Sweet Swan of Avon

Ben Jonson on Shakespeare Part 4

Continuing the reading of the Jonson elegy To the Memory of my Beloved, The Author William Shakespeare and what he hath left us from the preface materials of the folio I review the concluding stanzas of the poem, show how they relate to the critical and structural framework established earlier and link the specific language of the poem to dedicatory poems addressed to Mary Sidney in previously published works by Christopher Marlowe, Samuel Daniel and Michael Drayton.

In the final section of the poem Jonson turns to the Art and Nature of poetry. Once again we see lines that echo Ovid’s Amores 1.15, the elegy about poetry conferring immortality upon its author which forms the structural and critical backbone of Jonson’s work. Ovid’s Kingly shows and gold bearing banks of the Tagus,  

Let Kings give place to verse, and kingly showes,

And banks ore which gold bearing Tagus flowes.

Become the flights upon the bankes of Thames, That so did take Eliza, and our James.

Ovid’s expectation to transcend death,

The living, not the dead can envie bite,

For after death all men receive their right:

Then though death rackes my bones in funerall fler,

Ile live, and as he puls me downe, mount higher

becomes stellification in Jonson 

But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere

Advanc'd, and made a Constellation there!

Shine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage,

Or influence, chide, or cheere the drooping Stage;

Which, since thy flight fro' hence, hath mourn'd like night,

And despaires day, but for thy Volumes light.

Notice how Jonson even rhymes Ovid’s bite and right with night and light.

For the discussion of the art of poetry Jonson turns from Ovid to his own Muse, the Latin poet Horace and specifically to the Ars Poetica he translated three times (including the lost annotated version he claims was consumed in an office fire just before the publication of the folio). Commentators starting with Dryden criticized Jonson for ‘Jonsonifying’ Shakespeare by applying Jonson’s standards to his rival’s works

Yet must I not give Nature all: Thy Art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part;
For though the Poets matter, Nature be,

His art doth give the fashion. and, that he,
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
Such as thine are and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses anvil: turne the same,
And himselfe with it that he thinkes to frame;
Or for the lawrell, he may gaine a scorne,
For a good Poet's made, as well as borne.

Jonson’s translation of Horace’s Ars Poetica

'Tis now inquir'd which makes the nobler verses
Nature, or Art. My judgement will not pierce
Into the profits, what a meer rude braine
Can, or all toyle, without a wealthy vaine:
So doth the one, the others helpe require,
And friendly should unto their end conspire.
He that's ambitious in the race to touch
The wished Goale, both did and suffered much
While he was young: he sweat, and freez'd again,
If to Quinctilius you recited ought,
He'd say mend this my friend, and this, 'tis nought.
If you deny'd, you had no better straine,
And twice, or thrice assay'd it, but in vain
He'd bid blot all; and to the Anvill bring
Those ill-torn'd verses to new hammering.
Then, if your fault you rather had defend
Then change; no word nor work more would he spend
In vaine, but you, and yours you should love still
Alone, without a rivall at your will.
A good and wise man will crye open shame
On artlesse Verse; the hard ones he will blame:
Blot out the carelesse with his turned pen;
Cut off superfluous ornaments; and, when
They're dark, bid cleare 'hem; al thats doubtful wrote
Dispute; and what is to be changed, note:
Become an Aristarchus: And, not say,
Why should I grieve a friend this trifling way?
These trifles into serious mischiefs lead
The man once mock'd, and suffered wrong to tread.

In this passage we see a unity of purpose in Jonson which encompasses not just his poem, but the whole of the preface materials and even his conversations with Drummond and the comments on Shakespeare preserved in his notebooks and printed in Discoveries.

The letter To the Great Variety of Readers reports of Shakespeare, “as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his papers.” Jonson’s biographer Ian Donaldson believes this is “indisputably the work of Heminges and Condell themselves” even as he argues that the rest of the letter is by Jonson. It is another cornerstone of Shakespeare biography that his fellows testified about the scripts he provided them. Jonson’s notebooks printed posthumously as Discoveries ostensibly provide his less flattering response:

De Shakespeare Nostrat (of Our Shakespeare)

“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, which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any.”

Early 20^th century skeptic Sir George Greenwood in his Jonson and Shakespeare made the argument against accepting the players’ assertion at face value.

“’But what of the unblotted manuscripts?’ Are we really to believe that player Shakspere wrote Hamlet {e.g.) currente calamo, and 'never blotted out a line?’  No more preposterous suggestion was ever made, even in Shakespearean controversy. No; if the players really said of Shakespeare that he 'never blotted out a line’ (or that ‘they had  scarse received from him a blot in his papers ‘) and if the statement was true, so far as their experience went, it shows that the players had received from the author fair copies only, and here is a piece of evidence which the sceptics may well pray in aid. For if the real ‘Shakespeare’ was ‘a concealed poet’ he would, naturally, have had fair copies of his dramas made for him, and these would have been set before the players. As R. L. Stevenson wrote long ago,’We hear of Shakespeare and his clean manuscript; but in the face of the evidence of the style itself and of the various editions of Hamlet this merely proves that Messrs. Heminge and Condell were un-acquainted with the common enough phenomenon called a fair copy. He who would recast a tragedy already given to the world, must frequently and earnestly have revised details in the study.’ {Menand Books, p. 149).”

