St Peter's Complaynt : Lines 373-384

Please pray for the soul of Esther Clark. R.I.P. She gave a 
framed copy of this painting to the author in the 1980's.

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 on behalf of my family to Our Blessed Lady, Regina Martyrum et Consolatrix afflictorum. 

For 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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- 63 -

All-seeing eyes, more worth then all you see,

Of which one is the other's onely price;

I worthlesse am, direct your beames on mee, [375]

With quickning vertue cure my killing vice.

By seeing things, you make things worth the sight,

You seeing, salue, and being seene, delight!

    Eyes that see everything but which are worth more than everything they see;  for each eye is beyond price, the only thing of equal value being the other. 

    I, who am worth nothing, ask you to direct your gaze on me; to cure my life-destroying sin with your life-giving virtue. 

    Your gaze alone confers worth upon what you see; your gaze is like a healing balm, and being under your gaze is a true delight.  

    376. quickning. Quicken. To give or restore spiritual life to; to revive spiritually; to animate (the soul, etc.). a1616   W. Shakespeare All's Well that ends Well (1623) ii. i. 73   A medicine..able to breath life into a stone, Quicken a rocke. 

my killing vice. Peter’s vice or mortal sin brings about his spiritual death. 

    378. salve. A healing ointment for application to wounds or sores. A remedy (esp. for spiritual disease, sorrow, and the like). 1563   2nd Tome Homelyes Repentance ii, in J. Griffiths Two Bks. Homilies (1859) ii. 541   That they may receive at their hand the comfortable salve of God's word.

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- 64 -

O pooles of Hesebon; the baths of grace,

Where happie spirits diue in sweet desires, [380]

Where saints reioyce to glasse their glorious face,

Whose banks make eccho to the angels' quires;

An eccho sweeter in the sole rebound,

Then angels' musick in the fullest sound!

    These eyes are like the pools in Hesebon; they are pools of divine grace and blessed are they who plunge therein with love and tender prayers; this is where the saints rejoice to see themselves in a glorious reflection; here the enfolding slopes echo to the chants of angelic choirs: this echo alone, returning from the pools, is more sweetly sublime than the full choir of angels!  

    379. O pooles of Hesebon.  Hesebon was taken by the Israelites on their entry to the Promised Land, and was assigned to the tribe of Ruben (Num. xxxii, 37); afterwards it was given to the tribe of Gad (Jos., xxi, 37; I Par., vi, 81). The Canticle of Canticles speaks of the magnificent fish-pools of Hesebon.

Thy neck as a tower of ivory. Thy eyes like the fishpools in Hesebon, which are in the gate of the daughter of the multitude. [Canticle Of Canticles vvii. 4]

    baths. Bath. A quantity of water or other liquid prepared for bathing. The water of baptism. 1548   T. Cranmer Catechismus sig. Eeiv   The water of Baptisme, whiche Paule calleth the bathe of regeneration. 

    380. happie. Happy or here perhaps blessed, beatified. a1557   J. Cheke tr. Gospel St. Matthew (1843) v. 3   Happi be ye beggars in sprijt.

    381. to glasse. To set (an object, oneself) before a mirror or other reflecting surface, so as to cause an image to be reflected; also to view the reflection of, see as in a mirror. Often reflexive. Also transferred and figurative. a1586   Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1593) iii. sig. Gg3v   He had lifted vp his face to glasse himselfe in her faire eyes.

    382. banks. The edges of a watercourse, body of water, excavation, etc. A raised or sloping edge enclosing or bordering a lake, pond, etc.; a lake shore. 

    383. sole. Placed before a noun, in the sense of ‘alone’ following it. Obsolete. rare.

c1595   Countess of Pembroke Psalme cxix. 11 in Coll. Wks. (1998) II. 209   Since thy sole edictes containe it, Who serch not them, how can they gaine it?

    384. then. Than.

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Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.