For my satires themselves, I see two obvious cavils to be answered. One concerning the matter; than which, I confess, none can be more open to danger, to envy, since faults loathe nothing more than the light, and men love nothing more than their faults. . . . . The other concerning the manner; wherein, perhaps, too much stooping to the low reach of the vulgar, I shall be thought not to have any whit kindly raught [=reached] my ancient Roman predecessors, whom, in the want of more late and familiar precedents, I am constrained thus far off to imitate."-Postscript. (180) VIRGIDEMIARUM LIBRI SEX. "By "Virgidemia,' an uncouth and uncommon word, we are to understand a 'Gathering, or Harvest, of Rods,' with reference to the nature of the subject."-Thomas Warton. (180) Book I, Satire vi. The poem satirizes the contemporary attempts, in which Sidney, Spenser, and Gabriel Harvey had a part, to write English verse on a quantitative basis in imitation of Greek and Latin verse; the satirist had especially in mind Richard Stanyhurst's translation of parts of the Æneid into English hexameters in 1582. ¶ 1. Another: in the preceding satires other literary fashions of the day have been ridiculed. ¶5, 16. Hall is quoting, a little incorrectly, from Stanyhurst's robustious translation of the Æneid (i. 1 ff., and viii. 431, 432): Now manhood and garbroyls I chaunt, and martial horror. Of ruffe raffe roaring, men's herts with terror agrysing, With peale meale ramping, with thwick thwack sturdelye thundring. garboils=tumults. 13. besets =suits. (181) Book III, Satire i. Cf. the sixth satire of Juvenal. ¶ 1-3. Saturn was an early Italian god, supposed to have taught men agriculture in the reign of Janus; his era was known as the age of gold; later he was identified wth the Greek god Chronos, whom Zeus overthrew. The reference to the mace of lead is due to the facts (1) that astrology thought of the planet Saturn as a cold and melancholy planet, because it was farthest from the sun, and (2) that alchemy associated the planet with the metal lead. 6. mast = acorns. ¶7. Dodonian oaks: strictly the oak grove at Dodona, Epirus, famous for its ancient oracle of Zeus; but here the phrase is used for oaks of the early world in general 12. stored crab: the crab-tree, stored with apples. ¶ 13. delicious loving delicacies. ¶17. honey-fall: the same as honey-dew, a sweet substance found in small drops on leaves, either exuded from the leaves or secreted by insects.¶20. afford=allow. ¶ 23. vulgar = the common man (Latin "vulgus," the mass of the people). ¶26. plaining = complaining. scape trick. ¶ 29. treen = trees. (182) 34. huswif'ry=housewifery. ¶43. nice = fastidious, over particular. ¶45. Wox =grew. ween-think. ¶47. dight=arrayed (O. E. "dihtan," to arrange). ¶ 49. Thetis': Thetis was a sea-goddess. 50. fearful timorous. ¶55. rife to gone easy to go to. 59. furnace: throat. 60. descry=reveal. 65-68. Cf. Shakspere's satire on motley aping of foreign fashions of dress: "Nerissa. What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of England? ... Portia. How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.”—The Merchant of Venice, I. ii. 71-82. (183) 75. Husbanding it: playing the part of a husbandman, or tiller of the soil; the word goes with "Saturn's self" (1. 72), not with "undergroom." ¶ 76, 77. The sense is, Behold now (the days between having expired) the fulfilment of Merlin's old prophecy. ¶77. inspired Merlin's word: certain prophecies of uncertain date, written in Latin, were attributed to Merlin, the wizard of the legendary King Arthur's court. JOHN MARSTON .... (183) THE SCOURGE OF VILLAINY. Satire VII. 1-16, 100-22, 160-79. "Know, I hate to affect too much obscurity and harshness, because they profit no sense. To note vices so that no man can understand them is as fond as the French execution in picture. Yet there are some (too many) that think nothing good that is so courteous as to come within their reach, terming all satires bastard which are not palpable dark, and so rough writ that the hearing of them read would set a man's teeth on edge. Persius is crabby because ancient, and his jerks (being particularly given to private customs of his time) dusky. Juvenal (upon the like occasion) seems to our judgment gloomy. Yet both of them go a good seemly pace, not stumbling, shuffling. Chaucer is hard even to our understandings: who knows not the reason? how much more those old satires which express themselves in terms that breathed not long even in their days. But had we then lived, the understanding of them had been nothing hard. I will not deny there is a seemly decorum to be observed, and a peculiar kind of speech for a satire's lips, which I can willinglier conceive than dare to prescribe; yet let me have the substance rough, not the shadow. I cannot, nay, I will not delude your sight with mists; yet I dare defend my plainness against the verjuiceface of the crabbed'st satirist that ever stuttered."-Preface. (183) 1. Cf. Richard III, V. iv. 7: "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" ¶2. currish, mad Athenian: an allusion to Diogenes, the Cynic philosopher, who lived many years in Athens; it is reported that he went about the streets with a lantern by daylight, searching for a true man. currish: the Cynics were so called because of their snarling ill-nature (Greek Kúwv, dog). ¶4. Circe's charm: see extract from the Odyssey in prefatory note to Comus, p. 487. ¶6. Samian saws: Samos was the birthplace of Pythagoras, of the sixth century B. C., who taught that the souls of men at death went into the bodies of the lower animals. saws wise sayings. 14. Ignes fatui="false lights," will-o'-the-wisps. ¶ 15. rats of Nilus: in Egypt the rat was deified; the thought seems to be that these so-called men are as unreal as such false, imaginary gods. ¶ 16. Colosses: here used as a term for giants of incredible size.¶18. Mavortian: soldier (Latin "Mavors," an appellation of Mars). ¶ 20. slops: loose breeches. (184) 25. great man's head: apparently the name of a tavern. ¶ 26. Brill: Brielle, a seaport in Holland; it was "one of the cautionary towns pledged to the English crown by the states of Holland" (Bullen), and English troops were stationed there. 27. Que va la? zounds, que?': "Who goes there? zounds, who?" ¶ 28. transformed poniard to: i. e., poniard transformed to. ¶ 29. drawer: tavern servant, who draws and serves the liquor. ringo-root: “Sink, of lechery."-Bullen. ¶30. bumbast = bombast, padded. ¶ 32. Westphalian: Westphalia, a German duchy, was already famous for its hams. gammon = ham. clove-stuck face: covered with pimples, like a ham stuck over with cloves? ¶34. Switzers': Swiss soldiers let themselves out so much to various states as mercenaries that "Switzer" came to be used for "mercenary." 41. badged having a badge, or coat-of-arms. 47. surphuled = surfeled; to surfel is to wash the face with a cosmetic made of sulphur. ¶ 48, 49. under one hood, Two faces: an old saying, satirizing the hypocrisy of monks. ¶51. Janus' brow: the old Roman god Janus, the god of beginnings (cf. "January'), was represented as having two faces, one looking into the past, the other into the future. ¶54. busk: a strip of whale-bone or other elastic material, worn in the front of a corset. verdingal = farthingale, hoop-skirt. ¶57. rebato: a ruff for the neck. ¶ 58. intellectual: intellectual part. niceness = fastidiousness. (185) O SWEET CONTENT. (Latin "crispare," to curl). THOMAS DEKKER From The Patient Grissell, I. i. ¶ 11. crispèd=rippled (185) LULLABY. From the same, IV. ii. (186) O SORROW, SORROW. From The Noble Spanish Soldier; it is not certain that the play is by Dekker. ¶4. furier: more like a fury's. BEN JONSON "I could never think the study of wisdom confined only to the philosopher, or of piety to the divine, or of state to the politic; but that he which can feign a commonwealth (which is the poet), can gown it with counsels, strengthen it with laws, correct it with judgments, inform it with religion and morals, is all these. We do not require in him mere elocution, or an excellent faculty in verse, but the exact knowledge of all virtues and their contraries, with ability to render the one loved, the other hated, by his proper embattling them. . . . . Poetry and picture are arts of a like nature, and both are busy about imitation. It was excellently said of Plutarch, poetry was a speaking picture, and picture a mute poesy; for they both invent, feign, and devise many things, and accommodate all they invent to the use and service of nature. Yet of the two the pen is more noble than the pencil, for that can speak to the understanding, the other but to the sense. They both behold pleasure and profit as their common object; but should abstain from all base pleasures, lest they should err from their end, and, while they seek to better men's minds, destroy their manners [=morals]. artificers, not made; nature is more powerful in them than study. They are both born be culled out for ornament and color, as we gather flowers to strew houses or make garlands; but they are better when they grow to our style as in a meadow, where, though the mere grass and greenness delights, yet the variety of flowers doth heighten and beautify. . . . . We must express readily and fully, not profusely. There is difference between a liberal and prodigal hand. As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it. Either of them hath their fitness in the place. . . . . The congruent and harmonious fitting of parts in a sentence hath almost the fastening and force of knitting and connection, as in stones well squared, which will rise strong a great way without mortar. . . . . As we must take the care that our words and sense be clear, so, if the obscurity happen through the hearer's or reader's want of understanding, I am not to answer for them, no more than for their not listening or marking; I must neither find them ears nor mind."-Jonson's Timber, or Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter, 1641. sions. (186) QUEEN AND HUNTRESS, Chaste and FAIR. From Cynthia's Revels, V. iii. = (188) 39. whence 't is born: an allusion to the fable that Aphrodite arose from the foam of the sea. ¶44. prove experience. ¶ 52. different=differing, having a difference, either with love or with each other. ¶63-65. The figure is evidently based upon the description of the temptation of Jesus on the pinnacle of the temple; see Matt. 4:5, 6. steep desire: “A precipitous desire, a desire into which a man casts himself headlong."-Professor Kittredge. ¶ 69. Luxury=lust. = (189) 74. Turtles: turtle doves. die: a term for feeling the ecstacy of love. ¶ 79. doubt fear. fame: rumor, scandal. ¶92. phoenix' love: there was supposed to be only one phoenix in existence at a time; hence it came to stand for anything unique, especially for the uniquely excellent. ¶94. Would make: supply "which" as subiect. ¶ 101. feature=form, shape (M. E. "feture," old French "faiture," Latin "factura," formation); cf. "body," l. 99. 104. only: to be taken with "on him." 1. 105. (190) 115. sense: senses. ¶ 116. securely without care, without apprehension (Latin "se," without, "cura," care). (190) SONG TO CELIA. From Volpone, or the Fox, III. vi. ¶ 1-8. A translation of Catullus, v. 1-6; cf. "My Sweetest Lesbia, Let Us Live and Love," ll. 1-6, p. 139. ¶ 10. toys = trifles. (190) WITCHES' CHARM. From The Masque of Queens. "The part of the scene which first presented itself was an ugly hell, which, flaming beneath, smoked unto the top of the roof. These witches, with a kind of hollow and infernal music, came forth from thence, first one, then two and three, and more, till their number increased to eleven, all differently = .... on attired-some with rats on their heads some on their shoulders; others with ointment-pots at their girdles; all with spindles, timbrels, rattles, or other venefical instruments, making a confused noise, with strange gestures. . . . . These eleven witches beginning to dance, the sudden one of them missed their chief, and interrupted the rest with this speech."