The Works of Ben Jonson

What should I say more, than turn stone with won-
Nas. I never saw this play bred all this tumuit.
What was there in it could so deeply offend,
And stir so many hornets?

Aut. Shall I tell you?
Nas. Yes, and ingenuously.
Aut. Then, by the hope

Which I prefer unto all other objects,
I can profess, I never writ that piece

Nas. Do you think so? I should be sorry for him, | More innocent or empty of offence

If I found that.

Pol. O, they are such bitter things,

He cannot choose.

Nas. But, is he guilty of them?

Pol. Fuh! that's no matter.

Nas. No!

Pol. No. Here's his lodging.

We'll steal upon him: or let's listen; stay.

He has a humor oft to talk t' himself.

Nas. They are your manners lead me, not mine own. [They come forward; the scene opens, and discovers the Author in his study.

[thread,

Aut. The fates have not spun him the coarsest
That (free from knots of perturbation)
Doth yet so live, although but to himself,
As he can safely scorn the tongues of slaves,
And neglect fortune, more than she can him.
It is the happiest thing this, not to be
Within the reach of malice; it provides
A man so well, to laugh off injuries;
And never sends him farther for his vengeance,
Than the vex'd bosom of his enemy.

I, nowo, but think how poor their spite sets off,
Who, after all their waste of sulphurous terms,
And burst-out thunder of their charged mouths,
Have nothing left but the unsavory smokc
Of their black vomit, to upbraid themselves:
Whilst I, at whom they shot, sit here shot-free,
And as unhurt of envy, as unhit.

[POL. and NAs. discover themselves. Pol. Ay, but the multitude they think not so, sir; They think you hit, and hurt; and dare give out, Your silence argues it in not rejoining

To this or that late libel.

Aut. 'Las, good rout!

I can afford them leave to err so still;
And like the barking students of Bears-college,
To swallow up the garbage of the time
With greedy gullets, whilst myself sit by,
Pleased, and yet tortured, with their beastly feeding.
Tis a sweet madness runs along with them,
To think, all that are aim'd at still are struck:
Then, where the shaft still lights, make that the mark:
And so each fear or fever-shaken fool
May challenge Teucer's hand in archery.
Good troth, if I knew any man so vile,
To act the crimes these Whippers reprehend,

Or what their servile apes gesticulate,

I should not then much muse their shreds were liked;
Since ill men have a lust t' hear others sins,
And good men have a zeal to hear sin shamed.

But when it is all excrement they vent,

Base fith and offal; or theft? notable

I used no name. My books have still been taught
To spare the persons, and to speak the vices.
These are mere slanders, and enforced by such
As have no safer ways to men's disgraces,
But their own lies and loss of honesty:
Fellows of practised and most laxative tongues,
Whose empty and eager bellies, in the year,
Compel their brains to many desperate shifts,
(I spare to name them, for their wretchedness
Fury itself would pardon.) These, or such,
Whether of malice, or of ignorance,

Or itch t' have me their adversary, I know not,
Or all these mixt; but sure I am, three years
They did provoke me with their petulant styles
On every stage: and I at last unwilling,
But weary, I confess, of so much trouble,
Thought I would try if shame could win upon 'em
And therefore chose Augustus Cæsar's times,
When wit and arts were at their height in Rome,
To shew that Virgil, Horace, and the rest
Of those great master-spirits, did not want
Detractors then, or practicers against them :
And by this line, although no parallel,

I hoped at last they would sit down and blush;
But nothing I could find more contrary.
And though the impudence of flies be great,
Yet this hath so provok'd the angry wasps,
Or, as you said, of the next nest, the hornets,
That they fly buzzing, mad, about my nostrils,
And, like so many screaming grasshoppers
Held by the wings, fill every ear with noise.
And what? those former calumnies you mention'd
First, of the law: indeed I brought in Ovid
Chid by his angry father for neglecting
The study of their laws for poetry:
And I am warranted by his own words:

Sæpe pater dixit, studium quid inutile tentas
Mæonides nullas ipse reliquit opes.

And in far harsher terms elsewhere, as these:
Non me verbosas leges ediscere, non me
Ingrato voces prostituisse foro.

But how this should relate unto our laws,
Or the just ministers, with least abuse,
I reverence both too much to understand!
Then, for the captain, I will only speak
An epigram I here have made it is

UNTO TRUE SOLDIERS. That's the lemma: mark it.
Strength of my country, whilst I bring to view
Such as are mis-call'd captains, and wrong you,
And your high names; I do desire, that thence,
Be nor put on you, nor you take offence:
I swear by your true friend, my muse, I love
Your great profession which I once did prove;
And did not shame it with my actions then,
No more than I dare now do with my pen.
He that not trusts me, having vow'd thus much,
But's angry for the captain, still is such.

Now for the players, it is true, I tax'd them,
And yet but some; and those so sparingly,
As all the rest might have sat still unquestion'd,
Had they but had the wit or conscience

To think well of themselves. But impotent, they
Thought each man's vice belong'd to their whole tribe;
And much good do't them! What they have done
'gainst me,

I am not moved with: if it gave them meat,
Or got them clothes, 'tis well; that was their end.
Only amongst them, I am sorry for

Some better natures, by the rest so drawn,

To run in that vile line.

Pol. And is this all!

Will you not answer then the libels?

Aut. No.

Pol. Nor the Untrussers?

Aut. Neither.

Pol. Yare undone then.

Aut. With whom?

Pol. The world.

Aut. The bawd!

Pol. It will be taken

To be stupidity or tameness in you.

Were to confess you felt them. Let them go,
And use the treasure of the fool, their tongues,
Who makes his gain, by speaking worst of best.
Pol. O, but they lay particular imputations ·
Aut. As what?

Pol. That all your writing is more railing.
Aut. Ha?

If all the salt in the old comedy

Should be so censured, or the sharper wit
Of the bold satire termed scolding rage,
What age could then compare with those for buffcons
What should be said of Aristophanes,
Persius, or Juvenal, whose names we now
So glorify in schools, at least pretend it? —
Have they no other?

Pol. Yes; they say you are slow,
And scarce bring forth a play a year.
Aut. 'Tis true.

I would they could not say that I did that!
There's all the joy that I take in their trade,
Unless such scribes as these might be proscribed
Th' abused theatres. They would think it strange,now
A man should take but colts-foot for one day,
And, between whiles, spit out a better poem
Than e'er the master of art, or giver of wit.
Their belly, made. Yet, this is possible.
If a free mind had but the patience,
To think so much together and so vile.
But that these base and beggarly conceits
Should carry it, by the multitude of voices,
Against the most abstracted work, opposed
To the stuff'd nostrils of the drunken rout!
O, this would make a learn'd and liberal soul
To rive his stained quill up to the back,
And damn his long-watch'd labors to the fire;
Things that were born when none but the still night
And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes;
Were not his own free merit a more crown
Unto his travails than their reeling claps.
This 'tis that strikes me silent, seals my lips,

Aut. But they that have incensed me, can in soul And apts me rather to sleep out my time,

Acquit me of that guilt. They know I dare

To spurn or baffle them, or squirt their eyes
With ink or urine; or I could do worse,
Arm'd with Archilochus' fury, write Iambics,
Should make the desperate lashers hang themselves;
Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats
In drumming tunes. Or, living, I could stamp
Their foreheads with those deep and public brands,
That the whole company of barber-surgeons
Should not take off, with all their art and plasters.
And these my prints should last, still to be read
In their pale fronts; when, what they write 'gainst me
Shall, like a figure drawn in water, fleet,
And the poor wretched papers be employed
To clothe tobacco, or some cheaper drug:
This I could do and make them infamous.

But, to what end? when their own deeds have
mark'd'em;

And that I know, within his guilty breast
Each slanderer bears a whip that shall torment him
Worse than a million of these temporal plagues:
Which to pursue, were but a feminine humor,
And far beneath the dignity of man.

Nas. 'Tis true; for to revenge their injuries,

Than I would waste it in contemned strifes
With these vile Ibides, these unc.can birds,

That make their mouths their clys'ers, and still purg?
From their hot entrails. But I leave the monsters
To their own fate. And, since the Comic Muse
Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try
If TRAGEDY have a more kind aspéct ;
Her favors in my next I will pursue,
Where, if I prove the pleasure but of one,
So he judicious be, he shall be alone
A theatre unto me; Once I'll say
To strike the ear of time in those fresh strains,
As shall, beside the cunning of their ground,
Give cause to some of wonder, some despite,
And more despair, to imitate their sound.
I, that spend half my nights, and all my days,
Here in a cell, to get a dark pale face,
To come forth worth the ivy or the bays,

And in this age can hope no other grace
Leave me! There's something come into my thought,
That must and shall be sung high and aloof,
Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof.
Nas. I reverence these raptures, and obey them.
[The scene closes

SEJANUS: HIS FALL.

TO THE NO LESS NOBLE BY VIRTUE THAN BLOOD,

ESME LORD AUBIGNY.

MY GOD, 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, suffered 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 outlived their malice, and begot itself a greater favor 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 honorer,

BEN JONSON.

TO THE READERS.

THE following and voluntary labors 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 splendor 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, I intend shortly to publish. In the mean time, if in truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence, I Dave 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 savor affected, I do let you know, that I abhor nothing more; and I have only done it to shew my integrity in the story, and save myself in those common torturers that bring all wit tc 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, 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 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 JOHNSON; and no such,

Quem

Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum.

