The Pulter Project
Poet in the Making
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Sources Facsimile of manuscript: Photographs provided by University of Leeds, Brotherton Collection
Poem IndexNotes: TranscriptionTranscription
Amphitrite refused Neptune’s proposal of marriage and fled from him. Her “coyness” may refer to this reluctance to marry, which Neptune overcame by sending a dolphin to persuade or seize her. The dolphin, then, played a role similar to that of the speaker of Pulter’s poem, facilitating courtship. The reference to coy Amphitrite here sets up the reference to Philanthropos in the next line.
In the references to Saturnian issue, Aphrodite, and Amphitrite, Pulter may be sending up the strategy of comparison she employs here, piling up allusions to goddesses rather than human women. Even Orlando’s poetry, ridiculed in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, refers to human women, however apocryphal or dubious: “Helen’s cheek, but not her heart, / Cleopatra’s majesty, / Atalanta’s better part, / Sad Lucretia’s modesty” (3.2.142-45, new Pelican edition, ed. Frances E. Dolan [Penguin, 2017]).
This name means lover of mankind. It was also a “standard epithet” for the dolphin, which was depicted from antiquity on as loving humans (especially men and boys) and their music, and providing them with speedy transit and even rescue. “The stories of the dolphin as ‘philanthropos’ occur not merely in folklore and in minor, undiscriminating authors, but in the most authoritative and reputable of the ancients” (John Creaser, “Dolphins in Lycidas,” Review of English Studies 36.142 [1985]: pp. 235-43, esp. p. 238).
The dolphin is often depicted in visual art and in literature as ridden by humans or as transporting humans. Cupid or Eros and Apollo were often depicted astride a dolphin, as was the ancient Greek poet Arion, whom, according to legend, dolphins rescued when he leaped into the sea to avoid being murdered by pirates. One romance uses the same verb Pulter does here (bestride) to describe Arion: “Upon the trembling billows was descry’d / Arion with a golden Harpe in’s hand, / Who a huge crooked Dolphine did bestride / And in the dancing waves did bravely ride” (Francis Kinnaston, Leoline and Sydanis [London, 1642], sig. K2v). This vision of Arion links making music with riding the dolphin. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon similarly links the two, remembering hearing “a mermaid on a dolphin’s back / Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath / That the rude sea grew civil at her song / And certain stars shot madly from their spheres / To hear the sea-maid’s music” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2.1.150-54). In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a dolphin helps to rescue the shipwrecked Sebastian, who, the Captain reassures Viola, bound himself “to a strong mast, that lived upon the sea, / Where like Arion on the dolphin’s back, / I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves” (TN 1.2). Both of these quotations are from the third edition of the Norton Shakespeare (2016). In Milton’s “Lycidas,” too, the poet calls on “ye Dolphins” to “waft the hapless youth” (line 164), that is, the drowned friend the poem commemorates, apparently drawing on these associations of the dolphin with rescue and perhaps even with the transport of the dead for burial or the soul for salvation (see Creaser). In urging the lover to hop on a dolphin to pursue his beloved, Pulter reinforces the link between the musical fair one and Amphitrite, draws on all of these traditions of dolphins assisting humans (especially men)—and suggests that the fair beloved lies across the sea or in the realm of myth.
Notes: Elemental EditionElemental EditionAmphitrite refused Neptune’s proposal of marriage and fled from him. Her “coyness” may refer to this reluctance to marry, which Neptune overcame by sending a dolphin to persuade or seize her. The dolphin, then, played a role similar to that of the speaker of Pulter’s poem, facilitating courtship. The reference to coy Amphitrite here sets up the reference to Philanthropos in the next line.
