Date: 1384

"O Thought, that wroot al that I mette, / And in the tresorie hit shette / Of my brayn!"

— Chaucer, Geoffrey (c. 1340-1400)

Date: 1390

"Minerve for the hed thei soghten, / For sche was wys, and of a man / The wit and reson which he can / Is in the celles of the brayn, / Wherof thei made hire soverain."

— Gower, John (c. 1330-1408)

Date: w. c. 1425-1440

"Then wolle the chambir of my thought trewly / Of plesaunce take a light in eche parté / Such ioy wolle him aray so fresshe and hy / That waken must myn heuy hert slepé / Out of his fowle and sluggissh slogardé."

— Charles [d'Orléans], duke of Orléans (1394-1465)

Date: 1590

The body is a Castle

— Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599)

Date: 1592

"Thine eye the glasse where I behold my hart, / mine eye the window, through the which thine eye / may see my hart, and there thy selfe espye / in bloudie colours how thou painted art."

— Constable, Henry (1562-1613)

Date: 1601-3

"With so great care doth she, that hath brought forth / That comely body, labour to adorne / That better part, the mansion of your minde, / With all the richest furniture of worth; / To make y'as highly good as highly borne, / And set your vertues equall to your kinde."

— Daniel, Samuel (1562/3-1619)

Date: 1610

"Man is a lump, where all beasts kneaded be, / Wisdom makes him an ark where all agree; / The fool, in whom these beasts do live at jar, / Is sport to others and a theatre, / Nor 'scapes he so, but is himself their prey; / All which was man in him is eat away, / And now his beasts on one another ...

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1624, 1628

"Heu dolor! caveae membra fuere meae. / Pes compes, manicaeque manus, nervique catenae, / Ossaque cancellis nativa repagula claustri, / Damner ut hospitii compede vincta mei?" ["Alas, what misery! that the light poured me forth on these unhappy airs! My very limbs are a prison to me. Feet fetters...

— Hugo, Herman (1588-1629)

Date: 1633

"within my heart I made / Closets; and in them many a chest; / And like a master in my trade, / In those chests, boxes; in each box, a till: / Yet grief knows all, and enters when he will."

— Herbert, George (1593-1633)

Date: 1649

"Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin, / The cabinet of a richer soul within?"

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)