A Fig for Fortune by Anthony Copley

A Catholic response to The Faerie Queene

Susannah Brietz Monta, Susannah Monta, Susannah Brietz Monta, Susannah Monta

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780719086977
• eBook ISBN:
  9781784996123
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Anthony Copley's A Fig for Fortune was the first major poetic response to Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. Written by a Catholic Englishman with an uneasy relationship to the English regime, A Fig for Fortune offers a deeply contestatory, richly imagined answer to sixteenth-century England's greatest poem. Through its sophisticated response to Spenser, A Fig for Fortune challenges a contemporary literary culture in which Protestant habits of thought and representation were gaining dominance. This book comprises the poem's first scholarly edition. It offers a carefully annotated edition of the 2000-line poem, an overview of English Catholic history in the sixteenth century, a full biography of Anthony Copley, an assessment of his engagement with Spenser's Faerie Queene, and information on the book's early print history. Extensive support for student readers makes it possible to teach Copley's poem alongside The Faerie Queene for the first time.

A Fig for Fortune

1

Vested in sable vale,²⁴ exild from Joy,

I rang’d˚ to seeke out a propitious˚ place,

roamed; favourable, well-suited

Where I might sit and descant of annoy²⁵

And of faire Fortune, altered to disgrace,

At last, even in the confines of the night

I did discerne aloofe˚ a sparkling light.

at some distance

2

Then set I spurres unto my Melancholie,²⁶

A Jade˚ wheron I had ridden many a mile,

a worn-out horse

Which lesse then˚ in the twinkling of an eye,

in less time than

Brought me unto that fatall lights beguile:²⁷

Where I might see an agonizing˚ beast,

anguished, suffering

Bleeding his venym˚ blood out at his brest.

venom

3

His upper shape was faire-Angelicall,

The rest belowe, all whollie Serpentine,

Cole-blacke incroching upon his pectorall,²⁸

And rudely inrowlled in a Gorgon-twine,²⁹

His eyes like Goblins³⁰ stared heer and there,

In fell˚ disdayne of such disfigured geare.³¹

fierce, cruel

4

At last he spi’d me, and staring on my face,

He rear’d his mongrel-lumpe³² up towards me,

Fainting and falling in his Deaths-disgrace,³³

And yet enforcing still more stabbes to die,³⁴

Then thus he vauntingly˚ began to tell me

boastingly

Of such his fortitude in adversitie.

5

Welcome deer˚ guest (quoth he) to Catoes Ghost,

dear

Welcome true witnesse of my fortitude,

Seest thou not how this hell-blacke shape almost

Hath quite subdu’d my upper-albitude?˚

altitude

It is adversitie upon my state,

Which see how I revenge it desperate.³⁵

6

With that, as with a new supplyed flood

The angrie streame beares quite adowne the river

All obstacle with unappeased mood:

So his enraged hand did fierce deliver

Fresh death-stabbes to his loath’d mortalitie

Even at the naming of adversitie.³⁶

7

And then in four-fold misconsorted˚ voice

disunited, unharmonious

Of Life and Death: Rage and Disdaine, he added:

Whilom˚ I was a man of Romes rejoyce³⁷

Once

Whiles happy Fortune my estate uppropped˚

supported

But once when Cæsar over-topped all,

Then (loe) this mid-night shape did me befall.³⁸

8

Then gan˚ I to conceipt˚ my Censure-ship,³⁹

began; think, understand

My Senatorie-pomp,⁴⁰ and libertie

All base-subjected to his Tyrant-whip:

My mind was mightie against such miserie,

And rather would I die magnanimous⁴¹

Then live to see a Cæsar over us.

9

It was ynough that the Thessalian fieldes⁴²

Suckt up the mutuall bloud-shed of our men,

That Pompey dies, and all the Empire yeeldes

To Cæsars dauncing Fortune, and Omen:

Cato must die as free from servitude

As he disdaineth Cæsars altitude.˚

lofty position

10

Yet for my Countrey is a part of me,

And it is all subjected to disgrace,

Loe, that’s my serpentine obscuritie

For which I spight,˚ and spit on Cæsars face,

spite, regard with contempt

And stab me with a quaint⁴³ disdaine and anger

Because I will not live in Cæsars danger.

11

Thou therefore that doest seem a dolefull wight,⁴⁴

precedent; reparation

View me the president˚ of Cares redresse,˚

And if that Fortune be above thy might

Yet death is in thy power and readinesse:

Disdaine Misfortune then t’insult upon thee

Seeing that to die is all so faire and easie.

12

Death is misfortunes monarchizing foe,

Prime Nature of Almightie fortitud,⁴⁵

Eternall Sanctuarie from unrest and woe,

Fames Arke,⁴⁶ and all our frailties Period:˚

end, conclusion

Our lyfes true tuchstone, natures offertory,⁴⁷

And bridge to sweet Eliziums eternitie.⁴⁸

13

And as for base˚ Adversitie, what is it?

low, inferior

But Gloryes grave, a coward mindes ingalley,⁴⁹

The carrion˚ of our lyfe, suppresse˚ of spirrit,

dead flesh, waste; suppression

Shadow of Joves⁵⁰ hate: Disdaines obloquie,˚

reproach

Helles ongate,⁵¹ an Owlish⁵² conversation,

All Joyes deprise, and sorrowes inundation.⁵³

14

Looke not so downe agast⁵⁴ at what I say,

But with a generous erected front,˚

forehead, face

Number these willing woundes (my hartes defray˚)

expenditure

To Glory sole land-ladie of this account:

They are the Tythes⁵⁵ I pay to eternall Fame:

There is not any one of them prophane.

15

Be not injayld˚ to base Adversitie,

imprisoned

Rather slip out thy life at gloryes windoe,˚

w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Conventions and common abbreviations
• Introduction
• ‘To the Right Honourable Anthonie Browne, L. Vicompt Mont-ague, everlasting glorie to his vertues’
• ‘The Argument to the Reader’
• A Fig for Fortune
• Index to introduction and annotations