The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

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Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly (1611)

Edited by David Lindley

Introduction

This masque, originally planned for Christmas 1610 and intended to precede Oberon, was twice postponed; first to 6 January and then to 3 February 1611. (Orgel and Strong erroneously assert that it was delayed for a year.) The delay was occasioned by the late arrival in England of the French ambassador, the Marquis de Laverdin, to conclude a treaty whose signing had been deferred for a year by the assassination of Henri Ⅳ (Barroll, 2001, 127–8). It was the last occasion on which Queen Anne herself took part as a masquer, and sponsor of a court entertainment. Its central narrative device is a variation of the fiction that sustains many Jacobean masques: that a group of masquers have been prevented from arriving at the court to do homage to the king.

The iconological programme of the work also has considerable continuity with the first two of the Queen’s masques. It is founded on the neoplatonic doctrine that love is the desire for beauty, and on the distinction between the ‘sighted’ Cupid who stands for higher, spiritual love, in contrast to the blind Cupid who signifies earthly sensual desire. The distinction of the two Cupids was an iconographical commonplace, as Panofsky demonstrated (1939, corr. edn, 1972, 95–128), and one Jonson alludes to elsewhere (cf. Beauty, 271–2, and Gordon, 1975, 144–6). In the antimasque Love is not blind, but only because his blindfold has been converted into the chain that ties him to the Ignorance signified by the Sphinx. He still operates within the understanding, and the language, of sensual love. Only when he apprehends the solution of the Sphinx’s riddle as being represented in James-as-Albion can he truly see clearly and thus represent the higher love of the beauty which the Queen and her ladies embody. The Sphinx, therefore, is not undertaking a virtuous action in inhibiting sensual love, but symbolizes in himself and his actions the force which prevents love growing to a more perfect understanding. Again as in the earlier masques, the fact that the goal of the masquers is found in Britain, the world apart, and through the sight and power of its king, makes a political statement, though with rather less pointed force than in the earlier masques of union.

As with most of the masques printed towards the end of F1 there is very little detail given of the performance itself. Two Inigo Jones drawings have been ascribed to this masque, the first showing the Queen and her attendants enthroned above what may be intended as a representation of the prison of Night, the second a design possibly depicting the masquers’ costumes (see Illustrations 57 and 58). As the information about this masque in the bill of charges for ‘the Queen’s Majesty’s masque at Christmas, 1610’ (NA, E407/57/1, fols.1–2; Masque Archive, Love Freed, 4) makes evident, it was a lavish entertainment. The specificity of this document provides interesting insight into the relative value ascribed to the different contributors to the masque’s preparation, and makes clear its collaborative nature. Where Jonson and Jones were each paid £40, the dancing master Nicolas Confesse was paid £50 ‘for teaching all <the> Dances’, and his fellow choreographer Bochan £20 ‘for teaching the <Ladies> the footing of 2 Danses’. The composer Ferrabosco was paid £20 for ‘making the songes’, but the ‘orchestration’ of the songs was undertaken by Robert Johnson, and of the dances by Thomas Lupo, who each received £5.

The accounts are unusually specific about the musical resources employed in the masque. In addition to the twelve ‘musicians that were priests that sung and played’, there were twelve lutes, fourteen violins, fifteen ‘musicians that played to the pages and fools’, and thirteen oboes and sackbuts. The total of sixty-six musicians is an impressive one, though it is not at all clear how these different ensembles would have been deployed, and probable that they never all played at the same time. It may be significant that the oboes and sackbuts were paid less than the lutes – perhaps indicating that they were only required at the beginning to herald the arrival of the King – and that the lutenists, in turn, were offered less than the antimasque musicians. The best rewarded were the Muses’ priests, and the ten violinists ‘that continually practised to the queen’ (each paid the same as the actors who took the parts of the Graces, Sphinx, and Cupid). These records signal emphatically how rich was the musical complement to Jonson’s text and Jones’s designs. Two of Ferrabosco’s songs survive (see Music Edition).

There is little clear indication of the nature of the copy for F1, though a transcript of Jonson’s manuscript may be the most likely.

