I've missed from the compilation of latter-day examples of Goe little booke
(in English) the following two cases of the missive form, these also
intended to be fraught with autobiography and literary history:

(1)
Ezra Pound, "Envoi" (1919) from Hugh Selwyn Mauberly, with reference to
Waller's "Go, lovely rose"

Go, dumb-born book,
Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes:
Hadst thou but song
As thou hast subjects known,
Then were there cause in thee that should condone
Even my faults that heavy upon me lie
And build her glories their longevity.
Tell her that sheds
Such treasure in the air,
Recking naught else but that her graces give
Life to the moment,
I would bid them live
As roses might, in magic amber laid,
Red overwrought with orange and all made
One substance and one colour
Braving time.
Tell her that goes
With song upon her lips
But sings not out the song, nor knows
The maker of it, some other mouth,
May be as fair as hers,
Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers,
When our two dusts with Waller's shall be laid,
Siftings on siftings in oblivion,
Till change hath broken down
All things save Beauty alone.

(2)
Robert Louis Stevenson, New Poems:

Go, little book - the ancient phrase
And still the daintiest - go your ways,
My Otto [= Gr. auto], over sea and land,
Till you shall come to Nelly's hand.

How shall I your Nelly know?
By her blue eyes and her black brow,
By her fierce and slender look,
And by her goodness, little book!

What shall I say when I come there?
You shall speak her soft and fair:
See - you shall say - the love they send
To greet their unforgotten friend!

Giant Adulpho you shall sing
The next, and then the cradled king:
And the four corners of the roof
Then kindly bless; and to your perch aloof,
Where Balzac all in yellow dressed
And the dear Webster of the west
Encircle the prepotent throne
Of Shakespeare and of Calderon,
Shall climb an upstart.

There with these
You shall give ear to breaking seas
And windmills turning in the breeze,
A distant undetermined din
Without; and you shall hear within
The blazing and the bickering logs,
The crowing child, the yawning dogs,
And ever agile, high and low,
Our Nelly going to and fro.

There shall you all silent sit,
Till, when perchance the lamp is lit
And the day's labour done, she takes
Poor Otto down, and, warming for our sakes,
Perchance beholds, alive and near,
Our distant faces reappear.


To which may be added, from the period, the English version of Horace from
Austin Dobson (leviore plectro), from "Varia," in At the Sign of the Lyre
(1894 edn.)

TO HIS BOOK (Hor. Ep. I, 20)

For mart and street you seem to pine
With restless glances, Book of mine!
Still craving on some stall to stand,
Fresh pumiced from the binder's hand.
You chafe at locks, and burn to quit
Your modest haunt and audience fit
For hearers less discriminate.
I reared you up for no such fate.
Still, if you MUST be published, go;
But mind, you can't come back, you know!

"What have I done?" I hear you cry,
And writhe beneath some critic's eye;
"What did I want?"--when, scarce polite,
They do but yawn, and roll you tight.
And yet methinks, if I may guess
(Putting aside your heartlessness
In leaving me and this your home),
You should find favor, too, at Rome.
That is, they'll like you while you're young,
When you are old, you'll pass among

The Great Unwashed,--then thumbed and sped,
Be fretted of low moths, unread,
Or to Ilerda you'll be sent,
Or Utica, for banishement!
And I, whose counsel you disdain,
At that your lot shall laugh amain,
Wryly, as he who, like a fool,
Thrust o'er the cliff his restive mule.
Nay! there is worse behind. In age
They e'en may take your babbling page
In some remotest "slum" to teach
Mere boys the rudiments of speech!

But go. When on warm days you see
A chance of listeners, speak of me.
Tell them I soared from low estate,
A freedman's son, to higher fate
(That is, make up to me in worth
What you must take in point of birth);
Then tell them that I won renown
In peace and war, and pleased the town.
Paint me as early gray, and one
Little of stature, fond of sun,
Quick-tempered, too,--but nothing more.
Add (if they ask) I'm forty-four,
Or was, the year that over us
Both Lollius ruled and Lepidus.

And: a late Renaissance variant of the terminal address to the book--the
long one largely in prose--is Cervantes' concluding speech to his sampogna
(in "Ozell's revison of Peter Motteux"): "Here the sagacious Cid Hamet
addressing himself to His Pen, O thou my slender Pen, says he, thou, of
whose Knib, whether well or ill cut, I dare not speak my Thoughts!
 Suspended by this Brass-wire, remain upon this Spit-Rack where I lodge
thee. There may'st thou claim a Being many Ages, unless presumptuous and
wick'd Historians take thee down to profane thee, bid 'em beware, and, as
well as thou can'st, in their own Stile, tell 'em, 'Avaunt, ye Scoundrels,
all and some!/I'm kept for no such Thing./Defile me not; but hang
yourselves;/And so God save the King!' For Me alone was the Great Quixote
born, and I alone for Him. Deeds were his Task, and to record 'em, Mine.
 'We two, like Tallies for each other struck, are nothing when apart.' In
vain the spurious Scribe of Tordesillas dared with his blunt and bungling
Ostridge-Quill invade the Deeds of my most valorous Knight: His Shoulders
are unequal to th' Attempt: The Task's superior to his frozen Genius."

-- Amen. Jim N.



