Still to be neat, still to be dressed
As if you were going to a feast
Still to be powdered, still perfumed
Lady it is to be presumed Though arts hid causes are not found
All is not sweet, all is not sound
Give me a look, give me a face
That makes simpicity a grace
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art They strike mine eyes but not my heart
By Boy,
in Epicoene (1.1.71-82),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry e. 14, f. 12
Cock Lorel would needs have the devil his guest
And bad him into the Peak to dinner
Where never the friend had such a feast
provided yet at the cost of a sinner
His stomacke was queasy he came thither coached
The jogging had made some crudities rise
To help it he called for a puritan poached
That used to turn up the eggs off his eyes
And so recovered to his wish
He sat him down and he fell to eat
Promoter in plum broth was his first dish
His own privy kitchen had no such meat
Six pickled tailors sliced and cut
Sempsters tirewomen fit for his palate
With feathermen and perfumers put
Some twelve in a charger to make a grand sallat
A rich fat usurer in his marrow And by him on lawyer's and green sauce Both with his belly took in like a barrow As if till then he never had seen sauce
Then carbonadoed and cooked with pains
Was brought up a cloven sergeant's face
The sauce was made of a yeomans brains
that had been cloven out with his own mace
Two roasted sheriffs came whole to the board
The feast had nothing been without 'em
Both living and dead they were foxed and furred
Their chains like sausages hung about 'em
The next dish was the mayor of a town
With a pudding of maintenance thrust in his belly
Like a goose in his feathers dressed in his gown
And his couple of hench-boys boiled to a jelly BM at the moment the fact that this extract runs over two folios is not showing up on DEx [same song cont'd; bottom of page non-dramatic]
A London cuckold hot from the spit
And when the carver up had broke him
The devil chopped up his head at a bit
Both horns were very near to choke him
Yet though with the meat he was much taken
up on a sudden he shifted his trencher
as soon as he spied the bawd and bacon
by which you may know the devil is a wencher
The chin of a lecher too there was roasted
With a plump young harlot's haunch and garlic
A pander's pettitoes that had boasted
Himself for a captain yet never was warlike
A lusty fat pasty of a midwife hot
And for a cold baked meat into the story
A reverend painted lady was brought
Was coffined in crust till she was hoary
To these an overgrowne justice of peace
With a clerk like a gizzard trussed under each arm And warrant for sippets laid in his own grease
Set over a chafing-dish to be kept warm
The jowl of a jailor served for fish
A constable soused with vinegar by
Two aldermen lobsters asleep in a dish
A deputy tart and a churchwarden pie
All which devoured he then for a close
Did for a full draught of Derby call He heaved the huge vessel up to his nose
and left not till he had drunk up all
BM What is the second word? for a moment I believed it was covfefe?
If I freely may discover
What may pl e ase me in my lover
I would have her fair and witty
Savoring more of court then City
A little proud but full of pity
Light and humorous in her toying
Oft building hopes and soon destroying
Not too easy notnor too hard
All extremes I would have bard
She should be allowed her passions
So they were but use as fashions
Sometime forward and frowning
Sometime sickly and then sowning
Every fit with change still crowning
Purly jealous I would have her
Only constant when I crave her
Tis a virtue should not save her
Thus nor her delicates should claw me
Nor her peevishness annoy me
By Crispinus,
in Poetaster (2.3.135-144),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry e. 14, f. 21r
To make a child now swadled to
proceed Man, & then shoot up in one beard, & weed
past threescore years: Or with 3 rusty swords, And help
of some few foot & half foot words Fight over
York & Lancasters long jars, And in the tiring house
bring wounds to scars.
By Prologue,
in Every Man in his Humour (Prologue.6-12),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 68
neither Chorus wafts you
ore the seas, Nor creaking Throne comes down the
boys to please; Nor nimble squib is seen, to make
afeard the Gentlewomen; nor rolled Bullet heard
To say it thunders, nor tempestuous drum rum
bles to tell you, when the storm doth come.
