Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Sweet Swan of a Muddled River

Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare


.

. HONEY-TONGUED Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue,

. I swore Apollo got them and none other;

. Their rosy-tinted features clothed in tissue,

. Some heaven-born goddess said to be their mother:

. Rose-cheeked Adonis, with his amber tresses,

. Fair fire-hot Venus, charming him to love her,

. Chaste Lucretia, virgin-like her dresses,

. Proud lust-stung Tarquin, seeking still to prove her:

. Romeo, Richard; more whose names I know not,

. Their sugared tongues, and power attractive beauty

. Say they are saints, although that saints they show not,

. For thousands vow to them subjective duty :

. They burn in love, thy children, *Shakespeare HET them* ,

. Go, woo thy Muse, more Nymphish brood beget them.

.

. Epigrammes in the oldest Cut, and newest Fashion.

. John Weever. 1599. Fourth Weeke, Epig. 22.>>


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"Say They Are Saints Although That Saints They Show Not": John Weever's 1599 Epigrams to Marston, Jonson, and Shakespeare


William R Jones.
 
ABSTRACT


John Weever's 1599 poem to Shakespeare has frequently been used to support the case that Shakespeare was celebrated by his contemporaries. William R. Jones examines the language of the poem as well as its context (particularly Weever's role in the exchanges known as the Poets' War and in the 1599 ban on satire and epigram) to suggest that the poem deserves a more nuanced reading. Beginning with Weever's epigram to John Marston and Ben Jonson, Jones argues that Weever's apparently adulatory poems to these three playwrights in fact assert the moral deficiency of their works, consistent with Puritan anti-theatrical rhetoric.

(snip)
 
BIOGRAPHERS OF SHAKESPEARE have often numbered John Weever s sonnet to William Shakespeare in his Epigrammes in the oldest cut, and newest fashion (1599) among a triad of works demonstrating the universal admiration accorded to Shakespeare at the end of the sixteenth century.1 James Shapiro, however, calls attention to Weever's puzzling failure to name more than two of Shakespeare's plays in the poem ("Romea Richard; more whose names I know not"; line 9), concluding that "Shakespeare would not have been flattered" by such a clumsy tribute.2 Perhaps he was not meant to be. In his 1598 work Palladis Tamia, Francis Meres names no fewer than twelve plays by "mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakespeare," as well as his sonnets and the two Ovidian poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrèce. Although he does not mention the plays, Richard Barnfield (the third contributor to the triad) praises Shakespeare's "hony- flowing Vaine," proclaiming that Venus and Lucrèce have earned Shakespeare a place in "fame's immortal Booke." Weever's epithet, "Honietong'd Shakespeare," because it directly echoes the laudatory language of both Meres and Barnfield, seems at first to join in the adulation.3 Here I suggest that the poem's multivalent language and contentious context (in particular, Weever's role in the Poetomachia, or Poets' War, and the influence of the Bishops' Ban)4 call for a more nuanced reading. Weever's poem emerges not as unalloyed praise but as a kind of rhetorical Janus, safely displaying the fashionable face of praise while simultaneously engaging with the anti-theatrical discourses of the period, a posture that also informs his later works, Faunus and Melliflora (1600) and The Whipping of the Satyre (1601). Weever defines himself in opposition to the vogue for licentious excess, particularly in drama and formal verse satire, an ideological position that doubtless helped the Epigrammes avoid the Bishops' Ban on the publication of satires, epigrams, and unlicensed histories and plays, issued on 1 June 1599. Weever's subtle critiques serve not only to mock those he judges to be negative moral influences (the avant-garde group of recently banned satirists representing the most egregious offenders) but also to proffer, even to enact, what he considers a more appropriate style of poetic wit.



