The following is supplementary material regarding the Stratfordian Shakespeare identity as a manifestation of the Earl of Oxford's 'mala fama'. As mirrored in Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, courtiers participated in a largely aesthetized space with values that conflicted with humanist pedagogy based on imitation and humanist constructions of virtue and 'true nobility'. Nobles who did not conform to scholarly schemes of virtue ran the risk of being branded as false or empty figures. Increasingly the court was characterized as a place of spectacle and show devoid of worth. Inimitable and singular Oxford's literary and personal fame were collateral damage in the civil war of words that preceded the material civil war - as the reforming spirit of the times would eventually reach to the throne and kill an English king.
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Art out-dooing Nature: - making miracles or monsters?
De Vere:
For what more difficult, more noble, or more magnificent task has anyone ever undertaken than our author Castiglione, who has drawn for us the FIGURE and model of a courtier, a work to which nothing can be added, in which there is no redundant word, a portrait which we shall recognize as that of a highest and most perfect type of man. And so, although NATURE herself has made nothing perfect in every detail, yet THE MANNERS OF MEN exceed in dignity that with which NATURE has endowed them; and he who SURPASSES others has here SURPASSED himself and has even OUT-DONE nature, which by no one has ever been SURPASSED.
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Jonson, To the Reader (Shakespeare's First Folio)
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-do the life:
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit
His face; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass:
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.
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Arthur Golding to Edward de Vere (Epistle Dedicatorie, Psalms):
...I beseech your Lordship consider how God hath placed you upon a high stage in the eyes of all men, as a guide, patterne, insample and leader unto others. If your vertues be uncounterfayted, if your religion should be sound and pure, if your doings be according to true godlines: you shal be a stay to your cuntrie, a comforte too good men, a bridle to evil men, a joy to your friends, a corzie to your enemies, and an encreace of honor to your owne house. But if you should become eyther a counterfayt Protestant, or a perverse Papist, or a colde and careless newter (which God forbid) the harme could not be expressed which you should do to your native Cuntrie. For (as Cicero no lesse truely than wisely affirmeth and as the sorowfull dooings of our present dayes do too much certeinly avouch) greate men hurt not the common weale so much by beeing evil in respect of themselves, as by drawing others unto evel by their evil example...
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Brunhilde on Trial:
Fama and Lydgatean Poetics
Mary C. Flannery
The Poet as Judge
John Lydgate's Fall of Princes suggests a variety of parallels between the dynamics of late-medieval legal and literary fama. It is as much a collection of stories about fama as it is an encyclopedia of Fortune's triumphs over great men and women. As part of their rise to prosperity and power, Lydgate's characters obtain "good fame," and as part of their sudden fall at the hands of Fortune, they lose it just as quickly. But no matter how they meet their ends, and whether they are perceived as unfortunate but virtuous characters or as cruel or immoral individuals who deserved to get what was coming to them, every one of the Fall's subjects is famous. The term "famous" must here be understood to refer to "reputation" in a neutral sense; in other words, it describes the possession of renown, but not of good nor bad renown. In this respect, I am using these terms as Giovanni Boccaccio does in his prologue to De mulieribus claris (written in 1361–62), when he explains that his "famous" women are not necessarily distinguished by their virtue: "Instead, with the kind permission of my readers, I will adopt a wider meaning and consider as famous those women whom I know to have gained a reputation throughout the world for any deed whatsoever."21The Fall of Princes is an English verse translation of the 1409 edition of Laurent de Premierfait's French prose adaptation of Boccaccio's De casibus virorum illustrium, written between 1355 and 1360.22 The De casibus was a collection of narratives describing the falls of famous men and women from prosperity. Boccaccio wrote it in the hope that he might be able to draw the great men of his age away from their vicious ways.23 In the two centuries after its completion, the De casibus was translated into (or imitated in) Italian, French, German, Spanish, and English.24 Lydgate derived his text from the second version of Premierfait's Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes, which Patricia M. Gathercole has argued was written in order "to soften some of his [Premierfait's] cruel attacks on [End Page 143] the priests and kings of the time that are found in the introduction to the 1400 version."25 Although Lydgate's patron, Duke Humphrey, appears to have owned a copy of the original Latin text of the De casibus, there is no evidence that Lydgate ever consulted it.26
(snip)
The Ramifications of Fama
The picture of Lydgatean fama that I have put forward is one that envisions the poet as having a good deal of control over the fate of tidings and reputations. Presented with conflicting evidence, poets are charged with weighing the repute and accounts of texts, authors, and characters. The authorial decisions they make affect the tales that are transmitted to the reading public and to succeeding generations of readers and writers. This reading of the Brunhilde episode sets the stage for a reassessment of Lydgatean poetics as it is articulated within the Fall of Princes and elsewhere in the Lydgate canon. At its core, the Fall is a text that is fundamentally concerned with the fates of the famous. Lydgate's prologues and envoys suggest that, ultimately, the fates of great men and women are in the hands of those who record their fame in writing. Lydgate's prologue to Book IV of the Fall, for example, lauds writing as the force that preserves not only the memory of people and events, but the very foundations of civilization:Lawe hadde perisshed, nadde be writyng;
Our feith appalled, ner vertu of scripture;
For al religioun and ordre of good lyuyng
Takth ther exaumple be doctryn of lettrure.
