Clem. Is all the rest of this batch? Bring me a torch; lay it together, and give fire. [40 Cleanse the air. [Sets the papers on fire.] Here was enough to have infected the whole city, if it had not been taken in time. See, see, how our poet's glory shines! brighter and brighter! still it increases! O, now it 's at the highest; [45 and now it declines as fast. You may see, sic transit gloria mundi! Know. There's an emblem for you,, son, and your studies. 49 Clem. Nay, no speech or act of mine be drawn against such as profess it worthily. They are not born every year, as an alderman. There goes more to the making of a good poet, than a sheriff. Master Kitely, yon look upon me! though I live i' the city here, amongst you, I [55 will do more reverence to him, when I meet him, than I will to the mayor out of his year. But these paper-pedlars! these ink-dabblers! they cannot expect reprehension or reproach; they have it with the fact. E. Know. Sir, you have sav'd me the labour of a defence.3 1 Punning on ream. 2 Parodied from Daniel, Sonnet to Delia. 3 The following passage occurs in Q, at this point: Giu. Call you this poetry? Lo. ju. Poetry! Nay, then call blasphemy religion, Call devils angels, and sin piety; Let all things be preposterously transchanged. Lo. se. Why, how now, son? What, are you startled now? Hath the brize prickt you, ha? Go to! You see In general opinion. Lo. ju. Opinion! O God, let gross opinion The state of poesy, such as it is, As she appears in many, poor and lame, Set high in spirit with the precious taste Oh, then how proud a presence doth she bear! That such keen, ignorant, and blasted wits, Clem. It shall be discourse for supper between your father and me, if he dare under- [ take me. But to dispatch away these: you sign o' the soldier, and picture o' the poet, (but both so false, I will not ha' you hang'd out at my door till midnight,) while we are at supper, you two shall penitently fast it out in my court without; and, if you will, you may pray there [ that we may be so merry within as to forgive or forget you when we come out. Here's a third, because we tender your safety, shall watch you, he is provided for the purpose. Look to your charge, sir. Step. And what shall I do? 75 Clem. O! I had lost a sheep an he had not bleated: why, sir, you shall give master Downright his cloak; and I will intreat him to take it. A trencher and a napkin you shall [ have i' the buttery, and keep Cob and his wife company here; whom I will intreat first to be reconcil'd; and you to endeavour with your wit to keep 'em so. Step. I'll do my best. Cob. Why, now I see thou art honest, Tib, I receive thee as my dear and mortal wife again. Tib. And I you, as my loving and obedient husband. 90 105 O, what a plenteous world of this will come ! Clem. 'Tis well, 't is well! This night we'll dedicate to friendship, love, and laughter. 118 Master bridegroom, take your bride and lead; every one, a fellow. Here is my mistress, Brain worm! to whom all my addresses of courtship shall have their reference: whose adventures this day, when our grandchildren shall [128 hear to be made a fable, I doubt not but it shall find both spectators and applause. [Exeunt.] 5 F, fame. Formal, in his armor. Such brainless gulls, should utter their stolen wares Or that their slubber'd lines have current pass But that this barren and infected age Should set no difierence 'twixt these empty spirits And a true poet; than which reverend names Nothing can more adorn humanity. SEJANUS, HIS FALL BY BEN JONSON Non hic Ceniauros, non Gorgonas, Harpyiasque Invenies: Hominem pagina nostra sapis, MY LORD, -If ever any ruin were so great as to survive, I think this be one I send you, The Fall of Sejanus. It is a poem, that, if I well remember, in your lordship's sight, suffer'd no less violence from our people here, than the subject of it did from the rage of the people of Rome; but with a different fate, as, I hope, merit; for this hath outliv'd their malice, and begot itself a greater favour than he lost, the love of good men. Amongst whom, if I make your lordship the first it thanks, it is not without a just confession of the bond your benefits have, and ever shall hold upon me, Your Lordship's most faithful honourer, TO THE READERS 2 THE following and voluntary labours of my friends, prefixed to my book, have relieved me in much whereat, without them, I should necessarily have touched. Now I will only use three or four short and needful notes, and so rest. First, if it be objected, that what I publish is no true poem, in the strict laws of time, I confess it: as also in the want of a proper chorus; whose habit and moods are such and so difficult, as not any, whom I have seen, since