THE ARGUMENT.

against the princes, and their mother Agrippina; which: Cæsar jealously hearkening to, as covetously consenteth te their ruin, and their friends. In this time, the better to mature and strengthen his design, Sejanus labors 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, em

ELIUS 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 'nto that favor with the latter, and won him by those arts, as there wanted nothing but the name to make him a copartner of the empire. Which greatness of his, Drusus, the emperor's son, not brooking; after many smothered 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 dis-braceth: the former enkindleth his fears, and there gives honor, and the discovery of her husband's counsels) Sejanus practiseth with, together with her physician called Endemus, and one Lygdus an eunuch, to poison Drusus. This their inhuman act having successful and unsuspected passage, it emboldeneth Sejanus to further 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, und mstils into his ears many doubts and suspicions, both

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 honor in the senate, he tras him from his guards, and with a long doubtful letter, in one day hath him suscepted, accused, condemned, and torn in pieces by the rage of the people

DRAMATIS PERSON.E.

RUFUS. SEJANUS.

LATIARIS.

VARRO.

SERTORIUS MACRO.

COTTA.

DOMITIUS AFER.

HATERIUS.

SANQUINIUS.

POMPONIUS.

JULIUS POSTHUMUS.
FULCINIUS TRIO.
MINUTIUS.

SATRIUS SECUNDUS.
PINNARIUS NATTA.

SCENE, ROME.

- A State Room in the Palace.

[sphere.

Enter SABINUS and SILIUS, followed by LATIARIS.
Sab. Hail, Caius Silius!
Sil. Titius Sabinus," hail!
You're rarely met in court.
Sab. Therefore, well met.
Sil. 'Tis true: indeed, this place is not our
Sab. No, Silius, we are no good inginers.
We want their fine arts, and their thriving use
Should make us graced, or favor'd of the times:
We have no shift of faces, no cleft tongues,
No soft and glutinous bodies, that can stick,
Like snails on painted walls; or, on our breasts,
Creep up, to fall from that proud height, to which
We did by slavery,3 not by service climb.
We are no guilty men, and then no great;
We have no place in court, office in state,
That we can say, we owe unto our crimes:
We burn with no black secrets," which can make
Us dear to the pale authors; or live fear'd
Of their still waking jealousies, to raise
Ourselves a fortune, by subverting theirs.
We stand not in the lines, that do advance
To that so courted point.

Enter SATRIUS and NATTA, at a distance.
Sil. But yonder lean
A pair that do.

ris.

Sab. [salutes LATIARIS.] Good cousin Latia

Sil. Satrius Secundus,7 and Pinnarius Natta, The great Sejanus' clients: there be two, Know more than honest counsels; whose close breasts,

Were they ripp'd up to light, it would be found
A poor and idle sin, to which their trunks
Had not been made fit organs. These can lie,
Flatter, and swear, forswear, deprave, inform,
Smile, and betray; make guilty men; then beg

1 De Caio Silio, vid. Tacit. Lips. edit. quarto; Ann. Lib.

i. p. 11, Lib. ii. p. 28 et 33.

De Titio Sabino, vid. Tacit. Lib. iv. p. 79.

3 Tacit. Ann. Lib. i. p. 2.

4 Juv. Sat. i. v. 75.

5 Jav. Sat. iii. v. 49, &c.

De Latiari, cons. Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. p. 94, et Dion.

Step. edit. fol. Lib. lviii. p. 711.

'De Satrio Secundo, et

8 Pinnario Natta, leg. Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. p. 83. Et de

Eatrio cons. Senec. Consol. ad Marciam.

Vid. Sca. de Benef. Lib. iii. cap. 26.

OPSIUS

Triburi.

Præcones.

Flamen.

Tubicines. Nuntius. Lictores.

Ministri. Tibicines.

Servi, &c

AGRIPPINA LIVIA. SOSIA.

The forfeit lives, to get their livings; cut Men's throats with whisperings; sell to gaping suitors

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,
Habit, and garb, as often as he varies;
Observe him, as his watch observes his clock;
And, true, as turquoise in the dear lord's ring,
Look well or ill with him: 10 ready to praise
His lordship, if he spit, or but p― fair,
Have an inlifferent stool, or break wind well,
Nothing can 'scape their catch.

Sab. Alas! these things

Deserve no note, conferr'd with other vile
And filthier flatteries," that corrupt the times;
When, not alone our gentries chief are fain
To make their safety from such sordid acts;
But all our consuls,12 and no little part

Of such as have been prætors, yea, the most
Of senators, 13 that else not use their voices,
Start up in public senate and there strive
Who shall propound most abject things, and base.
So much, as oft Tiberius hath been heard,
Leaving the court, to cry,13 O race of men,
Prepared for servitude! which shew'd that he,
Who least the public liberty could like,
As lothly brook'd their flat servility.

