127. _Nightingale and Thorn._--Where is the earliest notice of the fable
of the nightingale and the thorn? that she sings because she has a thorn
in her breast? For obvious reasons, the fiction cannot be classical.
It is noticed by Byron:
"The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn,
That fable places in her breast of wail,
Is lighter far of heart and voice than those
Whose headlong passions form their proper woes."
But an earlier mention is found in Browne's poem on the death of Mr.
Thomas Manwood:--
"Not for thee these briny tears are spent,
But as the nightingale against the breere,
'Tis for myself I moan and do lament,
Not that thou left'st the world, but left'st me here."
He seems to interpret the fable to the same effect as Homer makes
Achilles' women lament Patroclus--[Greek: Patroklou prophasin, sphôn d'
autôn kêde' hekastê]. It has been suggested that it rather implies that
the spirit of music, like that of poetry and prophecy, visits chiefly
the afflicted,--a comfortable doctrine to prosaic and unmusical people.