(snip)

Meres's characterization of Shakespeare as harboring "the sweete wittie soule of Ovid " ( Wits Treasury, 281) is clear praise, and Weever's apparently laudatory epigram similarly foregrounds the Ovidian aspects of Shakespeare's work. Yet at the time, as Jonathan Bate argues, "ways of reading Ovid underwent radical transformation, as a newly unapologetic delight in the poetic and erotic qualities of the Metamorphoses came to compete with the predominant medieval practice of moralizing and even Christianizing them."24 Such a tension is evident in the dedication to Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of the Metamorphoses, where he admonishes the reader to seek the underlying moral lesson and not be "provoked to vice and wantonness."25 Heather James has broadened the picture beyond such polarizations, positing that intellectuals of the era were drawn to Ovid as the "counter-classical" love poet, in a self-conscious effort to transform the literary scene. Thus, just as the banned satirists had employed Juvenal as a means to distinguish their style from traditional modes, experimenters such as Shakespeare saw in Ovid, argues James, an alternative to the Horatian ideal of decorum. With the Ovidian narrative poems Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrèce (1594), Shakespeare is signaling the choice to explore and to challenge conventional wisdom, to illuminate the "erotic possessions of the will," yet to revel in the power of the individual wit to reshape the world.26 The Ovidian was moral, literary, and political at the same time - and was as culturally dangerous as the Juvenalian mode in satire.
 
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Weever's poem emerges not as unalloyed praise but as a kind of *rhetorical Janus, safely displaying the fashionable face of praise* while simultaneously engaging with the anti-theatrical discourses of the period, a posture that also informs his later works
 


Janus Jonson - Sweet Swan of Avon - poet of a muddled, shallow, unnavigable river that ran through deepest, darkest Warwickshire.
 
 
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Poets of the Thames:
 
On the

A U T H O R,
The Poet Laureat, Ben. Johnson.

HEre is a Poet! whose unmudled Strains

Show that he held all Helicon in's Brains.

What here is writ, is Sterling; every Line

Was well allow'd of by the Muses Nine.

When for the Stage a Drama he did lay,

Tragick or Comick, he still bore away

The Sock and Buskin; clearer Notes than his

No SWAN e'er sung upon our THAMESIS;

For Lyrick sweetness in Ode, or Sonnet

To Ben the best of Wits might vail their Bonnet.

His Genius justly in an ENTHEAT RAGE,

Oft lasht the dull-sworn Factors for the Stage;

For Alchymy though't make a glorious Gloss,

Compar'd with Gold is Bullion and base Dross.

Wil. Hodgson.


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Samuel Daniel


Delia. Containing certaine sonnets: with the complaynt of Rosamond. ,

At London, : Printed by J.C. for S. Watersonne., 1592


Then when confusion in her course shall bring,

Sad desolation on the times to come:

When mirth-lesse THAMES shal haue no SWAN to sing,

All Musique silent, and the Muses dombe.

And yet euen then it must be knowne to some,

That once they florisht, though not cherisht so,

And THAMES had Swannes as well as euer Po.

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SONNET


Harvey, or the sweet Doctor.


Sidney, sweet CYGNET, pride of THAMESIS,

Apollo's laurel, Mars his proud prowess;

Bodin, register of realm's happiness,

Which Italy's and France's wonder is;

Hatcher, with silence whom I may not miss,

Nor Lewen, rhetoric's richest noblesse,

Nor Wilson, whose discretion did redress

Our English barbarism; adjoin to this

Divinest moral Spenser: let these speak

By their sweet letters, which do best unfold

Harvey's deserved praise, since my muse weak

Cannot relate so much as hath been told

By these forenamed; then vain it were to bring

New feather to his fame's swift-feathered wing.
Parthenophe


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Samuel Daniel

THE Tragedie of Cleopatra.
AEtas prima canat veneres postrema tumultus.
1594.


To the Right Honourable, the Lady Marie, Countesse of PEMBROOKE.


...O that the Ocean did not bound our stile


VVithin these strict and narrow limmits so:

But that the melody of our sweet Ile,

Might now be heard to Tyber, Arne, and Po.

That they might know how far THAMES doth out-go

The musique of Declyned Italie:

And listning to our songs another while,

Might learne of thee, their notes to purifie.


O why may not some after-comming hand,


Vnlock these limits, open our confines:

And breake a sunder this imprisoning band,

T'inlarge our spirits, and publish our dissignes;

Planting our Roses on the Apenines?

And teach to Rhene, to Loyre, and Rhodanus,

Our accents, and the wonders of our Land,

That they might all admire and honour vs.


