29 Oct 2021

Sidney's debt to Geneva

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) was one of the vaunted heroes of the Elizabethan age who died in battle against Spain in the Netherlands at an altogether too young age. Born to an aristocratic family, he was elected a member of Parliament at the tender age of 18 and distinguished himself in public life and as a poet, being knighted by the Queen in 1583, three years before his death at age 31. Like many literary figures of the modern era, he set the biblical Psalms to verse, completing 43 of them, with the remainder eventually finished by his gifted sister, Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621). Together they are known as the Sidney Psalms, of which so eminent a poet as George Herbert (1593-1633) spoke highly.

Sir Philip's Psalms can be found here, and a perusal of this collection reveals that several, though by no means all, can be sung to their proper Genevan melodies. The very first Psalm is one of these:

He blessed is who neither loosely treades
The straying stepps as wicked counsaile leades;
Ne for badd mates in waie of sinning wayteth,
Nor yet himself with idle scorners seateth;
But on God's lawe his harte's delight doth binde,
Which, night and daie, he calls to marking minde.

Another is Psalm 42, whose Genevan tune is well known even outside the Reformed tradition:

As the chased hart, which brayeth
Seeking some refreshing brook,
So my soul in panting playeth,
Thirsting on my God to look.
My soul thirsts indeed in mee
After ever living Thee;
Ah, when comes my blessed being,
Of Thy face to haue a seing.

A brief survey of the hymnals in my library reveals no texts by Sir Philip, with the sole exception of Cantus Christi 2020, which carries his metrical versification of Psalm 31, titled All, All My Trust.

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