By Prologue,
in Every Man in his Humour (Prologue.15-20),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS Sancroft 29, p. 68
Amorphus his Mistris Glove
Thou more than most sweet glove
Unto my more sweet Love
Suffer me to store with kisses,
This empty lodging that now misses
The pure rosy hand that ware thee, Whiter than the kid that bare thee:
Thou art soft but that was softer
Cupids self hath kissed it ofter Than e'er he did his mothers doves
Supposing Her the Queene of Loves
That was thy mistress
Best of Gloves.
By Amorphus,
in Cynthia's Revels (4.3.252-263),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson poetry 142, f. 45v
Apollo if with ancient rites And due devotions I have ever hung
Elaborate Peans on thy golden shrine,
Or sung thy triumphs in a lofty strain
Fit for a theatre of Gods to hear.
And thou the other son of mughty Jove, Cyllenian Mercury sweet Majas joy lb inside canonical here If in the busy tumults of the mindMy path thou ever hast illumined For which thine altars I have oft perfumedAnd decked thy statue with discoloured flowers: now.
By Crites,
in Cynthia's Revels (4.6.59-69),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson poetry 142, f. 45v
When hath Diana , like an envious wretch That glitters only to his soothed self, Denying to the world the precious use Of hoarded wealth, withheld her friendly aid? Monthly we spend our still- repairèd shine,And not forbid our virgin-waxen torch To burn and blaze while nutriment doth last; That once consumed, out of Jove’s treasury A new we take, and stick it in our sphere
By Cynthia,
in Cynthia's Revels (5.6.19-27),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson poetry 142, f. 45v
If I freely may discover
what please me in my lover
I would have her fair and witty
Savouring more of court than city
A little proud, but full of pity
Light and humorous in her toying
Oft building hopes and soon destroying Neither too easy, nor to hard
All extremes, I would have barred
By Crispinus,
in Poetaster (2.2.135-144),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson poetry 117, f. 30v
She should be allowed her passions
So they were but used as fashions
Sometimes froward and then frowning Sometimes sickish, and then swowning Every fit with change still crowning. Purely jealous I would have her
Then only constant when I crave her
'Tis a vertue should not save her
Thus nor her Delicates would cloy me Neither her peevishness annoy me
By Ben Jonson
Come my Caelia let us prove
While we can the sports of Love
Time will not be ours for ever
He at length our good will sever
spend not then his giftes in vain
Suns that set, may rise again.
But if once we lose this light 'Tis with us perpetual night
Why should we defer our joys
Fame, & Rumour, are but toys.
Cannote we delude the eyes?
Of a few poor household spies. Or his easier ears beguile, Thusremovèd by our wile.
It's no sin loves fruits to steal,
But the sweet thefts to reveal.
To be taken, to be seneseene>
These have crimes accounted been.
By Volpone,
in Volpone (3.7.164-182),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 10309, f.117r
20. He is the very justice of peace in the play, and can commit whom he will and
what he will, error absurdity, as the toy takes him, and no man say
black is his eye but laugh at him.
By Tattle,
in The Staple of News (Intermean1.18-19),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 69
43
your meat should be served in with curious dances,
and set upon the board with virgin hands,
tured to their voices; not a dish removed,
but to the music, nor a drop of wine,
mized, with his water, with out harmony.
By Cymbal,
in The Staple of News (3.2.230-234),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 69
some he dry- ditches , some mossesmoats round with broths
mounts marrow-bones, cuts fifty angled custards,
rears bulwark pies, and for his outer- works
he raiseth ramparts of immortal crust;
and teacheth all the tactics at one dinner:
what ranks, what files, to put his dishes in;
the whole art military. Then he knows
the influence of the stars upon his meats
he has nature in a pot, bove all ye chemists
he is an architect an engineer
a soldier, a physician, a philosopher,
a general mathematician.
By Lickfinger,
in The Staple of News (4.2.23-37),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 69v
59.
with all your fly-blown projects,
and looks out of the politics, your shut faces,
and reserved questions and answers as
'Is't a clear business? will it mannage well?
my name must not be used else. Here, t’will dash, Your business hath received a taint, give off,
I may not prostitute myself. tut, tut
that little dust I can blow of at pleasure. Here's no such mountain, yet, i'the whole work
but a light purse may level. I will tide
this affair / for you; give it freight and passage.
and such mint-phrase; as tis the worst of canting,
by how much it affects the sense, it has not
By Canter,
in The Staple of News (4.4.63-75),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 70
65.
a narrow-minded man, whose thoughts do dwell all in a lane, or line indeed; no turning. not scarce obliquity in them I still look
right forward to the intent, and scope of than
which he would go from now.
By Picklock,
in The Staple of News (5.1.74-8),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 70
:2.
a poxe on these pretenders to wit! not a graincorn of true salt, not a graine of right
mustard amongst them all They may stand for places or so again' the next witfall
By John,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.1.25-28),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 70v
at most, would have been up when thou wert gone abroad, by all description. I pray thee, what ailest thou canst not sleep? Hast thou thorns i'thy eyelids, or thirstles i'thy bed?
By Quarlous,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.3.5-7),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 70v
an old reverend smock, by the splay-foot! There 50 cannot be an ancient tripe or trillibub i’the town but thou art straight nosing it, and ’tis a fine occupation thou’lt confine thyself to, when thou hast got one: scrubbing a piece of buff, as if thou hadst the perpetuity of Pannier Alley to stink in; or perhaps worse: currying a carcass that thou hast bound thyself to alive. I’ll be sworn, some of them that thou art, or hast been, a suitor to 55 are so old, as no chaste or married pleasure can ever become ’em; the honest instrument of procreation has — forty years since — left to belong to ’em. Thou must visit ’em as thou wouldst do a tomb, with a torch, or three handfuls of link, flaming hot, and so thou mayst hap to make ’em feel thee, and, after, come to inherit according to thy inches. A sweet course for a man to waste 60 his brand of life for, to be still raking himself a fortune in an old woman’s embers! We shall ha’ thee, after thou hast been but a month married to one of ’em,
By Quarlous,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.3.50-63),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 70v
I would endure to hear fifteen sermons
a week for her, and such course and loud ones, as some of them must be. i would een desire
of fate i might dwell in a drum, and take my sustenance with an old broken tobacco -pipe and a straw. dost thou ever thinke to bring thine ears or stomach, to the patience
of a dry grace, as long as the table-cloth, and droned out by thy son here - taht might be thy father - till all the meat on the board has
forgot, it was that day in the kitchen. or to brook the noise made in question of predestination, by the good labourers and painful eaters, assembled together, put to them by the matron your spouse; who moderates with a cup of wine ever and anon, and a sentence
out of Knox between? or the perpetual spitting before and after a sober drawn
exhortation of six hours, whose better part was the hum-ha-hum: or to heare prayers
groaned out over thy iron chests, as if they were charmes to break'em. and all
this for the hope of two apostle- spoons to suffer!, and a cup to eat a caudle in.
By Quarlous,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.3.65-78),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 70v
His foolish schoolmasters have done nothing but run up and downe the country with him
to beg pudding and cakebred of his tenants and almost spoiled him, he has learned nothing but to sing catches
and repeate rattle bladder rattle
By Wasp,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.4.55-58),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 70v
Why, we could not meet that heathen thing all day 85 but stayed him: he would name you all the signs over as he went, aloud, and where he spied a parrot or a monkey, there he was pitched — with all the little long-coats about him, male and female — no getting him away!
By Wasp,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.4.85-88),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 70v
he would name you all the signs over, as he went, aloud, and where he spried a parrot,
or a monkey, there he was pitched, with all the little long coats about him male and female; no getting him away! I thought he would ha’ run mad o’the black
boy in bucklers-bury, that takes the scuryscurvy, roguy tobacco there.
By Wasp,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.4.86-90),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 70v
Wasp on his Master a young silly-country esquire.
he is such a ravener after fruit / you will not
believe what a coil I had t’other day, to compound a business between a cathern -
pear woman and him, about snatching!
By Wasp,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.5.92-94),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 70v
Purecraft
I would be sati s fied from you, religiously wise whether a widow of the
sanctified assembly or a widow's daughter may commit the act
with out offence to the weaker sister.
By Purecraft,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.6.36-38),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 71v
it may be eaten, very exceeding well eaten, but in the fair and as a Barthol’mew pig, it cannot be eaten, for the
very calling it a Barthol’mew - pig, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry, and you
make the fair, no better then one of the high place.
By Busy,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.6.42-45),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 71v
hath a face of offense with the weak
a great face, a foul face, but that face may have a veil put over it, and be shad-
dowed as it were, it may bee eaten and in the fair I take it, in a booth the tents
of the wicked: the place is not much not very much we may be religious in midst
of the profane, so it be eaten swith a reformed mouth, with sobriety, and humbleness
By Busy,
in Bartholomew Fair (1.6.56-60),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 71v
Ay, ay, gamesters, moch a plain plump soft wench o'the suburbs, do, because she's juicy and wholesome; none of your you must ha' your thin pinched ware pent up in the compass of a dog collar.
By Ursula,
in Bartholomew Fair (2.5.63-64),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 71v
with lean playhouse poultry that has the bony rump sticking out like the ace of spades, or
the point of a partizan, and will so grate 'em with their hips and shoulders as - take 'em altogether they
were as good lie with an hurdle.
By Ursula,
in Bartholomew Fair (2.5.80-82),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 72r
34. And it were a sin of obstinacy, great obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to decline or resist the good titillation of the famelic sense, which is the smell.
By Busy,
in Bartholomew Fair (3.2.64-66),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 72r
Therefore be bold — huh! huh! huh! — follow the scent. Enter the tents of the unclean for once, and satisfy your wife’s frailty. Let your frail wife be satisfied; your zealous mother, and my suffering self, will also be satisfied.
By Busy,
in Bartholomew Fair (3.2.67-69),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 72r
48. for long hair it is an ensign of pride, a banner, and the world is full of those banners, very full of banners. And bottle-ale is a drink of Satan's, a diet-drink of Satan's, devised to puff us up, and make us swell in this latter age of vanity as the smoke of tobacco, to keep us in mist and error
By Busy,
in Bartholomew Fair (3.6.22-26),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 72r
peace with thy apocryphal wares, thou profane publican. thy bells, thy dragons
and thy tobies dogs. thy hobby horse is a very Idol a fierce and rank idol and thou the Nebuchadnezzar the proud Nebuchadnezzar
of the fair that sett'st it up for children to fall down to and worship.
By Busy,
in Bartholomew Fair (3.6.23-26),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 72r
A Prologue to Catiline, to be
Merrily spoken by Mrs Nell Gwyn:
in an Amazonian Habit
A woman's prologue! that is vent'rous news:
But we a Poet wanting, crav'd a. Muse.
Why should our brains lie fallow, as if they
Without his fire, were mere Promethean clay?
In nature's Plain-song wee may bear our parts
Although we want choice Descant, from the Arts,
Amongst Musicians: so the Philomel
May in wild notes, though not in rules excel
And when i'th weaker vessel wit doth lie;
Though into froth, it will work out & fly
But Gentlemen, you know our formal way
Although we're sure 'tis false, yet we must say
Nay Pish, nay Fye, in troth it is not good
When we the while think it not understood:
Catiline's Conspiracy: by B. JonsonSulla's Ghost
Dost thou not feel me Rome? not yet? is night
so heavy on thee, and my weight so light?
Can Sulla's Ghost arise within thy walls,
Less threatening, than an earthquake, the quick falls
Of thee & thine? shake not the frighted heads
Of thy steep towers? Or shrink to their first beds?
