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Title: La Bella Bona Roba. To My Lady H.
Author: Richard Lovelace [
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<1>
ODE.
I.
Tell me, ye subtill judges in loves treasury,
Inform me, which hath most inricht mine eye,
This diamonds greatnes, or its clarity?
II.
Ye cloudy spark lights, whose vast multitude
Of fires are harder to be found then view'd,
Waite on this star in her first magnitude.
III.
Calmely or roughly! Ah, she shines too much;
That now I lye (her influence is such),
Chrusht with too strong a hand, or soft a touch.
IV.
Lovers, beware! a certaine, double harme
Waits your proud hopes, her looks al-killing charm
Guarded by her as true victorious arme.
V.
Thus with her eyes brave Tamyris spake dread,
Which when the kings dull breast not entered,
Finding she could not looke, she strook him dead.
Notes:
<1> This word, though generally used in a bad sense by early writers, does not seem to bear in the present case any offensive meaning. The late editors of Nares quote a passage from one of Cowley's ESSAYS, in which that writer seems to imply by the term merely a fine woman.
Since the note at p. 133 was written, the following description by Aubrey (LIVES, &c., ii. 332), of a picture of the Lady Venetia Digby has fallen under my notice. "Also, at Mr. Rose's, a jeweller in Henrietta Street, in Covent Garden, is an excellent piece of hers, drawne after she was newly dead. She had a most lovely sweet-turned face, delicate darke browne haire. She had a perfect healthy constitution; strong; good skin; well-proportioned; inclining to a BONA-ROBA."
[The end]
Richard Lovelace's poem: Bella Bona Roba. To My Lady H.
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