Notes
1] according to: suitable to, consonant with (the "tossing mew").
2] tasted sweetness: the spirit's "delight"(10) in enjoying the lady's love in the dream.
4] feignèd: "feigned" in the MS.
5] dangerous case: circumstances in which a lady might lose her chaste reputation. The dream did not transport the lady herself into the bed or "mew" (6).
6] mew: literally a cage for hawks, here used in the sense of place of retirement, such asa bed or the poet's dreaming imagination.
7] sprite: spirit.
care: trouble, pain.
8] My body in tempest her succour to embrace: the dream put his body in a storm (of desire) to embrace her help (parallel to line 7, in which the dream caused his spirit to come alive).
11] did it not keep it right: did the spirit not maintain the delight.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: British Library Egerton MS. 2711, fol. 54; cf. Richard Harrier, Canon (1975): 180.
First publication date:
1557
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott, Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RP 1935: I.78 (N. J. Endicott); RPO 1996 (IL).
Recent editing: 2:2002/5/1
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaabbacddcee