Scorned Medea (Emblem 9)

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Scorned Medea (Emblem 9)

Poem #75

Original Source

Hester Pulter, Poems breathed forth by the nobel Hadassas, University of Leeds Library, Brotherton Collection, MS Lt q 32

Versions

  • Facsimile of manuscript: Photographs provided by University of Leeds, Brotherton Collection

  • Transcription of manuscript: By Leah Knight and Wendy Wall.
  • Elemental edition: By Leah Knight and Wendy Wall.
  • Amplified edition: By Millie Godfery and Sarah C. E. Ross.

How to cite these versions

Conventions for these editions

The Pulter Project: Poet in the Making

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X (Close panel)Notes: Transcription

 Editorial note

In these transcriptions we preserve as many details of the original material, textual, and graphic properties of Hester Pulter’s manuscript verse as we have found practical. Whenever possible, for instance, original spelling, punctuation, capitalization, lineation, insertions, deletions, alterations, spacing between words and lines, and indentation are all maintained; abbreviations and brevigraphs are not expanded; and superscript and subscript representations are retained. See full conventions for the transcriptions here.
Line number 1

 Physical note

poem begins on same page as previous poem ends
Line number 1

 Physical note

second “o” blotted
Line number 2

 Physical note

“ll” written over another letter
Line number 26

 Physical note

remaining quarter-page blank
Sorry, but there are no notes associated with any currently displayed witness.
X (Close panel)Transcription
Transcription
Facsimile Image Placeholder
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[Emblem 9]
Scorned Medea
(Emblem 9)
Scorned Medea
(Emblem 9)
In these transcriptions we preserve as many details of the original material, textual, and graphic properties of Hester Pulter’s manuscript verse as we have found practical. Whenever possible, for instance, original spelling, punctuation, capitalization, lineation, insertions, deletions, alterations, spacing between words and lines, and indentation are all maintained; abbreviations and brevigraphs are not expanded; and superscript and subscript representations are retained. See full conventions for the transcriptions here.

— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
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 full conventions for this edition here.

— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
Our priority in editing these poems has been to modernise, and to achieve interpretative and visual clarity, in order to make the poems as accessible as possible to as wide a modern audience as is possible. Spelling is modernised, as is punctuation. Modernising the latter, in particular, often involves a significant act of editorial interpretation, but in our view this is one of the most productive areas of editorial intervention, particularly for a manuscript text such as Pulter’s where the punctuation is erratic compared to modern usage (and, indeed, compared to early modern printed texts).
1. See Alice Eardley, “‘I haue not time to point yr booke … which I desire you yourselfe to doe’: Editing the Form of Early Modern Manuscript Verse”, in The Work of Form: Poetics and Materiality in Early Modern Culture, ed. Ben Burton and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 162-178.
1 All biblical references are to the King James Version (1612).

— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
Pulter here portrays two women, each betrayed in love by a man, and each responding to such betrayal in perfectly polar ways: Medea grows outrageously homicidal, while Ariadne’s patient piety is divinely rewarded. These contrasting portraits are then processed into a rather pat moral: “So,” the speaker calmly advises, if you’re afflicted, don’t go stabbing your children and poisoning your rival; just trust in God. The emblem might now be complete—but Pulter doesn’t stop. She proceeds to offer what seems a superfluous warning to “those / That injure others”: “not to trust their foes.” The warning’s utility emerges only in the final couplet, as the poem involutes toward its speaker’s special challenge: “my enemies within me be.” Rather than identifying with the wronged Creusa and Ariadne, or even an avenging Medea, the speaker offers a more terrifying prospect: others betray others, but she cannot trust herself. She begs deliverance from this self-betraying self, a Creusa to her own Medea: an odd and unexpected doubling and division of Pulter’s otherwise often quite unitary-seeming identity.

— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
Medea’s vengeance is this emblem’s central image, as Pulter moralises on the consequences of revenge, both for those who seek it, and those whose actions might provoke it. The story, relayed in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, begins when Jason, leader of the Argonauts, arrives in Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which his uncle Pelias has requested in exchange for the throne of Iolcus. In Colchis, King Aeetes sets Jason three challenges he must complete in order to receive the fleece, and, in a “violent conflict between reason and passion”, Aeetes’ daughter Medea decides to aid him (Sandys 252).
Gloss Note
George Sandys’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses Englished (1632) is the most contemporaneous translation to Pulter’s writing, and so we have used it as our point of reference in this edition [New York: Garland Publishing, 1976].
1 Jason promises to marry Medea in return for her help, and they flee to Iolcus, where Medea then further assists her husband by murdering Pelias. When she returns to her husband, however, she discovers he has married Creusa, the daughter of King Creon. It is from this point that Pulter documents the revenge Medea enacts for this betrayal: setting fire to Creusa and committing infanticide.
Pulter contrasts Medea’s active revenge with the analogous story of Ariadne, also in the Metamorphoses, whose passive response to a similar abandonment by her husband Theseus is to marry and devote herself to another, Bacchus. Where Medea’s “mad impiety” goes as far as to “dare the gods to do as much by her”, Ariadne implores the “pity” of the gods and is rewarded with a crown of constellations (lines 13, 14, 18). The moralising turn Pulter takes at the end of the poem is perhaps unexpected, however, as she moves her focus from comparing the actions of both women to instead highlighting the fate of Creusa as warning to “all those / That injure others not to trust their foes” (lines 23-4). It is worth noting that both Medea and Ariadne also appear as speakers in Ovid’s Heroides, a text which also may have informed Pulter. This series of epistolary laments written by Ovid engage in the complaint genre to give Medea and Ariadne (alongside other female figures from Greek mythology) female-voiced narratives expressing the rejection and frustration they suffer in the Metamorphoses (Heroides, translated by John Sherburne [1639], pp. 55-61, 66-74). Pulter herself was well acquainted with the complaint genre: see The Complaint of Thames, 1647 [Poem 4], Universal Dissolution [Poem 6], and A Dialogue Between Two Sisters, Virgins Bewailing Their Solitary Life [Poem 56] for examples of political and religious complaints.
From line 21, Pulter shifts from her classical narrative to a Christian moral, suggesting that “trust in God” will, like Ariadne’s piety, be “crowned” in reward (line 22). This movement from classical to Christian interpretation is affirmed in her final couplet, as she takes an inward turn to reflect on her own mortal condition and her susceptibility to sin. She asks God to “deliver” her from any “enemies” within, fearing that her own self is worse than the Medeas and Creusas of the world (lines 26, 25). This phrase echoes Matthew 6:13 (“deliver us from evil”), demonstrating a repurposing of the plural “us” to appeal to God for assistance from the “enemies” that she fears exist within her. Pulter here displays a “psalmic inwardness” which affirms the movement from a classical to Christian moral, as Pulter adapts the emblem form to conclude in self-reflection (Rachel Dunn [Zhang]. “Breaking a Tradition: Hester Pulter and the English Emblem Book”, The Seventeenth Century, 30.1 [2015], 64). Thus, her ninth emblem offers a complex didacticism, offering three resolutions: first, she encourages readers to be patient and devout like Ariadne, then she uses Creusa as a reminder to be aware of how one’s actions can provoke enemies, and finally she concludes with a meditation on her own fallibility. Her use of Ovid’s mythology to give greater affinity to her moral and religious expressions demonstrates a sophisticated engagement in contemporary humanist discourses, one that can also be seen in her comparison of the biblical figure Nimrod with Ovid’s ambitious giants in Mighty Nimrod (Emblem 1) [Poem 67].


— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
1
9
Physical Note
poem begins on same page as previous poem ends
When
Physical Note
second “o” blotted
Scoornd Medea Saw Crueſa led
When scorned
Gloss Note
in various accounts of Greek myth, a princess and sorceress who fell in love with, married, and had children with Jason, who later abandoned her for Creusa
Medea saw Creusa led
When
Gloss Note
despised, contemptible (OED)
scorned
Critical Note
daughter of Aeetes and Hecate, descendant of the sun god Helios. Pulter’s retelling of Medea’s revenge, which appears similarly in Book Seven of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is the basis for this emblem’s narrative of revenge. Proceeding from the point at which Medea discovers her beloved Jason has married Creusa, Pulter’s poem describes how Medea is spun into a vengeful stupor, demonstrating, as Sandys writes in his interpretation of Ovid’s text, that “no hatred is so deadly as that which proceeds from alienated love” (258). See Headnote for a detailed account of Medea’s story and its role in the emblem.
Medea saw
Gloss Note
daughter of King Creon and wife of Jason
Creusa led,
2
A Bride to her
Physical Note
“ll” written over another letter
ungratefull Spouſes Bed
A bride to her ungrateful spouse’s bed,
A bride, to her
Gloss Note
Medea’s husband Jason, who, while she is away on a mission to murder the King of Iolcus and restore his birthright to the throne, marries Creusa, breaking Medea’s heart. Pulter describes him as “ungrateful”, given the faithful way in which Medea has aided him in his quest for the Golden Fleece and restoration of the throne; see Headnote.
ungrateful spouse’s bed,
3
Shee Vow’d Reveng hid underneath a Smile
She vowed revenge, hid underneath a smile
She vowed revenge hid underneath a smile,
4
Which did the Royall Virgin Soe beguile
Which did the
Gloss Note
Creusa was the daughter of King Creon of Corinth.
royal virgin so beguile
Which did the
Gloss Note
Creusa; see note for line 1
royal virgin so
Gloss Note
deceive, delude (OED 1a)
beguile
5
That Shee Receiv’d of her the Robe & Crown
That
Gloss Note
Creusa
she received of
Gloss Note
Medea
her the robe and crown
That she received of her the
Gloss Note
In Sandys’s account of the story, Medea “sends a Crowne and a robe to Creusa, infected with magicall poyson: which being put on, sets her all on a flame: consuming Creon also, who came to her rescue” (Sandys 259).
robe and crown
6
And overjoyed put on the Napthian Gown
And, overjoyed, put on the
Gloss Note
Naphtha was a flammable substance of liquid petroleum, used by Medea on Creusa’s wedding gown to burn her to death.
Napthian gown;
And overjoyed put on the
Gloss Note
Pliny’s Natural History describes the substance naphtha as having a “great affinitie” with fire, which will “leap onto it immediately”. Here, Pliny reaffirms the link between naphtha and Medea, as he writes “Medea burnt her husbands concubine, by reason that her guirland annointed therewith, was caught by the fire, after she approached neere to the alters, with purpose to sacrifice” (The Historie of the World: Commonly Called, the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. Trans. Philemon Holland. Vol. 1 [1635], 47).
napthian gown;
7
But putting holy Incence in the ffire
But, putting holy incense in the fire,
But putting holy incense in the fire,
8
The Pallas Soone became her ffun’rall Pier
The palace soon became her funeral pyre.
The palace soon became her fun’ral pyre.
9
Then ffierce Medea w:th her Dragons fflew
Then fierce Medea with
Gloss Note
Medea’s chariot was drawn by dragons given to her by her grandfather, Helios, god of the sun.
her dragons flew,
Then fierce Medea
Gloss Note
Ovid writes “The ill-reveng’d [Medea] from Jasons fury fled. / Whom now the swift Titanian Dragons draw / To Pallas towres”, describing Medea’s escape to Athens on the dragons provided by her mother Hecate, who was a descendant of the Titans (Sandys 240).
with her dragons flew,
10
Killing her Children in their ffathers view
Gloss Note
In some accounts, Medea deliberately murdered some of her children.
Killing her children in their father’s view.
Gloss Note
Medea commits infanticide, killing her children Mermerus and Pheres, while Jason watches (Sandys 240).
Killing her children in their father’s view.
Oh
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11
Oh Horrid! Shee (even Shee) that gave them Birth
O, horrid! She (even she) that gave them birth
Oh, horrid! She (even she) that gave them birth
12
Stab’d thoſe Sweet Boys then fflung them to ye Earth
Stabbed those sweet boys, then flung them to the earth.
Stabbed those sweet boys, then flung them to the earth;
13
Her mad Impiety did Rise thus ffar
Her mad impiety did rise thus far
Her mad impiety did rise thus far
14
To dare the Gods to doe as much by Her
To dare the gods to do as much by her.
To dare the gods to do as much by her.
15
Poor Ariadna did not Soe when Shee
Poor
Gloss Note
a figure of Greek myth; as Eardley notes, Theseus (not Jason) is usually seen as the husband who abandons her on the island of Naxos; Pulter conflates the mythological stories.
Ariadne did not so when she
Gloss Note
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Ariadne is the goddess of the labyrinth. Upon falling in love, with Theseus, who comes to Crete as a victim to be sacrificed for the Minotaurus, she helps him to escape by giving a ball of string and instructions to find his way out of the labyrinth. She elopes with him to the Island of Dia; however, once they arrive Theseus, “forgetfull of the many merits of Ariadne, steales away by night, and forsakes his sleeping preserver” (Sandys 288-9).
Poor Ariadne did not so when she
16
ffair Phedra in falce Jaſons Arms did See
Fair Phaedra in false Jason’s arms did see;
Fair
Gloss Note
wife of Theseus and sister of Ariadne
Phaedra in false
Gloss Note
Pulter appears to conflate the two stories of Medea and Ariadne, as she references “Jason”. Traditionally, it is Theseus who abandons Ariadne on the island of Naxos and marries her sister Phaedra.
Jason’s arms did see;
17
When Shee forſaken was on Naxus Shore
When she forsaken was on Naxos’s shore,
When he forsaken was on
Gloss Note
Ariadne and Theseus first arrive here upon eloping from Athens, only to discover it is Bacchus’s territory. Theseus abandons Ariadne in the middle of the night; see note for line 16.
Naxos’ shore,
18
The Pitty of the Gods Shee did implore
The pity of the gods she did implore.
The pity of the gods she did implore.
19
Then Liber Pater took her for his Spouſ
Then
Gloss Note
the god Dionysus; as Eardley notes, the crown he gives her is usually understood to have seven stars (the “orbs” in the next line), not nine.
Liber Pater took her for his spouse;
Then
Gloss Note
Italian god of wine and fertility, often associated with Bacchus. After being left on Naxos, Bacchus discovers Ariadne and takes pity on her, making her his wife; see notes for lines 15 and 16.
Liber Pater took her for his spouse;
20
With Nine Refulgent Orbs hee Crownd her brows
With nine
Gloss Note
radiant, bright
refulgent orbs he crowned her brows.
Gloss Note
In the myth of Ariadne, Bacchus converts her crown into a constellation “consist[ing] of eyght starrs” when he marries her. Upon Ariadne’s death, Bacchus then sets the crown among the stars, immortalising her in constellation (Sandys 290). Pulter’s constellation consists of nine rather than eight stars.
With nine refulgent orbs he crowned her brows.
21
Soe though afflictions doth thy Soul surround
So, though afflictions doth thy soul surround,
So, though afflictions doth thy soul surround,
22
Yet trust in God they Patience will bee Crownd
Yet trust in God thy patience will be
Gloss Note
glorified; rewarded
crowned.
Yet trust in God
Critical Note
echoes Hebrews 6:12: “them who through faith and patience inherit the promises”. Fusing this New Testament echo and her classical story, Pulter moralises on her comparison between Medea and Ariadne, praising Ariadne’s passive response to Theseus’s betrayal of her. She emphasises that God will reward Ariadne’s reaction, as opposed to Medea’s violent revenge.
thy patience will be crowned;
23
Then let this fflameing ffabrick Warn all thoſe
Then let this
Critical Note
Since “fabric” can refer to cloth or a building, the phrase might refer to the torched “gown” (l.6) or the “palace” (l.8) that became Medea’s pyre.
flaming fabric warn all those
Then let this
Gloss Note
Creusa’s “napthian gown” which sets on fire (line 6)
flaming fabric warn all those
24
That injure others not to trust their ffoes
That injure others not to trust their foes:
That injure others not to trust their foes.
25
But oh my Enemies within mee bee
But O, my enemies within me be
But O! My enemies within me be;
26
Then ffrom my Self Dear God deliver
Physical Note
remaining quarter-page blank
mee.
Then from
Critical Note
The manuscript features a space between these words, which we have chosen to retain rather than to render them as a single word.
my self, dear God, deliver me.
Then from
Critical Note
In contrast to Eardley, we have preserved Pulter’s original spacing here, as it nicely isolates the “self” as an entity over which the speaker does not have control. Hence she turns to God, asking for his protection against the “enemies” which might deter her “self” from an appropriate path.
my self, dear God,
Critical Note
a phrase which echoes Matthew 6:13: “deliver us from evil”. For Pulter's recasting of the biblical plural “us”, see Headnote.
deliver me.
ascending straight line
X (Close panel)Notes: Elemental Edition

 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 full conventions for this edition here.

 Headnote

Pulter here portrays two women, each betrayed in love by a man, and each responding to such betrayal in perfectly polar ways: Medea grows outrageously homicidal, while Ariadne’s patient piety is divinely rewarded. These contrasting portraits are then processed into a rather pat moral: “So,” the speaker calmly advises, if you’re afflicted, don’t go stabbing your children and poisoning your rival; just trust in God. The emblem might now be complete—but Pulter doesn’t stop. She proceeds to offer what seems a superfluous warning to “those / That injure others”: “not to trust their foes.” The warning’s utility emerges only in the final couplet, as the poem involutes toward its speaker’s special challenge: “my enemies within me be.” Rather than identifying with the wronged Creusa and Ariadne, or even an avenging Medea, the speaker offers a more terrifying prospect: others betray others, but she cannot trust herself. She begs deliverance from this self-betraying self, a Creusa to her own Medea: an odd and unexpected doubling and division of Pulter’s otherwise often quite unitary-seeming identity.
Line number 1

 Gloss note

in various accounts of Greek myth, a princess and sorceress who fell in love with, married, and had children with Jason, who later abandoned her for Creusa
Line number 4

 Gloss note

Creusa was the daughter of King Creon of Corinth.
Line number 5

 Gloss note

Creusa
Line number 5

 Gloss note

Medea
Line number 6

 Gloss note

Naphtha was a flammable substance of liquid petroleum, used by Medea on Creusa’s wedding gown to burn her to death.
Line number 9

