Title-page
B. JON: This was the
first occasion in print that Jonson used the spelling omitting ‘h’.
11 Dutchy The precinct around the house of the Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster, lying between London and Westminster. See
Stow, Survey of London, 2.91–7.
17 other
Additions The volume included the Althorp
Entertainment.
18 Quando . . . triumphos ‘When could one behold more worthy
triumphs?’ (Martial, 5.19.3).
19 V.S.
Valentine Sims or Simmes, who also printed the 1606 quarto of Hymenaei, and the first quartos of Richard Ⅱ, Richard Ⅲ
(1597), 2 Henry Ⅳ, Much
Ado (1600), and Hamlet (1603). In fact,
the printing of King’s Ent. was shared between
Sims and George Eld (see Textual Essay).
20 Edward
Blount (1564–1632). Bookseller who published Marlowe’s
Hero and Leander (1598), Florio’s Montaigne (
1603), and
Shakespeare’s first folio (
1623).
Title PART OF THE KINGS / ENTERTAINMENT / IN PASSING
TO / his / Coronation. / The Author B. I. F1
1 The . . . Fenchurch] printed
in large type as a page heading in Q; At Fen-Church. F1, printed in large type as a heading
1 pegme
framework. Jonson’s own coinage, adapted from
πῆγμα (Gr.),
pegma
(Lat.): a stage machine constructed of wood. Stephen Harrison repeated
the term in
Arches of Triumph (
1604), glossing it
as an ‘arch triumphal’, and it reappears in George Chapman’s
The Widow’s Tears (1605), 2.4.60, and Thomas
Middleton’s
The Triumphs of Integrity (1623). The
Latin term had been used as the title of Pierre Cousteau’s collection of
emblems,
Pegma (Paris,
1555); and cf. Martial,
De spectaculis liber, 2:
et
crescunt media pegmata celsa via, ‘and tall stages grow in the
middle of the street’ (also cited by
Dekker, Dramatic
Works, ed. Bowers, 2.257).
1 Fenchurch A principal London thoroughfare, commencing at
Aldgate in the north-eastern end of the city, and running westwards to
Gracechurch Street. The Fenchurch arch was the first presentation made
to James as he processed westwards from the Tower. See the map of the
city in volume 1 of this edition. The Oxford editors speculate that the
presentation Dekker designed for the King at Bishopgate (involving St
George, St Andrew, and the Genius of the City) but which was never
performed, was originally meant to open the day’s festivities, and that
Dekker was piqued when this was displaced in favour of Jonson’s arch
(see H&S, 7.78; and
Dekker, Dramatic Works, 2.253–7). But
this is a misapprehension, for Dekker’s idea was a dramatic show, not an
arch, and it was intended for James’s original arrival at the city in
May 1603 (Bishopgate was the principal entrance to London from the
north). A purportedly eyewitness narrative of the royal entry by Gilbert
Dugdale,
The Time Triumphant (
1604), B4, implies
that Dekker’s speeches were performed in front of the Fenchurch arch,
but this conflicts with his own account, which says that they were ‘laid
by’ (
Dramatic Works, 2.257). Probably Dugdale was
supplementing what he failed to see directly with material taken from
Dekker’s published description, and misunderstood the drift of Dekker’s
remarks.
1 presented] Q; THe Scene
presented F1
1 upright
vertical face. Harrison (
1604), C, says ‘It was a flat square,
builded upright’, and that it spread across the whole street.
Dekker, Dramatic Works, 2.259–60, describes it as fifty feet
high and broad, with a gate eighteen feet high and twelve feet wide, and
posterns eight foot high and four feet wide on either side. See
Illustration 12. Harrison
adds that it was built according to the Tuscan order, and had pictures
of Atlas, King of Mauritania, on its sides.
2 vent and
crest Crenellations (an archaism:
OED, Vent
n.1,
2). The arch resembled a fortified city wall.
2–3 houses . . .
steeples Dugdale says he could identify the Exchange, Cole
Harbour, St Paul’s Cathedral, and Bow Church (
Time Triumphant,
B4).
3 perspective] Q (prospectiue)
3 perspective The spelling in Q and F1 (‘prospectiue’) is an
obsolete form that recurs in
Poet., 3.1.26 and
Blackness, 53, though it may contain
something of the related form ‘prospect’, meaning a scene or view. Cf.
OED, Prospective, 4.
6 Tacitus:1] Tacitus Q; Q and F1 print marginal notes without cue numbers throughout,
except in the speeches, where marginalia have letters, or
occasionally asterisks
JONSON’S
MARGINALIA 1 [Tacitus,] Annales,
14.
6–8 at . . . celebre ‘but Suetonius, with a constant resolution,
passing through the midst of his enemies, went to Londinium, a town
verily by the name that it carried of a colony nothing famous, but for
concourse of merchants and provision of necessaries most of all other
frequented’ (Tacitus,
Annals, 14.33, as
translated in Philemon Holland’s English version of William Camden’s
Britannia,
1610, 50). The Latin edition of Camden
(
1600, 368)
that Jonson was working from in 1603 quotes only
copia . . . celebre. Jonson begins with a memory of London’s
hostility to Rome, a relationship that his entertainment will rapidly
transform into identification.
8 character lettering.
9 CAMERA
REGIA‘The king’s chamber’. A traditional designation for the
city, which goes back at least to the civic triumph given to Richard Ⅱ
in 1392 (Kipling,
1998, 16–17). James himself called London ‘the chamber of our
imperial crown’, in correspondence with the aldermen (
Nichols, Progresses, 1.41). Jonson’s immediate
authority was probably Camden, who says London ‘began to be called The
King’s Chamber’ once William the Conqueror had secured the citizens
against Danish invasion and been ‘lovingly received and saluted as their
king’. See Camden (
1610), 427, and Worden (
1998), 11. This inscription does not
appear in Kip’s engraving of Harrison’s design for the arch, though it
is mentioned in Harrison’s prose description of the design. It might
conceivably have been placed on the reverse face; this is not shown in
the published image, but some of the arches were decorated behind as
well as in front (see Hood,
1991).
11 indulgence favour.
2 Camden, Britannia,
374.
13–14 ‘This house is on a par with the heavens, but it
is less than its master’ (
Martial, 8.36.12). Martial refers to Domitian’s palace on the
Palatine hill in Rome. Erskine-Hill (
1983), 125, notes that the immediately
preceding line calls Domitian a second Augustus.
3 [Martial,] 8.36.
19 ‘The British monarchy’.
22 Camden
William Camden (1551–1623), Jonson’s schoolmaster and friend. See
EMI (F), ded. Jonson’s opening section
draws heavily on Camden’s masterpiece of antiquarian scholarship,
Britannia (1586; expanded in subsequent
editions). His complimentary phrase ‘glory and light of our kingdom’ was
echoed by John Selden in a poem ‘To that singular glory of our nation
and light of Britain, William Camden’ prefacing his
Titles of Honour (
1614), a4 – a book to which Jonson
himself contributed verses in praise of Selden (
Und. 14).
4 [Camden,] Britannia,
367.
23–4 totius . . . cupressus ‘the epitome or breviary of all
Britain, the seat of the British empire, the king of England’s chamber,
so much overtoppeth all
[other towns
], as according to the poet,
inter viburna cupressus, that is, the cypress
tree among small twigs
[literally, wayfaring trees
]’ (as translated by
Philemon Holland,
1610, 421). Quoted from Camden (
1600), 367. The ‘poet’ is
Virgil, Eclogues, 1.25, whose line
metaphorically describes Rome’s pre-eminence over the other Italian
cities by treating it as the greatest tree in the forest. Camden’s
citation implicitly makes London a new Rome. See .
24 She
i.e. Monarchia Britannica.
25 cloth . . .
tissue gilded cloth, woven with strips of gold.
25 state
throne.
26 pensile
pendent (
OED’s earliest citation). The
first two crowns that Jonson describes are visible in Kip’s engraving of
the arch, but not the other two, or the shields and scutcheons.
26 limned] Q (lim’d)
26 limned
painted.
27 coat
coat of arms.
28 peculiar particular.
29 fillet
headband.
29 palm and
laurel Emblems of victory, and thus appropriate to a
triumph.
30 several
separate.
30 and] F1; & / and Q
32 ‘The British world’.
33 word
motto.
34 ‘Divided from the world’.
36 Claudian] Q (∗Clau.)
5 [Claudian,] De Mallii Theodori
Consulatu Panegyricus.
37 ‘And Britain separated from our world’ (Claudian,
Panegyric on the Consulship of Malius
Theodorus, 51). This, and the following motto, are the first
citations quoted on the opening page of Camden’s Britannia.
38 Virgil] Q (Virg.)
6 [Virgil,] Ecloga, 1.
39 ‘And the British, deeply divided from all the
world’ (Virgil, Eclogues, 1.66). This poem has a
double relevance for Jonson’s theme. It contains one of the earliest
historical references to Britain, all the more remarkable for coming
from Virgil’s pen; and it alludes to the victories of Octavian – the
future Augustus – thereby predicting the peace, security, and order that
he would eventually bring.
41 the . . . their] Q (state
2); their precedency and Q (state 1)
44 white . . .
blue Symbolizing innocence and truthfulness. Truth wears blue
in Hymenaei; cf. also the description of
Omothymia (156–8).
44 seeded
sprinkled.
45 clearness purity (
OED, †4).
45 always
continually.
46 sustained carried (from Lat. sub + teneo, to hold up).
47 subtlety penetration; acuteness of perception (Lat. subtilitas).
48 Estote . . . columbae ‘Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and
harmless as doves’ (Matthew, 10.16, Authorized Version).
7 Matthew, 10.16.
49 ‘By me kings reign’ (Proverbs, 8.15).
8 Proverbs, 8.15.
51 cube
emblematic of stability (see 384).
52 the
Monarchy i.e. the character representing Monarchia Britannica
(19). Divine Wisdom is the base and ‘stay’ (= prop, support) of
Monarchy.
53 The Genius of the city. Genius wears a plane
wreath and carries wine and shoots of a tree in Rosinus (cited in
Jonson’s note); Giraldi (
1548), 198, describes him as a boy or
an old man
coronabatur vero platani foliis, utpote
arboris genialis (‘crowned with plane leaves, being the nuptial
tree’). In Ripa’s
Iconologia, he is a child
coronato di platano (crowned with plane) and
carrying stalks of grain (1603, 182). Jonson and Dekker differed over
this iconography, for in the show Dekker devised to welcome James to
London in 1603 he depicted the Genius as female. In his printed text,
Dekker defensively admits that this had no classical precedent, but
retorts that the spectators are not learned doctors but ordinary
citizens: ‘To make a false flourish here with the borrowed weapons of
all the old masters of the noble science of poesy, and to keep a
tyrannical coil in anatomizing Genius from head to foot, only to show
how nimbly we can carve up the whole mess of the poets, were to play the
executioner, and to lay our city’s household god on the rack, to make
him confess how many pair of Latin sheets we have shaken and cut into
shreds to make him a garment . . . The multitude is now our audience,
whose heads would miserably run a wool-gathering, if we do but offer to
break them with hard words’ (
Dekker, Dramatic
Works, 2.254–5). Evidently Dekker had read Jonson’s
account, and recognized the implied censure of his own less rigourous
designs, here and at 203–12.
9 Antiqui Genium omnium
gignendarum rerum existimarunt Deum: et
tam urbibus quam hominibus vel caeteris rebus
natum: Lilius Gregorius Gyraldus,
in syntagma
deorum, 15;
et Rosinus,
Antiquitatum Romanarum, 2.14.
9 Antiqui . . . natum ‘The ancients considered the Genius a god
who gave birth to all things; made for cities as much as for men or
other things.’ Jonson cites the
De Deis Gentium
(‘On the Heathen Gods’) of Giraldi (
1548);
Genium . . .
existimarunt is quoted from p. 599 (syntagma 15).
Rosinus Jonson cites
Romanarum Antiquitatum libri decem by Joannes
Rosinus of Eisenach (
1583), 67–8, a source he used for historical data about Rome
in
Sej. and
Augurs. This
reference is to Rosinus’s chapter
De Genio, which
discusses
arbor genialis (see 55).
9 tam] Q (state 3), F1; not in Q (states 1–2)
55 arbor
genialis ‘the nuptial tree’.
56–7 branch . . .
twigs Vincenzo Cartari,
Imagines Deorum
(
1581),
depicts his Genius with a cornucopia, but Rosinus specifies that he
should hold a young branch or shoot (Gilbert,
1948, 111).
57 indulgence favour; privilege.
58 ‘With these arms’.
60 ‘Councillor’ (Gr.). The boule was the governing council of the Greek city-state. See
.
62 oak10] this edn; ∗Oake Q
10 Civica corona fit è
fronde querna, quoniam cibus, victusque;
antiquissimus querceus capi solitus sit: Rosinus,
10.27.
10 Civica . . . sit ‘The civic crown is made from a garland of
oak leaves, since the most ancient parts of the oak were traditionally
taken for food and sustenance.’ A passage quoted exactly from Rosinus
(
1583), 474
(from the chapter
De coronis militaribus, earumque
generibus).
62 sustaining holding (see .).
62 ensigns
emblems.
63 fasces11] this edn; ∗Fasces Q
63 fasces
The emblem of authority in Rome, borne before its magistrates: a bundle
of rods, bound around an axe, the blade of which protrudes. Not visible
in Kip’s engraving.
11 Fasciculi virgarum,
intra quas obligata securis erat, sic, ut ferrum in summo fasce
extaret: Rosinus, 7.3.
Ubi notandum est, non debere
praecipitem, et solutam iram esse magistratus. Mora
enim allata, et cunctatio, dum sensim virgae solvuntur, identidem
consilium mutavit
de plectendo. Quando autem vitia quaedam sunt
corrigibilia, deplorata alia; castigant virgae, quod revocari valet,
immendabile secures praecidunt. Plutarch,
Prob. Rom, 82.
11 Fasciculi . . . extaret ‘Bundles of twigs, within which an
axe was bound, in this way – so that the iron should stick out beyond
the longest faggot’. An exact quotation from Rosinus’s chapter on the
Roman magistracy (1583, 277).
Ubi . . . praecidunt ‘Whence it should be noted that the
wrath of the magistrates ought not to be hasty, or too easily angry.
Because the hindrance and delay caused to the course of his anger by the
leisurely unfastening of the rods often caused him to change his mind
about the punishment. When, however, some vices are curable but others
are incurable, the rods punish what can be amended, while the axes cut
off the incorrigible.’ From Plutarch’s
Roman
Questions, 82; paraphrased from Rosinus (
1583), 277, who
also supplied the reference to Plutarch.
11 praecipitem] F2;
precipitem Q, F1
11 de plectendo] G; deplectendo Q, F1
64 ‘To save the citizens’.
66 Literally, ‘warlike’ (Gr.). For the trained bands
that made up London’s citizen army, see Und.
44.
67 target
shield.
69 standard flag or ensign. The figure in Kip’s engraving is
merely holding a spear.
70 ‘To destroy, verily, our enemies’ (from the
pseudo-Senecan tragedy
Octavia, 443).
71 mots
mottoes.
71 connexed joined (from Lat. connexus, a
joining together).
12 Octavia, Actus 2.
74–5 ‘To destroy the enemy is the greatest ability of
a commander; to save the citizens is an even greater one in the father
of the country’ (
Octavia, 443–4).
76 aback
compartment, square tablet (from Lat.
abacus). A
Jonsonian coinage, and
OED’s only example. See also
173.
77 The river Thames, imaged as a river deity like
Tiberinus in the Virgil passage cited at 82–5.
78 skin-coat] Q (state 2),
F1; skinne Q (state 1)
79 bolne
bollen: inflated, puffed out.
13 [Virgil,] Aeneid, 8.
82–5 ‘And the god of the place appeared to him, old
Tiber himself, arising from his pleasant stream and his poplar leaves.
