Purging Folly:
Cynthia's Revels, Jonson
The C H A L L E N G E.
Amorphus.
BE it known to all that profess Courtship, by these Presents (from the white sattin Reveller, to the Cloth of Tissue and Bodkin,) that we, ULYSSES-POLITROPUS-AMORPHUS, Master of the noble and subtil Science of Courtship, do give leave and license to our Provost, Acolastus-Polypragmon- Asotus, to play his Masters Prize, against all Masters what- soever in this subtile Mystery, at these four, the choice and most cunning Weapons of Court COMPLEMENT, viz. the bare Accost; the better Reguard; the solemn Address; and the perfect Close. These are therefore to give notice to all comers, that he, the said Acolastus-Polypragmon-Asotus, is here present (by the help of his Mercer, Taylor, Millener, Sempster, and so forth) at his designed hour, in this fair Gallery, the present day of this present month, to perform and do his uttermost for the atchievement and bearing away of the Prizes, which are these: viz. For the bare Accost, two Wall-eyes, in a face forced: For the better Reguard, a Face fovourablyfavourably simpring, with a Fan waving: For the solemn Address, two Lips wagging, and never a wise word: For the perfect Close, a Wring by the hand, with a Ban- quet in a corner. And Phœbus save Cynthia.
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Title: Cupids cabinet unlock't, or, The new accademy [sic] of complements Odes, epigrams, songs, and sonnets, poesies, presentations, congratulations, ejaculations, rhapsodies, &c. With other various fancies. Created partly for the delight, but chiefly for the use of all ladies, gentlemen, and strangers, who affect to speak elegantly, or write queintly. By W. Shakespeare.
Author: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616,
Imprint: [S.l. : s.n., 1650?]
Date: 1641-1700
Bib name / number: Wing (CD-ROM, 1996) / C7597A
Physical description: [2], 38 p.
Notes: Not in fact by William Shakespeare. "Except for extracts from the poet, this cannot be numbered among [Shakespeare's] productions."
-- Jaggard, William. Shakespeare bibliography.
Wing dates this before 1700. In verse. Copy filmed at UMI microfilm Early English Books 1641-1700 reel 2479 lacks pages 5-6. Reproduction of original in the Folger Shakespeare Library.
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William Shakespeare, a Textual Companion
By Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor, John Jowett, William Montgomery
Cupid's Cabinet Unlocked
The title-page of this undated duodecimo volume does not indicate when or by whom it was printed, but describes it as 'Cupids Cabinet unlock't, Or, THE NEW ACCADEMY OF COMPLEMENTS. Odes, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonnets, Poesies, Presentations, Congratulations, Ejaculatins, Rhapsodies, &c.' writeen 'By W. Shakespeare'. Neither STC nor Wing records this item, nor does it appear in the British Library Catalogue. WE have been able to trace only two copies, both defective: Folger C7595a lacks leaf GII, and Boston Public Library G.176.62 lacks leaves I1-3. On the basis of the signatures it would appear to be an extract from a larger work; butr no such work has yet been identified, the pagination is regular (1-38), and p. 38 concludes with a 'FINIS'. The Folger copy is a separate item. The Boston copy is bound with a work with the running title 'The New Accademy of Complements'...Both these works are bound with a fragment of The Art of Courtship. It seems likely that Cupid's Cabinet Unlocked post-dates Benson's edition of Shakespeare's POems (1640), and the title probably expoloits an allusion to the pamphlet The King's Cabinet Opened, which marked a turning-point in the Civil War. In the political pamphlet, 'cabinet' is a pun, referring both to hte chest of papers captured by the Parliamentarians, and to the inner workings of hte King's cabinet; no such pun operates in the 'Shakespeare' volume, which is therefore probably the later work. The allusion implies that a treasure-chest of Shakespeare's poems has been found, comparable in importance to the chest of Charles I's papers pubished in June 1645. Although this allusion establishes that the volume dates from 1645 or later, similar titles can be found as late as 1679...
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"And of an ingenious INVENTION, INFANTED WITH PLEASANT TRAVAILE."
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A phrase selected by Puttenham as an example of an 'intollerable vice' in writing had been associated with the Earl of Oxford. This phrase was subsequently spoken by the affected courtier Amorphus in Jonson's _Cynthia's Revels_. Curiously, the phrase does not appear in full in the 1601 Quarto (while Oxford was alive) - but does appear in the 1616 and 1640 editions of Jonson's 'Works'.
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Jonson, _Cynthia's Revels_.
AMORPHUS. And there's her minion, Crites: why his advice more than
Amorphus? Have I not invention afore him? Learning to better
that INVENTION above him? and INFANTED with PLEASANT TRAVEL --
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Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie (1589)
CHAP. XXII.
Some vices in speaches and {w}riting are alwayes intollerable, some others now and then borne {w}ithall by licence of approued authors and custome. (snip)
Another of your intollerable vices is that which the Greekes call Soraismus, & we may call the [mingle mangle] as when we make our speach or writinges of sundry languages vsing some Italian word, or French, or Spanish, or Dutch, or Scottish, not for the nonce or for any purpose (which were in part excusable) but ignorantly and affectedly as one that said vsing this French word Roy, to make ryme with another verse, thus.
O mightie Lord or ioue, dame Venus onely ioy,
Whose Princely power exceedes ech other heauenly roy.
The verse is good but the terme peeuishly affected Another of reasonable good facilitie in translation finding certaine of the hymnes of Pyndarus and of Anacreons odes, and other Lirickes among the Greekes very well translated by Rounsard the French Poet,
&
applied to the honour of a great Prince in France, comes our minion and translates the same out of French into English, and applieth them to the honour of a GREAT NOBLE MAN in ENGLAND (wherein I commend his reuerent minde and duetie) but doth so impudently robbe the French Poet both of his prayse and also of his French termes, that I cannot so much pitie him as be angry with him for his iniurious dealing (our sayd maker not being ashamed to vse these French wordes freddon, egar, superbous, filanding, celest, calabrois, thebanois and a number of others, for English wordes, which haue no maner of conformitie with our language either by custome or deriuation which may make them tollerable. And in the end (which is worst of all) makes his vaunt that neuer English finger but his hath toucht Pindars string which was neuerthelesse word by word as Rounsard had said before by like braggery. These be his verses.
And of an ingenious INVENTION, INFANTED WITH PLEASANT TRAVAILE.
¶3.22.7 Whereas the French word is enfante as much to say borne as a child, in another verse he saith.
I {w}ill freddon in thine honour.
¶3.22.8 For I will shake or quiuer my fingers, for so in French is freddon, and in another verse.
But if I {w}ill thus like pindar, In many discourses egar.
¶3.22.9 This word egar is as much to say as to wander or stray out of
the way, which in our English is not receiued, not these wordes calabrois, thebanois, but rather calabrian, theban [filanding sisters] for the spinning sisters: this man deserves to be endited of pety larceny for pilfring other mens devises from them
&
converting them to his owne use, for in deede as I would wish every inventour which is the very Poet to receave the prayses of his invention, so would I not have a translatour be ashamed to be acknowen of his translation.
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Southern, Pandora (1584)
SUMMARY: Ode to Oxford in John Southern’s Pandora, The Music of the Beauty of his Mistress Diana. The title page gives the publication date as 20 June 1584. The language of the ode was criticized by George Puttenham in Book III, Chapter 22 of his Art of English Poesy, published in 1589. Puttenham also accused Southern of plagiarism, saying: ‘Another of reasonable good facility in translation, finding certain of the hymns of Pindarus and of Anacreon’s odes and other lyrics among the Greeks very well translated by Ronsard, the French poet, & applied to the honour of a great prince in France, comes our minion and translates the same out of French into English, and applieth them to the honour of a great nobleman in England (wherein I commend his reverent mind and duty), but doth so impudently rob the French poet both of his praise and also of his French terms that I cannot so much pity him as be angry with him for his injurious dealing’.
To the right honourable the Earl of Oxenford etc.
Ode I Strophe 1
This earth is the nourishing teat,
As well that delivers to eat
As else throws out all that we can
Devise that should be needful for
The health of or disease or sore,
The household companions of man.
And this earth hath herbs sovereign
To impeach sicknesses sudden
If they be well aptly applied.
And this yearth spews up many a brevage
Of which, if we knew well the usage,
Would force the force Acherontide.
Brief, it lends us all that we have
With to live, and it is our grave,
But with all this, yet cannot give
Us fair renowns when we be dead,
And indeed they are only made
By our own virtues whiles we live.
(snip)
Epode
No, no, the high singer is he
Alone that in the end must be
Made proud with a garland like this,
And not every riming novice
That writes with small wit and much pain,
And the (God’s know) idiot in vain,
For it’s not the way to Parnasse,
Nor it will neither come to pass
If it be not in some wise fiction
And of an ingenious INVENTION,
And INFANTED with PLEASANT TRAVAIL,
For it alone must win the laurel,
And only the poet WELL BORN
Must be he that goes to Parnassus,
And not these companies of asses
That have brought verse almost to scorn.
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1601 Quarto - Cynthia's Revels, Jonson
Act IV, Sc. V
Amorphus
And there’s her Minion Criticus; why his advise more then Amorphus? Have I not Invention, afore him? Learning, to better that Invention, above him? And Travaile.
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1616 Folio, Jonson
Act IV, Sc V
Amorphus
And there’s her minion Crites! Why his advice more then Amorphus? Have not I invention, afore him? Learning, to better that invention, above him? And infanted, with pleasant travaile ----
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1640 Folio, 'Works' Jonson
Amorphus
And there’s her minion Crites! Why his advice more then Amorphus? Have not I invention afore him? Learning, to better that invention, above him? And infanted, with pleasant travaile ----
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ULYSSES-POLITROPUS-AMORPHUS - Cynthia's Revels
Politropus/Polytropus
Polytropos means much-turned or much-traveled, much-wandering. It is the defining quality of Odysseus, used in the first line of the Odyssey and at 10.330. As used by Hippias with respect to Odysseus (365b) it includes being false or lying and carries the connotations of wily and shifty. Antisthenes, a follower of Socrates who wrote Socratic dialogues, also argued against the claim that Homer meant to blame Odysseus by calling him polytropos; Antisthenes claims that it is praise for being "good at dealing with men...being wise, he knows how to associate with men in many ways." See Charles H. Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp.121-24.
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Edward de VERE figured as Ulysses Politropus- Amorphus by Ben Jonson:
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Ben Jonson, _Cynthia's Revels_
Induction
These in the Court meet with Amorphus, or the deformed, a Traveller that hath drunk of the
Fountain, and there tells the wonders of the Water. They presently dispatch away their Pages with Bottles to fetch of it, and themselves go to visit the Ladies. But I should have told you — (Look, these Emets put me out here) that with this Amorphus, there comes along a Citizens Heir, Asotus, or the Prodigal, who (in imita- tion of the Traveller, who hath the Whetstone following him) entertains the Begger, to be his Attendant. ——
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POLYTROPUS NOT POLYMETIS:
Ascham, The Scholemaster
(posthumously published 1570, Dedicated to Sir William Cecil, Knight)
...Yet, if a ientleman will nedes trauell into Italie, he shall do well, to looke on the life, of the wisest traueler, that euer traueled thether, set out by the wisest writer, that euer spake with tong, Gods doctrine onelie excepted: and that is Vlysses in Homere. Vlysses, and his trauell, I wishe our trauelers to looke vpon, not so much to feare them, with the great daungers, that he many tymes suffered, as to instruct them, with his excellent wisedome, which he alwayes and euerywhere vsed. Yea euen those, that
| Vlysses. Homere. odys. a. |
Which verse, bicause, in mine opinion, it was not made at the first, more naturallie in Greke by Homere, nor after turned more aptlie into Latin by Horace, than it was a good while ago, in Cambrige, translated into English, both plainlie for the sense, and roundlie for the verse, by one of the best Scholers, that euer S. Iohns Colledge bred, M. Watson, myne old frend, somtime Bishop of Lincolne, therfore, for their sake, that haue lust to see, how our English tong, in auoidyng barbarous ryming, may as well receiue, right quantitie of sillables, and trewe order of versifiyng (of which matter more at large hereafter) as either Greke or Latin, if a cunning man haue it in handling, I will set forth that one verse in all three tonges, for an Example to good wittes, that shall delite in like learned exercise.
Horatius.
Qui mores hominum multorum vidit & vrbes.
M. Watson.
| All trauellers do gladly report great prayse of
Vlysses, For that he knew many mens maners, and saw many Cities. |
Pallas from heauen. Alcynous. od. 2. Cyclops. od. 1. Calypso. od. e.
Circes. od. k. od. l. |
Therfore, if wise men will nedes send their sonnes into Italie, let them do it wiselie, vnder the kepe and garde of him, who, by his wisedome and honestie, by his example and authoritie, may be hable to kepe them safe and sound, in the feare of God, in Christes trewe Religion, in good order and honestie of liuyng: except they will haue them run headling, into ouermany ieoperdies, as Vlysses had done many tymes, if Pallas had not alwayes gouerned him: if he had not vsed, to stop his eares with waxe: to bind him selfe to the mast of his shyp: to feede dayly, vpon that swete herbe Moly with the blake roote and white floore, giuen vnto hym by Mercurie, to auoide all the inchantmentes of Circes. Wherby, the Diuine
| od. m. od. k. Moly Herba. Psal. 33. |
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Speculum Tuscanismi (1580)
Not the like discourser for Tongue, and head to be found out,
Not the like resolute man for great and serious affairs,
Not the like Lynx to spy out secrets and privities of States,
Eyed like to Argus, eared like to Midas, nos'd like to Naso,
Wing'd like to Mercury, fittst of a thousand for to be employ'd,
This, nay more than this, doth practice of Italy in one year.
