Yale Osborn MS. b 197 includes a neglected witness, one of six, to George Herbert’s “Æthiopissa ambit Cestum Diuersi Coloris Virum,” followed by the only known copy of a twenty-two-line reply, “Cesti ad Æthiopissam Responsio.” This latter cannot be said with any certainty to be Herbert’s; it is nevertheless a fascinating rejoinder to perhaps the most un-Herbertian of his poems. This paper provides edited texts, original translations, and apparatus; a description of the manuscript; and consideration of arguments for and against attributing the new poem to Herbert.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Whalen, R., (2025), "Cestus Responds to Æthiopissa", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Whalen, Robert. "Cestus Responds to Æthiopissa." Renaissance and Reformation 44 (1): 2021. 135-156. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v44i1.37045. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.