He was clothed in a grey garment of fine linen, and his hair was covered
in shady reeds’ (
Virgil, Aeneid, 8.31–4). In the
collected Virgil (
1599) that Jonson used, the editor, Jacobus Pontanus, glosses
tenuis . . . Carbasus as the kind of linen
from which very thin sails were made – perhaps provoking Jonson’s
comparison of Tamesis’s mantle to a sail (
79–80). See Tudeau-Clayton (
1998), 125n.
85 crinis] Q (crineis)
85 harundo] Q (Arundo)
89 ‘The rivers themselves felt.’
90 hemistich half-line of verse.
91 ‘what love is’ (
Ovid, Amores,
3.6.24).
94 grateful welcome, pleasing.
95 daughters The arrangement of these six figures in Kip’s
engraving does not correspond to Jonson’s description. Jonson orders
them into three pairs that mirror one another’s qualities, but on the
arch Loving Affection is set opposite Promptitude, and Vigilance
opposite Unanimity, and the arrangement is further muddled since some
figures are misidentified. Veneration is in fact Gladness, Gladness is
Vigilance, Promptitude Veneration, and Vigilance Promptitude. Only
Loving Affection and Unanimity are correctly named. The engraving prints
the labels in English; the names in the text are Greek.
96 spreading Alluding to the disposition of the daughters, who
were arranged in arch-like formation.
96 greces] Q (grices)
96 greces
steps.
99 Gladness Her attributes correspond to those of ‘Allegrezza’
in Ripa’s
Iconologia, who wears a green robe
decked with flowers, and carries a glass and golden cup. See Gilbert
(
1948), 95,
plate 23; and Ripa (
1603), 10.
99 diverse
several.
101 cruse
drinking vessel.
101 timbrel
tambourine.
103 Natis . . . scyphis ‘With wine cups made for the use of
gladness’ (
Horace, Odes, 1.27.1). Horace praises those who
enjoy their celebrations temperately, as opposed to barbaric
drunkenness.
15 Horace, Carmina 1, ode 27.
105–6 Nunc . . . tellus ‘Now let us drink, now let the earth be
struck with our free feet’ (
Horace, Odes,
1.37.1–2). Horace is congratulating Octavian on his victory
over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium.
16 Et ode 37.
108 ‘This is the first day of my lifetime’ (
Statius, Silvae, 4.2.13, in which the poet
celebrates his first invitation to a banquet given by the emperor).
17 Statius,
Silvae, 4.
[2.13
].
Epulum Domitiani [Eucharisticon].
17 Epulum . . .
[Eucharisticon] ‘A hymn of thanks for Domitian’s feast’, the
title given to
Statius’s Silvae, 4.2 in Renaissance
editions.
17 Epulum Domitiani] this edn; Epu. Domit. Q, F1
112 Veneration] F2; Veneratio
Q, F1
112 veil In
Carew’s masque
Coelum Britannicum (
1634), the figure
of Religion has her face veiled.
115 ‘Always a god to me’ (
Virgil, Eclogues,
1.7). The standard gloss on this line, by the fourth-century
scholar Servius, read Virgil’s ‘deus’ as an allusion to Augustus. The
motto thus encoded a two-level compliment to James (Tudeau-Clayton,
1998, 124).
18 Virgil,
Ecloga, 1.
18 Ecloga] Q (state 2) (Ecl.); Egl. Q (state
1)
117 God on
earth As emphasized in James’s own view of his office: ‘Kings
are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God’s throne,
but even by God himself they are called gods’ (James Ⅵ and I,
1994, 181).
119 Promptitude Her attributes are based on ‘Prontezza’ in Ripa
(
1603), 414:
‘A woman naked and winged; in her right hand she holds a flame of fire
and in her left a squirrel . . . The flame in her hand signifies
vivacity of spirit . . . The squirrel is depicted because it is a very
swift animal’ (trans. Gilbert,
1948, 203–4). The censer that Jonson
specifies is probably intended as the equivalent of Prontezza’s
flames.
119 tucked
pleated, to allow her to run freely.
120 ribands
ribbons.
120 virago-like like a warrior or Amazon (displaying her
breasts).
121 buskins
laced boots.
121 so
ribanded similarly laced with ribbons.
121 trifoly
trefoil; clover. An addition to Ripa’s scheme, it symbolizes hope
(Gilbert,
1948,
204).
123 close
closely shut.
124 at the
sides i.e. at the sides of the censer.
125 ‘Where an outlet is given.’
19 [Virgil,] Aeneid, 1.
20 [Virgil,] Aeneid, 1.
126 Aeolus] F2; Eolus Q, F1
(subst.)
128–9 ‘The winds, as it were in a solid mass, charged
through the outlet he had made, and swept through the earth in a
tornado’ (
Virgil, Aeneid, 1.82–3; quoted from the
description of the storm which sweeps Aeneas towards Carthage).
Classical commentators read this passage as an allegory of prompt
obedience, as the winds obey Aeolus, who in turn obeys Juno
(Tudeau-Clayton,
1998, 124–5).
129 perflant] Q; perflint F1
134 Vigilance Ripa (
1603), 502–3, has three different
versions of
Vigilanza, and lists among her
attributes the lamp and bell. Other details come from the iconography of
Gelosia: the colour yellow, and the robe
covered with eyes, which recurs in the allegorical portrait of Queen
Elizabeth at Hatfield, as a symbol of the sovereign’s watchfulness
(Gilbert,
1948,
36–7).
135 turnsole sunflower; a plant which belongs to the iconography
of vigilance because it always turns to follow the sun.
135 cresset
fire-basket; open metal vessel holding material for burning.
137 respecting paying careful attention to (
OED,
Respect, v. 2b), looking towards (
OED, 6c).
138 ‘We look out on all sides.’
21 [Ovid,] Metamorphoses,
1.
139 Argus
Who had a hundred eyes; set by Juno to watch over Io.
140–1 ‘He occupies the lofty summit of a mountain far
away, where he sits and looks out on all sides’ (
Ovid, Met., 1.666–7).
143 The attributes come from ‘Carita’, who is dressed
in red and has ‘
una fiamma di fuoco ardente’ (‘a
flame of burning fire’) (Ripa,
1603, 63).
148 ‘There are no such sentries.’
22 [Claudian,] De Quarto Consulato
Honorii Panegyricus.
149 ] F3; centred Q, F1
150–1 ‘
[Neither watch nor guard
] nor yet a hedge of
spears can secure your safety; only your people’s love can do that’
(Claudian,
Panegyric on the Fourth Consulship of
Honorius, 281–2, reading ‘non’ for ‘nec’). The motto echoes
James’s own advice to his son in
Basilikon Doron
(
1599), that
a king’s best safety lies in the love of his subjects: ‘A good
king . . . thinketh his greatest contentment standeth in their
prosperity, and his greatest surety in having their hearts . . . where
by the contrary an usurping tyrant . . . thinketh never himself sure
but . . . upon his people’s misery’ (James Ⅵ and I,
1994, 20).
150 pila] F2; peila Q, F1
158 sheaf of
arrows In Ripa, an emblem of Concord; though Jonson varies the
chaplet, which in Ripa is a crown of olive or pomegranates (Gilbert,
1948,
179–80).
160 ‘Concord makes strong.’
161 Auxilia
humilia firma ‘The humblest aids are strong’ (Publilius Syrus,
Sentences, 4).
23 Publilius Syrus,
Mimi.
23 Publilius
Syrus Roman author and performer of mimes (first century bc), of which fragments survive as a series of
apothegms.
165 These] Nichols; ¶ These
Q, F1
166 Genius and
Tamesis According to
Dekker, Dramatic
Works, 2.260, the Genius was played by Edward Alleyn (for
whom see
Epigr. 89), and Tamesis by one of the
children of the Queen’s Revels (though this seems an oddly inappropriate
role for a child actor).
166 dumb
compliments silent tributes; perhaps also ‘complements’.
174 elogy
inscription on a monument (from Lat.
elogium; a
Jonsonian coinage, predating
OED’s earliest
citation).
175–86 ] Q; printed in roman small
capitals in F1
175–86 ‘This is the greatest king, and the more happy by
that light which sees such a leader in his principal city; he is unique
in that his unparalleled virtue rises above his fortune, and this one
man triumphs in both respects over other men. Others wear down their
peoples with commands and many laws; but he carries us away with his own
example. It is right that every husband should fully enjoy the company
of his wife, and right that a father should know that his children are
similar to himself. Behold where his partner goes, crowded round with
glittering children; Anna in truth scarcely less than such a man. There
is no fear at all but that his nearest heir will in the future love the
king, and the king himself love his successor.’ Only the first three
lines appear in Kip’s engraving. The Latin elegaics seem to have been
written by Jonson himself; the odd insistence that Henry is genuinely
James’s heir is more emphatic in the Latin than can be conveyed in
English translation. The typography was changed to small capitals in F1,
perhaps as more suiting to an inscription, but it appears in lower case
in Kip’s engraving.
180 sed . . . suo A theme strongly emphasized by James himself in
Basilikon Doron: ‘it is not enough to a good
king, by the sceptre of good laws well execute to govern, and by the
force of arms to protect his people, if he join not therewith his
virtuous life in his own person, and in the person of his court and
company, by good example alluring his subjects to the love of virtue and
hatred of vice. And therefore my son, sith all people are naturally
inclined to follow their prince’s example . . . let your own life be a
law-book and mirror to your people, that . . . they may see by your
image what life they should lead’ (James Ⅵ and I,
1994, 33–4). In an
earlier passage, James quotes Claudian’s
Panegyric on
the Fourth Consulship of Honorius, 299–301, to the same effect:
componitur orbis / regis ad exemplum, nec sic
inflectere sensus / humanos edicta valent, quam vita regentis,
‘the world arranges itself according to the king’s example, nor can
decrees influence people’s minds as much as their ruler’s life’. The
idea is axiomatic for Jonson; cf.
Panegyre,
125–6;
Epigr. 35;
Haddington, 173–4;
Welbeck, 292–8.
188 King] Q (K.)
190 sun For
the trope of the king as a sun, cf. Merc. Vind.,
153; R3, 1.1.2; and R2,
3.3.63.
191 musics
Harrison, Arches of Triumph, sig. C, says that
the waits and hautboys of the city were placed in a gallery over the
gate in the archway.
193 ‘Full before your eye is he who was long before
your mind’ (Claudian, In Praise of Stilicho,
3.5).
24 Claudian, De laudibus
Stilichonis, 3.
194 objected presented (Lat. obicio).
195 still
continually.
196 Thus] G; ¶ Thus Q, F1
196 complimental expressing formal compliments.
OED’s earliest example (
a. 2).
198 policy
Form of government (alluding to the figures Bouleutes and Polemius,
which embody the conciliar and military divisions of the city).
199–202 the
nature . . . whole A close paraphrase of Leon Battista
Alberti’s
De re aedificatoria libri decem (1485),
book 6, ch. 2, which defines beauty as ‘the harmony and concord of all
the parts achieved in such a manner that nothing could be added or taken
away or altered except for the worse’ (trans. James Leoni,
1726):
ut sit pulchritude quidem certa cum ratione
concinnitas universarum partium in eo cuius sint: ita ut addi, aut
diminui, aut immutair posit nihil, quam improbabilius reddat.
Alberti’s axiom is a foundational statement of the importance of
harmonic proportion in architecture, and was crucial for the humanistic
idea of the architect’s philosophical function as a giver of form to
matter. It derives ultimately from the discussion of numerical symmetry
in buildings and the human body in
Vitruvius’s De
architectura, 3.1. Vitruvian principles were central
to Inigo Jones’s architectural theories and practice, but Jonson’s
interest in Vitruvius clearly predates his collaboration with Jones. He
had two copies of Vitruvius in his library, and annotated them. Palme
(
1959),
102–4, points out that Harrison’s designs for the arches are based on
harmonic ratios similar to those that subsequently became fundamental to
Jones’s architectural practice. The Fenchurch arch was thus the earliest
attempt to introduce Vitruvian architectural harmony into English
festivity. See also Johnson (
1994), 47–9.
200 entire
complete, perfect.
201 the own
its own.
201 connexed joined together (cf. concinnitas in Alberti, 199–202n.). See also .
204 hieroglyphics . . . impresas Jonson distinguishes three kinds
of pictorial symbols, in which natural or composite objects stand for
concepts, that comprised three strands in the period’s repertoire of
symbolic imagery.
Hieroglyphics were images
inherited from ancient Egyptian sources, and were much admired at this
time for the mysterious pre-Christian wisdom that they supposedly
preserved; collections were published as the
Hieroglyphica of Horus Apollo (1551) and Giovanni Pierio
Valeriano (
1556;
many later editions).
Emblems came from the
vernacular tradition of moralized imagery; emblem books depicted adages
or moral lessons in memorable pictorial terms.
Impresas belonged to the world of Italianate chivalric
festival, and were badges or personal devices that expressed in coded
terms the identity or aspirations of the wearer, as anthologized, for
example, in the
Imprese Illustri of Camillo
Camilli (1586; see Gordon,
1975, 1–23). There is perhaps some
overlap with
Francis
Bacon’s Advancement of Learning (1605),
which briefly considers hieroglyphics, characterizing them as ‘continued
impresas and emblems’ (2.16.3). Jonson is careful to underline that his
iconography is sensitive to questions of accuracy and significance. He
thus distinguishes himself sharply from Samuel Daniel, who disclaimed
any mystical meanings in the ‘hieroglyphics’ presented in his masque
The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses (January
1604), remarking that the mythographers all disagreed between themselves
over what their images meant (see
Spencer & Wells, Book
of Masques, 25–6); and from Thomas Dekker, who had to
admit that his part of the royal entry suffered from iconographic
mistakes (
Dramatic Works, 2.254–5).
204 impresas] Q (state 2)
(Impreses), F1; Imprese Q (state 1)
205 apted
made fit.
205 inventions imaginative contrivances.
206 garments outward parts.
206 ensigns
symbols; insignia.
206 word
motto.
208 truchman interpreter (as Leatherhead interprets between his
puppets and the audience in Bart. Fair, 5.5).
209 painter
A common topos. H&S compare Sir Thomas More’s epigram
In Malum Pictorem (
Lucubrationes,
1563, 236), and Sidney’s
Arcadia (
1598), 3.282: ‘being asked why he set
no word to
[his device
], he said that was indeed like the painter that
saith in his picture, here is the dog, and there is the hare’. The
ultimate source is Plutarch’s
How to Tell a
Flatterer, 24; reused in
Und. 69.
209 ‘This . . . hare’] Nichols;
This is a Dog; or, This is a Hare Q
210 upon the
view upon sight of them.
212 grounded ignorant, uneducated; alluding to the ‘groundlings’
or ordinary spectators who in playhouses would have stood in the yard
around the stage. Cf.
Case, 2.7.52. There is
perhaps a subliminal echo of King James’s reflections on the situation
of monarchs, exposed to the gaze of the empty-headed multitude, in
Basilikon Doron: ‘It is a true saying, that a
king is as one set on a stage, whose smallest actions and gestures all
the people gazingly do behold: and therefore although a king be never so
precise in the discharging of his office, the people, who seeth but the
outward part, will ever judge of the substance by the circumstances’
(James Ⅵ and Ⅰ,
1994, 49).
212 did gaze] Q (state 3),
F1; gazed Q (states 1–2)
214 conspired united in purpose (without pejorative
implication).
217 in file
in succession. Literally, on threads: a file was originally the string
or wire on which documents were hung for preservation and reference.
Here it alludes metaphorically to the ‘silver hairs’ of London’s Genius.
See
OED, File, n.2, 3a.
217 these
i.e. the Genius’s.
218–306 ] marginal notes in this
section are keyed to the text of Q with
alphabetic markers, in the form (a), (b), (c) etc., each successive page having its own sequence beginning
at (a)
218 stroke
rule (
OED, n.1, 3d).
25 As being the first free and natural government of
this island, after it came to civility.
219 yoke So
called because these dynasties were established by conquest; James’s
accession created free government in Britain. The phrase ‘the Norman
yoke’ was often used by those who believed Anglo-Saxon England had
possessed originary constitutional freedoms that were lost in 1066.
Characteristically, Jonson’s view is much more radical: his sweeping
historical perspective implies that no earlier times have been free.
26 In respect they were all conquests and the
obedience of the subject more enforced.
220 point
apex.
228 blest] Q (blist)
230 Brutus’
Brute was the mythical founder of Britain, grandson of Aeneas, and
leader of the Trojans who first settled the island. (This is, of course,
a different Brutus from Lucius Junius Brutus who opposed the Tarquins,
and the Brutus who assassinated Caesar.) Brute’s legend is told in book
1 of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
History of the Kings of
Britain, but it was rejected as unhistorical by later scholars
such as Camden. Jonson follows Geoffrey’s statement that Brute chose
London’s site by the Thames (Geoffrey,
1966, 33–4), but his marginal note
27 expresses some
anxiety about Brute’s fabulousness, which potentially contaminates the
historical truth of the material cited elsewhere in the entertainment.
Jonson’s note avoids acknowledging that Geoffrey is his source, and
directs attention instead to the epic image of Aeneas founding the city
of Rome, which is used to model this invented memory of the founding of
London. For Aeneas’s use of a plough to mark out the boundaries of his
city, see Jonson’s marginal note
27.
27 Rather than the city should want a founder, we
choose to follow the received story of Brute, whether fabulous or true,
and not altogether unwarranted in poetry: since it is a favour of
antiquity to few cities to let them know their first authors. Besides, a
learned poet of our time in a most elegant work of his,
Conjugium Tamesis et Isis, celebrating London hath this verse of
her:
Aemula maternae tollens sua lumina Troiae.
Here is also an ancient rite alluded to in the building of cities, which
was to give them their bounds with a plough, according to Virgil,
Aeneid, 10:
Interea Aeneas
urbem designat aratro. And Isidore, 15.2.
[3
]:
Urbs vocata ab orbe, quod antiquae civitates in orbem fiebant;
vel
ab urbo parte aratri, quo muri designabantur, unde est
illud. Optavitque locum regno et concludere sulco.
27 Conjugium . . . Isis ‘The Marriage of Thames and Isis’. This
poem is quoted in fragments throughout Camden’s
Britannia, and was probably written by Camden himself; hence
Jonson’s salute to the ‘learned poet’.
Aemula . . . Troiae ‘Resembling much her
mother Troy, aloft she lifts her eyes.’ Quoted from Camden’s
Britannia (
1600), 382, given here in
Philemon Holland’s
translation (1610), 436.
Interea . . . aratro ‘Meanwhile Aeneas set
the limits of the city with a plough’ (
Virgil, Aeneid,
5.755). Jonson’s error in referring to
Aeneid, 10, was caused by the edition he was using, Jacobus
Pontanus’s collected edition of Virgil. Pontanus printed book 5 in his
tenth section, and Jonson accidentally transcribed the number of his
chapter (Tudeau-Clayton,
1998, 121).
Urbs . . . sulco ‘The city
[urbs] derives either from the circle
[orbis], because ancient cities were built in the
form of a circle; or from the curved part
[urbum]
of the plough with which the walls were marked out, hence: “He chose a
site for his kingdom, and enclosed it within a furrow.”’ A definition
from
Etymologiae, sive Origines by Isidore of
Seville (
c.
ad 602–36),
which appears in Pontanus’s note to
Aeneid, 5.755,
whence Jonson copied it. The plough-beam (
urbum)
is the timber bar into which the blade of a plough is fixed; ‘He …
furrow’ is two Virgilian half-lines combined, from
Aeneid, 3.109 and 1.425 (Tudeau-Clayton,
1998, 121n.).
27 ab urbo] Q (state 2), F1; ab vrbe Q
(state 1)
231 auspicious of good omen. Jonson’s marginal note
28 cites classical
sources which associate the presence of the Genius with the furrows made
at the historical moment of a city’s founding.
28 Primigenius sulcus
dicitur, qui in condenda noua urbe, tauro et vacca designationis
causa imprimitur; hitherto respects that of Camden,
Britannia, 368, speaking of this city:
Quicunque autem condiderit, vitali genio, constructam
fuisse ipsius fortuna docuit.
28 Primigenius . . . imprimitur ‘That furrow is called
“primigenial” (or originary) which is imprinted by means of the pattern
marked out by a bull and a cow when they are building a new city.’ This
quotation from the scholar Sextus Pompeius Festus is also copied from
Pontanus’s note on
Aeneid, 5.755.
Quicunque . . . docuit
‘But whoever the founder, its fortunes told the world it had been built
with a vital genius.’ Quoted from Camden’s chapter on Middlesex (1600),
368. Cf. Philemon Holland’s translation (1610), 422: ‘But whosoever
founded it, the happy and fortunate estate thereof hath given good proof
that built it was in a good hour, and marked for life and long
continuance.’ Jonson’s page reference shows that he was consulting the
fifth edition of Camden (
1600).
233 white
As a sign of auspiciousness.
29 For so all happy days were: Pliny,
Naturalis Historiae, 7.40. To which Horace
alludes,
[Carmina,
] 1.36:
Cressa ne careat pulchra dies nota. And the other Pliny,
Epistulae, 6.11.
[3
]:
O diem
laetum, notandumque mihi candidissimo calculo. With many other
in many places: Martial, 8.45, 9.53, 10.38, 11.37; Statius,
Silvae, 4.6; Persius, satire 2; Catullus, epigram
69, etc.
29 happy
days Pliny’s
Natural History says the
Thracians had a custom to compute the felicity of their life; they would
put a white pebble in an urn if the day was happy, and black pebble if
it was unhappy. See also
Epigr. 96.8.
Cressa . . . nota ‘May no
lucky day lack its Cretan mark’ (
Horace, Odes,
1.36.10). ‘Cretan mark’ is poetic diction for ‘white chalk
mark’.
the other Pliny Pliny
the younger.
O . . .
calculo ‘O happy day, which I must mark with the whitest
stone.’
233 Clotho
Eldest of the three Fates.
30 The Parcae, or Fates. Martianus calls them
scribas ac librarias superum; whereof Clotho
is said to be the eldest, signifying in Latin
Evocatio.
30 scribas . . . superum ‘clerks and head spinners of the gods
above’; citing Martianus Capella (fl. 410–39), author of
De Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae (‘The Marriage
of Mercury and Philology’), an allegorical treatise on the liberal arts.
Jonson copied the quotation from Giraldi (
1548), 284 (chapter on the
Parcae).
Evocatio Calling forth.
234 circles
cycles. Alluding to the historical dynasties listed at 218–19; Jonson’s
marginal note
31
makes the connection by way of the house of the Destinies described in
Ovid’s
Metamorphoses and in his account of the
stellification of Julius Caesar.
31 Those before mentioned of the Briton, Roman,
Saxon, etc.; and to this register of the Fates allude those verses of
Ovid,
Metamorphoses, 15.
[809–14
]:
Cernes
illic molimine vasto. Ex aere, et solido rerum
tabularia ferro: Quae neque concussum coeli, neque fulminis Iram,
Nec metuunt ullas tuta atque aeterna ruinas. Invenies illic incisa
adamante perenni Fata
etc.
31 Cernes . . . Fata ‘You will see there records of things made
with great effort out of brass and solid iron; safe and eternal, they
fear neither the shock of heaven nor the wrath of the thunderbolt, nor
any other disaster. You will find there the fate of your descendant,
engraved in everlasting adamant.’ From the culminating section of Ovid’s
Met. Jove informs Venus that Caesar’s murder
was unavoidable, by describing to her the impressive furnishings of the
house of the Parcae (or Fates); immediately after, Caesar is made a star
and shines down approvingly on the rule of Augustus. Jonson directly
represents the adamantine book of the Parcae in Theobalds, 31–3.
31 illic incisa] Q; illis incisa F1
235 there
i.e. in the book of fate.
238 daughters Addressing the six women standing on the arch.
239 office
duty (Lat., officium).
240 aspect
view.
242 article
juncture; critical point (
OED, 2a).
243 aspired
mounted upwards.
245 plagues
James’s ceremonial entry had been deferred for many months because of
the visitation of plague that followed his accession.
245 Zeal] Wh; “Zeale Q, F1
246 tame
(1) placid; (2) spiritless.
247 thy] Q; the F1
248 inofficious undutiful, disobliging. A Jonsonian coinage;
OED’s earliest example. Cf. .
251 Now] Wh; “Now Q, F1
251 Now . . .
tide This is a unique day. Cf. Panegyre, 163; Oberon, 305–6.
252 tamesis] Q; THAMESIS
Harrison, Arches of Triumph
255 Tagus’
Tagus is an Iberian river, fabled at this time to carry gold. See
Jonson’s marginal note.
32 A river dividing Spain and Portugal, and by the
consent of poets styled
aurifer.
32 aurifer gold-producing. The Tagus is so described in Ovid,
Amores, 1.15.34, and Catullus, 29.19 (
H&S).
256 him
King James.
258–9 Not . . .
dumb Proverbial: as dumb as a fish.
33 Understanding Euphrosyne, Sebasis,
Prothymia, etc.
33 Prothymia] Q; Prothumia
F1
261 albeit] Q (albe’t)
262–3 This sentiment becomes the central trope of Panegyre.
263 Joy] Wh; “Ioy Q, F1
265 lose] Q (loose)
266 eventing venting, issuing forth.
268 sons
i.e. the aldermen, led by the Lord Mayor, the ‘eldest’.
34 The Lord Mayor who, for his year, hath senior
place of the rest, and for the day was chief sergeant to the King.
271 blest A
Latin pun on the Mayor’s surname, Bennet.
35 Above the blessing of his present office, the
word had some particular allusion to his name, which is Bennet, and
hath, no doubt, in time been the contraction of Benedict.
35 Benedict From Lat. benedictus
blessed.
273 nectar
The drink of the gods.
274 council . . .
multitude A succinct analysis of the city’s government. The 26
aldermen managed the city through a legislative assembly, the Common
Council, which had some 200 members representing the wards, and an
electoral assembly, the Court of Common Hall, consisting of the
liverymen – the wealthiest and most influential citizens in each guild.
The ‘multitude’ are the rest: the huge body of ordinary citizens below
the degree of freeman.
36 The city, which title is touched before.
280 in] Morley; “In Q, F1
280–1 in . . .
his From
Martial,
8.15.8:
Principis est virtus maxima nosse
suos.
281 No] Morley; “No Q, F1
282 SD]
this edn; marginal note in Q, F1
283 This
springing glory Prince Henry (at this time ten years old).
37 An attribute given to great persons fitly above
other humanity, and in frequent use with all the Greek poets, especially
Homer,
Iliad,
1:
δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. And
in the same book:
καί ἀντίθεον
Πολύφημον.
37 1] α Q
37 δῖος Ἀχίλλευς] this edn;
δίος Α᾽᾽χιλλευς Q, F1
37 δῖος
Ἀχιλλευς ‘the god Achilles’. καί αντίθεον Πολυφηυον ‘and godlike Polyphemus’.
The reading ‘xj’ in Q and F1 is a standard Renaissance abbreviation for
καί.
37 καί] this edn; xj Q,
F1
286 tree A
key image in the literature of James’s accession, which often presented
him as a great fatherly tree guaranteeing his people’s safety. Jordan
(
1997),
82–3n., cites several examples from pamphlets by Bishop John
Thornborough in praise of the Anglo-Scottish union. In
Four Books of Offices (
1606), L3v, Barnabe Barnes called
Britain an ‘ancient tree’ now grafted with Danish, French, and Saxon
branches; in James’s person, ‘these several plants graciously sprout out
on high, like the sweet cedars in Solomon’s forest’, and will spread by
marriage and conquest to rule ‘all the goodliest gardens of the world’.
The underlying image is the cedar, a biblical emblem of sovereignty
instituted by God: see Ezekiel, 17.22–3, and cf. Shakespeare’s use of
the trope in
Cym., 5.4.454 and
H8,
5.4.52–4.
287 be;] be. Q, F1
289 main
sea.
290 increase procreation.
291 navel] Q (Nauill)
291 navel
central point; see Jonson’s marginal note. James’s foreign policy often
had a dynastic aspect, as he would later attempt to make the marriages
of his children instrumental in his pursuit of international peace. By
bestowing them even-handedly on partners from Catholic and Protestant
royal families, he attempted to build ties of affinity that would help
unify a Europe riven by religious and national differences. James’s
network of family ties, through marriage and procreation, was one of the
most striking differences between his monarchy and Elizabeth’s.
38 As
Lactantius calls Parnassus,
Umbilicum terrae.
38 Lactantius] Lactant. Q
(states 1–2); Luctatius Q (states 3–5), F1
38 Umbilicum terrae ‘The navel of the earth’; i.e. the middle
point of the world. An error: this stone was located in the temple at
Delphi, not on Parnassus. Giraldi’s chapter on Delphi (1548), 310,
mentions the umbilicum, and gives the reference
‘Lactantius grammaticus in Theb.’ This is not
Lactantius the Christian apologist but Lactantius Placidus (sixth
century? ad), a grammarian who left a series
of scholia on the Thebais of Statius. In some
copies of Q, the name appears as ‘Luctatius’, an
error that crept in when corrections were made elsewhere to the marginal
notes on this page.
295 He] “He Q, F1
295 From Claudian, Panegyric on the
Sixth Consulship of Honorius, 610: Non
quaerit pretium vitam qui debet amori.
296 SD]
this edn; marginal note in Q, F1
39 An emphatical speech, and well reinforcing her
greatness, being by this match more than either her brother, father,
etc.
300 Fame
Usually depicted with a trumpet, as in Time
Vind., 1, and Chlor., 203.
300 rings
proclaims.
301 daughter . . . kings Exactly this tribute to Queen Anne’s
status is repeated in
CSPV
1617–1619, 392.
40 Daughter to Frederick
the second, king of
Denmark and Norway, sister to Christian the fourth now there reigning,
and wife to James our sovereign.
40 Frederick the] Nichols;
Frederik Q, F1
302 alliance Through her three sisters, who married the Elector
of Saxony, Duke of Holstein, and Duke of Braunschweig-Luneburg, Queen
Anne was connected to some of Protestant Europe’s leading princes and
noblemen. Several of her German nephews would be high profile visitors
to the Jacobean court. Her brother, Christian Ⅳ of Denmark, visited
England in 1606 and 1614.
302 style
title.
304 shoot
branch (of the Jacobean tree): Prince Henry.
41 The prince, Henry Frederick.
306 those . . .
denied Princess Elizabeth was living at Hampton Court but had
not yet visited London; Prince Charles did not leave Scotland until
August 1604 (
CSPV, 1603–7, 180).
42 Charles Duke of Rothesay, and the Lady Elizabeth.
42 Rothesay Another error: Prince Henry was Duke of Rothesay,
and Charles was Duke of Albany.
308 can
i.e. can offer.
308 whose
the city’s.
314 The . . . Bar] as heading
F1;
in capitals Q
314 other
Jonson’s second triumphal arch, the seventh in James’s processional
sequence (in Q, this paragraph starts a new page and section). Dekker
(
Dramatic Works, 2.300) says it was fifty-seven feet
high, eighteen feet broad, and twelve feet in depth. For Kip’s engraving
of the arch, see
illustration
13.
314 Temple
Bar A gateway at the west end of Fleet Street, marking the
limit of city jurisdiction to the west, and hence signalling James’s
departure from London on his route back home to Westminster.
Harrison, Arches of Triumph, K, says this arch
‘was in all points like a temple’, and was built in the composite order,
as used for the triumphal arch of Vespasian.
314 frontispiece principal face, or decorated entrance, of a
building (repeated by
Harrison, sig. K).