None do I name, but some do I know, that a piece of a twelve month
Hath so perfited outly and inly both body, both soul,
That none for sense and senses half matchable with them.
A vulture's smelling, Ape's tasting, sight of an eagle,
A spider's touching, Hart's hearing, might of a Lion.
Compounds of wisdom, wit, prowess, bounty, behavior,
All gallant virtues, all qualities of body and soul.
O thrice ten hundred thousand times blessed and happy,
Blessed and happy travail, TRAVAILER most blessed and happy.
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Ascham, The Scholemaster
**But I know as many, or mo, and some, sometyme my deare frendes, for whose sake I hate going into that countrey the more, who, partyng out of England feruent in the loue of Christes doctrine, and well furnished with the feare of God, returned out of Italie worse transformed, than euer was any in Circes Court. I know diuerse, that went out of England, men of innocent life, men of excellent learnyng, who returned out of Italie, not onely with worse maners, but also with lesse learnyng: neither so willing to liue orderly, nor yet so hable to speake learnedlie, as they were at home, before they went abroad. And why? Plato yt wise writer, and worthy traueler him selfe, telleth the cause why. He went into Sicilia, a countrey, no nigher Italy by site of place, than Italie that is now, is like Sicilia that was then, in all corrupt maners and licenciousnes of life. Plato found in Sicilia, euery Citie full of vanitie, full of factions, euen as Italie is now. And as Homere, like a learned Poete, doth feyne, that Circes, by pleasant inchantmentes, did turne men into beastes, some into Swine, som
| Plat. ad Dionys. Epist. 3.
The fruits of vayne pleasure.
Causes why men returne out of Italie, lesse learned and worse manered. Homer and Plato ioyned and expounded. A Swyne. An Asse. A Foxe. aphrosyne, Quid, et vnde. |
| {1. lethen {2. dysmathian {3. achrosynen {4. ybrin. |
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Oxford/Shakespeare/Comus (demonic eloquence - Comus a son of Circe)
Milton, John: Comus
118: COMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the
119: other: with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of
120: wild
121: beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel
122: glistering.
123: They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in
124: their hands.
125:
126:
127: COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold
128: Now the top of heaven doth hold;
129: And the gilded car of day
130: His glowing axle doth allay
131: In the steep Atlantic stream;
132: And the slope sun his upward beam
133: Shoots against the dusky pole,
134: Pacing toward the other goal
135: Of his chamber in the east.
136: Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
137: Midnight shout and revelry,
138: Tipsy dance and jollity.
139: Braid your locks with rosy twine,
140: Dropping odours, dropping wine.
141: Rigour now is gone to bed;
142: And Advice with scrupulous head,
143: Strict Age, and sour Severity,
144: With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
145: We, that are of purer fire,
146: Imitate the starry quire,
147: Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
148: Lead in swift round the months and years.
149: The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
150: Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
151: And on the tawny sands and shelves
152: Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
153: By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
154: The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
155: Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
156: What hath night to do with sleep?
157: Night hath better sweets to prove;
158: Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
159: Come, let us our rights begin;
160: 'T is only daylight that makes sin,
161: Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
162: Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
163: Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
164: Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame,
165: That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb
166: Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
167: And makes one blot of all the air!
168: Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
169: Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend
170: Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
171: Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
172: Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
173: The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
174: From her cabined loop-hole peep,
175: And to the tell-tale Sun descry
176: Our concealed solemnity.
178: In a LIGHT FANTASTIC round.
179:
180: The Measure.
181:
182: Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
183: Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
184: Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
185: Our number may affright. Some virgin sure
186: (For so I can distinguish by mine art)
187: Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
188: And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
189: Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
190: ABOUT MY MOTHER CIRCE. Thus I hurl
191: My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
192: Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
193: And give it false presentments, lest the place
194: And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
195: And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
196: Which must not be, for that's against my course.
197: I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
198: And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
199: Baited with reasons not unplausible,
200: Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
201: And hug him into snares. When once her eye
202: Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,
203: I shall appear some harmless villager
204: Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
205: But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
206: And hearken, if I may her business hear.
207:
208: The LADY enters.
209:
210: LADY. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
211: My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
212: Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
213: Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
214: Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
215: When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
216: In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
217: And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
218: To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
219: Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else
220: Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
221: In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
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'Shreds of forms' - Deformed:
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Horace
‘Do you, O sons of Pompilius, condemn a poem which many a day and many a blot has not restrained and refined ten times over to the test of the close-cut nail’: Ars Poetica, II. 291-4
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From _Strategem and the Vocabulary of Military Trickery_ Everett L. Wheeler
"Stealing" in English may have an immediate negative moral coloring, but the Greek kleptein (to steal, to deceive, to conceal) and its cognate nouns klope (theft, deceit, surprise) and klemma (theft, stratagem, fraud) portray a variety of nuances. The contrast between force (bia) and trickery (dolos) extends in a sense to the distinction in Greek Law between robbery (harpage) and thievery (klope) - once again a matter of open vs. secret means. The root definition of kleptein, moreover, is not "to steal" but "to act secretly". Hermes, particularly in his capacity as Hermes Dolios, was a god of stealth, whose trickery assumed connotations of magic. In fact, according to myth Hermes' talent for trickery was passed to Odysseus : Autolycus, Odysseus' maternal grandfather and a som of Hermes in post-Homeric sources, excelled all men in deceitfulness (kleptosyne). (snip)
The final group in the first category of the most frequent terms for STRATAGEM includes PANOURGEIN (to play the villain), PANOURGIA (villainy), and PANOURGOS (as noun: villain, rogue; as adjective: cunning, crafty, clever). This group of words in contrast to others in this category, lacks Homeric roots and originates in the Athenian theater of the fifth century BC. Villains of the stage display intelligence and cleverness, but misapply their creative talents for the wrong goals - hence a pejorative tone for these words. Plato distinguishes PANOURGIA from Sophia as knowledge divorced from justice and other virtue, while Aristotle makes a similar dichotomy between clever men who are prudent (phronimoi) and those who are panourgoi. The concession made to the intelligence of the villain appears in the coupling of PANOURGOS with other adjectives: for Demosthenes Philip II of Macedon is PANOURGOS and DEINOS (cunning and clever) in a negative sense. Plato links PANOURGOS to sophos only later to turn this positive association on its head, and the same technique is applied elsewhere, when he asserts wily men (POLYTROPOI) , such as Odysseus, owe this trait to their PANOURGIA and phronesis (prudence).
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Panourgos -- all-working, villain, rogue, FACTOTUM, jack-of-all-
trades, ready-for-all-crimes
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Panourgos
skilful, clever in a good sense, fit to undertake and accomplish anything, dexterous, wise, sagacious, skilful in a bad sense, crafty, cunning, knavish, treacherous, deceitful
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Yes, TRUST THEM NOT, for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute JOHANNES FACTOTUM, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrie. – Greene’s ‘Groatsworth’
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Shakespeare - The ADMIRABLE Poet - The WONDER of the Stage:
Those who were deinoi legein, "skillful in speaking and interpretation," assumed political superiority over the untrained idiotai, "laymen," whose reaction to the Sophists Voit describes as "the uncanny wonder of laymen at the expert, uncomprehended and out of reach." To be deinoi legein, that is, meant to be deinoi in general, flat out wonderful. Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports that Gorgias "astounded (Kateplexato) the Assembly," and lumps him with those who "confused the ordinary members of the audience (ton idioten) by using recondite and exotic words, and by resorting to unfamiliar figures of speech and other novel modes of exxpression" ("Lysias," 3). Plato satirizes Sophistic claims to deinotes in the opening of the _Apology_, where Socrates, the ironic layman, resists his accusers' insinuation that he is deinou ontos legein, "a skillful speaker" - "unless, of course by a skillful speaker they mean one who speaks the truth" (17B). Deinotes is thus equated with PANOURGIA, deception, a charge that echoes in Renaissance critiques of styles as sophistic. These charges, from Plato on down, are only in a minor sense aesthetic: they register anxiety about the political power the eloquent can wield. Those pursuing and defending admirable style in the late sixteenth century may have resurrected sophistic epistemology, which embraced contingency, but te power accruing to those capable of evoking wonder was at least as great an attraction, and was certainly the focus of most attacks.