For ease of reference, Jonson’ marginalia have been printed together at the end of the masque.

 

LOVE FREED FROM IGNORANCE AND FOLLY
 A Masque of her Majesty’s

So soon as the King’s majesty was set and in expectation, there was heard a strange music of

 

wild

 

instruments, to which a

 

SPHINX came forth dancing, leading

 

LOVE bound.

1 SPHINX

 Come, sir  tyrant, lordly Love,

You that  awe the gods above,

As  their creatures here below, 5

With the sceptre called your  bow;

And do all  their forces bear

In the quiver that you wear,

Whence no sooner you do draw

Forth a shaft, but is a law. 10

Now  they shall not need to tremble

When you threaten, or  dissemble

Any more; and though  you see

Whom to hurt, you ha’ not free

Will to  act your rage.  The bands 15

Of your eyes now tie your hands.

All the triumphs, all the spoils

Gotten by your arts and  toils

Over foe and over friend,

O’er your  mother, here must end. 20

And you, now, that thought to lay

The world waste, must be my prey.

LOVE

Cruel Sphinx, I rather strive

How to keep the world alive

And uphold it;  without me 25

All again would chaos be.

Tell me, monster, what should  move

Thy  despite thus against Love?

Is there nothing fair and good,

Nothing bright, but  burns thy blood? 30

 Still thou art thyself, and made

All of  practice to invade

 Clearest bosoms. Hath  this place

None will pity Cupid’s case?

Some soft eye, while I can see 35

Who it is that melts for me,

 Weep a fit. Are all eyes here

Made of marble?  But a tear,

Though a false one: it may make

Others true compassion take. 40

I would tell you all the story

If I thought you could be sorry.

And, in truth, there’s none have reason

Like yourselves to hate the  treason,

For it practised was on  beauty, 45

Unto whom Love owes all duty.

 Let your favour but affright

Sphinx here, I shall soon recite

Every  passage, how it was.

SPHINX

Do! I’ll laugh, or cry ‘alas’. 50

 Thinks poor Love can ladies’ looks

Save him from the Sphinx’s  hooks?

LOVE

No, but  these can witness bear

Of my  candour, when they hear

What thy malice is, or how 55

I became thy captive now.

 And it  is no small content,

Falling, to fall innocent.

Know then,  all you glories here,

In the utmost east there were 60

Eleven daughters of the morn.

Ne’er were brighter  bevy born,

Nor more perfect beauties seen.

The eldest of them was the  queen

Of the orient, and ’twas said 65

That she should  with Phoebus wed.

For which high-vouchsafèd grace

He was loved of all their  race.

And they would, when he did rise,

Do him early sacrifice 70

Of the rich and purest gum

That from any plant could come;

And would look at him as far

As they could discern his  car,

Grieving that they might not  ever 75

See him; and when night did sever

Their  aspects, they sat and wept

Till he came, and never slept;

Insomuch that at the length

This their fervour gat such strength 80

As they would a journey  prove,

By the guard and aid of Love,

Hither to the farthest west,

Where, they heard, as in the east,

 He a  palace, no less bright, 85

Had, to feast in every night

With the  Ocean, where he rested

Safe, and in all state invested.

I, that never left the side

Of the fair, became their guide. 90

But behold, no sooner landing

On this isle,2 but this  commanding

Monster Sphinx, the enemy

Of all actions great and high,

Knowing that these rites were done 95

To the wisdom of the sun,

From a  cliff surprised them all.

And though I did humbly fall

At  her lion’s feet, and prayed,

As she had the face of maid, 100

That she would compassion take

Of these ladies, for whose sake

Love would give himself up, she,

Swift to evil, as you see

By her wings and hookèd hands, 105

First did take my  off ’rèd bands,

Then to prison of the night

Did condemn those sisters bright

There for ever to remain,

’Less they could the knot  unstrain 110

Of a riddle which she put,

 Darker than where  they are shut;

Or from thence their freedoms  prove

 With the utter loss of Love.

They, unwilling to forego 115

One who had deservèd so

Of all beauty in their names,

Were content to have their flames

Hid in lasting night, ere I

Should for them untimely die. 120

I, on th’other side, as glad

That I such  advantage had

 To assure them mine, engaged

Willingly myself, and  waged

With the monster, that if I 125

Did her riddle not untie

I would freely give my life

To redeem them and the strife.

SPHINX

Ha’ you  said, sir? Will you try

Now your known dexterity? 130

You presume upon your arts

Of tying and untying hearts,

And it makes you confident;

But, anon, you will repent.

LOVE

No, Sphinx, I do not presume, 135

But some little heart assume

From my judges here, that sit

 As they would not lose Love yet.

SPHINX

You are  pleasant, sir,  ’tis good.

LOVE

Love does often change his mood. 140

SPHINX

I shall make you sad again.

LOVE

I shall be the sorrier, then.

SPHINX

Come, sir, lend it your best ear.

LOVE

I begin t’have half a fear.

SPHINX

 First, Cupid, you must cast about 145

To find a world  the world without,

 Wherein what’s done the eye doth do,

And is the light and treasure too.

This eye  still moves, and still is fixed,

And in the powers thereof are mixed 150

 Two contraries, which Time, till now,

Nor Fate knew where to join, or how.

 Yet, if you hit the right upon,

You must resolve these  all by  one.

LOVE

Sphinx, you are too quick of tongue; 155

Say’t again, and  take   me ’long.

SPHINX

I say you first must cast about

To find a world, the world without.

LOVE

I say that is already done,

And is the  new world i’the moon. 160

SPHINX

Cupid, you do cast too far;

 This world is nearer by a star.

 So much light I’ll give you  to’t.

LOVE

Without a  glass? Well, I shall do’t.

Your world’s a lady, then;  each creature 165

Human is a world in feature.

 Is it not?

SPHINX

Yes, but find out

A world, you must, the world without.

LOVE

 Why, if her  servant be not here,

She doth a single world appear 170

Without her world.

SPHINX

Well,  you shall run.

LOVE

 Nay, Sphinx, thus far is well begun.

SPHINX

Wherein what’s done, the eye doth do,

And is the light, and treasure too.

LOVE

That’s clear as light; for wherein lies 175

A lady’s power but in her eyes?

And not alone her grace and power,

But oftentimes her wealth and  dower.

SPHINX

I spake but of an eye, not eyes.

LOVE

A one-eyed mistress  that unties. 180

SPHINX

This eye still moves, and still is fixed.

LOVE

A rolling eye that,  native there,

Yet throws her glances everywhere;

And, being but single, fain would do

The  offices and arts of two. 185

SPHINX

And in the powers thereof are mixed

Two contraries.

LOVE

That’s smiles and tears,

Or fire and  frost; for either bears

Resemblance apt.

SPHINX

Which Time, till now,

 Nor Fate knew where to join, or how. 190

How now, Cupid? At a  stay?

Not another word to say?

Do you find by this, how long

You have been   at a fault, and wrong?

LOVE

Sphinx, it is your pride to vex 195

Whom you deal with, and  perplex

Things most easy. Ignorance

Thinks she doth herself advance

If of problems clear she make

Riddles, and the sense forsake, 200

 Which came gentle from the muses,

Till her utt’ring  it abuses.

SPHINX

Nay, your  railing will not save you,

Cupid; I of right must have you.

[Calling] Come, my  fruitful issue, forth, 205

Dance, and show a gladness worth

Such a captive as is Love,

And your mother’s triumph prove.

  The FOLLIES dance, which were twelve she-fools.

SPHINX

Now go take him up,3 and bear him 210

To the cliff, where I will tear him

Piecemeal, and give  each a part

Of his raw and bleeding heart.

LOVE

[To the audience] Ladies, have your looks no power

To help Love at such an hour? 215

Will you lose him thus? Adieu!

Think what will become of you;

Who shall praise you, who admire,

Who shall whisper, by the fire

As you stand, soft tales, who bring you 220

Pretty news, in rhymes who sing you;

Who shall  bathe him in the streams

Of your blood, and send you dreams

Of delight.

SPHINX

[To the Follies] Away! Go bear him

Hence! They shall no longer hear him. 225

The   MUSES’ PRIESTS [enter], their number twelve; [and sing] their song, to a   measure.

PRIESTS

 Gentle Love, be not dismayed. 4

See, the muses, pure and holy,

By their priests have sent thee aid

Against this brood of Folly. 230

 It is true that Sphinx, their dame,

Had the sense first from the muses,

Which in utt’ring she doth lame,

Perplexeth, and abuses.

But they bid that thou should’st look 235

 In the brightest face here shining,

And the same, as would a book,

Shall help thee in  divining.

LOVE

’Tis done, ’tis done! I have found it out!

 Britain’s the world, the world without. 240

The King’s the eye, as we do call

The sun the eye of  this great all,

And is the light and treasure too;

For ’tis his wisdom all doth do,

Which still is fixèd in his breast, 245

Yet still doth move to guide the rest.

The contraries which Time till now

Nor Fate knew where to join, or how,

Are  majesty and love, which there,

And nowhere else, have their true sphere. 250

Now, Sphinx, I’ve hit the right upon,

And do resolve these all by  one:

That is, that you meant Albion.

PRIESTS

’Tis true in him and in no other;

Love, thou art clear  absolvèd. 255

Vanish follies, with your mother,

The riddle is resolvèd.

Sphinx must fly when  Phoebus shines,

And to aid of Love inclines. [Exeunt Sphinx and Follies.]

LOVE

[Calling] Appear then you,  my brighter charge, 260

And to light yourselves  enlarge,

To behold that glorious star

For whose love you came so far,

While the monster, with her  elves,

Do  precipitate themselves. 265

[Enter]   GRACES.

  Their song crowning Cupid

A crown, a crown for Love’s bright head!

Without whose  happy wit

All  form and beauty had been dead, 270

And we had died with it.

For what are all the Graces

Without good forms and faces?

Then, Love, receive the due reward

Those Graces have prepared. 275

CHORUS

And may no hand, no tongue, no eye,

Thy merit or their thanks envy.

A dialogue between the Chorus and the Graces.

 What gentle forms are  these that move

To honour Love? 280

They are the bright and golden lights

That grace his nights;

And shot from Beauty’s eyes

They look like fair  Aurora’s streams;

They are her  fairer daughter’s beams, 285

Who now doth rise.

Then night is lost, or fled away,

For where such beauty shines is ever day.

The masque dance followed. That done, one of the priests alone sung.

FIRST PRIEST

  Oh, what a fault, nay, what a sin 290

In Fate or Fortune had it been,

So much beauty  to have lost!

Could the world with all her  cost

Have redeemed it?

CHORUS

No, no, no.

FIRST PRIEST

How so? 295

CHORUS

It would Nature quite undo,

For, losing  these, you lost her too.

The   measures and revels follow. Then another of the priests alone.

SECOND PRIEST

 How near to good is what is fair!

Which we no sooner see, 300

But with the  lines and outward air

Our senses taken be.

We wish to see it still , and prove

 What ways we may deserve.

We court, we praise, we more than love, 305

We are not grieved to serve.

The last masque dance. And after it, this full song.

PRIESTS and GRACES

 What just excuse had agèd Time

His weary limbs now to have eased,

And sat him down  without his crime, 310

While every thought was so much pleased!

   But he, so greedy to devour

His own, and all that he brings forth,

Is eating every piece of hour

Some object of the rarest worth. 315

Yet  this is rescued from his rage,

As not to die by time, or age.

For beauty hath a living name,

And will to heaven, from whence it came.

The going out 320

PRIESTS and GRACES

Now, now gentle Love is free, and beauty blessed

With the sight it so much longed to see,

Let us, the muses’ priests and Graces, go to rest;

For in them our labours happy be.

Then, then,  airy music sound, and teach our feet 325

How to move in time and measure  meet.

Thus should the muses’ priests and Graces go to rest,

Bowing to the  sun thronèd in the west. 

