Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae Summary & Analysis
by Ernest Dowson

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The Full Text of “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae”

1Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine

2There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed

3Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;

4And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

5    Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:

6I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

7All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,

8Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;

9Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;

10But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

11    When I awoke and found the dawn was grey:

12I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

13I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,

14Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,

15Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind,

16But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

17    Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:

18I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

19I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,

20But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,

21Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;

22And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,

23    Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:

24I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

  • “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae” Introduction

    • "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae" is the British poet Ernest Dowson's song of hopeless longing. In the poem, a languishing speaker laments that, no matter how hard he tries to distract himself with sex and partying, thoughts of his lost love, Cynara, always intrude on his fun. Though he's had plenty of lovers since Cynara, his haunting memories of his purer, deeper love for her keep him "faithful" to her "in [his] fashion." This poem first appeared in an 1894 anthology by a group of poets known as the Rhymers' Club, many of whom were notable members of the Decadent movement.

  • “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae” Summary

    • Last night, the thought of you fell like a shadow between my lover's lips and mine, Cynara! I could feel you breathing on my soul between kisses and sips of wine. And once again I was miserably lonely and lovesick. Yes, I was miserable and bent my head down: I've been loyal to you, Cynara—in my own way.

      All night, I felt my new lover's heart beating against mine; all night, she cuddled up to me in loving sleep. Her kisses (which I paid for) were certainly delicious—but I was miserably lonely and lovesick again by the time I woke up to a dismal sunrise. I've been loyal to you, Cynara—in my own way.

      I've forgotten a lot of my life, Cynara—it has blown away on the wind. I've ecstatically thrown roses around in huge crowds of dancers, trying to forget about your fragile, lily-like beauty. But all the while, I was miserably lonely and lovesick—yes, even during those endless nights of dancing. I've been loyal to you, Cynara—in my own way.

      I've called out for wilder music and stronger drinks, but every time the party's over and the candles have burned down, thoughts of you come to me again, Cynara! The night is all yours. And yet again, I'm miserably lonely and lovesick, and starving for your kiss. I've been loyal to you, Cynara—in my own way.

  • “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae” Themes

    • Theme Obsessive Love

      Obsessive Love

      In “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae,” a sorrowful speaker laments Cynara, his lost love. No matter how much he parties, no matter how many women he sleeps with, he’s still “faithful” to her “in [his] fashion”: thoughts of her constantly intrude on him and draw him back into hopeless longing. Love, in this poem, is like a chronic illness. No matter what, the speaker will never be free of his lost Cynara: his obsessive love makes him helplessly “faithful” in spite of all his philandering.

      The speaker seems to have done everything he can to distract himself from his lost love. He’s living a life of sex and parties, “[flinging] roses" among crowds of dancers and sharing a warm bed with a new lover. This life centers on pleasure and self-indulgence; he cries out for “madder music and for stronger wine,” and lingers on sweet kisses from his new lover’s “bought red mouth” (a line that suggests he has turned to sex workers for comfort).

      But all through this debauched new life, his former lover, Cynara, is never really gone. Her “shadow” falls between the speaker and his new lover, and reappears nightly after the party is over. “The night,” the speaker says, addressing Cynara herself, “is thine.”

      In contrast to the worldly pleasures of the “roses,” “kisses,” and “wine” in which the speaker drowns his sorrows, Cynara is a ghostly presence. She’s a “shadow,” a “breath,” and “pale, lost lilies”: pure, remote, and untouchable. It’s not clear whether she died or merely left the speaker. Either way, she’s completely out of reach, but also everpresent in the speaker's mind and heart. The actual Cynara is never really there, but her specter is never gone for long. As soon as “the feast is finished and the lamps expire,” she possesses the speaker’s thoughts again. His perpetual return to the words “I am desolate and sick of an old passion” evokes the circular torment of his love: he can’t have Cynara, but neither can he be free of her.

      Because the thought of Cynara is never far from his mind, the speaker insists that he has been faithful to her in spite of all his efforts to distract himself from the pain of her absence: “I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion,” he repeats. Even though he’s busy sleeping with other women and drinking his troubles away, the speaker feels faithful to Cynara because of his incessant thoughts about her. The speaker’s obsessive love therefore comes to seem like an illness: he is always “sick of an old passion,” and even Cynara’s ghostly paleness might be read as a sickly pallor. Love, in this poem, is not just a disease, but an incurable one.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae”

    • Lines 1-3

      Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
      There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
      Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;

      The first lines of "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae" plunge readers into a luxuriant world of wine, kisses, and hauntings. Right from the start, the poem's tone is both sensuous and sad.

      The speaker begins with a direct apostrophe:

      Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
      There fell thy shadow, Cynara! [...]

