Notes on Anne Finch's Poems: No. 81

Now age came on and all the dismall traine

Titles:

Parting with Beauty [F-H 283]; Clarinda's Indifference at Parting with Her Beauty [Folger, a later copying over of a another censured title].

Primary Texts:

MS's: F-H 283, 48-50; Folger 13

Secondary Eds:

1903 Reynolds prints Folger text, 111; rpts of 1903 Reynolds: 1930 Fausset, 118; 1979 Rogers AF, 86-7; 1987 Thompson, 22-3.

20C:

Rpts of 1713/1903: 1973 Goulianos, 79-80; 1975 Kaplan 64; 1990 Fullard, 284; 1991 Uphaus/Fullard, 175.

Comment:

The name Clarinda was added to disguise the personal origin of the poem; see similar thought and tone in Finch's imitation of Dacier's song from Sappho, "Melinda on an Insippid Beauty:" "You, when your body, life shall leave . . . "; "Cosmelia's charms:" "Cosmelia's charmes inspire my Lays . . .", from Harleian 7316, 1719-20 below). A woman was considered middle-aged or past youth when she passed 35, and Anne would have been 36. The poem does argue against the overvaluation of beauty bitterly.

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