Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae is a poem by the English poet Ernest Dowson. The poem is also known by the shortened title “Cynara.” Dowson’s title is a Latin quotation from the Odes by the Roman poet Horace (65-8 B.C.). Translated, it reads, “I am not as I was under the reign of the good Cynara.”
Dowson’s poem was written in 1891 and published in 1896 in the poet’s first published collection, Verses. It is the most widely known of all Dowson’s poems. Like some of Horace’s odes, it is a love song that describes love as a haunting obsession.
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; 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. 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. 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. 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; 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.
The speaker of the poem describes his attempts to escape “an old passion.” He seeks solace in the “bought” mouth of a paid mistress, and he cries for “madder music” and “stronger wine.” But the shadow of Cynara forever reminds him of his truer love. The well-known refrain “I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion” points to the speaker’s hopeless and ambiguous position. On the one hand, he has been unfaithful in his pursuit of pleasure. On the other hand, he cannot escape the memory of his true love, despite these pursuits, which indicates a different, miserable kind of faithfulness.
Ernest Dowson, though considered a minor poet, was an important literary figure in the 1890’s. He belonged to the Rhymers’ Club, a loose association of writers and artists that included the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. The members of the Rhymers’ Club believed in the value of beautiful and well-constructed verse. Their philosophy was often summed up in the motto “Art for Art’s Sake”. Dowson was a gifted craftsman whose lyric verses show a fine ear for rhythm and melody. Yeats cited Dowson’s verbal mastery as an influence on his own work.
Dowson himself never achieved the literary success of a writer like Yeats. In many ways, the desolate, unfulfilled nature of his Cynara poem accurately reflects his own life. Cynara was most probably based on a teen-aged waitress in a Polish restaurant, for whom Dowson had an unrequited passion. She turned down his marriage proposal. After the deaths his parents, Dowson lived in Europe. He died ill and penniless at the age of 32.
