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76 RICHARD NUGENT (fl.1604) Richard Nugent was a member of a prominent Old English family based in County Westmeath.1 His only published work was a sonnet sequence, Rich: Nugents Cynthia. Containing direfull sonnets, madrigalls, and passionate intercourses, describing his repudiate affections expressed in loves owne language (London, 1604) which concerns his rejection by the Irish ‘Cynthia’. The poet, spurned, left Ireland for London and, in the sonnet that follows, expressed his feelings for the land he was forced to leave. Fare-well sweete Isle Fare-well sweete Isle, within whose pleasant Bowres I first received life and living ayre; Fare-well the soile, where grew those heav'nly flowres Which bravely decke the face of my fierce faire;2 Fare-well the place, whence I beheld the towres With pale aspect, where her I saw repaire; Fare-well ye floods, encreased by those showres Wherewith mine eyes did entertaine despaire; Fare-well cleare lake, which of art made the glasse3 To rarest beautie, of mine ill the roote, 10 When she vouchsafes upon thy shores to passe, Blessing thy happie sand with thy4 faire foote; Fare-well faire Cynthia, whose unkind consent Hath caus'd mine everlasting banishment. For information on Nugent, as well as a full critical assessment of his sonnet sequence, 1 see Anne Fogarty’s introduction to Cynthia by Richard Nugent ed. Angelina Lynch (Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2010). The paradox is typical of Petrarchan love poetry; it is the lady’s behaviour that the poet 2 sees as ‘fierce’. This passage suggests that the surface of the lake – acting like an artificial (or hand3 made) mirror – reflects the lady’s beauty (the cause of the poet’s ills) when she condescends to walk past it. A misprint for ‘her’. 4 ...

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