 Gloss note

Medea’s chariot was drawn by dragons given to her by her grandfather, Helios, god of the sun.
Line number 10

 Gloss note

In some accounts, Medea deliberately murdered some of her children.
Line number 15

 Gloss note

a figure of Greek myth; as Eardley notes, Theseus (not Jason) is usually seen as the husband who abandons her on the island of Naxos; Pulter conflates the mythological stories.
Line number 19

 Gloss note

the god Dionysus; as Eardley notes, the crown he gives her is usually understood to have seven stars (the “orbs” in the next line), not nine.
Line number 20

 Gloss note

radiant, bright
Line number 22

 Gloss note

glorified; rewarded
Line number 23

 Critical note

Since “fabric” can refer to cloth or a building, the phrase might refer to the torched “gown” (l.6) or the “palace” (l.8) that became Medea’s pyre.
Line number 26

 Critical note

The manuscript features a space between these words, which we have chosen to retain rather than to render them as a single word.
Sorry, but there are no notes associated with any currently displayed witness.
X (Close panel)Elemental Edition
Elemental Edition
Facsimile Image Placeholder
Facsimile Image Placeholder
Facsimile Image Placeholder
[Emblem 9]
Scorned Medea
(Emblem 9)
Scorned Medea
(Emblem 9)
In these transcriptions we preserve as many details of the original material, textual, and graphic properties of Hester Pulter’s manuscript verse as we have found practical. Whenever possible, for instance, original spelling, punctuation, capitalization, lineation, insertions, deletions, alterations, spacing between words and lines, and indentation are all maintained; abbreviations and brevigraphs are not expanded; and superscript and subscript representations are retained. See full conventions for the transcriptions here.

— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
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 full conventions for this edition here.

— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
Our priority in editing these poems has been to modernise, and to achieve interpretative and visual clarity, in order to make the poems as accessible as possible to as wide a modern audience as is possible. Spelling is modernised, as is punctuation. Modernising the latter, in particular, often involves a significant act of editorial interpretation, but in our view this is one of the most productive areas of editorial intervention, particularly for a manuscript text such as Pulter’s where the punctuation is erratic compared to modern usage (and, indeed, compared to early modern printed texts).
1. See Alice Eardley, “‘I haue not time to point yr booke … which I desire you yourselfe to doe’: Editing the Form of Early Modern Manuscript Verse”, in The Work of Form: Poetics and Materiality in Early Modern Culture, ed. Ben Burton and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 162-178.
1 All biblical references are to the King James Version (1612).

— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
Pulter here portrays two women, each betrayed in love by a man, and each responding to such betrayal in perfectly polar ways: Medea grows outrageously homicidal, while Ariadne’s patient piety is divinely rewarded. These contrasting portraits are then processed into a rather pat moral: “So,” the speaker calmly advises, if you’re afflicted, don’t go stabbing your children and poisoning your rival; just trust in God. The emblem might now be complete—but Pulter doesn’t stop. She proceeds to offer what seems a superfluous warning to “those / That injure others”: “not to trust their foes.” The warning’s utility emerges only in the final couplet, as the poem involutes toward its speaker’s special challenge: “my enemies within me be.” Rather than identifying with the wronged Creusa and Ariadne, or even an avenging Medea, the speaker offers a more terrifying prospect: others betray others, but she cannot trust herself. She begs deliverance from this self-betraying self, a Creusa to her own Medea: an odd and unexpected doubling and division of Pulter’s otherwise often quite unitary-seeming identity.

— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
Medea’s vengeance is this emblem’s central image, as Pulter moralises on the consequences of revenge, both for those who seek it, and those whose actions might provoke it. The story, relayed in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, begins when Jason, leader of the Argonauts, arrives in Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which his uncle Pelias has requested in exchange for the throne of Iolcus. In Colchis, King Aeetes sets Jason three challenges he must complete in order to receive the fleece, and, in a “violent conflict between reason and passion”, Aeetes’ daughter Medea decides to aid him (Sandys 252).
Gloss Note
George Sandys’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses Englished (1632) is the most contemporaneous translation to Pulter’s writing, and so we have used it as our point of reference in this edition [New York: Garland Publishing, 1976].
1 Jason promises to marry Medea in return for her help, and they flee to Iolcus, where Medea then further assists her husband by murdering Pelias. When she returns to her husband, however, she discovers he has married Creusa, the daughter of King Creon. It is from this point that Pulter documents the revenge Medea enacts for this betrayal: setting fire to Creusa and committing infanticide.
Pulter contrasts Medea’s active revenge with the analogous story of Ariadne, also in the Metamorphoses, whose passive response to a similar abandonment by her husband Theseus is to marry and devote herself to another, Bacchus. Where Medea’s “mad impiety” goes as far as to “dare the gods to do as much by her”, Ariadne implores the “pity” of the gods and is rewarded with a crown of constellations (lines 13, 14, 18). The moralising turn Pulter takes at the end of the poem is perhaps unexpected, however, as she moves her focus from comparing the actions of both women to instead highlighting the fate of Creusa as warning to “all those / That injure others not to trust their foes” (lines 23-4). It is worth noting that both Medea and Ariadne also appear as speakers in Ovid’s Heroides, a text which also may have informed Pulter. This series of epistolary laments written by Ovid engage in the complaint genre to give Medea and Ariadne (alongside other female figures from Greek mythology) female-voiced narratives expressing the rejection and frustration they suffer in the Metamorphoses (Heroides, translated by John Sherburne [1639], pp. 55-61, 66-74). Pulter herself was well acquainted with the complaint genre: see The Complaint of Thames, 1647 [Poem 4], Universal Dissolution [Poem 6], and A Dialogue Between Two Sisters, Virgins Bewailing Their Solitary Life [Poem 56] for examples of political and religious complaints.
From line 21, Pulter shifts from her classical narrative to a Christian moral, suggesting that “trust in God” will, like Ariadne’s piety, be “crowned” in reward (line 22). This movement from classical to Christian interpretation is affirmed in her final couplet, as she takes an inward turn to reflect on her own mortal condition and her susceptibility to sin. She asks God to “deliver” her from any “enemies” within, fearing that her own self is worse than the Medeas and Creusas of the world (lines 26, 25). This phrase echoes Matthew 6:13 (“deliver us from evil”), demonstrating a repurposing of the plural “us” to appeal to God for assistance from the “enemies” that she fears exist within her. Pulter here displays a “psalmic inwardness” which affirms the movement from a classical to Christian moral, as Pulter adapts the emblem form to conclude in self-reflection (Rachel Dunn [Zhang]. “Breaking a Tradition: Hester Pulter and the English Emblem Book”, The Seventeenth Century, 30.1 [2015], 64). Thus, her ninth emblem offers a complex didacticism, offering three resolutions: first, she encourages readers to be patient and devout like Ariadne, then she uses Creusa as a reminder to be aware of how one’s actions can provoke enemies, and finally she concludes with a meditation on her own fallibility. Her use of Ovid’s mythology to give greater affinity to her moral and religious expressions demonstrates a sophisticated engagement in contemporary humanist discourses, one that can also be seen in her comparison of the biblical figure Nimrod with Ovid’s ambitious giants in Mighty Nimrod (Emblem 1) [Poem 67].


— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall
1
9
Physical Note
poem begins on same page as previous poem ends
When
Physical Note
second “o” blotted
Scoornd Medea Saw Crueſa led
When scorned
Gloss Note
in various accounts of Greek myth, a princess and sorceress who fell in love with, married, and had children with Jason, who later abandoned her for Creusa
Medea saw Creusa led
When
Gloss Note
despised, contemptible (OED)
scorned
Critical Note
daughter of Aeetes and Hecate, descendant of the sun god Helios. Pulter’s retelling of Medea’s revenge, which appears similarly in Book Seven of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is the basis for this emblem’s narrative of revenge. Proceeding from the point at which Medea discovers her beloved Jason has married Creusa, Pulter’s poem describes how Medea is spun into a vengeful stupor, demonstrating, as Sandys writes in his interpretation of Ovid’s text, that “no hatred is so deadly as that which proceeds from alienated love” (258). See Headnote for a detailed account of Medea’s story and its role in the emblem.
Medea saw
Gloss Note
daughter of King Creon and wife of Jason
Creusa led,
2
A Bride to her
Physical Note
“ll” written over another letter
ungratefull Spouſes Bed
A bride to her ungrateful spouse’s bed,
A bride, to her
Gloss Note
Medea’s husband Jason, who, while she is away on a mission to murder the King of Iolcus and restore his birthright to the throne, marries Creusa, breaking Medea’s heart. Pulter describes him as “ungrateful”, given the faithful way in which Medea has aided him in his quest for the Golden Fleece and restoration of the throne; see Headnote.
ungrateful spouse’s bed,
3
Shee Vow’d Reveng hid underneath a Smile
She vowed revenge, hid underneath a smile
She vowed revenge hid underneath a smile,
4
Which did the Royall Virgin Soe beguile
Which did the
Gloss Note
Creusa was the daughter of King Creon of Corinth.
royal virgin so beguile
Which did the
Gloss Note
Creusa; see note for line 1
royal virgin so
Gloss Note
deceive, delude (OED 1a)
beguile
5
That Shee Receiv’d of her the Robe & Crown
That
Gloss Note
Creusa
she received of
Gloss Note
Medea
her the robe and crown
That she received of her the
Gloss Note
In Sandys’s account of the story, Medea “sends a Crowne and a robe to Creusa, infected with magicall poyson: which being put on, sets her all on a flame: consuming Creon also, who came to her rescue” (Sandys 259).
robe and crown
6
And overjoyed put on the Napthian Gown
And, overjoyed, put on the
Gloss Note
Naphtha was a flammable substance of liquid petroleum, used by Medea on Creusa’s wedding gown to burn her to death.
Napthian gown;
And overjoyed put on the
Gloss Note
Pliny’s Natural History describes the substance naphtha as having a “great affinitie” with fire, which will “leap onto it immediately”. Here, Pliny reaffirms the link between naphtha and Medea, as he writes “Medea burnt her husbands concubine, by reason that her guirland annointed therewith, was caught by the fire, after she approached neere to the alters, with purpose to sacrifice” (The Historie of the World: Commonly Called, the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. Trans. Philemon Holland. Vol. 1 [1635], 47).
napthian gown;
7
But putting holy Incence in the ffire
But, putting holy incense in the fire,
But putting holy incense in the fire,
8
The Pallas Soone became her ffun’rall Pier
The palace soon became her funeral pyre.
The palace soon became her fun’ral pyre.
9
Then ffierce Medea w:th her Dragons fflew
Then fierce Medea with
Gloss Note
Medea’s chariot was drawn by dragons given to her by her grandfather, Helios, god of the sun.
her dragons flew,
Then fierce Medea
Gloss Note
Ovid writes “The ill-reveng’d [Medea] from Jasons fury fled. / Whom now the swift Titanian Dragons draw / To Pallas towres”, describing Medea’s escape to Athens on the dragons provided by her mother Hecate, who was a descendant of the Titans (Sandys 240).
with her dragons flew,
10
Killing her Children in their ffathers view
Gloss Note
In some accounts, Medea deliberately murdered some of her children.
Killing her children in their father’s view.
Gloss Note
Medea commits infanticide, killing her children Mermerus and Pheres, while Jason watches (Sandys 240).
Killing her children in their father’s view.
Oh
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Facsimile Image Placeholder
11
Oh Horrid! Shee (even Shee) that gave them Birth
O, horrid! She (even she) that gave them birth
Oh, horrid! She (even she) that gave them birth
12
Stab’d thoſe Sweet Boys then fflung them to ye Earth
Stabbed those sweet boys, then flung them to the earth.
Stabbed those sweet boys, then flung them to the earth;
13
Her mad Impiety did Rise thus ffar
Her mad impiety did rise thus far
Her mad impiety did rise thus far
14
To dare the Gods to doe as much by Her
To dare the gods to do as much by her.
To dare the gods to do as much by her.
15
Poor Ariadna did not Soe when Shee
Poor
Gloss Note
a figure of Greek myth; as Eardley notes, Theseus (not Jason) is usually seen as the husband who abandons her on the island of Naxos; Pulter conflates the mythological stories.
Ariadne did not so when she
Gloss Note
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Ariadne is the goddess of the labyrinth. Upon falling in love, with Theseus, who comes to Crete as a victim to be sacrificed for the Minotaurus, she helps him to escape by giving a ball of string and instructions to find his way out of the labyrinth. She elopes with him to the Island of Dia; however, once they arrive Theseus, “forgetfull of the many merits of Ariadne, steales away by night, and forsakes his sleeping preserver” (Sandys 288-9).
Poor Ariadne did not so when she
16
ffair Phedra in falce Jaſons Arms did See
Fair Phaedra in false Jason’s arms did see;
Fair
Gloss Note
wife of Theseus and sister of Ariadne
Phaedra in false
Gloss Note
Pulter appears to conflate the two stories of Medea and Ariadne, as she references “Jason”. Traditionally, it is Theseus who abandons Ariadne on the island of Naxos and marries her sister Phaedra.
Jason’s arms did see;
17
When Shee forſaken was on Naxus Shore
When she forsaken was on Naxos’s shore,
When he forsaken was on
Gloss Note
Ariadne and Theseus first arrive here upon eloping from Athens, only to discover it is Bacchus’s territory. Theseus abandons Ariadne in the middle of the night; see note for line 16.
Naxos’ shore,
18
The Pitty of the Gods Shee did implore
The pity of the gods she did implore.
The pity of the gods she did implore.
19
Then Liber Pater took her for his Spouſ
Then
Gloss Note
the god Dionysus; as Eardley notes, the crown he gives her is usually understood to have seven stars (the “orbs” in the next line), not nine.
Liber Pater took her for his spouse;
Then
Gloss Note
Italian god of wine and fertility, often associated with Bacchus. After being left on Naxos, Bacchus discovers Ariadne and takes pity on her, making her his wife; see notes for lines 15 and 16.
Liber Pater took her for his spouse;
20
With Nine Refulgent Orbs hee Crownd her brows
With nine
Gloss Note
radiant, bright
refulgent orbs he crowned her brows.
Gloss Note
In the myth of Ariadne, Bacchus converts her crown into a constellation “consist[ing] of eyght starrs” when he marries her. Upon Ariadne’s death, Bacchus then sets the crown among the stars, immortalising her in constellation (Sandys 290). Pulter’s constellation consists of nine rather than eight stars.
With nine refulgent orbs he crowned her brows.
21
Soe though afflictions doth thy Soul surround
So, though afflictions doth thy soul surround,
So, though afflictions doth thy soul surround,
22
Yet trust in God they Patience will bee Crownd
Yet trust in God thy patience will be
Gloss Note
glorified; rewarded
crowned.
Yet trust in God
Critical Note
echoes Hebrews 6:12: “them who through faith and patience inherit the promises”. Fusing this New Testament echo and her classical story, Pulter moralises on her comparison between Medea and Ariadne, praising Ariadne’s passive response to Theseus’s betrayal of her. She emphasises that God will reward Ariadne’s reaction, as opposed to Medea’s violent revenge.
thy patience will be crowned;
23
Then let this fflameing ffabrick Warn all thoſe
Then let this
Critical Note
Since “fabric” can refer to cloth or a building, the phrase might refer to the torched “gown” (l.6) or the “palace” (l.8) that became Medea’s pyre.
flaming fabric warn all those
Then let this
Gloss Note
Creusa’s “napthian gown” which sets on fire (line 6)
flaming fabric warn all those
24
That injure others not to trust their ffoes
That injure others not to trust their foes:
That injure others not to trust their foes.
25
But oh my Enemies within mee bee
But O, my enemies within me be
But O! My enemies within me be;
26
Then ffrom my Self Dear God deliver
Physical Note
remaining quarter-page blank
mee.
Then from
Critical Note
The manuscript features a space between these words, which we have chosen to retain rather than to render them as a single word.
my self, dear God, deliver me.
Then from
Critical Note
In contrast to Eardley, we have preserved Pulter’s original spacing here, as it nicely isolates the “self” as an entity over which the speaker does not have control. Hence she turns to God, asking for his protection against the “enemies” which might deter her “self” from an appropriate path.
my self, dear God,
Critical Note
a phrase which echoes Matthew 6:13: “deliver us from evil”. For Pulter's recasting of the biblical plural “us”, see Headnote.
deliver me.
ascending straight line
X (Close panel)Notes: Amplified Edition

 Editorial note

Our priority in editing these poems has been to modernise, and to achieve interpretative and visual clarity, in order to make the poems as accessible as possible to as wide a modern audience as is possible. Spelling is modernised, as is punctuation. Modernising the latter, in particular, often involves a significant act of editorial interpretation, but in our view this is one of the most productive areas of editorial intervention, particularly for a manuscript text such as Pulter’s where the punctuation is erratic compared to modern usage (and, indeed, compared to early modern printed texts).
1. See Alice Eardley, “‘I haue not time to point yr booke … which I desire you yourselfe to doe’: Editing the Form of Early Modern Manuscript Verse”, in The Work of Form: Poetics and Materiality in Early Modern Culture, ed. Ben Burton and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 162-178.
1 All biblical references are to the King James Version (1612).

