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VII: Skelton's Speak, Parrot

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

William Nelson
William Nelson*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

For in this processe Parrot nothing hath surmysed, No matter pretendyd, nor nothyng enterprysed, But that metaphora, allegoria with all, Shall be his protectyon, his pauys, and his wall. (ll. 205–208) THE wall of metaphor and allegory that Skelton built around his Parrot perhaps served to keep off the pursuivants of his archenemy, Cardinal Wolsey; certainly it has proved a formidable obstacle to the comprehension of the reader of today. The Reverend Alexander Dyce, to whom we are indebted for what is still the only edition of Skelton's poems deriving directly from the sources, provides illuminating notes to scattered passages in Speak, Parrot, but admits his inability to make the whole intelligible. Friedrich Brie, whose learned Skelton Studien has contributed much to our knowledge of the poet, omits the troublesome Parrot altogether from his consideration except for a short note on the question of date. Koelbing essays merely to sketch its general structure with but occasional specific reference. The only reasoned attempt at clearing the confusion of the satire is that of Professor Berdan in Speke, Parrot, An Interpretation of Skelton's Satire.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , March 1936 , pp. 59 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1936

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References

1 The Poetical Works of John Skelton, 2 vols. (London, 1843).

2 E St, xxxvii (1907), 1–86.

3 Zur Charakteristik John Skeltons (Stuttgart, 1904).

4 MLN, xxx (1915), 140–144. The Dating of Skelton's Satires, PMLA, xxix (1914), 499–516, also contains much relevant material.

5 Dyce breaks up the first part of the poem as given in the early prints by inserting after line 237 a section found only in the MS.

6 These are: MS. Harl. 2252, item 51, ff. 133v.–139v.; Here after folweth certayne bokes, cōpyled by mayster Skelton, Poet Laureat, in several undated editions; and Pithy pleasaunt and profitable workes of maister Skelton, Poete Laureate, printed by Thomas Marshe, 1568.

7 MLN, xxx, 140.

8 Dyce, ii, 345.

9 Dyce, ii, 338.

10 Dyce, ii, 345.

11 Ibid.

12 Skelton Studien, p. 85.

13 MLN, xxx, 144.

14 A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum (1808), ii, 582–584.

15 “That these figures may refer to the year of the century is impossible, because Skelton died in 1529; that they may refer to the year of the reign of Henry VII is equally impossible, because he was on the throne but twenty-three years.” Berdan, Early Tudor Poetry (New York, 1920), p. 176. Chronologies based on the regnal year of Henry VIII or on the poet's age offer no better solution.

16 MLN, xxx, 141.

17 PMLA, xxix, 502.

18 PMLA, xxix, 516.

19 “… the Decastichon Viridentum in Galeratum Lycaonta Marinum, etc., at present attached to the end of the Why Come with the numeral ‘xxxiiii’ should be transferred to the Speke, Parrot group. This is inherently probable, as we find the same expressions, 'Lycaon,' 'vitulus,' 'Oreb,' 'Salmane,' 'Zeb,' etc., used in both poems. These passages are not like the previous Why Come and they are very like the jargon used in Speke, Parrot; read in connection with the first they are unintelligible, while read in connection with the second they make sense. The probability is that in some manuscripts they became confused.” PMLA, xxix, 502. But the “xxxiiii” does not directly follow the Decastichon; it follows a distinct section entitled Apostropha ad Londini Cives, etc. Furthermore, this Decastichon also mentions “Datan,” who is not found in Speak, Parrot and does have a place in Why Come (l. 889). Nor can I see that the passage gains in intelligibility by being attached to Speak, Parrot. In its openness of expression, it corresponds more closely to Why Come than to the less outspoken earlier poem.

20 PMLA, xxix, 503–504.

21 Skelton Studien, p. 86.

22 PMLA, xxix, 503–504.

23 Dyce, i, ix.

24 Dyce, i, xi.—A photostatic copy of the MS. of the poem shows that Dyce's uncertainty concerns the “Deo gratias,” not the “210.”

25 The material for this summary is taken largely from Brewer's introduction to vol. 3 of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII (London, 1867), and from the documents of the period included in that volume.

26 Dyce, ii, 345.

27 Koelbing, p. 125.

28 Brie, Skelton Studien, p. 85.

29 MLN, xxx, 144.

30 No stop at Canterbury is recorded by Hall, the D.N.B., or the Letters and Papers.

31 Hall's Chronicle (London, 1869), ii, 624–625.—The dates are clearly wrong, but the itinerary is given correctly. The cardinal was at Canterbury on July 31, Dover, August 1, and Calais, August 2 (Letters and Papers, iii, 595, 597).

32 Koelbing, p. 125.

33 MLN, xxx, 144.

34 State Papers, Henry VIII (1830), i, 70–71, No. xlii.

35 Hall, ii, 625.

36 Ibid., p. 627.

37 Letters and Papers, vol. 3; No. 1531 (August): 3 grants; No. 1621 (September): 6 grants; No. 1725 (October): 8 grants; No. 1818 (November): 6 grants. In July, the month before the trip to Calais, there were 38 grants (No. 1451).

38 MLN, xxx, 143–144.

39 John i. 42; 1 Cor. i. 12; iii. 22; ix. 5; xv. 5; Gal. ii. 9.

40 Dictionnaire Topographique du Département du Pas-de-Calais, Paris, 1907, s.v. Saint-Pierre-lez-Calais, Escalles.

41 Letters and Papers, iii, 701–702.

12 Furnivall, Ballads from Manuscripts (London, 1868–72), i, 316.

43 Dyce, ii, 345.

44 Decastichon, following Why Come Ye Not to Court.

45 The following analysis is a development of the suggestions of Professor Harry Morgan Ayres, whose lectures provided the writer with his first interest in Skelton, and whose assistance in this research has been given at too many points to permit any attempt at adequate recognition.

