Elegia XII.[201]

by Christopher Marlowe — a poem card from Justes Mots

The speaker angrily curses the wooden writing tablets on which he composed a love letter that his mistress has rejected, associating the wood with death, burial, and curse-work, and condemning the material itself as ill-omened. The poem transforms personal rejection into a bitter invective against the physical objects of failed love, employing dark superstition and grotesque imagery. It exemplifies the Renaissance use of curse-poetry in amorous contexts.

Bewail my chance: the sad book is returned,
This day denial hath my sport adjourned.
Presages are not vain; when she departed,
Napè by stumbling on the threshold, started.
Going out again, pass forth the door more wisely,
And somewhat higher bear thy foot precisely.
Hence luckless tables! funeral wood, be flying!
And thou, the wax, stuffed full with notes denying!…

Themes: love · new-baby · wedding · friendship