A Note on Herbert's "Easter" and the Sidneian Psalms

Abstract

The evidence for Herbert's knowledge of the metrical psalms of Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke is mainly circumstantial, but still persuasive. Coburn Freer has summarized the main reasons for supposing "that Herbert had more than just a casual acquaintance" with the poems the wide circulation of the metrical psalter in manuscript, the great variety of lyrical forms used by the Sidneys and their "attempt to suit form to meaning." anc Herbert's family ties with the Sidneys, as well as "the proximity of Bemerton to Wilton."' Although apparently no concrete internal evidence has been found to lend weight to the argument, there are some intriguing, previously unnoticed parallels between Herbert's "Easter" and the Countess of Pembroke's early version of Psalm 108 (still in manuscript) which may be more than coincidental. The Countess's poem survives in a transcription of one of the most important manuscripts, which Professor Ringler suggests was a working copy (full of revisions) kept either at Wilton or at the Pembroke residence in London.2 Because Psalm 108 is composed, even in the Biblical text, of parts of Psalms 57 and 60, the Countess first simply combined the paraphrases she had already made of the corresponding verses from those earlier Psalms: Psalm 57:7-11 and Psalm 60:5-12 (altered slightly to accomodate the minor changes in the Biblical text).3 The poem thus falls into two distinct parts, each with its own verse form: a'0 b4 b4 c7 c7 a6 for Psalm 1081-5 and a'0 b8 a8 b6 for verses 6-1 3.4 The most interesting structural parallel between the Countess's poem and Herbert's Easter" is this simple division into two metrically different sections. There is less correspondence in details. Although Herbert also uses stanzas of six and four lines, the meters are different from those used by the Countess: a'0 a'0 b'0 b4 c'0 c10and, even more simply, a8 b8 a8 b8.