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Typological form in ‘Gascoignesde Profundis’Roy T. Eriksen aa University of Oslo ,Published online: 13 Aug 2008.

To cite this article: Roy T. Eriksen (1985) Typological form in ‘Gascoignes deProfundis’, English Studies, 66:4, 300-309, DOI: 10.1080/00138388508598394

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TYPOLOGICAL FORM IN 'GASCOIGNES DE PROFUNDIS'

Gascoigne's translation of the penitential Psalm 130 provides an early andhitherto unnoticed example of an attentiveness to typological shape and pat-tern that we more readily associate with George Herbert, or in a rather morerudimentary form with the metrical psalms of Sir Philip and Mary Sidney. AsLouis L. Martz has observed, 'Sidney's translation of the Psalms represents... the closest approximation to the poetry of Herbert's Temple that can befound anywhere in the preceding English poetry', an observation which wasqualified somewhat when John Rathmell pointed out that Martz's 'remarkapplies equally well to his sister's share in the work'.1 It is the aim of this articleto argue that Gascoigne's employment of a complex eleven-line stanza with anartful pattern of long and short lines is not simply the product of 'curious' art:this particular pattern is to be related to a contemporary mode of rhetoricaland numerological composition and to the view put forward by St. Augustinethat Psalm 130 (Vulgata 129) is designed to enact, as it were, the re-establish-ment of concord between the despairing sinner and a merciful God.

George Gascoigne (1539-77) was an innovator in nearly everything he turnedto. His list of merits is long: he wrote the first English novel, he translated thefirst Greek tragedy into English, he wrote the first English prose play, he com-posed the first treatise on English metre, and so on. His poetry is equally in-novatory, although its quality varies almost as often as his stanza forms andrhyme schemes. In spite of his important role as a pioneer, it is regrettable thatRonald C. Johnson's words are still valid: 'Of all the writers of the sixteenthcentrury, George Gascoigne ... is perhaps the least understood and is certainlythe most underrated'.2 And though it is true that Gascoigne's contribution tothe English novel has been more adequately appreciated in recent years, hispoetry is still greatly underestimated.3

'Invention' is the key-word behind all of Gascoigne's literary endeavoursand it is expecially true of his poetry. He opens his discussion of poetry inCertayne notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in Englishby stating that

The first and most necessarie poynt that ever I founde meete to be cösidered in making of adelectable poeme is this, to grounde it upon some fine invention.4

1 Louis L. Martz, The Poetry of Meditation: A Study in the English Religious Lyric of the Sev-enteenth Century (New Haven and London, 1954; revised ed. 1962), p. 273; and John Rathmell,The Psalms of Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke (New York, 1963), p. xii.

2 Ronald C. Johnson, George Gascoigne (New York, 1972), p. 5.3 See for example Robert P. Adams, 'Gascoigne's Master F. J. as original fiction', PMLA LXXIII

(1958), 315-26, and Alfred Anderau's challenging study George Gascoignes The Adventures ofMaster F. J.: Analyse und Interpretation (Bern, 1966).

4 The Complete Works of George Gascoigne, 2 vols., ed. by J. W. Cunliffe (Cambridge, 1907-10),I, 465.

English Studies, 1985, 4, p. 300-3090013-838X/85/04-0300/$ 3.00© 1985, Swets & Zeitlinger

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The term 'invention' as Gascoigne employs it here relates not merely to a themeor a conceit, but to an entity which combines both theme and form. We willsee this when reading Gascoigne's caution against 'rime without reason'. 'Mymeaning', he writes, 'is hereby that your rime leade you not from your firstInvention, for many wryters when they have layed the platforme of their inven-tion, are yet drawen sometimes (by ryme) to forget it, ...' (my italics).5 If weunderstand him correctly, every invention (or theme) is first to receive a form{or platforme) which is capable of expressing its inner rationale. This is the verysame impulse that we find reflected in the incredibly rich variety of stanza formsof the 'Sydneian psalmes',6 or indeed in the stanza form of 'Gascoignes DeProfundis\