In the references to Saturnian issue, Aphrodite, and Amphitrite, Pulter may be sending up the strategy of comparison she employs here, piling up allusions to goddesses rather than human women. Even Orlando’s poetry, ridiculed in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, refers to human women, however apocryphal or dubious: “Helen’s cheek, but not her heart, / Cleopatra’s majesty, / Atalanta’s better part, / Sad Lucretia’s modesty” (3.2.142-45, new Pelican edition, ed. Frances E. Dolan [Penguin, 2017]).
This name means lover of mankind. It was also a “standard epithet” for the dolphin, which was depicted from antiquity on as loving humans (especially men and boys) and their music, and providing them with speedy transit and even rescue. “The stories of the dolphin as ‘philanthropos’ occur not merely in folklore and in minor, undiscriminating authors, but in the most authoritative and reputable of the ancients” (John Creaser, “Dolphins in Lycidas,” Review of English Studies 36.142 [1985]: pp. 235-43, esp. p. 238).
The dolphin is often depicted in visual art and in literature as ridden by humans or as transporting humans. Cupid or Eros and Apollo were often depicted astride a dolphin, as was the ancient Greek poet Arion, whom, according to legend, dolphins rescued when he leaped into the sea to avoid being murdered by pirates. One romance uses the same verb Pulter does here (bestride) to describe Arion: “Upon the trembling billows was descry’d / Arion with a golden Harpe in’s hand, / Who a huge crooked Dolphine did bestride / And in the dancing waves did bravely ride” (Francis Kinnaston, Leoline and Sydanis [London, 1642], sig. K2v). This vision of Arion links making music with riding the dolphin. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon similarly links the two, remembering hearing “a mermaid on a dolphin’s back / Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath / That the rude sea grew civil at her song / And certain stars shot madly from their spheres / To hear the sea-maid’s music” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2.1.150-54). In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a dolphin helps to rescue the shipwrecked Sebastian, who, the Captain reassures Viola, bound himself “to a strong mast, that lived upon the sea, / Where like Arion on the dolphin’s back, / I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves” (TN 1.2). Both of these quotations are from the third edition of the Norton Shakespeare (2016). In Milton’s “Lycidas,” too, the poet calls on “ye Dolphins” to “waft the hapless youth” (line 164), that is, the drowned friend the poem commemorates, apparently drawing on these associations of the dolphin with rescue and perhaps even with the transport of the dead for burial or the soul for salvation (see Creaser). In urging the lover to hop on a dolphin to pursue his beloved, Pulter reinforces the link between the musical fair one and Amphitrite, draws on all of these traditions of dolphins assisting humans (especially men)—and suggests that the fair beloved lies across the sea or in the realm of myth.
Notes: Amplified EditionAmphitrite refused Neptune’s proposal of marriage and fled from him. Her “coyness” may refer to this reluctance to marry, which Neptune overcame by sending a dolphin to persuade or seize her. The dolphin, then, played a role similar to that of the speaker of Pulter’s poem, facilitating courtship. The reference to coy Amphitrite here sets up the reference to Philanthropos in the next line.
In the references to Saturnian issue, Aphrodite, and Amphitrite, Pulter may be sending up the strategy of comparison she employs here, piling up allusions to goddesses rather than human women. Even Orlando’s poetry, ridiculed in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, refers to human women, however apocryphal or dubious: “Helen’s cheek, but not her heart, / Cleopatra’s majesty, / Atalanta’s better part, / Sad Lucretia’s modesty” (3.2.142-45, new Pelican edition, ed. Frances E. Dolan [Penguin, 2017]).
This name means lover of mankind. It was also a “standard epithet” for the dolphin, which was depicted from antiquity on as loving humans (especially men and boys) and their music, and providing them with speedy transit and even rescue. “The stories of the dolphin as ‘philanthropos’ occur not merely in folklore and in minor, undiscriminating authors, but in the most authoritative and reputable of the ancients” (John Creaser, “Dolphins in Lycidas,” Review of English Studies 36.142 [1985]: pp. 235-43, esp. p. 238).
