Ben Jonson

“ Gallus here, Apollo; you, Cytheris, Pallas; I will be Bacchus; and my love Plautia, Ceres: and to install you and your husband, fair Chloe, in honours equal with ours, you shall be a goddess, and your husband a god. Chloe. A god!—O my gods! Tib. A god, but a lame god, lady; for he shall be Vulcan, and you Venus: and this will make our banquet no less than heavenly. Chloe. In sincerity, it will be sugared. Good Jove, what a pretty foolish thing it is to be a poet! but, hark you, sweet Cytheris, could they not possibly leave out my husband? methinks a body's husband does not so well at court ”

“ O Jupiter! me, sir, me, by any means; I beseech you, me, sir. Cris. No, faith, I'll venture those now; thou shalt see I love thee—some, Horace. Hor. Nay, then I am desperate: I follow you, sir. 'Tis hard contending with a man that overcomes thus. Cris. And how deals Mecaenas with thee? liberally, ha? is he open handed? bountiful? Hor. He's still himself, sir. Cris. Troth, Horace, thou art exceeding happy in thy friends and acquaintance; they are all most choice spirits, and of the first rank of Romans: I do not know that poet, I protest, has used his fortune more prosperously than thou hast. ”

“ Gramercy, good Horace. Nay, we are new turn'd poet too, which is more; and a satirist too, which is more than that: I write just in thy vein, I. I am for your odes, or your sermons, or any thing indeed; we are a gentleman besides; our name is Rufus Laberius Crispinus; we are a pretty Stoic too. Hor. To the proportion of your beard, I think it, sir. Cris. By Phoebus, here's a most neat, fine street, is't not? I protest to thee, I am enamoured of this street now, more than of half the streets of Rome again; 'tis so polite and terse! there's the front of a building now! ”

“ Or, Horace, what say'st thou, that art the poorest, And likeliest to envy, or to detract Hor. Caesar speaks after common men in this, To make a difference of me for my poorness; As if the filth of poverty sunk as deep Into a knowing spirit, as the bane Of riches doth into an ignorant soul. No, Caesar, they be pathless, moorish minds That being once made rotten with the dung Of damned riches, ever after sink Beneath the steps of any villainy. But knowledge is the nectar that keeps sweet A perfect soul, even in this grave of sin ”

“ Shew it to Horace: ask him if he know it. Lup. Know it! his hand is at it, Caesar. Caes. Then 'tis no libel. Hor. It is the imperfect body of an emblem, Caesar, I began for Mecaenas. Lup. An emblem! right: that's Greek for a libel. Do but mark how confident he is. Hor. A just man cannot fear, thou foolish tribune; Not, though the malice of traducing tongues, The open vastness of a tyrant's ear, The senseless rigour of the wrested laws, Or the red eyes of strain'd authority, Should, in a point, meet all to take his life: His innocence is armour 'gainst all these. ”

“ Ovid. Who? Cytheris, Cornelius Gallus' love? Tib. Ay, he'll be there too, and my Plautia. Ovid. And why not your Delia? Tib. Yes, and your Corinna. Ovid. True; but, my sweet Tibullus, keep that secret I would not, for all Rome, it should be thought I veil bright Julia underneath that name: Julia, the gem and jewel of my soul, That takes her honours from the golden sky, As beauty doth all lustre from her eye. The air respires the pure Elysian sweets In which she breathes, and from her looks descend The glories of the summer. Heaven she is, Praised in herself above all praise ”

“ SCENE V.-A Street before the Palace. Enter TUCCA, CRISPINUS, and PYRGUS. Tuc. What's become of my little punk, Venus, and the poultfoot stinkard, her husband, ha? Cris. O; they are rid home in the coach, as fast as the wheels can run. Tuc. God Jupiter is banished, I hear, and his cockatrice Juno lock'd up. 'Heart, an all the poetry in Parnassus get me to be a player again, I'll sell 'em my share for a sesterce. But this is Humours, Horace, that goat-footed envious slave; he's turn'd fawn now; an informer, the rogue! 'tis he has betray'd us all. Did you not see him with the emperor crouching? ”

“ Believe me, sir, you sing most excellently. Ovid. If there were a praise above excellence, the gentleman highly deserves it. Her. Sir, all this doth not yet make me envy you; for I know I sing better than you. Tib. Attend Hermogenes, now. HERMOGENES, accompanied. She should be allow'd 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 virtue should not save her. ”

“ First, you must know, That where there is a true and perfect merit, There can be no dejection; and the scorn Of humble baseness, oftentimes so works In a high soul, upon the grosser spirit, That to his bleared and offended sense, There seems a hideous fault blazed in the object; When only the disease is in his eyes. Here-hence it comes our Horace now stands tax'd Of impudence, self-love, and arrogance, By those who share no merit in themselves ”

“ Ovid se. Sir, you shall make me beholding to you. Now, captain Tucca, what say you? Tuc. Why, what should say, or what can I say, my flower O' the order? Should I say thou art rich, or that thou art honourable, or wise, or valiant, or learned, or liberal? why, thou art all these, and thou knowest it, my noble Lucullus, thou knowest it. Come, be not ashamed of thy virtues, old stump: honour's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times. Thou art the man of war's Mecaenas, old boy. ”

“ 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, composed 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 ”

“ Enter GALLUS and TIBULLUS. Gal. Come, where be these ladies? By your leave, bright stars, this gentleman and I are come to man you to court; where your late kind entertainment is now to be requited with a heavenly banquet. Cyth. A heavenly banquet; Gallus! Gal. No less, my dear Cytheris. Tib. That were not strange, lady, if the epithet were only given for the company invited thither; your self, and this fair gentle-woman. Chloe. Are we invited to court, sir? Tib. You are, lady, by the great princess Julia; who longs to greet you with any favours that may worthily make you an often courtier. ”

“ Caesar, for his rule, and for so much stuff As Fortune puts in his hand, shall dispose it, As if his hand had eyes and soul in it, With worth and judgment. Hands, that part with gifts Or will restrain their use, without desert, Or with a misery numb'd to virtue's right, Work, as they had no soul to govern them, And quite reject her; severing their estates From human order. Whosoever can, And will not cherish virtue, is no man. ”

“ Well enough! excellent well, sweet mistress Chloe; this strait-bodied city attire, I can tell you, will stir a courtier's blood, more than the finest loose sacks the ladies use to be put in; and then you are as well jewell'd as any of them; your ruff and linen about you is much more pure than theirs; and for your beauty, I can tell you, there's many of them would defy the painter, if they could change with you. Marry, the worst is, you must look to be envied, and endure a few court-frumps for it. Chloe. ”

“ But let not your high thoughts descend so low As these despised objects; let them fall, With their flat grovelling souls: be you yourselves; And as with our best favours you stand crown'd, So let your mutual loves be still renown'd. Envy will dwell where there is want of merit, Though the deserving man should crack his spirit. Blush, folly, blush; here's none that fears The wagging of an ass's ears, Although a wolfish case he wears. Detraction is but baseness' varlet; And apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet. ”

“ 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 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. Enter OVID senior, followed by Luscus, Tucca, and Lupus. Ovid se. Your name shall live, indeed, sir! ”