The stanzaic pattern he decided on for Psalm 130 consists of eight iambicpentameters, two iambic dimeters, and a concluding iambic pentameter (10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-4-4-10) — eleven verses in all. Gascoigne was obviouslypleased with his invention, judging by the fact that he used it in three differentpoems and also by his own somewhat self-important gloss on it:

This Ballade, or howsoever I shall terme it, ... hath great good store of deepe invention, and forthe order of the verse, it is not common, I have not heard any of like proportion ....7

In the case of 'Gascoignes De Profundis1, this kind of 'uncommon' proportionanticipates what George Puttenham later was to term 'ocular proporcion',which arises when a poet 'by his measures and concordes of sundry proportionsdoth counterfait the harmonicall tunes of... Musickes',8 but Gascoigne alsoexploits other types of rhetorical schemes when devising his 'deepe invention'.An initial sign of his intention to employ special artifice is given in a prefatorysonnet,9 where he promises to 'frame' his weary Muses 'To write some versein honour of [God's] name' (12-13). (To 'frame' here means to invent an artfulmetrical and stanzaic pattern.) Despite the occasional infelicities of Gascoigne'sunashamedly simple and homely diction, the highly conscious artifice of thispattern is already evident in the psalm's opening stanzas:

1. From depth of doole wherein my soule doth dwell,From heavy heart which harbours in my brest,From troubled sprite which sildome taketh rest,From hope of heaven, from dreade of darksome hell,O gracious God, to thee I crye and yell.My God, my Lorde, my lovelye Lord aloane,

5 Works, I, 469.6 John Rathmell, The Psalms of Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke, p. xvii.7 The Aduentures of Master F. I., in A Hundred Sundry Flowres (London, 1573; Scolar Press

reprint: Menston, 1970), p. 238.8 The Arte of English Poesie (London, 1589), ed. by Gladys D. Willcock and Alice Walker (Cam-

bridge, 1936; rpt. 1970), II, x (pp. 85 and 84).9 The sonnet occurs in A Hundred Sundry Flowres (1973), p. 373, but without 'the translated

Psalme of De Profundis' though it is announced. The psalm obviously belongs together withthe thematically similar hymns, 'Gascoignes good morrow' (pp. 368-71) and 'Gascoignes goodnyghte' (pp. 371-2), printed immediately before the announced translation.

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To thee I call, to thee I make my moane.And thou (good God) vouchsafe in gree to take,This woefull plaint,Wherein I faint.Oh heare me then for thy great mercies sake.

2. Oh bend thine eares attentively to heare,Oh turne thine eyes, behold me how I wayle,Oh hearken Lord, give eare for mine availe,O marke in mind the burdens that I beare:See howe I sink in sorrowes everye where,Beholde and see what dollors I endure,Give eare and mark what plaintes I put in ure.Bende wylling eare: and pittie therewithall,My wayling voyceWhich hath no choyce,But evermore upon thy name to call. (1-22)

The first indication that Gascoigne did indeed desire to 'frame' his verse is theuse of anaphora in the opening lines (1-4 and 12-15), the many alliterations(Wepth ofdoole ... soule doth dwell' [1]); 'From Aope of heaven, from rfreade oft/arksome Aell' [4]), and the unusual stanza form. The anaphoric opening mayhave been suggested by Wyatt's thrice repeated 'from' (1-3) in initial positionwhich characterizes the first terzina in his version of the psalm:

From depth of sinne and from a diepe dispaire,From depthe off deth, from depth off hartes sorow,From this diepe Cave off darknes diepe repayre,The have I cald o lord to be my borow. (664-7)10

