- Title:
- "And purple tyrants vainly groan..." (Design 37)
- Additional Title(s):
Verso: "Stern rugged nurse!..." Virtue Nurs'd in the Lap of Adversity (Design 38)
Ode to Adversity- Part Of:
- Date:
- between 1797 and 1798
- Materials & Techniques:
- Watercolor with pen and black ink and graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper with inlaid letterpress page
- Dimensions:
- Sheet: 16 1/2 x 12 3/4 inches (41.9 x 32.4 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in gray ink upper right: "3"; in graphite center: "x"; on verso in black ink upper left: "4"; in graphite upper center; "+"
Lettered on inlaid page: "ODE | To | ADVERSITY. | DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power, | Thou tamer of the human breast, | Whose iron scourge, and tort'ring hour, | The bad affright, afflict the best! | Bound in thy adamantine chain, | The proud are taught to taste of pain, | And purple tyrants vainly groan | With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. | F2 When"; Lettered on verso, on inlaid page: "78 ODE TO ADVERSITY. | When first thy Sire to send on earth | Virtue, his darling child, design'd, | To thee he gave the heavenly birth, | And bade to form her infant mind. | Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore | With patience many a year she bore: | What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, | And from her own she learn'd to melt at others | woe. | Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly | Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, | Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, | And leave us leisure to be good, | Light they disperse; and with them go | The summer-friend, the flatt'ring foe; | By vain Prosperity receiv'd, | To her they vow their truth, and are again | believ'd. | Wisdom"
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1992.8.11(19)
- Classification:
- Drawings & Watercolors
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- book | boy | cell | chains | compass | correctional institution | crowns (costume components) | jail | king (person) | literary theme | man | men | moustache | nudes | pen | prison | robe | shackles | stones | tears | text | wall | women | writing (processes)
- Access:
- Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details. - Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3625
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
Captive Bodies: British Prisons, 1750-1900 (Yale Center for British Art, 2018-08-27 - 2018-12-17) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]
Colin Cross, Blake revealed, William Blake : Discovery of a Masterwork , Observer, vol. 12, November 21, 1971, pp. 19-23, V 1245 Detached from Observer colour magazine [ORBIS]
Arnold Fawcus, Unknown Watercolours by William Blake, Illustrated London News, vol. 259, No. 6881, December 25, 1971, pp. 45-46, 49-51, Illustrated London News Historical Archive [ORBIS]