 Headnote

Medea’s vengeance is this emblem’s central image, as Pulter moralises on the consequences of revenge, both for those who seek it, and those whose actions might provoke it. The story, relayed in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, begins when Jason, leader of the Argonauts, arrives in Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which his uncle Pelias has requested in exchange for the throne of Iolcus. In Colchis, King Aeetes sets Jason three challenges he must complete in order to receive the fleece, and, in a “violent conflict between reason and passion”, Aeetes’ daughter Medea decides to aid him (Sandys 252).
Gloss Note
George Sandys’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses Englished (1632) is the most contemporaneous translation to Pulter’s writing, and so we have used it as our point of reference in this edition [New York: Garland Publishing, 1976].
1 Jason promises to marry Medea in return for her help, and they flee to Iolcus, where Medea then further assists her husband by murdering Pelias. When she returns to her husband, however, she discovers he has married Creusa, the daughter of King Creon. It is from this point that Pulter documents the revenge Medea enacts for this betrayal: setting fire to Creusa and committing infanticide.
Pulter contrasts Medea’s active revenge with the analogous story of Ariadne, also in the Metamorphoses, whose passive response to a similar abandonment by her husband Theseus is to marry and devote herself to another, Bacchus. Where Medea’s “mad impiety” goes as far as to “dare the gods to do as much by her”, Ariadne implores the “pity” of the gods and is rewarded with a crown of constellations (lines 13, 14, 18). The moralising turn Pulter takes at the end of the poem is perhaps unexpected, however, as she moves her focus from comparing the actions of both women to instead highlighting the fate of Creusa as warning to “all those / That injure others not to trust their foes” (lines 23-4). It is worth noting that both Medea and Ariadne also appear as speakers in Ovid’s Heroides, a text which also may have informed Pulter. This series of epistolary laments written by Ovid engage in the complaint genre to give Medea and Ariadne (alongside other female figures from Greek mythology) female-voiced narratives expressing the rejection and frustration they suffer in the Metamorphoses (Heroides, translated by John Sherburne [1639], pp. 55-61, 66-74). Pulter herself was well acquainted with the complaint genre: see The Complaint of Thames, 1647 [Poem 4], Universal Dissolution [Poem 6], and A Dialogue Between Two Sisters, Virgins Bewailing Their Solitary Life [Poem 56] for examples of political and religious complaints.
From line 21, Pulter shifts from her classical narrative to a Christian moral, suggesting that “trust in God” will, like Ariadne’s piety, be “crowned” in reward (line 22). This movement from classical to Christian interpretation is affirmed in her final couplet, as she takes an inward turn to reflect on her own mortal condition and her susceptibility to sin. She asks God to “deliver” her from any “enemies” within, fearing that her own self is worse than the Medeas and Creusas of the world (lines 26, 25). This phrase echoes Matthew 6:13 (“deliver us from evil”), demonstrating a repurposing of the plural “us” to appeal to God for assistance from the “enemies” that she fears exist within her. Pulter here displays a “psalmic inwardness” which affirms the movement from a classical to Christian moral, as Pulter adapts the emblem form to conclude in self-reflection (Rachel Dunn [Zhang]. “Breaking a Tradition: Hester Pulter and the English Emblem Book”, The Seventeenth Century, 30.1 [2015], 64). Thus, her ninth emblem offers a complex didacticism, offering three resolutions: first, she encourages readers to be patient and devout like Ariadne, then she uses Creusa as a reminder to be aware of how one’s actions can provoke enemies, and finally she concludes with a meditation on her own fallibility. Her use of Ovid’s mythology to give greater affinity to her moral and religious expressions demonstrates a sophisticated engagement in contemporary humanist discourses, one that can also be seen in her comparison of the biblical figure Nimrod with Ovid’s ambitious giants in Mighty Nimrod (Emblem 1) [Poem 67].
Line number 1

 Gloss note

despised, contemptible (OED)
Line number 1

 Critical note

daughter of Aeetes and Hecate, descendant of the sun god Helios. Pulter’s retelling of Medea’s revenge, which appears similarly in Book Seven of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is the basis for this emblem’s narrative of revenge. Proceeding from the point at which Medea discovers her beloved Jason has married Creusa, Pulter’s poem describes how Medea is spun into a vengeful stupor, demonstrating, as Sandys writes in his interpretation of Ovid’s text, that “no hatred is so deadly as that which proceeds from alienated love” (258). See Headnote for a detailed account of Medea’s story and its role in the emblem.
Line number 1

 Gloss note

daughter of King Creon and wife of Jason
Line number 2

 Gloss note

Medea’s husband Jason, who, while she is away on a mission to murder the King of Iolcus and restore his birthright to the throne, marries Creusa, breaking Medea’s heart. Pulter describes him as “ungrateful”, given the faithful way in which Medea has aided him in his quest for the Golden Fleece and restoration of the throne; see Headnote.
Line number 4

 Gloss note

Creusa; see note for line 1
Line number 4

 Gloss note

deceive, delude (OED 1a)
Line number 5

 Gloss note

In Sandys’s account of the story, Medea “sends a Crowne and a robe to Creusa, infected with magicall poyson: which being put on, sets her all on a flame: consuming Creon also, who came to her rescue” (Sandys 259).
Line number 6

 Gloss note

Pliny’s Natural History describes the substance naphtha as having a “great affinitie” with fire, which will “leap onto it immediately”. Here, Pliny reaffirms the link between naphtha and Medea, as he writes “Medea burnt her husbands concubine, by reason that her guirland annointed therewith, was caught by the fire, after she approached neere to the alters, with purpose to sacrifice” (The Historie of the World: Commonly Called, the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. Trans. Philemon Holland. Vol. 1 [1635], 47).
Line number 9

 Gloss note

Ovid writes “The ill-reveng’d [Medea] from Jasons fury fled. / Whom now the swift Titanian Dragons draw / To Pallas towres”, describing Medea’s escape to Athens on the dragons provided by her mother Hecate, who was a descendant of the Titans (Sandys 240).
Line number 10

 Gloss note

Medea commits infanticide, killing her children Mermerus and Pheres, while Jason watches (Sandys 240).
Line number 15

 Gloss note

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Ariadne is the goddess of the labyrinth. Upon falling in love, with Theseus, who comes to Crete as a victim to be sacrificed for the Minotaurus, she helps him to escape by giving a ball of string and instructions to find his way out of the labyrinth. She elopes with him to the Island of Dia; however, once they arrive Theseus, “forgetfull of the many merits of Ariadne, steales away by night, and forsakes his sleeping preserver” (Sandys 288-9).
Line number 16

 Gloss note

wife of Theseus and sister of Ariadne
Line number 16

 Gloss note

Pulter appears to conflate the two stories of Medea and Ariadne, as she references “Jason”. Traditionally, it is Theseus who abandons Ariadne on the island of Naxos and marries her sister Phaedra.
Line number 17

 Gloss note

Ariadne and Theseus first arrive here upon eloping from Athens, only to discover it is Bacchus’s territory. Theseus abandons Ariadne in the middle of the night; see note for line 16.
Line number 19

 Gloss note

Italian god of wine and fertility, often associated with Bacchus. After being left on Naxos, Bacchus discovers Ariadne and takes pity on her, making her his wife; see notes for lines 15 and 16.
Line number 20

 Gloss note

In the myth of Ariadne, Bacchus converts her crown into a constellation “consist[ing] of eyght starrs” when he marries her. Upon Ariadne’s death, Bacchus then sets the crown among the stars, immortalising her in constellation (Sandys 290). Pulter’s constellation consists of nine rather than eight stars.
Line number 22

 Critical note

echoes Hebrews 6:12: “them who through faith and patience inherit the promises”. Fusing this New Testament echo and her classical story, Pulter moralises on her comparison between Medea and Ariadne, praising Ariadne’s passive response to Theseus’s betrayal of her. She emphasises that God will reward Ariadne’s reaction, as opposed to Medea’s violent revenge.
Line number 23

 Gloss note

Creusa’s “napthian gown” which sets on fire (line 6)
Line number 26

 Critical note

In contrast to Eardley, we have preserved Pulter’s original spacing here, as it nicely isolates the “self” as an entity over which the speaker does not have control. Hence she turns to God, asking for his protection against the “enemies” which might deter her “self” from an appropriate path.
Line number 26

 Critical note

a phrase which echoes Matthew 6:13: “deliver us from evil”. For Pulter's recasting of the biblical plural “us”, see Headnote.
Sorry, but there are no notes associated with any currently displayed witness.
X (Close panel)Amplified Edition
Amplified Edition
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[Emblem 9]
Scorned Medea
(Emblem 9)
Scorned Medea
(Emblem 9)
In these transcriptions we preserve as many details of the original material, textual, and graphic properties of Hester Pulter’s manuscript verse as we have found practical. Whenever possible, for instance, original spelling, punctuation, capitalization, lineation, insertions, deletions, alterations, spacing between words and lines, and indentation are all maintained; abbreviations and brevigraphs are not expanded; and superscript and subscript representations are retained. See full conventions for the transcriptions here.

— Millie Godfery and Sarah C. E. Ross
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 full conventions for this edition here.

— Millie Godfery and Sarah C. E. Ross
Our priority in editing these poems has been to modernise, and to achieve interpretative and visual clarity, in order to make the poems as accessible as possible to as wide a modern audience as is possible. Spelling is modernised, as is punctuation. Modernising the latter, in particular, often involves a significant act of editorial interpretation, but in our view this is one of the most productive areas of editorial intervention, particularly for a manuscript text such as Pulter’s where the punctuation is erratic compared to modern usage (and, indeed, compared to early modern printed texts).
1. See Alice Eardley, “‘I haue not time to point yr booke … which I desire you yourselfe to doe’: Editing the Form of Early Modern Manuscript Verse”, in The Work of Form: Poetics and Materiality in Early Modern Culture, ed. Ben Burton and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 162-178.
1 All biblical references are to the King James Version (1612).