The particular stanza form which Gascoigne chose may on the other hand havebeen inspired by Italian experiments with extended sonnets, as practised forexample by Ariosto and Tasso. The latter's spiritual dialogue 'Dove rivolgi, olusinghier fallace' consists of four quatrains, where each displays the samevariation between eleven and eight-syllable verses (11-8-8-11). In two instancesthe reduction in verse length and the subsequent return to a full hendecasyllableemphasize the expressed idea of changed appearances (9-11 and 15-16): thusthe ideas of transformation ('Deh mutiamo sembianti') and of dying ('Hoggilanguisce, e more') coincide with the shorter couplets.11 In this manner Tassointroduces into his devotional poetry formal effects which earlier poets likeAriosto and Tansillo had exploited in their love lyrics. The rhyme-scheme, theintroductory sonnet, and the variation between long and short lines in Gas-coigne's psalms all suggest that he, too, was familiar with these formal effects.

10 See Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt. ed. by Kenneth Muir and Patricia Thompson (Liv-erpool, 1969), p. 20.

11 I quote from Luigi Tansillo ed altri, Le Lagrime di S. Pietro ... con nuova giunta (Genova,1587), p. 165 v (sig. V 3v). See also Ariosto's 'La bella donna d'un si bel foco', where the octavehas the same rhyme scheme as Gascoigne's first eight lines; in Rime di M. Lodovico Ariosto(Vinegia, 1560), p. 21 (r-v).

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The surprising and clever use of the dimeter couplets (e.g. 9-10 and 19-20)is further evidence of his concern with such invention. Gascoigne uses the rad-ical reduction in verse length to emphasize what the words say. When the poetspeaks of fainting (9-10), the verses, too, fail to reproduce the full pentameterpattern established in the first eight lines. However, when he invokes God's'great mercies' (11, my italics) in the first stanza's concluding line, Gascoigneappropriately re-establishes the full pentameter as a kind of prosodie tributeto God's greatness. Similar instances of mimetic verse manipulation occur alsoin the second, sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas.

Gascoigne's choice of an eleven-line stanza seems a highly conscious one,judging by the connotations of this number and by its implicit connexion withPsalm 130 (Psalm 129 in The Vulgate). In the standard Renaissance handbookon the meaning of numbers in Scripture, Mysticae numerorum significationeliber (1585), Pietro Bongo explains that eleven 'is said to be the number ofsinners and penitents' (my trans.).12 The basis of this interpretation, he tellsus, is Psalm 11 and Psalm 129 (in The Vulgate), the latter being the eleventhpsalm of degrees.13 Bongo quotes the authority of Augustine five times andBede as many as six times in support of this attribution, but he also offers apurely mathematical explanation: Eleven is evil, he says, simply because it ex-ceeds the perfect number ten.14

Gascoigne builds his eleven-verse stanza on the number of syllables in eachline (pentameter and dimeter), so that each stanza consists of three unequalgroups of eighty, eight, and ten syllables. These 'harmonious' numbers may besaid to temper the disharmony implied by eleven. This kind of number loreseems pointless and even ludicrous today, but as many recent studies haveshown numerological composition was a highly respected technique during themiddle ages and in the Renaissance, particularly in religious poetry.15 Giventhe firm link between Psalm 130 and the number eleven in patristic thought,

12 Pietro Bongo, Mysticae numerorum significatione liber (Bergamo, 1585), 'De numero XI', 'Ideonumerus peccatorum, & paenitentium dicitur' (p. 16).

13 Bongo, 'De numero', ' . . . in gradu vndecimo collocatus (gloss: Psal. 129 Beda) Propheta Regiuspaenitentia se satisfactione prosternit' (p. 16).

14 Bongo, 'De numéro XI', 'Omne n. peccatum est vndecinarium, quia dum perverse agit, prae-cepta decalogi transit' (p. 16). He quotes Beda in Luc. c. 3 on this point: 'Vndecimus autemnumerus denarij transgressionem significat'.