Sil. Well, all is worthy of us, were it more,
Who with our riots, pride, and civil hate,
Have so provok'd the justice of the gods:
We, that, within these fourscore years, were born
And knew no masters, but affections;
Free, equal lords of the triumphed world,
To which betraying first our liberties,
We since became the slaves to one man's lusts,
And now to many: 14 every minst'ring spy
That will accuse and swear, is lord of you,
Of me, of all our fortunes and our lives.
Our looks are call'd to question,15 and our words,
How innocent soever, are made crimes;
We shall not shortly dare to tell our dreams,
Or think, but 'twill be treason.

Sab. Tyrants arts

Are to give flatterers grace; accusers, power;
That those may seem to kill whom they devour.

Enter CORDUS and ARRUNTIUS.

Now, good Cremutius Cordus.'

Cor. [salutes SABINUS.] Hail to your lordship!

Nat. [whispers LATIARIS.] Who's that salutes

your cousin?

Lat. "Tis one Cordus,'

A gentleman of Rome: one that has writ
Annals of late, they say, and very well.
Nat. Annals of what times?
Lat. I think of Pompey's,2

And Caius Caesar's; and so down to these.

Nat. How stands he affected to the present
state?

Is he or Drusian,3 or Germanican,
Or ours, or neutral?

Lat. I know him not so far.

Nat. Those times are somewhat queasy to be

touch'd.

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.

We were his followers, he would call us friends;
He was a man most like to virtue; in all,
And every action, nearer to the gods,
Than men, in nature; of a body as fair
As was his mind; and no less reverend

In face, than fame: 12 he could so use his state,
Tempering his greatness with his gravity,

As it avoided all self-love in him,

And spite in others. What his funerals lack'd
In images and pomp, they had supplied
With honorable sorrow, soldiers' sadness,
A kind of silent mourning, such, as men,

[Exeunt NATTA and SATRIUS. Who know no tears, but from their captives, use
To shew in so great losses.

Sab. But these our times

Are not the same, Arruntius.4

Arr. Times! the men,

The men are not the same: 'tis we are base,
Poor, and degenerate from the exalted strain
Of our great fathers. Where is now the soul
Of god-like Cato? he, that durst be good,
When Cæsar 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
Against all charm of benefits, did strike
So brave a blow into the monster's heart
That sought unkindly to captive his country?
O, they are fled the light! Those mighty spirits
Lie raked up with their ashes in their urns,
And not a spark of their eternal fire
Glows in a present bosom. All's but blaze,
Flashes and smoke, wherewith we labor so,
There's nothing Roman in us; nothing good,
Gallant, or great: 'tis true that Cordus says,
"Brave Cassius was the last of all that race."
DRUSUS passes over the stage, attended by HATE-
RIUS, &c.

Sab. Stand by lord Drusus."

Hat. The emperor's son! give place.
Sil. I like the prince well.
Arr. A riotous youth;

There's little hope of him.

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,

1 De Crem. Cordo, vid. Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. p. 83, 84. Senec. Cons, ad Marciam. Dio. Lib. lvii. p. 710. Suet. Aug. c. 35. Tib. c. 61. Cal. c. 16.

2 Suet. Aug. cap. 35.

Vid. de faction. Tacit. Ann. Lib. ii. p. 39. et Lib. iv. p. 79. 4 De Lu. Arrun. isto vid. Tacit. Ann. Lib. i. p. 6. et Lib. i. p. 60. et Dion. Rom. Hist. Lib. 58.

5 Lege de Druso Tacit. Ann. Lib. i. p. 9. Suet. Tib. c. 15 Dio. Rom. Hist. Lib. Ivii. p. 699.

Tacit. Ann. Lib. iii. p. 62.

Cor. I thought once,

Considering their forms, age, manner of deaths,
The nearness of the places where they fell,
To have parallel'd him with great Alexander:
For both were of best feature, of high race,
Year'd but to thirty, and, in foreign lands,
By their own people alike made away.

Sab. I know not, for his death, how you might
wrest it:

But, for his life, it did as much disdain
Comparison, with that voluptuous, rash,
Giddy, and drunken Macedon's, as mine
Doth with my bondman's. All the good in him
His valor and his fortune, he made his;
But he had other touches of late Romans,
That more did speak him: "3 Pompey's dignity,
The innocence of Cato, Cæsar's spirit,
Wise Brutus' temperance; and every virtue,
Which, parted unto others, gave them name,
Flow'd mix'd in him. He was the soul of good-

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The Works of Ben Jonson, 2. sējums