Southwell: Our Ladies Salutation

Continuing with our journey with Robert Southwell in Elizabethan England, we now turn to his next poem in his sequence on the Virgin Mary and Christ: 'Our Ladies Salutation'.

The Annunciation. Tissot (Brooklyn Museum)

Spell Eva backe and Ave shall yowe finde
The first beganne the last reversd our harmes
An Angells witching wordes did Eva blynde
An Angells Ave disinchaunts the charmes
Death first by Woemans Weakenes entred in
In woemans vertue life doth nowe beginn.

O Virgin brest the heavens to thee inclyne
In thee their joy and soveraigne they agnize
Too meane their glory is to match with thyne
Whose chaste receite god more then heaven did prize
Hayle fayrest heaven that heaven and earth dost blisse
Where vertewes starres god sonne of justice is.

With hauty mynd to godhead man aspird
And was by pride from place of pleasure chas'd
With loving mynde our manhead god desird
And us by love in greater pleasure plac'd
Man labouring to ascend procur'd our fall
God yelding to descend cutt off our thrall.

Notes

[l3] witching wordes: 'witching': 'that casts a spell; enchanting'. This is a reference to the seductive lies of the fallen Angel, Lucifer, who persuades Eve she can disobey the commandment God gave not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

[4] And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. [5] For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. [Genesis 3]

[l4] An Angells Ave: The Angel Gabriel, who fought in the victory of the good angels over Lucifer's proud hordes, begins the process of undoing the effects of the 'witching wordes', by a simple salutation: Ave...

[l5] Death:

[12] Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. [Romans V]

[l8] agnize: recognize, acknowledge. Christians acknowledge Mary as the 'Cause of our joy' (Causa nostrae laetitiae, Litany of Loreto, 12th century); and they honour her as Queen (see the thirteen titles in the same litany). Alternatively, the meaning here may be that the heavens acknowledge Jesus Christ, present body, blood, soul and divinity 'in thee', ie in the tabernacle of Mary's womb. See however lines 1-2 of The Visitation by Southwell:

Proclaymed Queene and mother of a god
The light of earth the Soveraigne of saints

[l10] receite: The act of receiving or taking in; or A place of reception or accommodation for people; a shelter, refuge.

[l11] blisse: 'bless'. Some interesting definitions from the OED: To consecrate (a person) to a sacred office. To consecrate by a prayer committing a person to God for his patronage, defence, and prospering care. To sanctify or hallow by making the sign of the cross. 'Orig. meaning (probably), To make ‘sacred’ or ‘holy’ with blood; to consecrate by some sacrificial rite.' A curious foreshadowing of the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross, even unto shedding the last drop of His blood for us.

Mary is apostrophized as 'fairest heaven'. She is 'Heaven' because God is dwelling in her and she is completely free from sin. 'dost' is second person singular and so the line reads as: 'O fairest Heaven, thou dost bless heaven and earth', because of the blessed fruit of her womb, Jesus. The second 'heaven' may be taken to mean everything above and around the earth: the sky, the sun, the moon, the starts and the planets. 'heaven and earth' therefore represent all the created world.

[l12]: Where vertewes...sonne of justice is: The uncertainty over punctuation, number and ellipsis in this line gives pause for thought. The sense may be: God, the Sun of Justice, is (there) where Virtue's Star [Mary] is. 'sonne' shows up as either 'sun' or son' in OED citations from the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. 'Sun of Justice' is a known title of Jesus Christ when He coms again in judgement of the living and the dead. see for example:

[2] But unto you that fear my name, the Sun of justice shall arise... [Malachi 4]

[l15] manhead: The state of being human; the condition of belonging to humanity; human nature. Esp. as opposed to godhead. An illustration of this now rare word may be found in: 'The Glorie of Christs Godhead was hid..by the sufferinges of his Manhead'.

[l18] thrall: thraldom, bondage, servitude; captivity.