  John Geraghty <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> One more:
>
> Vade, liber, quocunque lubet spatiare per orbem,
> Ut liceat domino, non libit ire, tuo.
> Nec pudeat quod sis ruri prognatus agresti,
> Gratior urbanis rusticitate venis.
> Caesaris excelsam si quis te ducat in aulam,
> Ne nima pecces garrulitate cave.
> Qualiter edoctus fueras, fac. ?a??e memento
> (Si fas sit) domino dicere mane meo.
>Forte ibi semideus regali stemmate cretus
> Te leget, huic optes omnia fausta volo.
> De me si quisquam ardalio quid quaeritet, audax
> Ne verbum dicas impero, mutus abi.
> Cumque domum rediturus eris, mihi nuncius esto,
> Qualia de te plebs garrula verba ciat.
> Et nos solliciti reducem dum te usque moramur,
> Cum domina hic solito vivere more iuvat.
>
> http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/stradling/4lat.html
>
> -John
>
> MANS ANATOMOUS, GODS AUTONOMOUS
> A MAN, AN ATOM, ANATOMI
>
> A s Gods eternall, void of all dimension,
> N ot subiect vnto humane apprehension;
> A nd as of all things th' Vniuersall Cause,
> T hem gouerning: not gouern'd by the Lawes
> O f ought which is aboue him. And we finde,
> MEN Beasts, and Plants, each Creature in his kinde
> I s gouern'd; but it selfe doth beare no sway.
>
> A t first, that they more fully might endure
> T he sence of Fire was grossed in their Fall,
> O f courser temper than th' Originall.
> M oreouer, Damascenus is thus heard;
> E ach thing created, if with God compar'd,
> Who onely incorruptible is shall finde
> Them Grosse, and all materiall in their kinde.
> For He alone 'tis, we may truly call
> Vnbodied, and Immateriall.
> Ambrose, Lactantius, and Basilius,
> Rupertus, Atlas, Athanasius,
> With Firmianus, did beleeue no lesse,
> As more at large their PUBLIQUE WORKES [TOMEs] expresse
>
> M etraon doth the Primam Mobile guide:
> O phaniel, in the Starry Heav'n reside:
> T he Sunnes Sphere, Varcan: the Moones lower rayes
> A rcan disposeth: Mars (his) Lamach swayes;
> Mercuries, Madan: Ioves, Guth: Venus Star,
>
> With Pride and Enuy Lucifer now swelling
> Against MANKINDE, whom from his heav'nly Dwelling,
> He seemes in supernaturall Gifts t'out-shine,
> MAN being but Terrene, and himselfe Diuine
> A mbitiously his Hate encreasing still,
> D ares to oppose the great Creators Will:
> A s holding it against his Iustice done,
> That th' Almighties sole begotten Sonne,
> MANs nature to assume purpos'd and meant
>
> M ore Angels to Create, if they at least
> A re his Created, or to spite us more,
> D etermin'd to advance into our room
> A "CREATURE FORM'D OF EARTH," and him endow
>
> W ith MEN as Angels without Feminine,
> O r find some other way to generate
> MAN KIND? this mischief had not then befall'n,
> An d more that shall befall, innumerable
> D isturbances on Earth through Femal snares,
> A nd straight conjunction with this Sex: for either
> He never shall find out fit Mate, but such
>
> Sympathy &
> A ntipathie
> T o one pallate that is sweete which is bitter to another
> T he same thing smells gratefully to one displeasinly to another
> O bjects of sight move not some but cast others into an extasie
> M usicall aires are not heard by all with alike pleasure. The like of
>touching.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>From: "John Leonard" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 6:34 AM
> Subject: Re: Goe little booke => summary, compendium, and thanks
>
>
>> One other that might be added to this list is Milton's sonnet "A book was
>> writ of late called Tetrachordon," where the book "walk'd the town a
>>while."
>> Milton does not address his book, and the walking book is something other
>> than the poem that describes it, but Milton very likely alludes to
>>Horace's
>> Epistles, as J. H. Finley argued in 1937.
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Kevin Farnham" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005 7:27 PM
>> Subject: Re: Goe little booke => summary, compendium, and thanks
>>
>>
>>> To summarize the "Goe little booke" research: the earliest known use of
>>> the phrase/device is in the poems of Catullus, in about 50 BC. Here, the
>>> word "little" was significant, since small, highly crafted art was viewed
>>> by the artist as more perfect, nimble, and perhaps uniquely potent
>>> (because of its concentration of meaning), compared with the verbose
>>> epics of the past (S. Willett's info, my quite possibly incorrect
>>> extrapolation of the artist's intent).
>>>
>>> The phrase appears in the following (some of which are definitely not
>>> "little" books):
>>>
>>> ~50 BC: Catullus: poems use "libellus" (= "little book") "in the sense of
>>> a small-scale volume of highly-polished verse."
>>>
>>> ~15 BC: Horace, Epistles
>>>
>>> ~10 AD: Ovid, Tristia
>>>
>>> ~92 AD: Statius, "Thebaid"
>>>
>>> ~1385: Chaucer, "Troilus and Crysede"
>>>
>>> ~1500: Stephen Hawes, "The Pastime of Pleasure"
>>>
>>> ~1590: Spenser, "The Shepheardes Calender"
>>>
>>> ~1621: Robert Burton, "Anatomy of Melancholy"
>>>
>>> ~1820: Byron, "Don Juan"
>>>
>>> ~1890: Robert Louis Stevenson, "New Poems"
>>>
>>> ~1890: Oscar Wilde
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks to all who contributed!
>>> Kevin Farnham
>>

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James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121