Hester Pulter and the Blazon in Early Modern England

Pulter often employs the poetic convention of the blazon. She uses it to express her grief over her daughter Jane’s death (Tell Me No More [On the Same]11), to assess the effects of aging and illness on her own body (Made When I Was Not Well51), and to imagine an ideal female beloved (My Love Is Fair59). In each case, she draws on well-known conventions and familiar precedents, but employs them inventively and even unpredictably. Her debts and her innovations are most visible when we read her blazons in relation to others. This exploration gathers definitions of the blazon, some pithy and provocative critical claims about its functions and effects, and a range of poems in the genre, including both sixteenth-century models Pulter might have encountered and the ways her contemporaries (especially Margaret Cavendish) joined her in playing with the genre’s possibilities and implications.

What is a Blazon? Definitions and Discussion

Blazon, n.: from the verb: “A description or record of any kind, esp. a record of virtues or excellencies” (Oxford English Dictionary II 4).

Blazon, v.: “To describe fitly, set forth honourably in words; to proclaim, make public, ‘trumpet’” (Oxford English Dictionary 4, 6a).

In poetry: A poetic style that describes various parts of the beloved’s body, usually by comparing each part to an object.

“[Petrarch’s] Laura is always presented as a part or parts of a woman. When more than one part figures in a single poem, a sequential, inclusive ordering is never stressed. Her textures are those of metals and stones; her image is that of a collection of exquisitely beautiful disassociated objects. Singled out among them are hair, hand, foot, and eyes …. More specifically Petrarchan, however, is the obsessive insistence on the particular, an insistence that would in turn generate multiple texts on individual fragments of the body or on the beauties of woman.”

Source: Nancy J. Vickers, “Diana Described: Scattered Woman and Scattered Rhyme,” in Writing and Sexual Difference, ed. Elizabeth Abel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 95–109, esp. p. 103.

“By introducing the concept of merchandizing into the economy of description, Shakespeare’s speaker … transforms the direct line one would expect to unite lover and beloved into a triangle. Here a lyric ‘I’ does not privately speak to a lyric ‘you’ but rather, by ‘publishing his love,’ interjects a third term: ‘I’ speaks ‘you’ to an audience that, it is hoped, will in turn purchase ‘you.’ The relationship so constructed involves an active buyer, an active seller, and a passive object for sale.”

Source: Nancy J. Vickers, “‘The blazon of sweet beauty’s best’: Shakespeare’s Lucrece,” in Shakespeare and the Question of Theory , ed. Patricia Parker and Geoffrey Harman (Methuen, 1985), pp. 95–115.

“The lover masters his mistress by inscribing her within his own discourse; he worships a deity of his own making and under his control.”

Source: Louis Montrose, “The Elizabethan Subject and the Spenserian Text,” in Literary Theory / Renaissance Texts, ed. P. Parker and D. Quint (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), pp. 303–40, esp. p. 325.

“The ‘inventory’ of parts becomes a way of taking possession by the very act of naming or accounting.”

Source: Patricia Parker, Literary Fat Ladies: Rhetoric, Gender, Property (Methuen, 1987), p. 131.

“Valuable as this work has been, it is time to bring a queer perspective to the erotic appeal of ‘the body in parts.’”

Source: Valerie Traub, The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England (Cambridge UP, 2002), p. 145.

“Both recently recovered manuscript writings and the flamboyant printed works by women such as Margaret Cavendish reveal women’s innovative use of the blazon in their own poetry, rather than their role simply as passive objects of it … Suddenly to be like a fruit is not an image of passivity and consumption but one of vitality and shared materiality.”

Source: Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, “‘Bake’d in the Oven of Applause’: The blazon and the body in Margaret Cavendish’s Fancies,” Women’s Writing 15.1 (2008): pp. 86–106, p. 88, p. 101.

The Blazon: English Sixteenth-Century Examples

Sir Philip Sidney

Queen Virtue’s court, which some call Stella’s face,
Prepared by Nature’s choicest furniture,
Hath his front built of alabaster pure;
Gold is the covering of that stately place.
The door by which, sometimes, comes forth her grace,
Red porphyr is, which lock of pearl makes sure;
Whose porches rich (which name of cheeks endure)
Marble, mixed red, and white, do interlace.
The windows now, through which this heav’nly guest
Looks o’er the world, and can find nothing such,
Which dare claim from those lights the name of best,
Of touch they are, that, without touch, doth touch,
Which Cupid’s self, from Beauty’s mind did draw:
Of touch they are, and, poor I am their straw.