15 It suffices to mention only a few of the important articles which have appeared since 1970:Maren-Sofie Røstvig, 'The Influence of Biblical Exegesis Upon Theories of Literary Structure',in Silent Poetry, ed. by Alastair Fowler (London, 1970), pp. 32-72, and by the same author'Canto Structure in Tasso and Spenser', Spenser Studies, I, 177-200, ed. by Patrick Cullen andThomas P. Roche (Pittsburgh, 1980); Thomas P. Roche, 'The Calendrical Structure of Pe-trarch's Canzoniere', SP, LXXXI (1974), 152-72; Jerry Leath Mills, 'Spenser and the Numbersof History: A Note on the British and Elfin Chronicles in The Faerie Queene', PQ, 55 (1976),281-7 and 'Prudence, History, and the Prince in The Faerie Queene, Book Two', HLQ, 41(1978), pp. 83-101; Mother M. Christopher Pecheux, ' "At a Solemne Musicke": Structure andMeaning'. SP, LXXV (Summer, 1978), No. 3, pp. 331-46; and Sibyl Lutz Severance, '"SomeOther Figure": The Vision of Change in Flowres of Sion, 1623', Spenser Studies, II (1981),217-28 and ' "To Shine in Union": Measure, Number, and Harmony in Ben Jonson's "Poemsof Devotion"', SP, LXXX (Spring, 1983), No. 2, pp. 183-99.

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it is certain that some such numerologicalyew.* d'esprit are part of Gascoigne's'deep' invention as he created this particular stanza. It should come as nosurprise, therefore, that Wyatt, too, chose a total of eleven units in his terzarima version of this psalm. But to put the balance right, we must not forgetthat Gascoigne used the same stanza and the same rhetorical effects in one ofhis most cheeky poems. In 'A Mooneshine Banquet' (8-11) he utilizes the vari-ation in verse length to give added weight to the moon's 'eclipse', when F. J.narrates the moon's reaction to his mistress's beauty:

For when she spied my Ladies golden rayes,Into the cloudes,Hir head she shrouds,And shamed to shine where she hir beames displayes. {A Hundred SundryFlowres, p. 236)

The concentration of such formal artifice in 'Gascoignes De Profundis' clearlyindicates that we here witness a literary masterpiece in the original sense of theword, that is, a poem written in order to prove the poet's command of hismedium. Gascoigne's acute attention to form seems curiously at odds with hisstudiously simple and often monosyllabic poetic diction.

Gascoigne was particularly fond of monosyllables and in his Certayne notesof Instruction he found it fit to 'forewarne ... that you thrust as few wordes ofmany sillables into your verse as may be' (p. 468). 'The more monasyllablesthat you use', he continues, 'the truer Englishman you shall seeme', adding theview that 'wordes of many syllables do cloye a verse' (p. 469). This preferenceis apparent in 'Gascoignes De Profundis', where sixty-seven out of eighty-eightrhymewords are monosyllabic. The poem contains only three words of foursyllables (all of non-'English' derivation). An obvious case is the occurrence of'contin(u)allye' (coupled with the trisyllabic 'co(n)fidence') in stanza five:

My soule desires with thee to be plaste,And to thy worde (which can no man deceyve)Myne onely trust,My love and lustIn co(n)fidence contin(u)allye shall cleave. (51-5)

Following upon basically regular iambic verses, which as it were express bytheir rhythm (in the two dimeters in particular) the firm faith of the persona,the final verse expresses the idea of continual ascent. Its polysyllabic wordscould be said to deviate from the metrical and rhythmical pattern of the preced-ing, mainly monosyllabic, short lines. The idea of continuity is reinforced bythe prominent alliterations in the final lines and perhaps also by the transitionsfrom diphthongs and low-pitch vowels (in the dimeters) to a cluster of high-pitch vowels in the concluding pentameter. These elements all concur to forma striking pattern of metaphoric sound. The careful transitions from short tolong verse, from iambics to a freer rhythm, from low to high pitch, prove that,at his best, Gascoigne was a master choreographer in full command of the'dance of his words' — to borrow Professor J. E. Stevens's happy phrase.16 Of

16 'The Old Sound and the New: An Inaugural Lecture', (Cambridge, 1982), p. 21.

