Jesse Sharpe PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

Incarnation as Social Protest 114
This Grace great Lady, doth possesse thy Soule,
And makes thee pleasing in thy Makers sight;
This Grace doth all imperfect Thoughts controule,
Directing thee to serve thy God aright;
Still reckoning him, the Husband of thy Soule,
Which is most pretious in his glorious sight:
Because the Worlds delights shee doth denie
For him, who for her sake vouchsaf’d to die.
And dying made her Dowager of all;
Nay more, Co-heire of that eternall blisse
That Angels lost, and We by Adams fall;
Meere Cast-awaies, rais’d by a Judas kisse,
Christs bloody sweat, the Vineger, and Gall,
The Speare, Sponge, Nailes, his buffeting with Fists,
His bitter Passion, Agony, and Death,
Did gaine us Heaven when He did loose his breath. (249-264)
From an introduction in which Lanyer moves dedicatory praise of the wealthy to a
meditation on the worth of virtues above all else, she begins her narrative of Christ’s trial,
death, and resurrection. As the reader moves through the rest of the poem, it is this theme
of greatness residing in the low, while those with temporal power are actually ignorant and
powerless, that will continuously confront the reader. It is the human Jesus who will be
praised, not for his physical or material wealth, but for his virtues, his humility and