Source: Sir Philip Sidney, Sir P. S. His Astrophel and Stella: Wherein the excellence of sweete Poesie is concluded (London, 1591), sig. A3v, modernized.

Edmund Spenser, Sonnet 15

Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toil,
Do seek most precious things to make your gain,
And both the Indias of their treasures spoil:
What needeth you to seek so far in vain?
For lo, my love doth in her self contain
All this world’s riches that may far be found:
If sapphires, lo her eyes be sapphires plain;
If rubies, lo her lips be rubies sound.
If pearls, her teeth be pearls both pure and round;
If ivory, her forehead ivory ween.*
*seems
If gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;
If silver, her fair hands are silver sheen.*
*shining
But that which fairest is, but few behold,
Her mind adorned with virtues manifold.

Edmund Spenser, Amoretti and Ephithalamion. Written not long since by Edmunde Spenser (London, 1595), sig. B1r, modernized.

Edmund Spenser, Sonnet 64

Coming to kiss her lips, such grace I found,
Me seemed I smelled a garden of sweet flow’rs:
That dainty odors from them threw around:
For damzels fit to deck their lovers’ bow’rs.
Her lips did smell like unto gillyflowers,
Her ruddy cheeks like unto roses red:
Her snowy brows like budded bellamoures,
Her lovely eyes like pinks but newly spread,
Her goodly bosom like a strawberry bed,
Her neck like to a bunch of columbines:
Her breast like lillies, ere their leaves be shed,
Her nipples like young blossomed jessemynes.*
*jasmines
Such fragrant flow’rs do give most odorous smell,
But her sweet odor did them all excel.

Edmund Spenser, Amoretti and Ephithalamion. Written not long since by Edmunde Spenser (London, 1595), sig. E1v, modernized.

William Shakespeare

This poem is usually called an “anti-blazon” since the list of the beloved’s attributes can seem critical. But the sonnet disparages the conventions of the blazon itself—the false comparisons that “belie” true appearance—more than it does the mistress. So it is “anti” the blazon as a poetic convention even as it shows its mastery of the form, rather than an anti-blazon of the mistress.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red.
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Shake-speare’s Sonnets. Never before Imprinted (London, 1609), sig. H4r, modernized.

Pulter’s Contemporaries and the Seventeenth-Century Blazon

Margaret Cavendish “Fancies”

A Posset for Nature's Breakfast

Life scums the cream of beauty with time’s spoon,
And draws the claret-wine of blushes soon,
Then boils it in a skillet clean of youth,
And thicks it well with crumbled bread of truth;
Sets it upon the fire of life, which does
Burn clearer much, when health her bellows blows;
Then takes eggs of fair and bashful eyes,
And puts them in a countenance that’s wise,
Cuts in a lemon of the sharpest wit,
Discretion, as a knife, is used for it.
A handful of chaste thoughts, double refined,
Six spoonfuls of a noble and gentle mind,
A grain of mirth to give it a little taste,
Then takes it off for fear the substance waste,
And puts it in a basin of good health,
And with this meat doth nature please herself.

A Bisk for Nature’s Table

A fore-head high, broad, smooth, and very sleek,
A large great eye, black and very quick.
A brow that’s arched, or like a bow that’s bent,
A rosy cheek, and in the midst a dent.*
*indentation, dimple
Two cherry lips, whereon the dew lies wet,
A nose between the eyes that's even set.
A chin that’s neither short, nor very long,
A sharp, and quick, and ready, pleasing tongue.
A breath of musk and amber in do strew,
Two soft round breasts, that are as white as snow.
A body plump, white, of an even growth,
Quick, active lives, that’s void of sloth.
A sound firm heart, a liver good,
A speech that’s plain, and easy understood.
A hand that’s fat, smooth, and very white,
The inside moist, and red, like rubies bright.
A brawny arm, a wrist that's round and small,
And fingers long, and joints not big withal.
A stomach strong, and easy to digest,
A swan-like neck and an out-bearing chest:
These mixing, all with pleasure and delight,
And strew upon them eyes that’s quick of sight;
Putting them in a dish of admiration,
And serves them up with praises of a nation.