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course, Gascoigne does not surround all of his polysyllables with such artifice,but a lot can be said for his choice of 'attentively' (12) and of 'plenteouslye'(85), as well.

The psalm's final stanza presents a climactic example of Gascoigne's rhe-torical skill. This is the eighth time he repeats his harmonious stanza pattern(80 + 8 + 10 syllables), but on this occasion he adds an extra 'musical' touch:

Hee wyll redeeme our deadly drouping state,He wyll bring home the sheepe that go astraye,He wyll helpe them that hope in him alwaye:He wyll appease our discorde and debate,He wyll soone save, though we repent us late.He wyll be ours if we continewe his,He wyll bring bale to joye and perfect blisse,He wyll redeeme the flocke of his electe,From all that isOr was amisse,Since Abrahams heyres did first his Lawes reject. (78-88)

As we observe, Gascoigne changes the established pattern of four initial ana-phoras to as many as eight (78-85), and he draws further attention to his in-vention by introducing a chiasmus: the three first words of lines one and twoare repeated in inverse order in lines seven and eight ('redeeme' [78], 'bring'[79], 'bring' [84], and 'redeeme' [85]). This is a small-scale variant of the 'sym-metrical design' Gascoigne used when ordering the narrative phases in TheAdventures of Master F. J., as shown by A. Anderau.17

Anaphoras were sometimes compared to the musical repetitions referred toas 'reports'.18 Gascoigne's own comments about the relationship of his poetryto music would therefore seem to support the view that the anaphoras in 'Gas-coignes De Profundis' were intended to function 'musically': In The Grief ofJoye (1576), he confesses to having often wanted to 'tune (his) words', beingso captured by music 'that some reporte, continually dyd ring, / Within (his)eares, and made (him) seeme to singe' (IV, xxi, 1 and XXIV, 6-7).19 We shallprobably never discover evidence showing exactly how the 'verie sweete notesadapted vnto' Gascoigne's psalm20 may relate to the anaphoric lines of theeighth stanza, but we do know that his anaphoras are made to sing 'continually'

17 George Gascoignes The Adventures of Master F. J.: Analyse und Interpretation (Bern, 1966), pp.76-80.

18 See Gregory G. Butler, 'Music and Rhetoric in Early Seventeenth-Century English Sources',The Musical Quarterly, LXVI, i (1980), pp. 57-8. Butler quotes Henry Peacham the younger,The Compleate Gentleman (1622): 'Yea, in my opinion no rhetoric more persuadeth or hathgreater power over the mind (than music); nay, hath not music her figures, the same whichrhetoric? What is a revert but antistrophe? her reports, but sweet anaphoras? ...' (p. 331). Asimilar but less precise connexion was made by the elder Peacham in The Garden of Eloquence(1577), who praises 'Figurative Flowres, both of Grammer and Rhetorick ... such as delightthe eares as pleasant reports, repetitions, and running poyntes in Musick' (sig. A ii v; my italics).

19 Works, II, 551. The fourth song, 'The vanities of Activityes', deals with music in stanzas 13-28(pp. 550-3).

20 A Hundred Sundry Flowres, p. 372.

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in eight consecutive verses. However, more important than a possible numericalallusion to the harmonious number eight is the ratio of 2:1. Gascoigne createsthis proportion by doubling the number of anaphoras when he passes fromstanza seven to stanza eight. This sudden and unsuspected increase, suggests,I would argue, that he deliberately wanted to create a structural expression ofthe diapason, the proportion inherent in the octave. The key, as it were, to this'deep' diapason is found in Augustine's seminal 'Enarratio in psalmo cxxix'.

