👈The Tears of St Peter -1587 until 1596
El Greco (Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos) 1541-1614
Museo Soumaya at Plaza Carso, Mexico.
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Ah, life! sweet drop, drownd in a sea of sowres,
A flying good, posting to doubtfull end,
Still loosing months and yeeres to gaine few howres:
Faine, time to haue and spare, yet forc't to spend:
Thy growth, decrease; a moment all thou hast:
That gone, ere knowne; the rest, to come, or past. [90]
Ah life! A precious gift, but lived out in a vale of tears, like a sweet droplet swallowed up in floods of bitterness; something blessed but fleeting, rushing along to an uncertain and awful end; incessantly, months and years must pass in order to gain but few hours of time; fortunate in having time, and time to spare, yet forced to use it up; and the greater the passage of time, the more doth time diminish; all thou hast is the present moment, and that is gone before it is known; all that remains for the present is in the past or still to come.
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85. sweet. Pleasing (in general); yielding pleasure or enjoyment; agreeable, delightful; vid. 1604 W. Shakespeare Hamlet iii. iv. 185 + 8 O tis most sweete When in one line two crafts directly meete. Perhaps the following sense is more appropriate here: Dearly loved or prized, precious; beloved, dear. Vid. 1583 H. Howard Defensatiue sig. Ppivv Policarpus, the sweete Martir of our Lorde. This second sense would suggest a contrast between, on the one hand: life as a precious gift from God, compared with life as lived after original sin by exsules filii Hevæ /poor banished children of Eve, in hac lacrimarum valle / in this vale of tears. [From the Marian antiphon Salve Regina / Hail Holy Queen]. RS devoted an entire poem to this theme, vid. A Vale of teares.
sowres. This is perhaps an echo of the words “sorrows” and “sores”, but the primary sense would appear to derive from a contrast between “sweet” and “sour” (as exemplified in the two quotations): Sours. That which is sour, in literal or figurative senses [B. n.1 1. ]. Vid. 1584 R. Greene Gwydonius f. 38 By the sweete (quoth he) how should we know the sower. 1594 J. Sylvester tr. O. de La Noue Profit Imprisonm. sig. C4v This worlds fained sweet..Should be preferd before these seeming-sowres, that make vs Taste many true-sweet sweets.
86. flying. Fly. To move or travel swiftly, pass rapidly, rush along, esp. of time. Vid. 1609 W. Shakespeare Louers Complaint in Sonnets sig. K2v That..had let go by The swiftest houres obserued as they flew.
Cf. fugit invida ætas. [Horace, Odes 1 ; 11]:dum loquimur, fugerit invida / aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away / Seize the present; trust tomorrow e'en as little as you may.
posting. Post. To ride, run, or travel with speed or haste; to hurry, make haste. Vid. 1595 Blanchardine & Eglantine 208 They posted so fast [Fr. tant cheuaucherent], that within short time they came before the gate.
1598 R. Hakluyt tr. Vincent of Beauvais in Princ. Navigations (new ed.) I. 65 Riding as fast as our horses could trot (for we had fresh horses almost thrise or foure times a day) we posted [Fr. hastions, L. properabamus] from morning till night.
doubtfull. Doubtful. a. Of things: Involved in doubt or uncertainty; uncertain, undecided; indistinct, ambiguous. b. Of uncertain issue. 3. To be dreaded or feared; awful, dread. Vid. 1556 in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxf. (1880) 240 The unfortunate end and doubtful tragedy of T.C.
87. still. 3. a. With reference to action or condition: Without change, interruption, or cessation; continually, constantly; on every occasion, invariably; always. Vid. 1609 W. Shakespeare Sonnets cxxvi. sig. H3 She may detaine, but not still keepe her tresure!
loosing. This may be “losing” or “loosing” in the sense of losing or letting go a great deal in order to gain what is in comparison much less.
88. Faine. 1) Adv. Gladly, willingly, with pleasure. Vid. a1616 W. Shakespeare Tempest (1623) i. i. 63 I would faine dye a dry death. 2) Alternatively, this passes gradually into the sense: Necessitated, obliged. Vid. a1535 T. More Hist. Richard III in Wks. (1557) 58/1 Penker..so lost his voice that he was faine to leaue off.
forc’t. Forced.
90. ere. Before.
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Ah, life! the maze of countlesse straying waies, —
Open to erring steps and strew'd with baits, —
To winde weake senses into endlesse strayes,
Aloofe from Vertue's rough, vnbeaten straights;
A flower, a play, a blast, a shade, a dreame, [95]
A liuing death, a never-turning streame.
Ah life! What a maze of countless paths leading this way and that, littered and strewn with temptations; with nothing to stop those whose steps lead them astray, persons weak in mind, who are drawn into endless wanderings and take the wrong road; avoiding the wild and strait way of virtue, scarcely trodden, that leads to life. Life . . . a flower, a play, a gust of wind, a shadow, a dream, a living death, a stream that never turns back.