A less absurd speculation is that Jonson is up to something we haven’t quite sussed out yet, and that all of these references are pointers to the Horace excerpt from Ars Poetica above.

Jonson goes on in Discoveries

“He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. —Sufflaminandus erat, (He should have been clogged) as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him: —Caesar, thou dost me wrong. He replied: —Caesar did never wrong but with just cause”; and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.”

We have known for some time that this text is almost a word for word translation of the introduction to the elder Seneca’s Controversiae 4.  Although Jonson may have thought it apropos for Shakespeare, we cannot demand that every word written about an orator from ancient Rome was intended to apply to Shakespeare so many centuries later. Again, more likely that Jonson intended to employ the allusion to a more subtle point and so recorded the translation in his journal attached to the name Shakespeare.

The final couplets of Horace’s letter might explain why Drummond observed that he was `given rather to losse a friend, than a Jest'

If Jonson was to give praise to the author, while respecting his constraints to conceal her identity as suggested in my last post (neither Man nor Muse can praise too much), he could not enlist suitable peers to contribute original poems as Jonson had done for his own folio. To grant Sidney the praise that she warranted, Jonson instead used both overt and covert textual clues that link to previously printed accolades directed toward the countess from the greatest writers of the period, writers that like Jonson counted her as friend, mentor, teacher, and exemplar as well as patron. Specifically, Jonson references passages from Christopher Marlowe (his dedication to the Countess from Watson’s posthumous Amyntae Gaudia 1592), Samuel Daniel (Delia and the dedication to Cleopatra), and Michael Drayton (the Shepheard’s Garland

Looke how the fathers face

Lives in his issue, even so, the race

Of Shakespeares minde, and manners brightly shines

In his well toned, and true-filed lines:

In each of which, he seemes to shake a lance,

As brandish't at the eyes of Ignorance.

Several lines in this final section suggest the dedication Christopher Marlowe provided for the posthumous publication of Thomas Watson’s Amyntae Gaudia just before Marlowe’s own death in 1593. Marlowe hails Sidney as Delia born of a laurel-crowned race in whom virtue finds refuge from the assault of barbarism and ignorance, and who impartest now to my rude pen breathings of a lofty rage, whereby my poor self hath, methinks, power to surpass what my unripe talent is wont to bring forth. Marlowe sees her immortalized, crowned as by a starry diadem Ariadne.[1]

Sweet Swan of Avon points us to Samuel Daniel’s Sonnet 48 from his Delia, dedicated to the Countess of Pembroke. Avon, poor in fame, and poor in waters, Shall have my song, where Delia hath her seat[2]. Delia is generally identified with Sidney, as is confirmed by the Marlowe dedication just considered, and the Avon where she hath her seat flows through Wilton, the vast Pembroke estate in Wiltshire, by Salisbury cathedral where Mary is buried, and on past Mary’s own Ivychurch just downstream. Although the poem was composed 20 years before, it reads like an indictment of the whole enterprise of the Folio, God forbid I should my papers blot with mercenary lines with servile pen, praising virtues in them that have them not. And with my verse respects not Thames, nor theatres, in echoing the motto Daniel seems to explicitly reject the politics of court and stage that necessitate the concealment of Mary’s identity.

It is worth reading the entire poem.

None other fame mine unambitious Muse 
Affected ever but t'eternise thee; 
All other honours do my hopes refuse, 
Which meaner prized and momentary be. 
For God forbid I should my papers blot 
With mercenary lines with servile pen, 
Praising virtues in them that have them not, 
Basely attending on the hopes of men. 
No, no, my verse respects not Thames, nor theatres; 
Nor seeks it to be known unto the great; 
But Avon, poor in fame, and poor in waters, 
Shall have my song, where Delia hath her seat. 
Avon shall be my Thames, and she my song; 
No other prouder brooks shall hear my wrong.
Samuel Daniel 
Delia, Sonnet 48

The structure and language of the poem indicate it too draws upon the Ovid elegy that shapes Jonson’s poem. Daniel’s poem is also inspired by Horace, the beginning of his third book of Odes, “Odi profanum vulgus et arceo;” “I hate the sacrilegious mob and keep it at a distance.” This same phrase provided the motto for the 1595 Olney publication of Philip Sidney’s Apologie of Poetrie[3] (elsewhere published as Defense of Poesy).