317 ‘Sacred to four-faced Janus’. Janus was the
guardian deity of gates, doorways, and the beginnings and ends of
things, and hence was honoured by the Romans as a deity with precedence
over all others, even Jove. He was usually represented with two faces,
because he looks both ways, but Jonson adopts the more esoteric
four-faced version, which could be linked to the four seasons or the
four elements. The Janus Geminus, a small shrine to Janus, stood in the
Forum at Rome, and was traditionally associated with peace and war: when
Rome was at war its doors stood open, but they were closed to mark times
of peace. Augustus closed the doors in 30
bc,
after the battle of Actium, and again on two further occasions; they had
not previously been closed since 235
bc, the
end of the first Punic War. His action is celebrated by Virgil in the
Aeneid, 1.293–6, 7.607; Jonson evokes these
associations, which testify strongly to James’s status as a peace-loving
emperor, in marginal note
74. The temple of Janus Quadrifons
was a later structure in the forum transitorum, built as a square with
doors on each side, where Domitian placed a four-faced Janus captured at
Falierii in 241
bc (Platner,
1929, 278–80).
Almost certainly Jonson saw the engraving of this in Rosinus (
1583), 43 (see
Illustration 14).
Harrison’s arch, with its square shape, double columns, and quadriform
head, is an attempt to reproduce this distinctive Roman monument in
contemporary English terms.
318–45 which . . .
Clusius Jonson’s discussion of Janus is a mosaic of borrowings
from learned authorities. He could have found all the quotations from
Ovid, Cicero, and Martial (except that at 340) in Giraldi, and echoes
his words at 319–20:
Quadrifons ergo, et Quadricepts
Ianus vocatur, id quod et Marti[alis]
innuit illo hendecasyll[abo].
Et lingua pariter locutus omni
(Giraldi,
1548,
210). Rosinus supplied some of Jonson’s marginal notes (see marginalia
43n.,
48n.), and is
paraphrased at
318–19:
Ianus Geminus, sive Quadrifrons fictus et
appellatus fuit, quod universa climata maiestate sua
complecteretur (Rosinus,
1583, 41–2). And the comparison of
Janus to the seasons was perhaps influenced by Cartari, as translated by
Richard Linche,
The Fountain of Ancient Fiction
(
1599),
D3v–E1v.
318 respecteth looks towards. Cf. .
43 Bassus
apud
Macrobium,
Saturnalia, 1.9.
[13
].
43 Bassus
Aufidius Bassus, first-century
ad Roman
historian, whose works survive only as fragments.
apud in.
Macrobium Ambrosius Macrobius,
fifth-century Latin grammarian. His
Saturnalia,
an influential early commentary on Virgil, included quotations from
earlier authors such as Bassus. This note is copied exactly from Rosinus
(
1583),
41.
320 hendecasyllable Verse line of eleven syllables.
321 ‘And he spoke at the same time in every tongue’
(
Martial,
8.2.5).
44 [Martial,] 8.2.
325–6 Me . . . Adspice ‘The ancients (for a being from of old am I)
used to call me Chaos. Observe’ (
Ovid, Fasti,
1.103–4).
45 [Ovid,] Fasti, 1.
327 ancients46] this edn; ∗Auncients Q (states
2–3); ∗Auncient Q (state 1)
46 Lege Marlianum,
4.8;
Albricum,
In Deorum
Imaginibus.
46 Lege ‘Read’.
Marlianum Joannes Bartholomaeus Marlianus, author of
Urbis Romae Topographia (editions of 1544, 1550,
1588); translated by Philemon Holland, 1600.
Albricum Jonson cites Albricus’s
De Imaginibus Deorum, published with
De
Romanorum Magistratibus by L. Lucius Fenestella (
c. 1490; frequently reprinted).
H&S (7.72) suggest that Jonson
could have used one of the later editions appended to the mythological
handbook of Hyginus (
Fabulae, 1535; further
editions in 1549, 1570, 1578).
46 Albricum] Alb. Q (state
2); Abb. Q (state 1)
46 Imaginibus.] imag. Q (state 1); not in Q (state
2), F1
329 ascribe] F1; abscribe Q; adscribe conj. H&S (comparing Sej.,
5.103)
330 Marcus] Q (M.)
330 Marcus Cicero,47]
this edn; M. Cic. § Q
47 [Cicero,] De Natura
Deorum, 2.
330–3 Cumque . . . nominantur ‘As in everything it is the beginning
and the end which are the most important. This is why they cite Janus
first in sacrifices, because his name is derived from the verb ire, to go; hence accessible passageways are
called arches [iani], and the gates of secular
buildings are called doors [ianuae]’ (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, 2.67).
331 vim] Q (states 2–3); vni Q (state 1)
332 ab eundo48] this edn; ∗ab eundo Q
48 Quasi Eanus.
48 Quasi
Eanus ‘As it were, Eanus’; copied from Rosinus (
1583), 41. Jonson
is glossing Cicero’s etymological explanation of the Janus myth: that
the name was originally ‘Eanus’ and was derived from
eundo, the gerund of
ire, ‘to go’.
333 ianuae] Q; Ianua F1
333 nominantur] nominatur Q, F1
49 [Ovid,] Fasti, ibid.
335–8 ‘Whatever you see anywhere – the sky, sea,
clouds, and earth – all things are closed and opened by my hand; the
guardianship of this vast universe is in my hands alone, and none but
mine may rule the turning pole’ (
Ovid, Fasti,
1.117–20).
340 ‘I have never thought so many faces enough’ (
Martial, 8.2.3).
50 Martial,
8.2.
50 8.2] lib.8. Epi.2. Q;
l.8. Epist.2. F1
343 ‘And on his
[the priest’s
] sacrificial lips, I am
now called Clusius’ (
Ovid, Fasti, 1.130).
51 Ovid, Fasti, 1.
344 open] Q (states 2–3);
vpon Q (state 1)
344 Patulcius Opener.
344 His Majesty] Q (states
2–3); the Kings Maiestie Q (state 1)
345 Clusius
Shutter. As Jonson later explains (marginal note
74), the monument to Janus in the
Roman forum had two doors. In time of war they were opened, but their
shutting signified peace. The foundational reference to the custom of
opening the gates of war comes in Virgil’s
Aeneid, 7.601–15; see also the more circumstantial account in
Ovid,
Fasti, 1.257–82.
346 arms of the
kingdom Harrison,
Arches of Triumph,
sig. I, says that when the arch was dismantled, the coat of
arms was placed in the Guildhall.
347 supporters heraldic figures, on either side of the coat of
arms.
347 hexastich Poem of six lines.
348 should] Q (states 2–3);
could Q (state 1)
350–5 ,358–9] Q; in small capitals F1
350–5 ‘He who recently reigned only within very narrow
boundaries, and in that small command showed himself to be fitted for
ruling over the whole world; he saw (lest any fortune be lacking to his
virtue) three kingdoms happily united all at once in himself; it is
right to have faith in our prayers that Britons will indeed not enjoy a
bloody peace.’ This inscription, with its claim that the kingdoms are
already joined in James’s body, strikingly anticipates the parliamentary
debates over the Union.
52 [Horace,] Epistulae, 2.1,
ad Augustum.
358 Iurandasque] F2 (subst.); Iur andasque Q, F1 (subst.)
358–9 ‘We take our oaths and ordain our altars in his
name, acknowledging that nothing like him has ever risen before or will
rise at any other time’ (Horace, Epistles,
2.1.16–17, ‘Epistle to Augustus’, with suum for
tuom). Jonson’s arch ensures that, like
Augustus, James now has an altar dedicated to him as a god.
362 or Peace. She] this edn, after
Nichols; Or Pax. [as
marginal note] She Q (state 1); or
Peace, she Q (state 2), F1
362 Peace
Ripa and Rosinus give Peace’s attributes as the olive branch and ears of
grain, ‘
un fascio di spighe di grano’ (Ripa,
1603, 375).
Rosinus specifies the crown of laurel, but the stars and the dove (more
usually a symbol of innocence) are added by Jonson. Presumably the dove
is there through its association with the olive branch in the story of
Noah. See Gilbert (
1948), 132–43.
362 cant
niche.
362 semined
seeded. Perhaps this is a Jonsonian coinage:
OED
has ‘seminate’ from 1535, though this is the earliest instance of
‘semined’ (from Lat.
seminare, to sow). Cf.
Hym., 112.
363 large
abundant.
367 boy
Jonson diplomatically ignores the iconographic tradition that
represented Plutus as a blind and aged figure; see his marginal note
53, which
cites precedents in Pausanias and Philostratus for representing him as a
youth. The robe and ingots are attributes supplied by Jonson himself;
the resemblance between Plutus and Cupid was to be the central trope of
Love Rest.
53 So
Cephisodotus hath feigned him; see
Pausanius in
Boeotia and Philostratus in
Imagines, contrary to Aristophanes, Theognis,
Lucian, and others, that make him blind and deformed.
53 These literary references are all copied from
the chapter on Plutus in Giraldi (
1548), 276–7.
Cephisodotus Greek sculptor, son of Praxiteles.
Pausanias’s description of Boeotia mentions his statue of Plutus: ‘nor
was the sagacity of Cephisodotus less, who made for the Athenians Peace
holding Plutus’ (9.16.2).
Philostratus A youthful and attractive Plutus appears in the
pictures described in
Philostratus’s Imagines (2.27.5).
Aristophanes . . . Lucian
Plutus is blind and deformed in Aristophanes’
Ploutos and Lucian’s
Timon (26, 27).
Theognis says merely that Plutus was the greatest of the gods, but
Giraldi (
1548),
276, uses him as an authority; and see Gilbert (
1948), 199.
53 Cephisodotus] Cephisiodotus Q, F1
369 her
Irene’s.
371 An epithet of Mars, used in
Homer (Iliad, 13.518–22) and
Pindar (Olympian,
13.105–6); discussed in Giraldi (
1548), 441. See Wheeler (
1938), 90.
374 ‘Alone preferable to countless triumphs.’ Neither
this motto, nor any of the other inscriptions subsequently described
(except on the altar,
549–71), is visible in Kip’s engraving.
375–7 ‘Peace is the best of things it is given man to
know; peace alone is preferable to countless triumphs’ (Silius Italicus,
Punica, 11.595–7). By this time in his reign,
James’s strong personal commitment to the pursuit of peace at home and
abroad had already become clear.
54 Silius Italicus.
379 triumphs. Besides] F2; Tryumphes, besides Q, F1
(subst.)
380 hemicycle semicircular recess, like an apse.
OED’s earliest citation: a coinage from Lat.
hemicyclium, a half-circle.
382 Quiet
Her attributes are taken from Ripa (except for the kingfisher, which he
identifies with Peace). Jonson’s description is a close paraphrase of
the
Iconologia (
1603), 423:
Donna,
d’aspetto grave, et venerabile; sara vestita di nero . . . sopra
all’ acconciatura della testa, vi stara un nido, dentro del quale si
veda una cicogna;
Donna, che sta in piedi
sopra una base di figura cubica, con la man destra sostenga un
perpendicolo. Ripa explains that storks represent the quiet of
old age, and that the ‘perpendicular’ (= plumb-rule) indicates that
repose is the end of all things (Gilbert,
1948, 90). The cube and perpendicular
are also associated with Storge (Natural Affection) in the masque that
concludes
Cynthia (Q), 5.2.24–5.
386 halcyon
The kingfisher was fabled to breed at the winter solstice in a nest
floating on the sea, for the sake of which the winds and waves would
make themselves specially calm; hence it was a symbol of peace.
386 kingfisher] Q (Kings-fisher)
391 ‘A calm power carries it through.’
392–3 Quod . . . quies ‘What violence is unable to achieve,
powerful peace, once given the commission, more vigorously prosecutes’
(Claudian, Panegyric on the Consulship of Malius
Theodorus, 240–1).
55 [Claudian,] De Mallio Theodoro
Consuli Panegyricus.
394 facile
mild, lenient.
397 Liberty
Ripa specifies the attributes of ‘Libertà’ as a white dress; a club like
that of Hercules; a cat, ‘as this animal cannot endure to be shut up in
the power of anybody’; and a hat such as was given to freed slaves as a
sign of their liberty (1603, 292–3; trans. Gilbert,
1948, 84–5).
400 creature] Q (creatrue)
402 or Servitude,] Q (state
2); Or Seruitus. Q (state 1) (marginal note)
402 Servitude Jonson combines details from Ripa’s descriptions of
‘Servitù’: a woman with a yoke, and ‘with her head shaved, meagre,
barefooted, and badly dressed . . . with chains and irons on her feet’
(1603, 450–1; Gilbert,
1948, 79–80).
403 insinuate imply.
403 bondage] Q (state 2);
seruitude Q (state 1)
404 ‘Never more pleasing’.
56 [Claudian,] De laudibus
Stilichonis, 3.
406–7 ‘Liberty never appears more pleasing than under
an upright king’ (Claudian, In Praise of
Stilicho, 3.114–15).
411 or Safety,] Q (state 2);
Or Salus. Q (state 1) (marginal
note)
411 Safety
Ripa gives three accounts of ‘Salute’: on a high seat, with a spear, and
another on a pedestal; all three have a cup and a serpent, though the
helmet and carnation colouring are Jonson’s additions (1603, 438–9;
Gilbert,
1948,
220–1). H&S note the serpent was sacred to Aesculapius, the god of
medicine.
416 or Danger,] Or Periculum.
Q (state 1) (marginal note)
416 Danger
Her attributes combine emblems from various figures in Ripa: Fury
(torch), Wrath (sword), Deception (net), and Selfishness (wolf’s hide).
See Gilbert (
1948), 187.
416 despoiled stripped of clothing.
417 out
extinguished.
418 wolf’s] Q (Wolues)
420 ‘Fears turn their backs’ (
Martial, 2.6.6).
421 Martial] Q (Mart.)
57 [Martial,
] 12.6.
57 12.6] Lib.12. Epi.6. Q, F1 (subst.)
422 security perfectly assured confidence; freedom from all
danger.
425 or Felicity,] Q (state 2); not
in Q (state 1)
425 Felicity The description is closely paraphrased from Ripa’s
‘Felicità’ (
1603), 154:
Donna, che siede in un bel seggio
regale, nella destra mano tiene il caduceo, et nella sinistra il
cornucopia pieno di frutti, et inghirlandata di fiori.
425 varied . . .
hand Not clearly explained.
425 richly;] F1; richly, Q
426 caduceus The wand carried by Mercury, the herald of the gods,
with two snakes twined about it.
429 DYSPRAGIA Strictly, ‘ill fortune’ (see 432). The attributes
come from Ripa’s ‘Infortunio’ (
1603), 228:
Il
cornucopia rivolto, et i piedi scalzi, dimostrano la privatione del
bene, et d’ogni contento: et il corvo non per esser uccello di mal
augurio, mà per esser celebrato per tale da poeti, ci può servire
per segno dell’ infortunio (‘The cornucopia turned downward and
the naked feet signify the denial of good or contentment; and the raven
can be used as a sign of ill fortune, not because it is so but because
the poets celebrate it as such’).
430 or Unhappiness,] Q (state 2);
not in Q (state 1)
433 soul
motto. Cf. Hym., 5.
434 ‘Saturn’s reign is come again’ (
Virgil, Eclogues, 4.6). A key tag of
Renaissance panegyric. Saturn’s reign was the Golden Age, when men lived
without labour or sorrow. Jonson returns to the theme in
Gold. Age, and
Time Vind.
The reference to Virgil’s fourth eclogue – written after the
reconciliation between Antony and Octavian in 40
bc and containing messianic prophesies of a newly born ruler
under whom justice will return to the earth – links the arch with the
universal peace associated with Augustus.
58 [Virgil,] Ecloga, 4.
438 dumb
unspeaking; expressed only through signs.
440–1 ‘There is no well-being in war; we all call on
you for peace’ (
Virgil,
Aeneid, 11.362). From Drances’
speech advising Turnus to make peace with the Trojans, but it is not
entirely appropriate, since Drances’ opposition only hardens Turnus’s
determination to fight.
59 [Virgil,] Aeneid,
11.
443 altar
In Harrison’s design, the altar, and the Flamen and Genius, are situated
immediately above the arch; James would have passed beneath them.
443–4 flamen /
MARTIALIS Priest of Mars. According to Jonson’s marginal note,
one of two flamens instituted by Romulus.
