Haddington Masque | The Cambridge Works of Ben Jonson

Edited by David Lindley

Introduction

The marriage of John Ramsay (c. 1580–1626) and Elizabeth Ratcliffe (1594–1618), daughter of Robert, fifth Earl of Sussex (1573–1629), was celebrated on 9 February 1608. The bridegroom, who had been the King’s saviour in the Gowrie Conspiracy (see 183n.) was one of the most generously rewarded of the King’s Scottish followers, and had become a Gentlemen of the Bedchamber in 1603, and Viscount Haddington in 1606. In 1621 he was created Baron of Kingston-on-Thames and Earl of Holderness. A pension of £600 per annum was settled on him and his bride by James at the time of their marriage. This, no doubt, made him an attractive proposition as son-in-law to the Earl of Sussex, whose financial circumstances were extremely straitened; throughout his life he sold off increasing portions of his inheritance, despite his occupancy of the post of lord lieutenant for Essex. Sussex’s private life was notorious. By 1602 he was living with his mistress, Sylvester Morgan, whom he called his ‘countess’, though his wife was still alive (ODNB). His licentious reputation, however, is not allowed to cloud Jonson’s tribute to the Ratcliffe family. The bride was later described by Arthur Wilson (1653), 12 as ‘one of the prime beauties of the kingdom’. She died of smallpox in December 1618, and was commemorated in an elegy by Richard Corbett.

This masque followed closely on Jonson’s The Masque of Beauty. Viscount Lisle told the Earl of Shrewsbury on 29 January that he had been unable to obtain a copy of the speeches and verses of Beauty because ‘no sooner had [Jonson] made an end of those, but that he undertook a new charge for the masque that is to be at the Viscount Haddington’s marriage’ (Masque Archive, Haddington, 3). Indeed, Jonson took the proximity of the two works as the starting point for his invention, introducing Venus in pursuit of her son, Cupid, and his fellows, who had not returned from the earlier masque. The narrative is derived from Moschus’ Idyll, ‘The Runaway Love’, a poem much imitated in the period, and here wittily amplified. The tone of this masque is altogether lighter than the works which had preceded it, and its first part in particular is coloured by the comic and satiric spirit of Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods, to which Jonson makes several allusions. The main masque, however, as D. J. Gordon (1975) has shown, celebrates the procreative function of marriage, symbolized through the union of Vulcan’s male heat with the female Venus, and the appearance of the masquers in the sphere of heaven, in terms not dissimilar to Hymenaei, but owing some details to Spondanus’ commentary on Homer.

Though this was an Anglo-Scottish marriage, and the masquers were representatives of both nations, there is, perhaps surprisingly, no direct political address to the topic of marriage as an image of the union of the kingdoms as there had been in Hymenaei, or, particularly, in Campion’s Lord Hay’s Masque (1607), which celebrated just such another ‘international’ match. Perhaps by 1608 it was becoming clear that the King’s desire for full union of his kingdoms was not going to be achieved. But this did not mean that the event was without local political consequence. The French ambassador, excluded from Beauty, was invited to this masque in an effort to make amends – though he was rather dismissive of it, describing it as ‘assez maigre’ (Masque Archive, Haddington, 9). So too, the presence among the masquers of a number of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, who had most immediate access to the King and therefore considerable political influence, ensured that, though in some ways a private celebration, it was yet a high-status event. The bulk of the costs of the masque seem to have been borne by the participants, whom it costed ‘about £300 a man’ (Masque Archive, Haddington, 2).

Inigo Jones is credited by Jonson with the designs, but no details or drawings survive. Of the music only one stanza of the concluding epithalamion is extant, published in Ferrabosco’s Ayres (1609). This setting could not easily be fitted to the other stanzas, which were sung separately, since its declamatory style is closely matched to the words (see 277–9n. and 280–1n.). No doubt, as in the three songs which punctuated the dances in Beauty, Ferrabosco composed distinct, though related, settings for each stanza.

It is perhaps the work’s comedy, gracefulness, and relative simplicity which account for the fact that it has had something of a performing afterlife. A version of the masque, consisting of the antimasque and epithalamion and omitting the central device of Vulcan’s sphere, was performed with Gifford’s title, A Hue and Cry After Cupid, on a number of occasions by the Mermaid Society in the early twentieth century. It was staged together with Milton’s Comus in the open air at the Royal Botanical Society Gardens in Regent’s Park in July 1903, after which it went on tour. The following year it was revived in a riverside performance in Stratford-upon-Avon. Simpson suggests that there was an earlier private performance, in 1902, at Thorpe Lodge, Airlie Gardens, Campden Hill, but Roger Savage conjectures that this in fact took place in 1904. It was revived once again, this time with an indoor performance, at a charity matinée at St James’s Theatre in 1911, probably with some considerable elaboration of the wedding cere-monies (see Roger Savage’s essay in the Electronic Edition, Stage History). It was performed, together with Queens, at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania in 1906, 1910, and 1920 (see Maurer, 1989). Sections from The Haddington Masque were incorporated into a show called The Druids, at Covent Garden in 1774, and in Nugent Monck’s The Masque of Cupid, staged at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, in 1956.

The text was published as the third item in the composite quarto of 1608, also containing The Masques of Blackness and Beauty. The absence of any mention of Haddington on the title-page (it has its own, independent title-page), together with the absence of any running titles for this part of the book, suggests that it might have been incorporated in the quarto as something of an afterthought (see Electronic Edition, Textual Essay). The printer’s copy may well have been a holograph manuscript, since a number of Jonson’s preferred forms, both of classically derived words and of spellings employing medial ‘y’ (as in ‘theyr’, for ‘their’), appear with a significant regularity.

THE HADDINGTON MASQUE

The worthy custom of honouring worthy marriages with these noble solemnities hath, of late

years, advanced itself frequently with us, to the reputation no less of our court than nobles;

expressing besides (through the difficulties of expense and travail, with the cheerfulness of

undertaking) a most real affection in the personators to those for whose sake they would

sustain these persons. It behoves then us that are trusted with a part of their honour in these 5

celebrations, to do nothing in them beneath the dignity of either. With this preposed part of

judgement, I adventure to give that abroad which in my first conception I intended honourably

fit; and, though it hath laboured since under censure, I, that know Truth to be always of one

stature, and so like a rule as who bends it the least way must needs do an injury to the right,

cannot but smile at their tyrannous ignorance, that will offer to slight me (in these things 10

being an artificer) and give themselves a peremptory licence to judge, who have never touched

so much as to the bark, or utter shell of any knowledge. But their daring dwell with them.

They have found a place to pour out their follies, and I a seat to sleep out the passage.

The scene to this masque was a high, steep, red cliff, advancing itself into the clouds,

figuring the place from whence – as I have been, not fabulously, informed – the honourable 15

family of the Radcliffes first took their name (a clivo rubro) and is to be written with that

orthography, as I have observed out of Master Camden in his mention of the Earls of Sussex.

This cliff was also a note of height, greatness and antiquity; before which, on the two sides, were

erected two pilasters, charged with spoils and trophies of Love and his mother, consecrate to

marriage; amongst which were old and young persons figured, bound with roses, the wedding 20

garments, rocks, and spindles, hearts transfixed with arrows, others flaming, virgins’ girdles,

garlands, and worlds of such like, all wrought round and bold; and overhead two personages,

Triumph and Victory, in flying postures and twice so big as the life, in place of the arch , and

holding a garland of myrtle for the key. All which, with the pillars, seemed to be of burnished

gold, and embossed out of the metal. Beyond the cliff was seen nothing but clouds, thick and 25

obscure; till on the sudden, with a solemn music, a bright sky breaking forth, there were

discovered first two doves, then two swans with silver gears, ¹ drawing forth a triumphant

chariot in which Venus sat, crowned with her star, and beneath her the three Graces, or

Charites, Aglaia, Thalia, Euphrosyne , all attired according to their antique figures. These

from their chariot alighted on the top of the cliff, and descending by certain abrupt and 30

winding passages , Venus having left her star only flaming in her seat, came to the earth, the

Graces throwing garlands all the way, and began to speak.

VENUS

It is no common cause, ye will conceive,

My lovely Graces, makes your goddess leave

Her state in heaven tonight to visit earth. 35

Love late is fled away, my eldest birth,

Cupid, whom I did joy to call my son,

And whom long absent, Venus is undone.

Spy, if you can, his footsteps on this green;

For here, as I am told, he late hath been, 40

With diverse of his brethren,² lending light

From their best flames to gild a glorious night;

Which I not grudge at, being done for her

Whose honours to mine own I still prefer.

But he not yet returning, I’m in fear 45

Some gentle grace or innocent beauty here

Be taken with him; or he hath surprised

A second Psyche, and lives here disguised.

Find ye no tract of his strayed feet?

FIRST GRACE

Not I.

SECOND GRACE

Nor I.

THIRD GRACE

Nor I.

VENUS

Stay, nymphs, we then will try 50

A nearer way. Look all these ladies’ eyes,

And see if there he not concealèd lies;

Or in their bosoms, ’twixt their swelling breasts –

The wag affects to make himself such nests –

Perchance he hath got some simple heart to hide 55

His subtle shape in. I will have him cried,

And all his virtues told, that, when they know

What sprite he is, she soon may let him go

That guards him now, and think herself right blessed

To be so timely rid of such a guest. 60

Begin, soft Graces, and proclaim reward

To her that brings him in. Speak, to be heard!

FIRST GRACE

Beauties, have ye seen this toy

Callèd Love,³ a little boy,

Almost naked, wanton, blind, 65

Cruel now, and then as kind?

If he be amongst ye, say;

He is Venus’ runaway.

SECOND GRACE

She that will but now discover

Where the wingèd wag doth hover, 70

Shall tonight receive a kiss,

How or where herself would wish;

But, who brings him to his mother,

Shall have that kiss and another.

THIRD GRACE

He hath of marks about him plenty; 75

You shall know him among twenty.

All his body is a fire,

And his breath a flame entire,

That being shot like lightning in,

Wounds the heart, but not the skin. 80

FIRST GRACE

At his sight the sun hath turned;⁴

Neptune in the waters burned;

Hell hath felt a greater heat;⁵

Jove himself forsook his seat.

From the centre to the sky 85

Are his trophies rearèd high.⁶

SECOND GRACE

Wings he hath, which though ye clip,

He will leap from lip to lip,

Over liver, lights, and heart,

But not stay in any part; 90

And, if chance his arrow misses,

He will shoot himself in kisses.

THIRD GRACE

He doth bear a golden bow

And a quiver, hanging low,

Full of arrows that out-brave 95

Dian’s shafts; where, if he have

Any head more sharp than other,

With that first he strikes his mother.

FIRST GRACE

Still the fairest are his fuel.

When his days are to be cruel, 100

Lovers’ hearts are all his food,

And his baths their warmest blood.

Naught but wounds his hand doth season,

And he hates none like to Reason.

SECOND GRACE

Trust him not. His words, though sweet, 105

Seldom with his heart do meet.

All his practice is deceit;

Every gift it is a bait;

Not a kiss but poison bears,

And most treason in his tears. 110

THIRD GRACE

Idle minutes are his reign;

Then the straggler makes his gain

By presenting maids with toys,

And would have ye think ’em joys.

’Tis the ambition of the elf 115

T’have all childish, as himself.

FIRST GRACE

If by these ye please to know him,

Beauties, be not nice, but show him.

SECOND GRACE

Though ye had a will to hide him,

Now, we hope, ye’ll not abide him, 120

THIRD GRACE

Since ye hear his falser play,

And that he is Venus’ runaway.

At this, from behind the trophies CUPID discovered himself and came forth armed; attended

with twelve boys most anticly attired, that represented the sports and pretty lightnesses that

accompany Love, under the titles of Ioci and Risus; and are said to wait on Venus, as she is 125

prefect of marriage. Which Horatius consents to: Carmina, lib.1. Ode 2. ⁷

CUPID

Come, my little jocund sports,

Come away; the time now sorts

With your pastime. This same night

Is Cupid’s day. Advance your light. 130

With your revel fill the room,

That our triumphs be not dumb.

Wherewith they fell into a subtle capricious dance to as odd a music, each of them bearing two

torches, and nodding with their antic faces, with other variety of ridiculous gesture, which

gave much occasion of mirth and delight to the spectators. The dance ended, Cupid went 135

forward.

CUPID

Well done, antics. Now my bow

And my quiver bear to show;

That these beauties here may know

By what arms this feat was done, 140

That hath so much honour won

Unto Venus and her son.

At which his mother apprehended him; and circling him in with the Graces, began to demand:

VENUS

What feat, what honour is it, that you boast,

My little straggler? I had given you lost, 145

With all your games here.

CUPID

Mother?

VENUS

Yes, sir, she.

What might your glorious cause of triumph be?

Ha’ you shot Minerva, or the Thespian dames?⁸

Heat agèd Ops⁹ again with youthful flames?

Or have you made the colder moon to visit 150

Once more a sheepcote? Say, what conquest is it

Can make you hope such a renown to win?

Is there a second Hercules brought to spin?

Or for some new disguise leaves Jove his thunder?

CUPID

Nor that, nor those, and yet no less a wonder; 155

Which to tell I may not stay, (And there slips from her)

[Enter HYMEN.]

Hymen’s¹⁰ presence bids away;

’Tis already at his night,

He can give you farther light. 160

You, my sports, may here abide

Till I call to light the bride.[Exit.]

HYMEN

Venus, is this a time to quit your car

To stoop to earth? to leave, alone, your star,

Without your influence? and on such a night,¹¹ 165

Which should be crowned with your most cheering sight,

As you were ignorant of what were done

By Cupid’s hand, your all-triumphing son?

Look on this state, and if you yet not know

What crown there shines, whose sceptre here doth grow, 170

Think on thy loved Aeneas,¹² and what name

Maro, the golden trumpet of his fame,

Gave him, read thou in this: a prince that draws,

By example, more than others do by laws;

That is so just to his great act and thought 175

To do not what kings may, but what kings ought.

Who, out of piety, unto peace is vowed,

To spare his subjects, yet to quell the proud;

And dares esteem it the first fortitude

To have his passions, foes at home, subdued; 180

That was reserved until the Parcae spun

Their whitest wool and then his thread begun.

Which thread when treason¹³ would have burst, a soul,

Today renowned and added to my roll,

Opposed; and by that act to his name did bring 185

The honour to be saver of his king.¹⁴

This king, whose worth – if gods for virtue love –

Should Venus with the same affections move

As her Aeneas; and no less endear

Her love to his safety than when she did cheer, 190

After a tempest,¹⁵ long afflicted Troy

Upon the Lybian shore, and brought them joy.

VENUS

I love and know his virtues, and do boast

Mine own renown, when I renown him most.

My Cupid’s absence I forgive, and praise, 195

That me to such a present grace could raise.

His champion shall hereafter be my care.

But speak his bride, and what her virtues are.

HYMEN

She is a noble virgin, styled ‘The Maid

Of the Red Cliff’, and hath her dowry weighed 200

No less in virtue, blood, and form, than gold.

Thence, where my pillars reared, you may behold,

Filled with Love’s trophies, doth she take her name.

Those pillars did uxorious Vulcan¹⁶ frame

Against this day, and underneath that hill, 205

He and his Cyclopes are forging still

Some strange and curious piece t’adorn the night,

And give these gracèd nuptials greater light.

Here VULCAN presented himself (as over-hearing Hymen) attired in a cassock girt to him,

with bare arms, his hair and beard rough; his hat of blue, and ending in a cone; in his hand a 210

hammer and tongs, as coming from the forge.

VULCAN

Which I have done, the best of all my life;

And have my end if it but please my wife,

And she commend it to the laboured worth.

Cleave, solid rock, and bring the wonder forth. 215

At which, with a loud and full music, the cliff parted in the midst and discovered an illustrous

concave filled with an ample and glistering light, in which an artificial sphere was made of

silver, eighteen foot in the diameter, that turned perpetually; the coluri were heightened with

gold; so were the arctic and antarctic circles, the tropics, the equinoctial, the meridian, and

horizon; only the zodiac was of pure gold; in which the masquers, under the characters of the 220

twelve signs, were placed, answering them in number. Whose offices, with the whole frame

as it turned, Vulcan went forward to describe.

VULCAN

It is a sphere I’ve formèd round and even,

In due proportion to the sphere of heaven,

With all his lines and circles, that compose 225

The perfect’st form, and aptly do disclose

The heaven of marriage, which I title it.

Within whose zodiac I have made to sit,

In order of the signs, twelve sacred powers,

That are presiding at all nuptial hours: 230

The first, in Aries’ place, respecteth pride

Of youth and beauty; graces in the bride.

In Taurus, he loves strength and manliness,

The virtues which the bridegroom should profess.

In Gemini that noble power is shown 235

That twins their hearts, and doth of two make one.

In Cancer, he that bids the wife give way,

With backward yielding, to her husband’s sway.

In Leo, he that doth instil the heat

Into the man; which from the following seat 240

Is tempered so, as he that looks from thence

Sees, yet, they keep a Virgin innocence.

In Libra’s room rules he that doth supply

All happy beds with sweet equality.

The Scorpion’s place he fills that makes the jars 245

And stings in wedlock; little strifes and wars,

Which he in th’Archer’s throne doth soon remove

By making with his shafts new wounds of love.

And those the follower with more heat inspires,

As, in the Goat, the sun renews his fires. 250

In wet Aquarius’ stead reigns he that showers

Fertility upon the genial bowers.

Last, in the Fish’s place, sits he doth say

In married joys all should be dumb as they.

And this hath Vulcan for his Venus done, 255

To grace the chaster triumph of her son.

VENUS

And, for this gift, will I to heaven return,

And vow for ever that my lamp shall burn

With pure and chastest fire; or never shine¹⁷

But when it mixeth with thy sphere and mine. 260

Here Venus returned to her chariot with the Graces, while Vulcan, calling out the priests

of Hymen who were the musicians, was interrupted by PYRACMON, one of the Cyclops; of

whom, with the other two, BRONTES, and STEROPES, see Virgil, Aeneid. ¹⁸

VULCAN

Sing then, ye priests.

PYRACMON

Stay, Vulcan, shall not these

Come forth and dance?

VULCAN

Yes, my Pyracmon, please 265

The eyes of these spectators with our art.¹⁹

PYRACMON

Come here then, Brontes, bear a Cyclops’ part,

And Steropes, both with your sledges stand,

And strike a time unto them as they land;

And as they forwards come still guide their paces 270

In musical and sweet-proportioned graces;

While I upon the work and frame attend,

And Hymen’s priests forth at their seasons send

To chant their hymns, and make this square admire

Our great artificer, the god of fire. 275

Here the musicians, attired in yellow, with wreaths of marjoram and veils like Hymen’s

priests, sung the first staff of the following epithalamion; which, because it was sung in pieces

between the dances, showed to be so many several songs, but was made to be read an entire

poem. After the song they came forth, descending in an oblique motion from the zodiac, and

danced their first dance. Then, music interposed (but varied with voices, only keeping the same 280

chorus ) they danced their second dance. So after, their third and fourth dances, which were all

full of elegancy and curious device. The two latter were made by Master Thomas Giles, the

two first by Master Jerome Herne, who, in the persons of the two Cyclops, beat a time to them

with their hammers. The tunes were Master Alfonso Ferrabosco’s. The device and act of the

scene , Master Inigo Jones his, with addition of the trophies. For the invention of the whole 285

and the verses, Assertor qui dicat esse meos, Imponet plagiario pudorem.

The attire of the masquers, throughout, was most graceful and noble, partaking of the best

both ancient and later figure. The colours, carnation and silver, enriched both with embroidery

and lace. The dressing of their heads, feathers and jewels; and so excellently ordered to the rest

of the habit as all would suffer under any description after the show. Their performance of 290

all so magnificent and illustrous that nothing can add to the seal of it but the subscription of

their names.

The Duke of Lennox

Earl of Arundel

Earl of Pembroke 295

Earl of Montgomery

Lord d’Aubigny

Lord of Walden

Lord Hay

Lord Sanquhar 300

Sir Robert Rich

Sir John Kennedy

The Masters Erskine

Epithalamion

Up, youths and virgins, up, and praise 305

The god whose nights out-shine his days:

Hymen, whose hallowed rites

Could never boast of brighter lights;

Whose bands pass liberty.

Two of your troop, that with the morn were free, 310

Are now waged to his war.

And what they are,

If you’ll perfection see,

Yourselves must be.

Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wishèd star. 315

What joy or honours can compare

With holy nuptials, when they are

Made out of equal parts

Of years, of states, of hands, of hearts?

When, in the happy choice, 320

The spouse and spousèd have the foremost voice!

Such, glad of Hymen’s war,

Live what they are,

And long perfection see;

And such ours be. 325

Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wishèd star.

The solemn state of this one night

Were fit to last an age’s light;

But there are rites behind

Have less of state, but more of kind: 330

Love’s wealthy crop of kisses,

And fruitful harvest of his mother’s blisses.

Sound then to Hymen’s war.

That what these are,

Who will perfection see, 335

May haste to be.

Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wishèd star.

Love’s commonwealth consists of toys;

His council are those antic boys,

Games, laughters, sports, delights, 340

That triumph with him on these nights.

To whom we must give way,

For now their reign begins, and lasts till day.

They sweeten Hymen’s war,

And in that jar 345

Make all that married be

Perfection see.

Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wishèd star.

Why stays the bridegroom to invade

Her that would be a matron made? 350

Goodnight, whilst yet we may

Goodnight to you, a virgin, say:

Tomorrow, rise the same

Your mother is,²⁰ and use a nobler name.

Speed well in Hymen’s war, 355

That what you are,

By your perfection, we

And all may see.

Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wishèd star.

Tonight is Venus’ vigil kept. 360

This night no bridegroom ever slept;

And if the fair bride do,

The married say ’tis his fault, too.

Wake then; and let your lights

Wake too; for they’ll tell nothing of your nights, 365

But that in Hymen’s war

You perfect are.

And such perfection, we

Do pray should be.

Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wishèd star. 370

That ere the rosy-fingered morn

Behold nine moons, there may be born

A babe, t’uphold the fame

Of Radcliffe’s blood and Ramsey’s name;

That may, in his great seed, 375

Wear the long honours of his father’s deed.

Such fruits of Hymen’s war

Most perfect are;

And all perfection, we

Wish you should see. 380

Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wishèd star.

THE END

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

The Haddington Masque (1608)

Edited by David Lindley

Introduction

THE HADDINGTON MASQUE