)]
GODIVA
First published in 1842.
GODIVA
First published in 1842.
Tennyson
In the
monotonous, motionless splendour of a tropical landscape the smallest
movement catches the eye, the flight of a bird, the gentle waving of the
trailer stirred by the breeze from the sea. ]
[Footnote 15: 'Cf'. Shakespeare, "foreheads villainously low". ]
[Footnote 16: 1842. Peoples spin. ]
[Footnote 17: Tennyson tells us that when he travelled by the first train
from Liverpool to Manchester in 1830 it was night and he thought that
the wheels ran in a groove, hence this line. ]
[Footnote 18: 1842. The world. ]
[Footnote 19: Cathay, the old name for China. ]
[Footnote 20: 'Cf'. 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?
monotonous, motionless splendour of a tropical landscape the smallest
movement catches the eye, the flight of a bird, the gentle waving of the
trailer stirred by the breeze from the sea. ]
[Footnote 15: 'Cf'. Shakespeare, "foreheads villainously low". ]
[Footnote 16: 1842. Peoples spin. ]
[Footnote 17: Tennyson tells us that when he travelled by the first train
from Liverpool to Manchester in 1830 it was night and he thought that
the wheels ran in a groove, hence this line. ]
[Footnote 18: 1842. The world. ]
[Footnote 19: Cathay, the old name for China. ]
[Footnote 20: 'Cf'. 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?