Title ] A MASQUE OF / HER MAJESTIES. / LOVE FREED FROM / Ignorance and Folly. / F1
2 wild instruments In the accounts fifteen musicians are listed as those ‘that played to the pages and fools’; they were presumably responsible for this first entry, and then for the antimasque dance. It is likely that the ensemble included percussion and ‘popular’ instruments. Cf. Queens, 22–3; Love Rest., 11–12; Irish, 110–11; Pan’s Ann., 57–9, 75–8.
2 instruments, to] this edn; Instruments. To F1
2 sphinx The Sphinx in classical mythology inhabited a mountain outside Thebes, where it asked passers-by a riddle and killed them when they could not solve it. When Oedipus successfully answered the riddle the monster threw itself to its death from the top of a rock. The description given by Jonson in his marginal note is of the standard depiction of the monster (found in Apollodorus, 3.5.8, and all Renaissance mythographies). The allegorization of the Sphinx as Ignorance, however, is more unusual. Briefly alluded to in the classical Tabula of Cebes, it was elaborated in Alciato’s Emblems, 188 (1531 and many subsequent editions), where an image of the Sphinx with an animal body, clawed feet, and a female face appears under the title Submovendam ignorantiam (‘That ignorance must be banished’). Alciato’s book was itself printed in later editions with elaborate glosses by Claude Mignault (1573 and later) explaining that: Triplex autem monstris forma refertur ad tres primarias causas efficientes ignorantiaei (‘the three-fold appearance of the monster represents the three main efficient causes of ignorance’). The woman’s face signifies the dangers of pleasure and lust, the feathered wings stand for lightness and inconstancy of spirit, and the lion’s claws signify pride and arrogance. The first two elements of this explication perhaps suggested to Jonson that the Sphinx is an antitype, and therefore enemy, of true beauty and love. (Ripa’s Iconologia, 1603, 223 quotes Alciato’s emblem.)
2 love Cupid. The actors of both these parts were boys, as is indicated by the accounts for the masque, which include payment to ‘5 boys, that is, 3 graces, Sphinx and Cupid’. The accounts also refer to ‘3 yards of flesh-coloured satin for Cupid’s coat and hose’, suggesting that he appeared as a ‘naked’ figure.
JONSON'S MARGINALIA 1.  By this Sphinx was understood Ignorance, who is always the enemy of Love and Beauty, and lies still in wait to entrap them. For which, antiquity hath given her the upper parts and face of a woman, the nether parts of a lion, the wings of an eagle to show her fierceness and swiftness to evil, where she hath power.
Marginalia 1 See commentary 2n.
3 SH] Sanders, in Spencer and Wells; Sphynx leading Love bound. F1, above first speech. F1 has no sign for marginalium.
3 tyrant] Sanders; Tyranne F1
4 awe inspire with fear. Cupid’s arrows affect even the gods.
5 their creatures those who owe them allegiance.
6 bow Cupid’s bow and arrows are his central attribute, and sign of his power.
7 their forces the power and might of the gods
11 they i.e. human beings.
12 dissemble pretend, hide the love you have implanted.
13 you see Cupid, traditionally depicted blind, is here able to see, as Sphinx explains; but he has not yet attained the clear sight of the ‘heavenly’ Cupid.
15 act your rage put your violent passions into practice (another sign that this is an unreformed Cupid).
15–16 The bands . . . eyes Referring to the bandage traditionally round Cupid’s eyes.
18 toils (1) traps, snares; (2) efforts.
20 mother Venus, goddess of love.
25–6 without . . . be The notion that Love brought harmony to the warring elements of Chaos derives ultimately from Hesiod, and was articulated, for example, in Spenser’s An Hymn in Honour of Love . See also Beauty, 217–18 and n. .
27 move provoke.
28 despite spite, hostility.
30 burns thy blood inflames your anger.
31–3 Still . . . bosoms There are two possible readings of these lines. (1) Cupid addresses Sphinx, accusing him of his continued scheming to turn even the ‘clearest’ things into darkness. (2) Cupid speaks to and of himself, and asserts that despite his bondage he is still the god capable of inveigling a response from the ladies in the audience.
32 practice scheming, trickery.
33 Clearest Most innocent.
