Are they shadows …
Are they shadows that we see?
And can shadows pleasure give?
Pleasures only shadows be
Cast by bodies we conceive,
And are made the things we deem,
In those figures which they seem.
But these pleasures vanish fast,
Which by shadows are expressed;
Pleasures are not, if they last,
In their passing is their best.
Glory is most bright and gay
In a flash, and so away.
Feed apace then, greedy eyes,
On the wonder you behold.
Take it sudden as it flies,
Though you take it not to hold:
When your eyes have done their part,
Thought must length it in the heart.
This week’s choice is a song by the poet, playwright and sometime courtier, Samuel Daniel (1562-1619). It’s from Tethys’ Festival, the masque Daniel composed at the request of the Queen Consort of James I, Anne, to celebrate the investiture, in June, 1610, of the royal couple’s son, Henry, as Prince of Wales. Anne, originally Anne of Denmark, played the part of the sea-goddess, Tethys.
Originally performed by a Chorus of Tethys’ Nymphs for her entertainment, the song also serves as an address to the masque’s audience. Taking the form of a lightly executed defence of theatrical art, but not constrained by that narrow context, it stands among the best lyric poems of its time.
Admittedly, it may at first reveal, or even revel in, a certain Shakespearean influence. Compare Puck’s epilogue at the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “If we shadows have offended, / Think but this and all is mended: / That you have but slumbered here / While these visions did appear. / And this weak and idle theme / No more yielding but a dream, / Gentles, do not reprehend …” But, while the question Daniel’s chorus asks, “Are they shadows that we see?”, echoes Puck’s identification of the play and players with “shadows”, the argument develops differently. A subtle, almost metaphysical wit informs Daniel’s thinking as he asks rhetorically, “And can shadows pleasure give?” The answer must be “yes” for the play-goers who are enjoying the “shadow play” of the masque. There’s no ironical suggestion, as in Puck’s speech, that the audience is merely asleep and “a weak and idle theme” characterises their dreaming. Daniel, I think, consciously avoids the word “dream” in the “deem”/”seem” couplet, while calling up the faint Shakespearean echo.
Daniel’s song is rich in a psychological insight that slips between pleasure-giving shadows to pleasures which themselves are shadows. These, too, may be “cast by bodies we conceive” and become “the things we deem / In those figures which they seem”. Daniel is discussing internal theatrical performance here: the “bodies” are not only those of the actors and the characters they play, but fantasies associated with all kinds of human pleasure. A pleasure such as love relies on our mental “staging” and our “figure” of the beloved may be as “real” as a sea goddess played by a member of the royal family.
The essence of all pleasures is that they “vanish fast”. The second verse leaves us in no doubt: “pleasures are not, if they last.” Pleasures as we know them wouldn’t exist if they weren’t ephemeral. And perhaps Daniel suggests that we who experience the pleasures are also shadows?
It’s a surprise to see the word “Glory” after that. It’s a word that might strike an imperial note in the context, and the clinching couplet might even edge near to banishing the concept: “Glory is most bright and gay / In a flash, and so away.” But, of course, “glory” here has been disconnected from royal, real-life grandeur and responsibilities. The brief expression of it by the masque has charmed it into another delicious pleasure. It vanishes with wonderful swiftness, all the same.
The song continues to resonate beyond its theatrical context. The “greedy eyes” of the last verse belong to all pleasure-seekers, not only an audience of play-goers. We’re invited to “feed apace” on the “wonder” we see, but to “take it sudden as it flies”. The carpe diem motif is complicated by the idea of a necessary transience in what has been seized, enjoyed, but let go. William Blake will later advise something similar in his poem Eternity.
Blake’s marvellous quatrain need not dim the effect of Daniel’s song: wisdom with a light touch can be memorable, too. And it’s memory that will rescue pleasure from complete disappearance. “When your eyes have done their part, / Thought must length it in the heart.” Yes, “lengthen” would be the expected word, but it doesn’t fit the neat tetrameter line. Daniel might have looked for a synonym. That he doesn’t, but simply uses “length” as a verb, seems a brilliant touch: “length”, somehow evokes a greater longevity. Pleasure can’t be kept, but it can be indefinitely reimagined. Of course, Daniel is also asking that his masque will be remembered and that the masque-goers, royal folk or ordinary, will seek out his work in future.
So his wish was not in vain: the song has survived its occasion to be enjoyed, additionally, as a quietly thoughtful, elegantly crafted, free-standing poem. As for Tethys’ Festival, it can still be read, complete with all its fascinating stage directions, in the edition of Samuel Daniel’s Complete Works here.