444 MARTIALIS,60] this edn; ∗MARTIALIS Q
60 One of the three
flamines that, as some think, Numa Pompilius first instituted, but we
rather, with Varro, take him of Romulus’ institution, whereof there were
only two, he and Dialis: to whom he was next in dignity. He was always
created out of the nobility, and did perform the rites to Mars, who was
thought the father of Romulus.
60–5 Jonson’s historical discussion of the origin and
dress of Flamens is a mosaic of quotations and paraphrases from
Rosinus’s chapter 3.15, De Flaminibus in genere
(1583), 105–6. The quotations for marginal notes 61, 62, and 64 are
copied word for word from Rosinus, and the references are carried over
likewise. Rosinus also marshals information about the supposed founders
of the order (60), the technical terms for headgear stroppus and inarculum (63), and the
gods to whom each Flamen was dedicated (65).
60 Numa
Pompilius The second king of Rome, successor to Romulus. The
religious reforms that he was believed to have accomplished are
described in
Livy,
1.19–20.
Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27
bc), whose
philological work
De lingua latina libri ⅩⅩⅤ
discusses Flamens at 5.84 and is cited twice by Rosinus. As Gilbert
points out (1948), 106n., Varro does not make the claim that Jonson here
ascribes to him, but it is attributed to him in Rosinus’s remarks on the
name Martialis in his chapter 3.17,
De reliquis
flaminibus (1583), 108, from which Jonson probably took it.
Dialis This Flamen was
associated with the worship of Jupiter; the third, Quirinalis, with the
Sabine deity Quirinus.
447 before
At 53–7.
448 his
nobility In marginal note
60, Jonson notes that the flamen was
always of noble origin.
448 tippet
scarf, worn in the style of a clerical vestment around the neck with
both ends hanging forwards.
450–533 ] marginal notes keyed to the
text of Q with small superscript letters,
c–f, a–p
450–6 hat
. . . teacheth This is one of
the few prose sequences in which Jonson supplies alphabetical markers
for the marginal notes but the sequence starts (at the top of a page)
with ‘c’. Possibly this irregularity suggests that two notes have been
lost, or that the compositor did not understand Jonson’s intentions. See
the Textual Essay.
61 Scaliger
in
coniect. in Varro saith
Totus pileus,
vel potius velamenta, Flammeum
dicebatur, unde Flamines dicti.
61 Scaliger See .
Totus . . . dicti ‘The whole cap, or rather
cowl, was called a bridal-veil
[Flammeum], whence
they are called Flamens’ (from
Rosinus).
450 cone
Despite Jonson’s attempt to describe the Flamen’s cap accurately, and to
substantiate it in his notes with evidence from classical sources,
Harrison’s design looks more conventionally like the mitre of a
Christian bishop.
451 apex The technical name for a Flamen’s cap, discussed in
Jonson’s marginal note
60.
451 lib. book (Lat.).
452 ‘And the Flamen lifting up his priest’s cap with
its noble top’ (
Lucan,
Pharsalia, 1.604; modern editions
read
et tollens for
attollensque).
62 To this looks that other conjecture of Varro,
De Lingua Latina, 4:
Flamines, quod licio in Capite velati erant semper, ac caput
cinctum habebant filo, Flamines dicti.
62 Flamines . . . dicti ‘Flamens were called Flamens because
they were always veiled with thread on their heads, and had their heads
bound about with a band of wool’ (from Rosinus).
453 apiculum A woollen thread, covering the flamen’s cap.
454 sustained held up (cf. .).
454 bowed] Q (bowd)
454 twig
The small rod at the top of a flamen’s cap, wound with wool.
63 Which in their attire was called
stroppus, in their wives
inarculum.
455 Scaliger Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484–1558), French scholar
and classicist (see
Discoveries., 180–218.). His
works include a commentary on the lexicographer Varro, which Jonson’s
marginal note cites. Jonson copied this information, and the reference
to Scaliger, from Rosinus; see marginal note
61.
64 Scaliger,
ibid, in con.:
Pone enim regerebant apicem, ne gravis esset summis
aestatis caloribus. Amentis enim, quae offendices dicebantur, sub
mentum adductis, religabant; ut cum vellent, regererent, et pone
pendere permitterent.
64 Pone . . . permitterent ‘For they threw back the apex behind
them, lest they be heavy in the greatest heat of the summer; for they
tied it up with straps which were called “bands”, pulled taut under the
chin; so that when they wanted to, they threw it back and allowed it to
hang behind’ (from Rosinus).
457 on the
top i.e. on the top of the altar (as in Kip’s engraving).
457 Genius
Dugdale’s eyewitness account says the ‘oration’ was spoken by ‘a young
man, an actor of the city’ (
Time Triumphant,
B4v). The Genius at Fenchurch had been played by an adult
actor, Edward Alleyn.
458 strange
foreign.
462 habit
vestment.
65 Of Mars, whose rites, as we have touched before,
this flamen did specially celebrate.
464 short
view brief appraisal.
470 calendar] Q (Kalender) (state
4); Calender (state 1)
470 calendar The corrected state of Q reads ‘
Kalender’. Probably Jonson deliberately introduced this
spelling to suggest the word’s derivation from the Roman Kalends, the
first day of any month, from which the date was reckoned. It connects
thematically with the idea that James’s arrival marks a turning point in
time. See . and Jonson’s marginal note
78.
471 Ides of
March 15 March, the feast day of Anna Perenna, a year-goddess
with no distinctive mythology of her own, who was celebrated at Rome
with merrymaking (hence ‘genial feast’,
472). Unpropitiously also the
anniversary of Julius Caesar’s murder (see
532–3), but Jonson exploits the
happy coincidence between her name and Queen Anne’s, exploring its
symbolic significance in his marginal notes. His thematic exploration of
the date shows that he must have conceived and written this show very
rapidly, since not until February 1604 did it become clear what the
rescheduled date of the royal entry would be.
66 With us the 15 of March, which was the present
day of this triumph, and on which the great feast of Anna Perenna, among
the Romans, was yearly and with such solemnity remembered. Ovid,
Fasti, 3:
Idibus est Annae
festum geniale Perennae, Haud procul a ripis, etc.
66 Idibus . . . ripis ‘On the Ides is held the joyous feast of
Anna Perenna, not far from the banks
[of the river
]’ (
Ovid, Fasti, 3.523–4; modern texts read
non for
haud).
472 genial
joyful; from Lat.
genialis, joyful, genial.
OED, a.1 2 defines as ‘Of or pertaining to a feast;
festive’, but Jonson’s usage precedes its earliest example (1620).
473 styled
named. The meaning of the name Perenna is disputed, but may derive from
the prayer
ut annare perennareque commode liceat,
‘for leave to live in and through the year to our liking’ (
OCD; see Jonson’s marginal note
67). Anna
Perenna’s feast originally celebrated the new year, for in the archaic
Roman calendar it coincided with the first full moon of the year (1
March being new year’s day). In his marginal note
67, Jonson considers various
explanations of her identity, concluding that she was probably the moon
itself. This information allows him implicitly to connect the cult of
Anna Perenna with that of the dead Elizabeth, whose iconography always
associated her with the moon. The Flamen is a devotee of the old moon,
but the Genius redirects his attention to the new ‘greater Anne’ (
493), whose
celebrations displace the ‘dead rites’ (
490) of her predecessor.
67 Who this Anna should be, with the Romans
themselves, hath been no trifling controversy. Some have thought her
fabulously the sister of Dido, some a nymph of Numicius, some Io, some Themis. Others
an old
woman of Bovillae, that fed the seditious multitude
in Monte Sacro with wafers and fine cakes in time of their
penury: to whom afterward, in memory of the benefit, their peace being
made with the nobles, they ordained this feast. Yet they that have
thought nearest have missed all these, and directly imagined her the
moon. And that she was
called Anna,
Quia
mensibus impleat annum: Ovid,
ibid. To
which the vow that they used in her rites somewhat confirmingly alludes,
which was
ut Annare, et Perennare commode
liceret: Macrobius,
Saturnalia, 1.12.
67 The origins and meaning of the cult of Anna
Perenna are discussed at length by
Ovid, Fasti,
3.523–696. Ovid gives most space to the idea that she was
Anna, the sister of Dido (see
Virgil’s Aeneid,
4), who joined Aeneas in Italy but drowned in the river
Numicius after his wife Lavinia chased her from his house, but he also
lists the other explanations considered by Jonson. Jonson clearly
consulted Ovid, from whom the verse quotations come, but his prose
wording paraphrases the discussions of Anna Perenna in Rosinus, in his
chapter on minor gods, and his chapter on March in his discussion of the
Roman calendar (Rosinus,
1583, 77, 148). See also Jonson’s
marginal notes 77n.
Dido Queen
of Carthage, whose tragic love affair with Aeneas is told in
Virgil’s Aeneid, 4.
Numicius A creek near Ardea in Latium, where
Aeneas died. It had a grove sacred to Anna Perenna.
Io Priestess of Hera at Argos;
loved by Zeus, who disguised her as a heifer, but she was persecuted by
Hera and driven into Egypt; often identified with Isis.
Themis See
Panegyre, 20n.
Bovillae A town on the Appian Way eleven miles from Rome.
in
Monte Sacro ‘at Mons Sacer’, a hill three miles north-east of
Rome. This was the scene of the ‘Secession of the Plebs’ (494
bc), when a group of commons withdrew from
Rome and ranged themselves on the hill, until they were pacified by
Menenius and the office of tribune was instituted. The story is told by
Livy, 2.32,
and in Plutarch’s ‘Life of Coriolanus’, though the episode of the old
woman is found only in Ovid. Jonson’s wording paraphrases Rosinus (
1583), 148:
Causas cur Annae festum tanta laetitia fuerit
celebratum, Ovidius duas refert, quarum una est, quod ii, qui
Annam . . . Altera, quod Anna anus quaedam Bovillis oriunda, plebi
seditiosae in montem sacrum digressae, et penuria laboranti,
quotidie liba attulerit, et diviserit, in cuius rei memoriam plebii
pace cum patriciis facta, hoc festum solenne instituerint.
Quia . . . annum ‘Because
she fills up the measure of the year by her months’ (
Ovid, Fasti, 3.657).
ut . . . liceret ‘to be allowed to pass the
year happily, and many years to come’.
67 Anna] Q; ANNA F1
473 Mars
his Mars’s (also at
488,
495). Anna Perenna is Mars’s
guest, since her feast day falls in his month, March.
68 So Ovid,
ibid, Fasti,
makes Mars speaking to her,
Mense meo coleris,
iunxi mea tempora tecum.
68 Mense . . . tecum ‘You are worshipped in my month, and I have
joined my season to yours’ (
Ovid, Fasti,
3.679).
475 installed] F1 (subst.);
instald; Q
69 Nuper erat dea
facta, etc:
ibid,
Ovid.
477 scarf
The zodiac, which runs ‘obliquely’ across the heavens and is ‘knit’ in
March, when the astronomical year commences (as Jonson’s marginal note
70
explains).
70 Where is understood the meeting of the zodiac in
March, the month wherein she is celebrated.
478 vernal
spring tide.
71 That face wherewith he beholds the spring.
483 fane
temple.
484 this
inscription On the altar (
549–71).
72 Written upon the altar, for which we refer you to
the page
D3.
72 D3] Q; 859 F1
489 tides
occasions.
492 high and
hearty Echoed at Hym., 10–11.
492 Lo . . .
he The Genius refers directly to King James.
493 a greater
Anne Queen Anne (identified in Jonson’s marginal note
73), wife to King
James, who now displaces the worship of Anna Perenna but also,
implicitly, the memory of Queen Elizabeth.
73 The Queen: to answer which in our inscription we
spake to the King
MARTE MAIORI.
73 MARTE
MAIORI ‘Greater than Mars’.
494 defaced
spoiled, disfigured; perhaps, metaphorically, put out of countenance
(
OED, v.
5). James’s arrival defaces Mars’s statues because his
accession brings prospects of peace.
74 The temple of Janus we apprehend to be both the
house of war and peace; of war when it is open, of peace when it is
shut; and that there each over the other is interchangeably placed, to
the vicissitude of times.
496 best] Wh;
blest Q
496 best
Both Q and F1 read 'blest', but 'blest blessings' is tautologous and awkward.
The misreading is caused by a typographical error in Q. On this page (D2) the
marginalia is keyed to the text by superscript letters running i, k, l, and m,
but in state 1 the superscript 'l' is missing. It was marked for inclusion in
state 2 at the head of the phrase 'best blessings', but the printer mistakenly
put it inside the first word, changing 'best' into 'blest'. A superscript 'l'
was eventually added in state 4, but the printer now put it in front of 'and'
earlier in the line.
75 Which are peace, rest, liberty, safety, etc., and
were his actively, but the world’s passively.
503 The Golden Age.
505 ravenous given to plunder.
505 steep the
soil soak the land (with tears or blood, caused by crime or
warfare).
506 raisèd
i.e. levied for military duty. James’s peace policies will avert the
domestic evil of impressment.
507 for . . .
good for little advantage to them.
508 Suspect
Expect apprehensively (
OED, v.
5). Presumably the idea is that under a bad king wealthy men
will have false accusations brought against them by informers hopeful of
profiting from the fines that will ensue – rather like the turbulent
informer Lupus in
Poet.; and cf. the wolvish
figure of Peira (Danger) depicted on the arch (415 above). The passage
seems to be developed from Claudian’s
Panegyric on the
Fourth Consulship of the Emperor Honorius, 493–99:
non inminet ensis, nullae nobelium caedes; non
criminal vulgo texuntur; patria maestus non truditur exul; impia
continui cessant augmenta tribute; non infelices tabulae; non hasta
refixas vendit opes; avida sector non voce citatur, nec tua privatis
crescent aeraria damnis, ‘a sword is no longer hung over our
heads; there are no massacres of the great; gone is the mob of false
accusers; no melancholy exiles are driven from their fatherland. Unholy
increase of perpetual taxes is at an end; there are no accursed lists
[of the proscribed
], no auctions of plundered wealth; the voice of greed
summons not the salesman, nor is thy treasury increased by private
losses’.
508 spies
Cf. Epigr. 59.
509 lust
pleasure.
509 murd’ring
eyes i.e. they murder the men against whom they have laid
false accusations of crimes which they claim to have seen.
510 put . . .
minds Another implicit reference to the return of the Golden
Age.
513 former
age’s Although Jonson’s language is historically non-specific
and makes only a general analysis of bad government, it is difficult not
to read it as implying a very negative portrayal of the English state in
the last years of Elizabeth.
515 cense] Q (sence)
515 thy] Q (state 2), F1; the Q (state 1)
515–16 presumes /
Too much is too presumptuous.
516 ethnic
heathen (
OED, 1). Janus’s temple has
been ‘translated’ (Christianized).
517–18 Here . . .
comes i.e. Here no person comes to make a sacrifice except
according to my rites.
519 masculine A piece of linguistic pedantry explained in
Jonson’s marginal note.
76 Somewhat a strange epithet in our tongue, but
proper to the thing, for they were only masculine odours which were
offered to the altars. Virgil,
Ecloga, 8.
[65,
]
Verbenasque adole pingueis, et mascula
tura.
And Pliny,
Naturalis Historia, 12.14, speaking of
these hath
Quod ex eo rotunditate guttae
pependit, masculum vocamus, cum alias non fere mas vocetur, ubi
non sit
foemina: religioni tributum ne sexus alter
usurparetur. Masculum aliqui putant a specie testium dictum.
See him also 34.11. And Arnobius,
Adversus
Gentes, 7.
[28.9:
] Non si mille tu pondera masculi
turis incendas,
etc.
76 Verbenasque . . . tura ‘Burn rich sacred vows, and masculine
incense.’
Quod . . .
dictum ‘Frankincense that hangs suspended in a globular drop
we call male frankincense, although in other connections the term “male”
is not usually employed where there is no female; but it is said to have
been due to religious scruple that the name of the other sex was not
employed in this case. Some people think that male frankincense is so
called from its resemblance to the testes.’ This is copied from Jacobus
Pontanus’s note on
Eclogue 8.65 in the 1599
edition of Virgil that Jonson was using, as is the following quotation
from Arnobius. See Tudeau-Clayton (
1998), 122–3; and Jonson’s marginal
note
27n.
Jonson’s citation is incorrect (it should be 12.32.61 of
Pliny’s Natural History) but follows the
reference as given in Pontanus; the following reference to Pliny 34.11
is also incorrect, and is a misreading of Pontanus’s next citation.
Jonson had already referred to ‘masculine odours’ when detailing
religious cermonies in
Sej., 5.91.
Arnobius Early Christian writer
(fl. 297–303), author of seven books against the pagans,
Adversus Gentes.
Non . . . incendas ‘Not if you were to burn
a thousand pounds of masculine incense.’
76 pependit]
76 foemina] F1; femina Q
519 gums,] Wh (subst.);
gummes. Q, F1
521 no time
shall time shall not ever.
526–7 vows – . . . weakest –] this
edn;
vowes; . . . weakest:
Q
527 no age
no future time.
527 leese
lose.
530 spring
In later panegyric Jonson often associates the monarch with the arrival
of the spring: e.g.
Vision, 119–202,
Pan’s Ann., 1–40, and the song ‘Fresh as the day’
(6.656). But here the claim is more hyperbolic. James’s accession
necessitates the beginning of a new system of reckoning time, making his
arrival as momentous as the division between
bc and
ad. Jonson labours the point
in his marginal note
78.
531 account] Q (accompt)
531 account
reckoning.
77 According to Romulus his institution,
who made March the first month and consecrated it to his father, of whom
it was called Martius: Varro,
Fest. in Frag.
Martius mensis initium anni fuit, et in Latio, et post
Romam conditam
etc. And Ovid,
Fasti,
3.
[75–7:
] A te principium Romano dicimus anno: primus
de patrio nomine mensis erit. Vox
rata fit, etc. See
Macrobius,
Saturnalia, 1.12; and Solinus in
Polyhistor, 3:
Quod hoc mense
mercedes exoluerint magistris, quas completus annus deberi
fecisset, etc.
77 These citations are all copied from Rosinus’s
discussion of the month of March (1583, 146). Martius . . . conditam ‘The month of March
was the beginning of the year, both in Latium and after the founding of
Rome.’ A . . . fit ‘We
say the beginning of the Roman year is from you; the first month will be
named after your father [Mars]. The word is settled.’ Solinus Gaius Julius Solinus
(fl. ad 200), compiler of Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium, a survey of the world’s
geography, nations, and customs, known at this time as Polyhistor. Quod . . . fecisset ‘Because in that month they paid to the
leaders the wages which the completed year had made due.’
77 rata fit] F1; ratafit Q
77 Polyhistor] Poly. hist. Q, F1
78 Some to whom we have read this have taken it for
a tautology, thinking
‘time’ enough expressed before, in
‘years’ and
‘months’.
For whose ignorant sakes we must confess to have taken the better part
of this travail in noting a thing not usual, neither affected of us, but where
there is necessity (as here) to avoid their dull censures: where in
‘years’ and ‘months’ we alluded to that is observed in our former note,
but by ‘time’ we understand the present, and that from this instant we
should begin to reckon, and make this the first of our time. Which is
also to be helped by emphasis.
78 ‘time’] Q (Time)
78 ‘years’] Q (Yeares)
78 ‘months’] Q (Months)
78 travail labour. dull fatuous, stupid. reckon i.e. calculate the calendar.
532–3 See and n.
79 In which he was slain in the Senate.
535 events
outcomes.
536 know
know how.
539 seek’st] Q; seest /
Harrison, Arches of Triumph
540 would
would speak.
541 as . . .
fates i.e. Because it is James’s destiny, as a monarch of
peace, to close the gates to the Janus Quadrifons.
542 Here . . .
office Because Temple Bar marked the limit of the city’s
jurisdiction, and the Genius does not speak for the territory
beyond.
543 she
i.e. the city, London.
546 disease
discomfort.
547 He] Nichols; “He Q, F1 (subst.)
547 From Martial, Liber de
spectaculis, 31: Non displicuisse meretur,
festinat, Caesar, qui placuisse tibi.
548 Over the
altar In Kip’s engraving, the inscription is written on the
altar itself, and only five words are given. It is impossible to know
whether the inscription was mounted as Jonson planned.
549–71 ] Q; frame omitted,
F1
549–71 ‘To the best and greatest lord James, Emperor of
the British Isles, Champion of Peace, Greater than Mars, Father of the
Country, Defender of the Faith, the new Augustus, tutelary spirit of the
conjoined nations. To the Lady Anne, conserver of Anna Perenna herself,
more to be desired than all the goddesses, most beautiful and most
august consort and partner of his most fortunate marriage bed. And to
Prince Henry Frederick, his most noble son, on the occasion of his most
looked-for, most welcome and most celebrated coming to this his city,
whose – not rays, but suns rather – clear up the most fatal storm
recently in the air
[i.e. the plague of 1603
]. The Senate and People of
London have gladly erected this deserved altar, with ten, twice ten most
eager vows.’ The Latin abbreviations are: D.I.O.M.,
Domino Iacobo Optimo Maximo; P.P.F.S.,
Patri
Patriae, Fidei Servatori; D.A.,
Dominae
Annae; H.F.P.,
Henrico Frederico
Principi; S.P.Q.L.,
Senatus Populusque
Londiniensis; L.M.,
Libens Merito; P.,
Posuit.
Libens merito
is a formula used in thank offerings, as in Plautus,
The Girl from Persia, 251–4. Cf. also the second masque in
Cynthia’s Revels (Q), 5.4.26, where one character
carries the impresa
divae optimae, ‘to the best
goddess’.
H&S
conjecture that ‘ANNAE. IPSAE. PERENNAE.’ should read ‘ANNA. IPSA.
PERENNA.’ = ‘
[more to be desired even
] than Anna Perenna’. This would
balance ‘Greater than Mars’, correspond more closely with 493, ‘Who
brings with him a greater Anne than she’, and go better with
deabusque universis; however, Kip’s engraving has
the text as printed. Jonson probably based his wording on the
inscriptions on the Arches of Constantine and Septimus Severus at Rome,
which were transcribed in Rosinus (
1583), 480, and include the
abbreviations ‘IMP.’, ‘P.P.’, and ‘S.P.Q.R.’ The phrase ‘VOTIS. X.
VOTIS. XX.’ is copied from the Arch of Constantine; it is thought to be
a compliment to Constantine on ten years of rule, and a prayer for
twenty more.
556 SUI.] F3; SVI Q, F1
557 ET.] Nichols; ET Q,
F1
558 PULCHERRIMAE] F2; PULCHERIMAE Q, F1
561 AD-] F2; AD Q, F1
564 SED.] F2; SED Q, F1
565 FUNESTISSIMAM] F2; FVNESSIMAM Q, F1
566 SERENARUNT.] F2; SERENARUNT Q, F1
572 shut
See .,
and Jonson’s marginal note
74.
573–7 ‘The mighty emperor James, Caesar Augustus,
Father of the Country, having procured peace for the British people by
both land and sea, has closed this door. By order of the Senate.’ ‘S.C.’
abbreviates ‘Senatus consulto’.
577 ] Q adds a rule; not in
F1
578–84 ] Q; not in F1
578–84 This paragraph marks a new section in Q, and is
decorated with an illuminated initial ‘T’ and preceded by a rule. It
picks up the narrative of the day in Jonson’s own voice, but was omitted
from F1 because its address to the imagined readers of the pamphlet, its
barbs against Dekker, and its reference to the arches still standing
were inappropriate to the collected edition.
578 our
portion i.e. those parts written by Jonson himself, not by
Dekker and his collaborators.
579 profess acknowledge.
580 pageantry Presumably this is a hit at Dekker’s less learned
devices for his arches.
580 mechanic manual; the wooden arches themselves, still
physically present in the streets at the time Q went to press.
581 ambitious
ignorance Echoed in the ded. and prefatory epistle to Alch.
582 turn . . .
leaf In fact, in Q the description of the third pageant begins
at the top of the facing page.
583 Strand
The main thoroughfare between Temple Bar and Charing Cross, in the city
of Westminster; a fashionable and expensive quarter later used as a
setting in Epicene. The Strand pageant was a
separate presentation financed by the local residents (see Introduction)
and only indirectly linked to the city of London’s celebrations. It did
not take the form of an arch, and since it does not appear among the
other pageants published in Harrison, it was presumably built by someone
else.
583–7 work . . .
pyramids The language here is closely echoed in Dekker’s
narrative of the day’s events (
Dramatic Works,
2.302), indicating that he wrote with Jonson’s text at his
side.
585 The] Q; In the Strand. / THe F1
586 Pleiades The seven daughters of Atlas, and virgin companions
of Artemis. They were pursued by the huntsman Orion, but Jove saved them
by changing them into doves (
peleiades = flock of
doves) and placing them in the stars. Their name denotes a star cluster
in the constellation Taurus. One of the Pleiades, Electra, was the
mother by Zeus of Dardanus, the founder of Troy and ancestor of Priam;
when Troy fell, she left her sisters, in despair, and was changed into a
comet (see
Virgil, Aeneid, 8.134–7, and
Apollodorus, 3.10.1,
3.12.1). This is, of course, not the Electra who appears in
Athenian tragedy as the daughter of Agamemnon and sister to Orestes.
586 Vergiliae The Roman name for the Pleiades.
587 pyramids Gilbert Dugdale’s eyewitness account calls it
‘another
[pageant
], of small motion, a pyramides fitly beseeming time
and place’: further adding ‘but ye day far spent and the king and states
I am sure wearied with ye shows, as the stomach may glutton, the
daintiest courts stayed not long, but passed forward to ye place
appointed’ (
Time Triumphant, B4v). No image of this
pageant survives. Probably Jonson was using ‘pyramid’ in the common
early modern sense of ‘obelisk’ (
OED,
3), rather than the more broadly-based and less
steeply-tapering architectural form that he later intended (for example,
in
Queens, where the masquers are discovered on a
pyramid-shaped throne). Dekker used the word ‘pyramids’ to describe the
four obelisks that stood on top of the Dutch arch at the Royal Exchange,
and also for the two decorated obelisks, sixty feet high, that fronted
the ‘Nova Felix Arabia’ arch at Soper Lane End (
Dramatic Works,
2.269–70, 275). Cf. also
Sej.,
5.726.
588 English and Scots.] this edn;
Eng. and Scot. Q, F1
588–9 body . . .
soul Technical language for the form and content of a pageant,
used again in Hym., 1–13. Evidently Jonson did
not invent the design, but was asked to supply verses for a structure
already under construction.
590 lib. book (Lat.).
590 Fasti] Q (Fast.)
591–2 ‘The Pleiades will begin to relieve their
father’s
[Atlas’s
] shoulders; they are said to be seven, but there are
usually only six of them’ (
Ovid, Fasti,
4.169–70). In mythology, Atlas is the titan who holds up the
sky.
591 umeros] Q, F1 (humeros)
594–5 ‘Or whether because Electra could not bear to
see the downfall of Troy, and so covered her eyes with her hand’ (Fasti, 4.177–8).
595 ante] F1; aute Q
596 Festus
Avienus See Jonson’s marginal note
80.
596 Avienus] Nichols; Auien.
Q, F1
80 Paraphraste in
Aratea Phaenomena.
80 Aratea
Phaenomena An astronomical poem by Postumius Rufius Festus
Avienus (fl. fourth century
ad), adapted from
Phaenomena by Aratus of Soli (
c. 315–239
bc), a
versified treatise on the stars and planets which enjoyed a great
reputation in antiquity. Other adaptations were made by Cicero and
Germanicus Caesar. Jonson could easily have found all four poems printed
together in sixteenth-century editions; for example,
Arati Solensis Phaenomena et Prognostica (Paris,
1559), Hyginus’s
Fabulae (Basle,
1570), or
Astronomica Veterum Scripta (Heidelberg, 1589).
597–9 Fama . . . Sustollunt ‘Old rumour mentions that seven of them
were born to their aged father, but only six support themselves among
the red-glowing stars.’ This, and the following, are quoted from
Avienus,
Arati Phaenomena, in
Astronomica Veterum Scripta (1589), 39–40.
601–2 cerni . . . profundo ‘Mynthes in his song makes the claim
that only six can be seen; that Electra has withdrawn into the vast
heavens.’
604–6 Electra . . . appellant ‘Electra will flee, not bearing to
see the destruction of her great grandsons
[the house of Priam
]; whence
they both claim that she goes about with her hair loose, in mourning,
and call her a sort of comet on account of her hair.’ This is quoted
from the commentary on Germanicus Caesar’s adaptation of
Aratea Phaenomena (see Jonson’s marginal note
80n.), but
with
casum replacing
casus. See
Arati Phaenomena per Germanicum
Caesarem in Latinum conversa, et in eadem commentaria, in
Astronomica Veterum Scripta, 115. The linguistic
point being made is that ‘comet’ literally means ‘long-haired star’, and
derives from the Greek
κόμη, hair, applied
figuratively to the comet’s tail.
607 The speech] Q; THE SPEECH
F1
608–68 ] marginal notes keyed to the
text of Q with small superscript letters,
a–o
81 Festus Avienus
paraphraste:
Pars ait Idaeae
deflentem incendia Troiae, et numerosa suae lugentem funera gentis,
Electram tetris moestum dare nubibus orbem. Besides the
reference to antiquity, this speech might be understood by allegory of
the town here, that had been so ruined with sickness, etc.
81 Pars . . . orbem ‘Some say that, weeping bitterly for the
flames of Idean Troy, and mourning the innumerable deaths of her people,
Electra makes the world sad with hideous clouds.’ Arati Phaenomena, in Astronomica Veterum
Scripta (1589), 40. Though given here in prose, this is a
further extract from the poem Jonson quotes at 597–602. sickness i.e. the plague of
1603.
608 ruined
Troy The Electra myth allows Jonson to link James’s accession
with the westward genealogy of empire: the idea that across the
centuries imperial power moved progressively from Troy to Rome to
London; James’s accession finally reverses the historical catastrophe of
the fall of Troy. His marginal note also links the Trojan War with the
terrible 1603 visitation of plague.
612 Unto . . .
circle For the myth that when, at the fall of Troy, Electra
withdrew from the Pleiades, she fled to the Arctic, see Jonson’s
marginal note
82
and n.
82 Hyginus:
Sed postquam Troia
fuit capta, et progenies eius quae à Dardano fuit euersa, dolore
permotam ab his se removisse, et in circulo qui Arcticus dicitur
constitisse, etc.
82 Sed . . . constitisse ‘But after Troy had been taken, and her
descendants (who were the race of Dardanus) overthrown, she is said to
have been overcome with grief and to have withdrawn from them, and to
have settled in the circle called Arctic.’ Quoted from
Poeticon Astronomicon of Hyginus (second century
ad), 2.21, a popular manual of astronomical
myths drawing on Aratus and often printed with collections of Aratea.
See C. J. Hyginus,
Fabulae (Basle,
1570), 71.
83 Electra signifies Serenity itself, and
is compounded of
ἥλιος, which is the sun, and
αἴθρϱιος, that signifies serene. She is mentioned
to be
anima sphaerae solis by Proclus,
Commentarius in Hesiodus.
83 Electra . . . serene A close paraphrase of the etymology
given in Natalis Comes’
Mythologiae (1616), 474
(in the chapter on Iris):
Electro vero filia Coeli
sive Sol; nam id nomen serenitatem significat: est enim ηλιος
Sol, αίθριος
serenus
(a passage not in the 1551 edition: Gilbert,
1948, 83). For Jonson’s confusion on
this point, see .
anima
sphaerae solis ‘a spirit of the sphere of the sun’.
Proclus Neoplatonist
philosopher (
ad 410–85), and author of many
learned works, including scholia on Hesiod.
83 ἡλιος] H&S; ήλιος Q,
F1
83 αἴθρϱιος] H&S;
ἄιθρϱίος Q, F1
614 Iris
Goddess of the rainbow (which signifies peace in Christian symbolism as
well as classical). Jonson’s mythology is confused here, for the Electra
who was Dardanus’s mother was not the Electra who gave birth to Iris and
the Harpies. She was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, and wife of
Thaumas (
Hesiod, Theogony, 266).
