Title note
Gloss note
In the manuscript, the title specifies: “King Charles the First.” In the English civil war between royalists and parliamentarians, Charles I was sentenced to death and beheaded in 1649.
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
This poem follows one Upon the Imprisonment of his Sacred Majesty, That Unparalleled Prince, King Charles the First [Poem 13]; it thus follows not only in the manuscript’s arrangement, but in chronology. Charles, jailed in 1647, was in 1649 beheaded by his opponents in England’s civil wars. The monstrous singularity of this event seems reflected in the volume’s preceding blank page, paired with another after the next poem, On the Same [Poem 15]: these two poems, in their efforts to grieve a beloved, murdered ruler, huddle together between visible, almost legible stretches of silence. Here, the speaker draws on the authority of conventional poetic claims of ineffability associated with praising monarchs. But now it is not just words that fail; now, even tears and sighs won’t serve—a devastating claim for a poet who figures much of her verse as tears and sighs. Instead, this poem insists the only fitting response to the king’s dismemberment is a kind of self-vivisection by mourners who are exhorted to weep not tears, but eyeballs, and to sigh not air, but their very souls: that is, to grieve themselves to death.Line number 2
Gloss note
of suchLine number 2
Critical note
Spelled “unparelled” (for “unparalleled”) in the manuscript, we have maintained an abbreviation for the sake of the meter.Line number 5
Physical note
sovereign rulerLine number 9
Gloss note
commonersLine number 9
Gloss note
mournLine number 12
Gloss note
sigh, breathe out Sorry, but there are no notes associated with
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