David's Peccavi - Stanza 3 of 5

Third Stanza

David in Prayer by Willem Vrelant.1460s

[13] This is the change of my ill changed choise

[14] Ruth for my rest, for comforts cares I finde

[15] To pleasinge tunes succeedes a playninge voyce

[16] The doleful Eccho of my waylinge minde

[17] Which taught to know the worth of Vertues joyes

[18] Doth hate it self for lovinge phancies toyes.

[13] change:  The primary meaning here may be an exchange: the action of substituting one thing for another. 

1533   T. More Answere Poysened Bk. i. vii. f. xxiiiiv   They were not so gladde to put away theyr fawte, as to make a chaunge of one fawte for an other.

The sense then becomes: This is what I suffered in exchange when I chose to make an ill-advised change… 

Another meaning which might be read into the text is change as death, considered as a substitution of one state of existence for another. Obsolete. [OED]

1565   W. Allen Def. & Declar. Doctr. Purgatory i. vii. f. 65v   The fiere of loue in his lyefe tyme had such force in him, that the amending fyer after his chaunge should take no houlde of him at all. [OED]

This would link the idea back to the last two lines of the previous stanza:

My sleape is rather death then deathes allye

Yet kild with murdring pangues I cannot dye.

[13] choise: choice

[14] Ruth: Matter for sorrow or regret; occasion of sorrow or regret. Mischief; calamity; ruin. Obsolete. Sorrow, grief, distress; lamentation. Obsolete. [OED]

1591   Spenser tr. Petrarch Visions ii, in Complaints sig. Z2   O how great ruth and sorrowfull assay, Doth vex my spirite with perplexitie. [OED]

[15] playninge:  Displaying sorrowful emotion; sorrowfully lamenting; or ? moving pity, piteous. Obsolete.

1597   W. Shakespeare Richard II i. iii. 168   It bootes thee not to be compassionate, After our sentence playning comes too late. [OED]

[16] waylinge: wailing, expressing lamentation.

[17] Vertues joyes : This recalls the couplet in the first stanza:

Sometime o blissfull tyme was vertues meede

Ayme to my thoughtes guide to my word and deede.

[18] phancies : fancy’s: fancy : Delusive imagination; hallucination; an instance of this; = fantasy. In early use synonymous with imagination. Caprice, changeful mood; an instance of this, a caprice, a whim. Amorous inclination, love. Obs. Each of these could apply in the case of David’s enamourment.

1579   G. Harvey Let.-bk. (1884) 86   A foolish madd worlde, wherein all thinges ar overrulid by fansye.

1600   Shakespeare Merchant of Venice iii. ii. 63   Tell me where is fancie bred. [OED]

[18] toyes: Amorous behaviour or sexual activity, caressing; dalliance, flirtation. Also: an act or instance of this. Obsolete.

c1525   Bk. Mayd Emlyn sig. B.ii   She was full ranke..In Venus toyes Was all her Ioyes. [OED]

A matter or thing of little or no value or importance, a trifle; a foolish or senseless affair, subject, etc.; (in plural): something which is superficially attractive or draws a person's attention, but is of little or no intrinsic or spiritual value.

a1616   W. Shakespeare Macbeth (1623) ii. iii. 93   From this instant, There's nothing serious in Mortalitie: All is but Toyes.

Free interpretation of the third stanza

“This is the exchange I made in my ill-advised choice when I swapped Virtue’s reward for my own selfish pleasures: peace and tranquillity exchanged for regret and sorrow; comfort and consolation exchanged for care and anxiety; sweet and pleasing harmony exchanged for bitter and lamentable discord; a grim and sorrowful echoing of dark and mournful thoughts in a mind taught to know the value of Virtue’s joys but which now detests itself for yielding to the pleasures of love and of the flesh, Fancy’s toys.”

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam