Guide to the Poems

The poems are part of the complete historical reading. This guide follows their changes of speaker and function; it does not treat the publication as containing engravings for the figures which Magia describes in reported books.

P. B.: Defence, Taunt and Commemoration

The commendatory poem is signed P. B., Master of Arts of Oxford. It first tells Eugenius that attack has benefited him, then turns upon his adversary with sectarian, academic and bodily satire. Its opposition between contempt and experience prepares a central theme of the volume. The disputed “fense” is retained as uncertain rather than assigned a settled physical meaning. See the title, the opening and the direct attack.

The long final movement invokes Aristotle, Digby, embodied souls, Ambrose and Persius, then turns to Cynthia and Tethys. Unseen treasures and visible influence give the moon image an argument: failure to see a thing does not prove it worthless. The Scythian dogs and the ermine return that image to hostile reception. The final calendar conceit imagines lasting honour for Eugenius. All the lines, including the insults and shifts of addressee, belong to the poem’s construction. See the final movement and the signature.

Hyanthe: A Narrated Encounter

Hyanthe enters within Vaughan’s account of a generative subject. The speaker sees her on a throne, dressed in green above a sapphire globe. Further looking reveals her posture, her tears and the white support beneath her hand. An address to her follows, then the poem develops images of fire, incense and ascending smoke. Read its sequence before trying to assign each object a technical equivalent. See the appearance, the closer view, the address and the concluding imagery.

Vaughan’s prose then anticipates a hostile reading of verse and gathers descriptions from earlier writers. The transition makes the poem part of an evidential and interpretive project within the treatise. Its affective language of beauty, grief and attention can also sustain a spiritual reading; the surrounding natural argument remains relevant. See the defence and the turn to other witnesses.

The Stone’s Speeches: Departure and Return

The Latin verses give the speaking subject changes of life and absence, then describe three souls of which two depart and the third nearly follows. Vaughan supplies English verses of his own after the Latin. The new translations and his separate versions are both retained. Read the speakers as personifications within the surrounding account of change, without assuming that the vocabulary of soul has exactly the same referent here as in the Henshaw dedication. See the first Latin speech, the three souls and Vaughan’s first English verse through the second.

The Closing Address: Sending a Book Into the World

Vaughan addresses his book as something able to fly towards readers. He disclaims noble rank, imagines different receptions and gives the work a place amid affection and concealment. The poem continues across the original boundary between pages 139 and 140; it must be read through that continuation. Its concern with worth and reception returns the reader to the dedications and the address which began the volume. See the opening address and its continuation. The following doxology and Amen are separate closing elements and remain present.