Surrounded and alone, of both I plaine

Meter & Structure

This is a rondeau in the style of early/mid-16th c. Tudor poetry, and it specifically imitates the structure, language, and general problem-posing of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s “What vaileth truth.”

Like much of 16th c. English poetry, this piece employs mostly iambic pentameter for its lines (the final quintain, not counting the end refrain, uses iambic tetrameter, as does “What vaileth truth”). The rondeau’s structure consists of 14 lines with the rhyme scheme AABBA/AABB/AABBA, with a refrain--the first half of the first line--repeated in line 9 and then at the very end of the poem. On an interesting note, the final refrain is not printed in any 16th c. publications of Wyatt’s work that I can find scanned and available in the Early English Books Online database, but these publications also include edits to the poems where the final quintain uses pentameter rather than tetrameter.

I did not realize until after I’d finished that I use the same A-rhyme sound as Wyatt in “What vaileth truth.” This was not an intentional, conscious decision, but I have read the poem so many times I have no doubt it influenced my choice of rhyme, especially the first line, where Wyatt’s use of “pain” is echoed in my first line’s “plaine,” short for “complain.”

Language & Syntax

Each word that uses a non-standard (modern) spelling has that particular spelling documented, in the Oxford English Dictionary, to usage in the late 15th through the 16th century. In imitation of some versions of Wyatt’s work published in the 16th c. (e.g. the various editions of Songs and Sonettes), I have ended the “-ain” rhymes in “-aine” for verbs and “-ain” for nouns. I recognize that I rejected the metrical editing decision mentioned above, but in this case the visual distinction provided by the terminal “e” seemed worthwhile to use.

The syntax of each sentence can read awkwardly to modern eyes, but the construction is purposeful not only for meter but to more closely resemble the Latin-based education of a 16th c. English gentleman.1 Classical Latin frequently made use of a subject-object-verb (SOV) sentence structure. That is, verbs in classical Latin (especially for literary purposes) are frequently suspended until the end of sentences and both punctuate and reveal the meaning of a sentence at that point. Since English verbs frequently require subject clarification to accurately understand the conjugation being used (or, in some cases, to clarify the use of a particular direct or indirect object), I have attempted to keep such terms in close proximity to the verb as much as possible. Similarly, Latin has no split infinitive verbs, so the use of infinitive in English needed to keep the “to” preposition directly beside its infinitive verb. This decision re: proximity may seem like an obvious one, but given the common 16th c. literary use of “periodic” sentences--where multiple ideas and clauses are combined into a giant, connected statement that feels like it’s on the verge of becoming a run-on sentence--I wanted to at least keep each periodic component as clearly articulated as I could without compromising the style to which I adhered.

Narrative & Philosophy

The poem’s narrative focuses on a courtier who believes that better (and truer, more virtuous or commendable) times have passed them by but who nonetheless feels a strong desire to remain a part of the courtly social sphere. The narrator’s dilemma, then, consists of a desire to hold to the virtues that the past celebrated but also to learn to employ the qualities of a contemporary courtier, which the narrator poses as vices masquerading as noble.

To an extent, this poem is meant to reflect some skeptical responses to Castiglione’s The Courtier or Macchiavelli’s The Prince, even if the books were quickly and widely regarded as pragmatically valuable and (in the case of Castiglione) less problematic than some critical readings suggest. Similarly, the poem echoes several of Wyatt’s poems in which his narrator laments a duplicitous or scheming court that the narrator cannot escape or avoid.2

On a less dramatic front, the poem also ties into much longer traditions of ubi sunt (Latin for “where are they?”) poetry in which narrators lament the passing of golden ages, loved ones or larger-than-life heroes, better times, and so on. Frequently such poems often suggest less a current apocalypse than a difficulty of the narrator to come to grips with some shift in social or cultural values and practices.

I also admit wanting to write a poem with this tone as a response to the (entirely understandable) preference for poetry in the SCA to rejoice, celebrate, praise, and so on. While I love almost every one of them I read, it seemed like there was a need for work that resists that sort of celebration and offer a more tempered, if not expressly critical, perspective on the feelings some of us have, from time to time, about our place in (or not in) the organization. I am certainly not the first to do this, but I wanted to make a modest contribution to that body of excellent literature.

The final quintain is also intended to make a turn from inward reflection to action or resolution. “I sette my self to entertaine” has several homonyms: “sette” can mean to prepare or to be seated (i.e., accepting a place in the court social circle); “entertaine” can mean not only to perform for others but to continue on or maintain a given path; “my self to entertaine” can suggest the narrator is resolved to entertain himself rather than to entertain others (that is, accepting the role of performer for social acceptance, which might be a bleak outcome given the “seeming vs. truth” dilemma of earlier lines).

• 1. Specifically, the curriculum would almost certainly have used William Lily’s grammar textbook Rudimenta Grammatices, the most widely adopted Latin grammar in England in the 16th c and the only one authorized for use from 1542 onward.
• 2. Some examples of Wyatt’s poems in this vein: “Caesar, when that traitor of Egypt,” “Ever my hap is slow and slack in coming,” “Patience! Though I have not,” “In court to serve decked with fresh array,” and “Mine own John Poynz, since ye delight to know.”