Katherine Philips

Katherine Philips (1 January 1631/2 – 22 June 1664), also known as Orinda, was an Anglo-Welsh poet, translator, and woman of letters. She achieved renown as translator of Pierre Corneille's Pompée and Horace, and for her editions of poetry.

Catherine Philips

Quotes

• I did but see him and he disappeared,
  I did but pluck the rose-bud and it fell,
  A sorrow unforeseen and scarcely feared,
  For ill can mortals their afflictions spell.
  • 'On the Death of my First and Dearest Child, Hector Philips' (1655), as reported in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ed. Elizabeth Knowles (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 575

Poem LXIV: 'A Friend'

• Friendship's an abstract of this noble flame,
  'Tis love refined and purged from all its dross,
  The next to angel's love, if not the same,
  As strong as passion is, though not so gross:
  It antedates a glad eternity
  And is an heaven in epitome.
  • st. 2

• Essential honour must be in a friend,
  Not such as every breath fans to and fro;
  But born within, is its own judge and end,
  And dares not sin, though sure that none should know.
  Where friendship's spoke, honesty's understood;
  For none can be a friend that is not good.
  • st. 6

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Katherine Philips on Wikipedia