For writyng causeth, with helpe of portraiture,
That thynges dirked, of old that wer begonne,
To be remembred with this celestial sonne.
God sette writyng & lettres in sentence,
Ageyn the dulnesse of our infirmyte,
This world tenlumyne be crafft of elloquence;
Canoun, cyuile, philosophie–these thre
Confermed fraunchises of many strong cite,
Couenauntis asselid, trouthis of old assured,
Nadde writyng been, myht nat haue endurid.
Dilligence, cheef triumphatrice
Of slogardie, necligence & slouthe,
Eek of memorye upholdere and norice
And registreer to suppowaile trouthe,
Hath of old labour (& ellis wer gret routhe)
Brouhte thynges passid, notable in substaunce,
Onli be writyng to newe remembrance.
(IV.22–42)
In this prologue and elsewhere in the Fall, Lydgate
also gestures toward his own ambitions when he remarks that
Writyng caused poetis to recureWhen viewed in the context of his treatment of fama in the Fall of Princes, Lydgate's references to his "laureate" ambitions are suggestive of a departure from Chaucerian poetics. Although Lydgate articulates these ambitions in a way that suggests he is following in the steps of his master Chaucer,46 his poetic confidence is markedly at odds with the underlying anxiety and uncertainty of Chaucer's "fullest exploration of the poet's position and responsibilities, the sources of his knowledge, and the limits of his vision": the House of Fame.47 Most studies of Lydgatean "propaganda" tend to focus on Lydgate's anxiety over the illegitimacy of the Lancastrian dynasty;48 but a more thorough exploration of Lydgate's treatment of fame in the Fall of Princes reveals a poetic stance that contrasts with that described in Chaucer's poem. This is particularly interesting when one considers that, although Lydgate mentions the House of Fame five times in the Fall and uses the images of Fame's trumpets almost as often, on only one occasion does he refer to the poem in a way that evokes some of the uncertainty of Chaucer's dream vision.49
A name eternal, the laurer whan thei wan,
In adamaunt graue perpetuelli tendure.
(IV.64–66)45
As it is articulated in the House of Fame, Chaucer's conception of the poet's ability to generate and preserve immortal fame is above all a limited and anxious one. He presents his readers with imagery that evokes a sense of impermanence and instability: the names of the famous are carved into the sides of an ice-mountain, but half of them are slowly melting away under the sun. Fame, the sister of Fortune (1544–48), distributes her favors according to her whims rather than according to the deserts of her suitors; and in the "House of Rumor," tidings flit hither and thither of their own volition, sometimes joining together to form a completely new tale before escaping to the outside world.50 The entire portrait is nightmarishly surreal: it is a universe in which the dreamer-poet has virtually no control over his movements, and although he has been told that this is the place where he will find "of Loves folk moo tydynges" (675), he never even accomplishes this. He is swept off to the place that is purportedly the origin of those tidings that all poets need, and he so sorely lacks, and he finds only confusion and chaos. It is out of this chaos that tidings and poetic matter apparently spring. When the dreamer reaches the "House of Rumor," the narrator describes "Aventure" as "the moder of tydynges, / As the see of welles and of sprynges" (1982–84).
