=SCOP_QUE&tab=cam_lib_coll&lang=en_US"> (catalogue record)</a>](https://photos.smugmug.com/Exhibitions/Not-A-Day-exhibition/Miscellaneous-Gallery/i-S2nqRJS/0/39cba86b/Ti/I-005-21-007-Ti.jpg)
![Manuscript poem (second of two pages).
<br><br>
<b>Author:</b> Etienne Bellengard <br>
<b>Title:</b><i> Sententiarum volumen absolutissimum </i>[Complete volume of opinions] (Geneva, 1587)<br>
<b>Shelfmark:</b> I.5.21 <a href="http://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44CAM_ALMA21394400550003606&context=L&vid=44CAM_PROD&search_scope=SCOP_QUE&tab=cam_lib_coll&lang=en_US"> (catalogue record)</a>](https://photos.smugmug.com/Exhibitions/Not-A-Day-exhibition/Miscellaneous-Gallery/i-tV6Z2MF/0/e571ec91/Ti/I-005-21-008-Ti.jpg)
![Translation of the songs:<br><br>
The canons, old drunkards,<br>
as much as their prelates<br>
know how to keep their faces<br>
among the jars and the platters.<br>
Their big red noses<br>
show that by this behaviour<br>
in order to light up the church<br>
they got enlightened.<br>
The pope inside his robe -<br>
were there any more godly place?<br>
gladly suffers the one who burps<br>
the exhalations of the wine<br>
with great gusto,<br>
in honour of his old men.<br>
The wine that we drink in Rome<br>
is better than this one.<br><br>
I want to become a hermit<br>
next to a cooking pot<br>
Verily, I do like some good time<br>
Poor and melancholic,<br>
I think about the cask<br>
more fervently than death<br>
When I turn the spit<br>
always I hang<br>
some little lardon,<br>
When I leave my belly<br>
without giving it pittance<br>
I ask for forgiveness
<br><br>
<b>Author:</b> Philippe de Commynes <br>
<b>Title:</b><i> The historie of Philip de Commines Knight, Lord of Argenton</i> [Translation of his <i>Mémoires</i>] (London, 1596) <br>
<b>Shelfmark:</b> B.4.6 <a href="http://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44CAM_ALMA21407566800003606&context=L&vid=44CAM_PROD&search_scope=SCOP_QUE&tab=cam_lib_coll&lang=en_US"> (catalogue record)</a>](https://photos.smugmug.com/Exhibitions/Not-A-Day-exhibition/Miscellaneous-Gallery/i-j3SHBhB/0/205b331e/Ti/B-004-006-002-Ti.jpg)
![It was with a disillusioned eye that the Flemish diplomat, Philippe de Commynes, wrote his <i>Mémoires</i> concerning the reigns of two French kings, Louis XI and Charles VIII. Breaking from the established practice of straightforward glorification, Commynes' more objective treatment of kings exerted a general influence on late fifteenth-century historiography thanks to the translation of his writings into every major European language. <br><br>
On the blank endpaper of this copy has been inscribed two intriguing and otherwise unknown French songs. Both anti-Catholic and satirical, they present a cynical view of churchmen as fine connoisseurs of wine and good food. The first song conjures an image of canons and prelates as drunkards who, with the Pope’s approval, cheerily enjoy drinking. The second song starts, it seems, with a very pious verse, ‘I want to become a hermit’, but quickly degenerates into a contemplation of food and its pleasures. <br><br>
<b>Author:</b> Philippe de Commynes <br>
<b>Title:</b><i> The historie of Philip de Commines Knight, Lord of Argenton</i> [Translation of his <i>Mémoires</i>] (London, 1596) <br>
<b>Shelfmark:</b> B.4.6 <a href="http://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44CAM_ALMA21407566800003606&context=L&vid=44CAM_PROD&search_scope=SCOP_QUE&tab=cam_lib_coll&lang=en_US"> (catalogue record)</a>](https://photos.smugmug.com/Exhibitions/Not-A-Day-exhibition/Miscellaneous-Gallery/i-txHtP5q/0/6a7a8bfa/Ti/B-004-006-004-Ti.jpg)
![<b>Author:</b> Philippe de Commynes <br>
<b>Title:</b><i> The historie of Philip de Commines Knight, Lord of Argenton</i> [Translation of his <i>Mémoires</i>] (London, 1596) <br>
<b>Shelfmark:</b> B.4.6 <a href="http://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44CAM_ALMA21407566800003606&context=L&vid=44CAM_PROD&search_scope=SCOP_QUE&tab=cam_lib_coll&lang=en_US"> (catalogue record)</a>](https://photos.smugmug.com/Exhibitions/Not-A-Day-exhibition/Miscellaneous-Gallery/i-4FcJZGT/0/54575962/Ti/B-004-006-001-Ti.jpg)