      This Cynara seems to be a lost lover—and one the speaker can't forget, even as he relishes the "kisses and the wine" of what otherwise sounds like a pretty enjoyable evening. Whether she's dead or simply absent, Cynara is a "shadow" that remains out of his reach. But his apostrophe to her suggests that she's also always with him—at least in some way.

      The speaker's use of archaic words like "yesternight" and "betwixt"—along with his image of Cynara's "breath" falling on his very "soul"—makes him seem like a romantic fellow. So does the rhythm of his verse. Take a look at the way he uses caesura in these first three lines:

      Last night, || ah, || yesternight, || betwixt her lips and mine
      There fell thy shadow, || Cynara! || thy breath was shed
      Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;

      These mid-line pauses slow the poem's rhythm down before it's even had a chance to get into gear, inviting readers to linger over these words. The "ah" emphasizes this effect, since it sounds drawn out like a long sigh between commas.

      This stanza also starts a pattern of caesura that will continue throughout the poem: the speaker never once says Cynara's name without following it up with a dramatic exclamation point. The thought of her, it seems, stops him sharply in his tracks.

      Although these opening lines (and the entire poem, for that matter) don't provide any identifying information about the speaker, it's clear that the speaker bears a strong resemblance to the poem's author, Ernest Dowson. Dowson was a member of the melancholy but pleasure-loving Decadent movement, and often wrote about (and suffered from) tragic love. Since it's clear that this poem will explore those themes, it seems fair to conflate the speaker with Dowson himself.

    • Lines 4-6

      And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
          Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
      I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

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    • Lines 7-12

      All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
      Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
      Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
      But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
          When I awoke and found the dawn was grey:
      I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

    • Lines 13-18

      I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
      Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
      Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind,
      But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
          Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
      I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

    • Lines 19-21

      I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
      But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
      Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;

    • Lines 22-24

      And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
          Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
      I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

  • “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae” Symbols

    • Symbol Wine and Roses

      Wine and Roses

      The luxurious parties of "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae" overflow with wine and roses—both symbols of fleeting sensual pleasure.

      The author of this poem, Ernest Dowson, famously coined the phrase "the days of wine and roses" in one of his other poems, "Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam"—a poem that presents these kinds of "days" as delicious but all too short. The same sort of symbolism is at play in "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cyanrae," in which the speaker "[flings] roses, roses riotously with the throng" and calls for "stronger wine" but can never find lasting relief from his pain.

      The poem also links such pleasures with the thrills of sex, spotlighting the "kisses and the wine" of the speaker's debauched nights and focusing on his new lover's "red mouth." But sex doesn't last, either: bodies are mortal, just like flowers. Roses always lose their petals, bottles are always empty sooner or later, kisses always end—and reveling in sensual delight can't make the speaker forget his lost, eternal love. Although things like wine and roses might seem like symbols of satisfaction and happiness, then, they actually serve as reminders that earthly pleasure never lasts.

    • Symbol Lilies

      Lilies

      When the speaker metaphorically imagines Cynara as "pale, lost lilies," he draws on a symbolic tradition in which lilies represent purity, virginity, and holiness. The lily has carried this symbolic weight for centuries. Beautiful, fragrant, and white (a color the Western world often associates with purity), it's also used as an emblem of the Virgin Mary. Dowson, who converted to Catholicism as a young man, would have had all these associations in mind as he imagined Cynara.

      The poem's lilies make Cynara seem almost too good, too pure, or too holy for this world—and certainly too holy for the life of debauchery that the speaker leads. But there's also a hint of tragedy associated with lilies, since they're often used in funeral wreaths. This connection with death emphasizes the fact that Cynara is no longer in the speaker's life, which is why he mourns for her so deeply. It makes sense, then, that he thinks of lilies when she comes to mind, since lilies represent both her perfection and her absence from the speaker's life.

  • “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • Alliteration

      The alliteration in "Non sum qualis eram bonae sum regno Cynarae" supports both the poem's beauty and its irony. Perhaps the most noticeable bit of alliteration in the poem is the repeated /f/ sound in the refrain: "I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion." Here, alliteration gives the line its balanced, musical sound. It also adds a hint of dry humor, as the speaker claims that he's been faithful to Cynara in his "fashion." He has, in other words, been loyal to her in his own special way—a way, the reader might note, that still seems to involve sleeping with a lot of other women. The alliterative /f/ creates a witty bridge between these contrasting ideas.

      Elsewhere in the poem, alliteration intensifies the speaker's imagery. At wild, bohemian parties, he throws "roses, roses riotously," but still can't get Cynara's "pale, lost lilies" out of his head. There's a contrast here not just in the imagery of vibrant red roses against fragile white lilies, but in the rich round /r/ sound against the lilting /l/ sound.