When read in conjunction with the capricious distribution of favors in Fame's palace and the random movement of tidings in the House of Rumor, this observation reinforces the poem's general atmosphere of uncertainty. No one but an unpredictable force is credited with the ability to determine the course of fama—the poet is only (and literally) along for the ride. Aside from the fact that the dreamer-poet's journey to the House of Fame allegedly has a divine origin (Jupiter is said to have commanded the eagle to collect him), poets do not appear to be very different from any of the supplicants before Fame's throne. If this is the case, then Dido's hand-wringing over the loss of her name in the House of Fame—"though I myghte duren ever, / That I have don rekever I never" (353–54)—and Criseyde's woeful predictions of her textual fate in Troilus and Criseyde—"O, rolled shal I ben on many a tonge!" (V, 1061)—might not be too far from expressing Chaucer's own authorial anxiety regarding his fame.51 Certainly the narrator of the House of Fame recoils at the idea of his name being included in the houses of Fame and Rumor. When someone asks if he has "come hider to han fame," he quickly responds:
"Nay, for sothe, frend," quod y;Neither Lydgate nor Boccaccio would have considered such shrinking from the prospect of acquiring fame to be appropriate to a poet. Lydgate was nothing if not ambitious, and in Boccaccio's Genealogie deorum gentilium, his Italian predecessor described the desire for glory as one of the preconditions conducive to the writing of poetry: "places of retirement, the lovely handiwork of Nature herself, are favorable to poetry, as well as peace of mind and desire for worldly glory."52 Moreover, in both Genealogie and De casibus, Boccaccio introduces a character (Donino and Petrarch, respectively) who insists that Boccaccio must rouse himself in order to attain glory through his writing: "Arise, then, shake off this inertia, and gird up your good wits for the task. Thus you will at once obey the King, and make for yourself a path to high renown."53 These few statements suggest that there is still much to be discovered about the relationships between Boccaccian, Chaucerian, and Lydgatean poetics. Whereas Chaucer expressed uncertainty regarding his ability to manage the fama of and within his own texts, Lydgate embraced the Boccaccian vision of the poet as one naturally inclined to seek fame and capable of controlling the transmission of textual fama. In Chaucer's House of Fame, fama and tidings were born of and transmitted according to "aventure." In the Brunhilde episodes of the De casibus and the Fall, fama is decided by poets weighing textual evidence, rather than by a fickle goddess. The confrontation between the Frankish queen and the poet-narrator suggests that, had Lydgate or Boccaccio composed their own versions of the House of Fame, they might have depicted a poet sitting in the place of Chaucer's capricious deity.
"I cam noght hyder, graunt mercy,
For no such cause, by my hed!
Sufficeth me, as I were ded,
That no wight have my name in honde."
(1873–77)
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Shakespeare:
O! lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O! lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
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Frontispiece - Raleigh's History of the World. Bona Fama and Mala Fama on either side of Globe. Spotted Fama has left hand resting on the world.
Jonson's Poem accompanying Raleigh's Frontispiece:
XLII. — THE *MIND* OF THE FRONTISPIECE
TO A BOOK.
From death and dark oblivion (near the same)
The mistress of man’s life, grave History,
*Raising the world to good and evil fame*,
Doth vindicate it to eternity.
Wise Providence would so : that nor the good
Might be defrauded, nor the great secured,
But both might know their ways were understood,
When vice alike in time with virtue dured :
Which makes that, lighted by the beamy hand
Of Truth, that searcheth the most hidden springs,
And guided by Experience, whose straight wand
Doth mete, whose line doth sound the depth of things ;
She cheerfully supporteth what she rears,
Assisted by no strengths but are her own,
Some note of which each varied pillar bears,
By which, as proper titles, she is known
Time's witness, herald of Antiquity,
The light of Truth, and life of Memory.
The mistress of man’s life, grave History,
*Raising the world to good and evil fame*,
Doth vindicate it to eternity.
Wise Providence would so : that nor the good
Might be defrauded, nor the great secured,
But both might know their ways were understood,
When vice alike in time with virtue dured :
Which makes that, lighted by the beamy hand
Of Truth, that searcheth the most hidden springs,
And guided by Experience, whose straight wand
Doth mete, whose line doth sound the depth of things ;
She cheerfully supporteth what she rears,
Assisted by no strengths but are her own,
Some note of which each varied pillar bears,
By which, as proper titles, she is known
Time's witness, herald of Antiquity,
The light of Truth, and life of Memory.
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Figuring Shakespeare's 'illegitimate' aesthetics:
In every action it behoves the poet to know which is the utmost bound,
how far with fitness, and a necessary proportion, he may produce, and
determine it...For, *as a body without proportion cannot be goodly*, no
more can the action, either the comedy, or tragedy, without its fit
bounds. (Jonson, Discoveries)
From death and dark oblivion (near the same)
The mistress of man’s life, grave History,
Raising the world to good and evil fame,
Doth vindicate it to eternity.(Jonson)
The mistress of man’s life, grave History,
Raising the world to good and evil fame,
Doth vindicate it to eternity.(Jonson)
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Gabriel Harvey, Speculum Tuscanismi and 'exemplary' Sidney:
'Tell me in good sooth, doth it not too evidently appeare, that this
English Poetm (note - Edward de Vere) wanted but a good PATTERNE before his eyes, as it might be
some delicate, and choyce elegant Poesie of good M. Sidneys, or M. Dyers
(ouer very Castor, & Pollux for such and many greater matters) when
this trimme geere was in hatching: Much like some Gentlewooman, I
coulde name in England, who by all Phisick and Physiognomie too, might
as well have brought forth all goodly faire CHILDREN, as they have now
some ylfavoured and DEFORMED, had they at the tyme of their Conception,
had in sight, the amiable and gallant beautifull Pictures of ADONIS,
Cupido, Ganymedes, or the like, which no doubt would have wrought such
deepe impression in their fantasies, and imaginations, as their
children, and perhappes their Childrens children to, myght have thanked
them for, as long as they shall have Tongues in their heades."
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Shakespeare:
If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune's BASTARD be unfathered,
As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
To this I witness call the fools of time,
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
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Art(Jonson) vs. Ingenium (Shakespeare)
Shakespeare, dedication V&A:
But if the first HEIRE of my inuention proue DEFORMED, I shall be sorie it had so noble a god-father : and neuer after eare so barren a land, for feare it yeeld me still so bad a haruest, I leaue it to your Honourable suruey, and your Honor to your hearts content, vvhich I wish may alvvaies ansvvere your ovvne vvish, and the vvorlds hopefull expectation.
If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune's BASTARD be unfathered,
As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
To this I witness call the fools of time,
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
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Art(Jonson) vs. Ingenium (Shakespeare)
Shakespeare, dedication V&A:
But if the first HEIRE of my inuention proue DEFORMED, I shall be sorie it had so noble a god-father : and neuer after eare so barren a land, for feare it yeeld me still so bad a haruest, I leaue it to your Honourable suruey, and your Honor to your hearts content, vvhich I wish may alvvaies ansvvere your ovvne vvish, and the vvorlds hopefull expectation.
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Shakespeare
O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
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TO MY MOST DEARELY-LOVED FRIEND HENERY REYNOLDS ESQUIRE, OF
Poets and Poesie.
by Michael Drayton
(snip)
The noble Sidney, with this last arose,
That Heroe for numbers, and for Prose.
That throughly pac'd our language as to show,
The plenteous English hand in hand might goe
With Greeke and Latine, and did first reduce
Our tongue from Lillies writing then in use;
Talking of Stones, Stars, Plants, of fishes, Flyes,
Playing with words, and idle Similes,
As th'English, APES and very ZANIES be
Of every thing, that they doe heare and see,
So IMITATING his ridiculous tricks,
They spake and writ, all like meere lunatiques.
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TO MY MOST DEARELY-LOVED FRIEND HENERY REYNOLDS ESQUIRE, OF
Poets and Poesie.
by Michael Drayton
(snip)
The noble Sidney, with this last arose,
That Heroe for numbers, and for Prose.
That throughly pac'd our language as to show,
The plenteous English hand in hand might goe
With Greeke and Latine, and did first reduce
Our tongue from Lillies writing then in use;
Talking of Stones, Stars, Plants, of fishes, Flyes,
Playing with words, and idle Similes,
As th'English, APES and very ZANIES be
Of every thing, that they doe heare and see,
So IMITATING his ridiculous tricks,
They spake and writ, all like meere lunatiques.