The dolphin is often depicted in visual art and in literature as ridden by humans or as transporting humans. Cupid or Eros and Apollo were often depicted astride a dolphin, as was the ancient Greek poet Arion, whom, according to legend, dolphins rescued when he leaped into the sea to avoid being murdered by pirates. One romance uses the same verb Pulter does here (bestride) to describe Arion: “Upon the trembling billows was descry’d / Arion with a golden Harpe in’s hand, / Who a huge crooked Dolphine did bestride / And in the dancing waves did bravely ride” (Francis Kinnaston, Leoline and Sydanis [London, 1642], sig. K2v). This vision of Arion links making music with riding the dolphin. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon similarly links the two, remembering hearing “a mermaid on a dolphin’s back / Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath / That the rude sea grew civil at her song / And certain stars shot madly from their spheres / To hear the sea-maid’s music” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2.1.150-54). In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a dolphin helps to rescue the shipwrecked Sebastian, who, the Captain reassures Viola, bound himself “to a strong mast, that lived upon the sea, / Where like Arion on the dolphin’s back, / I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves” (TN 1.2). Both of these quotations are from the third edition of the Norton Shakespeare (2016). In Milton’s “Lycidas,” too, the poet calls on “ye Dolphins” to “waft the hapless youth” (line 164), that is, the drowned friend the poem commemorates, apparently drawing on these associations of the dolphin with rescue and perhaps even with the transport of the dead for burial or the soul for salvation (see Creaser). In urging the lover to hop on a dolphin to pursue his beloved, Pulter reinforces the link between the musical fair one and Amphitrite, draws on all of these traditions of dolphins assisting humans (especially men)—and suggests that the fair beloved lies across the sea or in the realm of myth.
Amplified EditionAmphitrite refused Neptune’s proposal of marriage and fled from him. Her “coyness” may refer to this reluctance to marry, which Neptune overcame by sending a dolphin to persuade or seize her. The dolphin, then, played a role similar to that of the speaker of Pulter’s poem, facilitating courtship. The reference to coy Amphitrite here sets up the reference to Philanthropos in the next line.
In the references to Saturnian issue, Aphrodite, and Amphitrite, Pulter may be sending up the strategy of comparison she employs here, piling up allusions to goddesses rather than human women. Even Orlando’s poetry, ridiculed in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, refers to human women, however apocryphal or dubious: “Helen’s cheek, but not her heart, / Cleopatra’s majesty, / Atalanta’s better part, / Sad Lucretia’s modesty” (3.2.142-45, new Pelican edition, ed. Frances E. Dolan [Penguin, 2017]).
This name means lover of mankind. It was also a “standard epithet” for the dolphin, which was depicted from antiquity on as loving humans (especially men and boys) and their music, and providing them with speedy transit and even rescue. “The stories of the dolphin as ‘philanthropos’ occur not merely in folklore and in minor, undiscriminating authors, but in the most authoritative and reputable of the ancients” (John Creaser, “Dolphins in Lycidas,” Review of English Studies 36.142 [1985]: pp. 235-43, esp. p. 238).
The dolphin is often depicted in visual art and in literature as ridden by humans or as transporting humans. Cupid or Eros and Apollo were often depicted astride a dolphin, as was the ancient Greek poet Arion, whom, according to legend, dolphins rescued when he leaped into the sea to avoid being murdered by pirates. One romance uses the same verb Pulter does here (bestride) to describe Arion: “Upon the trembling billows was descry’d / Arion with a golden Harpe in’s hand, / Who a huge crooked Dolphine did bestride / And in the dancing waves did bravely ride” (Francis Kinnaston, Leoline and Sydanis [London, 1642], sig. K2v). This vision of Arion links making music with riding the dolphin. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon similarly links the two, remembering hearing “a mermaid on a dolphin’s back / Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath / That the rude sea grew civil at her song / And certain stars shot madly from their spheres / To hear the sea-maid’s music” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2.1.150-54). In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a dolphin helps to rescue the shipwrecked Sebastian, who, the Captain reassures Viola, bound himself “to a strong mast, that lived upon the sea, / Where like Arion on the dolphin’s back, / I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves” (TN 1.2). Both of these quotations are from the third edition of the Norton Shakespeare (2016). In Milton’s “Lycidas,” too, the poet calls on “ye Dolphins” to “waft the hapless youth” (line 164), that is, the drowned friend the poem commemorates, apparently drawing on these associations of the dolphin with rescue and perhaps even with the transport of the dead for burial or the soul for salvation (see Creaser). In urging the lover to hop on a dolphin to pursue his beloved, Pulter reinforces the link between the musical fair one and Amphitrite, draws on all of these traditions of dolphins assisting humans (especially men)—and suggests that the fair beloved lies across the sea or in the realm of myth.