Judging by Gascoigne's reference to 'Austine' in The Grief of Joye (IV, xvi,7), he was aware of the fact that Augustine had favoured the higher kind ofmusic which is inherent in the creation, God's carmen pulcherrimum {De civ.Dei, XI, xviii). Augustine's preference for such Pythagorean-Platonic musicaspeculativa may well have caused Gascoigne to award him the affectionateepithet 'a dreaming dadd' (IV, xvi, 6). However this may be, it is interesting tonote that Augustine constantly employs musical terminology when he discussestheology, as for example in his 'Enarratio in psalmo cxxix', where he stressesthe point that man must love his enemy and harmonise his mind and actionswith the word of God. The crucial word is harmonise, concordare in Latin, asappears in the following:

lex caritatis ... in via non deserit comitem, comes fit ei quem ducit in via. Sed concordandum estcum adversario, dum es cum eo in via.... Est enim sermo Dei adversarius tuus, quamdiu cum illonon concordas. Concordas autem, cum coeperit te delectare facere quod dicit sermo. (cap. iii, 1891-2;my italics)21

This passage shows how Augustine, a former professor of rhetoric, uses care-fully constructed chiastic phrases to underline the central idea of concord be-tween man and the deity. The chiastic phrasing harmonises the words of hisown sermo with the idea it conveys (/sermo/concordas/concordas/sermof). Gas-coigne puts forward exactly the same idea in his De Profundis, where he ad-monishes the repentant to 'feede styll upon his worde,/ And put your trust inhim with one accorde' (VII, 4-5). And as we have just seen, he constructs twochiastic patterns in the very stanza which states that 'he wyll appease our dis-corde' (VIII, 4; italics added). But where does the diapason come into this?Even though the transition from discorde to accorde here involves convertingtwo into one.Augustine is more explicit than Gascoigne's terminology suggests.

When discussing how God annuls sins of the past and raises the deadthrough the intervention of his son, Augustine refers to the miracles of Christ.Lazarus and the little girl are born anew, he tells us, when Christ reverses thepattern inherent in the human life-cycle: For they who had been born once,

21 Enarrationes in psalmos, ed. by D. E. Dekkers and I. Fraipont (Turnholti, 1956), in CorpusChristianorum Series Latina, XL, 1891. In an English rendering the passage reads: 'the law oflove ... forsaketh not its companion by the way, becometh a companion to him whom it leadethon the way. But it is needful to agree with the adversary, whilst thou art with him in the way.... For the Word of God is thine adversary, as long as thou dost not agree with it. But thouagreest, when it has begun to be thy delight to do what God's Word commandeth'; Expositionson the Book of Psalms, 6 vols, trans, by Members of the English Church (Oxford, 1847-57), VI,64.

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had died twice, that is, in body and soul semel nati sunt, sed bis mortui sunt; ix,1895). Augustine explains this theological use of the diapason at length in hisDe trinitate, IV, ii, referring his example back to Pythagoras's well-known ex-periment with the monochord. I quote the Latin text:

Merito quippe mors peccatoris veniens ex damnationis necessitate soluta est per mortem iustivenientem ex misericordia voluntate dum simplum eius congruit duplo nostro. Haec enim congruen-tia (sive convenientia vel concinentia vel consonantia commodius dicitur quod est unum ad duo), inomni compaginatione vel si melius dicitur coaptatione creaturae valet plurimum. Hanc enim coap-tationem, sicut mihi occurrit, dicere volui quam graeci àpuoviav vocant. Sed hoc ut demonstreturlongo sermone / opus est; ipsis autem auribus exhiberi potest ab eo qui novit in regulari monochordi.(IV, ii, 164-5; my italics)"

The musical basis of this theology of proportion, used also in Augustine's'Enarratio in psalmo cxxix', would be apparent to Gascoigne who would haveno difficulty in identifying the ideas involved, nor to exploit them poetically.He could rely on the authority of 'Austine' that the consonantia ... unum adduo, expressed the mystery of redemption. The various verbal parallels betweenAugustine's commentary on Psalm 130 (129) and 'Gascoignes De Profundis'suggest that Gascoigne may have been familiar with it,23 and so do the prom-inent and unexpected formal changes in the final stanza of his version of thepsalm.

