Reader, 'The History and Description of
Coventry
Show Fair, with the
History of Leofric and Godiva').
History of Leofric and Godiva').
Tennyson
Tasso, 'Gems', ix.
, st.
91:--
Nuova nube di polve ecco vicina
Che fulgori in grembo tiene.
(Lo! a fresh cloud of dust is near which
Carries in its breast thunderbolts. )]
GODIVA
First published in 1842. No alteration was made in any subsequent
edition.
The poem was written in 1840 when Tennyson was returning from Coventry
to London, after his visit to Warwickshire in that year. The Godiva
pageant takes place in that town at the great fair on Friday in Trinity
week. Earl Leofric was the Lord of Coventry in the reign of Edward the
Confessor, and he and his wife Godiva founded a magnificent Benedictine
monastery at Coventry. The first writer who mentions this legend is
Matthew of Westminster, who wrote in 1307, that is some 250 years after
Leofric's time, and what authority he had for it is not known. It is
certainly not mentioned by the many preceding writers who have left
accounts of Leofric and Godiva (see Gough's edition of Camden's
'Britannia', vol. ii. , p. 346, and for a full account of the legend see
W.
Reader, 'The History and Description of Coventry Show Fair, with the
History of Leofric and Godiva'). With Tennyson's should be compared
Moultrie's beautiful poem on the same subject, and Landor's Imaginary
Conversation between Leofric and Godiva.
[1] _I waited for the train at Coventry;
I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To match the three tall spires; [2] and there I shaped
The city's ancient legend into this:_
Not only we, the latest seed of Time,
New men, that in the flying of a wheel
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamouring, "If we pay, we starve! "
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode
About the hall, among his dogs, alone,
His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve".
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,
"You would not let your little finger ache
For such as _these? _"--"But I would die," said she.
He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul;
Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear;
"O ay, ay, ay, you talk! "--"Alas! " she said,
"But prove me what it is I would not do. "
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town,
And I repeal it"; and nodding as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people: therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd.
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd
The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.
Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways [3]in the wall.
Nuova nube di polve ecco vicina
Che fulgori in grembo tiene.
(Lo! a fresh cloud of dust is near which
Carries in its breast thunderbolts. )]
GODIVA
First published in 1842. No alteration was made in any subsequent
edition.
The poem was written in 1840 when Tennyson was returning from Coventry
to London, after his visit to Warwickshire in that year. The Godiva
pageant takes place in that town at the great fair on Friday in Trinity
week. Earl Leofric was the Lord of Coventry in the reign of Edward the
Confessor, and he and his wife Godiva founded a magnificent Benedictine
monastery at Coventry. The first writer who mentions this legend is
Matthew of Westminster, who wrote in 1307, that is some 250 years after
Leofric's time, and what authority he had for it is not known. It is
certainly not mentioned by the many preceding writers who have left
accounts of Leofric and Godiva (see Gough's edition of Camden's
'Britannia', vol. ii. , p. 346, and for a full account of the legend see
W.
Reader, 'The History and Description of Coventry Show Fair, with the
History of Leofric and Godiva'). With Tennyson's should be compared
Moultrie's beautiful poem on the same subject, and Landor's Imaginary
Conversation between Leofric and Godiva.
[1] _I waited for the train at Coventry;
I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To match the three tall spires; [2] and there I shaped
The city's ancient legend into this:_
Not only we, the latest seed of Time,
New men, that in the flying of a wheel
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamouring, "If we pay, we starve! "
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode
About the hall, among his dogs, alone,
His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve".
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,
"You would not let your little finger ache
For such as _these? _"--"But I would die," said she.
He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul;
Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear;
"O ay, ay, ay, you talk! "--"Alas! " she said,
"But prove me what it is I would not do. "
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town,
And I repeal it"; and nodding as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people: therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd.
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd
The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.
Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways [3]in the wall.