33 this place the Banqueting House: Love speaks directly to the audience.
37 Weep a fit (May some soft eye) weep a short time.
38 But I ask only.
44 treason crime (done upon the daughters of the morn; see 61 and note below).
45–6 beauty . . . duty That love derives from the desire for beauty was a neoplatonic commonplace.
47 If you ladies by your favour to me will frighten
49 passage turn of events.
51 Thinks . . . can Does wretched little Love think that.
52 hooks talons (of the lion’s foot). Perhaps recalling Seneca, Oedipus, 99–100: saxaque impatiens morae / revulsit unguis viscera expectans mea (‘her talons, impatient of any delay, eager for my vital organs, tore at the rocks’).
53 these the ladies in the audience.
54 candour innocence.
57–8 And it is no small comfort, if one must fall prey to an enemy, to do so innocently.
57 is] F1 state 2; not in state 1
59 all . . . here all you wondrous ladies here.
62 bevy The proper term for a company of maidens or ladies (OED, 1).
64–5 queen . . . orient A compliment to Queen Anne, the principal masquer.
66 with Phoebus wed marry the god of the sun – which, in the conceit of the masque, Anne had actually done, in marrying James, the ‘sun thronèd in the west’ (328).
68 race family, kindred.
74 car chariot (of the sun).
75 ever always.
77 aspects looks, contemplations of the sun. As was usual, the stress falls on the second syllable.
81 prove undertake.
85 He The sun (a conventional compliment to James as Apollo).
85–7 palace . . . Ocean The palace of the sun is described in Ovid, Met., 2.1–28, and his setting in the west was conventionally described as a descent into the Ocean.
87 Ocean Oceanus was originally the name of the water which circled the earth, then of the Atlantic Ocean; as a god he was father of all the rivers. (See Blackness, 27 and n.)
2. The meaning of this is that these ladies, being the perfect  issue of Beauty and all worldly grace, were carried by Love to celebrate the majesty and wisdom of the King,  figured in the sun, and seated in these extreme parts of the world; where they were rudely received by Ignorance on their first approach,  to the hazard of their affection, it being her nature to hinder all noble actions; but that the Love which brought them thither was not willing to forsake them, no more than they were to abandon it, yet was it enough perplexed, in that the monster Ignorance  still covets to enwrap itself in dark and obscure terms and betray that way, whereas true Love affects to express itself with all clearness and simplicity.
2 issue progeny.
figured in represented or symbolized by.
to . . . affection endangering their desire (to honour the King).
still covets always desires.
92 commanding domineering, threatening.
97 cliff Mountain home of the sphinx.
99 her the Sphinx’s.
106 off’rèd bands Presumably this refers to Cupid’s blindfolds – though it is not obvious why, or in what sense, they were ‘offered’ to the Sphinx.
110 unstrain untie. OED glosses this instance (a first use) as ‘free from strain, relax’.
112 Darker More obscure (but punning on the literal sense).
112 they are] F1 (they’are)
113 prove make good.
114 By leaving Love to die at the Sphinx’s hands.
122 advantage opportunity, chance (OED, 4); offered in the possibility of answering the riddle.
123 To . . . mine To confirm them as my servants.
124 waged pledged.
129 said finished speaking.
138 As As if.
139 pleasant jocular, facetious.
139 ’tis good i.e. go ahead, have your joke.
145–52 N. Sanders (Spencer and Wells, Book of Masques, 1967, 76) suggests that the paradoxes of the Sphinx’s riddle are ultimately based on ‘the serio ludere of Cusanus who, in order to direct the mind to the hidden God, invented a series of experiments in metaphor or semi-magical exercises, which consisted of finding in an unusual object within human experience those apparent contradictions which are combined in the Godhead’, and points particularly to the instance of the fixed eye of God which yet sees everywhere.
146 the world without outside or beyond this physical world.
147 i.e. Wherein it is in the eye of the mind that things are done.
149 still always.
151 Two contraries See 247–9, below.
153 Yet if you are to arrive at the correct answer.
154 all by one all these questions in a single answer. As Orgel points out, there is a pun on ‘Albion’, which, at 253, turns out to be the answer to the riddle. The pun is clearer in F1 where ‘one’ is spelt ‘on’, and might have been even more apparent in seventeenth-century pronunciation.
154 one] F2; on F1
156 take . . . ’long take me along with you.
156 me ’long] Orgel; me’along F1
160 new . . . moon Galileo observed the moon through the new telescope, and described it in his Siderius Nuncius, published in Venice in 1610. Jonson is extremely topical in this reference.
162 i.e. The answer is to be found on earth.
163 i.e. I’ll give you this much of a clue to the answer.
163 to’t] F1 (to’it)
164 glass telescope.
165–6 each . . . feature every individual human being is a microcosm, or ‘little world’. A standard notion, expressed pithily in Donne’s Holy Sonnets, 7.1: ‘I am a little world made cunningly.’
167–8 Yes . . . without The Sphinx says this is not the answer, because the ‘world’ which is a ‘lady’ in Love’s reply, is not outside or beyond the world itself.
169 servant lover.
169–71 Why . . . world Love takes ‘without’ in its straightforward sense of ‘lack’ to argue that a woman and her lover together make one world, so if she appears on her own she is ‘single’ and lacks the world provided by her husband/lover.
171 you shall run I’ll let you carry on.
173–4 The Sphinx restates the second element of the riddle, as at 148.
178 dower dowry; that which a bride brings to her marriage.
180 that unties solves that riddle (though clearly Love is getting more and more desperate).
182 native there having its natural place in the head.
185 offices functions.
188 fire and frost The paradox of the ‘icy fire’ of love was frequently deployed in love poetry from Petrarch onwards.
190 Nor Fate Fate neither.
191 stay standstill, nonplus. (The Sphinx waits for an answer at the end of the previous line, but Cupid is unable to reply.)
194 at a fault] F1; at fault G
194 at a fault Gifford’s emendation, ‘at fault’, is appealing, but the variation between seven and eight-syllable lines and iambic and trochaic metre is so endemic in the verse that it is not compelling.
196 perplex make complicated.
201 In one version of the legend the riddle of the Sphinx was given to her by the muses (Apollodorus, 3.5.8).
202 it i.e. the ‘sense’ of 200.
203 railing abuse.
205 fruitful issue i.e. my children. In Erasmus’s Praise of Folly, Folly is represented as nursed by Drunkenness and Ignorance, the daughter of Pan, but the idea that ignorance leads to folly is an obvious one, and Jonson did not need Erasmus to suggest it.
209 There is no indication of the nature of the individual follies, represented perhaps by children, but presumably they enacted their particular folly in grotesque dances, as, for example, did the ‘Frantics’ in Campion’s Lords’ Masque (1613). In Erasmus’s Praise of Folly Folly’s seven female attendants are Self-love, Flattery, Forgetfulness, Idleness, Pleasure, Madness, and Sensuality – and perhaps the Follies here were similarly differentiated.
3. This shows that Love’s expositions are not always serious, till it be divinely instructed; and that sometimes it may be in the danger of Ignorance and Folly, who are the mother and issue; for no folly but is born of ignorance.
212 each each of you.
222–3 bathe . . . blood The meaning is unclear. Perhaps Love is drawing upon the commonplace connection of love with heating of the blood, suggesting, as in the conceits of love poetry, that he insinuates himself into the body itself.
226 muses’ priests The accounts reveal that one of the priests was Monsieur Confesse, a French dancing-master, who also devised the dances, and that they were dressed in crimson taffeta with watchet (light blue) satin hoods and gorgettes.
226 measure (1) dance (OED, 20); (2) air, melody (OED, 17). The Priests, or some of them, may have danced as they sang, but the second meaning is equally likely.
227 SH] this edn; not in F1
4. Here is understood the power of wisdom in the muses’ ministers, by which name all that have the spirit of prophecy are styled, and such they are that need to encounter Ignorance and Folly, and are ever ready to assist Love in any action of honour and virtue, and inspire him with their own soul.
