The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

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News from the New World Discovered in the Moon (1620)

Edited by James Knowles

INTRODUCTION

Staged on 6 January and 29 February 1620, News from the New World Discovered in the Moon belongs to one of the most remarkable seasons of entertainments held at the Jacobean court. Known performances included a masque at the French ambassador’s residence (30 and 31 December 1619); stagings of The Two Merry Milkmaids (2 January 1620) and eight other plays before Shrovetide; the ‘Running Masque’, danced at various aristocratic houses (3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 January, with further performances in February); and a masque for the court by the Crofts household at Saxham, Suffolk (17 February) (Butler, 1993, 159). News from the New World also marked Jonson’s return to masque-writing after the failure of Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1618), his absence in Scotland during the 1619–20 season, and the production of Chapman’s Masque of the Twelve Months on Twelfth Night, 1619.

The punningly ironic title encapsulates many of the masque’s key ideas. Jonson contrasts the false discoveries (geographical, scientific, monstrous) of popular culture and pamphleteering, summed up as ‘moonshine’ (229), with the ‘noble discovery’ (245) of Truth offered by the combined forces of royal science and true poetry. In describing poetry as ‘The mistress of all discovery’ (86), Jonson reasserts his view of its central role in creating heroic virtue and fame, found in earlier masques. In effect, he mounts a royal masque of Truth, a calculated refutation of the Protestant associations of ‘truth’ with apocalyptic views of history. Truth, the daughter of Time, had been widely represented in royal pageantry but had acquired a distinctly Protestant cast: Middleton’s Triumphs of Truth (1613), a ‘reformation’ of a civic pageant, depicted Truth’s angel and her champion, Zeal, protecting Truth against Envy and Error (Saxl, 1936, 197–222; Gordon, 1975, 227–32; Norbrook, 1984, 96, 104; Norbrook, 1986, 87, 94). Geoffrey Whitney’s Choice of Emblems (1586), which Jonson probably knew and which pictures Truth assailed by Calumny (Slander), Envy, and Discord, seems even more resonant in the context of murmuring about foreign policy, and the authorities’ increasing concern about ‘lavish’ or ‘licentious’ speech.

The comet that appeared during October and November 1618 had become an important news item, provoking scientific controversy (Galileo, 1960) and apocalyptic interpretations of current events linked to the Bohemian crisis (such as Abraham Gibson’s 1619 sermon Christiana-Polemica, or a Preparative to War). King James rejected such views, describing the comet in his personal conversation as ‘nothing else but Venus with a fire-brand in her arse’ (Birch, 1849, 2.110). In his poem ‘On the blazing star’, he chastised those who ‘misinterpret . . . with vain conceit / The character . . . on Heaven gate’ and ‘whose fancy overrules [their] reason’ (Poems, 2.172–3, 255–6). To counter such apocalyptic views, the masque contrasts geographical and scientific discovery – true and false – with its central act, the ‘noble discovery’ of the masquers (245). Royal truth trumps the widespread fascination with cheap print, typified by tedious ‘chronicles’ or repetitive ‘wonder’ pamphlets (see 41n.), whose sensationalist contents demonstrate commercialized falsehood and vacuous novelty. Jonson’s humour may be self-deprecating, as he planned to write ‘A Discovery’ of his foot-journey into Scotland (see Informations, 317).

‘Discovery’ held a central place in Jonson’s aesthetic thought. In Discoveries (92–100), he cites Seneca’s Epistles (30.11), ‘the truth will never be discovered if we rest contented with discoveries already made’, while advancing a balance between following classical authorities as ‘guides, not commanders’ and ‘our own experience’ (Discoveries, 96–8; see Donaldson, OA, 735–6). Echoing Seneca, Jonson imagines intellectual labour as a road (‘I shall open the new road’), linking poetic creativity (using one’s ‘feet’ as it were) and physical journey, and insists that, crucially for this masque, ‘Truth lies open to all; it is no man’s several’ (Discoveries, 99). Jonson thus situates his writing as the true discovery of genuine novelty, countering those who disliked the strenuous ethics of his classical masques, while repudiating the commercialized world of news journalism and cheap print that subordinated discovery to commercial novelty and claimed truth was less a ‘several’ (private property) but more than a commodity. The climax of News from the New World, the discovery of the moon-masquers, is prefaced by the Herald’s paradoxical announcement that they offer ‘no news’. Unlike the other antimasque paper-pushers, they bring neither utopian news (news from nowhere), nor novelty, nor ‘news’ in the modern sense: they reveal ‘belief’ rather than mere ‘delight’ (245).

