Poetaster, or His Arraignement. A Comicall Satyre
Jonson, Ben
Poetaster, or His Arraignement. A Comicall Satyre
Ben Jonson
Poetaster, or His Arraignement
A Comicall Satyre
Et mihi de nullo fama rubore placet.
To the Vertuous, and My Worthy Friend,
Mr. Richard Martin.
Sir, a thankful man owes a courtesy ever: the unthankful but when he needs it. To make mine own mark appear, and show by which of these seals I am known, I send you this piece of what may live of mine; for whose innocence, as for the author's, you were once a noble and timely undertaker, to the greatest justice of this kingdom. Enjoy now the delight of your goodness; which is to see that prosper you preserved: and posterity to owe the reading of that, without offence, to your name; which so much ignorance, and malice of the times, then conspired to have suppressed.
Your true lover,
Ben. Jonson.
The Persons of the Play
Augustus Caesar
Maecenas
Marcus Ovid
Tibullus
Cornelius Gallus
Propertius
Fuscus Aristius
Publius Ovid
Virgil
Horace
Trebatius
Lupus
Tucca
Luscus
Crispinus
Hermogenes
Demetrius Fannius
Albius
Minos
Histrio
Aesop
Pyrgus
Lictors
Equites Romani
Julia
Cytheris
Plautia
Chloe
Maids
The Scene
Rome
After the second sounding
Envy arising in the midst of the stage
Light, I salute thee; but with wounded nerves:
Wishing thy golden splendour pitchy darkness.
What's here? The Arraignment? Aye: this, this is it
That our sunk eyes have waked for, all this while:
Here will be subject for my snakes and me.
Cling to my neck and wrists, my loving worms,
And cast you round, in soft and amorous folds,
Till I do bid uncurl: then, break your knots,
Shoot out yourselves at length, as your forced stings
Would hide themselves within his maliced sides
To whom I shall apply you. Stay! The shine
Of this assembly here offends my sight,
I'll darken that first, and outface their grace.
Wonder not if I stare: these fifteen weeks
(So long as since the plot was but an embryon)
Have I, with burning lights, mixed vigilant thoughts
In expectation of this hated play:
To which, at last, I am arrived as Prologue.
Nor would I you should look for other looks,
Gesture, or compliment from me than what
The infected bulk of Envy can afford:
For I am risse here with a covetous hope,
To blast your pleasures, and destroy your sports,
With wrestings, comments, applications,
Spy-like suggestions, privy whisperings,
And thousand such promoting sleights as these.
Mark how I will begin: the scene is, ha!
Rome? Rome? And Rome? Crack eyestrings, and your balls
Drop into earth; let me be ever blind.
I am prevented; all my hopes are crossed,
Checked, and abated; fie, a freezing sweat
Flows forth at all my pores, my entrails burn:
What should I do? Rome? Rome? O my vexed soul,
How might I force this to the present state?
Are there no players here? No poet-apes,
That come with basilisk's eyes, whose forked tongues
Are steeped in venom, as their hearts in gall?
Either of these would help me; they could wrest,
Pervert, and poison all they hear, or see,
With senseless glosses and allusions.
Now if you be good devils, fly me not.
You know what dear and ample faculties
I have endowed you with: I'll lend you more.
Here, take my snakes among you, come and eat,
And while the squeezed juice flows in your black jaws,
Help me to damn the author. Spit it forth
Upon his lines, and show your rusty teeth
At every word, or accent: or else choose
Out of my longest vipers, to stick down
In your deep throats; and let the heads come forth
At your rank mouths; that he may see you armed
With triple malice, to hiss, sting, and tear
His work, and him; to forge, and then declaim,
Traduce, corrupt, apply, inform, suggest:
Oh, these are gifts wherein your souls are blest.
What? Do you hide yourselves? Will none appear?
None answer? What, doth this calm troop affright you?
Nay, then I do despair: down, sink again.
This travail is all lost with my dead hopes.
If in such bosoms, spite have left to dwell,
Envy is not on earth, nor scarce in hell.
Descends
The third sounding
Enter Prologue
Stay, monster, e'er thou sink, thus on thy head
Set we our bolder foot; with which we tread
Thy malice into earth: so spite should die,
Despised and scorned by noble industry.
If any muse why I salute the stage,
An armed Prologue; know, 'tis a dangerous age:
Wherein, who writes had need present his scenes
Fortyfold proof against the conjuring means
Of base detractors and illiterate apes,
That fill up rooms in fair and formal shapes.
