Tichborne’s Elegy

Study notes by the editors

1. The occasion: the Babington Plot l. 13; occasion

   Tichborne was one of the men around Anthony Babington who planned to murder Elizabeth I and free Mary Queen of Scots. Walsingham's agents had got inside the plot, and the conspirators were hanged, drawn and quartered in two groups on 20 and 21 September 1586, Tichborne in the first. One manuscript heading says he wrote the verses 'the night before his death, in the Tower', and the usual date is 19 September, though that is not certain. CELM lists some forty-five manuscript entries under different titles ('The map of man', 'Tichbornes elegie in the towr'), although a few are fragments and another count gives thirty-seven texts. At least one copy is subscribed with Babington's initials, but the manuscripts otherwise name Tichborne and he is accepted as the author. A farewell letter to his wife, whom it calls Agnes, is also said to contain verses from the poem. The line anchored here, 'I sought my death', is the point where the poem comes closest to admitting his guilt.

   Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450-1700 (CELM), 'Chidiock Tichborne'; Richard S. M. Hirsch, 'The Works of Chidiock Tichborne', English Literary Renaissance 16.2 (1986), 303-18 (text of the Lament at 309-10, as cited by CELM); Wikipedia, 'Chidiock Tichborne'

2. First printing, 1586 l. 1

   The pamphlet came out in London in 1586. It was mostly loyal verse thanking God for Elizabeth's 'preservation' from the plot. Its title promises 'Tychbornes lamentation, written in the Towre with his owne hand, and an answer to the same', a hostile reply signed 'T. K.' that is usually ascribed to Thomas Kyd, though the attribution is not certain (CELM files the answer under the siglum KyT 1-2). So the poem first reached readers inside a piece of government propaganda, as the penitent words of a condemned man set between loyal verses. Its quick spread in manuscript shows that readers also valued it for itself, as a meditation on how short life is. In this first line, 'frost of cares' turns the spring of youth ('prime') straight into winter.

   Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450-1700 (CELM), 'Chidiock Tichborne'; Richard S. M. Hirsch, 'The Works of Chidiock Tichborne', English Literary Renaissance 16.2 (1986), 303-18 (text of the Lament at 309-10, as cited by CELM); Wikipedia, 'Chidiock Tichborne'

3. prime l. 1

   In Tudor English 'prime' could mean the first hour of the day, the spring of the year, or the best and earliest part of life. All three senses work here, and they set up the poem's three linked cycles: the day ('The day is past'), the farming year ('crop of corn', 'fruit', 'leaves'), and the human life. Youth's spring blighted by frost is an old figure. What Tichborne adds is the pattern: the first half of each line promises growth and the second half cancels it. He was a young man when he died. His birth date is not securely known, but he is usually thought to have been in his twenties, which gives the paradoxes a literal force.

   Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'prime, n.1'; Interesting Literature, 'A Short Analysis of Chidiock Tichborne's Elegy'; Wikipedia, 'Chidiock Tichborne'

4. Antithesis and monosyllables st. 1

   The poem has three six-line stanzas of iambic pentameter rhyming ababcc, the 'sixain' later used in Venus and Adonis. Most lines turn on 'but' or 'yet' to set one half against the other, the figure Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (1589) calls antitheton. The words are overwhelmingly monosyllables, so the effect is of a mind cut down to bare, balanced statements. The model is the Petrarchan list of contraries ('I burn and freeze'), here turned from love to death. The stanzas move in order: the first lists what came to nothing; the second states the paradox of a young man's ending; the third turns to self-accusation and death.

   Interesting Literature, 'A Short Analysis of Chidiock Tichborne's Elegy'; George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie (1589), Book 3, on antitheton; Representative Poetry Online, 'Chidiock Tichborne'

5. tares l. 3

   In Matthew 13:24-30 an enemy sows tares among a man's wheat. At harvest the tares are gathered and burned, and Jesus later explains them as 'the children of the wicked one' (13:38). A 'crop of corn' that proves to be 'a field of tares' suggests a life that looked fruitful but has grown only weeds fit for burning. It may also hint that he knows he, a traitor in the state's eyes, will be counted among them. 'Corn' here means grain in general, not maize.

   Bible (KJV), Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43; Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'tare, n.1'; Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'corn, n.1'

6. vain hope of gain l. 4

   The line sums up the stanza's list: all he really had was an expectation. 'Gain' may glance at what the conspirators hoped to win under a Catholic monarch, but the poem never names the plot. Its words stay general and penitent, which is what was expected of a 'last dying speech'. At the gallows the condemned man was supposed to accept his fate and warn others, and that convention shapes the poem's restraint. The line also echoes the Preacher's verdict that all is vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3).

   Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'vain, adj.'; Bible (KJV), Ecclesiastes 1:2-3

7. The day without sun l. 5

   The image squeezes a whole life into one day, a common figure in Scripture and in Renaissance moral verse (compare Job 14:1-2, where man 'cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down'). A day that passes without sunshine is wasted. Some readers also hear the shadow of persecution under which Catholic recusants lived. A pun on 'sun' and 'son' has been suggested, but the poem gives it little support.

