But it requires a study equivalent to the learning of a new language to understand their meaning when they speak. It is indeed hard to hit:
Much like thy riddle, Samson, in one day
Or seven though one should musing sit.
It is as if a being of pure intellect should take upon him to express the emotions of our sensitive natures. There would be all knowledge, but sympathetic expression would be wanting.
THE CASE IS ALTERED.
A COMEDY [PUBLISHED 1609 FIRST ACTED 1598-9]. BY BEN JONSON [1573 ?1637]
The present Humour to be followed.
AURELIA, PHŒNIXELLA, Sisters; their Mother being lately dead.
Aur. Room for a case of matrons, color'd black :
How motherly my mother's death hath made us!
I would I had some girls now to bring up;
O, I could make a wench so virtuous,
She should say grace to every bit of meat,
And gape no wider than a wafer's thickness,
And she should make French court'sies so most low
That every touch should turn her over backward.
Phon. Sister, these words become not your attire,
Nor your estate; our virtuous mother's death
Should print more deep effects of sorrow in us,
Than may be worn out in so little time.
Aur. Sister, i' faith you take too much tobacco,
It makes you black within as you're without.
What, true-stitch sister, both your sides alike!
Be of a slighter work; for, of my word,
You shall be sold as dear, or rather dearer.
Will you be bound to customs and to rites,
Shed profitable tears, weep for advantage;
Or else do all things as you are inclined?
Eat when your stomach serves, saith the physician,
Not at eleven and six. So, if
your humour
Be now affected with this heaviness,
Give it the reins, and spare not; as I do
In this my pleasurable appetite.
It is Precisianism to alter that,
With austere judgment, that is giv'n by nature.
I wept (you saw) too, when my mother died;
For then I found it easier to do
And fitter with my mode, than not to weep:
But now 'tis otherwise. Another time
Perhaps I shall have such deep thoughts of her,
That I shall weep afresh some twelvemonth hence;
And I will weep, if I be so disposed;
And put on black as grimly then as now.—
Let the mind go still with the body's stature;
Judgment is fit for judges; give me nature.
Presentiment of Treachery, vanishing at the sight of the person suspected.
Lord PAULO FARNESE. (Speaking to himself of ANGELO.)
My thoughts cannot propose a reason
Why I should fear or faint thus in my hopes
Of one so much endeared to my love:
Some spark it is, kindled within the soul,
Whose light yet breaks not to the outward sense,
That propagates this timorous suspect.
His actions never carried any force
Of change or weakness; then I injure him,
In being thus cold-conceited of his faith.
(While he speaks ANGELO enters.)
Angelo. How now, sweet Lord, what's the matter? Paul. Good faith, his presence makes me half ashamed Of my stray'd thoughts.
Jaques (a Miser) worships his Gold.
What servile villainies men will do for gold.
O it began to have a huge strong smell,
With lying so long together in a place :
I'll give it vent, it shall have shift enough;
And if the devil, that envies all goodness,
Have told them of my gold, and where I kept it,
I'll set his burning nose once more a work
To smell where I removed it. Here it is;
I'll hide and cover it with this horse-dung.
Who will suppose that such a precious nest
Is crown'd with such a dunghill excrement?
In, my dear life, sleep sweetly, my dear child,
Scarce lawfully begotten, but yet gotten,
[For Jonson's plays see Gifford's edition.]
And that's enough. Rot all hands that come near thee,
Except mine own. Burn out all eyes that see thee,
Except mine own. All thoughts of thee be poison
To their enamour'd hearts, except mine own.
I'll take no leave, sweet prince, great emperor,
But see thee every minute: king of kings,
I'll not be rude to thee, and turn my back
In going from thee, but go backward out,
With my face toward thee, with humble courtesies.
The passion for wealth has worn out much of its grossness by tract of time. Our ancestors certainly conceived of money as able to confer a distinct gratification in itself, not alone considered simply as a symbol of wealth. The old poets, when they introduce a miser, constantly make him address his gold as his mistress; as something to be seen, felt, and hugged; as capable of satisfying two of the senses at least. The substitution of a thin unsatisfying medium for the good old tangible gold, has made avarice quite a Platonic affection in comparison with the seeing, touching, and handling pleasures of the old Chrysophilites. A bank-note can no more satisfy the touch of a true sensualist in this passion, than Creusa could return her husband's embrace in the shades.-See the Cave of Mammon in Spenser ; Barabas's contemplation of his wealth in the Jew of Malta; Luke's raptures in the City Madam, &c. Above all, hear Guzman, in that excellent old Spanish Novel, The Rogue, expatiate on the "ruddy cheeks of your golden Ruddocks, your Spanish Pistolets, your plump and full-faced Portuguese, and your clear-skinn'd pieces of eight of Castile," which he and his fellows the beggars kept secret to themselves, and did "privately enjoy in a plentiful manner.' "For to have them, for to pay them away, is not to enjoy them; to enjoy them is to have them lying by us, having no other need of them than to use them for the clearing of the eye-sight, and the comforting of our senses. These we did carry about with us, sewing them in some patches of our doublets near unto the heart, and as close to the skin as we could handsomely quilt them in, holding them to be restorative."
