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The Pulter Project
pulterproject.northwestern.edu
Poem 101

Doves and Pearls
(Emblem 36)

Edited by Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
Emblem 36 addresses “my dear pledges of our constant loves”: apparently, the poet’s own children, of which Pulter had fifteen (though not all lived to hear this poem). They are summoned to share the poet’s vision of some pearl-eating birds—an unusual sight, and so a compelling invitation. But the moral of the story is more ordinary: like the birds with their permanently internalized pearls, the speaker enjoins her offspring to “treasure sacred truths within your heart.” Pulter then raises the stakes by vividly imagining the “tyrant lapidaries” who might try to mine those jewel-like truths out of her children’s hearts, as well as “swine”-like folk who won’t just trample pearls (a biblical allusion) but also “rend” the “bowels” of those who throw them. The poem suggests the importance of maintaining one’s truth, at least internally; but it also acknowledges the countervailing need to protect oneself and one’s offspring from the often lethal treatment Pulter’s compatriots suffered in England’s civil wars (to which the poem also alludes).
Compare Editions
i
1Come, my dear
pledges1
of our constant loves:
2Come look upon these pretty, innocent doves!
3
See how they swallow orient pearls like peas:2
4A
cordial3
which our greatest faintings ease;
5And with their lives
ere4
with these pearls they’ll part:
6So treasure sacred truths within your heart.
7Though tyrant
lapidaries5
show their spite,
8Your graces, like these pearls, will shine more bright.
9Despair not, though you at their mercy lie:
10Your
virtues6
live, although your bodies die.
11Then, if you will in glory live above,
12Like these white doves, those blesséd unions love;
13But shun those people which are like those swine
14Which at God’s word and minister’s
repine7
:
15Throw them the choicest orient pearls you have,
16They’ll trample’m in the dirt and
ramp8
and rave;
17And when you think their malice at an end,
18If God restrain not, they’ll your bowels
rend9
.
19Of these,
the boar God’s vineyards10
that11
destroy
20And with their filth his sacred
fane12
annoy.
21
So mad Antiochus the temple stained13
;
22Even so
our janizaries Paul’s prophaned14
,
23Making the church a stable and a
stews15
24The while
imprisoning nobles in the mews16
.
25The greatest miracle our Savior wrought
26Was when he
scourged17
out
those which sold and bought18
.
Macron symbol indicating the end of a poem.

Elemental Edition,

edited by Leah Knight and Wendy Walli

Editorial Note

The aim of the elemental edition is to make the poems accessible to the largest variety of readers, which involves modernizing spelling and punctuation as well as adding basic glosses. Spelling and punctuation reflect current standard American usage; punctuation highlights syntax which might otherwise be obscure. Outmoded but still familiar word forms (“thou,” “‘tis,” “hold’st”) are not modernized, and we do not modernize grammar when the sense remains legible.

After a brief headnote aimed at offering a “way in” to the poem’s unique qualities and connections with other verse by Pulter or her contemporaries, the edition features a minimum of notes and interpretative framing to allow more immediate engagement with the poem. Glosses clarify synonyms or showcase various possible meanings in Pulter’s time. Other notes identify named people and places or clarify obscure material. We rely (without citation) primarily on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the Oxford Reference database, and the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. When we rely on Alice Eardley’s edition of Pulter’s work, we cite her text generally (“Eardley”); other sources are cited in full. The result is an edition we consider a springboard for further work on Pulter’s poetry.

See the full conventions for the elemental edition here.

Macron symbol indicating the end of a poem.
  • Leah Knight, Brock University
  • Wendy Wall, Northwestern University
  • pledges
    signs or tokens of favor, loyalty, love, or as guarantee; here, children as evidence of mutual love and duty between parents
  • See how they swallow orient pearls like peas:
    The speaker instructs her children to observe doves eating pearls (which were sometimes considered medicinal). The source of this claim is not known; too late as a source for Pulter, but relatively contemporary, is a passing reference to “A cloudy pearl in a dove’s paunch,” in Robert Dixon’s Canidia, or, The Witches (London, 1683), p. 208. Orient pearls are from the seas around India, versus those of less beauty in European mussels; generally, the phrase signifies a brilliant or precious pearl.
  • cordial
    medicine
  • ere
    before
  • lapidaries
    workers who cut, polish, set, and sell gems
  • virtues
    meaning not only morally good qualities but, in a medicinal context, strengthening or healing powers
  • repine
    grumble, complain
  • ramp
    rear on the hind legs; act in a furious, threatening way; rush about wildly; (of a woman) behave immodestly
  • rend
    See Matthew 7:6: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you” (“rend” meaning tear or wound).
  • the boar God’s vineyards
    See Psalms 80:8-13: “Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: … The boar out of the wood doth waste it.”
  • that
    did
  • fane
    temple
  • So mad Antiochus the temple stained
    Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, in 169 BCE defiled Jerusalem’s Temple.
  • our janizaries Paul’s prophaned
    Janizaries were Turkish soldiers, here identified with parliamentarians in England’s civil wars; “Paul’s” is St. Paul’s Cathedral, which had long been a resort for gossips, idlers, and disreputable people, and in the wars parliamentarians turned parts of it into cavalry barracks.
  • stews
    brothel
  • imprisoning nobles in the mews
    royal stables in London; Eardley cites a pamphlet claiming 4,500 royalists were jailed there after defeat at the Battle of Naseby. See The Manner How the Prisoners Are to Be Brought Into the City of London (London, 1645), A4v.
  • scourged
    drove by force
  • those which sold and bought
    See Matthew 21:12: “Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves …”
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