A Hodge-Podge for Nature’s Table

A wanton eye, that seeks for to allure;
Dissembling countenance, that looks demure.
A gripping hand that holds what's none of his;
A jealous mind, which thinks all is amiss.
A purple face, where mattery* pimples stood;
*pus-filled
A slandering tongue that still dispraises good.
A frowning brow, with rage and anger bent;
A good that comes out from an ill intent.
Then took he promises that ne’re were performed,
And proffered gifts, that slighted were, and scorned.
Affected words that signified nothing,
Feigning laughter, but no mirth therein.
Thoughts idle, un-useful, and very vain,
Which are created from a lover’s brain.
Antic postures, where no coherence is;
Well-meaning mind, yet always doth amiss.
A voice that’s hoarse, where notes cannot agree,
And squinting eyes, that no true shape can see.
Wrinkles, that time hath set in every face,
Vainglory brave, that fall in full disgrace.
A self-conceited pride without a cause,
A painful desperate art without applause.
Verses no sense nor fancy have, but rhyme.
Ambitious fall, where highest hopes do climb.
All in the pot of dislike boileth fast,
Then stirs it with a ladle of distaste.
The fat of gluttons in the pot did flow,
And roots of several vices in did throw;
And several herbs, as aged thyme that’s dry,
Heart-burning parsley, burial rosemary.
Then pours it out into repentant dishes,
And sends it up by shadows of vain wishes.

Margaret Cavendish, Poems and Fancies: Written by the Right Honorable Margaret, Marchioness of Newcastle (London, 1609), sig. H4r, modernized.

Further Reflections on the Blazon as Recipe

In her “Fancies,” Cavendish links the blazon to the recipe or receipt, raising the question of how an inventory of attributes resembles a list of ingredients. As Wendy Wall points out, in this satirical poem by William King, “The speaker mocks reversals in the order of serving as well as hybrid, excessive, and artificial dishes. In his argument for artistic decorum, King pointed to meals that failed to respect natural correspondences; seafood, for instance, should be served with herbs associated with their living state. True cookery, in this poem, rests not simply in emulating one’s social betters, affirming political allegiance, or displaying national virtue, but in its regard for a naturalized (even mimetic) aesthetics. When King figures its violation as a grotesque female portrait pieced from diverse animal and human elements, he points backward to satiric renditions of the blazoned woman as a body literally composed from jewels, cosmological elements, flowers, and food.”

Source: Wendy Wall, Recipes for Thought: Knowledge and Taste in the Early Modern English Kitchen (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2015), p. 60.

William King, The Art of Cookery

were a picture drawn;
With Cynthia’s face, but with a neck like brawn,*
*meat
With wings of turkey, and with feet of calf,
Though drawn by Kneller,1 it would make you laugh!
Such is (good Sir) the figure of a feast,
By some rich farmer's wife and sister dressed.
Which, were it not for plenty and for steam,
Might be resembled to a sick man’s dream,
Where all ideas huddling run so fast,
That syllabubs2 come first, and soups the last.
Not but that cooks and poets still were free,
To use their power in nice variety.
Hence mack’rel*
*fish
seem delightful to the eyes,
Though dressed with incoherent gooseberries.
Crabs, salmon, lobsters are with fennel spread,
Who never touched that herb till they were dead.
Yet no man lards salt pork with orange peel,
Or garnishes his lamb with spatchcocked*
*split open and grilled
eel.

1. Sir Godfrey Kneller was an acclaimed artist, who painted the portraits of monarchs and aristocrats in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century.

2. Syllabubs were drinks or soft puddings made of curdled milk, usually served at the end of a meal.

Source: William King, The Art of Cookery (London, 1708), sigs. E3v-E4r, modernized.

John Milton, Blazon of Adam and Eve

Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
Godlike erect, with native honor clad
In naked majesty, seemed Lords of all,
And worthy seemed, for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure,
Severe but in true filial freedom placed,
Whence true authority in men. Though both
Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed:
For contemplation he and valor formed;
For softness she and sweet attractive grace.
He for God only; she for God in him.
His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule, and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clust’ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
She, as a veil down to the slender waist,
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved,
As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received;
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet reluctant amorous delay.
Nor those mysterious parts were then concealed;
Then was not guilty shame, dishonest shame
Of nature’s works. Honor dishonorable,
Sin-bred: how have ye troubled all mankind
With shows instead, mere shows of seeming pure,
And banished from man’s life his happiest life,
Simplicity and spotless innocence?

