Lettered below the image with ten lines of verse from
Johnson's preface to the First Folio: 'To The Reader / This figure, that thou
here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; Wherein the graver had a
strife With nature, to out-doo the life: O, could he but have drawn his wit /
As well in brasse as he hath hit His face the print would then surpasse All
that was ever writ in brasse But, since he cannot, reader looke Not on his
picture, but his booke. / Ben. Jonson. / From the Folio Edition of
Shakespeare's Plays, 1623'.
Gainsborough ‘Damn the original picture [Droeshout Figure]…I
think a stupider face I never beheld.’
Jonson, Cynthia's Revels:
TO THE SPECIAL FOUNTAIN of MANNERS, The Court.
Thou art a Bountiful and Brave Spring, and waterest all the Noble Plants of this Island. In thee the whole Kingdom dresseth it self, and is ambitious to use thee as her Glass. *Beware then thou render Men's FIGURES truly*, and teach them no less to hate their Deformities, than to love their Forms: For, to Grace, there should come Reverence; and no Man can call that Lovely, which is not also Venerable.
Thou art a Bountiful and Brave Spring, and waterest all the Noble Plants of this Island. In thee the whole Kingdom dresseth it self, and is ambitious to use thee as her Glass. *Beware then thou render Men's FIGURES truly*, and teach them no less to hate their Deformities, than to love their Forms: For, to Grace, there should come Reverence; and no Man can call that Lovely, which is not also Venerable.
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Figuring Shakespeare/Oxford/Travailer Amorphus' 'monumentally' bad form:
IMAGE/FIGURE
Origin and Etymology of IMAGE
Middle English, "effigy, FIGURE, mental impression of
something observed, reflection, resemblance," borrowed from Anglo-French,
shortened from imagene, borrowed from Latin imāgin-, imāgō
"representation, reflection, apparition, semblance, copy, visible
form," from imā- (probably the stem of an otherwise unattested verb
*imārī with the same base as imitārī "to follow as a PATTERN,
copy") + -gin-, -gō, denominal or deverbal noun suffix — more at imitate
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SPECULUM Tuscanismi 1580 Gabriel Harvey - satire made upon the Earl of Oxford:
...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.
"Tell me in good sooth, doth it not too evidently appear
that this English poet [Earl of Oxford] wanted but a GOOD PATTERN before his eyes,
as it might be some delicate and choice elegant Poesy
of good Master Sidney's or Master Dyer's
(our very Castor and Pollux for such and many greater matters)
when this trim gear was in the matching?"
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.
"Tell me in good sooth, doth it not too evidently appear
that this English poet [Earl of Oxford] wanted but a GOOD PATTERN before his eyes,
as it might be some delicate and choice elegant Poesy
of good Master Sidney's or Master Dyer's
(our very Castor and Pollux for such and many greater matters)
when this trim gear was in the matching?"
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A Monument Without a Tomb – Jonson on Shakespeare
The English word monument stems from the Latin word monere,
which means to remind. As
Griswold notes, "the word `monument' derives from the Latin monere,
which means not just `to remind' but also `to admonish', `warn',
`advise', `instruct'" (Blair et al.)
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1572 - Edward de Vere, preface in Latin to Batholomew
Clerke's translation into English of Castiglione's Il Cortegiano (The
Courtier).
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. Nay more: however elaborate the ceremonial, whatever the magnificence of the court, the splendor of the courtiers, and the multitude of spectators, he has been able to lay down principles for the guidance of the very Monarch himself.
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. Nay more: however elaborate the ceremonial, whatever the magnificence of the court, the splendor of the courtiers, and the multitude of spectators, he has been able to lay down principles for the guidance of the very Monarch himself.
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Myself myself – England’s Narcissus
Shakespeare
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me myself indeed
Beated and chopp'd with tanned antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
Self so self-loving were iniquity.
'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me myself indeed
Beated and chopp'd with tanned antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
Self so self-loving were iniquity.
'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
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Master of Courtesy Signior Amorphus/Earl of
Oxford/Shakespeare
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Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount-from Cynthia's Revels
By Ben Jonson
Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears;
Yet slower, yet, O faintly, gentle springs!
List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her division, when she sings.
Droop herbs and flowers;
Fall grief in showers;
Our beauties are not ours.
O, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature’s pride is now a withered daffodil.
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Bacon, Wisdom of the Ancients
IV. - Narcissus, or Self-Love
(snip) And they who are depraved, and rendered still fonder of themselves by this custom, grow strangely indolent, inactive, and perfectly stupid. The Narcissus, a spring flower, is an elegant emblem of this temper, which at first flourishes, and is talked of, but, when ripe, frustrates the expectation conceived of it.
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Bacon, Wisdom of the Ancients
IV. - Narcissus, or Self-Love
(snip) And they who are depraved, and rendered still fonder of themselves by this custom, grow strangely indolent, inactive, and perfectly stupid. The Narcissus, a spring flower, is an elegant emblem of this temper, which at first flourishes, and is talked of, but, when ripe, frustrates the expectation conceived of it.
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Thou art a monument without a tomb – Horatian-style Jonson/‘flattering
slave’ on ‘Master’ Shakespeare
The English word monument stems from the Latin word monere,
which means to remind. As
Griswold notes, "the word `monument' derives from the Latin monere,
which means not just `to remind' but also `to admonish', `warn',
`advise', `instruct'" (Blair et al.)
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Who is he?
William X, cunningly composed of two left arms and a MASK? -Nabokov, Bend Sinister
****************************
Amid grandees of times Elizabethan
you shimmered too, you followed sumptuous custom;
the circle of ruff, the silv'ry satin that
encased your thigh, the wedgelike beard - in all of this
you were like other men... Thus was enfolded
your godlike thunder in a succinct cape.
Haughty, aloof from theatre's alarums,
you easily, regretlessly relinquished
the laurels twinning into a dry wreath,
concealing for all time your monstrous genius
beneath a MASK; and yet, your phantasm's ECHOES
still vibrate for us; your Venetian Moor,
his anguish; Falstaff's visage, like an udder
with pasted-on mustache; the raging Lear..
You are among us, you're alive; your name, though,
you shimmered too, you followed sumptuous custom;
the circle of ruff, the silv'ry satin that
encased your thigh, the wedgelike beard - in all of this
you were like other men... Thus was enfolded
your godlike thunder in a succinct cape.
Haughty, aloof from theatre's alarums,
you easily, regretlessly relinquished
the laurels twinning into a dry wreath,
concealing for all time your monstrous genius
beneath a MASK; and yet, your phantasm's ECHOES
still vibrate for us; your Venetian Moor,
his anguish; Falstaff's visage, like an udder
with pasted-on mustache; the raging Lear..
You are among us, you're alive; your name, though,
YOUR IMAGE, too - DECEIVING, thus, the world
you have submerged in your beloved LETHE...
you have submerged in your beloved LETHE...
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What is painting but the act of embracing, by means of art, the surface of the pool? Alberti
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Greene’s Groatsworth:
What is painting but the act of embracing, by means of art, the surface of the pool? Alberti
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Greene’s Groatsworth:
...there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers,
that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in
a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank
verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene
in a country."