Or as their ruine the proud Tyber fills,
Make that swell up and drown thy seven proud hills?
What sleep is this doth seize thee, so like death,
And is not it? Wake feel her in my breath:
Behold I come, sent from the stygian sound,
As a dire vapour that had cleft the ground,
T'engender with the night, & blast the day:
Or like a Pestilence that should display Infection through the world, which thus I do
By Sulla's Ghost,
in Catiline (1.1.1-15),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 22r
Catiline
It is decree'd. Nor shall thy Fate, O Rome,
Resist my vow. Though hills were set on hills,
And seas met seas, to guard thee; I would through:
I'd plow up rocks, steep as the Alps, in dust;
And lave the Tyrrhene waters into clouds;
But I would reach thy head, thy head proud city.
The ills that I have done can not be safe,
But by attempting greater; and I feel
A spirit in me, chides my sluggish hands
And says, they have been innocent too long.
Was I a man bred great as Rome herself?
One, form'd for all her honours, all her glories?
Equal to all her titles? That could stand
close up, with Atlas; and sustain her name,
As strong, as he doeth heaven! and was I,
Of all her brood, mark'd out for the repulse
By her no voice, whom I stood candidate,
To be commander in the Pontick war?
I will hereafter call her stepdame ever.
If shee can lose her nature, I can lose
My piety; & in her stony entrails
Dig me a seat, where I will live again.
The labour of her womb, & be a burden,
weightier than all the prodigies, & Monster,
That shee hath teem'd with, since she first knew Mars.
By Catiline,
in Catiline (1.1.73-97),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 22v
Cat: speaking to Aurelia of Cethegus
Cethagus
Whose valour I have turn'd into his poison;
And praised so into daring, as he would
Go on upon the Gods, kiss lightning, wrest
At face of a full cloud, & stand his ire:
when I would bid him move
By Catiline,
in Catiline (1.1.140-146),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 22v
Lentulus Cethegus & Catiline
at their appointed meeting
It is, methinks, a morning full of Fate!
It riseth slowly, as her sullen care
Had all the weights of sleep & death hung at her!
She is not rosy-fingered, but swoll'n black!
Her face, is like a water turn'd to blood,
And her sick head is bound about with clouds,
As if she threatned night ere noon of day!
It does not look as it would have a hail,
Or health, wish'd in it, as on other morns.
By Lentulus,
in Catiline (1.1.191-201),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 23r
Cethagus seeing that the rest were not come early as was appointed Paulo post
Come, we all sleep; are mere dormice; Flies.
A little less than dead: more dullness hangs
on us, than on the morn. We are spirit-bound
In ribs of ice: Our whole bloods are one stone;
Though they burn, hot as fevers to our states.
By Cethegus,
in Catiline (1.1.210-227),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 23r
Oh the days
Of Sulla's sway, when the free sword took leave
Slaughter bestrid the streets, and strech'd himself
To seem more huge; whilst to his stained thighs
The gore he drew flow'd up: and caried down
Whole heaps of limbs, and bodies, through his arch
By Cethegus,
in Catiline (1.1.229-238),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 23v
The rugged Charon fainted
And ask'd a navy rather than a Boat
To ferry over the sad world that came:
The maws and dens of beasts, could not receive
The bodies, that those souls were frighted from
And e'en the graves were fill'd with them yet living
Whose flight and fear, had mix'd them with the dead.
By Cethegus,
in Catiline (1.1.248-253),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 23v
Catiline & Cethegus, talking afterCatiline's disappointment of Consulship
Repulse upon repulse? An inmate Consul>
That I could reach the axle where the pins are,
Which bolt this frame; that I might pull 'em out
And pluck all into chaos with my self.
By Catiline,
in Catiline (3.1.192-200),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 23v
Cicero after his discourse FulviaCatiline's counsels to him
Is there a heaven; and gods, and can it be
They should so slowly hear, so slowly see!
