MS Mm.3.29, folio 63 verso
Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
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Cambridge University Library has graciously contributed materials from their collections to Shakespeare Documented under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. For any further use, visitors should contact Cambridge University Library's Digital Content Unit.
Document-specific information
Date: ca. 1596
Repository: Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, UK
Call number and opening: CUL MS Mm.3.29, fol. 63v
Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
Terms of use
Cambridge University Library has graciously contributed materials from their collections to Shakespeare Documented under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. For any further use, visitors should contact Cambridge University Library's Digital Content Unit.
Document-specific information
Date: ca. 1596
Repository: Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, UK
Call number and opening: CUL MS Mm.3.29, fol. 63v
Erin A. McCarthy, "Manuscript copy of lines 229-40 from Venus and Adonis," Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/549.
Cambridge University Library, CUL MS Mm.3.29. See Shakespeare Documented, https://doi.org/10.37078/549.
Henry Colling, who attended Cambridge but left without a degree in the early 1580s, transcribed two stanzas of Venus and Adonis into this small folio of historical tracts (lines 229–40 in modern editions). The lines read as follows:
fondlyng quoth she sinc I haue hemd the heere
With in the Cirket of this ivory palle
Ille be a parcke and thou shallte be my deare
fede Whare thou willte on mounteyne or on dalle
Grease on my lypes & yf thos hilles be drye
Stray lower where the plesant founteyne lye
Withe in this lymat is Relefe Annoghe
Swet bottemn grasse and hye delyghtefull playne
Round risynge hillockes brackes obsceur and roughe
To shallter the from tempaste & from reygne
Then be my deare since I am suche a parcke
no doge shall Rowes the though a thousand barcke
When extracted from the narrative, this section, in which Venus “offers [Adonis] an erotic tour of her body,” reads as a freestanding erotic lyric (Marotti and Estill 57). Colling’s inscription of “2 December 1596” suggests a possible terminus ad quem for the volume’s compilation; if the poem was transcribed at that time, at least three editions (1593, 1594, and 1595) had already been printed, and Colling may have copied this text from one of them.
Colling’s transcription includes the same lines that appear in two printed works: The Fayre Mayde in 1607 and The Dumbe Knight in 1608, demonstrating the poem’s popularity.
[This transcription is pending final vetting]
[Fol. 63v: column 1]
from his
Henrye
Henrico
By me Henry Collin[?]
Fondling quoth she sinc I haue hemd the heere
With in the Cirket of this ivory palle
Ille be a parcke and thou shallte be my deare
Fede Whare thou willte on mounteyne or on dalle
Grease on my lypes & yf thos hilles be drye
Stray lower where the plesant founteyne lye
Withe in this lymat is Relefe Annoghe
Swet bottemn grasse and hye delyghtefull playne
Round risynge hillockes brackes obsceur and roughe
To shallter the from tempaste & from reygne
Then be my deare since I am suche a parcke
no doge shall Rowes the though a thowsand barcke
The skandall of the worlld Se me nytas???
Se recta
Sic vollo. sic Iheubo Stat Proracione volluntas
[Hoc volo sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas
This I wish, thus I command, let my will stand in place of reason. – Juvenal]
Qui Nill male Cogitat Nill Malle sentiat
Qui Non Zellate, Non Amate
Devineest of all virgin kinde
[Fol. 63v: column 2]
Coum
Franses Frodge
Henrie Colling
Cum holi speret eternalle
god prosedinge from aboue
and Henry
frome hence forth
from
Henrye Collinge
Henrie Cell
Sic est devs
Henry Colling
Henrye
William Collinge
Robarte
Henrie
Henrye Sillc
fondlin quoth
The
He came in and there
He wat
Fere and loa
Written by Erin A. McCarthy
Sources
Randall Louis Anderson, “‘The Merit of a Manuscript Poem’: The Case for Bodleian MS Rawlinson Poet. 85,” in Print, Manuscript, and Performance, edited by Arthur F. Marotti and Michael D. Bristol (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000): 127–71.
Hilton Kelliher, “Unrecorded Extracts from Shakespeare, Sidney, and Dyer,” English Manuscript Studies 2 (1990): 163–87.
Arthur F. Marotti, and Laura Estill, “Manuscript Circulation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare, edited by Arthur F. Kinney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012): 53–70.
Last updated June 10, 2020
