Who Doesn't Love a Lute?

My wife and I were in a bookstore this evening and found a volume called something like, "A Thousand Poems to Touch Your Soul." As a joke she opened it at random and said, "Here's one for your blog!" and read me some of this one. And it's awesome.

My Lute Awake

Sir Thomas Wyatt

My lute awake! perform the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste,
And end that I have now begun;
For when this song is sung and past,
My lute be still, for I have done.


As to be heard where ear is none,
As lead to grave in marble stone,
My song may pierce her heart as soon;
Should we then sigh or sing or moan?
No, no, my lute, for I have done.


The rocks do not so cruelly
Repulse the waves continually,
As she my suit and affection;
So that I am past remedy,
Whereby my lute and I have done.


Proud of the spoil that thou hast got
Of simple hearts thorough Love's shot,
By whom, unkind, thou hast them won,
Think not he hath his bow forgot,
Although my lute and I have done.


Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain
That makest but game on earnest pain.
Think not alone under the sun
Unquit to cause thy lovers plain,
Although my lute and I have done.


Perchance thee lie wethered and old
The winter nights that are so cold,
Plaining in vain unto the moon;
Thy wishes then dare not be told;
Care then who list, for I have done.


And then may chance thee to repent
The time that thou hast lost and spent
To cause thy lovers sigh and swoon;
Then shalt thou know beauty but lent,
And wish and want as I have done.


Now cease, my lute; this is the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste,
And ended is that we begun.
Now is this song both sung and past:
My lute be still, for I have done.




And if you think "the lute" he's referring to is a musical instrument, I have a wonderful cabana in tropical Lancastershire you might be interested in.

Look at the size of it!

It takes me back to a conversation with a teacher in high school. We were watching Branagh's mammoth (and awesome) film adaptation of "Hamlet." We get to the Kate Winslet love scene in flashback where we see part of why Hamlet's so crazy and Ophelia's so depressed. My teacher's problem was not the adult nature of the content. (After all, this is the incestuous genius that is William Shakespeare.) It wasn't even the reductionist nature of the scene (which I still find hard to justify).


No, her problem was, "People didn't do that back then." By "that" she meant, "intercourse outside of wedlock." I'm not sure if by "then" she meant pseudo-Victorian Europe, which is the setting of the film, or Elizabethan England, the era of the play's creation, or medieval/early Renaissance Denmark, the setting of the play. Probably all three.


And that still bothers me - this bowdlerization of history by which everyone was moral and upright and pure until, oh, say, Woodstock. 

Damn hippies!

If that's the case, why does Shakespeare have about a jillion euphemisms (some really inventive) for sex? Why is cuckolding apparently the funniest thing in the world aside from a man dressed as a women dressed as a man? Why are there bastards in about half of his plays, including "King John" which prominently features a character actually NAMED "Bastard?"

I thought all of Mike Myers' ideas were original...

My theory is that Morality with a capital M is the pretty face we put on things when the truth gets too icky. You can make something taboo, you can ostracize and criticize, you can bring the power of the law and custom  and religion to bear. But you've still got people doing things with their naughty bits that we just don't want to hear about. 

Heck, the Bible is a pretty perverse little document. Is there anything that somebody DIDN'T sleep with? Because there are prohibitions specifically outlawing sex with just about everything. It's both amusing and awe-inspiring just how many wrong things you can do with your plumbing.

It's no use pretending these latter, wicked days are an aberration in the history of the development of man. We're sad little people looking to get happy and/or get off, whichever is easier to come by. I find it somewhat comforting: Motley Crüe, Henry Miller and Thomas Wyatt all linked by the never-ending search for something to love. Love, like, a lot.