Saturday Rave: Song by Aphra Behn

There were a lot of aristocratic men of letters about in England in the 1600s - and there was also Aphra Behn, whose origins were so humble that no one is even sure what was her maiden name, or where she lived.

She was a supporter of the British royal family at a time (after the monarchy was restored in 1660) when it was easier and safer not to be too loud a supporter of anything. The King (Charles II) rewarded her support by employing her as a spy, sending her abroad until all her money ran out, and then neglecting to pay her a penny for her trouble. 

After that Aphra (whose husband had died after a brief marriage) took to writing plays. She wasn't the first woman to write plays in England, but she was one of the first, and she managed to make enough money and friends to survive.

As a side-line, in 1688 she wrote an abolitionist novel called Oroonoko, which was long before the English novel is generally believed to have been invented.

Aphra Behn died very soon after the Stuart Kings were banished from England. (This was, admittedly, artistically rather neat, but must have been a personal inconvenience.) Once she was gone she was quickly denigrated as both coarse and a woman, poor thing, but luckily for us she has been rediscovered in recent years.

Here's one of her poems. It's called Song.

O Love! that stronger art than wine,

Pleasing delusion, witchery divine,

Wont to be prized above all wealth,

Disease that has more joys than health;

Though we blaspheme thee in our pain,

And of thy tyranny complain,

We are all bettered by they reign.

      

What reason never can bestow

We to this useful passion owe;

Love wakes the dull from sluggish ease,

And learns a clown the art to please,

Humbles the vain, kindles the cold,

Makes misers free, and cowards bold;

’Tis he reforms the sot from drink,

And teaches airy fops to think.

When full brute appetite is fed,

And choked the glutton lies and dead,

Thou new spirits dost dispense

And ’finest the gross delights of sense:

Virtue’s unconquerable aid

That against Nature can persuade,

And makes a roving mind retire

Within the bounds of just desire;

Cheerer of age, youth’s kind unrest,

And half the heaven of the blest! 

*****

It makes me hope that Aphra's brief marriage was not her only experience of love.

Word To Use Today: delusion. This word comes from the Latin dēlūdere to mock or play false, from lūdere to play.