45 a Or Tycus, since the MS may be read either way.

46 Dyce's punctuation has no MS justification and must be ignored. The MS has a faint dot after “Argus” in line 290, which suggests:

Le tonsan de Jason is lodgid among the shrowdes

Of Argus. Revengyd, recover when he may,

Lyacon of Libyk and Lydy hathe cawghte hys pray:

(ll. 289–291)

47 The Historie of King Boccus and Sydracke, c., translated from the French by Hugh of Caumpeden, printed in 1510.

48 Dyce, ii, 347.

49 Doyle's Baronage, s.v. “Buckingham.”

50 “… the history of literature affords no second example of a poet having deliberately written sixteen hundred lines in honour of himself.” Dyce, i, xlix.

51 Ibid., p. 129.

52 Let it suffice that for Skelton it seems to have more significance than Dyce will grant.

The editor describes it as “a degree in grammar, including rhetoric and versification, taken at the university, on which occasion the graduate was presented with a wreath of laurel.” Ibid., p. xii.

53 Dyce, i, 128.

54 Dyce, i, 197.

55 Dyce, i, xiii.

56 “But I praye mayster Iohn Skelton late created poete laureate in the vnyuersite of oxenforde to ouersee and correcte this sayd booke.” Prologues and Epilogues of William Caxton, EETS, clxxvi, 109.

57 Dyce, i, 6–14.

58 The elegy on Edward IV (Dyce, i, 1–5), the only poem in Dyce temporally preceding the elegy on the Earl of Northumberland, is also headed “per Skeltonidem Laureatum.” But it is doubted that this poem is really Skelton's. “Weder in den drucken noch in den MSS trägt das gedicht die Unterschrift Skelton's. Ziehen wir hierzu noch das auffallend frühe datum der abfassung [1483] und das stillschweigen des Garl. in betracht, so werden wir zugeben müssen dass Skelton's autorschaft nicht über allen zweifei erhaben ist.” (Brie, Skelton Studien, p. 27) Besides, the description of Skelton as laureate does not form part of a longer Latin expression as it does in the examples cited, and might easily have been inserted by another hand.

59 Mullinger, University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1873), i, 526.

60 Speak, Parrot, l. 395: “Moloc, that mawmett, there darre no man withsay.”

61 Commentarius in Genesin Angelomi Luxoviensis Monachi. Migne, Patr. Lat., cxv, col. 168.

62 “Assur, ad litteram, Nabuchodonosor rex Assyriorum, et interpretatur deprimens vel elatus, per quern significato diabolus, qui operatur in malis, quorum princeps est, quos in profundum peccati deprimit. Et hi omnes, operante in se principe diabolo, facti sunt in adjutorium filiis Lot, id est adjuvant invisibiles hostes, qui per istos oppugnant populum Dei … Filii ergo Lot sunt angeli apostatae. …” Peter Lombard, Commentarius in Psalmos, Migne Patr. Lat., cxci, col. 783.

63 MLN, xxx, 142.

64 EETS, no. 153, p. 27. Dunbabin in MLR, xii, 262–264, argues in support of the thesis that Skelton's “Baldock” is the English town of that name, and not the Biblical Shushan. But he ignores the connection between the iebet of Baldock“ and the gibbet of Haman.

65 Furnivall, op. cit., i, 308. An Exhortacyon to the Northe, A.D. 1536, ll. 109–110.

66 N.E.D., s.v. “burse.”

67 Henry VIII used the feathers and motto on stained glass in the Tower of London. It is only after this period that the badge seems to have been considered to belong exclusively to the sovereign's eldest son. See Nicholas Harris Nicholas, On the Badge and Mottoes of the Prince of Wales, Archaealogia, xxxi (1846), 370.

68 The question “Why come ye not to court?” makes this point. Compare also Speak, Parrot, ll. 132, 348–351, 399–404, 423.

69 MLN, xxx, 142.

70 MLN, xxx, 142.

71 It seems probable that ll. 122–125 mean, “Sihon is come again to Heshbon and retains Og, the fat hog of Bashan, the crafty coistronus Cananaeorum,” rather than, “Sihon is come to Heshbon, and Og retains the coistronus.” Josephus (Antiq., iv, 5, 3) makes Sihon and Og allies: “He [Og] brought an army with him and came in haste to the assistance of his friend, Sihon. …”

72 Rabanus Maurus, Enarrationes in Librum Numerorum libri tres, Migne, Patr. Lat., cviii, col. 723.

73 Ibid.—Note that the Biblical verse (Num. xxi. 27) reads, “Venite in Hesebon, aedificetur et construatur civitas Sehon,” and that therefore the expression “quae fuit civitas Seon” represents Hraban's emphasis.

74 Wolbero, Commentaria in Canticum Canticorum, Migne, Patr. Lat., cxcv, col. 1231–1232.

75 Rabanus Maurus, Allegoria in Scripturam Sacram, Migne Patr. Lat., cxii, col. 917.

76 Patr. Lat., ccxix, col. 249.

77 Mullinger, op. cit., i, 526.

78 MLN, xxx, 142.

79 Book iiii, cxlix.

80 These verses are found under an absurdly youthful portrait entitled “Skelton Poeta,” at the beginning of the 1523 edition of the Garland of Laurel. This cut is the same as that for April in The Kalenda & Compost of Shepherds. Skelton was about 63 years old at the time; so the portrait must represent his eternally enduring fame rather than his person.

81 The author wishes to express his deep gratitude to Professor Harry Morgan Ayres and Professor Jefferson Butler Fletcher of Columbia University for their assistance and kindly interest in the progress of this research.