the ancients, no, not they who have most presently affected laws, have yet come in the way of. Nor is it needful, or almost possible in these our times, and to such auditors as commonly things are presented, to observe the old state. and splendour of dramatic poems, with preservation of any popular delight. But of this I shall take more seasonable cause to speak, in my observations upon Horace his Art of Poetry, which, with the text translated, 1 1 I. 6. with a different merit. Commendatory verses. * Only in Q. intend shortly to publish. In the meantime, if in truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence, I have discharged the other offices of a tragic writer, let not the absence of these forms be imputed to me, wherein I shall give you occasion hereafter, and without my boast, to think I could better prescribe, than omit the due use for want of a convenient knowledge. The next is, lest in some nice nostril the quotations might savour affected, I do let you know, that I abhor nothing more; and I have only done it to show my integrity in the story, and save myself in those common torturers that bring all wit to the rack; whose noses are ever like swine spoiling and rooting up the Muses' gardens; and their whole bodies like moles, as blindly working under earth, to cast any, the least, hills upon virtue. Whereas they are in Latin, and the work in English, it was presupposed none but the learned would take the pains to confer them; the authors themselves being all in the learned tongues, save one,2 with whose English side I have had little to do. To which it may be required, since I have quoted the page, to name what editions I followed: Tacit. Lips. in quarto, Antwerp, edit. 1600. Dio. folio, Hen. Steph. 1592. For the rest, as Sueton. Seneca, &c., the chapter doth sufficiently direct, or the edition is not varied. Lastly, I would inform you, that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen 3 had good share: in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation. Fare you well, and if you read farther of me, and like, I shall not be afraid of it, though you praise me out. Neque enim mihi cornea fibra est. But that I should plant my felicity in your general saying, good, or well, &c., were a weakness which the better sort of you might worthily contemn, if not absolutely hate me for. BEN. JONSON; and no such, Quem Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum. THE ARGUMENT AELIUS SEJANUS, son to Seius Strabo, a gentleman of Rome, and born at Vulsinium; after his long service in court, first under Augustus; afterward, Tiberius; grew into that favour with the latter, and won him by those arts, as there wanted nothing but the name to make him a co-partner of the Empire. Which greatness of his, Drusus, the Emperor's son, not brooking; after many smother'd dislikes, it one day breaking out, the prince struck him publicly on the face. To revenge which disgrace, Livia, the wife of Drusus (being before corrupted by him to her dishonour, and the discovery of her husband's counsels) Sejanus practiseth with, together with her physician, called Eudemus, and one Lygdus, an eunuch, to poison Drusus. This their inhuman act having successful and unsuspected passage, it emboldeneth Sejanus to farther and more insolent projects, even the ambition of the Empire; where finding the lets he must encounter to be many and hard, in respect of the issue of Germanicus, who were next in hope for the succession, he deviseth to make Tiberius' self his means; and instils into his ears many doubts and suspicions, both against the princes, and their mother Agrippina; which Caesar jealously heark'ning to, as covetously consenteth to their ruin, and their friends'. In this time, the better to mature and strengthen his design, Sejanus labours to marry Livia, and worketh with all his ingine, to remove Tiberius from the knowledge of public business, with allurements of a quiet and retired life; the latter of which, Tiberius, out of a proneness to lust, and a desire to hide those unnatural pleasures which he could not so publicly practise, embraceth: the former enkindleth his fears, and there gives him first cause of doubt or suspect towards Sejanus: against whom he raiseth in private a new instrument, one Sertorius Macro, and by him underworketh, discovers the other's counsels, his means, his ends, sounds the affections of the senators, divides, distracts them at last, when Sejanus least looketh, and is most secure; with pretext of doing him an unwonted honour in the senate, he trains him from his guards, and with a long doubtful letter, in one day hath him suspected, accused, condemned, and torn in pieces by the rage of the people. [This do we advance, as a mark of terror to all traitors, and treasons; to show how just the heavens are, in pouring and thundering down a weighty vengeance on their unnatural intents, even to the worst princes; much more to those, for guard of whose piety and virtue the angels are in continual watch, and God himself miraculously working.]7 1 Lost in the burning of his study. ? Tacitus, translated by Grenaway. • Beguiles. Not identified. Shakespeare and Fletcher have been suggested. 