misch[i]evious

[Robin Hamilton]

<<
At 11/8/2010 11:54 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
I think (though I haven't checked) that this was an acceptable Elizabethan
>spelling (indicating a four-syllable pronunciation),

OED lists "mischevious" for the 1500s and :mischievious" for the
1600s ... and many, many other "Forms" over the centuries.

Joel

>often associated with
>the surname "Machiavel".
>
>Thus Sir Walter Ralegh (pronounced "raw-ly", as in raw meat) was on
>occasion, and perhaps justly, described as a "Mischievious Machiavel",
>rhyming with "fiend from hell."
>
>So it goes ...
>
>Robin
>>

Further to this, the final stanza of an anti-Ralegh poem written between
1601 and 1603 goes thus:

            Essex for vengeance cries,
            His bloud upon the lies,
            Mountinge above the skies,
                       Damnable fiend of hell,
                       Mischevous Matchivell!

(Full text below)

Robin
______________________________________

                                  ON SIR WALTER RALEIGH

          [   ? Title added by modern editor?
              ?  Punctuation editorial?               ]

          Wilye Watt, wilie Wat,
          Wots thou not and know thou what,
          Looke to thy forme and quat
                     In towne and citie.

          Freshe houndes are on thy taile,
          That will pull downe thy saile,
          And make thy hart and quaile,
                     Lord for the Pittie.

          Lordshipp is flagg'd and fled,
          Captainshipp newly sped,
          Dried is the hogshead's head,
                     Wilie Wat wilie.

          Make the best of thy plea,
          Least the rest goe awaie,
          And thou brought for to saie
                     Wily beguilie.

          For thy skaunce and pride,
          Thy bloudy minde beside,
          And thy mouth gaping wide,
                     Mischievous Machiavell.

          Essex for vengeance cries,
          His bloud upon the lies,
          Mountinge above the skies,
                     Damnable fiend of hell,
                     Mischevous Matchivell!


          SOURCE:        J.O.Halliwell (ed.), _Poetical Miscellanies from a
MS. coll. of  the time of James I_  (London, 1845),  p13-14.

DATE:    After Essex’s death in 1601 and before James arrives in 1603.

GROUP I:  Poems written before 1603

...   The first group [of poems] consists of four poems written between
about the end of the sixteenth century (c. 1599) and Ralegh's trial for
treason in 1603.  This dating can be established from internal evidence
since these poems present Ralegh as still (albeit undeservedly) at liberty.

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