St Peter's Complaynt : Lines 211-222

[These posts contain revised and expanded notes to St Peter's Complaynt, considered by many to be the last poem written by St Robert Southwell ("RS") before his martyrdom on the 21st of February 1595.  The original series of posts was first published in 2018 on our sister site, Mary's English Dowry. I have expanded my original notes so as to provide a more detailed critical apparatus - with fairly extensive use of quotations from the period in which RS wrote. I have also included paraphrases with the aim of making the poet's language more accessible to modern readers.The work is offered to Mary, Our Queen and Mother, and dedicated to EEKPTEE&EA.]

👈The Tears of St Peter (1587-1596) 

El Greco (Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos) 1541-1614

Museo Soumaya at Plaza Carso, Mexico.

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- 36 -

O portresse of the doore of my disgrace,

Whose tongue vnlockt the truth of vowed minde;

Whose words from coward's hart did courage chase,

And let in deathfull feares my soule to blinde;

O hadst thou been the portresse to my toome, [215]

When thou wert portresse to that cursed roome!

    Thou art indeed a gatekeeper, the portress in charge of the door which led to my disgrace; the words of thy tongue laid bare what I had truly in mind when I made my oath of fidelity. Thy words chased out all courage from this coward’s heart and opened the door for fears fraught with death to blind my soul. 

Would thou had been the portress to my tomb when thou wert portress to that place.

    211. portresse. A female porter; a woman who acts as porter, doorkeeper, or gatekeeper.[1] 1613–31   Primer Our Lady 264.  The wench..that was portresse sayth to Peter, art not thou also of this mans disciples?

    Here is the Vulgate and Douy-Rheims text relating to the portress;

The maid therefore that was portress, saith to Peter: Art not thou also one of this man's disciples? He saith: I am not. 

Dicit ergo Petro ancilla ostiaria : Numquid et tu ex discipulis es hominis istius? Dicit ille : Non sum. [John. xviii. 17]

    It is interesting to note the use of the word ancilla in the Blessed Virgin Mary's response to Gabriel, her humble fiat providing a contrast to Peter's lack of courage:

And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. [Luke i. 38]

    212. vowed. Confirmed by a vow or vows; solemnly promised or guaranteed. Solemnly sworn or threatened. 1590   E. Spenser Faerie Queene ii. iv. sig. P8   Our selues in league of vowed loue wee knitt.  1590   E. Spenser Faerie Queene ii. vi. sig. R2v   Of his way he had no souenaunce, Nor care of vow'd reuenge, and cruell fight.

A reference to Peter’s declaration: “Peter saith to him: Yea, though I should die with thee, I will not deny thee.” [Matt. xxvi. 31-35]

    214. deathfull. Deathful. Fraught with death; fatal, destructive, deadly. Having the appearance of death; associated with death; deathly. a1586   Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1593) ii. f. 55   With a deathfull shutting off his eyes hee fell downe at her bedside.

    215. toome. Tomb. For spelling, see 1587   A. Fleming et al. Holinshed's Chron. (new ed.) III. 115/2   She was buried in the nunrie of Goodstow beside Oxford, with these verses vpon hir toome…

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- 37 -

Yet loue was loath to part, feare loath to die;

Stay, danger, life, did counterplead their causes;

I, fauouring stay and life, bad danger flie,

But danger did except against these clauses: [220]

Yet stay and liue I would, and danger shunne,

And lost myselfe while I my verdict wonne.

    My love for the Lord made me reluctant to leave, but my own fear would simply not go away; the issues of staying, the danger, and how this affected my life, all these pleaded their case in the judgement of my mind. 

    I was moved by the arguments in favour of staying and preserving my life, dismissing danger; but danger made objection to these arguments. 

In the end, I would stay and preserve my life, avoiding danger. In so doing, I seemed to win a successful verdict but, in winning, I lost myself.

    217. part. To depart, go away (from a place); to leave, set out. Of two or more people or things: to go or come apart; to separate; esp. (of persons) to go away from each other, quit one another's company. 1596   E. Spenser Second Pt. Faerie Queene vi. i. sig. Z5   So both tooke goodly leaue, and parted seuerall.

    218. stay. Perhaps the best sense here relates to: The action or fact of staying or remaining in a place, continued presence, by way of contrast with part in line 217. Or, similarly: A stationary condition, a standstill: 1600   R. Surflet tr. C. Estienne & J. Liébault Maison Rustique vii. xviii. 830   [Oaks have] one hundred [years] to growe, one hundred to stande at a staie, and one hundred to decline and fall away.

    220. except.  intransitive. To make objection; to object or take exception. 1577   M. Hanmer tr. Socrates Scholasticus i. xxi, in Aunc. Eccl. Hist. 248   He excepteth against Eusebius and his adherents, as open enemyes. 

    Etymology:  From the use of Latin excipere (adversus aliquem) in Roman Law; the etymological notion being that of limiting the right alleged in an opponent's declaration by setting up a countervailing right in the defendant which excepts his case; the etymological notion being that of limiting the right alleged in an opponent's declaration by setting up a countervailing right in the defendant which excepts his case. This jurisprudential sense features in line 218 (counterplead their causes) and line 222,  (while I my verdict wonne).

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Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.