Hath Jove no thunder? Or is Jove become
Stupid as thou art? O near-wretched Rome,
When both thy senate, and thy Gods do sleep,
And neither thine, nor their own states do keep!
What will awake thee, heaven? What can excite
Thine anger if this practice be too Light?
His former drifts partake of former crimes
But this last plot was only Catiline's
Oh that it were his last. But he before
Had safely doen so much, he'll still dare more.
By Cicero,
in Catiline (3.2.1-11),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 23v
Cicero after his discourse with Fulvia & Curius concerning the conspiracy
O Rome in what a sickness art thou fallen!
How dangerous and deadly! when thy head
Is drown'd in sleep, and all thy body fev'ry!
No noise, no pulling, no vexation wakes thee,
Thy Lethargy is such: or if by chance,
Thou heavest thy eyelids up, thou dost forget
Sooner than thou wert told, thy proper danger
I did unreverently, to blame the gods,
By Cicero,
in Catiline (3.2.204-211),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 23v
Who wake for thee, though thou snore to thy selfe
Is it not strange, thou shouldst be so diseas'd
And so secure; But more that thy first symptoms
Of such a Malady should not rise but
From any worthy Member, but a base
And common strumpet, worthless to be nam'd
A hair or part of the! Think think hereafter
How much the Gods upbraid thy foule neglect.
They could have wrought by nobler ways have struck
Thy foes with forked lightning; or ram'd thunder,
Thrown hills upon them in the act: have sent
Death like a damp to all their families;
Or caus'd their consciences to burst But
when they will show the, what thou art, and make
A scornful difference twixt their power & there
They help thee by such aids, as geese, & Harlots
By Cicero,
in Catiline (3.2.212-230),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 24v
Catiline to Aurelia Exhorting her to persuadethe citizens wives to draw their husbands into the plot
Promise 'em states & Empires,
And men for lovers made of better clay,
Than ever the old potter Titan knew.
By Catiline,
in Catiline (3.3.51-53),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 24v
Catiline to Lentulus begirt you Pompey's house, to seize his sons alive, for they are they must make our peace with him all else cut off
As tarquin did the poppy heads or mowers
A Field of Thistles, or else up, as plough
Do barren lands; and strike together flints
And clods; the ungrateful senate and the people
May weigh with yours though horror leapt herself
Into the scale; but in your violent acts,
The fall of torrents, and the noise of tempests
The boiling of Charybdis: the sea's wildness.
The eating force of flames, and wings of winds,
Be all outwrought by your transcendant Furies
It had been done ere this had I been consul
By Catiline,
in Catiline (3.3.153-167),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 24v
Catiline
May my brain
Resolve to water, and my blood turn phlegm
My hands drop off, unworthy of my sword,
And that be inspired, of itself to rip.
My breast for my lost entrails when I leave
A soul that will not serve, and who will are
The same with slaves; such clay I dare not fear.
By Catiline,
in Catiline (3.3.250-256),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 25r
The Alobroges seeing diverse senators passing by trembling and quaking after the thundering and lightning
Can these men fear? who are not only ours,
But the worlds masters? then I see the gods
upbraid our sufferings; or would humble them,
whose names we trembled at beyond the alps:
of all that pass I do not see a face
worthy a man, that dares look up and stand;
One thunder out: but downward all like beasts
Running away from every flash is made.
The falling world could not deserve such baseness.
It is our base petitionary breath
That blows them to this greatness which this prick
would soon let out if we were bold and wretched;
When they have taken all we have our goods.
Crops, lands, and houses, they will leave us this.
A weapon and an arme will still be found.
Though naked left and lower than the ground.
By First Allobrox,
in Catiline (4.1.1-32),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 25r
Cethegus seeingthe Alobrogi, who came for to help the conspiracy
Can these or such be any aid to us?
Look they, as they were built to shake the world.
Or be of moment to our enterprise?
