Robert Southwell knew his New Testament and he knew madness. Below, he has Mary Magdalen herself refer to it in the second line: “my ravinge fittes.”
He also had a deep understanding of suffering and inner torment.
MARY MAGDALEN’S BLUSHE
I
The signes of shame that stayne my blushinge face,
Rise from the feelinge of my ravinge fittes,
Whose joy annoy, whose guerdon is disgrace,
Whose solace flyes, whose sorowe never flittes:
Bad seede I sow’d, worse fruite is now my gayne,
Soone-dying mirth begatt long-living payne.
II
Nowe pleasure ebbs, revenge beginns to flowe;
One day doth wrecke the wrath that many wrought;
Remorse doth teach my guilty thoughtes to knowe
Howe cheape I sould that Christ so dearely bought:
Faultes long enfelt doth conscience now bewraye,
Which cares must cure and teares must washe awaye.
III
All ghostly dints that Grace at me did dart,
Like stobbourne rock I forcèd to recoyle;
To other flightes an ayme I made my hart
Whose woundes, then welcome, now have wrought my foyle.
Woe worth the bowe, woe worth the Archer’s might,
That draue such arrows to the marke so right!
IV
To pull them out, to leave them in is deathe,
One to this world, one to the world to come;
Woundes may I weare, and draw a doubtfull breath,
But then my woundes will worke a dreadfull dome;
And for a world whose pleasures passe awaye,
I loost a world, whose joyes are paste decaye.
V
O sence! O soule! O hap! O hopèd blisse!
Yow woe, yow weane; yow draw, yow drive me backe;
Yow crosse encountring, like their combate is,
That never end but with some deadly wracke;
When sence doth wynne, the soule doth loose the feilde,
And present happ makes future hopes to yelde.
VI
O heaven, lament! sence robbeth thee of sayntes,
Lament, O soules! sence spoyleth yow of grace;
Yet sence doth scare deserve these hard complayntes,
Love is the theefe, sence but the entringe place;
Yett graunt I must, sence is not free from synne,
For theefe he is that theefe admitteth in.
St. Robert Southwell, Holy Martyr
Well, this is odd. Somehow this article just showed up today in my feed. I thought "yay", more middle english poetry, and started working on a translation, then noticed the date, and decided to continue anyway.
So a couple of questions:
In stanza V, the first line, what does "had" mean?
And in stanza VI, "love" feels like the wrong word. "Caritas" is Christian love, and the whole poem is about sensual sin, so I'm thinking this is better translated as the vice lust?
All the arrow and combat imagery is quite apt with what I've been reading in the Aeneid and now the Illiad. My first thought was that the Archer was Phoebus Apollo, since that is how he normally rendered in my translation of the Illiad. But here, it's probably a reference to Eros/Cupid? Anyway, I'm just leaving it as Archer.
So far, I'm not changing many words, other than to spell the words in modern English.