George Peele (ca. 1556-1596)
A Farewell Entitled to the Famous and Fortunate Generals of our English Forces
1Have done with care, my hearts, abord amain,
2With stretching sail to plow the swelling waves.
3Bid England's shore and Albion's chalky cliffs
4Farewell: bid stately Troynovant adieu,
5Where pleasant Thames from Isis' silver head
6Begins her quiet glide, and runs along,
7To that brave Bridge the bar that thwarts her course,
8Near neighbour to the ancient stony Tower,
9The glorious hold that Julius Cæsar built:
10Change Love for Arms, girt to your blades, my boys,
11Your Rests and Muskets take, take Helm and Targe,
12And let God Mars his consort make you mirth,
13The roaring Cannon and the brazen Trump,
14The angry sounding Drum, the whistling Fife,
15The shrieks of men, the princely coursers neigh.
16Now vail your bonnets to your friends at home,
17Bid all the lovely British Dames adieu,
18That under many a Standard well advanc'd,
19Have bid the sweet alarms and braves of love.
20Bid Theaters and proud Tragedians,
21Bid Mahomet's Poo, and mighty Tamburlaine,
22King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley and the rest
23Under the sanguine Cross, brave England's badge,
24To propagate religious piety,
25And hew a passage with your conquering swords
26By land and Sea: wherever Phoebus' eye
27Th'eternal Lamp of Heaven lends us light:
28By golden Tagus or the western Inde,
29Or through the spacious Bay of Portugal,
30The wealthy Ocean main, the Terrene sea,
31From great Alcides' pillars branching forth,
32Even to the Gulf that leads to lofty Rome,
33There to deface the pride of Antichrist,
34And pull his Paper walls and popery down:
35A famous enterprise for England's strength,
36To steel your swords on Avarice' triple crown,
37And cleanse Augeus' stalls in Italy.
38To Arms, my fellow Soldiers, Sea and land
39Lie open to the voyage you intend:
40And sea or land bold Britons far or near,
41Whatever course your matchless virtue shapes,
42Whether to Europe's bounds or Asian plains,
43To Affric's shore, or rich America,
44Down to the shades of deep Avernus crags,
45Sail on, pursue your honours to your graves:
46Heaven is a sacred covering for your heads,
47And every Climate, virtue's Tabernacle.
48To Arms, to Arms, to honourable Arms,
49Hoise sails, weigh Anchors up, plow up the Seas
50With flying keels, plow up the land with swords,
51In God's name venture on, and let me say
52To you my Mates, as Cæsar said to his
53Striving with Neptune's hills: You here, quoth he,
54Cæsar, and Cæsar's fortune in your ships!
55You follow them whose swords successful are,
56You follow Drake by Sea, the scourge of Spain,
57The dreadful Dragon, terror to your foes.
58Victorious in his return from Inde,
59In all his high attempts unvanquished,
60You follow noble Norris, whose renown
61Won in the fertile fields of Belgia,
62Spreads by the gates of Europe, to the Courts
63Of Christian Kings and heathen Potentates.
64You fight for Christ and England's peerless Queen,
65Elizabeth, the wonder of the world.
66Over whose throne th'enemies of God
67Have thundered erst their vain successless braves.
68O ten times treble happy men that fight,
69Under the Cross of Christ and England's Queen,
70And follow such as Drake and Norris are.
71All honours do this cause accompany.
72All glory on these endless honours waits.
73These honours, and this glory shall he send:
74Whose honour and whose glory you defend.
Notes
1] abord: board [your ships]. amain: quickly.
4] Troynovant: New Troy, England, thought to have been founded by Trojan Brute.
5] Isis: the Thames as it flows through Oxford.
7] Bridge: London Bridge.
8] Tower: the Tower of London.
11] Rests: see OED "rest" n. 3, 2 ("a contrivance fixed to the right side of the cuirass to receive the butt-end of the lance when couched for the charge, and to prevent it from being driven back upon impact"). Targe: shield.
16] vail: doff.
21] Mahomet's Poo: Muhammad's head, an allusion to the brazen head by which the Arab prophet spoke in Robert Greene's play Alphonsus.
22] Charles the Great (d. 814), king of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor. Thomas Stukeley (1520-78), adventurer, Roman Catholic rebel against Elizabeth I. Adieu: to Arms, to Arms, to glorious Arms, With noble Norris, and victorious Drake, Norris: Sir John Norris, commander of the English army against Spain after the destruction of the Spanish Armada at sea in 1588. Drake: Sir Francis Drake, commander of the 150-ship English fleet, which set out with as many as 22,000 men from Plymouth on 18 April 1589 against Spain. When the fleet returned at the end of June, it had lost half its troops and failed dismally to capitalize on the destruction of the Armada at sea.
23] sanguine: bloody.
28] golden-waved river in Portugal about which Sir Thomas Wyatt had written.
30] Terrene: earthly.
31] Alcides' pillars: Gibraltar in Europe, and Monte Hacho in Africa, the two mounts that flank the opening to the strait of Gilbraltar.
37] Augeus' stalls: the stables of Augeas, king of Elis, which defied any cleaning until Hercules succeeded in the task.
44] Lake Avernus, a crater near Cumae near Naples, the entrance to the underworld in Virgil's Aeneus.
49] Hoise: raise aloft.
61] Belgia: Belgium.
67] erst: before. braves: bravados, assassins, thugs.
Online text copyright © 2011, 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: David H. Horne, The Life and Minor Works of George Peele (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952): 220-23.
First publication date:
23
February
1589
Publication date note: As registered by the printer William Wright with the Stationers.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2006
Recent editing: 1:2006/11/12
Composition date:
1589
Form: blank verse
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