(James Biester, _Lyric Wonder_, p.46)
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To this grave doctor millions do resort
Satirical print – Martin Droeshout
Description
Satirical broadside on folly that is to be found in all ranks of society: the interior of an apothecary's shop, with the doctor purging with a dose of wisdom a countryman seated on a close-stool who defecates foolish notions represented by asses and geese; a wealthy city merchant waits to be given a dose of plain-dealing; a young courtier's head is inserted into a furnace so that his idle pastimes go up in a cloud of smoke carrying playing-cards, a backgammon board, tennis rackets, musical instruments, extravagant clothes, etc.; a fashionably dressed woman holding a squirrel on a lead is about to follow in the place of the courtier. In a panel below are two clergymen, one complaining of the strain of running more than one parish, the other, who has received the doctor's purge, finding that the work of one parish is quite enough. 1620s; this impression 1672
Engraving
The costume of the figures would seem to date to the 1620s, and this agrees with the known dates of activity of the engraver, Martin Droeshout, who has signed the sheet with his monogram: MD sculpsit. The earliest state of the present print to survive, however, was probably issued in the 1650s, bearing Peter Stent’s imprint alone, and is held in the Wellcome Institute collection.[2]
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=1502462&partid=1&searchText=panurgus&numpages=10&orig=%2Fresearch%2Fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx¤tPage=1
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Added September 6 2015 -
Theognis' Octopus:
...The Demonax addressed in verses 1085-1086 (Theognidea) may be a real person - we don't know who - but it seems likely that the name embodies a type. Demonax is compounded from demos (district, people) and the Homeric word wanax, "lord" or "master". Demonax thus means "deme-lord" or "lord of the people," and suggests the type of an old-fashioned aristocrat whose traditional, archaic code of honor, like that of the Homeric heroes (with the possible exception of Odysseus), renders him inflexible, atropos, and thus unable to cope especially well with the shifting social relations and incresingly complex politics of the polis of the seventh to fifth century. Much is "heavy" for Demonax to bear these days.
What Demonax lacks is the "skillfulness," the sophia, that Theognis invokes for himself in verses 213-218: the ability to be like the octopus - the polypous, or polypos (in poetic diction) - which can alter itself to meet its circumstances, and which is the very opposite of atropia. Indeed the name polypous, which can also mean 'polyp' in the sense of an amorphous growth, suggests the octopus's power to change not only its color but even its shape, as it passes through narrow crevices and passages in rocks where bonier, stiffer creatures would get stuck. Lacking, then, the octopus's sophia, Demonax does not "know how" (epistei) to adjust his "will" to changing situations or to discipline his "will" to present a variegated, "many-colored ethos" adapted to the "tempers" of his interlocutors. Note that "many colored," poikilon, can also be rendered (in different contexts) as "dappled, embroidered, in-wrought, intricate, adorned, diversified, changeful, various, subtle, differing"; note as well that "tempers," orgai, can also be rendered as "angers, passions, moods, dispositions." The word translated as "will" in these verses, thymos, more generally signifies "heart" as the seat of emotions, desires and intentionalities, or even "soul" or "spirit" as the source of animate energies. As "spirit" or "spiritedness," moreover, thymos can signify "anger" or "passion." The word I translate as "heart," kardia, signifies the physical organ but also, metaphorically, the seat of emotional response (with its bodily concomitants).
We have, in sum, a set of overlapping terms that adumbrate notions of emotionality, intentionality, and ethical performance. Demonax's problem is his lack of sophia sufficient to discipline his thymos and his consequent lack of a range of performative possibilities, his atropia - and very probably, as a result, a propensity for displays of imperious, overbearing hubris, which, as we have seen, Theognis elsewhere treats as the major source of injustice, turmoil, and factional strife in the politics of Megara. Or we might say that Demonax's thymos in itself insufficiently skilled, insufficiently trained in a sophia that would enable him to desire and intend a greater range of performative possibilities in his realtions with persons of differing "tempers." (note - humours?) He has a limited emotional and ethical repertoire. He needs a poikilon eithos, or indeed a poikilos thymos.