A thousand such as they are could not make
One atom of our souls. They should be men
Worth heaven's fear, that looking up but thus
Would make Jove stand upon his guard and draw
Himself within his thunder; which amaz'd
He should discharge in vain, & they unhurt.
Or if they near, like Capaneus and Thebes.
They should hang dead upon the highest spires
And ask the second bolt to be thrown down.
Why Lentulus talk the so long? This time
Had been enough t'have scatter'd all the stars
Despair of day on any light but ours.
By Cethegus,
in Catiline (4.5.40-55),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 25v
Catiline in his speech to his soldiers. Paulo post
The sword must both direct and cut a passage.
I only therefore wish the when the strike,
To have the valours and your souls about the
And think the carry in your labouring hands
The things the seek glory and liberty.
By Catiline,
in Catiline (5.4.24-28),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 25v
Methinks I see Death and the Furies waiting
What we will do; & all the heave at leisure
For the great spectacle. Draw then your swords.
And if our destiny envy our virtue
The honour of the day, let us take care
To sell ourselves at such a price as may
Undo the world to buy us; and make fate
while she tempt ours, fear her own estate.
By Catiline,
in Catiline (5.4.46-53),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 26r
Cethegus when he was condemned to Die by the consul
Oh the whore fortune & her bawds the Fates
That put these tricks on men that knew the way
To death by a sword. Strangle me I may sleep:
I shall grow angry with the god else.
By Cethegus,
in Catiline (5.5.181-184),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 26r
Petreius gives an account of the Success of the battle. The End
The straits and needs of Catiline being such
As he must fight with one of the two armies
That then had near inclos'd him. It pleas'd Fate
To make us the object of his desperate choice
Wherein the danger almost peised the honour.
And as he riss the day grew black with him;
And Fate descended nearer to the earth,
As if she meant to hide the name of things
Under her wings, and make the world her quarry.
At this we rous'd lest one small minutes stay
Had left it to be enquir'd what Rome was.
And (as we ought) arm'd with the confidence
Of our great cause, in form of battle stood.
Whilst Catiline came on, not with the face
Of any man but of a public ruin:
His countenance was a Civil war itself
And all his host had standing in their looks.
The paleness of the death that was to come.
Yet cried they out like vultures, and urge'd on
As if they would precipitate our Fates.
Nor stayed we longer for 'em but himself
struck the first stroke, and with it fled a life.
which cuts it seemed a narrow neck of land
Had broke between two mighty seas and either
Flow'd into other. For so did the slaughter:
And whirl'd about as when two violent tides
Meet and not yield. The Furies stood on hills,
Circling the place and trembling to see men
Do More than they: whilst pity left the field
Grieved for that side, that in so bad a cause.
They knew not what a crime their valour was
The sun stood still and was behind the cloud
The battle made seen sweating to drive up
His fright'd horse, whom still the noise drove backward
And now had fierce Enyo like a flame
consum'd all it could reach, and then itself;
Had not the fortune of the commonwealth
Come Pallas-like to every Roman thought.
Which Catiline seeing, and that now his troops
Cover'd the earth they had fought on with their trunks
Ambitious of great fame to crown his ill
collected all his fury and ran in.
Arm'd with a glory high as his despair
into our battle like a Libyan lion
upon his Hunters scornful of our weapons.
Careless of wounds, plucking down lives about him
Till he had circled in himself with death
Then fell he to t'embrace it where it lay
And as in that rebellion 'gainst the gods
Minerva holding forth Medusa's head
One of the giant brethren felt himself
Grow marble at the killing sight and now
almost made stone began t'enquire what flint
what rock it was that crept through all his limbs
And ere he could think more was that he fear'd
So Catiline, at the sight of Rome in us
Became his tomb: yet did his look retain
Some of his fierceness, & his hand still mov'd
As if he laboured yet to grasp the state
With those rebellious part.
