Note 1. “This Ode,” says Nott, “occurs in the Nugae Antiquae, vol. ii., p. 252, Ed. 1775, and is there given to Lord Rochford; evidently erroneously, for it is here printed from the Harington MS., No. 1, p. 80, which was Wyat’s own MS., and is signed with his name in his own handwriting. It is a poem of singular merit. It is one of the most elegant amatory Odes in our language. It is as beautifully arranged in all its parts as any of the odes of Horace. The Lute, to which the Ode is addressed, corresponded nearly to the modern guitar. It was the instrument to which almost all the amatory compositions of our early poets were sung; whence they were properly called Songs, corresponding to the Italian Cantate. Every person of good education played on the lute. Surrey excelled on that instrument, and composed to it several elegant airs…. I should not scruple to say that this Ode of Wyat is more elegant and feeling than that of Horace to Lydia on a subject nearly similar.—Lib. I., Ode 25.” [back]
Note 2. As lead to grave in marble stone: i.e., It would be more easy for lead, which is the softest of metals, to engrave characters on hard marble, than it is for me to make an impression on her obdurate heart. To grave: in the sense of making an impression upon, was common among the early writers. Cf. Chaucer’s Troilus and Cressida, Bk. II., l. 1241:
Note 3. May chance thee lie: Wyat, says Nott, is incomparably more elegant and pleasing in this passage than Horace in the following lines:
Cum tibi flagrans amor, et libido
Quæ solet matres furiare equorum,
Sæviet circa jecur ulcerosum,
Non sine questu, etc.
And it is Nott’s opinion that, “there is nothing in the whole of Horace’s ode equal in beauty to the two lines which conclude the seventh stanza in Wyat:
