‘Sounding to Present Occasions’: Andrew Marvell’s ‘Two Songs at the Marriage of the Lord Fauconberg and the Lady

Andrew Marvell’s ‘Two Songs at the Marriage of the Lord Fauconberg and the Lady Mary Cromwell’ does not garner the attention of his other political Protectorate poems, particularly ‘An Horatian Ode’ and ‘The First Anniversary’. Perhaps deterred by the obvious patronage aspects of the two poems, the questionable mixture of myth and pastoral, the epithalamium expectations without the epithalamium structure, and the probable musical setting of the work, readers have tended to ignore the companion pieces as flattering attempts to gain patronage. However, a close study of the poems—the imagery, the allegory, and the genres portrayed therein—evidences Marvell’s uncanny ability to structure the work conventionally yet subvert the anticipated framework to depict the tensions, conflicts, and contradictions evident in this marriage. Like its two more prominent ‘cousin’ poems, ‘Two Songs’ mirrors and analyzes the uncertainties of Cromwell and his government; however, the work surpasses these poems in its ability not only to depict but even to censure these ambiguities by presenting a personal encomium to the Cromwell family as a pastoral masque in dialogue, joining the two poems as a satiric epithalamium that can then ‘sound to present occasions’ while subtly portraying conflicts in genres, family, social status, and politics, delighting his audience of ‘understanders’ with ‘more remov’d mysteries’. ‘Two Songs’ deserves a more prominent place in the Marvell canon.

The form proved very successful in the early Stuart period and secured Jonson's position in James's court, at least for a while. 6 As I have argued elsewhere, Jonson used the 'mixed media' aspect of the masque to create ' a visual, philosophical, and literal reflection/correction/prediction' of King James's court, a type of 'mirror for magistrates' that he then could angle to include himself in the reflection. For example, in The Masque of Queenes, his elaborate portrayal of twelve royal ladies in a pyramid arrangement seated in the House of Fame not only provides a visual display of royal hierarchy but also critical commentary.
Under the pinnacle of Queen Anne as Bel-Anna, Queen of the Ocean, sits Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, as Penthesilia, Queen of the Amazons, decked in martial armor, acknowledging her somewhat masculine power as the Queen's favorite and a major patroness, but also indicating Jonson's understanding of the Queen's personal and independent choice of her ladies-in-waiting. 7 'Two Songs' certainly fits within these masque expectations since they were probably sung at the court wedding celebrations with musical settings by William Lawes, who was known for his composition of court masques and his sensitivity to poetry. 8 In addition, the works focus on Cromwell who himself probably portrayed the character Jove in the first 'Song' and Menalcas in the second, just as Jonson made King James, seated in the prime spot in the audience, the focal point and purpose of his court masques. Thus, the pieces would not only appeal to Cromwell's own love of music but also place 6 Leah Marcus emphasizes the necessity of present occasions to this courtly spectacle: 'The court masque was perhaps the most inherently topical of all seventeenth-century art forms. Masques were shaped by contemporary events and intended, in turn, to give shape to those events'. See Marcus, 'Present Occasions and the Shaping of Ben Jonson's Masques ', ELH 25, no. 2 (1978): 201. 7 Joan Faust, 'Queenes and Jonson's Masque of Mirrors', Explorations in Renaissance Culture 28, no. 1 (2002): 18. 8 See Friedman,'Marvell's Musicks',18,21. Nancy Klein Maguire identifies the two songs as a masque with no qualifications, while Edward Holberton judges that the songs ' constitute a revival of the Stuart court masque-low key, but unmistakably regal'. Randall adds, 'If this was not a court masque in the old antebellum sense, it was at least a deity-adorned masquelike show at His Highness's court, and it stunningly confirms the survival of the spirit of masquing in a place and at a time when one might assume that it had been quenched'. See Maguire, Regicide and Restoration: English Tragicomedy, 1660-1671(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992  Like 'Two Songs', 'An Horatian Ode' and 'The First Anniversary' sound to present occasions but with more ambiguity than specificity. Critical interpretations of the poems split between pro-royalist or pro-parliamentary positions, 9 mirroring a man and a government that were themselves ambiguous. In presenting Cromwell as a warrior capable of settling the nation's divisions yet admitting his use of violence in 'Horatian Ode', Marvell images the present occasions of Cromwell's return from the Irish campaign, pitting the regret for Charles's execution against the necessity of revolution. Likewise, 'The First Anniversary' presents conflicting images traditionally associated with kingship and with biblical types and metaphors more fitting to a 'Puritan warrior saint'. As Patterson comments, '…these two frames of reference conflict with each other, producing diametrically opposed readings of the poem….' 10 Here Marvell also speaks to the present occasions of the first anniversary of the Instrument of Government and the first Protectorate Parliament while imaging Cromwell's own ambivalences and contradictions.

I. 'Present Occasions'
However, unlike the public occasions of 'An Horatian Ode' and 'The First Anni-  Ramsey, Studies in Cromwell's Family Circle (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1930), 176. Faust: 'Sounding to Present Occasions' 7 According to Mary Cromwell in a letter to brother Henry on 23 June 1656, the problem was that Lord Warwick did not offer as much as was expected, though she really suspected Cromwell had taken ' a dislike to the young person' because of reports he was ' a visious man, given to play, and suchlike things, which ofis was done by som that had a mind to brak of the match'. But, she admits, the couple 'wer so much ingagd in afection before this, that shee could not think of breaking of it of' and asked Mary and her friends to speak up for him. 15 Adding to the tension were other contenders for Frances's hand: Cromwell's nephew William Dutton, chaplain Jerry White, the Duke of Buckingham, and even Charles II. 16 Though Frances's wedding itself was a simple civil ceremony, it was followed the next day by an extravagant wedding feast at Whitehall that featured '48 violins and 50 trumpets and much mirth with frolics, besides mixt dancing (a thing heretofore accounted profane) 'til 5 of the clock' the next morning. 17 It is relevant to describe Frances and her wedding celebrations if only in contrast to sister Mary's. Mary was respected and admired. Both Mark Noble (1787) and later Bishop Burnet (1643-1715 concur that it was said after Richard's resignation as Lord Protector, '… those who wore the breeches deserved petticoats better, but if those in petticoats (meaning her ladyship) had been in breeches, they would have held faster'. According to Guizot, 'Mary was witty, sensible, active, and high-spirited, fond of excitement and power, ardently devoted to the interests of her family, and a zeal-  Firth, 4 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, andCo., 1891-1901), 2:56. Thurloe relates an 'intercepted letter' that confirms this: …now the fresh reports are, that its lowly spoken in the court, that [Charles II] is to marry one of Cromwell's daughters, so to be brought again to his three lost crownes. This is also muttered here, but not believed, Cromwell professing himself to be a constant enemy to the monarch, and that the height of his ambition is to be a vassell of the common- perhaps more caution about the match, necessitating the French Ambassador blatantly to urge the Viscount to court Mary: 'I told him the advantage his pretensions might receive from his own addresses to the person principally concerned, and assured him of a good reception from the nearest relations'. Fauconberg still expressed that he ' expected a clearer invitation', with the Ambassador replying he had been too obvious already ' and left the rest to his own merit and application '. 22 Though he did eventually make his intentions known, the Fauconberg-Cromwell wedding was a rather hushed and rushed affair. The Venetian ambassador reported it was conducted 'with much privacy and honor', contrasting with the 'ringing of bells' and 'firing greate guns at the Tower' that accompanied Frances's wedding. Mary complained that the courtship was so hurried that she did not have time to tell her own brother she was getting married until after the wedding. No one even knew the wedding date until Mercurius Politicus announced they were married. 23 Fauconberg did win Cromwell's permission to have, in addition to the mandated civil ceremony, an Anglican service, with Dr. John Hewitt using the Book of Common Prayer, and also convinced his father-in-law to direct the money that would have been used on a more lavish celebration instead to add to Mary's dowry, equaling £15,000. 24 Another awkward aspect of the marriage was the probable absence of  , 1901-1914), 2:115, https://archive. org/details/variousmanuscripts01greauoft; Ramsey, 43n2;and Thurloe, vol. 6, 3 Nov. 1667. 22 Ramsey,39. 23 Clarke Papers,3:127;Holberton,155;and Razzell and Razzell,5:65. 24 Venetian Ambassador Francesco Giavarina reports this favorably: 'when the Protector expressed to Viscount Falcombrige his intention to spend more money on this wedding than on the other, the latter pointed out that it would be throwing money away on superfluities and he would prefer to have the money paid to himself, and he would devote it to things which were more important and more necessary. It appears that this reply pleased the Protector, who seems infatuated with Falcombridge, considering him a solid man for this reply, and not given to vanities, and so he gave him the money to spend, and there will be no further ceremonies'. However, the ambassador admits the match caused astonishment since not only Fauconbridge 'but all his house have always favoured the king'. See the Lord Protector, 'Why, I think he will never make your highness a grandfather … I speak in confidence to your highness; there are certain defects in Lord Fauconberg, that will always prevent him making you a grandfather, let him do what he can'. 26 Cromwell, comments Noble, did not share this information with his daughter: 'he left the lord and lady to settle the account of defects as they might'. Later, reports Noble, Cromwell repeated the remark to Fauconberg as a joke, but the Viscount became enraged, lured the unsuspecting White in his room, and beat him with his cane. White suggested to Fauconberg, ' only prove, by getting [i.e. begetting] a child that I told the Protector a lye, you may then inflict the punishment with justice, and I will bear it with patience'. 27 Both Frances's and Mary's marriages were politically and dynastically important; however, the elaborateness of Frances's wedding and the seeming inappropriateness of the choice of Mary's groom only exacerbated the friction building at this time between Cromwell and Parliament over the Lord Protector's perceived monarchical leanings. This concern did not just appear in 1657-58, however, but existed from the time of the regicide, especially when Cromwell moved into royal palaces 25   Court Palace, though he resided at Whitehall. 28 In the April before the weddings, after months of speculation, Cromwell did reject the offered title of king, but on 26 June 1657, he was reinstalled as Lord Protector under a new constitution, the Humble Petition and Advice, and with his installation employing many elements of a monarchial coronation, many feared he was a king in all but name.

II. Epithalamium?
The novelty of 'Two Songs' begins immediately in its very structure: two poems with one title. Are they to be considered one poem or two? The choice of pronouns referring to the 'Songs' is problematic: should we say 'it' has been labeled as an epithalamium, or that 'they' have been so labeled? In his survey of Renaissance as conceived by Sappho's fragments, Theocritus's Idyll 18, Catullus's epithalamium (no. 61), described in great detail by Puttenham, and utilized by Spenser? 30 Marvell would have been familiar with Spenser's Epithalamium, and the literary type was even a rhetorical exercise at the universities, so he certainly knew how to structure one, but 'Two Songs' differs in almost every sense. Traditionally, the epithalamium should refer to the specific day of the wedding, fictive or real, and describe each part of that day: the awakening of the bride, her dressing, the procession to the ceremony, the following wedding banquet, the bedding of the couple, and the morning song for their re-awakening. 31 Instead, Marvell does not celebrate an idealized, committed relationship but, in the first 'Song', turns to Greek mythology to portray mortal Endymion's fervent attempts to persuade the goddess Cynthia that their relationship would be appropriate, ending rather inconclusively as to whether the relationship was actually consummated; and in the second 'Song' recounts a conversation among pastoral rustics celebrating another marriage already performed, this of fellow shepherds Damon and Marina. We know nothing of the wedding day or of the rituals that may have been performed other than the shepherds' desire to bring garlands to the bride (ll. 5-6). Thus the two songs, while enacting dialogues, are themselves in dialogue with each other. As with Marvell's many other dialogue poems, though the pieces offer no definite resolution so make no commitment, the choice of words leads the reader to his own conclusion.
Another noticeable difference in this work as epithalamium is the role of the poet himself. In the epithalamia of Catullus, the fictive poet-speaker fulfills a stylized role of a type of 'master of ceremonies' and chorus leader, as Arthur Wheeler describes: 'It is the poet who invokes Hymen, urges the girls to sing, addresses the bride,  In the second 'Song', characters speak to each other without the poet or the bride and groom even present, and form their own concluding ' chorus' wishing the couple joy. Though Marvell does appear in the poems in his demonstration of skill matching allegory to real people and events as will be discussed, the audience/reader may well have questioned whether Marvell intended the piece to be an epithalamium.

III. Pastoral Dialogue
But perhaps the most daring aspects of 'Two Songs', at least for 'understanders', are its dialogue format and pastoral setting, both of which define the work as a pastoral eclogue, a type of poetry intended to provide ' a mode for the juxtaposition of contending values and perspectives'. Rather than simply an escape, pastoral involves ' a critical exploration and counterbalancing of attitudes, perspectives, and experiences'. 33 Part of the appeal of such an in-between realm is in an 'implied dialogic relation between the work itself and the society that produced it', giving it an affinity with allegory. This is exactly Puttenham's point when he defines the ability of Pasto- However, what may not be evident to those 'pretenders' is that the pastoral mode itself is a rather daring form to utilize for an encomium for the Lord Protector and his family since it was especially identified with the Tudor-Stuart monarchy. As James Turner, Nigel Smith, Anthony Low, and Alastair Fowler explain, pastoral mode was especially indicative of the Elizabethan era, while the Interregnum replaced traditional pastoral with the more georgic pastoral, implying work rather than contem-  The eclogue style also allows Marvell to present his views in dialogue, a familiar format for the poet, having penned at least four himself, and a form that allowed him seemingly to remain non-committal, though not necessarily. In this case, while the first song refers to classical myth in a musical dialogue role-reversal between Cynthia the moon goddess and Endymion her lover, the second features Phillis, a country lass, conversing with fellow rustics Tomalin and Hobbinol about the wedding of Marina and Damon. As I have argued elsewhere, a dialogue is a dynamic, interactive experience which actually takes place in-between. As an exchange, it is not a static entity but must continually 'become', enact itself, in order to exist and can only be fully experienced in the middle of two participants. 41 How appropriate, then, to use dialogue format to celebrate the incongruous match of the daughter of a regicide and a nephew of a confirmed Catholic Royalist. Though a dialogue generally lacks a ' conclusion', non-commitment can be a type of commitment, a kind of 'Negative Capability' that may avoid criticism yet does not allow praise. Having the characters in the 'Songs' do all the talking allows Marvell to leave it up to the reader/audience to determine judgment. However, understanders would interpret hints of parody in the figures portrayed.

IV. '[M]ore remov'd mysteries'
The allegorical and contradictory aspects of both the masque and pastoral enabled The question arises, however, in these present occasions: which character is base and which is gentle? Cromwell's family is the royal family of Britain at that time, but Fauconberg hailed from a long line of Royalist aristocracy. Pastoral performs the function in Renaissance culture to reconcile the conflict of social fixity vs. evidence of social flux, especially portrayed by leisure vs. labor, pastoral vs. georgic at the time, particularly during the rule of a Lord Protector who trained as a brewer and is described by Marvell in 'An Horatian Ode', also a poem 'regarded as confusing for its political ambivalence', 44 not as a peaceful shepherd but one who leaves his 'private gardens' (l. 29) to become 'restless Cromwell' who ' could not cease' (l. 9). Greek Myth (New York: King's Crown Press, 1944), passim. Endymion's attempts to reach the goddess by literally climbing can also be seen as a daring commentary on Cromwell himself, whose 'soaring ambition' left him at times in a precarious position, particularly at his contemplation of dismissing Parliament in 1658. Guizot, noting the Protector's 'great mind and soaring ambition', comments, 'When a man is placed in so high a position, and on so slippery an ascent, he must either mount constantly higher, or remain perfectly motionless; if he pauses in his attempt to mount, he will inevitably come down'. See Guizot,2:359,340. 43 See Louis Adrian Montrose, 'Of Gentlemen and Shepherds: The Politics of Elizabethan and Pastoral Form', ELH 50, no. 3 (1983): 438 and 429. 44 Smith makes this comment in his Poems, 270.
By re-imaging the leisured gentleman Fauconberg as the mortal, lovesick wooer of a goddess, the first 'Song' emphasizes ' a contradiction between the secular claims of aristocratic prerogative and the religious claims of common origins, shared fallenness, and spiritual equity among men, gentle and base alike '. 45 The portrayal of Endymion aggressively begging Cynthia not to 'scorn Endymion's plaints' (l. 8) since his love 'burns with an immortal flame' (l. 16), only intensified by the 'uncessant deluges' of tears in his eyes (l. 22) and ' deep despair' in his breast (l. 28), overtly comments on present occasions as well as removed mysteries. This image of the groom who required strong negotiations even to consider proposing to Mary may well have elicited a sly smile on the face of Ambassador to France William Lockhart, who struggled to negotiate the match. However, Endymion's difficult ascent of Mount Latmus even more blatantly suggests Fauconberg's own social climbing, since his marriage grants him access to power, not only validating a shift back to an aristocratic court, but also highlighting the unstable status of Cromwell's social position, since the Fauconbergs had for generations existed in a social sphere far above the Cromwells. Endymion's request/demand that Cynthia come halfway and descend to meet him not only acknowledges Mary's superiority but his presumption in making that demand, while in 'lowering' herself to marry a mere sublunary viscount, Mary/Cynthia also places Fauconberg in a subordinate position. The final lines of the first 'Song' serve as a clear reference to social mobility and class instability, since Jove/Cromwell 'never did love to pair/His progeny above the air' (ll. 55-56); in allowing the marriage, Cromwell 'makes mortals matches fit for deities' (l. 58).
Allegorically, Cynthia's insistence that Endymion use his reason to reach her atop Mt. Latmus indicates the Platonic concept that Cynthia/Mary lives in 'the realm of pure reason and expects Endymion to exercise his reason to reach her', reiterated in Cynthia's remark on the dark cave, a reference to Plato's allegory of the cave in Republic VII. 46 A last knock at Fauconberg is the dark cave meeting place where 45 Montrose, 432.  was carried away by her father's marriage negotiations, perhaps making ' destiny [her] choice' ('Upon Appleton House', l. 744). Marvell's omission of a final image of the newly-married couple avoids both censure and praise, yet, in a genre like the epithalamium, lack of praise is censure.

V. Epilogue: Later 'Occasions'
The final anticipation of a future without Menalcas proved prophetic. Frail in health at the time of the weddings, by 3 August 1658, John Thurloe felt the need to express to Henry Cromwell his concern of the effects of Cromwell's illness:  Cromwell' to adhere to an encomiastic model that acknowledges the shortfalls of its subject. 'An Horatian Ode', acknowledged for its 'genre revision', 58 uses the encomiastic expectations of the Horatian ode to structure a very questionable picture of an ambitious, Caesar-like Cromwell. 'The First Anniversary', celebrating the first year of the Protectorate that 'was notable for a number of crises', 59 also presents conflicting praise and blame, evoking a sense of 'gravitas' appropriate for the Protectorate yet 'struggl [ing] with the burden of putting into pattern what is singular, of suggesting the coherence of time imagined as prophetic and redemptive'. 60 'Two Songs' not only equals these acknowledged masterpieces but surpasses them in its success.
Through crafting his epithalamic praise of this Royalist Viscount and this Protector's daughter in a masque of pastoral dialogue, Marvell succeeds in creating an exchange that embodies conflicting classes and ideologies of the time yet sounds to the present occasions of a very personal family event, indicating, to 'understanders', a letters to constituents show that Marvell 'went out of his way to give the most objective accounts of all debates in Parliament, and to avoid both value judgments and any indication of his own participatory role'. See Patterson, Civic Crown, 12 and 10-11. 57 Smith,Poems,299,267,281. 58 Smith,Poems,272. 59 Smith,Poems,282.