Source: John Milton, Paradise Lost: A Poem Written in Ten Books (London, 1667), Book 4: 288–318, sigs. M3v-M41, modernized.

Lucy Hutchinson, Order and Disorder

In this blazon of Adam, Hutchinson makes it explicit, as Milton does not, that she imagines Adam, the first human, as not just “fair” but white-skinned. As his name, linked to the Hebrew word for ground (adamah) signals, he “takes his low original” from “the common ground.” But Hutchinson assumes that, nevertheless, he is not brown.

The earthly mansion of this heavenly guest
Peculiar privileges, too, possessed.
Whereas all other creatures clothed were
In shells, scales, gaudy plumes, or wools or hair,
Only a fair smooth skin o’re man was drawn,
Like damask roses blushing through pure lawn.
The azure veins, where blood and spirits flow,
Like violets in a field of lilies show.
As others have a down-bent countenance,
He only doth his head to heaven advance,
Resembling thus a tree whose noble root
In heaven grows, whence all his graces shoot.
He only on two upright columns stands;
He only hath, and knows the use of, hands,
Which God's rich bounties for the rest receive,
And aid to all the other members give.
He only hath a voice articulate,
Varied by joy, grief, anger, love and hate,
And every other motion of the mind,
Which hereby doth an apt expression find.
Hereby glad mirth in laughter is alone
By man expressed. In a peculiar groan,
His grief comes forth, accompanied with tears;
Peculiar shrieks utter his sudden fears.
Herein is musick too, which sweetly charms
The sense, and the most savage heart disarms.
The gate of this, God in the head did place,
The head which is the body’s chiefest grace,
The noble palace of the royal guest,
Within by fancy and invention dressed,
With many pleasant useful ornaments
Which new imagination still presents,
Adorned without, by majesty and grace.
O who can tell the wonders of a face!
In none of all his fabrics more than here
Doth the Creator’s glorious power appear,
That of so many thousands which we see
All human creatures like, all different be.
If the front be the glory of man’s frame,
Those lamps which in its upper windows flame,
Illustrate it, and as day’s radiant star,
In the clear heaven of a bright face are.
Here love takes stand, and here ardent desire
Enters the soul, as fire drawn in by fire.
At two ports, on each side, the hearing sense
Still waits to take in fresh intelligence;
But the false spies both at the ears and eyes,
Conspire with strangers for the soul’s surprize,
And let all life-perturbing passions in,
Which with tears, sighs and groans issue again.
Nor do those labyrinths, which like breast-works are,
About those secret ports, serve for a bar
To the false sorcerers conducted by
Man’s own imprudent curiosity.
There is an arch i’the middle of the face
Of equal necessary use and grace,
For there men suck up the life-feeding air,
And panting bosoms are discharged there;
Beneath it is the chief and beauteous gate,
About which various pleasant graces wait,
When smiles the ruby doors a little way
Unfold, or laughter doth them quite display,
And opening the vermillion curtains shows
The ivory piles set in two even rows,
Before the portal, as a double guard,
By which the busy tongue is helped and barred;
Whose sweet sounds charm, when love doth it inspire,
And when hate moves it, set the world on fire.
Within this portal’s inner vault is placed
The palate, where sense meets its joys in taste.
On rising cheeks, beauty in white and red
Strives with itself, white, on the forehead spread,
Its undisputed glory there maintains,
And is illustrated with azure veins.
The brows love’s bow and beauty’s shadow are;
A thickset grove of soft and shining hair
Adorns the head, and shows like crowning rays,
While th’air’s soft breath among the loose curls plays.
Besides the colors and the features, we
Admire their just and perfect symmetry,
Whose ravishing resultance is that air
That graces all, and is not anywhere;
Whereof we cannot well say what it is,
Yet beauty’s chiefest excellence lies in this,
Which mocks the painters' in their best designs,
And is not held by their exactest lines.
But while we gaze upon our own fair frame,
Let us remember too from whence it came,
And that by sin corrupted now, it must
Return to its originary dust.
How indecently doth pride then lift that head
On which the meanest feet must shortly tread?
Yet at the first it was with glory crowned,
Till Satan’s fraud gave it the mortal wound.
This excellent creature God did Adam call
To mind him of his low original,
Whom he had formed out of the common ground
Which then with various pleasures did abound.

Lucy Hutchinson [Catalogued in EEBO under Sir Allen Apsley], Order and Disorder (London, 1679), Canto 3, ll. 37–135, modernized.