      Later, the speaker's call for "madder music" has its own musicality, though this excitement seems to fizzle at the end of the night, when the "feast is finished." The /m/ sound in the words "madder" and "music" is strong and bold, whereas the /f/ sound in "feast" and "finished" is muted and quiet—a contrast that highlights the idea that the speaker's fun can't last forever. Any party he attends will always come to an end, leaving him with his sorrow and his longing for Cynara.

    • Allusion

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    • Apostrophe

    • Caesura

    • End-Stopped Line

    • Metaphor

    • Refrain

    • Repetition

  • “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae
    • Yesternight
    • Betwixt
    • Thy, Thee, Thine
    • Shed
    • Desolate
    • Sick Of
    • Yea
    • Bowed
    • In my fashion
    • Her Bought Red Mouth
    • Flung
    • Riotously
    • Throng
    Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae
    • This Latin phrase is a quotation from the ancient Roman poet Horace, and means "I am not as I was in the reign of good Cynara." "Cynara" is thus the name of an ancient queen—but it also means "artichoke" in Greek!

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae”

    • Form

      "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae" doesn't use a conventional form like the sonnet or the sestina. Instead, it invents its own winding shape. Having said that, there is some regularity to the poem, which consists of 24 lines that are divided into four stanzas. Each of these stanzas creates a six-line sestet, and the fifth line of every stanza is slightly shorter than the rest. This regularity pairs nicely with the speaker's use of repetition, demonstrating the circular and predictable way that memories of Cynara continue to haunt him. The consistency of the form also makes up for the fact that the poem's pace and rhythm changes from line to line.

    • Meter

      The meter in "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae" is deceptively strange. At first glance, it appears to be iambic hexameter—that is, lines of six feet with a da-DUM rhythm, like in line 1:

      Last night, | ah, yes- | ternight, | betwixt | her lips | and mine

      But that steady first line doesn't prepare readers for the strange rhythms that follow. Take a look at how the stresses and metrical feet fall in the rest of the first stanza:

      There fell | thy sha- | dow, Cyna- | ra! thy breath | was shed
      Upon | my soul | between | the kiss- | es and | the wine;
      And I | was des- | olate | and sick | of an old | passion,
      Yea, I | was des- | olate | and bowed | my head:
      I have been | faithful | to thee, | Cynara! | in my | fashion

      The speaker loses the iambic rhythm (da-DUM da-DUM) in this section, instead using many kinds of metrical feet. For instance, line 4 ends with an anapest (unstressed-unstressed-stressed) followed by a trochee (stressed-unstressed): "of an old | passion." This creates an unsteady, complicated rhythm.

      For our purposes, it's enough simply to recognize that the poem uses very loose meter. It doesn't perfectly conform to iambic hexameter, but it's also not in free verse. Despite its irregularities, though, one thing remains the same throughout the entire poem: the fifth line of every stanza is always in pentameter instead of hexameter, meaning that it has five feet instead of six. This adds consistency to a poem that is otherwise very rhythmically diverse. And yet, these lines of pentameter only add a small amount of consistency without fully establishing a true feeling of regularity. Just like Cynara's ghostly visitations, then, the poem's meter is both unpredictable and inevitable.

    • Rhyme Scheme

      "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae" uses a consistent rhyme scheme. Each stanza looks like this:

      ABACBC

      The C rhymes here are always the same words: "passion" and "fashion" repeat in every stanza, driving home the speaker's perpetual faith to his agonized "passion"—if only in his own "fashion" (his own idiosyncratic way).

      This is a fairly unusual rhyme scheme in English poetry, and its strange shape mirrors the speaker's emotional predicament. The ABA lead-in makes it seem like the rhyme scheme is going to follow a predictable ABAB pattern—a common one in rhyming poetry. But then the C rhyme (which appears in the fourth and sixth lines of each stanza) appears where readers would expect to find the second B rhyme. Sandwiched between C rhymes, that second B is separated from its partner.

      There's an obvious connection here to the poem's narrative, in which the speaker and Cynara are at once forever separated and forever connected. But perhaps that intrusive C rhyme also mirrors the way that thoughts of Cynara intrude on the speaker's fun!

      A touch of slant rhyme between "wind" and "mind" in lines 13 and 15, which subtly strays from the rhyme scheme without fully leaving it, only intensifies this mood of simultaneous separation and connection.

  • “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae” Speaker

    • The speaker of "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae" is a lovestruck, heartbroken young man who lives a life of hedonistic pleasure—and equally hedonistic sorrow. While the poem doesn't directly state his gender, his similarity to the poem's author, the Decadent poet Ernest Dowson, suggests that he's a man.

