“ M U S I C K S D U E L L ” : G R A S H A W A N D H E N R Y H A W K I N S PATRICIA DEMERS University of Alberta I n the midst of his account of Venetian scandal and gossip in Crudities, Thomas Coryat sandwiched effulgent praise for the performance of the choir and musicians on three feast days. Having paid particular tribute to one singer for his “superexcellent” voice, he observed: Truely I think that had a Nightingale beene in the same roome, and contended with him for the superioritie, something perhaps he might excell him, because God hath granted that little birde such a priuiledge for the sweetnesse of his voice as to none other.1 Along with Coryat many finer Renaissance artists used the traditional Latin association of Philomel with natural musical excellence, as recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.2 Both the metaphysical poet Richard Crashaw and the English Jesuit Henry Hawkins composed descriptions of nightingales engaged in singing contests. Both “ Musicks Duell” from The Delights of the Muses (1646)3 and the thirteenth symbol from Partheneia Sacra (1633)4 are free and idiosyncratic adaptations of recognized continental sources. Moreover, although one work is understood to be either triumphantly or innocently5 secular and the other with certainty is Marian and devotional, readers have commented on the stylistic correspondences between the two works. Josephine Seeker finds Hawkins’s “joy in music ... most Crashavian.”6 Mario Praz mentions “striking parallels” and affirms that “Crashaw’s display of musical terms in Musicks Duell finds a counterpart only in Partheneia Sacra.1’7 But these critical statements are cursory. No examination of the ways in which this Jesuit devotion and baroque verse can complement one another has been undertaken. Author of the two English Recusant emblem books, The Devout Hart (1634)8 and Partheneia Sacra, Henry Hawkins always put his distinctive stamp on the materials he used. In translating the work of the French Jesuit Etienne Luzvic from Latin to English he added a series of prefatory “hymnes” to each of the twenty cardiomorphic meditations of The Devout Hart. These preliminary poems ably glossed the Wierix plates which did not E n g l is h S t u d ie s in C a n a d a , x , 4, December 1984 appear in the English translation until the edition of 1638. Each contained a cloud-haloed central Valentine heart with a large arterial aperture atop, over which the Paraclete usually hovered. Commenting on the allegorical engravings, the verses utilized a wide range of mythical allusions to describe their divine subject. Jesus is figured as the sacred Atlas, Neptune, Apelles, Philomel, and Orpheus. The last two musical references are especially help ful for our purposes. The thirteenth meditation is entitled “Jesus sings in the Quire of the hart, to the Angels playing on musical instruments.” In its seven couplets the hymn quickly sets up a series of contrasts between the worldly siren and the divine singer, the candied invitation to pleasure and the superior chant, the brief trill of happiness and the complete scale of eternal life: If thou within my hart wouldst dwell, O IESV, then what Philomel, Could warble with so sugred throte, To make me listen to her note? The Syrens of the world to me; Would seeme to make no harmony. When they a long, a large resound Of pleasures, thou dost them confound, Chanting a long, a large to me With ecchoing voyce, Eternity! A briefe of pleasure, with like strayne Thou soundst a long of endlesse payne, The Diapason, ioyes for me, To liue in blisse eternally. (172) Prefacing the next meditation, “Jesus the Sonne of David, Playes on the harp in the hart, while the Angels sing,” Hawkins employs Orphic suasiveness to positive effect. The correspondences between God and Orpheus encourage the meditator in his request: Jesu be al in al, my part, My God, musitian to my hart, And harmony, which solace brings Ah touch my hart, & tune it’s strings. (186) The harmonic union between heart and tongue, and specifically between heart and music, dominates his praise of Mary in Symbol...