— Millie Godfery and Sarah C. E. Ross
Pulter here portrays two women, each betrayed in love by a man, and each responding to such betrayal in perfectly polar ways: Medea grows outrageously homicidal, while Ariadne’s patient piety is divinely rewarded. These contrasting portraits are then processed into a rather pat moral: “So,” the speaker calmly advises, if you’re afflicted, don’t go stabbing your children and poisoning your rival; just trust in God. The emblem might now be complete—but Pulter doesn’t stop. She proceeds to offer what seems a superfluous warning to “those / That injure others”: “not to trust their foes.” The warning’s utility emerges only in the final couplet, as the poem involutes toward its speaker’s special challenge: “my enemies within me be.” Rather than identifying with the wronged Creusa and Ariadne, or even an avenging Medea, the speaker offers a more terrifying prospect: others betray others, but she cannot trust herself. She begs deliverance from this self-betraying self, a Creusa to her own Medea: an odd and unexpected doubling and division of Pulter’s otherwise often quite unitary-seeming identity.

— Millie Godfery and Sarah C. E. Ross
Medea’s vengeance is this emblem’s central image, as Pulter moralises on the consequences of revenge, both for those who seek it, and those whose actions might provoke it. The story, relayed in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, begins when Jason, leader of the Argonauts, arrives in Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which his uncle Pelias has requested in exchange for the throne of Iolcus. In Colchis, King Aeetes sets Jason three challenges he must complete in order to receive the fleece, and, in a “violent conflict between reason and passion”, Aeetes’ daughter Medea decides to aid him (Sandys 252).
Gloss Note
George Sandys’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses Englished (1632) is the most contemporaneous translation to Pulter’s writing, and so we have used it as our point of reference in this edition [New York: Garland Publishing, 1976].
1 Jason promises to marry Medea in return for her help, and they flee to Iolcus, where Medea then further assists her husband by murdering Pelias. When she returns to her husband, however, she discovers he has married Creusa, the daughter of King Creon. It is from this point that Pulter documents the revenge Medea enacts for this betrayal: setting fire to Creusa and committing infanticide.
Pulter contrasts Medea’s active revenge with the analogous story of Ariadne, also in the Metamorphoses, whose passive response to a similar abandonment by her husband Theseus is to marry and devote herself to another, Bacchus. Where Medea’s “mad impiety” goes as far as to “dare the gods to do as much by her”, Ariadne implores the “pity” of the gods and is rewarded with a crown of constellations (lines 13, 14, 18). The moralising turn Pulter takes at the end of the poem is perhaps unexpected, however, as she moves her focus from comparing the actions of both women to instead highlighting the fate of Creusa as warning to “all those / That injure others not to trust their foes” (lines 23-4). It is worth noting that both Medea and Ariadne also appear as speakers in Ovid’s Heroides, a text which also may have informed Pulter. This series of epistolary laments written by Ovid engage in the complaint genre to give Medea and Ariadne (alongside other female figures from Greek mythology) female-voiced narratives expressing the rejection and frustration they suffer in the Metamorphoses (Heroides, translated by John Sherburne [1639], pp. 55-61, 66-74). Pulter herself was well acquainted with the complaint genre: see The Complaint of Thames, 1647 [Poem 4], Universal Dissolution [Poem 6], and A Dialogue Between Two Sisters, Virgins Bewailing Their Solitary Life [Poem 56] for examples of political and religious complaints.
From line 21, Pulter shifts from her classical narrative to a Christian moral, suggesting that “trust in God” will, like Ariadne’s piety, be “crowned” in reward (line 22). This movement from classical to Christian interpretation is affirmed in her final couplet, as she takes an inward turn to reflect on her own mortal condition and her susceptibility to sin. She asks God to “deliver” her from any “enemies” within, fearing that her own self is worse than the Medeas and Creusas of the world (lines 26, 25). This phrase echoes Matthew 6:13 (“deliver us from evil”), demonstrating a repurposing of the plural “us” to appeal to God for assistance from the “enemies” that she fears exist within her. Pulter here displays a “psalmic inwardness” which affirms the movement from a classical to Christian moral, as Pulter adapts the emblem form to conclude in self-reflection (Rachel Dunn [Zhang]. “Breaking a Tradition: Hester Pulter and the English Emblem Book”, The Seventeenth Century, 30.1 [2015], 64). Thus, her ninth emblem offers a complex didacticism, offering three resolutions: first, she encourages readers to be patient and devout like Ariadne, then she uses Creusa as a reminder to be aware of how one’s actions can provoke enemies, and finally she concludes with a meditation on her own fallibility. Her use of Ovid’s mythology to give greater affinity to her moral and religious expressions demonstrates a sophisticated engagement in contemporary humanist discourses, one that can also be seen in her comparison of the biblical figure Nimrod with Ovid’s ambitious giants in Mighty Nimrod (Emblem 1) [Poem 67].