91. straying. To wander from the direct way, deviate. Vid. 1590 E. Spenser Faerie Queene i. i. sig. A4 When weening to returne, whence they did stray, They cannot finde that path.
waies. Ways.
92. erring. 1) To ramble, roam, stray, wander. 2) To go astray; to stray from (one's path or line of direction).3) To go wrong in judgement or opinion: to make mistakes, blunder. To go astray morally; to sin.
strew’d. Strewed. To scatter, spread loosely; to scatter (rushes, straw, flowers, etc.) on the ground or floor, or over the surface of something; vid. a1616 W. Shakespeare Twelfth Night (1623) ii. iv. 59 Not a flower, not a flower sweete On my blacke coffin, let there be strewne [rhyme throwne] .
baits. Food used to entice a prey. figurative. An enticement, allurement, temptation. Vid. 1573 T. Tusser Points Huswifrie (new ed.) f. 12, in Fiue Hundreth Points Good Husbandry (new ed.) A dore without lock, is a baight [1577 baite] for a knaue.
93.-94. To winde . . . unbeaten straights. These lines recall the words of Christ:
"Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it! [Matt. vii. 13-14]" [New Testament, Douay Rheims, pub. 1582.]
winde. In immaterial sense: To turn or deflect in a certain direction; esp. to turn or lead (a person) according to one's will; vid. 1606 G. Chapman Sir Gyles Goosecappe i. sig. Cv Wee will turne her, and winde her, and make her so plyant that we will drawe her thorugh a wedding ring yfaith.
senses. In plural. The thinking or reasoning faculties of the human mind in a normal or undisturbed state; reason; sanity; wits. 1600 W. Shakespeare Henry IV, Pt. 2 (2nd issue) iii. i. 8 Ô sleepe..how haue I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eye-liddes downe, And steep my sences in forgetfulnesse.
strayes. The action of straying or wandering. Vid. 1608 W. Shakespeare King Lear i. 199 I would not from your loue make such a stray, To match you where I hate.
1623 W. Lisle in tr. Ælfric Saxon Treat. Old & New Test. To the Prince xxxv As long as these, and Riuers all else-where, Their moulten Crystall poure by crooked strayes Into the Maine.
94. Aloofe. [A loose, RS-DS] figurative. Frequently with from. Apart from another person or group (with respect to one's attitudes, actions, or interests), usually suggesting a lack of sympathy or common ground. Vid. 1583 G. Babington Very Fruitfull Expos. Commaundem. ix. 449 [Lying]..maketh them hang aloofe, suspect, and be strange one to an other.
1603 W. Shakespeare Hamlet v. ii. 193 I'le stand aloofe, And will no reconcilement.
Vertue. Conformity to moral law or accepted moral standards, the possession of morally good qualities; behaviour arising from such standards, abstention on moral grounds from any form of wrongdoing or vice. Vid. 1621 R. Burton Anat. Melancholy i. i. ii. xi. 45 The principall Habits are two in number, Vertue, and Vice.
rough. Of ground: difficult to traverse; uneven, rugged, broken, stony; uncultivated, wild.
vnbeaten. Beat. transitive. Said of the action of the feet upon the ground in walking or running; hence, to beat the streets: to walk up and down. to beat a path or to beat a track: to tread it hard or bare by frequent passage; hence, to open up or prepare a way. Often figurative.
straights. The word suggests two meanings: 1) strait. A narrow confined place or space or way generally.
Vid. 1585 T. Washington tr. N. de Nicolay Nauigations Turkie iv. xv. 129 Through which narrow streights, Alexander..made his armie to pass. 1600 J. Bodenham Bel-vedére 228 No wise man likes in such a life to dwell, Whose wayes are strait to heauen, but wide to hell. 2) rectitude. Of conduct: Free from crookedness; frank, honest. Hence of persons and their attributes. Also in modern colloquial use, law-abiding as opposed to criminal. Vid. a1628 J. Preston New Covenant (1634) 233 To describe to you a right and straight man, when his end is right, and his rule is right.
95. a play. Cf. Shakespeare, As you like it, Act II Scene VII Line 139: “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.”
shade. Perhaps referring to the sense of a shadow, image, or phantom, and related uses. Cf. Plato’s image of the cave:
"In the allegory of the cave (Republic, VII, 514 d) a race of men are described as chained in a fixed position in a cavern, able to look only at the wall in front of them. When an animal, e.g. a horse, passes in front of the cave, they, beholding the shadow on the wall, imagine it to be a reality, and while in prison they know of no other reality." [Catholic Encyclopedia, Plato.]
dreame. Cf.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,As I foretold you, were all spirits andAre melted into air, into thin air:And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolveAnd, like this insubstantial pageant faded,Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep.Shakespeare, The Tempest (Act IV, Scene I)
If we shadows have offended,Think but this, and all is mended—That you have but slumbered hereWhile these visions did appear.And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding but a dream…Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act V, Scene I)
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Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
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