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IN GERONTEM. XX. - Christopher Marlowe, The Works of Christopher Marlowe, vol. 3 (Poems) [1598]

Edition used:

The Works of Christopher Marlowe, ed. A.H. Bullen (London: John C. Nimmo, 1885). Vol. 3.

Part of: The Works of Christopher Marlowe, 3 vols.

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IN GERONTEM.1 XX.

  • Geron, whose2 mouldy memory corrects
  • Old Holinshed our famous chronicler
  • With moral rules, and policy collects
  • Out of all actions done these fourscore year;
  • Accounts the time of every odd3 event,
  • Not from Christ's birth, nor from the prince's reign,
  • But from some other famous accident,
  • Which in men's general notice doth remain,—
  • The siege of Boulogne,4 and the plaguy sweat,5
  • The going to Saint Quintin's6 and New-Haven,7

    10

  • The rising8 in the north, the frost so great,
  • That cart-wheel prints on Thamis' face were graven,9
  • The fall of money,1 and burning of Paul's steeple,2
  • The blazing star,3 and Spaniards' overthrow:4
  • By these events, notorious to the people,
  • He measures times, and things forepast doth show:
  • But most of all, he chiefly reckons by
  • A private chance,—the death of his curst5 wife;
  • This is to him the dearest memory,
  • And th' happiest accident of all his life.

    20

[1]Not in MS.

[2]So Isham copy.—Omitted in ed. A.

[3]So Isham copy.—Eds. A, B, C “old.”

[4]Boulogne was captured by Henry VIII. in 1544.

[5]The reference probably is to the visitation of 1551.

[6]In 1557 an English corps under the Earl of Pembroke took part in the war against France. “The English did not share in the glory of the battle, for they were not present, but they arrived two days after to take part in the storming of St. Quentin, and to share, to their shame, in the sack and spoiling of the town.”—Froude, VI. 52.

[7]Havre.—The expedition was despatched in 1562.

[8]Led by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland in 1560.

[9]The reference is to the frost of 1564.—“There was one great frost in England in our memory, and that was in the 7th year of Queen Elizabeth: which began upon the 21st of December and held in so extremely that, upon New Year's eve following, people in multitudes went upon the Thames from London Bridge to Westminster; some, as you tell me, sir, they do now—playing at football, others shooting at prick.' —“The Great Frost,” 1608 (Arber's “English Garner,” Vol. I.)

[1]“This yeare [1560] in the end of September the copper momes which had been coyned under King Henry the Eight and once before abased by King Edward the Sixth, were again brought to a lower valuacion.” —Hayward's Annals of Queen Elizabeth, p. 73.

[2]On the 4th June 1561, the steeple of St. Paul's was struck by lightning

[3]“On the tenth of October (some say on the 7th) appeared a blazing star in the north, bushing towards the east, which was nightly seen diminishing of his brightness until the 21st of the same month.”—Stow Annales, under the year 1580 (ed. 1615, p. 687).

[4]The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

[5]Vixenish.