Copyright Oxford University Press(England) Mar 1998

THE sonnet `The tree in youth proud of his leaves, and springs' is numbered LVIII in Geoffrey Bullough's edition of the Poems and Dramas (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1939), LVII in Greville's Workes (1633), and 56 in the Warwick MS (Additional MS 54570, British Library). I cite the 1633 text (modernizing and v and the long s):

The tree in youth proud of his leaves, and springs,
His body shadowed in his glorie layes;
For none doe flie with Art, or others wings,
But they in whom all, save Desire, decayes;
Againe in age, when no leaves on them grow,
Then borrow they their greene of Misseltoe.
Where Caelica, when she was young and sweet,
Adorn'd her head with golden borrowed haire;
To hide her owne for cold, she thinkes it meet
The head should mourne, that all the rest was faire;
And now in Age when outward things decay,
In spite of age, she throwes that haire away.

Those golden haires she then us'd but to tye
Poore captiv'd soules with she in triumph led,
Who not content the Sunnes faire light to eye,
Within his glory, their sense dazeled:

And now againe, her owne blacke haire puts on,
To mourne for thoughts by her worths overthrowne.

The first stanza has presented no problems of interpretation. Its argument is that in youth, beauty needs no enhancement. The tree is then proud of its leaves and shoots; in age, when the leaves grow no more, it may borrow green from the mistletoe. (There is a passing reference to ageing beauties who resort to artificial aids.)

The difficulties occur in the second and third stanzas. They are occupied with the paradox of Caelica reversing the natural process. In her youth, she adopted a blonde wig. In age, she discards this `golden borrowed haire' which had ensnared her lovers, and resumes `her owne blacke haire', as though now in mourning `for thoughts by her worths overthrowne'.

Conventionally black is an unfashionable colour in a sonnet series, and there is a play on 'faire' as golden and 'faire' as beautiful. The first difficulty arises from the reasons given for Caelica's adopting the wig. When she was young and sweet, she

Adorn'd her head with golden borrowed haire;
To hide her owne for cold, she thinkes it meet
The head should mourne, that all the rest was faire.

Professor Bullough comments `He dares not say she wore a wig for fashion, so blames the cold!', and then emends the punctuation `because the sense requires it for the modern reader' (i.258). So Caelica in his text

Adorn'd her head with golden borrowed haire,
To hide her owne for cold; she thinkes it meet
The head should moume, that all the rest was faire.

Unfortunately the motive of protection from the cold takes away any meaning from what follows. How could Caelica `think it meet' that the now golden head `should mourne, that all the rest was faire'? It has lost its mourning hue.

I think that 'cold' is the past participle of 'coll', meaning `To poll, cut off the hair of, shear, clip, cut close' (coll v.2 OED). If repunctuation is called for, the Warwick MS (which was under Bullough's notice) offers a better guide:

Where Caelica when she was young and sweet,
Adorn'd her head with golden borrowed haire;
To hide her owne, for cold, she thinkes it meet,
The head should mourne, that all the rest was faire.

Caelica `thinkes it meet' that a 'cold' or cropped head `should mourne, that all the rest was faire'. Its colour is still black, and a shaven head is also a sign of mourning (besides being appropriate for a wig). Her regret has been that her beauty (`all the rest was faire') should be marred by her dark hair colour.

Further difficulties occur in the third stanza. One would suspect a misprint in `Poore captiv'd soules with she in triumph led', and the Warwick MS reads `wh, not 'with' (and `Captive', not 'captiv'd'). More puzzling is the comment that the older Caelica `now againe, her owne blacke haire puts on'. The black hair is not `put on', because it is not a wig, but a natural growth. Perhaps `put on' is used in the sense of `formally adopt', as in the case of Hamlet, who `had he been put on' was likely to have proved most royally (Vii.351). The Warwick MS at this point reads 'weares on'. 'Wear' would be used in the sense `To allow (one's hair, beard) to grow in a specified fashion, as opposed to shaving or the use of a wig' (wear v.' 3 OED). The manuscript reading fits exactly, and `puts on' would seem to qualify as another of the sophistications to which the Workes (1633) is liable.

G. A. WILKES

University of Sydney