Wherby great SYDNEY & our SPENCER might,

VVith those Po-singers beeing equalled,

Enchaunt the world with such a sweet delight,

That theyr eternall songs (for euer read,)

May shew what great ELIZAS raigne hath bred.

VVhat musique in the kingdome of her peace.

Hath now beene made to her, and by her might,

VVhereby her glorious fame shall neuer cease.


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Ben: Iohnson. Ode.


(To Hugh Holland)

WHo saith our Times nor haue, nor can

Produce vs a blacke Swan?

Behold, where one doth swim;

Whose Note, and Hue,

Besides the other Swannes admiring him,

Betray it true:

A gentler Bird, then this,

Did neuer dint the breast of TAMISIS.



Marke, marke, but when his wing he takes,

How faire a flight he makes!

How vpward, and direct!

Whil'st pleas'd Apollo

Smiles in his Sphaere, to see the rest affect,

In vaine to follow:

This Swanne is onely his,

And Phoebus loue cause of his blackenesse is.



He shew'd him first the hoofe-cleft Spring,

Neere which, the Thespiad's sing;

The cleare Dircaean Fount

Where Pindar swamme;

The pale Pyrene, and the forked Mount:

And, when they came

To brookes, and broader streames,

From Zephyr's rape would close him with his beames.


This chang'd his Downe; till this, as white

As the whole heard in fight,

And still is in the Brest:

That part nor Winde,

Nor Sunne could make to vary from the rest,

Or alter kinde.

"So much doth Virtue hate,

"For stile of rarenesse, to degenerate.



Be then both Rare, and Good; and long

Continue thy sweete Song.

Nor let one Riuer boast

Thy tunes alone;

But proue the Aire, and saile from Coast to Coast:

Salute old Mône,

But first to Cluid stoope low,

The Vale, that bred thee pure, as her Hills Snow.


From thence, display thy vving againe

Ouer Ie~rna maine,

To the Eugenian dale;

There charme the rout

With thy soft notes, and hold them within Pale

That late were out.

"Musicke hath power to draw,

"Where neither Force can bend, nor Feare can awe.



Be proofe, the glory of his hand,

(Charles Montioy) whose command

Hath all beene Harmony:

And more hath wonne

Vpon the Kerne, and wildest Irishry,

Then Time hath donne,

Whose strength is aboue strength;

And conquers all things, yea it selfe, at length.


Who euer sipt at Baphyre riuer,

That heard but Spight deliuer

His farre-admited Acts,

And is not rap't

With ENTHEATE RAGE, to publish their bright tracts?

(But this more apt

When him alone we sing)

Now must we plie our ayme; our Swan's on wing.


Who (see) already hath ore-flowne

The Hebrid Isles, and knowne

The scatter'd Orcades;

From thence is gon

To vtmost Thule: whence, he backes the Seas

To Caledon,

And ouer Grampius mountaine,

To Loumond lake, and Twedes blacke-springing fountaine.



Haste, Haste, sweete Singer: Nor to Tine,

Humber, or Owse, decline;

But ouer Land to Trent:

There coole thy Plumes,

And vp againe, in skies, and aire to vent

Their reeking fumes;

Till thou at TAMES alight,

From whose prowde bosome, thou began'st thy flight.


TAMES, prowde of thee, and of his Fate

In entertaining late

The choise of Europes pride;

The nimble French;

The Dutch whom Wealth (not Hatred) doth diuide,

The Danes that drench

Their cares in wine; with sure

Though slower Spaine; and Italy mature.



All which, when they but heare a straine

Of thine, shall thinke the Maine

Hath sent her Mermaides in,

To hold them here:

Yet, looking in thy face, they shall begin

To loose that feare;

And (in the place) enuie

So blacke a Bird, so bright a Qualitie.


But should they know (as I) that this,

Who warbleth PANCHARIS,

Were CYCNVS, once high flying

With Cupids wing;

Though, now by Loue transform'd, & dayly dying:

(Which makes him sing

With more delight, and grace)

Or thought they, Leda's white Adult'rers place



Among the starres should be resign'd

To him, and he there shrin'd;

Or TAMES be rap't from vs

To dimme and drowne

In heau'n the Signe of old Eridamos:

How they would frowne!