The first of these changes, the eight anaphoras (78-85), creates a strong visualpull to 'the top left' which almost threatens to divide the stanza into two un-equal parts of anaphoric and non-anaphoric verses. Gascoigne's countering ofthis threat is subtle: in the stanza's chiastic central verse ('He wyll be ours if wecontinewe Ais'; 83) he initiates a sound pattern which counter-balances theincrease in anaphoras. Stanza eight has four rhymes (a-b-b-a-a-c-c-d-c-c-d),compared to five in the preceding seven, which allows the four c-rhymes ('his'[83], 'blisse' [84], 'is' [86], and 'amisse' [87]) to create a strong pull to 'the bottom

22 Stephen McKenna translates this passage as follows: 'For the death of the sinner, which de-servedly comes from the necessary condemnation of God, has been taken away by the deathof the Just Man, which comes from His will to show mercy, while His single death correspondsto our double death. This correspondence, agreement, consent, or whatever other word may beappropriate for describing how one is joined to two, is of the greatest importance in every fit-ting-together of the creature, or perhaps it would be better to call it, in every co-adaptation ofthe creature. It just now occurs to me, that which I mean by this co-adaptation is what theGreeks call harmonian. ... It would require a long treatise, however, to prove this, but onefamiliar with the subject can demonstrate it to the ear itself on a properly-adjusted monochord'(my italics); The Trinity (Washington, 1960; rpt. 1970), pp. 133-4. Even though the translatorplays down the musical terminology, the musical basis of the argument is quite evident.

23 I am here referring to the idea of sinking in a sea of sorrows (ii, 5), which Gascoigne repeatsin the penitential poem 'Dan Bartholomew's libell of request to Care': ' In depth of hell Idrowned was indeed' (ii, 4); Works, I, 118. The source is Augustine's commentary on Psalm130 (129), 1-3 (Expositions, VI, 61-2), where he refers to Jonah and the whale. When Gascoignerefers to God's punishment and 'what sinnes are daylye done' (iii, 2), he closely reproducesAugustine on verse 5: 'He therefore considering how many minute sins man daily commiteth,... heeds how many they be' (Expositions, VI, 66). Other echoes are discussed on pp. 306 and308-9.

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right', as it were. Hence eight anaphoras (78-85) relate to four identical rhymes(83, 84, 86, and 87) in the proportion of 1:2.24 The unity of the stanza in termsof sound is ensured by the fact that both anaphoras and rhymes (homeoteleu-ton) respectively begin and end with the same vowel sound (i [ë]), as in thethematically crucial line: 'He wyll be ours if we continewe h/s' (83), which byway of its rhetoric illustrates how God encompasses and protects the faithful.Moreover, the same sound (ë), and indeed one of the same words ('his'), reap-pears almost in rhyme-position in lines eighty-five and eighty-eight so as toemphasize, as it were, the idea of consonance and unity. We also note that thefinal rhyme of the psalm ('electe'/'rejecte') is subsumed under this euphony.Thus the combination 'perfect blisse' (84) could be said to concord in terms ofsound with 'his electe' (85) and with 'his Lawes rejecte' (88). A series of sibilantsin the poem's last line seals up this well-tuned finale, by picking up the s-soundfrom the preceding rhymes. All these formal manipulations seem especiallydesigned to capture the movement from disharmony and despair to hope andharmony on the thematic level.

