Jordan (I)
The Question of Plain Truth
A series of rhetorical questions challenges the assumption that poetry must be artificial, arguing that truth and simple beauty deserve a place in verse.
Who says that only fictions and false hair suit a verse?1 Is there no beauty in the truth?2 Is all good structure in a winding stair? May no lines pass unless they do their duty not to a true chair, but to a painted one?3
Answer in Honest Song
The speaker contrasts the artificial pastoral conventions with the shepherd's unadorned song, culminating in a plain declaration of devotion to God.
Isn't it verse at all unless enchanted groves and sudden arbors shade elaborately spun lines?4 Must murmuring streams always refresh a lover's loves?5 Must everything be veiled, while the one who reads has to guess, catching the meaning at two removes?6 Shepherds are honest people; let them sing. Whoever wants to can deal in riddles, as far as I'm concerned, and scramble for the top prize. I don't envy any man's nightingale or spring. And don't let them punish me with the loss of rhyme—I who plainly say, My God, My King.✦7
Read the original English
WHo sayes that fictions onely and false hair Become a verse? Is there in truth no beautie? Is all good structure in a winding stair? May no lines passe, except they do their dutie Not to a true, but painted chair?
Is it no verse, except enchanted groves And sudden arbours shadow course-spunne lines? Must purling streams refresh a lovers loves? Must all be vail'd, while he that reades, divines, Catching the sense at two removes?
Shepherds are honest people; let them sing: Riddle who list, for me, and pull for Prime: I envie no mans nightingale or spring: Nor let them punish me with losse of ryme, Who plainly say, My God, My King.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.5.2 — Give ear to the words of my cry, O LORD; consider my groaning.
Notes
- 1 ↩Early modern 'become' here means 'befit / are proper to,' not 'turn into.' 'False hair' is cosmetic artifice (wigs, adornment), paired with 'fictions' as the false dress of poetry.
- 2 ↩'In truth' can mean 'truly/indeed' or 'within truth itself.' Poem context (truth vs fiction as the subject of verse) favors the latter; the modern rendering keeps that force.
- 3 ↩'Chair' is a seat of honor or authority (not furniture alone). The contrast is service paid to a real throne of truth versus a merely painted, counterfeit one—Herbert's jab at verse that flatters artifice instead of truth.
- 4 ↩Source 'course-spunne' modernized as 'elaborately spun' (crafted/artful verse lines). Early spelling can also suggest 'coarse-spun'; the stanza's force is that fancy pastoral scenery must dress the lines.
- 5 ↩'purling' = softly murmuring or babbling, of a brook; kept as 'murmuring' for contemporary clarity without losing the pastoral stock image Herbert is mocking.
- 6 ↩'divines' here is conjecture/guesswork, not clerical office. 'At two removes' means the sense is twice-mediated—obscured by artifice, so the reader must decode it indirectly.
- 7 ↩Early modern gaming phrase: to draw cards aiming at 'prime,' a winning hand in primiero; here, figurative for competing hard for the finest poetic effect or first place. A secondary play on the liturgical Hour of Prime is possible but secondary to the gaming sense.
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