4 Hindrances. 5 Ingenuity. Only in Q, in apparent allusion to King James and the Gunpowder Plot. ACT I [SCENE I.] 1 [Enter] SABINUS and SILIUS, [followed by] LA TIARIS. Sab. Hail, Caius Silius! 2 Sil. Titius Sabinus, hail! You' re rarely met in court, Sab. Therefore, well met. Sil. 'Tis true: indeed, this place is not our sphere. Sab. No, Silius, we are no good inginers.4 We have no shift of faces, no cleft tongues, We did by slavery,5 not by service climb. Us dear to the pale authors; or live fear'd [Enter SATRIUS and NATTA at a distance.] A pair that do. 15 20 Sab. [salutes LATIARIS.] Good cousin Latiaris.8 Sil. Satrius Secundus, and Pinnarius Natta,10 The great Sejanus' clients: there be two, Know more than honest counsels; whose closell breasts, 24 The empty smoke that flies about the palace; Laugh when their patron laughs; sweat when he sweats; Be hot and cold with him; change every mood, 1 A state room in the Palace. De Caio Silio, vid. Tacit. Lips. edit. quarto. Ann. Lib. i. pag. ii. Lib. II. p. 28 et 33. All such notes giving authorities are Jonson's own, and are retained through one scene for their characteristic value. De Titio Sabino, vid. Tacit. Lib. iv. p. 79. • Intriguers. Tac. Ann. I. 2. 6 Juv. Sat. I. v. 75. 7 Ibid. III. v. 49, etc. 8 De Latiari, cons. Tacit. Ann. iv. 94, et Dion, Step. edit. fol. lviii. 711. Sab. Tyrants' arts 70 Are to give flatterers grace; accusers, power; That those may seem to kill whom they devour. [Enter CORDUS and ARRUNTIUS.] Now, good Cremutius Cordus.24 Cor. [salutes SABINUS.] Hail to your lordship! Nat. Who's that salutes your cousin? Lat. "T is one Cordus, They whisper. A gentleman of Rome: one that has writ 75 14 The pocket-watch, in Jonson's days, was constantly regulated by the motion of the clock, at that time the more accurate machine of the two. (Gifford.) 15 This belief in the sympathetic nature of the turquoise is often alluded to. 16 Juv. Sat. iii. 105, etc. 18 Vid. Tacit. Ann. i. 3. 17 Compared. 19 Ibid. iii. 69. 20 Pedarii. (Senators not yet on the censor's roll, who had no vote of their own, but could merely assent to that of another.) 21 Tacit. Ann. iii. 69. 22 Lege Tacit. Ann. i. 24, de Romano, Hispano, etc. ibid. et iii. 61, 62. Juv. Sat. X. v. 87. Suet. Tib. cap. 61. 23 Vid. Tacit. Ann. i. 4. et iii. 62. Suet. Tib. cap. 61. Senec. de Benef. iii. 26. 24 De Crem. Cordo, rid. Tacit. Ann. iv. 83, 84. Senec. Cons. ad Marciam. Dio. lvii. 710. Suel. Aug. c. 35. Tib. c. 61. Cal. c. 16. Annals of late, they say, and very well. Is he or Drusian,2 or Germanican, Lat. 8 80 I know him not so far. Nat. Those times are somewhat queasy to be toucht. Have you or seen or heard part of his work? Lat. Not I; he means they shall be public shortly. Nat. O, Cordus do you call him? Lat. Ay. [Exeunt NATTA and SATRIUS.] Sab. But these our times 85 Are not the same, Arruntius. Arr. Times! The men, The men are not the same! 'Tis we are base, Poor, and degenerate from th' exalted strain Of our great fathers. Where is now the soul Of god-like Cato? he, that durst be good, When Caesar durst be evil; and had power, As not to live his slave, to die his master? Or where's the constant Brutus, that being proof 90 95 Against all charm of benefits, did strike Hat. Th' emp'ror's son! Give place. 105 There's little hope of him. A riotous youth,7 Sab. That fault his age Will, as it grows, correct. Methinks he bears Himself each day more nobly than other; And wins no less on men's affections, 110 To show in so great losses. Sab. I know not, for his death, how you might wrest it: 145 But, for his life, it did as much disdain ness; 149 And all our praises of him are like streams 155 Arr. I am sure He was too great for us,15 and that they knew Who did remove him hence. Sab. When men grow fast Honour'd and lov'd, there is a trick in state, 180 (Which jealous princes never fail to use) How to decline that growth, with fair pretext, And honourable colours of employment, Either by embassy, the war, or such, To shift them forth into another air, 12 Tacit. Ann. iv. 79. 13 Ibid. ii. 47, et Dion. Rom. Hist. lvii. 705. 165 14 Vid. apud Vell. Patere. Lips. 4 to. pp. 35-47, istorum hominum characteres. 15 Vid. Tacil. Ann. ii. 28, 34. Dio. Rom. Hist. lvii. 705. |