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NOTES

NOTES

WILLIAM MORRELL

(1) NEW-ENGLAND. Lines 133-70. The text is that of the 1625 edition, from a photographic facsimile by The Club of Odd Volumes. ¶ 15. greeces=degrees ("ordine" in the Latin version); the meaning seems to be that the hair varied in length on different parts of the head, from a close cut to the scalp lock. ¶ 29. Pinsen a kind of shoe; here, moccasins.

ANONYMOUS

(2) THE WHOLE BOOKE OF PSALMES. Commonly known as The Bay Psalm Book. The text is that of the 1640 edition, from a copy in the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University. "If therefore the verses are not alwayes so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect, let them consider that Gods Altar needs not our polishings (Ex. 20), for wee have respected rather a plaine translation then to smooth our verses with the sweetnes of any paraphrase, and soe have attended Conscience rather then Elegance, fidelity rather then poetry, in translating the hebrew words into english language, and Davids poetry into english meetre, that soe wee may sing in Sion the Lords songs of prayse according to his owne will."Preface.

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(3) THE WONDER-WORKING PROVIDENCE OF SIONS SAVIOUR IN NEW-ENGLAND. Stanzas 1, 21, 22, of chap. 9. The text is from the 1654 edition.

(4) 9. Here-hear

ANNE BRADSTREET

The text, with the exceptions noted, is that of the 1678 edition ("Corrected by the Author"), checked by the 1650 edition, from copies in the Harris Collection, Brown University Library.

(4) THE PROLOGUE. 8. Bartas: a French poet (1544-99), whose poem on the Creation, either in the original or in Sylvester's translation, was a great favorite among the Puritans.

(5) 19. that fluent sweet-tongu'd Greek: Demosthenes, who, to cure himself of a lisp, practiced speaking with a pebble in his mouth. 47. ure=ore.

(5) OF THE FOUR Ages of Man. Lines 1-60. ¶ 1. four other: in the original editions this poem is preceded by poems on the four elements (fire, air, earth, water) and the four humors of man (choleric, sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic); see the next eight lines, in which the relation of the four ages of man to these elements and humors is indicated.

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(7) THE FOUR SEASONS OF THE YEAR. Lines 1-84.

(8) 27. Pleiades their influence: italicized in the original editions because a sort of quotation from Job 38:31, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades ?" 58. gleads=hawks.

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(9) THE FOUR MONARCHYES. From "The Second Monarchy," ll. 78-124 of the section "Xerxes."

(10) 21. Artubanus: Artabanus was the chief general of Xerxes. ¶ 36. discovered = showed. 43-46. Greece was then prostrate under the cruel rule of

Turkey. Cf. Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, II. lxxiii.

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(14) 136. had: apparently a misprint for "have" or "have had." ¶ 158. Thetis house: the ocean; Thetis was a sea goddess.

(15) 190. prevent = anticipate.

(16) 225-30. Cf. Spenser's "Ruines of Time," stanza 14:

High towers, faire temples, goodly theaters,
Strong walls, rich porches, princelie pallaces,
Large streetes, brave houses, sacred sepulchers,
Sure gates, sweete gardens, stately galleries
Wrought with faire pillours and fine imageries,
All those (O pitie!) now are turnd to dust,
And overgrowen with blacke oblivions rust.

And Shakspere's Sonnets, lxv.1-8:

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

(17) 230-32. See Rev. 2:17: "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written."

(17) A LETTER TO HER HUSBAND. First published in J. H. Ellis's edition of Mrs. Bradstreet's works, in 1867, from which the text is taken.

(18) LONGING FOR HEAVEN. First published in Ellis's edition, from which the text is taken.

CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM

Mercury shew'd Apollo Bartas Book,

Minerva this, and wisht him well to look,
And tell uprightly which did which excell:

He view'd and view'd and vow'd, he could not tel.
They bid him Hemisphear his mouldy nose
With 's crackt leering glasses, for it would pose
The best brains he had in 's old pudding-pan,
Sex weigh'd, which best, the Woman or the Man?

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