   Bible (KJV), Job 14:1-2; Interesting Literature, 'A Short Analysis of Chidiock Tichborne's Elegy'

8. The refrain ll. 6, 12, 18

   This repeated last line holds the poem together. Both halves are in the present tense ('now ... now'), so the moment of writing and the moment of death fold into one. The last stanza varies it first, 'And now I die, and now I was but made' (l. 16), so that when the refrain returns it is heard after the hourglass has run out. The device suits a poem written for a fixed, known hour of execution, and it gives the poem the movement of a song.

   Interesting Literature, 'A Short Analysis of Chidiock Tichborne's Elegy'; Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450-1700 (CELM), 'Chidiock Tichborne'; Representative Poetry Online, 'Chidiock Tichborne'

9. The tale heard but not told l. 7

   Readers usually take the line in two ways, which can both be true. In general terms, his life is a story that has been heard though it has hardly begun. In particular terms, it may point to the plot itself, overheard and reported by Walsingham's spies before it could be carried out, and perhaps to his trial, where his confession was heard. A tale heard but never told is typical of the poem's method, which sets outward events against an inner life left incomplete.

   Interesting Literature, 'A Short Analysis of Chidiock Tichborne's Elegy'; Wikipedia, 'Chidiock Tichborne'

10. falne l. 8

    In nature the leaves wither before the fruit falls, or with it. Here the fruit is gone while the tree is still in leaf. The archive keeps the early spelling 'falne', which keeps the word to one syllable. Picturing a man as a tree goes back to Psalm 1:3, where the righteous man is 'like a tree planted by the rivers of water ... his leaf also shall not wither'. Tichborne reverses it: the outward signs of youth remain, but the harvest is already lost.

    Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'fall, v.'; Bible (KJV), Psalm 1:3

11. not seen l. 10

    The line sets looking against being looked at: to be 'seen' is to be noticed and honoured. It may also hint at the secrecy a Catholic conspirator had to live in. Tichborne made an unauthorised trip abroad and was arrested in 1583, but the line itself stays general. Like the other lines of the second stanza, it states a loss in the past tense ('saw') beside a present fact, so that each line works as a small epitaph. The balance of 'saw' and 'seen' turns the active verb into a passive one, as the young man becomes an object of the state's justice rather than an actor in the world.

    Wikipedia, 'Chidiock Tichborne'; Interesting Literature, 'A Short Analysis of Chidiock Tichborne's Elegy'

12. The thread of life l. 11

    In Greek myth the Moirai (Latin Parcae) are three sisters: Clotho spins each life's thread, Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it (Hesiod, Theogony 904-6; Plato, Republic 617c). Tichborne's paradox is that Atropos cuts before Clotho has finished spinning. The image was a Renaissance commonplace; compare Milton's 'blind Fury with th'abhorred shears' (Lycidas, l. 75). Tichborne's line keeps the classical image within the poem's Christian frame: the Fates stand for the fixed term of a life, not for pagan belief.

    Hesiod, Theogony 904-906; Plato, Republic 10.617b-c; John Milton, Lycidas (1638), l. 75

13. death in the womb l. 13

    The line recalls Job cursing the day he was born ('Why died I not from the womb?', Job 3:11) and his words 'Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither' (Job 1:21). It also suggests that the seed of his ruin was in his own nature. 'Womb' rhymes with 'tomb' (l. 15), a very common pairing in English verse on mortality. Some readers also hear in 'I sought my death' an admission that he brought death on himself by joining the plot.

    Bible (KJV), Job 1:21; 3:11; Interesting Literature, 'A Short Analysis of Chidiock Tichborne's Elegy'

14. life a shade l. 14

    Compare Job 8:9 ('our days upon earth are a shadow'), Psalm 102:11 ('My days are like a shadow that declineth') and Psalm 144:4 ('his days are as a shadow that passeth away'). 'Shade' can also mean a ghost, so the line may suggest that he already sees himself as one of the dead. The idea that human life is a passing shadow was a staple of the funeral sermon and of devotional verse. It suits a condemned Catholic preparing for death, for whom the shadowy present is set against the reality of the life to come.

    Bible (KJV), Job 8:9; Psalm 102:11; Psalm 144:4; Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'shade, n.'

15. earth as tomb l. 15

    Walking on the earth that will bury him recalls God's sentence on Adam (Genesis 3:19) and the words of the burial service, 'earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust'. The rhyme of 'womb' and 'tomb' closes the circle from birth to death. To 'tread' the earth is the ordinary act of living, and the line makes every step a step on his own grave. The verb 'knew' marks a change in the last stanza from seeing to understanding: he now grasps what his earlier hopes concealed from him. Beside 'womb' in l. 13, the line completes a short summary of the whole span of his life.

    Bible (KJV), Genesis 3:19; Book of Common Prayer (1559), 'The Order for the Burial of the Dead'

16. The hourglass l. 17

    The hourglass was a standard emblem of death, often shown with a skull, and it was also kept in pulpits to time sermons. The line can be read as two moments of the same glass, just turned over and already empty. It can also mean a glass that is still 'full' yet has already 'run'. 'Runne' is the early spelling. With this image the poem moves from nature to a measuring instrument: the cold count of the last hours before the execution.

    Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'glass, n.1'; Interesting Literature, 'A Short Analysis of Chidiock Tichborne's Elegy'