[144] On the Eve of His Execution
Guest Poem sent in by Siddhartha Joshi <siddha@>
| On the Eve of His Execution |
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen, yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live and now my life is done.
I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and found it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made;
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
-- Chidiock Tichborne
|
Chidiock Tichborne is a name as obscure as it is odd. The antiquarian
syllables, remembered only by a few, are difficult to place and harder
to locate. Tichborne does not appear in either The Golden Treasury or
the Oxford Book of English Verse or the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Yet he
wrote one of the most moving poems of his century.
Tichborne was not pre-eminently a poet but a conspirator. History is not
sure of the part he played in the attempt to do away with Queen
Elizabeth. Conjecture has it that he was born about 1558 somewhere in
Southampton, and it is said that his father, Peter Tichburne, traced his
descent from Roger de Tichburne, a knight in the reign of Henry II. His
family was ardently Catholic and both Chidiock and his father were
zealous champions of the Church of Rome; they did not scruple to abet
the king of Spain in "holy" attacks on the English government. In 1583,
Chidiock and his father were questioned concerning the possession and
use of certain "popish relics"; somewhat later they were further
implicated as to their "sacrilegious and subversive practices". In April
1586, Chidiock joined a group of conspirators. In June, at a meeting
held in St.Giles-in-the-Fields he agreed to be one of the six who were
pledged to murder the Queen and restore the kingdom to Rome. The
conspiracy was discovered in time; most of the conspirators fled. But
Tichborne, who had remained in London because of an injured leg, was
captured on August 14th and taken to the Tower. On September 14th, he
was tried and pled guilty. He was executed on September 20th. In a grim
finale, history relates, he was "disembowelled before life was extinct"
and the news of the barbarity "reached the ears of Elizabeth, who
forbade the recurrence."
On September 19, 1586, the night before he was executed, Chidiock wrote
to his wife Agnes. The letter enclosed three stanzas beginning:"My prime
of youth is but a frost of cares."
This elegy is so restrained yet so eloquent, so spontaneous, and so
skillfully made that it must be ranked among the little masterpieces of
literature. The grave but not yet depressing music of the lines is
emphasized by the repetition of the rhymed refrain, as though the poet
were anticipating the slow tolling of the bell announcing his death.
He was twenty-eight years old.
[Louis Untermeyer]
From: Amit Chakrabarti <amitc@>
Brilliant! The finest I've read in the last few weeks, I think.
And what music... "masterpiece" is right.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Amit Chakrabarti:
E-mail: amitc@
URL: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~amitc
From: "Ian Davidson" <icd@>
An interesting riposte, reputedly by Thomas Kyd, borrows interesting
imagery from Tichborne's poem:
Cygneam Cantionem Chidiochi Tychborne.
By T.K.
Thy prime of youth is frozen with thy faults,
thy feast of ioy is finisht with thy fall:
Thy crop of corne is tares auailing naughts,
thy good God knowes, thy hope, thy hap and all
Short were thy daies, and shadowed was thy sun
T'obscure thy light unluckelie begun.
Time trieth trueth, & trueth hath treason tript,
thy faith bare fruit as thou hadst faithles beene:
Thy ill spent youth thine after peares hath nipt,
and God that saw thee hath preserude our Due
Her thred still holds, thine perisht though unspun,
And she shall liue when traitors liues are done.
Thou soughtst thy death, and found it in desert,
thou look oft for life, yet lewdlie forcd it fade:
Thou trodst the earth, and now on earth thou art,
as men may wish thou never hadst beene made.
Thy glorie and thy glasse are timeless runne,
And this, O Tychborne, hath thy treason done.
From: "master" <ben@>
ahh sick,
I just read bellow the poem and felt so much
"On September 19, 1586, the night before he was executed, Chidiock wrote
to his wife Agnes. The letter enclosed three stanzas beginning:"My prime
of youth is but a frost of cares."
Im doing this peace in a exam today and cant believe how much you have
opened up this poem from being "sad man feeling sorry for himself" to a
"mad conspicuous piece that have sides i had never seen before"
Thanks and keep on writing on about poetry it was so clear i am dazzled,
ha ha!
From: Kent Nickerson <KNickerson@>
Rodney Sharman, a Canadian composer, has set this poem to choir in a short
(about 3 minute) piece called, "Anthem: The Passing of the Claimant".
From: "Dafydd Evans" <dafyddevans@>
Chidiock Tichborne, born in Hampshire in 1558, was a member of a junior
branch of the old Tichborne family of Tichborne, Hampshire. His
great-grandfather was Sir Henry Tichborne from whom the main line of
baronets descended. The family remained, in the troubled religious times
of sixteenth century England, staunch Catholics. They and a number of
landed and noble families refused to renounce Rome and, throughout the
years of religious intolerance up till the Catholic Emancipation Act
1829 continued in their faith. Chidiock was involved in the 'Babington
Plot' of 1586. Execution by 'hanging, drawing and quartering' was the
fate visited on the most heinous offenders such as those found guilty of
treason, and involved cutting down the convicted person's body before he
was death and disembowelling him. The dead body would then be
'quartered'. Chidiock left no children.