231–4 Alluding, as at 201, to the notion that the Sphinx had the riddle from the muses, but twisted and deformed it through the use to which it was put.
236 In the brightly shining face of King James.
238 divining interpreting (the riddle).
240 Jonson repeats the idea, derived from Claudian and Virgil, that Britain is a world divided from the world (see King’s Ent., 34–9, Blackness, 200–2).
242 this great all i.e. the universe. A common usage at this period (OED, All B.3).
249 majesty and love cf. Ovid, Met., 2.846–7: Non bene conveniunt nec in una sede morantur / maiestas et amor. (‘Majesty and love do not go well together, nor remain in one place.’)
252 one] Morley; on F1
255 absolvèd set free.
258 Phoebus God of the sun.
260 my brighter charge the masquers, who have been Love’s responsibility. A design showing masquers seated in groups on three rocks within a cloud above a fortlike structure has been attributed to this masque (Orgel and Strong, 235, Illustration 57). As Orgel and Strong point out, there was not, in 1611, a machine that could lower the masquers to stage level. It would seem likely that the masquers were revealed at this point. The rocks may then have turned to hide them as they made their way down behind the set, to enter at ground level and be greeted by the song at 279.
261 enlarge free.
264 elves malignant creatures, here presumably the Follies.
265 precipitate themselves throw themselves from the cliff of 97 and 211 (as did the Sphinx when Oedipus solved the riddle).
266 graces Played by boys (see 2n.). The three Graces lived on Olympus with the muses, and were attendants of Apollo or, in some versions of the myth, of Venus. They were often characterized as Beauty, Chastity, and Love, linked in entwined dance.
267 The Graces presumably placed a crown, or wreath of laurel, on Love’s head.
269 happy wit fortunate cleverness (in solving the riddle).
270 form beauty, comeliness (from Latin forma; OED, Form n. 1e).
279–88 In the absence of any surviving setting of the song it is not obvious which lines should be afforded to the Graces, which to the Chorus. Possibly the Chorus sang the first two lines, the Graces responded with 281–6, and the Chorus rounded out the piece with the last two lines, but other arrangements might be possible.
279 these Gesturing to the masquers, who enter at stage level.
284 Aurora’s Aurora was goddess of the dawn.
285 fairer daughter’s beams the radiance emanating from Queen Anne.
290, 295 SHs] this edn; PRIE. F1
292 to have lost] F1; hadd beene loste MS JnB 679
293 cost wealth, expenditure.
297 these the masquers.
298 measures slower dances.
299 SH] this edn; not in F1
301 lines] JnB 679 ( lynes), Whalley, conj.; liues F1
303 wish . . . still] F1; wth it still to see JnB 679
304 How we may merit (goodness).
308, 321 SH] this edn; not in F
310 without his crime without committing an offence.
312 But] F1; For H&S, Orgel
312 But This is the reading in F1. H&S print ‘For’, without collation, a reading carried over by Orgel. This seems to be that extremely rare phenomenon, a clear error in the Oxford text. There is no reason to emend F1’s reading, since the contrast is between the offered possibility that Time could now rest, and the inexorable fact of his continuing ‘devouring’ of each hour.
312–13 The god Cronus, often fused with Chronos, or ‘time’, devoured his children since it had been prophesied that one of them would dethrone him, as, in fact, Zeus did (see Gold. Age, 17n.; Time Vind., 15–16 and nn.).
316 this either this event, or, possibly extravagant flattery of James.
325 airy] H&S (Swinburne, conj.); angrie F1 state 1; angry F1 state 2
326 meet appropriate, suitable.
328 sun . . . west King James.
A Note on the Masquers The only performer whose identity is certain is Queen Anne. A letter in the Trumbull manuscripts predicts that the other masquers were expected to be Princess Elizabeth, the Countesses of Derby, Bedford, and Montgomery, Lady Elizabeth Grey, Lady Frances Egerton, Lady Mary Nevill, Mistress Philip Sidney, and Mistress Anne Dudley (Masque Archive, Love Freed, 2).
Marginalia 1 See commentary 2n.
2 issue progeny.
figured in represented or symbolized by.
to . . . affection endangering their desire (to honour the King).
still covets always desires.
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