Thomas Edwards

Thomas Edwards (fl. 1587–1595) was an English poet who published two Ovidian epic poems Cephalus and Procris and Narcissus. Beyond his name, nothing is known with certainty of Edwards. He has been provisionally identified with a Shropshire law student of that name who transferred from Furnival's Inn to Lincoln's Inn in June 1587, where he shared a room with a known friend of John Donne. Edwards may have contributed the Latin verse to Adriaan van Roomen's Parvum theatrum urbium, published in 1595. Cephalus and Procris and Narcissus Edwards's two known poems concern characters who all feature in Ovid's poem Metamorphoses. Cephalus and Procris are a romantic couple. Narcissus famously fell in love with his own reflection. Edwards's poems were published as a single volume in 1595; Cephalus and Procris is in couplet form, Narcissus using a seven-line stanza. In the former, Edwards appears to be imitating Marlowe and in the latter Shakespeare. The author concluded each work with a long postscript. In Narcissus this includes, using aliases, references to other poets including Amintas (Thomas Watson), Collyn (Edmund Spenser), Leander (Christopher Marlowe), Rosamond (Samuel Daniel) and Adon (Shakespeare). A mysterious poet "in purple robes" praised at the end of the list has not been convincingly identified.