—Jonson. 1. want lack. ¶ 4. anoint: "When they are to be transported from place to place, they use to anoint themselves and sometimes the things they ride on."-Jonson. "The ointment that witches use is reported to be made of the fat of children digged out of their graves. "-Bacon. (191) 16. horse of wood: "That which our witches call so is sometimes a broom-staff, sometimes a reed, sometimes a distaff."-Jonson. ¶ 18. goat: "The goat is the Devil himself, upon whom they ride often to their solemnity."-Jonson. green cock: "Of the green cock we have no other ground (to confess ingenuously) than a vulgar fable of a witch that with a cock of that color and a bottom of blue thread would transport herself through the air. It was a tale when I went to school."-Jonson. ¶ 19. bottom ball. thrid = thread. ¶ 26. cat-a-mountain = catamount, cougar. 30. The spindle: "All this is but a periphrasis of the night, in their charm, and their applying themselves to it [i. e., the charm] with their instruments, whereof the spindle in antiquity was the chief."-Jonson. ¶33-36. As a sample of Jonson's learning, a part of his note may be quoted: "This rite also of making a ditch with their nails is frequent with our witches; whereof see Bodin. Remig. Delr. Malleus Mal. Godelman. 1. 2 De Lamiis, as also the antiquity of it mostly vively expressed by Hor. Satyr. 8, lib. 1 where he mentions the pictures and the blood of a black lamb, all which are yet in use with our modern witchcraft. ... Of this ditch Homer makes mention in Circe's speech to Ulysses, Odyss. K, about the end, Bółpov opúğaι, etc. And Ovid. Metam. lib. 7, in Medea's magic. And of the waxen images, in Hypsipyle's epistle to Jason, where he expresseth that, mischief also of the needles: .... = Devovit absentes, simulacraque cerea fingit, Et miserum tenues in jecur urget acus. "She bewitches the absent, and makes waxen images, and sticks slender needles into their unhappy livers."] Bodin. Daemon. lib. 2, cap. 8, hath (beside the known story of King Duffe out of Hector Boetius) much of the witches' later practice in that kind." In addition to sticking needles into the wax images ("pictures''), and so causing like pain in the persons they represented, it was a common practice to melt the image, whereupon the person wasted away and died. The ditch full of blood was a means of calling up the spirits of the dead, cf. the Odyssey, xi. 34-37: "But when I had besought the tribes of the dead with vows and prayers, I took the sheep and cut their throats over the trench, and the dark blood flowed forth, and lo the spirits of the dead that be departed gathered them from out of Erebus."-Butcher and Lang's translation. 38. Martin: "Their little Martin is he that calls them to their conventicles, which is done in a human voice; but, coming forth, they find him in the shape of a great buck goat, upon whom they ride to their meetings."-Jonson. (191) SIMPLEX MUNDITIIS. From Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, I. i. The title (which was not of Jonson's coining, but has long been connected with the song) is taken from Horace, Odes, I. v. 5, and in Milton's translation of the ode is rendered "plain in thy neatness." The lines are based upon a Latin poem by a French poet, Jean Bonnefons (d. 1614): Semper munditias, semper, Basilissa, decores, Vincula ne cures capitis discussa soluti, Nec ceram in faciem: mel habet illa suum. Fingere se semper, non est confidere amori; Quid quod saepe decor, cum prohibetur, adest? "Neatness always, always seemliness, Basilissa, hair always just artfully put in order, and always careful attention, and unguents