— Millie Godfery and Sarah C. E. Ross
1
9
Physical Note
poem begins on same page as previous poem ends
When
Physical Note
second “o” blotted
Scoornd Medea Saw Crueſa led
When scorned
Gloss Note
in various accounts of Greek myth, a princess and sorceress who fell in love with, married, and had children with Jason, who later abandoned her for Creusa
Medea saw Creusa led
When
Gloss Note
despised, contemptible (OED)
scorned
Critical Note
daughter of Aeetes and Hecate, descendant of the sun god Helios. Pulter’s retelling of Medea’s revenge, which appears similarly in Book Seven of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is the basis for this emblem’s narrative of revenge. Proceeding from the point at which Medea discovers her beloved Jason has married Creusa, Pulter’s poem describes how Medea is spun into a vengeful stupor, demonstrating, as Sandys writes in his interpretation of Ovid’s text, that “no hatred is so deadly as that which proceeds from alienated love” (258). See Headnote for a detailed account of Medea’s story and its role in the emblem.
Medea saw
Gloss Note
daughter of King Creon and wife of Jason
Creusa led,
2
A Bride to her
Physical Note
“ll” written over another letter
ungratefull Spouſes Bed
A bride to her ungrateful spouse’s bed,
A bride, to her
Gloss Note
Medea’s husband Jason, who, while she is away on a mission to murder the King of Iolcus and restore his birthright to the throne, marries Creusa, breaking Medea’s heart. Pulter describes him as “ungrateful”, given the faithful way in which Medea has aided him in his quest for the Golden Fleece and restoration of the throne; see Headnote.
ungrateful spouse’s bed,
3
Shee Vow’d Reveng hid underneath a Smile
She vowed revenge, hid underneath a smile
She vowed revenge hid underneath a smile,
4
Which did the Royall Virgin Soe beguile
Which did the
Gloss Note
Creusa was the daughter of King Creon of Corinth.
royal virgin so beguile
Which did the
Gloss Note
Creusa; see note for line 1
royal virgin so
Gloss Note
deceive, delude (OED 1a)
beguile
5
That Shee Receiv’d of her the Robe & Crown
That
Gloss Note
Creusa
she received of
Gloss Note
Medea
her the robe and crown
That she received of her the
Gloss Note
In Sandys’s account of the story, Medea “sends a Crowne and a robe to Creusa, infected with magicall poyson: which being put on, sets her all on a flame: consuming Creon also, who came to her rescue” (Sandys 259).
robe and crown
6
And overjoyed put on the Napthian Gown
And, overjoyed, put on the
Gloss Note
Naphtha was a flammable substance of liquid petroleum, used by Medea on Creusa’s wedding gown to burn her to death.
Napthian gown;
And overjoyed put on the
Gloss Note
Pliny’s Natural History describes the substance naphtha as having a “great affinitie” with fire, which will “leap onto it immediately”. Here, Pliny reaffirms the link between naphtha and Medea, as he writes “Medea burnt her husbands concubine, by reason that her guirland annointed therewith, was caught by the fire, after she approached neere to the alters, with purpose to sacrifice” (The Historie of the World: Commonly Called, the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. Trans. Philemon Holland. Vol. 1 [1635], 47).
napthian gown;
7
But putting holy Incence in the ffire
But, putting holy incense in the fire,
But putting holy incense in the fire,
8
The Pallas Soone became her ffun’rall Pier
The palace soon became her funeral pyre.
The palace soon became her fun’ral pyre.
9
Then ffierce Medea w:th her Dragons fflew
Then fierce Medea with
Gloss Note
Medea’s chariot was drawn by dragons given to her by her grandfather, Helios, god of the sun.
her dragons flew,
Then fierce Medea
Gloss Note
Ovid writes “The ill-reveng’d [Medea] from Jasons fury fled. / Whom now the swift Titanian Dragons draw / To Pallas towres”, describing Medea’s escape to Athens on the dragons provided by her mother Hecate, who was a descendant of the Titans (Sandys 240).
with her dragons flew,
10
Killing her Children in their ffathers view
Gloss Note
In some accounts, Medea deliberately murdered some of her children.
Killing her children in their father’s view.
Gloss Note
Medea commits infanticide, killing her children Mermerus and Pheres, while Jason watches (Sandys 240).
Killing her children in their father’s view.
Oh
Facsimile Image Placeholder
Facsimile Image Placeholder
Facsimile Image Placeholder
11
Oh Horrid! Shee (even Shee) that gave them Birth
O, horrid! She (even she) that gave them birth
Oh, horrid! She (even she) that gave them birth
12
Stab’d thoſe Sweet Boys then fflung them to ye Earth
Stabbed those sweet boys, then flung them to the earth.
Stabbed those sweet boys, then flung them to the earth;
13
Her mad Impiety did Rise thus ffar
Her mad impiety did rise thus far
Her mad impiety did rise thus far
14
To dare the Gods to doe as much by Her
To dare the gods to do as much by her.
To dare the gods to do as much by her.
15
Poor Ariadna did not Soe when Shee
Poor
Gloss Note
a figure of Greek myth; as Eardley notes, Theseus (not Jason) is usually seen as the husband who abandons her on the island of Naxos; Pulter conflates the mythological stories.
Ariadne did not so when she
Gloss Note
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Ariadne is the goddess of the labyrinth. Upon falling in love, with Theseus, who comes to Crete as a victim to be sacrificed for the Minotaurus, she helps him to escape by giving a ball of string and instructions to find his way out of the labyrinth. She elopes with him to the Island of Dia; however, once they arrive Theseus, “forgetfull of the many merits of Ariadne, steales away by night, and forsakes his sleeping preserver” (Sandys 288-9).
Poor Ariadne did not so when she
16
ffair Phedra in falce Jaſons Arms did See
Fair Phaedra in false Jason’s arms did see;
Fair
Gloss Note
wife of Theseus and sister of Ariadne
Phaedra in false
Gloss Note
Pulter appears to conflate the two stories of Medea and Ariadne, as she references “Jason”. Traditionally, it is Theseus who abandons Ariadne on the island of Naxos and marries her sister Phaedra.
Jason’s arms did see;
17
When Shee forſaken was on Naxus Shore
When she forsaken was on Naxos’s shore,
When he forsaken was on
Gloss Note
Ariadne and Theseus first arrive here upon eloping from Athens, only to discover it is Bacchus’s territory. Theseus abandons Ariadne in the middle of the night; see note for line 16.
Naxos’ shore,
18
The Pitty of the Gods Shee did implore
The pity of the gods she did implore.
The pity of the gods she did implore.
19
Then Liber Pater took her for his Spouſ
Then
Gloss Note
the god Dionysus; as Eardley notes, the crown he gives her is usually understood to have seven stars (the “orbs” in the next line), not nine.
Liber Pater took her for his spouse;
Then
Gloss Note
Italian god of wine and fertility, often associated with Bacchus. After being left on Naxos, Bacchus discovers Ariadne and takes pity on her, making her his wife; see notes for lines 15 and 16.
Liber Pater took her for his spouse;
20
With Nine Refulgent Orbs hee Crownd her brows
With nine
Gloss Note
radiant, bright
refulgent orbs he crowned her brows.
Gloss Note
In the myth of Ariadne, Bacchus converts her crown into a constellation “consist[ing] of eyght starrs” when he marries her. Upon Ariadne’s death, Bacchus then sets the crown among the stars, immortalising her in constellation (Sandys 290). Pulter’s constellation consists of nine rather than eight stars.
With nine refulgent orbs he crowned her brows.
21
Soe though afflictions doth thy Soul surround
So, though afflictions doth thy soul surround,
So, though afflictions doth thy soul surround,
22
Yet trust in God they Patience will bee Crownd
Yet trust in God thy patience will be
Gloss Note
glorified; rewarded
crowned.
Yet trust in God
Critical Note
echoes Hebrews 6:12: “them who through faith and patience inherit the promises”. Fusing this New Testament echo and her classical story, Pulter moralises on her comparison between Medea and Ariadne, praising Ariadne’s passive response to Theseus’s betrayal of her. She emphasises that God will reward Ariadne’s reaction, as opposed to Medea’s violent revenge.
thy patience will be crowned;
23
Then let this fflameing ffabrick Warn all thoſe
Then let this
Critical Note
Since “fabric” can refer to cloth or a building, the phrase might refer to the torched “gown” (l.6) or the “palace” (l.8) that became Medea’s pyre.
flaming fabric warn all those
Then let this
Gloss Note
Creusa’s “napthian gown” which sets on fire (line 6)
flaming fabric warn all those
24
That injure others not to trust their ffoes
That injure others not to trust their foes:
That injure others not to trust their foes.
25
But oh my Enemies within mee bee
But O, my enemies within me be
But O! My enemies within me be;
26
Then ffrom my Self Dear God deliver
Physical Note
remaining quarter-page blank
mee.
Then from
Critical Note
The manuscript features a space between these words, which we have chosen to retain rather than to render them as a single word.
my self, dear God, deliver me.
Then from
Critical Note
In contrast to Eardley, we have preserved Pulter’s original spacing here, as it nicely isolates the “self” as an entity over which the speaker does not have control. Hence she turns to God, asking for his protection against the “enemies” which might deter her “self” from an appropriate path.
my self, dear God,
Critical Note
a phrase which echoes Matthew 6:13: “deliver us from evil”. For Pulter's recasting of the biblical plural “us”, see Headnote.
deliver me.
ascending straight line
X (Close panel) All Notes
Transcription

 Editorial note

In these transcriptions we preserve as many details of the original material, textual, and graphic properties of Hester Pulter’s manuscript verse as we have found practical. Whenever possible, for instance, original spelling, punctuation, capitalization, lineation, insertions, deletions, alterations, spacing between words and lines, and indentation are all maintained; abbreviations and brevigraphs are not expanded; and superscript and subscript representations are retained. See full conventions for the transcriptions here.
Elemental Edition

 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 full conventions for this edition here.
Amplified Edition

 Editorial note

Our priority in editing these poems has been to modernise, and to achieve interpretative and visual clarity, in order to make the poems as accessible as possible to as wide a modern audience as is possible. Spelling is modernised, as is punctuation. Modernising the latter, in particular, often involves a significant act of editorial interpretation, but in our view this is one of the most productive areas of editorial intervention, particularly for a manuscript text such as Pulter’s where the punctuation is erratic compared to modern usage (and, indeed, compared to early modern printed texts).
1. See Alice Eardley, “‘I haue not time to point yr booke … which I desire you yourselfe to doe’: Editing the Form of Early Modern Manuscript Verse”, in The Work of Form: Poetics and Materiality in Early Modern Culture, ed. Ben Burton and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 162-178.
1 All biblical references are to the King James Version (1612).
Elemental Edition

 Headnote

Pulter here portrays two women, each betrayed in love by a man, and each responding to such betrayal in perfectly polar ways: Medea grows outrageously homicidal, while Ariadne’s patient piety is divinely rewarded. These contrasting portraits are then processed into a rather pat moral: “So,” the speaker calmly advises, if you’re afflicted, don’t go stabbing your children and poisoning your rival; just trust in God. The emblem might now be complete—but Pulter doesn’t stop. She proceeds to offer what seems a superfluous warning to “those / That injure others”: “not to trust their foes.” The warning’s utility emerges only in the final couplet, as the poem involutes toward its speaker’s special challenge: “my enemies within me be.” Rather than identifying with the wronged Creusa and Ariadne, or even an avenging Medea, the speaker offers a more terrifying prospect: others betray others, but she cannot trust herself. She begs deliverance from this self-betraying self, a Creusa to her own Medea: an odd and unexpected doubling and division of Pulter’s otherwise often quite unitary-seeming identity.
Amplified Edition

 Headnote

Medea’s vengeance is this emblem’s central image, as Pulter moralises on the consequences of revenge, both for those who seek it, and those whose actions might provoke it. The story, relayed in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, begins when Jason, leader of the Argonauts, arrives in Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which his uncle Pelias has requested in exchange for the throne of Iolcus. In Colchis, King Aeetes sets Jason three challenges he must complete in order to receive the fleece, and, in a “violent conflict between reason and passion”, Aeetes’ daughter Medea decides to aid him (Sandys 252).
Gloss Note
George Sandys’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses Englished (1632) is the most contemporaneous translation to Pulter’s writing, and so we have used it as our point of reference in this edition [New York: Garland Publishing, 1976].
1 Jason promises to marry Medea in return for her help, and they flee to Iolcus, where Medea then further assists her husband by murdering Pelias. When she returns to her husband, however, she discovers he has married Creusa, the daughter of King Creon. It is from this point that Pulter documents the revenge Medea enacts for this betrayal: setting fire to Creusa and committing infanticide.
Pulter contrasts Medea’s active revenge with the analogous story of Ariadne, also in the Metamorphoses, whose passive response to a similar abandonment by her husband Theseus is to marry and devote herself to another, Bacchus. Where Medea’s “mad impiety” goes as far as to “dare the gods to do as much by her”, Ariadne implores the “pity” of the gods and is rewarded with a crown of constellations (lines 13, 14, 18). The moralising turn Pulter takes at the end of the poem is perhaps unexpected, however, as she moves her focus from comparing the actions of both women to instead highlighting the fate of Creusa as warning to “all those / That injure others not to trust their foes” (lines 23-4). It is worth noting that both Medea and Ariadne also appear as speakers in Ovid’s Heroides, a text which also may have informed Pulter. This series of epistolary laments written by Ovid engage in the complaint genre to give Medea and Ariadne (alongside other female figures from Greek mythology) female-voiced narratives expressing the rejection and frustration they suffer in the Metamorphoses (Heroides, translated by John Sherburne [1639], pp. 55-61, 66-74). Pulter herself was well acquainted with the complaint genre: see The Complaint of Thames, 1647 [Poem 4], Universal Dissolution [Poem 6], and A Dialogue Between Two Sisters, Virgins Bewailing Their Solitary Life [Poem 56] for examples of political and religious complaints.
From line 21, Pulter shifts from her classical narrative to a Christian moral, suggesting that “trust in God” will, like Ariadne’s piety, be “crowned” in reward (line 22). This movement from classical to Christian interpretation is affirmed in her final couplet, as she takes an inward turn to reflect on her own mortal condition and her susceptibility to sin. She asks God to “deliver” her from any “enemies” within, fearing that her own self is worse than the Medeas and Creusas of the world (lines 26, 25). This phrase echoes Matthew 6:13 (“deliver us from evil”), demonstrating a repurposing of the plural “us” to appeal to God for assistance from the “enemies” that she fears exist within her. Pulter here displays a “psalmic inwardness” which affirms the movement from a classical to Christian moral, as Pulter adapts the emblem form to conclude in self-reflection (Rachel Dunn [Zhang]. “Breaking a Tradition: Hester Pulter and the English Emblem Book”, The Seventeenth Century, 30.1 [2015], 64). Thus, her ninth emblem offers a complex didacticism, offering three resolutions: first, she encourages readers to be patient and devout like Ariadne, then she uses Creusa as a reminder to be aware of how one’s actions can provoke enemies, and finally she concludes with a meditation on her own fallibility. Her use of Ovid’s mythology to give greater affinity to her moral and religious expressions demonstrates a sophisticated engagement in contemporary humanist discourses, one that can also be seen in her comparison of the biblical figure Nimrod with Ovid’s ambitious giants in Mighty Nimrod (Emblem 1) [Poem 67].
Transcription
Line number 1

 Physical note

poem begins on same page as previous poem ends
Transcription
Line number 1

 Physical note

second “o” blotted
Elemental Edition
Line number 1

 Gloss note

in various accounts of Greek myth, a princess and sorceress who fell in love with, married, and had children with Jason, who later abandoned her for Creusa
Amplified Edition
Line number 1

 Gloss note

despised, contemptible (OED)
Amplified Edition
Line number 1

 Critical note

daughter of Aeetes and Hecate, descendant of the sun god Helios. Pulter’s retelling of Medea’s revenge, which appears similarly in Book Seven of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is the basis for this emblem’s narrative of revenge. Proceeding from the point at which Medea discovers her beloved Jason has married Creusa, Pulter’s poem describes how Medea is spun into a vengeful stupor, demonstrating, as Sandys writes in his interpretation of Ovid’s text, that “no hatred is so deadly as that which proceeds from alienated love” (258). See Headnote for a detailed account of Medea’s story and its role in the emblem.
Amplified Edition
Line number 1

 Gloss note

daughter of King Creon and wife of Jason
Transcription
Line number 2

 Physical note

“ll” written over another letter
Amplified Edition
Line number 2

 Gloss note

Medea’s husband Jason, who, while she is away on a mission to murder the King of Iolcus and restore his birthright to the throne, marries Creusa, breaking Medea’s heart. Pulter describes him as “ungrateful”, given the faithful way in which Medea has aided him in his quest for the Golden Fleece and restoration of the throne; see Headnote.
Elemental Edition
Line number 4

 Gloss note

Creusa was the daughter of King Creon of Corinth.
Amplified Edition
Line number 4

 Gloss note

Creusa; see note for line 1
Amplified Edition
Line number 4

 Gloss note

deceive, delude (OED 1a)
Elemental Edition
Line number 5

 Gloss note

Creusa
Elemental Edition
Line number 5

 Gloss note

Medea
Amplified Edition
Line number 5

 Gloss note

In Sandys’s account of the story, Medea “sends a Crowne and a robe to Creusa, infected with magicall poyson: which being put on, sets her all on a flame: consuming Creon also, who came to her rescue” (Sandys 259).
Elemental Edition
Line number 6

 Gloss note

Naphtha was a flammable substance of liquid petroleum, used by Medea on Creusa’s wedding gown to burn her to death.
Amplified Edition
Line number 6

 Gloss note

Pliny’s Natural History describes the substance naphtha as having a “great affinitie” with fire, which will “leap onto it immediately”. Here, Pliny reaffirms the link between naphtha and Medea, as he writes “Medea burnt her husbands concubine, by reason that her guirland annointed therewith, was caught by the fire, after she approached neere to the alters, with purpose to sacrifice” (The Historie of the World: Commonly Called, the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. Trans. Philemon Holland. Vol. 1 [1635], 47).
Elemental Edition
Line number 9

 Gloss note

Medea’s chariot was drawn by dragons given to her by her grandfather, Helios, god of the sun.
Amplified Edition
Line number 9

 Gloss note

Ovid writes “The ill-reveng’d [Medea] from Jasons fury fled. / Whom now the swift Titanian Dragons draw / To Pallas towres”, describing Medea’s escape to Athens on the dragons provided by her mother Hecate, who was a descendant of the Titans (Sandys 240).
Elemental Edition
Line number 10

 Gloss note

In some accounts, Medea deliberately murdered some of her children.
Amplified Edition
Line number 10

 Gloss note

Medea commits infanticide, killing her children Mermerus and Pheres, while Jason watches (Sandys 240).
Elemental Edition
Line number 15

 Gloss note

a figure of Greek myth; as Eardley notes, Theseus (not Jason) is usually seen as the husband who abandons her on the island of Naxos; Pulter conflates the mythological stories.
Amplified Edition
Line number 15

 Gloss note

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Ariadne is the goddess of the labyrinth. Upon falling in love, with Theseus, who comes to Crete as a victim to be sacrificed for the Minotaurus, she helps him to escape by giving a ball of string and instructions to find his way out of the labyrinth. She elopes with him to the Island of Dia; however, once they arrive Theseus, “forgetfull of the many merits of Ariadne, steales away by night, and forsakes his sleeping preserver” (Sandys 288-9).
Amplified Edition
Line number 16

 Gloss note

wife of Theseus and sister of Ariadne
Amplified Edition
Line number 16

 Gloss note

Pulter appears to conflate the two stories of Medea and Ariadne, as she references “Jason”. Traditionally, it is Theseus who abandons Ariadne on the island of Naxos and marries her sister Phaedra.
Amplified Edition
Line number 17

 Gloss note

Ariadne and Theseus first arrive here upon eloping from Athens, only to discover it is Bacchus’s territory. Theseus abandons Ariadne in the middle of the night; see note for line 16.
Elemental Edition
Line number 19

 Gloss note

the god Dionysus; as Eardley notes, the crown he gives her is usually understood to have seven stars (the “orbs” in the next line), not nine.
Amplified Edition
Line number 19

 Gloss note

Italian god of wine and fertility, often associated with Bacchus. After being left on Naxos, Bacchus discovers Ariadne and takes pity on her, making her his wife; see notes for lines 15 and 16.
Elemental Edition
Line number 20

 Gloss note

radiant, bright
Amplified Edition
Line number 20

 Gloss note

In the myth of Ariadne, Bacchus converts her crown into a constellation “consist[ing] of eyght starrs” when he marries her. Upon Ariadne’s death, Bacchus then sets the crown among the stars, immortalising her in constellation (Sandys 290). Pulter’s constellation consists of nine rather than eight stars.
Elemental Edition
Line number 22

 Gloss note

glorified; rewarded
Amplified Edition
Line number 22

 Critical note

echoes Hebrews 6:12: “them who through faith and patience inherit the promises”. Fusing this New Testament echo and her classical story, Pulter moralises on her comparison between Medea and Ariadne, praising Ariadne’s passive response to Theseus’s betrayal of her. She emphasises that God will reward Ariadne’s reaction, as opposed to Medea’s violent revenge.
Elemental Edition
Line number 23

 Critical note

Since “fabric” can refer to cloth or a building, the phrase might refer to the torched “gown” (l.6) or the “palace” (l.8) that became Medea’s pyre.
Amplified Edition
Line number 23

 Gloss note

Creusa’s “napthian gown” which sets on fire (line 6)
Transcription
Line number 26

 Physical note

remaining quarter-page blank
Elemental Edition
Line number 26

 Critical note

The manuscript features a space between these words, which we have chosen to retain rather than to render them as a single word.
Amplified Edition
Line number 26

 Critical note

In contrast to Eardley, we have preserved Pulter’s original spacing here, as it nicely isolates the “self” as an entity over which the speaker does not have control. Hence she turns to God, asking for his protection against the “enemies” which might deter her “self” from an appropriate path.
Amplified Edition
Line number 26

 Critical note

a phrase which echoes Matthew 6:13: “deliver us from evil”. For Pulter's recasting of the biblical plural “us”, see Headnote.
Sorry, but there are no notes associated with any currently displayed witness.
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