...AND GIVE THE WORLD THE LIE

Sir Walter Raleigh was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England.

Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded in the Old Palace Yard at the Palace of Westminster on the 29^th October  1618. "Let us dispatch", he said to his executioner. "At this hour my ague comes upon me. I would not have my enemies think I quaked from fear." After he was allowed to see the axe that would behead him, he mused: "This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries." According to many biographers – for instance, Raleigh Trevelyan in Sir Walter Raleigh (2002) – Sir Walter's final words (as he lay ready for the axe to fall) were: "Strike, man, strike!"

Having been one of the people to popularise tobacco smoking in England, he left a small tobacco box, found in his cell shortly after his execution. Engraved upon the box was a Latin inscription: Comes meus fuit illo miserrimo tempo ("It was my companion at that most miserable time").

Raleigh's head was embalmed and presented to his wife. His body was to be buried in the local church in Beddington, Surrey, the home of Lady Raleigh, but was finally laid to rest in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, where his tomb may still be visited today. "The Lords", she wrote, "have given me his dead body, though they have denied me his life. God hold me in my wits." It has been said that Lady Raleigh kept her husband's head in a velvet bag until her death. After his wife's death 29 years later, Raleigh's head was returned to his tomb and interred at St. Margaret's Church.

“ The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” " was written by Raleigh in response to Christopher Marlowe’s "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love."

If all the world and love were young

And truth in every shepherd's tongue,

These pretty pleasures might me move

To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold

When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,


And Philomel becometh dumb;

The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields

To wayward winter reckoning yields;

A honey tongue, a heart of gall

Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies

Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten—

In folly ripe, in reason rotten.



Thy belt of straw and ivy buds

Thy coral clasps and amber studs,

All these in me no means can move

To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed

Had joys no date nor age no need.

Then these delights my mind might move

To live with the and be thy love

                                                  Sir Walter Raleigh

He also wrote:

The Lie

Go, Soul, the body's guest,


Upon a thankless errand;


Fear not to touch the best;


The truth shall be thy warrant:


Go, since I needs must die,


And give the world the lie.

Say to the court, it glows


And shines like rotten wood;


Say to the church, it shows


What's good, and doth no good:


If church and court reply,


Then give them both the lie.



Tell potentates, they live


Acting by others' action;


Not loved unless they give,


Not strong but by a faction.


If potentates reply,


Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,


That manage the estate,


Their purpose is ambition,


Their practice only hate:


And if they once reply,


Then give them all the lie.



Tell them that brave it most,


They beg for more by spending,


Who, in their greatest cost,


Seek nothing but commending.


And if they make reply,


Then give them all the lie.



Tell zeal it wants devotion;


Tell love it is but lust;


Tell time it metes but motion;


Tell flesh it is but dust:


And wish them not reply,


For thou must give the lie.



Tell age it daily wasteth;


Tell honour how it alters;


Tell beauty how she blasteth;


Tell favour how it falters:


And as they shall reply,


Give every one the lie.



Tell wit how much it wrangles


In tickle points of niceness;


Tell wisdom she entangles


Herself in overwiseness:


And when they do reply,


Straight give them both the lie.



Tell physic of her boldness;


Tell skill it is pretension;


Tell charity of coldness;


Tell law it is contention:


And as they do reply,


So give them still the lie.



Tell fortune of her blindness;


Tell nature of decay;


Tell friendship of unkindness;


Tell justice of delay:


And if they will reply,


Then give them all the lie.



Tell arts they have no soundness,


But vary by esteeming;


Tell schools they want profoundness,


And stand too much on seeming:


If arts and schools reply,


Give arts and schools the lie.



Tell faith it's fled the city;


Tell how the country erreth;


Tell manhood shakes off pity


And virtue least preferreth:


And if they do reply,


Spare not to give the lie.



So when thou hast, as I


Commanded thee, done blabbing—


Although to give the lie


Deserves no less than stabbing--


Stab at thee he that will,


No stab the soul can kill.

Also on the 29^th October 1787, Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague.

This is from Salzburg Festival 1954. (The sound starts at approx. 1:06 min.)