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Sidney as the picture of 'True Nobility":
From Moffett's _Nobilis_ or_ A View of the Life and Death of a Sidney_,
dedicated to WILLIAM HERBERT: Jan 1594 (?)
"A few, to be sure, were observed to murmur, and to envy him so great preferment; but they were men without worth or virtue, who considered the public welfare a matter of indifference- fitter, in truth, to hold a DISTAFF and CARD WOOL AMONG SERVANT GIRLS than at any time to be considered as RIVALS by Sidney. For no one ever wished ill to the honor of the Sidney's except him who wished ill to the commonwealth; no one ever for forsook Philip except him whom the hope that he might at some time be honourable had also forsaken; and no one ever injured him except him for whom virtue and piety had no love. He was never so incensed, however, by the wrongs of malignant or slanderous men but that at the slightest sign of penitence the heat of his disturbed spirit would die down, and he would bury all past offenses under a kind of everlasting OBLIVION. (p.82 Nobilis (The Noble Man), Moffett)
dedicated to WILLIAM HERBERT: Jan 1594 (?)
"A few, to be sure, were observed to murmur, and to envy him so great preferment; but they were men without worth or virtue, who considered the public welfare a matter of indifference- fitter, in truth, to hold a DISTAFF and CARD WOOL AMONG SERVANT GIRLS than at any time to be considered as RIVALS by Sidney. For no one ever wished ill to the honor of the Sidney's except him who wished ill to the commonwealth; no one ever for forsook Philip except him whom the hope that he might at some time be honourable had also forsaken; and no one ever injured him except him for whom virtue and piety had no love. He was never so incensed, however, by the wrongs of malignant or slanderous men but that at the slightest sign of penitence the heat of his disturbed spirit would die down, and he would bury all past offenses under a kind of everlasting OBLIVION. (p.82 Nobilis (The Noble Man), Moffett)
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Suppressing Oxford's Fame:
Fulke Greville (Recorder of Stratford-upon-Avon), _Life of Sidney_:
...Neither am I (for my part) so much in love with this life, nor believe so little in a better to come, as to complain of God for taking him [Sidney], and such like exorbitant worthyness from us: fit (as it were by an Ostracisme) to be divided, and not incorporated with our corruptions: yet for the sincere affection I bear to my Prince, and Country, my prayer to God is, that this Worth, and Way may not fatally be buried with him; in respect, that both before his time, and since, experience hath published the usuall discipline of greatnes to have been tender of it self onely; making HONOUR a triumph, or rather TROPHY OF DESIRE, set up in the eyes of Mankind, either to be worshiped as Idols, or else as Rebels to perish under her glorious oppressions. Notwithstanding, when the pride of flesh, and power of favour shall cease in these by death, or disgrace; what then hath time to register, or fame to publish in these great mens names, that will not be offensive, or infectious to others? What Pen without blotting can write the story of their deeds? Or what Herald blaze their Arms without a blemish? And as for their counsels and projects, when they come once to light, shall they not live as noysome, and loathsomely above ground, as their Authors carkasses lie in the grave? So as the return of such greatnes to the world, and themselves, can be but private reproach, publique ill example, and a fatall scorn to the Government they live in. Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the greatness which he affected was built upon true Worth; esteeming Fame more than Riches, and Noble actions far above Nobility it self.
...Neither am I (for my part) so much in love with this life, nor believe so little in a better to come, as to complain of God for taking him [Sidney], and such like exorbitant worthyness from us: fit (as it were by an Ostracisme) to be divided, and not incorporated with our corruptions: yet for the sincere affection I bear to my Prince, and Country, my prayer to God is, that this Worth, and Way may not fatally be buried with him; in respect, that both before his time, and since, experience hath published the usuall discipline of greatnes to have been tender of it self onely; making HONOUR a triumph, or rather TROPHY OF DESIRE, set up in the eyes of Mankind, either to be worshiped as Idols, or else as Rebels to perish under her glorious oppressions. Notwithstanding, when the pride of flesh, and power of favour shall cease in these by death, or disgrace; what then hath time to register, or fame to publish in these great mens names, that will not be offensive, or infectious to others? What Pen without blotting can write the story of their deeds? Or what Herald blaze their Arms without a blemish? And as for their counsels and projects, when they come once to light, shall they not live as noysome, and loathsomely above ground, as their Authors carkasses lie in the grave? So as the return of such greatnes to the world, and themselves, can be but private reproach, publique ill example, and a fatall scorn to the Government they live in. Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the greatness which he affected was built upon true Worth; esteeming Fame more than Riches, and Noble actions far above Nobility it self.