All Notes Amphitrite refused Neptune’s proposal of marriage and fled from him. Her “coyness” may refer to this reluctance to marry, which Neptune overcame by sending a dolphin to persuade or seize her. The dolphin, then, played a role similar to that of the speaker of Pulter’s poem, facilitating courtship. The reference to coy Amphitrite here sets up the reference to Philanthropos in the next line.
In the references to Saturnian issue, Aphrodite, and Amphitrite, Pulter may be sending up the strategy of comparison she employs here, piling up allusions to goddesses rather than human women. Even Orlando’s poetry, ridiculed in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, refers to human women, however apocryphal or dubious: “Helen’s cheek, but not her heart, / Cleopatra’s majesty, / Atalanta’s better part, / Sad Lucretia’s modesty” (3.2.142-45, new Pelican edition, ed. Frances E. Dolan [Penguin, 2017]).
This name means lover of mankind. It was also a “standard epithet” for the dolphin, which was depicted from antiquity on as loving humans (especially men and boys) and their music, and providing them with speedy transit and even rescue. “The stories of the dolphin as ‘philanthropos’ occur not merely in folklore and in minor, undiscriminating authors, but in the most authoritative and reputable of the ancients” (John Creaser, “Dolphins in Lycidas,” Review of English Studies 36.142 [1985]: pp. 235-43, esp. p. 238).
The dolphin is often depicted in visual art and in literature as ridden by humans or as transporting humans. Cupid or Eros and Apollo were often depicted astride a dolphin, as was the ancient Greek poet Arion, whom, according to legend, dolphins rescued when he leaped into the sea to avoid being murdered by pirates. One romance uses the same verb Pulter does here (bestride) to describe Arion: “Upon the trembling billows was descry’d / Arion with a golden Harpe in’s hand, / Who a huge crooked Dolphine did bestride / And in the dancing waves did bravely ride” (Francis Kinnaston, Leoline and Sydanis [London, 1642], sig. K2v). This vision of Arion links making music with riding the dolphin. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon similarly links the two, remembering hearing “a mermaid on a dolphin’s back / Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath / That the rude sea grew civil at her song / And certain stars shot madly from their spheres / To hear the sea-maid’s music” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2.1.150-54). In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a dolphin helps to rescue the shipwrecked Sebastian, who, the Captain reassures Viola, bound himself “to a strong mast, that lived upon the sea, / Where like Arion on the dolphin’s back, / I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves” (TN 1.2). Both of these quotations are from the third edition of the Norton Shakespeare (2016). In Milton’s “Lycidas,” too, the poet calls on “ye Dolphins” to “waft the hapless youth” (line 164), that is, the drowned friend the poem commemorates, apparently drawing on these associations of the dolphin with rescue and perhaps even with the transport of the dead for burial or the soul for salvation (see Creaser). In urging the lover to hop on a dolphin to pursue his beloved, Pulter reinforces the link between the musical fair one and Amphitrite, draws on all of these traditions of dolphins assisting humans (especially men)—and suggests that the fair beloved lies across the sea or in the realm of myth.
