Love's Martyr
With what a spirit did the Turtle fly
Into the fire, and cheerfully did die.
He looked more pleasant in his countenance
Within the flame, than when he did advance
His pleasant wings upon the natural ground
True perfect love has so his poor heart bound.
**********************************
Shake-speare
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-liv'd Phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one more heinous crime:
O, carve not with the hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen!
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet do thy worst, old Time! Despite thy wrong
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
*****************************
“That Suffenus, O Varus, whom you know very well, is a charming fellow, and has wit and good manners. He also makes many more verses than any one else. I suppose he has got some ten thousand, or even more, written out in full ... imperial paper (chartae regiae), new rolls, new bosses, red ties, parchment wrappers; all ruled with lead, and smoothed with pumice. When you come to read these, the fashionable well-bred Suffenus I spoke of seems to be nothing but any goatherd or ditcher, when we look at him again; so absurd and changed is he. How are we to account for this? The same man who was just now a dinner table wit ... is more clumsy than the clumsy country [sic] whenever he touches poetry; and, at the same time, he is never so complacent as when he is writing a poem, he delights in himself and admires himself so much. -- Catullus, xxii. (Translation of F.W. Cornish)
*******************************
Chapman, Revenge Of Bussy D'AmboisAct 2 sc 1
(snip)
As these high men doe, low in all true grace,
Their height being priviledge to all things base.
And as the foolish poet that still writ
All his most selfe-lov'd verse in paper royall,185
Or partchment rul'd with lead, smooth'd with the pumice,
Bound richly up, and strung with crimson strings;
Never so blest as when hee writ and read
The ape-lov'd issue of his braine; and never
But joying in himselfe, admiring ever:190
Yet in his workes behold him, and hee show'd
Like to a ditcher. So these painted men,
All set on out-side, looke upon within,
And not a pezzants entrailes you shall finde
More foule and mezel'd, nor more sterv'd of minde.
********************************
Spenser, Faerie Queene
To Oxford:
To the right Honourable the Earle
of Oxenford, Lord high Chamberlayne of
England. &c.
REceiue most Noble Lord in gentle gree,
The vnripe fruit of an vnready wit:
Which by thy countenaunce doth craue to bee
Defended from foule Enuies poisnous bit.
Which so to doe may thee right well befit,
Sith th'antique glory of thine auncestry
Vnder a shady vele is therein writ,
And eke thine owne long liuing memory,
Succeeding them in true nobility:
And also for the LOVE, which thou doest beare
To th'HELICONIAN YMPS, and they to thee,
They vnto thee, and thou to them most deare:
DEARE as thou art UNTO THY SELFE, so LOVE
That LOVES & honours thee, *as doth behoue*.
***************************
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
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.
*************************
Horace, Art of Poetry
Earl of Roscommon
Quintilius (if his advice were ask'd)
Would freely tell you what you should correct,
Or (if you could not) bid you blot it out,
And with more care supply the vacancy;
But if he found you fond, and obstinate
(And apter to defend than mend your faults)
With silenc leave you to admire your self,
*And without Rival hugg your darling Book.*
The prudent care of an Impartial friend,
Will give you notice of each idle Line,
Shew what sounds harsh, & what wants ornament,
Or where it is too lavishly bestowed;
Make you explain all that he finds Obscure,
And with a strict Enquiry mark your faults;
Nor for these trifles fear to loose your love;
Those things, which now seem frivolous, & slight,
Will be of serious consequence to you,
When they have made you once Ridiculous.
**********************************
Alciato's Book of Emblems
Emblem 69
Self-love
Because your figure pleased you too much, Narcissus, it was changed into a flower, a plant of known senselessness. Self-love is the withering and destruction of natural power which brings and has brought ruin to many learned men, who having thrown away the method of the ancients seek new doctrines and pass on nothing but their own fantasies.
http://www.mun.ca/alciato/e069.html
**********************************
Cynthia's Revels, Jonson
AMORPHUS. That's good; but how "Pythagorical?"
PHI. Ay, Amorphus, why Pythagorical breeches?
AMO. O most kindly of all; 'tis a conceit of that fortune, I am
bold to hug my brain for.
PHA. How is it, *exquisite* Amorphus?
AMO. O, I am rapt with it, 'tis so fit, so proper, so happy --
PHI. Nay, do not rack us thus.
AMO. I never truly relish'd myself before. Give me your ears.
Breeches Pythagorical, by reason of their transmigration into
several shapes.
*********************************
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 Mens 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. It is not Powd'ring, Perfuming, and every day smelling of the Taylor, that converteth to a Beautiful Object: but a Mind shining through any Sute, which needs no False Light, either of Riches or Honours, to help it. Such shalt thou find some here, even in the Reign of C Y N T H I A, (a C R I T E S and an A R E T E.) Now, under thy P H œ B U S, it will be thy Province to make more: *Except thou desirest to have thy Source mix with the Spring of Self-love*, and so wilt draw upon thee as welcom a Discovery of thy Days, as was then made of her Nights.
Thy Servant, but not Slave,
BEN. JOHNSON.
******************************
venustas (Shakespeare)
.loveliness, comeliness, charm, grace, beauty, elegance, attractiveness, grace, art, artistic grace, comeliness, delightful conditions, fine taste
Virtus (Jonson)
manliness, manhood, strength, vigor, bravery, courage, excellence
******************************
Spindle/Distaff-side and Spear-side:
'WIL you handle the spindle with Hercules, when you should SHAKE the SPEARE with Achilles?" Lyly _Campaspe_.