**************************************
Jonson figured as suppressing Fame:
Cartwright, William, Jonsonus Virbius
...Blest life of Authors, unto whom we owe
Those that we have, and those that we want too:
Th'art all so good, that reading makes thee worse,
And to have writ so well's thine onely curse.
Secure then of thy merit, thou didst hate
That servile base dependance upon fate:
Successe thou ne'r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,
Which chance, and TH'AGES FASHION DID MAKE HIT;
Excluding those from life in after-time,
Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime:
Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty'ld name
What was but noise; and getting Briefes for fame
Gathered the many's suffrages, and thence
Made commendation a benevolence:
THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win
That best applause of being crown'd within..
...Blest life of Authors, unto whom we owe
Those that we have, and those that we want too:
Th'art all so good, that reading makes thee worse,
And to have writ so well's thine onely curse.
Secure then of thy merit, thou didst hate
That servile base dependance upon fate:
Successe thou ne'r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,
Which chance, and TH'AGES FASHION DID MAKE HIT;
Excluding those from life in after-time,
Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime:
Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty'ld name
What was but noise; and getting Briefes for fame
Gathered the many's suffrages, and thence
Made commendation a benevolence:
THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win
That best applause of being crown'd within..
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Jonson termed the Court The ACADEMY of Ignorance and Parasites' Place:
A Speech according to Horace (Horatio?). --Jonson
(snip)
And could (if our great Men would let their Sons
Come to their Schools,) show 'em the use of Guns.
And there instruct the noble English Heirs
In Politick, and Militar Affairs;
But he that should perswade, to have this done
For Education of our Lordings; Soon
Should he hear of Billow, Wind, and Storm,
From the Tempestuous Grandlings, who'll inform
Us, in our bearing, that are thus, and thus,
Born, bred, allied? what's he dare tutor us?
Are we by Book-worms to be aw'd? must we
Live by their Scale, that dare do nothing free?
Why are we Rich, or Great, except to show
All licence in our Lives? What need we know?
More then to praise a Dog? or Horse? or speak
The Hawking Language? or our Day to break
With Citizens? let Clowns, and Tradesmen breed
Their Sons to study Arts, the Laws, the Creed:
We will believe like Men of our own Rank,
In so much Land a year, or such a Bank,
That turns us so much Monies, at which rate
Our Ancestors impos'd on Prince and State.
Let poor Nobility be vertuous: We,
Descended in a Rope of Titles, be
From Guy, or Bevis, Arthur, or from whom
The Herald will. Our Blood is now become,
Past any need of Vertue. Let them care,
That in the Cradle of their Gentry are;
To serve the State by Councels, and by Arms:
We neither love the Troubles, nor the harms.
What love you then? your Whore? what study? Gate,
Carriage, and Dressing. There is up of late
The ACADEMY, where the Gallants meet ——
What to make Legs? yes, and to smell most sweet,
All that they do at Plays. O, but first here
They learn and study; and then practise there.
But why are all these Irons i' the Fire
Of several makings? helps, helps, t' attire
His Lordship. That is for his Band, his Hair
This, and that Box his Beauty to repair;
This other for his Eye-brows; hence, away,
I may no longer on these PICTURES stay,
These Carkasses of Honour; Taylors blocks,
Cover'd with Tissue, whose prosperity mocks
The fate of things: whilst totter'd Vertue holds
Her broken Arms up, to their EMPTY MOULDS.
***************************************
Oxford - Master of Courtship:
Author: Brooke, Christopher, d. 1628.
Title: Tvvo elegies consecrated to the neuer-dying memorie of the most worthily admyred; most hartily loued; and generally bewayled prince; Henry Prince of Wales.
