Born in Dorsetshire, Turberville attended New College, Oxford. In London he resided in one of the Inns of Court; he became a secretary to the ambassador to Russia, and traveled to that country in 1568. In 1575 he acquired some property in Dorset, where he retired from public life.
Like Googe, Turberville began his literary career as a young man; in 1567, when he was in his middle twenties, he published three books, two of them translations of Ovid and Mantuanus, and the other his own Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonnets. As the title of this volume might indicate, Turberville was rather strongly influenced by Barnabe Googe, whose volume had appeared four years earlier. His work is, however, more minor in conception than that of Googe; his themes are most frequently very small, his poems minute and perfectly surfaced. His best poems are either witty or ironic or both; partly because of the perfection of their execution and the smallness of their themes, they remind one of the later Madrigalists, though the language and feeling of Turberville have a Native dryness unlike that of the later poets.
TEXT:
Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonnets, edited by J. P. Collier (1869).
Thou winst thy wealth by war,
ungodly way to gain,
And in an hour, thy ship is sunk,
goods drowned, the pirate slain.
The gun is all thy trust;
it serves thy cruel foe;
Then brag not on thy cannon shot
as though there were no mo.
TO ONE THAT HAD LITTLE WIT
I thee advise
If thou be wise
To keep thy wit
Though it be small:
’Tis rare to get
And far to fet,
’Twas ever yit
Dearest ware of all.
OF THE CLOCK AND THE COCK
Good reason thou allow
one letter more to me
Than to the cock: for cocks do sleep
when clocks do wake for thee.
THE LOVER EXHORTETH HIS LADY TO TAKE TIME, WHILE TIME IS
Though brave your beauty be, and feature passing fair,
Such as Apelles to depaint might utterly despair,
Yet drowsy drooping Age, encroaching on apace,
With pensive plough will raze your hue, and Beauty’s beams deface.
Wherefore in tender years how crooked Age doth haste
Revoke to mind, so shall you not your time consume in waste.
Whilst that you may, and youth in you is fresh and green,
Delight your self: for years do flit as fickle floods are seen;
For water slippëd by may not be called again,
And to revoke forepassëd hours were labor lost in vain.
Take time whilst time applies; with nimble foot it goes;
Nor to compare with passëd prime thy after age suppose.
The holts that now are hoar, both bud and bloom I saw;
I wore a garland of the briar that puts me now in awe.
The time will be when thou that dost thy friends defy
A cold and crooked beldam shalt in loathsome cabin lie;
Nor with such nightly brawls thy postern gate shall sound,
Nor roses strewn afront thy door in dawning shall be found.
How soon are corpses, Lord, with filthy furrows filled?
How quickly Beauty, brave of late, and seemly shape is spilled?
Even thou that from thy youth to have been so, wilt swear;
With turn of hand in, all thy head shalt have gray powdered hair.
The snakes with shifted skins their loathsome age do way;
The buck doth hang his head on pale to live a longer day.
Your good without recure doth pass; receive the flower
Which if you pluck not from the stalk, will fall within this hour.
TO HIS LOVE, THAT SENT HIM A RING WHEREIN WAS GRAVED, “LET REASON RULE”
Shall Reason rule where Reason hath no right
Nor never had? shall Cupid lose his lands?
His claim? his crown? his kingdom? name of might?
No, Friend, thy ring doth will me thus in vain;
Reason and Love have ever yet been twain.
They are by kind of such contrary mold,
As one mislikes the other’s lewd device:
What Reason wills Cupido never would;
Love never yet thought Reason to be wise.
To Cupid I my homage erst have done;
Let Reason rule the hearts that she hath won.
THAT ALL THINGS ARE AS THEY ARE USED
Was never aught by Nature’s art
Or cunning skill so wisely wrought,
But Man by practice might convart
To worser use than Nature thought.
Ne yet was ever thing so ill
Or may be of so small a price,
But man may better it by skill,
And change his sort by sound advice.
So that, by proof, it may be seen
That all things are as is their use,
And man may alter Nature clean,
And things corrupt by his abuse.
What better may be found than flame
To Nature that doth succor pay?
Yet we do oft abuse the same
In bringing buildings to decay.
For those that mind to put in use
Their malice, moved to wrath and ire
To wreak their mischief, will be sure
To spill and spoil thy house with fire.
So physic, that doth serve for ease,
And to recure the grievëd soul,
The painful patient may disease
And make him sick that erst was whole.
The true man and the thief are leeke,
For sword doth serve them both, at need;
Save one by it doth safety seek
And th’ other of the spoil to speed.
As law and learning doth redress
That otherwise would go to wrack,
Even so it doth oft times oppress
And bring the true man to the rack.
Though poison pain the drinker sore
By boiling in his fainting breast,
Yet is it not refused therefore,
For cause sometime it breedeth rest,
And mixed with medicines of proof
According to Machaeon’s art
Doth serve right well for our behoof
And succor sends to dying heart.
Yet these and other things were made
By Nature for the better use,
But we of custom take a trade
By wilful will them to abuse.
So nothing is by kind so void
Of vice, and with such virtue fraught,
But it by us may be annoyed,
And brought in tract of time to naught.
Again, there is not that so ill
Below the lamp of Phoebus’ light,
But Man may better, if he will
Apply his wit to make it right.
TO AN OLD GENTLEWOMAN, WHO PAINTED HER FACE
Leave off, good Beroe, now,
to sleek thy shrivelled skin;
For Hecuba’s face will never be
as Helen’s hue hath been.
Let beauty go with youth,
renounce the glozing glass,
Take book in hand: that seemly rose
is woxen withered grass.
Remove thy peacock’s plumes,
thou crank and curious dame:
To other trulls of tender years
resign the flag of fame.
OF A RICH MISER
A miser’s mind thou hast,
thou hast a prince’s pelf:
Which makes thee wealthy to thine heir,
a beggar to thy self.
THAT NO MAN SHOULD WRITE BUT SUCH AS DO EXCEL
Should no man write, say you, but such as do excel?
This fond device of yours deserves a Bable and a Bell;
Then one alone should do, or very few indeed:
For that in every Art there can but one alone exceed.
Should others idle be, and waste their age in vain,
That might perhaps in after time the prick and price attain?
By practice skill is got, by practice wit is won.
At games you see how many do to win the wager run.
Yet one among the moe doth bear away the Bell:
Is that a cause to say the rest, in running, did not well?
If none in physic should but only Galen deal,
No doubt a thousand perish would whom Physic now doth heal.
Each one his talent hath, to use at his devise,
Which makes that many men as well as one are counted wise.
For if that wit alone in one should rest and reign,
Then God the skulls of other men did make but all in vain.
Let each one try his force, and do the best he can,
For thereunto appointed were the hand and head of man.
The poet Horace speaks against thy reason plain
Who says, ’tis somewhat to attempt, although thou not attain
The scope in every thing: to touch the highest degree
Is passing hard; to do the best, sufficing is for thee.
fet: fetch.
brave: fine.
holts: woods.
brawls: clamors; or, a type of dance.
postern gate: side entrance.
spilled: undone, ruined.
way: send off.
hang his head: shed his horns.
by kind: by nature.
lewd: plain, common.
leeke: like.
Machaeon: son of Aesculapius, and surgeon to the Greeks in the Trojan War.
glozing: glossing; in this instance, flattering.
crank: lively, brisk, lusty.
trulls: trollops.
Bable: mock-scepter carried by the Fool.
Bell: prize; also, part of Fool’s standard equipment.
the prick: the target (in archery).
price: praise, honor.
moe: rest, others.