As discussed previously Daniel’s dedication to Cleopatra includes the lines Now when so many Pennes (like Speares) are charg’d, To chase away this tyrant of the North; Grosse Barbarisme…  and so joins Philip Sidney and Mary in the race whose true filed lines seem to shake a lance As brandish't at the eyes of Ignorance. 

The final source we will examine is Michael Drayton’s Idea, the shepheards garland, fashioned in nine eglogs.

The sixth eglog takes the form of a dialogue between Good Gorbo, who laments that virtue has no place left in the world and Perkin who answers that there is one, Pandora (Mary Sidney) who ensures that virtue will never die. Thames fairest Swanne gives us the other half of Sweet Swan of Avon. Wonder of Britaine, whilst Phæbus crowne, adornes the starrie skie, match overt language in Jonson referencing Mary’s brother Philip.

There are surely other commendatory verses woven into the eulogy. Language in the poem suggests Spenser from Shepherds Calendar and Time’s Ruine, Daniel’s Cleopatra, Jonson’s To Penshurst. Although identifying these will help us to further understand Jonson’s poem, I have not found evidence of Jonson’s intent so clear as to help the argument for the Sidney identification.

The passage draws heavily on the same Horace poem, Ars Poetica, that provides Bellamy instructions on the use of anagram and confirms both the sources and Mary Sidney as author with yet more embedded anagrams. Supporting the obvious parallels with the text, we have Marlowe and Amyntas anagrams in the corresponding locations. For Drayton Shepheards, Garlande and Idea are all present as anagrams. Here Muses anvile is a compact (but not perfect) anagram for Samuel, and And himself an anagram of Daniel. Other than the straightforward did Eliza for Delia, the covert links to Daniel are less conventional. Shake…Sight and Since… night form sL eight or 48 if we accept the usual substitution s for x and Latin symbol L for fifty in our construction. Daniel’s sonnet appeared with different numbering in earlier editions, but was the forty eighth in the 1623 edition released just before the Shakespeare folio.

Yet must I not give Nature all: Thy Art,
My gentle [Shakespeare, must enjoy a part;                     [Shepherds]
[For though the Poets]] matter, [Nature be,                     [Fr Meres]
His Art doth give the fashion. And], that he,                  [Drayton]
Who [casts to write a] living line, must sweat,                 [Cleopatra]
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the [Muses anvile]: turne the same,                         [Samuel]
([And himselfe] with it) that he thinkes to frame;             [Daniel]
Or for the lawrell, he [may [gaine a scorne]],         [Marlowe] [Garlande]
For a good Poet's made, as well as borne.   [Penshurst]
And such wert thou. Looke how the fathers face
Lives in his issue, even so, the race
Of Shakespeares minde, [and manners] brightly shines   [Amyntas]
[In his well toned, and true-filed lines:                               [Idea]
In each of which, he seemes to [shake a] Lance,                 [48]
As brandish't] at the eyes of Ignorance.

Sweet swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appeare,

And make those flights upon the bankes of Thames,

That so [did take Eliza], and our James!                          [Delia]
But [stay], I see thee in the Hemisphere                          [Sidney]
Advanc'd, and made a Constellation there!
Shine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage,

Or influence, chide, or cheere the drooping Stage;
Which, [[since thy] flight] fro' hence, hath mourn'd like night, [Sidney]  [48]
And despaires day, but for thy Volumes light.

This concludes the analysis of Jonson’s encomium. I am satisfied that this reading reflects a cohesive intention from Jonson, and satisfactorily explains the apparent allusions. Thus it represents a coherent reading in the sense of Empson’s vision of textual analysis described in Reading with Understanding: the Hermeneutic Circle.

While recognizing it challenges widely held beliefs about Shakespeare, I believe this is a substantial advance on any of the existing puablished analyses of the poem and is consistent with other evidence about the author.

It is not however the end of my analysis of the First Folio paratexts. Jonson’s poem provides only the first half Sweet Swan of Avon, which appears to point to Stratford upon Avon for the origen of the author. Stratford makes an appearance in a different poem, when Leonard Digges refers to a Stratford moniment which will crumble to dust ere the author is forgotten.

That story continues here: Thy Stratford Moniment.

[1] Mark Eccles, Christopher Marlowe in London, Christopher Marlowe in London (Harvard University Press, 2013), 166, https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674330719.

[2] Samuel Daniel, The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Samuel Daniel: Ed., with Memorial-Introduction and a Glossarial Index Embracing Notes and Illustrations (Hazell, Watson and Viney, limited, 1885), 75.

[3] ajeyaseelan, “An Apologie for Poetrie. c. 1583 (Printed 1595),” Collection at Bartleby.com, October 13, 2022, 1, https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/elizabethan-critical-essays/an-apologie-for-poetrie-c-1583-printed-1595.