      This speaker is a bohemian gentleman, with the time and money to enjoy a life of dancing, roses, wine, and sex. The poem's Latin title, a quotation from the Roman poet Horace, hints that he's well-educated: he's had the chance to study the classics.

      He's also deep in passionate but hopeless love—and in his own funny way, he seems to enjoy his suffering even more than the pleasures in which he claims he's trying to drown his sorrows. In the midst of wild parties, he lingers over his lost Cynara's lily-like beauty and her ghostly image, even though it makes him feel "desolate." While he protests that he's a faithful, lovesick sufferer, he's also perhaps a bit of a masochist!

      There are hints that he's rather enjoying his pain in his romantic refrain: "I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion." This is an anguished cry, but also the tiniest bit tongue-in-cheek: after all, the speaker certainly has not been "faithful" to Cynara in any traditional "fashion," what with all his rolling around with new lovers. It seems possible that this speaker is clinging to his idealized lost love for the sheer romantic pleasure of being lovelorn.

      This speaker's balance between sensual indulgence and jaded wit makes him the very picture of a Decadent poet—and thus all the more likely to be Dowson's self-portrait. (See the Context section for more on Dowson and the Decadents.)

  • “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae” Setting

    • "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae" takes place in a lavish and indulgent world of nighttime parties. These parties are wild and exciting—candles burn, wine flows, dancers frolic, and roses fly "riotously" through the air. But this world also has a chilly underside: it's haunted by the metaphorical ghost of the speaker's former lover, Cynara.

      This means that these high-energy parties aren't as carefree as one might think: they're shot through with a chilly darkness as Cynara flits across the speaker's mind like a cold breath or an icy shadow. This suggests that even the most uplifting and indulgent circumstances can't always keep people from dwelling on their own sorrow. No matter how many new lovers the speaker takes or how many glasses of wine he drinks, his memories of Cynara will always put an end to his fun.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae”

      Literary Context

      Ernest Dowson, a 19th-century English writer, lived what one might call a stereotypical poet's life—that is, a short life full of romance and unhappiness. Born in 1867, he died in poverty at 32 after a brief but influential career as a poet of unrequited love. This was a subject he knew all too well: his disastrous love for a girl half his age tormented him all through his last years.

      Dowson was a member of the Decadent movement, a poetic school that emerged in Europe at the end of the 19th century. Decadent poetry was marked by its aestheticism—the belief in art for art's sake—and its excessive romanticization of both nostalgia and decay. "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae" captures the very essence of Decadence by embodying this outlook, as the speaker laments (and even savors) his own misery while leading a lavish, indulgent life. Many notable writers were Decadents or connected to the Decadents, including William Butler Yeats (who credited Dowson for helping develop his style) and Oscar Wilde.

      Dowson was also deeply influenced by the swoony beauty of the earlier Pre-Raphaelite movement, in which poets like Christina Rossetti wrote of love, legend, and tragedy. The lily-like maidens of Pre-Raphaelite paintings most likely influenced Dowson's image of the ethereal Cynara.

      Dowson's influence lingers to this day: he coined memorable phrases like "gone with the wind" and "the days of wine and roses," both of which the reader might recognize as the titles of famous movies.

      Historical Context

      The Victorian England of Dowson's short life was prosperous, worldly, confident, and conservative—but also rapidly changing. Over the course of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution rushed a formerly rural population into the cities. By 1900, the year that Dowson died in London, that city was crowded and dirty, but also wealthy and gorgeous, with a deep split between the poor and the rich who shared its streets.

      The turn of the century also marked a major turning point in world history, since 1900 was the last year of Queen Victoria's reign. Under Victoria, Britain had become an empire with a serious belief in its own moral rightness and its role as teacher and ruler of the world. But toward the end of the Victorian era, many Britons began to feel disillusioned with all this pomp and power, and people felt nostalgic for simpler times. This time period was also defined both by a growing political and artistic cynicism and an interest in romanticized childhood innocence—especially among the wealthy upper classes. Dowson's poem thus belongs to a whole world of jaded longing for a purer (and idealized) golden age.

  • More “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae” Resources

    • External Resources

      • The Poem and Decadence — Listen to a four-minute "micro-lecture" on the poem by Professor Michael Blackburn, who discusses the way the poem fits into the Decadent movement.

      • An Essay About the Poem — Read a short reflection on the poem from The Guardian.

      • A Brief Biography — Learn more about Dowson's life from the Encyclopedia Britannica.

      • The Poem Aloud — Listen to the great Shakespearean actor Richard Burton read the poem.

      • Background on Dawson's Language — Learn some entertaining background on Ernest Dawson's influence on the English language—including the fact that he's the first person on record to have called football "soccer"!