By Petreius,
in Catiline (5.5.210-271),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 26r
Sejanus speaks.
by you that fools call gods
Hang all the like with your prodigious signs
Fill earth with monsters, drop the scorpion down
Out of the Zodiac, or the fiercer Lion
shake off the loosened globe from her long hinge
Roll all the world in darkness; and let loose
With forked fire and unpitied die
Who fears is worthy of calamity.
By Sejanus,
in Sejanus His Fall (5.1.390-399),
Ben Jonson
in British Library Sloane MS 161, f. 28r
Envy
hate
The true condition of envy is Dolor alienae felicitatis : to have our eyes continually fixed upon another man’s prosperity – that is, his chief happiness – and to grieve at that. Whereas if we make his monstrous and abhorred actions our object, the grief we take then comes nearer the nature of hate than envy, as being bred out of a kind of contempt and loathing in ourselves.Right, for what a man truly envies in another, he could always love and cherish in himself;
By Cordatus,
in Every Man out of his Humour (1.3.151-160),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f. 39v
" " "
He will think and speak his thought, both
freely but as distant from depraving any other man's merit, as proclaiming his own. For his valour, ’tis such that he dares as little to offer an injury as receive one. In sum, he hath a most ingenious and sweet spirit, a sharp
and seasoned wit, a straight judgement and a strong mind, constant and unshaken. Fortune could never break him or make him less. he counts it his
pleasure to despise pleasures, and is more delighted with good deeds than goods.
By Mercury,
in Cynthia's Revels (2.3.101-107),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f. 40r
Contempt
"
this afflicts me more than all the rest, that we should so particularly direct our hate and contempt against him, and he to carry it thus without wound or passion! 'Tis insufferable.
By Hedon,
in Cynthia's Revels (3.2.14-16),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f. 40v
speech There’s one speaks in a key, like the opening of some justice’s gate or a post-boy’s horn, as if his voice feared an arrest for some ill words it should give and were loath to come forth.
By Phantaste,
in Cynthia's Revels (4.1.47-50),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f. 40v
railing"
The modest paper e’en looks pale for grief To feel her virgin cheek defiled and stained With such a black and criminal inscription. Well, I had thought my son could not have strayedSo far from judgement as to mart himself.
By Knowell,
in Every Man in his Humour (1.1.165-169),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f. 41r
"
"
"
"
"
The time was once when wit drowned wealth; but now Your only barbarism is t’have wit, and want. No matter now in virtue who excels, He that hath coin hath all perfection else
By Ovid,
in Poetaster (1.2.211-1.3.73),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f. 41v
Play: Jonson
"
"
Go, go; meddle with your bedchamber only, or rather with your ben in your
chamber only; or rather with your wife in your bed only; or on my faith I'll not be pleased with you only.
By Chloe,
in Poetaster (2.1.91-93),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f.42r
" Your satin sleeve begins to fret at the rug that is underneath it, I do observe; and your ample velvet bases are not without evident stains of a hot disposition naturally .
By Horace,
in Poetaster (3.1.51-53),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f.42r
Compliments
"
And your ears will be so furred with the breath of their compliments that you can not catch cold of your
head if you would , in three winters after.
By Cytheris,
in Poetaster (4.1.20-21; 4.1.24-25),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f.42r
Informers
"
Princes that
will but hear or give access To such officious spies
can ne'er be safe: They take in poison with an open ear , And, free
from danger become slaves to fear.
By Maecenas,
in Poetaster (4.7.53-56),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f.42r
Riches
and poverty
To make a difference of me for my poorness, As filth of poverty sunk as deep into a knowing spirit as the
bane of riches doth into an ignorant soul.
By Horace,
in Poetaster (5.1.80-83),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f.42r
Tis a mad world Their services are, clock-like, to be set Backward and forward at their lord’s command. You know my father’s wayward, and his humour
Must not receive a check, for then all objects
Feed both his grief and his impatience
And those affections in him are like powder,
Apt to inflame with every little spark And blowe up reason.
By Paulo,
in The Case is Altered (1.4.81-88),
Ben Jonson
in Bodleian Library MS English poetry d. 3, f. 80r