Funerary Epigraphy and the Form of George Herbert’s “The Water-course”

Abstract: This article argues that George Herbert’s lyric “The Water-course” draws on the forms of Renaissance funerary epigraphy and specifically on the technique of conflated-line inscription known as “ versus concordantes ” found on intramural monuments in the period. Understanding Herbert’s poem in relation to this technique allows us, broadly, to see one point of connection between lyric poetry and epigraphy. This article argues for the reclassification of “The Water-course” as a pseudo-inscriptional epitaph, demonstrates its links to the poems around it at the close of “The Temple,” and shifts our understanding of its stanza form, uncovering its links to a group of meta-poetic sexain lyrics inside Herbert’s collection that reflect ambivalently on the moral status of poetry writing.