But these are Mysteries

Conceal'd from all but cleare Propheticke eyes.




It is inough, their griefe shall know

At their returne, nor Po,

Iberus, Tagus, Rheine,

Scheldt, nor the Maas,

Slow Arar, nor swift Rhone; the Loyre, nor Seine,

With all the race

Of Europes waters can

Set out a like, or second to our Swan.


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Added April 2016

 The First Booke of the Preservation of King Henry VII (1599) Anonymous

You fine metricians, that verses skillfully compile,
(As fine artificers hard iron do refile on an anvile)
This verse irregular, this rustick rythmery bannish,
Which doth abase poetry; such verse, such meter abolish,
For lily mikle-white swannes flote on streams cleare as a crystall,
And in a fowle mud-y lake donguehill ducks strive for an offall

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Ben Jonson and Cervantes
Yumiko Yamada

...We have proved the hypothesis proposed at the start of this chapter: that the texture of Jonson's poem [Shakespeare's First Folio poem] has been woven for its meaning to be wholly reversible. What is whole-hearted praise in the eyes of certain readers can be read as pungent criticism from the viewpoints of others.

Elsewhere Jonson wrote for different readers: in the 1612 quarto of Catiline, he prepared two kinds of dedication, i.e. to "The Reader in Ordinarie" and to "the Reader Extraordinarie". Yet there the stress was laid only on the degree of comprehension, and there was no reversal of meaning, according to the ability of the reader.

Whatever his motive, writing poetry to celebrate Shakespeare's 1623 Folio risked undermining Jonson's 1616 Folio - intended as the antithesis of Shakespearean dramaturgy. If he were to be faithful to the readers of his Folio, he must remain critical. On the other hand, were the tone of mockery discernible to all, it would have been excluded from the commemorative folio of the deceased poet. Obliged to satisfy both sides' opposing values, Jonson probably thought of using the two parties' differing speech habits, as adroitly summed up in Sackton's brief account:

In Shakespeare (and most other writers) emphasis is on what is said: often, in Jonson, the dramatic effect depends much more on how it is said.

Heir to Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe, Shakespeare sought a flamboyant and intricate style to attract public attention, but rarely adjusted tthe style to the character and occasion, or varied the meaning to suit the style adopted. On the other hand, Jonson demands careful examination of the style of each speech: literal interpretation is often misleading.

The tribute seems "Jonson's finest poem of praise of another poet" (van den Berg) in the eyes of people used to stressing "what is said"; and immortal poet blessed with "Nature" and "Art", Shakespeare surpasses Chaucer, Spenser and Beaumont, overshadows Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe and cast ancient writers back into the shade. No doubt Jonson would have classified Shakespeare with this category of readers. When the same poem was read by those who care "how it is said", Shakespeare became a huge, abortive flower of the loathed age, falling far below Chaucer, Penser and Beaumont in rank, but became the wonder (or monster) of the stage by outdoing Lyly, Kyd and Marlowe i the use of hyperbole, and by devastating the classical drama tradition. (pp. 81-82)

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And because this continuall course and manner of writing or speech sheweth the matter and disposition of the writers MINDE, more than one or few words or sentences can shew, therefore there be that haue called STILE, the image of man (MENTIS CHARACTER)] FOR MAN IS BUT HIS MIND, and as his minde is tempered and qualified, so are his speeches and language at large, and his inward conceits be the mettall of his MINDE, and his manner of vtterance the very warp & woofe of his conceits, more plaine, or busie and intricate, or otherwise affected after the rate. -- Puttenham

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De corruptela morum -- There cannot be one colour of the MIND; another of the wit. If the mind be staid, grave, and composed, the wit is so; that vitiated, the other is blown, and deflowered. Do we not see, if the mind languish, the members are dull? Look upon an effeminate person: his very gait confesseth him. If a man be fiery, his motion is so; if angry, 'tis troubled, and violent. So that we may conclude wheresoever manners, and fashions are corrupted, language is. It imitates the public riot. The excess of feasts, and apparel, are the notes of a sick state; and the wantonness of language, of a sick MIND.
(Discoveries 1171) Jonson


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...just as the banned satirists had employed Juvenal as a means to distinguish their style from traditional modes, experimenters such as Shakespeare saw in Ovid, argues James, an alternative to the HORATIAN ideal of DECORUM. -- William R Jones.




