“This pompe is prizèd there”

In his Nativity lyric “New Prince, New Pompe,” Jesuit priest and martyr Robert Southwell sees the Incarnation as initiating the redemption from a false idea of power and glory. He instructs his Elizabethan readers to accept the Christ Child’s lowly birth as part of his salvific sacrifice, to live their identity as courtiers of the Babe in the manger. Prizing Christ’s “humble pompe,” they can discard selves constructed through masks and props, adopting poverty and simplicity as right expressions of authority. Paradox recuperates Bethlehem’s heavenly court: what seems “silly,” or weak is “seely,” holy; kenosis is fulfillment and victory.