As Bruno Gentili has pointed out, Theognis's octopus can be seen, on one hand, as an emblem of a code of savoir faire for the noble who needs to exercise "adroitness" in the management of his public life and, on the other hand, as an emblem of the sixth-century poet's relations with different audiences, including the "friends" and patrons with whom he associates and for whom he performs. Either way, the octopus signifies what we can call the rhetoricity of both the poet's and the noble's need to adapt their discourse and their self-presentation to the exigencies, opportunities, and limits afforded by the situations in which they must present themselves. In this way, the poet's own skill at such rhetorical adaptation can itself be understood as a model of the sophia required for the ruling elites within the polis - just as, in Hesiod's "Hymn to the Muses," the epideictic discourse of the poet is seen to provide the stable, rehearsable paradigms of eloquence and wisdom for the public speech of the basileus whose persuasive utterance resolves disputes with "straight justice" before they can degenerate into cycles of vendetta. The octopus-like rhetorical sophia that Theognis both invokes for himself as poet and models for his audience of upper-class Megarians is, moreover, more than just a matter of superficial social skill (although it includes that ). It is also, and crucially, a matter of profound political necessity, because it impolies a principle of answerability that can enable the negotiation of competing interests within the polis both elite and popular, according to some mutually acceptable accounting of dike, "the right" (which, of course, may itself become an object of negotiation or dispute). That is, the octopus's rhetorical sophia provides a principle that can prevent an agon of competing interests from hardening into factional polemics and degenerating into civil strife and bloodshed, wiht hubristic atropia the ruling ethic on all sides. Theognis's verse, addressed to his noble audience while evoking the "straight path" of justice between factional extremes, attmepts to speak as the voice of this sophia.
Walker, Jeffrey - Rhetoric and Poetics in Antiquity
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Author: A. D. B., fl. 1619.
Title: The court of the most illustrious and most magnificent Iames, the first King of Great-Britaine, France, and Ireland: &c. VVith diuers rules, most pure precepts, and selected definitions liuely delineated.
Date: 1619
Title: The court of the most illustrious and most magnificent Iames, the first King of Great-Britaine, France, and Ireland: &c. VVith diuers rules, most pure precepts, and selected definitions liuely delineated.
Date: 1619
...But peraduenture thou wilt obiect and say, a Courtier
must haue a cloake against euery winde that bloweth: In|deede I heare it, and
it griues me that I heare it, yet I can hardly, and in truth very hardly, denie
and gainsay it. For Courtierrs had neede to apply and confirme them|selues, to
all occasions, and to the conditions of them with whome they liue; to bee
subtill and craftie both in their Genius and disposition, and
more mutable and vari|able than Proteus himselfe. But heere I
must intreate the reader that he would not entertaine such a thought of me, as
that, what is now to this purpose said or written is out of any enuie;
peraduenture I haue writ somwhat too freely, (which if so) yet truly tis free
from all malignant bitternesse. And indeede if wee will consider one thing with
another, who is hee that knowes not that there be those in a Court, who at
the first sight doe seeme to haue in them much grauity, literature, and
singular humanity, and yet for all this being deepely diu'd into, and narrow|ly
obserued are knowne vnder these beautifull, and spe|tious outsides and vales of
vertue, to couer and keepe se|cret the deadly poyson of flattery? And with good
rea|son, for the Court is the flatterers stage or Theatre where|in
hee still doth practise, to adapt and fit himselfe to all assayes excelling POLYPUS
farre, yea and the Cameleon in change of coullours
& mutability of conditions. Peren|nius endeauouring to
enlarge and amplifie his pomp and power, brought Commodus the Emperor to
his vtter ouer|throw, yea many other, haue by this hellish inchanting poyson,
of flattery infatuated and finally ruinated many mighty monarches, potent and
powerfullConquerors of kingdomes and nations.
(snip)
The wise and well experienc'd Courtier hauing to doe with diuerse and
sundry men, must as variously as warily beare and behaue himselfe with them
all: which he may easily do if he be well acquainted with their qualities and
conditions; but especially if he be wel seene in Histories, out of which he
shall learne and discerne, that theGenius and disposition of the
Spaniard is different to the nature and inclination of the Italian, the
Italians to the French, and the French to the Germaines, and thence may the
wise and politicke Courtier see and perceiue their variety and diuersitie. But
what I now admonish and aduise thee of, I wish may be laid vp and kept
safely in the most secret closet of thy heart and memory, namely, that there
are a most pestiferous kind of Courtiers, who for filthie Lucre's sake,
will auouch and confirme falshold for truth, who will prayse any thing which
they haue by relation or report, either from the Prince, or Common people,
whither it be honest or dishonest, yea, and which on the other side will with
the Prince or people vilipend and dis|praise any thing whatsoeuer, be it nere
so commendable, changing like POLYPUS not their superficies or
outward collour, but euen altering their mind and vnderstanding with the change
and mutation of their places of aboade. Certainly such Courtiers as these, do
neuer take any care to keepe a pure or vnspotted conscience to God, nor a good
report toward their neighbours. But let vs consider both Kings, Princes, &
courtiers, yea al men both publike and priuate whatsoeuer, that there is aboue
and about vs, an eare to heare, an eye to
see, and a Booke wherein all our words and deedes are writ and recorded: and
that therefore in whatsoeuer kind and condition of life we liue we especially
choose and make choyce of pietie and in|teglitie, as our chiefe guides therein,
and let vs be most cautelous and carefull that when we labour by all means to
gaine the grace and fauour of our earthly Soueraigne, we thereby loose not the
loue of our celestiall Sauiour. O let vs marke and remember this, that the
conscience being maculate, and contaminated with sin and impietie begets a
worme, which will gnaw there eternally: but contrariwise, that the conscience
which is beautifull, spe|cious, and free from grosse enormities, doth
wonderful|ly conserue, nourish, and cherish in vs the speciall grace and fauour
of the Almightie.