Date: 1613
... HEE knew that Armes was th'exercise of KINGS;
The spurre to Fame, roote of NOBILITIES
Hee knew his BIRTH and SPIRIT had lent him wings
To mount the pitch of all his AVNCESTRIE:
Hee likewise knew Fames Trumpet neuer rings
Of delicate Courtship, but with Infamy;
Hee knew that Souldiers vs'd n'affected words,
Whose Tongues are SPEARES, their Oratory swords.
A Speech according to Horace (Horatio?). --Jonson
(snip)
And could (if our great Men would let their Sons
Come to their Schools,) show 'em the use of Guns.
And there instruct the noble English Heirs
In Politick, and Militar Affairs;
But he that should perswade, to have this done
For Education of our Lordings; Soon
Should he hear of Billow, Wind, and Storm,
From the Tempestuous Grandlings, who'll inform
Us, in our bearing, that are thus, and thus,
Born, bred, allied? what's he dare tutor us?
Are we by Book-worms to be aw'd? must we
Live by their Scale, that dare do nothing free?
Why are we Rich, or Great, except to show
All licence in our Lives? What need we know?
More then to praise a Dog? or Horse? or speak
The Hawking Language? or our Day to break
With Citizens? let Clowns, and Tradesmen breed
Their Sons to study Arts, the Laws, the Creed:
We will believe like Men of our own Rank,
In so much Land a year, or such a Bank,
That turns us so much Monies, at which rate
Our Ancestors impos'd on Prince and State.
Let poor Nobility be vertuous: We,
Descended in a Rope of Titles, be
From Guy, or Bevis, Arthur, or from whom
The Herald will. Our Blood is now become,
Past any need of Vertue. Let them care,
That in the Cradle of their Gentry are;
To serve the State by Councels, and by Arms:
We neither love the Troubles, nor the harms.
What love you then? your Whore? what study? Gate,
Carriage, and Dressing. There is up of late
The ACADEMY, where the Gallants meet ——
What to make Legs? yes, and to smell most sweet,
All that they do at Plays. O, but first here
They learn and study; and then practise there.
But why are all these Irons i' the Fire
Of several makings? helps, helps, t' attire
His Lordship. That is for his Band, his Hair
This, and that Box his Beauty to repair;
This other for his Eye-brows; hence, away,
I may no longer on these PICTURES stay,
These Carkasses of Honour; Taylors blocks,
Cover'd with Tissue, whose prosperity mocks
The fate of things: whilst totter'd Vertue holds
Her broken Arms up, to their EMPTY MOULDS.
***************************************
Oxford - Master of Courtship:
Author: Brooke, Christopher, d. 1628.
Title: Tvvo elegies consecrated to the neuer-dying memorie of the most worthily admyred; most hartily loued; and generally bewayled prince; Henry Prince of Wales.
Date: 1613
... HEE knew that Armes was th'exercise of KINGS;
The spurre to Fame, roote of NOBILITIES
Hee knew his BIRTH and SPIRIT had lent him wings
To mount the pitch of all his AVNCESTRIE:
Hee likewise knew Fames Trumpet neuer rings
Of delicate Courtship, but with Infamy;
Hee knew that Souldiers vs'd n'affected words,
Whose Tongues are SPEARES, their Oratory swords.
***************************************
In the form of 'scholar' Hamlet humanist pedagogy based on imitation is set loose in the court of Denmark and results in the destruction of the court and the loss of Danish sovereignty. Hamlet as Oxford's tragicomic response to Jonson's satiric assault on his character in the form of Amorphus in Cynthia's Revels - a sophisticated and ironic exploration of Jonson's judgement, his neoclassical ideals and his conception of the 'consociation of offices' between Prince and Poet that Jonson had expressed in Cynthia's Revels.
In the form of 'scholar' Hamlet humanist pedagogy based on imitation is set loose in the court of Denmark and results in the destruction of the court and the loss of Danish sovereignty. Hamlet as Oxford's tragicomic response to Jonson's satiric assault on his character in the form of Amorphus in Cynthia's Revels - a sophisticated and ironic exploration of Jonson's judgement, his neoclassical ideals and his conception of the 'consociation of offices' between Prince and Poet that Jonson had expressed in Cynthia's Revels.