always, everything cared for with anxious hand, I do not love to see. The sweetheart who dresses herself carelessly for me gives herself; and adornment prevails by simplicity. Have no care for the broken chains of your unbound head or the wax on your face; that has its own honey. To arrange oneself always is not to put trust in love; what is there that is often pleasing when it is forbidden ?" ¶ 1. Still always. neat: i. e., over nice. (192) TO MY BOOKSELLER. ¶ 6. as as if. 9. termers: those "who resorted to London in term time for dishonest practices or for intrigues-the court terms being times of great resort to London both for business and for pleasure" (The Century Dictionary) clerklike = scholar-like; "clerk" (Latin "clericus" a priest) formerly meant a learned man, most educated men being of the priestly class. ¶ 12. Bucklers-bury: a London street full of grocers' and apothecaries' shops, where waste paper was in great demand for wrappers. (192) ON GILES AND JOAN. (193) 15. affections = emotions. (193) ON MY FIRST SON. 10. Jonson his= = Jonson's. (193) INVITING A FRIEND TO SUPPER. The plan of the poem is similar to that of Martial's forty-eighth epigram in the tenth book; cf. also Juvenal's eleventh satire. ¶ 10. sallet salad. ¶ 13. coney=rabbit. = (194) 19. godwit: a game-bird. ¶ 20. Knat-knot, the robin-snipe. rail: a muchprized game-bird, somewhat like the American salt-marsh hen. ruff: a bird akin to the sandpiper; so called from its ruff. my man: his servant, Richard Broom, whom he seems to have instructed in Latin. ¶21-23. Cf. Juvenal, Satires, xi. 179-81: Nostra dabunt alios hodie convivia ludos; "To-day our feasts will give other sports: the composer of the Iliad will be sung, and the songs of high-sounding Maro, that make doubtful the palm." ¶ 25. To this: in contradiction to this promise. ¶30. the Mermaid's: the Mermaid was a tavern in Bread St., much frequented by the poets and wits of the day. ¶33. Thespian spring: Thespiae was a town in Boeotia, near Thebes, famous for the worship of the Muses. (195) TO SIR Robert WROTH. ¶3. Sir Robert Wroth's country seat was in Middlesex, near London, and King James often visited him. ¶ 10. bravery=splendor. ¶ 23. thy master's: the king's. (196) 38. cop'ces = coppices, thickets. ¶44. mast acorns. ¶ 48. Comus: god of good cheer (Greek κwμos, revel); cf. preliminary note to Comus, p. 487. ¶ 50. Saturn's reign: Saturn, an early Italian deity, was supposed to have taught men agriculture, and his era was called the golden age of peace and universal comfort. ¶54. rudeness rusticity. ¶56. great heroes of her race: Lady Wroth was a niece of Sir Philip Sidney. 59. wassail: the liquor in which healths were drunk (O. E. "wes," be, "hal," whole, well); on Christmas and other festivals it was usually ale, mixed with wine, and sweetened and flavored with spices and fruit. 61. leese lose. ¶ 72. therefore for that. = (197) 75. change: i. e., cause to change. ¶ 81. that: i. e., that man; cf. "this man," 1. 73. 84. doing good: i. e., by bequeathing it for good purposes. ¶ 89. so provided that ride in purple: i. e., go in the robes of high station. plate: dishes of gold or silver. ¶95-106. Based on Juvenal, Satires, x. 347-50, 356-59. .... (197) SONG TO CELIA. The poem is based upon sentences in the love-letters of Philostratus, a Greek sophist of the third century A. D.: Ἐμοὶ δὲ μόνοις πρόπινε τοῖς ὄμμασιν Ει δὲ βούλει, τοῖς χείλεσι προσφέρουσα, πλήρου φιλημάτων τὸ ἔκπωμα, καὶ δίδου.—Letter xxiv. Εγώ πρῶτος ἐπειδὰν ἴδω σε, διψῶ, καὶ τὸ ἔκπωμα κατέχων, τὸ μέν οὐ προσάγω τοῖς χείλεσι, σοῦ δὲ οἶδα πίνων.-Letter xxv. Πέπομφά σοι στέφανον ῥόδων, οὐ σὲ τιμῶν (καὶ τοῦτο μὲν γάρ), ἀλλ' αὐτοῖς τι χαριζόμενος τοῖς ῥόδοις, ἵνα μὴ μαρανθῇ.— Letter xxx. Εἰ δὲ βούλει τὶ φίλῳ χαρίζεσθαι, τὰ λείψανα αὐτῶν ἀντίπεμψον, μηκέτι πνέοντα ῥόδων μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ σοῦ.-Letter xxxi. "Drink to me with thine eyes only. Or, |