Mignarda: Can shee excuse my wrongs with virtues cloake, by John Dowland

Mignarda (Donna Stewart & Ron Andrico) with Malina Rauschenfels recorded live in concert, November 18th, 2017 at St. Alban Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. More from Mignarda at www.Mignarda.com

From Dowland's First Booke of Songes or Ayres (1597), a setting of what amounts to public whingeing on the part of the Earl of Essex, the rather mature Queen Elizabeth's flamboyant young suitor. Dowland cleverly incorporates the ballad tune, 'Will you go walk the woods so wild' into the third strain of this justifiably famous galliard-song, presumably making reference to Essex’s occasional banishment to his country house in Wanstead. Essex eventually pushed his rampant ambition a little too far and, in 1601, lost his head in the bargain.

Can shee excuse my wrongs with vertues cloake :
Shall I call her good when she proues vnkind.
Are those cleere fiers which vannish in to smoake :
must I praise the leaues where no fruit I find.

No no where shadowes do for bodies stand,
thou maist be abusde if thy sight be dime.
Cold loue is like to words written on sand,
or to bubbles which on the water swim.

Wilt thou be thus abused still,
seeing that she will right thee neuer
if thou canst not ore come her will,
thy loue will be thus fruitles euer.

Was I so base that I might not aspire
Vnto those high ioyes which she houlds from me,
As they are high so high is my desire,
If she this deny what can granted be.

If she will yeeld to that which reason is,
It is reasons will that loue should be iust,
Deare make me happie still by granting this,
Or cut of delayes if that dye I must.

Better a thousand times to dye
Then for to liue thus still tormented,
Deare but remember it was I
Who for thy sake did dye contented.