Epitaph by 'the matchless Orinda'

Image: © Natasha Ceridwen de Chroustchoff Taken: 16 Jun 2009

A slate tablet in the church in memory of 'John Loyd of Kilrhewe' who died in 1657, aged 36, has an epitaph commissioned by his widow from the local poet Katherine Fowler Philips (1631-1664) known as 'the matchless Orinda'. She was a Londoner whose widowed mother married a Cardigan gent and who was subsequently married off, aged 16, to a much older (or not?) friend of her stepfather's, James Philips. They lived at Cardigan Priory and gathered around them a literary coterie who adopted pastoral pseudonyms. Her work, much of it passionate tributes to female friendship, was highly regarded by her contemporaries. She also translated Corneille but died of smallpox at a young age. She was a woman of learning, idealism, and solid accomplishments at a time when most women were illiterate but until her reputation was revived by feminist intellectuals, she tended to be downgraded as a serious writer. The epitaph seen here reads as follows: Preserve thou sad and sole trustee, Of my deare husband's memory These reliques of my broken hart, Which I am forced to impart, For since he so untimely dyed, And living pledges was denyed, Since dayes of mourning soon are done And teares doe perish as they runne, Nay since my griefe must also dy For that's no longer liv'd than I, His name can live no way but one In an abiding faithful stone. Tell then the unconcerned eyes, The value of their guest and prize, How good he was, usefull and just, How kind, how true unto his trust, Which known and when their sence propounds How mournfully a widdow sounds, They may instructed go from thee To follow him and pitty mee.

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