John Beaumont , Jonsonus Virbius


...Twas he that found (plac'd) in the seat of wit,

DULL grinning IGNORANCE, and banish'd it;

He on the prostituted stage appears

To make men hear, not by their eyes, but ears;

Who painted virtues, that each one might know,

And point the man, that did such treasure owe :

So that who could in JONSON'S lines be high

Needed not honours, or a riband buy ;

But vice he only shewed us in a glass,

Which by reflection of those rays that pass,

Retains the FIGURE lively, set before,

And that withdrawn, reflects at us no more;

So, he observ'd the like DECORUM, when

*He whipt the vices, and yet spar'd the men* :

When heretofore, the Vice's only note,

And sign from virtue was his party-coat;

When devils were the last men on the stage,

And pray'd for plenty, and the present age.


Asper:

Well, I will SCOURGE those Apes,

And to these courteous Eyes oppose a MIRROUR,

As large as is the Stage whereon we act;

Where they shall see the times DEFORMITY

Anatomiz'd in every Nerve and Sinew,

With constant Courage, and contempt of Fear.





- Jonson






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Jonson. Verse Prologue, _Every Man in His Humor _

SCENE,---LONDON
PROLOGUE.


Though need make many poets, and some such

As art and nature have not better'd much;

Yet ours for want hath not so loved the stage,

As he dare serve the *ILL CUSTOMS of the AGE*,

Or purchase your delight at such a rate,

As, for it, he himself must justly hate:

To make a child now swaddled, to proceed

Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed,

Past threescore years; or, with three rusty swords,

And help of some few foot and half-foot words,

Fight over York and Lancaster's king jars,

And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars.

He rather prays you will be pleas'd to see

One such to-day, as other plays should be;

Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas,

Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please;

Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard

The gentlewomen; nor roll'd bullet heard

To say, it thunders; nor tempestuous drum

Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth come;

But deeds, and language, such as men do use,

And persons, such as comedy would choose,

When she would shew an image of the times,

And sport with human follies, not with crimes.

Except we make them such, by loving still

Our popular errors, when we know they're ill.

I mean such errors as you'll all confess,

By laughing at them, they deserve no less:

Which when you heartily do, there's hope left then,

*You, that have so grac'd MONSTERS, may like men*.


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Horatian Decorum:

Horace, of the Art of Poetrie


transl. Ben Jonson



...If to Quintilius, you recited ought:

Hee'd say, Mend this, good friend, and this; "Tis naught.

If you denied, you had no better straine,

And twice, or thrice had 'ssayd it, still in vaine:

Hee'd bid, blot all: and to the anvile bring

Those ill-torn'd Verses, to new hammering.

Then: If your fault you rather had defend

Then change. No word, or worke, more would he spend

In vaine, BUT YOU, AND YOURS, YOU should LOVE STILL (note- self-

loving)

Alone, without a rivall, by his will.



A wise, and honest man will cry out shame

On artlesse Verse; the hard ones he will blame;

Blot out the careless, with his turned pen;

Cut off superfluous ornaments; and when

They're darke, bid cleare this: all that's doubtfull wrote

Reprove; and, what is to be changed, not:

Become an Aristarchus. And, not say,

Why should I grieve my friend, this TRIFLING WAY?

These trifles into serious mischiefs lead

The man once mock'd, and suffered WRONG TO TREAD.

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Quintilius/Jonson

I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, (whatsoever he penn'd) hee never BLOTTED out line. My answer hath beene, would he had BLOTTED a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their IGNORANCE, who choose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most FAULTED...

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fault

4: a WRONG ACTION attributable to bad judgment or IGNORANCE or inattention; "he made a bad mistake"; "she was quick to point out my errors"; "I could understand his English in spite of his grammatical faults" [syn: mistake, error]

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Horace, of the Art of Poetrie

transl. Ben Jonson

Rich men are said with many cups to plie,

And rack, with Wine, the man whome they would try,

If of their friendship he be worthy, or no:

When you write Verses, with your judge do so:

Looke through him, and be sure, *you take not mocks

For praises*, where the mind conceales a foxe.