84 She is also feigned to be the mother of the
rainbow.
Nascitur enim Iris ex aqua et serenitate, e
refractione radiorum scilicet: Aristotle,
in
Meteorologicis [3.2
].
84 Nascitur . . . scilicet ‘For Iris is born from water and fair
weather, evidently from the refraction of the rays.’ The quotation and
reference are copied from Comes (1616), 474, and slightly adapted; Comes
prints igitur for enim.
615 roseate rose-coloured.
85 Valerius Flaccus,
Argonautica, 1.
[655–6,
] makes the rainbow
indicem serenitatis. Emicuit reserata dies, coelumque resoluit
Arcus, et in summos redierunt nubila montes.
85 indicem . . . montes ‘a sign of fair weather. The disclosed
day shone out, and a rainbow released the sky, and the clouds return to
the tops of the mountains.’ The quotation from Valerius Flaccus (first
century ad; author of an an imitation of the
Argonautica of Apollonius) is also taken from
Comes (1616), 475.
617 Mithras The sun; Persian god of light, adopted by the Romans
as the centre of a cult of sun worship.
86 A name of the sun. Statius,
Thebais, 1.
[720,
] torquentem cornua
Mithram. And Martianus Capella,
De Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae, 3:
Te
Serapin Nilus, Memphis, veneratur
Osirim; Dissona sacra Mithram,
etc.
86 torquentem . . . Mithram ‘Mithras’ bending horns’. Quotation
possibly taken from Rosinus’s chapter
De Sol et
Luna (2.8), which discusses the connection between Mithras and
the sun. Rosinus quotes relevant passages from Lactantius Placidius’s
commentary on Statius, and supplies the following quotation from
Martianus Capella, but without a reference.
Te . . . Mithram ‘The Nile worships you, O
seraphs, and Memphis worships Osiris; but different shrines worship
Mithras.’ Jonson’s reference to Martianus Capella (see Jonson’s marginal
note
30n.) is
incorrect; it should be 2.191.
86 Mithram] this edn; Mithran Q, F1
86 Serapin] this edn; Serapim Q, F1
86 Osirim] this edn; Osirin Q, F1
618 particular individual.
621 Phoebe
The moon.
623 serenity Electra’s name means ‘serenity’. See
613,
663, and Jonson’s marginal note
83.
624 six fair
sisters The other six stars which make up the Pleiades, and
from whom Electra had withdrawn herself; their names are listed by
Jonson in his marginal note
87.
87 Alcyone, Celaeno, Taygete, Asterope,
Merope, Maia;
which are also said to be the souls of the other spheres, as Electra of
the sun. Proclus,
ibid in commmentarius:
Alcyone Veneris, Celaeno Saturni, Taygete Lunae,
Asterope Iouis, Merope Martis, Maia Mercurii.
87 Alcyone . . . Maia These are the names of the other six
sisters who, with Electra, make up the Pleiades. They are named in
Hyginus, Ovid’s Fasti, and other sources. spheres Heavenly bodies,
believed at this time to be carried on transparent hollow globes lodged
concentrically inside each other, the movement of which was determined
by the influences or ‘souls’ which inhabited them. Cf. Fort. Is., 2. Alcyone . . . Mercurii ‘Alcyone of Venus, Celaeno of Saturn,
Taygete of the moon, Asterope of Jove, Merope of Mars, Maia of
Mercury’.
626 captious i.e. those disposed to find fault.
632 diurnal daytime. The stars have joined with the sun and moon
to ensure that James’s accession is celebrated with a unique conjunction
of lights.
88 Alluding back to that of our temple.
637 thy] Q; the F1
638 thy
Chamber See .
89 London.
640 this
place Electra notes the procession’s trajectory from London to
Westminster, where monarchs were crowned, parliaments held, and justice
dispensed, hence the ‘seat’ of James’s kingship.
90 His city of Westminster, in whose name and at
whose charge, together with the Duchy of Lancaster, this arch was
erected.
90 Duchy of
Lancaster See note to the title-page.
91 Since here they not only sat being crowned, but
also first received their crowns.
641 cabinet council chamber.
OED
does not record this political sense before 1607, and all such early
usages are pejorative.
643 whose] Q; Who F1
645 equity
impartiality; general principles of justice.
647 Justice In classical myth, the Golden Age ended when Astraea,
the goddess of justice, departed from the earth.
649 worketh draws.
92 Horace,
Carmina, 4.9.
[38
]:
Ducentis ad se cuncta pecuniae.
92 Ducentis . . . pecuniae ‘Money leading all things to
itself’.
650–5 Adapted from Claudian, On the
Consulship of Stilicho, 2.111–15: Ac primam
scelerum matrem, quae semper habendo / plus sitiens patulis rimatur
faucibus aurum, / trudis Avaritiam; cuius foedissima nutrix /
Ambitio, quae vestibulis foribusque potentum / excubat et pretiis
commercia pascit honorum / pulsa simul, ‘First and foremost
thou banishest Avarice, mother of crimes, greedy for more than she
possesses, searching ever open-mouthed for gold; with her thou drivest
out her most foul nurse Ambition, who watches at the gate of the
powerful.’ Jonson adapted this passage again in Gold.
Age, 39–48.
650 dam
mother.
654 as . . .
sleep as if about to go to sleep.
655 That was wont to keep her watch in the portals
of the great.
659 music . . .
peace Cf. Pan’s Ann., 55–6.
660 querulous complaining.
661 concent] Q; consent
F1
661 concent harmony (from Lat., concentus). F1 and all later editions print ‘consent’, but this
weakens the figurative meaning which Jonson almost certainly intended.
Cf. Panegyre, 59, where exactly the same image is
used.
665 first
James was proclaimed king of England in Westminster before being
proclaimed in the city of London.
667 ominous auspicious.
93 For our more authority to induce her thus, see
Festus Avienus,
paraphraste in Aratea, speaking
of Electra:
nonnumquam Oceani tamen istam surgere ab undis,
in convexa poli, sed sede carere sororum; atque os discretum procul
edere, detestatam, germanosque choros sobolis lachrymare ruinas,
diffusamque comas cerni, crinisque soluti monstrari
effigie, etc.
93 nonnumquam . . . effigie ‘[that] sometimes, however, she
rises up from Oceanus’s waves, into the vaults of the sky, but avoids
the seat of her sisters; and she puts forth her face separately, some
way away, and cursing, bewails both her sisterly band and the ruin of
her children; she is seen spreading her hair and is pointed out in the
likeness of a free-flowing comet’. Another quotation from Avienus’s Arati Phaenomena: see Astronomica Veterum Scripta, 40 (but printing destitutam for detestatam,
choro for choros, and
lacerata ruinias for lachrymare ruinas).
668 auspicate prognosticate.
OED’s earliest example.
94 All comets were not fatal; some were fortunately
ominous, as this to which we allude, and wherefore we have Pliny’s
testimony.
Naturalis Historia, 2.25.
[93–4
]:
Cometes in uno totius orbis loco colitur in templo
Romae, admodum faustus Divo Augusto iudicatus ab ipso: qui
incipiente eo, apparuit ludis, quos faciebat Veneri Genetrici non
multo post obitum patris Caesaris, in collegio ab eo instituto.
Namque his verbis id gaudium prodidit. Iis ipsis
ludorum meorum diebus, sidus crinitum per septem dies in regione
coeli, quae sub
septemtrionibus est, conspectum. Id oriebatur circa
undecimam horam diei, clarumque et omnibus terris conspicuum fuit.
Eo sidere significari vulgus credidit, Caesaris animam inter deorum
immortalium numina receptam: quo nomine id insigne simulacro capitis
eius, quod mox in foro consecravimus adiectum est.
Haec ille in publicum; interiore gaudio sibi illum
natum, seque in eo nasci interpretatus est. Et si verum fatemur,
salutare id terris fuit.
94 Cometes . . . fuit ‘In the whole world there is only one
place where a comet is worshipped, a temple at Rome. The god Augustus
considered it very propitious to himself, since it had appeared at the
beginning of his reign at some games which, not long after the death of
his father Caesar (as a member of the college founded by him), he was
celebrating in honour of Mother Venus. Indeed he made public the joy
that it gave him with these words: “On the very days of my games a comet
was visible for seven days in the northern part of the sky. It was
rising about an hour before sunset, and was very bright, and could be
seen from all lands. The common people believed that this star signified
that the soul of Caesar had been received among the spirits of the
immortal gods; hence the emblem of a star was added to the bust of
Caesar which we shortly afterwards dedicated in the forum.” This is what
he said in public; but privately he rejoiced because he interpreted the
comet as having been born for his own sake, and as containing his own
birth within it; and, to tell the truth, it was very salutary over the
world.’ This is a passage from Augustus’s autobiography preserved in
Pliny (modern
editions read
omnibus e terris for
omnibus terris). The comet has a prominent place
in
Virgil’s Eclogues, 9.47, and
Aeneid, 8.681, where it signals that the gods approved the
reign of Augustus.
94 septemtrionibus] septentrionibus Q, F1
94 Haec] F1; Hoec Q
669 Augustus’ Augustus reigned as Roman emperor 27
bc–14
ad: the first
and most complete embodiment of imperial power, whose rule was notable
as a time of peace, stability, and cultural accomplishment (as Jonson
attests in
Poet.). Jonson alludes to the comet
that appeared at the games that Octavian held after the assassination of
his uncle, Julius Caesar; this was interpreted as signifying that
Caesar’s soul had been received into heaven and that Octavian was his
rightful successor. See Jonson’s marginal note
94; and Erskine-Hill (
1983), 128.
9 Antiqui . . . natum ‘The ancients considered the Genius a god
who gave birth to all things; made for cities as much as for men or
other things.’ Jonson cites the
De Deis Gentium
(‘On the Heathen Gods’) of Giraldi (
1548);
Genium . . .
existimarunt is quoted from p. 599 (syntagma 15).
Rosinus Jonson cites
Romanarum Antiquitatum libri decem by Joannes
Rosinus of Eisenach (
1583), 67–8, a source he used for historical data about Rome
in
Sej. and
Augurs. This
reference is to Rosinus’s chapter
De Genio, which
discusses
arbor genialis (see 55).
9 tam] Q (state 3), F1; not in Q (states 1–2)
10 Civica . . . sit ‘The civic crown is made from a garland of
oak leaves, since the most ancient parts of the oak were traditionally
taken for food and sustenance.’ A passage quoted exactly from Rosinus
(
1583), 474
(from the chapter
De coronis militaribus, earumque
generibus).
11 Fasciculi . . . extaret ‘Bundles of twigs, within which an
axe was bound, in this way – so that the iron should stick out beyond
the longest faggot’. An exact quotation from Rosinus’s chapter on the
Roman magistracy (1583, 277).
Ubi . . . praecidunt ‘Whence it should be noted that the
wrath of the magistrates ought not to be hasty, or too easily angry.
Because the hindrance and delay caused to the course of his anger by the
leisurely unfastening of the rods often caused him to change his mind
about the punishment. When, however, some vices are curable but others
are incurable, the rods punish what can be amended, while the axes cut
off the incorrigible.’ From Plutarch’s
Roman
Questions, 82; paraphrased from Rosinus (
1583), 277, who
also supplied the reference to Plutarch.
11 praecipitem] F2;
precipitem Q, F1
11 de plectendo] G; deplectendo Q, F1
17 Epulum . . .
[Eucharisticon] ‘A hymn of thanks for Domitian’s feast’, the
title given to
Statius’s Silvae, 4.2 in Renaissance
editions.
17 Epulum Domitiani] this edn; Epu. Domit. Q, F1
18 Ecloga] Q (state 2) (Ecl.); Egl. Q (state
1)
23 Publilius
Syrus Roman author and performer of mimes (first century bc), of which fragments survive as a series of
apothegms.
27 Conjugium . . . Isis ‘The Marriage of Thames and Isis’. This
poem is quoted in fragments throughout Camden’s
Britannia, and was probably written by Camden himself; hence
Jonson’s salute to the ‘learned poet’.
Aemula . . . Troiae ‘Resembling much her
mother Troy, aloft she lifts her eyes.’ Quoted from Camden’s
Britannia (
1600), 382, given here in
Philemon Holland’s
translation (1610), 436.
Interea . . . aratro ‘Meanwhile Aeneas set
the limits of the city with a plough’ (
Virgil, Aeneid,
5.755). Jonson’s error in referring to
Aeneid, 10, was caused by the edition he was using, Jacobus
Pontanus’s collected edition of Virgil. Pontanus printed book 5 in his
tenth section, and Jonson accidentally transcribed the number of his
chapter (Tudeau-Clayton,
1998, 121).
Urbs . . . sulco ‘The city
[urbs] derives either from the circle
[orbis], because ancient cities were built in the
form of a circle; or from the curved part
[urbum]
of the plough with which the walls were marked out, hence: “He chose a
site for his kingdom, and enclosed it within a furrow.”’ A definition
from
Etymologiae, sive Origines by Isidore of
Seville (
c.
ad 602–36),
which appears in Pontanus’s note to
Aeneid, 5.755,
whence Jonson copied it. The plough-beam (
urbum)
is the timber bar into which the blade of a plough is fixed; ‘He …
furrow’ is two Virgilian half-lines combined, from
Aeneid, 3.109 and 1.425 (Tudeau-Clayton,
1998, 121n.).
27 ab urbo] Q (state 2), F1; ab vrbe Q
(state 1)
28 Primigenius . . . imprimitur ‘That furrow is called
“primigenial” (or originary) which is imprinted by means of the pattern
marked out by a bull and a cow when they are building a new city.’ This
quotation from the scholar Sextus Pompeius Festus is also copied from
Pontanus’s note on
Aeneid, 5.755.
Quicunque . . . docuit
‘But whoever the founder, its fortunes told the world it had been built
with a vital genius.’ Quoted from Camden’s chapter on Middlesex (1600),
368. Cf. Philemon Holland’s translation (1610), 422: ‘But whosoever
founded it, the happy and fortunate estate thereof hath given good proof
that built it was in a good hour, and marked for life and long
continuance.’ Jonson’s page reference shows that he was consulting the
fifth edition of Camden (
1600).
29 happy
days Pliny’s
Natural History says the
Thracians had a custom to compute the felicity of their life; they would
put a white pebble in an urn if the day was happy, and black pebble if
it was unhappy. See also
Epigr. 96.8.
Cressa . . . nota ‘May no
lucky day lack its Cretan mark’ (
Horace, Odes,
1.36.10). ‘Cretan mark’ is poetic diction for ‘white chalk
mark’.
the other Pliny Pliny
the younger.
O . . .
calculo ‘O happy day, which I must mark with the whitest
stone.’
30 scribas . . . superum ‘clerks and head spinners of the gods
above’; citing Martianus Capella (fl. 410–39), author of
De Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae (‘The Marriage
of Mercury and Philology’), an allegorical treatise on the liberal arts.
Jonson copied the quotation from Giraldi (
1548), 284 (chapter on the
Parcae).
Evocatio Calling forth.
31 Cernes . . . Fata ‘You will see there records of things made
with great effort out of brass and solid iron; safe and eternal, they
fear neither the shock of heaven nor the wrath of the thunderbolt, nor
any other disaster. You will find there the fate of your descendant,
engraved in everlasting adamant.’ From the culminating section of Ovid’s
Met. Jove informs Venus that Caesar’s murder
was unavoidable, by describing to her the impressive furnishings of the
house of the Parcae (or Fates); immediately after, Caesar is made a star
and shines down approvingly on the rule of Augustus. Jonson directly
represents the adamantine book of the Parcae in Theobalds, 31–3.
31 illic incisa] Q; illis incisa F1
32 aurifer gold-producing. The Tagus is so described in Ovid,
Amores, 1.15.34, and Catullus, 29.19 (
H&S).
33 Prothymia] Q; Prothumia
F1
35 Benedict From Lat. benedictus
blessed.
