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Title: Ellinda's Glove [sonnet]
Author: Richard Lovelace [
More Titles by Lovelace]
I.
Thou snowy farme with thy five tenements!<34.1>
Tell thy white mistris here was one,
That call'd to pay his dayly rents;
But she a-gathering flowr's and hearts is gone,
And thou left voyd to rude possession.
II.
But grieve not, pretty Ermin cabinet,
Thy alabaster lady will come home;
If not, what tenant can there fit
The slender turnings of thy narrow roome,
But must ejected be by his owne dombe?<34.2>
III.
Then give me leave to leave my rent with thee:
Five kisses, one unto a place:
For though the lute's too high for me,
Yet servants, knowing minikin<34.3> nor base,
Are still allow'd to fiddle with the case.
Notes:
<1> i.e. the white glove of the lady with its five fingers.
<2> Doom.
<3> A description of musical pin attached to a lute. It was only brought into play by accomplished musicians. In the address of "The Country Suiter to his Love," printed in Cotgrave's WITS INTERPRETER, 1662, p. 119, the man says:--
"Fair Wench! I cannot court thy sprightly eyes
With a base-viol plac'd betwixt my thighs,
I cannot lisp, nor to a fiddle sing,
Nor run upon a high-strecht minikin."
In Middleton's FAMILIE OF LOVE, 1608 (Works by Dyce, ii. 127) there is the following passage:--
"GUDGEON.
Ay, and to all that forswear marriage, and can be
content with other men's wives.
GERARDINE.
Of which consort you two are grounds; one touches
the bass, and the other tickles the minikin."
[The end]
Richard Lovelace's poem: Ellinda's Glove [sonnet]
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