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
Jealousy: good or bad? It can be “noble” or not, in Pulter’s terms. The noble kind avoids pre-emptive strikes, such as the dramatic approach of the male wild ass, who bites off the testicles of its male newborns to prevent them mating with their mother (so Pulter’s sources claimed). It is not hard to understand her castigation of this approach to preventing infidelity; more surprising is her apparent endorsement, by contrast, of the lion’s and the elephant’s policy of uxoricide: the killing of their unfaithful mates. What makes the difference? The ass, cynically, predicts the worst—the infidelity and incest of both spouse and offspring—while the lion (like the elephant) waits until he “knows she doth amiss” (emphasis added). The vice emblematized, therefore, is not jealousy, but “suspicion.” This poem joins The Elephant (Emblem 19) [Poem 84] and This Poor Turtledove (Emblem 20) [Poem 85] in their concern with marital fidelity, while sharpening the focus of the preceding emblem in the manuscript (Old Aeschylus (Emblem 31) [Poem 96]) in a preoccupation with avoiding undue apprehension and preconception. “Let me not here anticipate the grave,” the speaker pleads, there, with herself; here, more indirectly, a similar message is proffered to an unspecified “you.”Line number 1
Gloss note
subordinates, servantsLine number 3
Gloss note
examined, as a witness at a trial, or a student tested for competence. Pulter uses this word to suggest the lion’s “institutional” power over the subjects who are at his mercy.Line number 7
Gloss note
See Philemon Holland’s translation of Pliny for a parallel to the next few lines: “Lionesses are very lecherous, and this is the very cause that the lions are so fell and cruel. ... The lion knoweth by sent and smell of the pard [panther, leopard] when the lioness his mare hath played false, … and presently with all his might and maine runneth upon her for to chastise and punish her. And therefore when the lioness hath done a fault that way, she either goeth to a river, and washeth away the strong and rank savor of the pard, or els keepeth aloof, and followeth the lion far off, that he may not catch the said smell.” The History of the World (London, 1634), p. 200.Line number 9
Gloss note
“Perfumes” may refer to to any odors. See Philemon Holland’s translation of Pliny: “It is said, that all four-footed beasts are wonderfully delighted and enticed by the smell of panthers” The History of the World (London, 1634), p. 204.Line number 14
Gloss note
equally, to the same extent; or, possibly, short for “also.” The sense is that the lion and elephant equally transcend other creatures in the nobility of their jealousy. See The Elephant (Emblem 19) [Poem 84]: “For chastity this gallant creature’s crowned; / … / Yet, he’s so tender of his reputation / He kills his female if he doubts [fears] scortation [adultery].”Line number 15
Gloss note
lustful or lewd donkey. A note in the margin refers readers to Chapter 30 of Pliny’s 11th book: a reference to an ancient compendium of natural history. For the meter, “lascivious” should take three syllables.Line number 17
Gloss note
when they are bornLine number 18
Gloss note
The father ass aims to avoid having his sons mate with their mother by castrating them at birth, with “all” referring here to testicles. See Philemon Holland’s translation of Pliny on wild asses (cited in the margin of this line to Chapter 30 of his eleventh book, in error for the eighth): “This beast is so jealous, that they look narrowly to the females great with young: for so soon as they have foaled, they bite off the cods [testicles] of the little ones that be males, and so geld [castrate] them.” The History of the World (London, 1634), p. 212.Line number 19
Gloss note
of hisLine number 19
Gloss note
a cuckold, an insulting term for the husband of an unfaithful wife was imagined to grow a horn or hornsLine number 20
Gloss note
a husband who is aware of his wife’s infidelity and puts up with it Sorry, but there are no notes associated with
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