Though the Tichbornes were fervent royalists, ironically one Tichborne
was a regicide, ie one of the signatories to the death warrant of
Charles I.
I noted that a Canadian composer set the poem to music as 'Anthem: The
Passing of the Claimant'. Is this a reference to the so-called Tichborne
Claimant? If so, it is totally misplaced as that person was an imposter
who arrived in England from Australia in the late nineteenth century to
assert his claim to be Sir Roger Tichborne, who had in fact disappeared
and presumed drowned at sea some years earlier.
From: "Mark Brown" <mark.brown@>
Mention has been made of musical settings to Chideock Tichborne's words.
The first was probably William Byrd's madrigal of the same title, whose
music so well matches the mood of the poem. William Byrd was an English
composer who lived from 1505 to 1585 - very much an Elizabethan and a
Tudor.
IMPORTANT=20PLEASE=20READ=20=2D=20This=20E=2DMail=20and=20its=20contents=20are=20confidential=2C=20protected=20by=20law=20and=20legally=20privileged=2E
Only=20access=20by=20the=20addressee=20is=20authorised=2E=20=20Any=20liability=20=28in=20negligence=2C=20contract=20or=20otherwise=29=20arising=20from=20any
third=20party=20taking=20any=20action=20or=20refraining=20from=20taking=20any=20action=20on=20the=20basis=20of=20any=20of=20the=20information=20contained=20in
this=20E=2DMail=20is=20hereby=20excluded=2E=20=20In=20the=20event=20that=20you=20are=20not=20the=20addressee=2C=20please=20notify=20the=20sender=20immediately=2E
Do=20not=20discuss=2C=20disclose=20the=20contents=20to=20any=20person=20or=20store=20or=20copy=20the=20information=20in=20any=20medium=20or=20use=20it=20for
any=20purpose=20whatsoever=2E=20=20Copyright=20in=20this=20E=2DMail=20and=20any=20attachments=20created=20by=20us=20belongs=20to=20FK=20Roofing=20Services
Ltd=20and=20as=20the=20author=20we=20assert=20the=20right=20to=20be=20identified=20as=20such=20and=20hereby=20object=20to=20any=20misuse=20thereof=2E
It=20is=20our=20policy=20to=20reciprocate=20in=20the=20event=20of=20emails=20erroneously=20received=20by=20us=2E
From: "Gwen Room" <roomfamily@>
hey, i've been asked to research Chidiock Tichbourne by my english
teacher, and have been told that it will help me in my up coming
exams.....i was just wondering if any body would know any usefull
information that i could use
From: "jim clark" <videoman6082@>
Heres the first take me and Willpower recorded of this beautiful and
tragic poem/elegy written the night before the 28 year old Chidiock
Tychbourne was executed in the Tower of London in 1586...he had been
implicated in a Catholic plot to assasinate queen Elizabeth
1st......Tychbourne also wrote a long and very beautiful letter to his
wife expressing his wish for her to live a happy life after his
death.....the following morning Tychbourne faced the brutal ordeal of
being hung drawn and quartered..
We did several takes before we settled on the version of this poem which
I've turned to song which appears on our first CD "Hyperbole" and in the
earlier online sound posting at this website ...
http://groups.msn.com/acousticmusiciansandpoetssoundarchive/poetrysounds.msnw?action"get_message&mview"0&ID_Message"11&LastModified"4675392842783266935
But this our very first take has a rather interesting sounding music
track from Willpower and has myself developing this poem into a song
(occasional my vocals are a bit faint)...I thinks its worth a listen to
and hope you may enjoy doing so.....To listen online to this smusical
sound poem please visit...
http://groups.msn.com/acousticmusiciansandpoetssoundarchive/poetrysounds.msnw?action"get_message&mview"0&ID_Message"358
Regards.
Jim Clark.... All rights are reserved on this sound
recording/copyright/patent Jim Clark/William Beatty(Willpower) aka
Hyperbole 2003)
On the Eve of His Execution by: Chidiock Tichborne
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares, My feast of joy is but a dish
of pain, My crop of corn is but a field of tares, And all my good is but
vain hope of gain; The day is past, and yet I saw no sun, And now I
live, and now my life is done.
My tale was heard and yet it was not told, My fruit is fallen, yet my
leaves are green, My youth is spent and yet I am not old, I saw the
world and yet I was not seen; My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live and now my life is done.
I sought my death and found it in my womb, I looked for life and found
it was a shade, I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb, And now I die,
and now I was but made; My glass is full, and now my glass is run, And
now I live, and now my life is done.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: CWBandBuff@
my fav poem
bob
From: TMWDesigns@
the line missing from Chidiock Tichborne's poem is this one "I am the self
consumer of all my woes"
I do not know why it is left out everywhere on the web. T
From: "Ralph Maliphant" <ralph@>
Through researching Chidiock Tichborne, discovered Minstrels, looked
with interest at your web pages, Amit, and enjoyed them very much. But
please note that some hyperlinks don't work (eg music on your personal
page) as Princeton U has made changes that invalidate them.
May I suggest that you include a link on your page to email you?
Kind regards,
Ralph (Gloucestershire, England)