'Gainst these have we put on this forced defence:
Whereof the allegory and hid sense
Is that a well erected confidence
Can fright their pride, and laugh their folly hence.
Here now, put case our author should, once more,
Swear that his play were good; he doth implore,
You would not argue him of arrogance:
How e'er that common spawn of ignorance,
Our fry of writers, may beslime his fame,
And give his action that adulterate name.
Such full-blown vanity he more doth loathe
Than base dejection: there's a mean 'twixt both,
Which with a constant firmness he pursues,
As one that knows the strength of his own muse.
And this he hopes all free souls will allow;
Others that take it with a rugged brow,
Their moods he rather pities, then envies:
His mind it is above their injuries.
Exit
Act I
Scene 1
Ovid's study
Enter Ovid
OVI.
›Then, when this body falls in funeral fire,
My name shall live, and my best part aspire.‹
It shall go so.
Enter Luscus, with gown and cap
LUSC. Young master, Master Ovid, do you hear? God's a me! Away with your songs and sonnets; and on with your gown and cap, quickly: here, here, your father will be a man of this room presently. Come, nay, nay, nay, nay, be brief. These verses too, a poison on 'em, I cannot abide 'em, they make me ready to cast, by the banks of Helicon. Nay look, what a rascally untoward thing this poetry is; I could tear 'em now.
OVI. Give me, how near's my father?
LUS. Heart a'man: get a law-book in your hand, I will not answer you else. Why so: now there's some formality in you. By Jove, and three or four of the gods more, I am right of mine old master's humour for that; this villainous poetry will undo you, by the welkin.
OVI. What, hast thou buskins on, Luscus, that thou swear'st so tragically and high?
LUS. No, but I have boots on, sir, and so has your father too by this time: for he called for 'em ere I came from the lodging.
OVI. Why? Was he no readier?
LUS. Oh no; and there was the mad skeldering captain, with the velvet arms, ready to lay hold on him as he comes down: he that presses every man he meets, with an oath, to lend him money, and cries, ›Thou must do't, old boy, as thou art a man, a man of worship.‹
OVI. Who? Pantilius Tucca?
LUS. Aye, he: and I met little master Lupus, the tribune, going thither too.
OVI. Nay, and he be under their arrest, I may with safety enough read over my elegy before he come.
LUS. God's a me! What'll you do? Why, young master, you are not Castalian mad, lunatic, frantic, desperate? Ha?
OVI. What ailest thou, Luscus?
LUS. God be with you, sir, I'll leave you to your poetical fancies, and furies. I'll not be guilty, I.
Exit
OVI.
Be not, good ignorance: I'm glad thou art gone:
For thus alone, our ear shall better judge
The hasty errors of our morning muse.
1»Envy, why twit'st thou me, my time's spent ill?
And call'st my verse fruits of an idle quill?
Or that (unlike the line from whence I sprung)
War's dusty honours I pursue not, young?
Or that I study not the tedious laws;
And prostitute my voice in every cause?
Thy scope is mortal; mine, eternal fame:
Which through the world shall ever chant my name.
Homer will live, whilst Tenedos stands, and Ide,
Or, to the sea, fleet Simois doth slide:
And so shall Hesiod too, while vines do bear,
Or crooked sickles crop the ripened ear.
Callimachus, though in invention low,
Shall still be sung: since he in art doth flow.
No loss shall come to Sophocles' proud vein.
With sun and moon, Aratus shall remain.
Whilst slaves be false, fathers hard, and bawds be whorish,
Whilst harlots flatter, shall Menander flourish.
Ennius, though rude, and Accius' high-reared strain,
A fresh applause in every age shall gain.
Of Varro's name what ear shall not be told?
Of Jason's Argo? And the fleece of gold?
Then shall Lucretius' lofty numbers die,
When earth and seas in fire and flames shall fry.
Tytirus, Tillage, Ænee shall be read,
Whilst Rome of all the conquered world is head.
Till Cupid's fires be out, and his bow broken,
Thy verses, neat Tibullus, shall be spoken.
Our Gallus shall be known from east to west:
So shall Lycoris, whom he now loves best.
The suffering ploughshare 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'll 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.«
Scene 2
Enter Ovid senior, Luscus, Tucca, Lupus
OVI. SEN. Your name shall live indeed, sir; you say true: but how infamously, how scorned and contemned in the eyes and ears of the best and gravest Romans, that you think not on: you never so much as dream of that.
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