Ben Jonson

Epigrams

• Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in hand,
  To read it well: that is, to understand.
  • I, To The Reader, lines 1-2

• If all you boast of your great art be true;
  Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.
  • VI, To Alchemists, lines 1-2

• There's reason good, that you good laws should make:
  Men's manners ne'er were viler, for your sake.
  • XXIV, To The Parliament, lines 1-2

• He that fears death, or mourns it, in the just,
  Shows of the resurrection little trust.
  • XXXIV, Of Death, lines 1-2

• Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy!
  My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
  Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
  Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
  O, could I lose all father now. For why
  Will man lament the state he should envy?
  To have soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
  And, if no other misery, yet age!
  Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie
  Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry:
  For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
  As what he loves may never like too much.
  • XLV, On My First Son, lines 1-12

• Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike;
  One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.
  • LXI, To Fool, or Knave, lines 1-2 (complete epigram)

• The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds:
  Through which our merit leads us to our meeds.
  How willful blind is he then, that would stray,
  And hath it in his powers, to make his way!
  This world death's region is, the other life's:
  And here, it should be one of our first strifes,
  So to front death, as men might judge us past it.
  For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
  • LXXX, Of Life and Death, lines 1-8

• Thus, in his belly, can he change a sin,
  Lust it comes out, that gluttony went in.
  • CXVIII, On Gut, lines 5-6

• Underneath this stone doth lie
  As much beauty as could die;
  Which in life did harbor give
  To more virtue than doth live.
  • CXXIV, Epitaph on Elizabeth, Lady H—, lines 3-6

The Forest

• Come my Celia, let us prove,
  While we can, the sports of love;
  Time will not be ours forever,
  He at length our good will sever.
  Spend not then his gifts 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 and rumour are but toys.
  • Song, To Celia, lines 1-10.
    • Compare Catullus, Carmina V

• Follow a shadow, it still flies you;
  Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
  So court a mistress, she denies you;
  Let her alone, she will court you.
  • That Women Are But Men's Shadows, lines 1-4

• Drink to me only with thine eyes,
  And I will pledge with mine;
  Or leave a kiss but in the cup
  And I'll not look for wine.
  The thirst that from the soul doth rise
  Doth ask a drink divine;
  But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
  I would not change for thine.
  I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
  Not so much honoring thee
  As giving it a hope that there
  It could not withered be.
  But thou thereon didst only breathe,
  And sent'st it back to me;
  Since when it grows and smells, I swear,
  Not of itself, but thee.
  • Song, To Celia, lines 1-16; this poem was inspired by "Letter XXIV" of Philostratus, which in translation reads: "Drink to me with your eyes alone…. And if you will, take the cup to your lips and fill it with kisses, and give it so to me".

• Not to know vice at all, and keep true state,
  Is virtue, and not fate:
  Next to that virtue is to know vice well,
  And her black spite expel.
  • Epode, lines 1-4

• Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold,
  And almost every vice — almighty gold.
  • Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland, lines 1-2. Comparable to "The flattering, mighty, nay, almighty gold", John Wolcot, To Kien Long, Ode iv; "Almighty dollar", Washington Irving, The Creole Village.

Underwoods

• I now think, Love is rather deaf, than blind,
  For else it could not be,
  That she,
  Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
  And cast my love behind.
  • IX, My Picture Left in Scotland, lines 1-5

• Where dost thou careless lie,
  Buried in ease and sloth?
  Knowledge that sleeps, doth die;
  And this security,
  It is the common moth,
  That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.
  • XXIII, An Ode, to Himself, lines 1-6

• Rhyme, the rack of finest wits,
  That expresseth but by fits,
  True conceit,
  Spoiling senses of their treasure,
  Cozening judgement with a measure,
  But false weight.
  Wresting words from their true calling;
  Propping verse, for fear of falling
  To the ground.
  Jointing syllables, drowning letters,
  Fastening vowels, as with fetters
  They were bound!
  • XXIX, A Fit of Rhyme Against Rhyme, lines 1-12

• Still may syllabes jar with time,
  Still may reason war with rhyme,
  Resting never!
  • XXIX, A Fit of Rhyme Against Rhyme

• Those that merely talk and never think,
  That live in the wild anarchy of drink.
  • XLVII, An Epistle, Answering to One That Asked to Be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben, lines 9-10. Comparable to: "They never taste who always drink; They always talk who never think", Matthew Prior, Upon a passage in the Scaligerana.

• It is not growing like a tree
  In bulk, doth make man better be;
  Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
  To fall a log, dry, bald and sere:
  A lily of a day,
  Is fairer far, in May,
  Although it fall, and die that night;
  It was the plant and flower of light.
  In small proportions we just beauties see,
  And in short measures life may perfect be.
  • LXX, To the Immortal Memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morison, lines 65-74

• The voice so sweet, the words so fair,
  As some soft chime had stroked the air;
  And, though the sound were parted thence,
  Still left an echo in the sense.
  • LXXXIV, Eupheme, part 4, lines 37-40

Timber: or Discoveries

• Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.

• A good life is a main argument.

• It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.

• A cripple in the way out-travels a footman or a post out of the way.

• He is a narrow-minded man, that affects a triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie themselves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes beyond her bounds; but Impudence knows none.

• It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.

• I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand".

• I loved the man and do honor his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any.
  • On William Shakespeare

• They say princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom.

• Greatness of name in the father oft-times overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more and oftener to be heir of the first.

• Though the most be players, some must be spectators.

• Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks...

• One, though he be excellent and the chief, is not to be imitated alone; for never no imitator ever grew up to his author; likeness is always on this side truth. Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking; his language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end.
  • Referring to Francis Bacon