In terms of theme Gascoigne has elaborated considerably upon The GenevaBible version of this psalm, at the same time adding some ideas from Augus-tine's 'Enarratio in psalmo cxxix', most notably Augustine's musico-theologicalimagery and the concept of a typological cycle of redemption: 'The law of lovegiveth forgiveness to sins, blotteth out the past, warneth concerning the future'(IV, 64). The latter is reflected in Gascoigne's last verses in 'De Profundis' (forwhich there is no source in the original psalm) where the poet declares his beliefin God's redemptive power in times past, present, and future:

He wyll redeeme the flocke of his electe,From all that isOr was amisse,Since Abrahams heyres did first his Lawes rejecte. (85-8)

In this artfully inverted passage, he uses the three tenses — the future ('He wyllredeeme'), present ('all that is'), and past ('was amisse') — in that order, toillustrate how God's love heals and 'comely doeth ... order all things' (Wisdom,8. 1). A last finesse that calls to mind Machaut's famous motet (i.e. 'Moncommencement est ma fin, et ma fin est mon commencement') is Gascoigne'sreference in the psalm's last verse to the biblical past as 'first'. Thus Gascoigne'sfin is not merely his own commencement, but that of all fallen men.

It is only in the last stanza that the explicit agreement or analogy is madebetween the fate of the Old Testament 'electe' (85) and that of all Christians

24 A similar 'ocular' diapason is of course found in the final three verses of each stanza, where thetwo short verses are followed by a single long verse. Sibyl Lutz Severance discusses relatedstructural uses of the diapason in her thoughtful study ' "To Shine in Union": Measure, Number,and Harmony in Ben Jonson's "Poems of Devotion"', SP, LXXX (Spring, 1983), No. 2, pp.183-99. An early example of such musica speculativa is the play on the proportion 3:2 (diapente)in Philippe de Vitry's motet 'Garrit Gallus-In nova fert-Neuma', where different verse lengthsare important. See the discussion by James Anderson Winn, Unsuspected Eloquence: A Historyof the Relation between Poetry and Music (New Haven and London, 1981), pp. 107-110.

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('we'), an agreement which reveals a typological mode of thinking. It has beencarefully prepared for, however, by the constantly changing points of view.Thus the psalm opens with two stanzas which focus on the individual (T). Instanzas three and four it moves on to the society of all fallen men ('we'). Itreturns to the concerns of the individual in stanzas five and six, and finallyconcludes with two stanzas on the Old Testament 'chosen sheepe' (69), and thetype of the universal church of God (stanza eight). This typological interpre-tation is wholly in the spirit of Augustine and the gloss in The Geneva Bible:The psalmist, so the gloss explains, 'sheweth to whome the mercie of God dothapperteine: to Israel, that is, to the Church, and not to the reprobate'.25

In this manner 'Gascoignes De Profundis" can be seen to progress throughstages of ever increasing explicitness; it begins by considering the distress ofthe individual repentant sinner (i-ii), who is moved to admit that his place isamong all sinners, but that God's mercy extends to all who believe in Him.Stanzas five and six focus on the persona's itinerarium mentis in Deum: 'Mysoule ... / In confidence continu(a)llye shall cleave' (55), whereas the two finalstanzas (vii-viii) celebrate the realization that Christians are as much God'schosen people as was the 'broode' (68) of Abraham: 'He wyll redeeme theflocke of his electe, / From all that is, / Or was amisse, / Since Abrahams heyresdid first his Lawes rejecte' (85-8). It may well be that it was this almost Her-bertian sensitiveness to the typological dimension, delivered in highly sophis-ticated and well wrought verse, that attracted Mary Sidney to 'Gascoignes DeProfundis'.26 For Gascoigne's remarkable attempt to fashion a poetic formcapable of rendering the inner rationale of the penitential psalm marks a firstdecisive step in the development towards Herbert's superbly refined 'pictures'of spiritual conflict.

University of Oslo ROY T. ERIKSEN

25 The Geneva Bible: A Facsimile of the 1560 Edition, ed. by Lloyd E. Berry (Madison, Milwaukee,and London, 1969), p . 263 (v).

26 The influence comprises choice of stanza, rhetorical ornament, rhyme-words, and of diction, asI argue in a forthcoming article entitled 'Gascoigne's and Mary Sidney's Versions of Psalm130'.

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