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Jonson
To my truly-belov'd Freind,


Mr. Browne:
on his Pastorals.


Some men, of Bookes or Freinds NOT SPEAKING RIGHT,

May hurt them more with praise, then Foes with spight.

But I have seene thy worke, and I know thee:

And, if thou list thy selfe, what thou canst bee.

For, though but early in these PATHES THOU TREAD,

I find thee write most worthy to be read.

It must be thine owne judgment, yet that sends

This thy worke forth: that judgment mine commends.

And, where the most reade bookes, on Authors fames,

Or, like our Money-Brokers, take up names

On credit, and are cossen'd: see, that thou

By offring not more sureties, then inow,

Hold thyne owne worth unbroke: which is so good

Upon th'Exchange of Letters, as I wou'd

More of our writers would like thee, not SWELL

With the how much they set forth, but th'how well.


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Horace Of the Art of Poetry - transl. Ben Jonson



...Most writers, noble sire and either son,

Are, with the likeness of the truth, undone.

Myself for shortness labour, and I grow

Obscure. This, striving to run smooth,

and flow,

Hath neither soul nor sinews. Lofty he

Professing greatness, SWELLS; that, low by lee,

Creeps on the ground; too safe, afraid of storm.

This seeking, in a various kind, to form

One thing PRODIGIOUSLY, paints in the woods

A dolphin, and a boar amid the floods.

So shunning faults to greater fault doth lead,

When in a WRONG AND ARTLESS WAY WE TREAD.


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Jonson, Timber


...BUT WHY DO men depart at all from the RIGHT and NATURAL *WAYS* of speaking? sometimes for necessity, when we are driven, or think it fitter, *to speak that in obscure words*, or by circumstance, which uttered plainly would offend the hearers. Or to avoid obsceneness, or sometimes for pleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawn either by the commodity of a footpath, or the delicacy or freshness of the fields. And all this is called åó÷çìáôéóìåíç (eschematismene) or FIGURED LANGUAGE.

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The idea of ancient literary criticism

By Yun Lee

...In his treatise On Style, Demetrius declares that figured language must be employed if somebody wishes to address and to criticize either a tyrant or a powerful individual, and he advocates this as a middle course between flattery, which is base, and direct criticism, which is dangerous. Ahl notes, in an essay entitled 'The Art of Safe Criticism', that Quintilian, Vespasian's imperial rhetorician, subsequently elaborates Demetrius' account of the political use of figured language at Institutio oratoria 9.2.66. Quintilian sets out three different occasions on which figured language, which he defines as language that is changed from its most obvious and uncomplicated usage by poetic or oratorical usage (9.1.13), may be employed. The first of These concerns when it is dangerous to speak openly; the second concerns propriety - where the Latin 'it is not fitting/ suitable ('non decet' ) perhaps renders the Greek 'improper' (aprepes); while the third advocates the use of figured language where the novelty of such structures may produce delight and pleasure. Of these three occasions, the first is the most obviously political, and what Quintilian proposes is a need for the author in question to tread warily around authority, particularly as author and political leader may be at odds. The following section of the work suggests that the rhetorician has in mind the empire, figured as tyranny: he cites the use of rhetorical figures in school exercises which require pupils to produce speeches to instigate rebellion against despots without speaking too plainly to tyrants (9.2.67).

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Some men, of Bookes or Freinds NOT SPEAKING RIGHT,

May hurt them more with praise, then Foes with spight. -- Jonson

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US

by Ben Jonson

To draw no envy, SHAKSPEARE, on thy name,

Am I thus ample to thy book and fame ;

While I confess thy writings to be such,

As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.

'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But THESE WAYS

Were not the PATHS I meant unto thy praise ;

For seeliest ignorance on these may light,

Which, when it sounds at best, BUT ECHOES RIGHT ;

Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance

The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance ;

Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,

And think to ruin where it SEEMED to raise.

These are, as some infamous bawd or whore

Should praise a matron ; what could hurt her more ?

But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,

Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.

I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!

The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our stage!

My SHAKSPEARE rise !