POETASTER; OR, HIS ARRAIGNMENT.
SATYR [PUBLISHED 1602: PRODUCED 1601]. BY
BEN JONSON
Ovid bewails his hard condition in being banished from Court and the Society of the Princess Julia.
Banish'd the court? let me be banish'd life,
Since the chief end of life is there concluded.
Within the court is all the kingdom bounded;
And as her sacred sphere doth comprehend
Ten thousand times so much, as so much place
In any part of all the empire else,
So every body, moving in her sphere,
Contains ten thousand times as much in him
As any other her choice orb excludes.
As in a circle a magician, then,
Is safe against the spirit he excites,
But out of it is subject to his rage,
And loseth all the virtue of his art;
So I, exil'd the circle of the court,
Lose all the good gifts that in it I joy'd.
No virtue current is, but with her stamp;
And no vice vicious, blanch'd with her white hand.
The court's the abstract of all Rome's desert,
And my dear Julia th' abstract of the court.
Methinks, now I come near her, I respire
Some air of that late comfort I receiv'd:
And while the evening, with her modest veil,
Gives leave to such poor shadows as myself
To steal abroad, I, like a heartless ghost,
Without the living body of my love,
Will here walk, and attend her. For I know
Not far from hence she is imprisoned,
And hopes of her strict guardian to bribe
So much admittance, as to speak to me,
And cheer my fainting spirits with her breath.
JULIA appears
Jul. Ovid! my love!
above at her Chamber-window.
Ovid. Here, heav'nly Julia.
Jul. Here! and not here! O how that word doth play With both our fortunes, differing, like ourselves;
But one, and yet divided, as opposed;
I high, thou low! O this our plight of place
Doubly presents the two lets of our love,
Local and ceremonial height and lowness;
Both ways, I am too high, and thou too low.
Our minds are even, yet: O why should our bodies,
That are their slaves, be so without their rule?
I'll cast myself down to thee; if I die,
I'll ever live with thee: no height of birth,
Of place, of duty, or of cruel power,
Shall keep me from thee; should my father lock
This body up within a tomb of brass,
Yet I'll be with thee. If the forms, I hold
Now in my soul, be made one substance with it;
That soul immortal; and the same 'tis now;
Death cannot raze the effects she now retaineth:
And then may she be any where she will
The souls of parents rule not children's souls;
When death sets both in their dissolv'd estates,
Then is no child nor father: then eternity
Frees all from any temporal respect.
I come, my Ovid, take me in thine arms;
And let me breathe my soul into thy breast.
Ovid. O stay, my love; the hopes thou dost conceive Of thy quick death, and of thy future life,
Are not authentical. Thou chusest death,
So thou might'st joy thy love in th' other life.
But know, my princely love, when thou art dead,
Thou only must survive in perfect soul;
And in the soul are no affections :
We pour out our affections with our blood;
And with our blood's affections fade our loves.
No life hath love in such sweet state as this;
No essence is so dear to moody sense,
As flesh and blood, whose quintessence is sense.
Beauty, compos'd of blood and flesh, moves more,
And is more plausible to blood and flesh,
Than spiritual beauty can be to the spirit.
Such apprehension as we have in dreams
(When sleep, the bond of senses, locks them up),
Such shall we have when death destroys them quite.
If love be then thy object, change not life;
Live high and happy still; I still below,
Close with my fortunes, in thy height shall joy.
Jul. Ay me, that virtue, whose brave eagle's wings
With every stroke blow stars in burning heaven,
Should, like a swallow, (preying toward storms)
Fly close to earth; and, with an eager plume,
Pursue those objects which none else can see,
But seem to all the world the empty air.
Thus thou, poor Ovid, and all virtuous men,
Must prey
like swallows on invisible food;
Pursuing flies, or nothing: and thus love,
And every worldly fancy, is transpos'd
By worldly tyranny to what plight it list.
O father, since thou gav'st me not my mind,
Strive not to rule it; take but what thou gav'st
To thy disposure; thy affections
Rule not in me; I must bear all my griefs;
Let me use all my pleasures: Virtuous love
Was never scandal to a goddess' state.
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