*******************************
Shake-speare
If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfather’d,
As subject to Time’s love or to Time’s hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather’d.
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.
************************************
Billy Budd/Beauty - noble foundling/changeling
'Yes, Billy Budd was a foundling, a presumable by-blow, and, evidently, no ignoble one. Noble descent was as evident in him as in a blood horse.' (Melville, _Billy Budd_)
**********************************
Hawthorne and His Mosses
By Herman Melville
The Literary World, August 17 and 24, 1850
Would that all excellent books were FOUNDLINGS, without father or mother, that so it might be, we could glorify them, without including their ostensible authors. Nor would any true man take exception to this;--least of all, he who writes,--"When the Artist rises high enough to achieve the Beautiful, the symbol by which he makes it perceptible to mortal senses becomes of little value in his eyes, while his spirit possesses itself in the enjoyment of the reality."
But more than this, I know not what would be the right name to put on the title-page of an excellent book, but this I feel, that the names of all fine authors are fictitious ones, far more than that of Junius,--simply standing, as they do, for the mystical, ever-eluding SPIRIT of all BEAUTY, which ubiquitously possesses men of genius. Purely imaginative as this fancy may appear, it nevertheless seems to receive some warranty from the fact, that on a personal interview no great author has ever come up to the idea of his reader. But that dust of which our bodies are composed, how can it fitly express the nobler intelligences among us?
******************************
Signior Amorphus/Oxford
Cynthia’s Revels - Jonson
Act 1 Sc. III
Amorphus. I am a Rhinoceros, if I had thought a Creature
of her symmetry, could have dar'd so improportionable,
and abrupt a digression. Liberal, and divine Fount,
suffer my prophane hand to take of thy Bounties. By
the Purity of my taste, here is most ambrosiack Water;
I will sup of it again. By thy favour, sweet fount.
See, the Water (a more running, subtile, and humo-
rous Nymph than she) permits me to touch, and handle
her. What should I infer? If my Behaviours had been
of a cheap or customary garb; my Accent or Phrase
vulgar; my Garments trite; my Countenance illite-
rate, or unpractis'd in the incounter of a beautiful and
brave attir'd Piece; then I might (with some change
of colour) have suspected my Faculties: but know-
ing my self an essence so sublimated, and refin'd by
travel; of so studied, and well exercis'd a Gesture; so
alone in Fashion; able to render the face of any States-
man living; and so speak the meer extraction of Lan-
guage; one that hath now made the sixth return upon
ventuer; and was your first that ever inricht his Coun-
trey with the true Laws of the duello; whose optiques
have drunk the SPIRIT OF BEAUTY, in some Eight score
and eighteen Princes Courts, where I have resided, and
been there fortunate in the amours of Three hundred
forty and five Ladies (all Nobly, if not Princely de-
scended) whose names I have in Catalogue; to con-
clude, in all so happy, as even Admiration her self doth
seem to fasten her kisses upon me: Certes, I do neither
see, nor feel, nor taste, nor favour the least steam, or
fume of a reason, that should invite this foolish fastidi-
ous Nymph, so peevishly to abandon me. Well, let the
Memory of her fleet into Air; my thoughts and I am
for this other Element, Water.
*****************************
Hazlitt - from Melville's Library. Lecture II. On Shakespeare and Jonson
Extract from Howel's Letters (From a supper with Ben Jonson)
From James Howel, Esq., to Sir Thomas Hawk, Kt.
Westminster, 5th April, 1636
Sir,
I was invited yesternight to a solemn supper by B.J., where you were deeply remembered; there was good company, excellent cheer, choice wines, jovial welcome: one thing intervened, which almost spoiled the relish of the rest, that B. began to engross all the discourse, to vapour extremely by himself, and, by vilifying others, to magnify his own Muse. T. Ca (Tom Carew) buzzed me in the ear, that though Ben had barrelled up a great deal of knowledge, yet it seems he had not read the ethics, which, among other precepts of morality, forbid self-commendation, declaring it to be an ill-favoured solecism in good manners. It made me think upon the lady (not very young) who, having a good while given her guest neat entertainment, a capon being brought upon the table, instead of a spoon, she took a mouthful of claret, and spouted into the hollow bird: such an accident happened in this entertainment: you know - propria, laus sordet in ore: be a man's breath ever so sweet, yet it makes one's praise stink, if he makes his own mouth the conduit-pipe of it. But, for may part, I am content to dispense with the Roman infirmity of Ben, now that time hath snowed upon his pericranium. You know Ovid and (your) Horace were subject to this humour, the first bursting out into -
Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ir nec ignis, etc.
The other into-
Exegi monumentum aere perennius, etc.
As also Cicero, while he forced himself into this hexameter: O fortunatum natam me consule Romam! There is another reason that excuseth B., which is, that if one be allowed to love the natural issue of his body, *why not that of the brain, which is of a spiritual and more noble extraction*?" (note- not marked in Melville's copy of Hazlitt)
*****************************
Jonson, Poetaster
Ovid Jr.
...The suffering plough-share or the flint may wear;
But heavenly Poesy no death can fear.
Kings shall give place to it, and kingly shows,
The banks o'er which gold-bearing Tagus flows.
Kneel hinds to trash: me let bright Phoebus swell
With cups full flowing from the Muses' well.
Frost-fearing myrtle shall impale my head,
And of sad lovers I be often read.
Envy the living, not the dead, doth bite!
For after death all men receive their right.
Then, when this body falls in funeral fire,
My name shall live, and MY BEST PART ASPIRE.