37 1] α Q
37 δῖος Ἀχίλλευς] this edn;
δίος Α᾽᾽χιλλευς Q, F1
37 δῖος
Ἀχιλλευς ‘the god Achilles’. καί αντίθεον Πολυφηυον ‘and godlike Polyphemus’.
The reading ‘xj’ in Q and F1 is a standard Renaissance abbreviation for
καί.
37 καί] this edn; xj Q,
F1
38 Lactantius] Lactant. Q
(states 1–2); Luctatius Q (states 3–5), F1
38 Umbilicum terrae ‘The navel of the earth’; i.e. the middle
point of the world. An error: this stone was located in the temple at
Delphi, not on Parnassus. Giraldi’s chapter on Delphi (1548), 310,
mentions the umbilicum, and gives the reference
‘Lactantius grammaticus in Theb.’ This is not
Lactantius the Christian apologist but Lactantius Placidus (sixth
century? ad), a grammarian who left a series
of scholia on the Thebais of Statius. In some
copies of Q, the name appears as ‘Luctatius’, an
error that crept in when corrections were made elsewhere to the marginal
notes on this page.
40 Frederick the] Nichols;
Frederik Q, F1
42 Rothesay Another error: Prince Henry was Duke of Rothesay,
and Charles was Duke of Albany.
43 Bassus
Aufidius Bassus, first-century
ad Roman
historian, whose works survive only as fragments.
apud in.
Macrobium Ambrosius Macrobius,
fifth-century Latin grammarian. His
Saturnalia,
an influential early commentary on Virgil, included quotations from
earlier authors such as Bassus. This note is copied exactly from Rosinus
(
1583),
41.
46 Lege ‘Read’.
Marlianum Joannes Bartholomaeus Marlianus, author of
Urbis Romae Topographia (editions of 1544, 1550,
1588); translated by Philemon Holland, 1600.
Albricum Jonson cites Albricus’s
De Imaginibus Deorum, published with
De
Romanorum Magistratibus by L. Lucius Fenestella (
c. 1490; frequently reprinted).
H&S (7.72) suggest that Jonson
could have used one of the later editions appended to the mythological
handbook of Hyginus (
Fabulae, 1535; further
editions in 1549, 1570, 1578).
46 Albricum] Alb. Q (state
2); Abb. Q (state 1)
46 Imaginibus.] imag. Q (state 1); not in Q (state
2), F1
48 Quasi
Eanus ‘As it were, Eanus’; copied from Rosinus (
1583), 41. Jonson
is glossing Cicero’s etymological explanation of the Janus myth: that
the name was originally ‘Eanus’ and was derived from
eundo, the gerund of
ire, ‘to go’.
50 8.2] lib.8. Epi.2. Q;
l.8. Epist.2. F1
53 These literary references are all copied from
the chapter on Plutus in Giraldi (
1548), 276–7.
Cephisodotus Greek sculptor, son of Praxiteles.
Pausanias’s description of Boeotia mentions his statue of Plutus: ‘nor
was the sagacity of Cephisodotus less, who made for the Athenians Peace
holding Plutus’ (9.16.2).
Philostratus A youthful and attractive Plutus appears in the
pictures described in
Philostratus’s Imagines (2.27.5).
Aristophanes . . . Lucian
Plutus is blind and deformed in Aristophanes’
Ploutos and Lucian’s
Timon (26, 27).
Theognis says merely that Plutus was the greatest of the gods, but
Giraldi (
1548),
276, uses him as an authority; and see Gilbert (
1948), 199.
53 Cephisodotus] Cephisiodotus Q, F1
57 12.6] Lib.12. Epi.6. Q, F1 (subst.)
60–5 Jonson’s historical discussion of the origin and
dress of Flamens is a mosaic of quotations and paraphrases from
Rosinus’s chapter 3.15, De Flaminibus in genere
(1583), 105–6. The quotations for marginal notes 61, 62, and 64 are
copied word for word from Rosinus, and the references are carried over
likewise. Rosinus also marshals information about the supposed founders
of the order (60), the technical terms for headgear stroppus and inarculum (63), and the
gods to whom each Flamen was dedicated (65).
60 Numa
Pompilius The second king of Rome, successor to Romulus. The
religious reforms that he was believed to have accomplished are
described in
Livy,
1.19–20.
Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27
bc), whose
philological work
De lingua latina libri ⅩⅩⅤ
discusses Flamens at 5.84 and is cited twice by Rosinus. As Gilbert
points out (1948), 106n., Varro does not make the claim that Jonson here
ascribes to him, but it is attributed to him in Rosinus’s remarks on the
name Martialis in his chapter 3.17,
De reliquis
flaminibus (1583), 108, from which Jonson probably took it.
Dialis This Flamen was
associated with the worship of Jupiter; the third, Quirinalis, with the
Sabine deity Quirinus.
61 Scaliger See .
Totus . . . dicti ‘The whole cap, or rather
cowl, was called a bridal-veil
[Flammeum], whence
they are called Flamens’ (from
Rosinus).
62 Flamines . . . dicti ‘Flamens were called Flamens because
they were always veiled with thread on their heads, and had their heads
bound about with a band of wool’ (from Rosinus).
64 Pone . . . permitterent ‘For they threw back the apex behind
them, lest they be heavy in the greatest heat of the summer; for they
tied it up with straps which were called “bands”, pulled taut under the
chin; so that when they wanted to, they threw it back and allowed it to
hang behind’ (from Rosinus).
66 Idibus . . . ripis ‘On the Ides is held the joyous feast of
Anna Perenna, not far from the banks
[of the river
]’ (
Ovid, Fasti, 3.523–4; modern texts read
non for
haud).
67 The origins and meaning of the cult of Anna
Perenna are discussed at length by
Ovid, Fasti,
3.523–696. Ovid gives most space to the idea that she was
Anna, the sister of Dido (see
Virgil’s Aeneid,
4), who joined Aeneas in Italy but drowned in the river
Numicius after his wife Lavinia chased her from his house, but he also
lists the other explanations considered by Jonson. Jonson clearly
consulted Ovid, from whom the verse quotations come, but his prose
wording paraphrases the discussions of Anna Perenna in Rosinus, in his
chapter on minor gods, and his chapter on March in his discussion of the
Roman calendar (Rosinus,
1583, 77, 148). See also Jonson’s
marginal notes 77n.
Dido Queen
of Carthage, whose tragic love affair with Aeneas is told in
Virgil’s Aeneid, 4.
Numicius A creek near Ardea in Latium, where
Aeneas died. It had a grove sacred to Anna Perenna.
Io Priestess of Hera at Argos;
loved by Zeus, who disguised her as a heifer, but she was persecuted by
Hera and driven into Egypt; often identified with Isis.
Themis See
Panegyre, 20n.
Bovillae A town on the Appian Way eleven miles from Rome.
in
Monte Sacro ‘at Mons Sacer’, a hill three miles north-east of
Rome. This was the scene of the ‘Secession of the Plebs’ (494
bc), when a group of commons withdrew from
Rome and ranged themselves on the hill, until they were pacified by
Menenius and the office of tribune was instituted. The story is told by
Livy, 2.32,
and in Plutarch’s ‘Life of Coriolanus’, though the episode of the old
woman is found only in Ovid. Jonson’s wording paraphrases Rosinus (
1583), 148:
Causas cur Annae festum tanta laetitia fuerit
celebratum, Ovidius duas refert, quarum una est, quod ii, qui
Annam . . . Altera, quod Anna anus quaedam Bovillis oriunda, plebi
seditiosae in montem sacrum digressae, et penuria laboranti,
quotidie liba attulerit, et diviserit, in cuius rei memoriam plebii
pace cum patriciis facta, hoc festum solenne instituerint.
Quia . . . annum ‘Because
she fills up the measure of the year by her months’ (
Ovid, Fasti, 3.657).
ut . . . liceret ‘to be allowed to pass the
year happily, and many years to come’.
67 Anna] Q; ANNA F1
68 Mense . . . tecum ‘You are worshipped in my month, and I have
joined my season to yours’ (
Ovid, Fasti,
3.679).
72 D3] Q; 859 F1
73 MARTE
MAIORI ‘Greater than Mars’.
76 Verbenasque . . . tura ‘Burn rich sacred vows, and masculine
incense.’
Quod . . .
dictum ‘Frankincense that hangs suspended in a globular drop
we call male frankincense, although in other connections the term “male”
is not usually employed where there is no female; but it is said to have
been due to religious scruple that the name of the other sex was not
employed in this case. Some people think that male frankincense is so
called from its resemblance to the testes.’ This is copied from Jacobus
Pontanus’s note on
Eclogue 8.65 in the 1599
edition of Virgil that Jonson was using, as is the following quotation
from Arnobius. See Tudeau-Clayton (
1998), 122–3; and Jonson’s marginal
note
27n.
Jonson’s citation is incorrect (it should be 12.32.61 of
Pliny’s Natural History) but follows the
reference as given in Pontanus; the following reference to Pliny 34.11
is also incorrect, and is a misreading of Pontanus’s next citation.
Jonson had already referred to ‘masculine odours’ when detailing
religious cermonies in
Sej., 5.91.
Arnobius Early Christian writer
(fl. 297–303), author of seven books against the pagans,
Adversus Gentes.
Non . . . incendas ‘Not if you were to burn
a thousand pounds of masculine incense.’
76 pependit]
76 foemina] F1; femina Q
77 These citations are all copied from Rosinus’s
discussion of the month of March (1583, 146). Martius . . . conditam ‘The month of March
was the beginning of the year, both in Latium and after the founding of
Rome.’ A . . . fit ‘We
say the beginning of the Roman year is from you; the first month will be
named after your father [Mars]. The word is settled.’ Solinus Gaius Julius Solinus
(fl. ad 200), compiler of Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium, a survey of the world’s
geography, nations, and customs, known at this time as Polyhistor. Quod . . . fecisset ‘Because in that month they paid to the
leaders the wages which the completed year had made due.’
77 rata fit] F1; ratafit Q
77 Polyhistor] Poly. hist. Q, F1
78 ‘time’] Q (Time)
78 ‘years’] Q (Yeares)
78 ‘months’] Q (Months)
78 travail labour. dull fatuous, stupid. reckon i.e. calculate the calendar.
80 Aratea
Phaenomena An astronomical poem by Postumius Rufius Festus
Avienus (fl. fourth century
ad), adapted from
Phaenomena by Aratus of Soli (
c. 315–239
bc), a
versified treatise on the stars and planets which enjoyed a great
reputation in antiquity. Other adaptations were made by Cicero and
Germanicus Caesar. Jonson could easily have found all four poems printed
together in sixteenth-century editions; for example,
Arati Solensis Phaenomena et Prognostica (Paris,
1559), Hyginus’s
Fabulae (Basle,
1570), or
Astronomica Veterum Scripta (Heidelberg, 1589).
81 Pars . . . orbem ‘Some say that, weeping bitterly for the
flames of Idean Troy, and mourning the innumerable deaths of her people,
Electra makes the world sad with hideous clouds.’ Arati Phaenomena, in Astronomica Veterum
Scripta (1589), 40. Though given here in prose, this is a
further extract from the poem Jonson quotes at 597–602. sickness i.e. the plague of
1603.
82 Sed . . . constitisse ‘But after Troy had been taken, and her
descendants (who were the race of Dardanus) overthrown, she is said to
have been overcome with grief and to have withdrawn from them, and to
have settled in the circle called Arctic.’ Quoted from
Poeticon Astronomicon of Hyginus (second century
ad), 2.21, a popular manual of astronomical
myths drawing on Aratus and often printed with collections of Aratea.
See C. J. Hyginus,
Fabulae (Basle,
1570), 71.
83 Electra . . . serene A close paraphrase of the etymology
given in Natalis Comes’
Mythologiae (1616), 474
(in the chapter on Iris):
Electro vero filia Coeli
sive Sol; nam id nomen serenitatem significat: est enim ηλιος
Sol, αίθριος
serenus
(a passage not in the 1551 edition: Gilbert,
1948, 83). For Jonson’s confusion on
this point, see .
anima
sphaerae solis ‘a spirit of the sphere of the sun’.
Proclus Neoplatonist
philosopher (
ad 410–85), and author of many
learned works, including scholia on Hesiod.
83 ἡλιος] H&S; ήλιος Q,
F1
83 αἴθρϱιος] H&S;
ἄιθρϱίος Q, F1
84 Nascitur . . . scilicet ‘For Iris is born from water and fair
weather, evidently from the refraction of the rays.’ The quotation and
reference are copied from Comes (1616), 474, and slightly adapted; Comes
prints igitur for enim.
85 indicem . . . montes ‘a sign of fair weather. The disclosed
day shone out, and a rainbow released the sky, and the clouds return to
the tops of the mountains.’ The quotation from Valerius Flaccus (first
century ad; author of an an imitation of the
Argonautica of Apollonius) is also taken from
Comes (1616), 475.
86 torquentem . . . Mithram ‘Mithras’ bending horns’. Quotation
possibly taken from Rosinus’s chapter
De Sol et
Luna (2.8), which discusses the connection between Mithras and
the sun. Rosinus quotes relevant passages from Lactantius Placidius’s
commentary on Statius, and supplies the following quotation from
Martianus Capella, but without a reference.
Te . . . Mithram ‘The Nile worships you, O
seraphs, and Memphis worships Osiris; but different shrines worship
Mithras.’ Jonson’s reference to Martianus Capella (see Jonson’s marginal
note
30n.) is
incorrect; it should be 2.191.
86 Mithram] this edn; Mithran Q, F1
86 Serapin] this edn; Serapim Q, F1
86 Osirim] this edn; Osirin Q, F1
87 Alcyone . . . Maia These are the names of the other six
sisters who, with Electra, make up the Pleiades. They are named in
Hyginus, Ovid’s Fasti, and other sources. spheres Heavenly bodies,
believed at this time to be carried on transparent hollow globes lodged
concentrically inside each other, the movement of which was determined
by the influences or ‘souls’ which inhabited them. Cf. Fort. Is., 2. Alcyone . . . Mercurii ‘Alcyone of Venus, Celaeno of Saturn,
Taygete of the moon, Asterope of Jove, Merope of Mars, Maia of
Mercury’.
90 Duchy of
Lancaster See note to the title-page.
92 Ducentis . . . pecuniae ‘Money leading all things to
itself’.
93 nonnumquam . . . effigie ‘[that] sometimes, however, she
rises up from Oceanus’s waves, into the vaults of the sky, but avoids
the seat of her sisters; and she puts forth her face separately, some
way away, and cursing, bewails both her sisterly band and the ruin of
her children; she is seen spreading her hair and is pointed out in the
likeness of a free-flowing comet’. Another quotation from Avienus’s Arati Phaenomena: see Astronomica Veterum Scripta, 40 (but printing destitutam for detestatam,
choro for choros, and
lacerata ruinias for lachrymare ruinas).
94 Cometes . . . fuit ‘In the whole world there is only one
place where a comet is worshipped, a temple at Rome. The god Augustus
considered it very propitious to himself, since it had appeared at the
beginning of his reign at some games which, not long after the death of
his father Caesar (as a member of the college founded by him), he was
celebrating in honour of Mother Venus. Indeed he made public the joy
that it gave him with these words: “On the very days of my games a comet
was visible for seven days in the northern part of the sky. It was
rising about an hour before sunset, and was very bright, and could be
seen from all lands. The common people believed that this star signified
that the soul of Caesar had been received among the spirits of the
immortal gods; hence the emblem of a star was added to the bust of
Caesar which we shortly afterwards dedicated in the forum.” This is what
he said in public; but privately he rejoiced because he interpreted the
comet as having been born for his own sake, and as containing his own
birth within it; and, to tell the truth, it was very salutary over the
world.’ This is a passage from Augustus’s autobiography preserved in
Pliny (modern
editions read
omnibus e terris for
omnibus terris). The comet has a prominent place
in
Virgil’s Eclogues, 9.47, and
Aeneid, 8.681, where it signals that the gods approved the
reign of Augustus.
94 septemtrionibus] septentrionibus Q, F1
94 Haec] F1; Hoec Q