Copy Book Archive

‘Thy Necessity is Yet Greater than Mine’ Elizabethan courtier and soldier Sir Philip Sidney shows that a nobleman can also be a gentleman.
1586
Queen Elizabeth I 1558-1603
Music: William Byrd

© Gouwenaar, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Source

About this picture …

A statue of Sir Philip Sidney in Zutphen, the Netherlands, commemorating his sacrifice for the cause of Dutch independence during the Eighty Years’ War. Dutch Protestants were seeking to break free from rule by the stoutly Roman Catholic King of Spain, Philip II, husband of the late Queen Mary I of England. Mary’s half-sister Elizabeth, now Queen of England (much to Philip’s disgust: he thought he should have been King, even though he had agreed never to claim the crown), understandably sympathised with the rebellious Dutch Protestants against their Roman Catholic master.

‘Thy Necessity is Yet Greater than Mine’
Writer and courtier Sir Philip Sidney died on October 17th, 1586, from a wound he had suffered while fighting in support of Dutch independence from Spain at the Battle of Zutphen on September 22nd. He was just 31. The account below is by Philip’s devoted friend Fulke Greville, who served James I as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Abridged, spelling modernised

THE weather being misty, their troops fell fatally within shot of their [the Spanish Army’s] muskets, which were laid in ambush within their own trenches. An unfortunate hand out of those trenches brake the bone of Sir Philip’s thigh with a musket-shot.* The horse he rode upon, was rather furiously choleric, than bravely proud, and so forced him to forsake the field.

Passing along by the rest of the Army, where his uncle the General was,* and being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he called for drink, which was presently brought him; but as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor soldier carried along, who had eaten his last at the same feast, ghastly calling up his eyes at the bottle. Which Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his head, before he drank, and delivered it to the poor man, with these words, Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.* And when he had pledged this poor soldier, he was presently carried to Arnhem.*

Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. Robert’s sister Mary married Sir Henry Sidney, and Philip was their son, and Robert’s favourite nephew.

Greville tells us that Sidney had originally worn armour on his thigh, but seeing other captains were more lightly armoured, took his own protection off.

Generally remembered as ‘Your need is greater than mine’. For a not dissimilar tale from a slightly later period, see The Price of Treachery.

At Arnhem, the wound turned gangrenous and Sir Philip died there on October 17th, 1586. He was buried with honours in ‘Old’ St Paul’s Cathedral on February 16th, 1587; however, that church was destroyed in ‘London Was, but Is No More!’ in 1666, and nothing of Sidney’s resting place remains.

Précis

Elizabethan courtier Sir Philip Sidney was wounded at the Battle of Zutphen in 1586, mortally as it proved; even so, when he saw another badly wounded soldier gasping for a drink, Sir Philip handed over his bottle to him, untouched, saying that the other’s need was greater than his own. (49 / 60 words)

Source

Abridged from ‘Life of Sir Philip Sidney (1652)’ by Sir Fulke Greville, Baron Brooke (1554-1628).

Suggested Music

Come to me grief for ever (Elegy for Sir Philip Sidney)

William Byrd (1538-1623)

Performed by Michael Chance (counter-tenor) and Fretwork.

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Transcript / Notes

COME to me grief for ever,
Come to me tears day and night,
Come to me plaint, ah helpless,
Just grief, heart tears, plaint worthy.

Go from me dread to die now
Go from me care to live more,
Go from me joys all on earth,
Sidney, O Sidney is dead.

He whom the Court adorned,
He whom the country courtesied,
He who made happy his friends,
He that did good to all men.

Sidney, the hope of lands strange,
Sidney, the flower of England,
Sidney, the spirit heroic,
Sidney id dead, O dead.

Dead? no, no, but renowed
With the anointed one,
Honour on earth at his feet,
Bliss everlasting his seat.

Come to grief for ever
Come to me tears day and night,
Come to me plaint, ah helpless,
Just grief, heart tears, plaint worthy.

Text from CDPL.

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IRead it aloud, twice or more. IISummarise it in one sentence of up to 30 words. IIISummarise it in one paragraph of 40-80 words. IVMake notes on the passage, and reconstruct the original from them later on. VJot down any unfamiliar words, and make your own sentences with them later. VIMake a note of any words that surprise or impress you, and ask yourself what meaning they add to the words you would have expected to see. VIITurn any old-fashioned English into modern English. VIIITurn prose into verse, and verse into prose. IXAsk yourself what the author is trying to get you to feel or think. XHow would an artist or a photographer capture the scene? XIHow would a movie director shoot it, or a composer write incidental music for it?

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