(snip)
Let the discreet Courtier also speake of his Prince when he is absent as
though he where present; wouldst thou know the reason? with patience heare it,
and I shall willingly shew it. Assuredly this is vndenyable, that al|most in
euery Court, Enuy and Auarice, doe stand vp in a corner behind the painted
cloth, but flattery, and Ambition will confront and out face thee, let the
Cour|tier therefore I say be aduisedly vigilant, and that I may againe speake
with Homer as formerly, a fronte & a tergo, that
is, watch on all sides, For such will seeme in shew to be thy
freinds, who indeed are nothing lesse, who artifi|cially and enuiously will
coine and forge new termes & quaint phrases, thereby to induce thee to say
somewhat touching thy Prince, all this while aiming and leuelling at no other
marke, than that thou maist be induced either to make some ill report of him,
or to intrap thee by some craftie or captious apprehension of thy speeches,
where|in thou maist seeme to offend him absent, whereof had himselfebin present
to heare, he neuer had made any ill construction. Wherefore let thetheCourtier beof POLYPUS mind,
to take vpon him diuers conditions and disposations, seuerall shapes, and
shewes as time and place shall repuire, yet neuer digressing from equitie and
honesie.
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Author: Averell, W.
Title: A meruailous combat of contrarieties Malignantlie striuing in the me[m]bers of mans bodie, allegoricallie representing vnto vs the enuied state of our florishing common wealth: wherin dialogue-wise by the way, are touched the extreame vices of this present time. VVith an earnest and vehement exhortation to all true English harts, couragiously to be readie prepared against the enemie. by W.A.
Date: 1588
Title: A meruailous combat of contrarieties Malignantlie striuing in the me[m]bers of mans bodie, allegoricallie representing vnto vs the enuied state of our florishing common wealth: wherin dialogue-wise by the way, are touched the extreame vices of this present time. VVith an earnest and vehement exhortation to all true English harts, couragiously to be readie prepared against the enemie. by W.A.
Date: 1588
The Tongue.
Nay rather they are
like the gaping Gulfe in Sicil, na|med Charybdis, which
euer deuoureth, & is neuer satis-fied, or like the fire,
that the more it hath, the more it still consu|meth: for Polypus had
neuer more shifts, then y Back
hath suites, nor the Camelion more cullers then y Belly
Cookes.
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Author: Baldwin, William, ca. 1518-1563?
Title: The last part of the Mirour for magistrates wherein may be seene by examples passed in this realme, vvith howe greenous [sic] plagues, vyces are punished in great princes & magistrats, and hovv frayle and vnstable vvorldly prosperity is founde, where fortune seemeth most highly to fauour.
Date: 1578
Title: The last part of the Mirour for magistrates wherein may be seene by examples passed in this realme, vvith howe greenous [sic] plagues, vyces are punished in great princes & magistrats, and hovv frayle and vnstable vvorldly prosperity is founde, where fortune seemeth most highly to fauour.
Date: 1578
The Polipus nor the Chamelion straunge,
That tourne themselues to euery hue they see
Are hot so ful of vayne and fickle chaunge
As is this false vnstedfast commontie.
Loe I alas with mine aduersitie
Haue tried it true, for they are fled and gone
And of an hoast, there is not left me one.
That tourne themselues to euery hue they see
Are hot so ful of vayne and fickle chaunge
As is this false vnstedfast commontie.
Loe I alas with mine aduersitie
Haue tried it true, for they are fled and gone
And of an hoast, there is not left me one.
(a man in hue, all hues in his controlling)
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Flaccus's crow -- absolute Johannes factotum