For his moon ‘voyage’, Jonson draws on the early modern vogue for travel writing which described new worlds, real or imaginary (see 224n.), and on the classical models of Menippean satire, notably Lucian’s Icaromenippus, or the Sky Man and A True History (see 150n., 151n.). The moon voyage contrasts the ‘fant’sy’ (8) that creates news, the news-gatherers’ credulity in accepting the poet’s satirical moon journey as fact (66–9), and the masque’s royal truth. The choice of an astronomical fiction reflects the contemporary fascination with comets and shows how poetry might counter false knowledge. Jonson knew Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius (The Messenger of the Stars; Venice, 1610) which had announced a series of key astronomical discoveries, including observations of the moon’s surface (‘the new world in the moon’ alluded to in Love Freed, 160), and which claimed to outdo the poets, or at least go beyond ‘human regions’ (Galileo, 1880, 2; Drake, 1983, 13). News from the New World celebrates instead poetry’s ability to create new realms.

The Savoyard ambassador commented that, besides providing entertainment, the 1619–20 masques favoured France and made trouble between Spain and Savoy (Orrell, 1979, 86–7). The immediate diplomatic context of the first performances lay in the Bohemian crisis sparked by the decision of James’s son-in-law, Frederick, the Prince Palatine, to accept the Bohemian throne and his deposition by Catholic Habsburg forces. The first performance (6 January) was a diplomatic triumph in the presence of the ambassadors of France, Venice, and Savoy, alongside the Habsburg envoy, while the second performance (29 February) indicated a possible shift in alliances, as the Venetian ambassador reported that the French ambassador and his daughter attended as well as the Bohemian envoy, Count Dohna, although ‘he did not sit close to the king as did the French ambassador’ (Masque Archive, News NW, 24; Orrell, 1979, 6). This second performance seems to have continued the favour shown to the French also seen in the ‘Running Masque’, which adopted a ‘French’ style (Knowles, 2000, 97–100).

Much critical commentary on News from the New World connects it with the developing news culture of early modern England and the ways the masque prefigures the more extended treatment in The Staple of News (1626). The control of news and other forms of popular discourse became pressing issues for the authorities during 1619–21 (see, for example, the two proclamations against ‘licentious’ speech issued in 1620 and 1621: Larkin and Hughes, 1973–83, 1.495–6, 519–21), and it may be significant that c. 1621 the newsletter writer John Pory and the Keeper of the State Papers, Sir Thomas Wilson, proposed an official news gazette to provide the populace with news ‘most agreeable to the disposition of the head and principal members’ of the state (SP14/124/113; cited in Levy, 1999, 28).

News culture binds together the interests of the masque with false wonders (a staple of the popular print market) and the centrality of foreign, and particularly Bohemian, news to this emergent market in the face of interdictions on domestic news. The combination of this news market in both manuscript and print, the burgeoning range of cheap print, and the highly politicized manuscript libels in circulation, has been seen as contributing to a widespread popular political consciousness and ‘fissiparous’ political climate in the 1620s (Cogswell, 1995, 277). But, unlike Staple (which focused on Nathaniel Butter who controlled an early printed news consortium), News from the New World is less concerned with the impact of the corantos, the folio news-sheets that constituted the first English newspaper (which appeared shortly after its first performance in February 1620), than it is with the pursuit of novelty and commercialization (cf. Staple, 1.5.44, 3.2.236–46). In particular, this masque arraigns the cynicism of news culture and how these pleasurable lies ultimately debase political debate: ‘why should not they [the common people] ha’ their pleasure in believing of lies’ (45–6).

The centrality of gossip and manuscript news to this culture – perhaps, distantly echoing Chaucer’s House of Fame – rests on its instability: the Factor fears the fixity of print, although the Printer stresses that printed texts can also be news in his world of commercial recycling (49–56). ‘Men’s diverse opinions’ (52) are embodied in their disputatious discourse, the ‘curious uncertainties’ that the news-pushers exploit (87), and the chimerical qualities of the moonshine and clouds that inspire their interest. The ‘youth’ (20) of these speakers marks concern for the next generation, a topic developed in the role of Prince Charles as Procritus, an allusion to the leader of the iuvenes, the junior branch of the Roman equestrian order (the equites) refounded by Augustus to enhance the nobility’s moral and military preparedness, and instil the importance of imperial service (Yavetz, 1984, 16–9). In the Jacobean parallel, the future is neither the comet-watchers’ prophetic apocalypticism, nor the youths’ febrile news culture, but an imperial succession shaped by ‘royal education’ (Pleasure Rec., 188), which breeds ‘a race . . . formed, animated, lightened, and heightened’ by monarchical ‘piety, wisdom, [and] majesty’ rather than chimeras and epicenes (246–9).

The form of News from the New World, which depends not on the news-makers being banished but on the revelation of better news, marks an accommodation with different modes of masque writing. In 1618, Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue was criticized as overly serious, and the ‘Running Masque’ marked the arrival of a new style of less formal court entertainments in which the Jonsonian expulsion of antimasques was replaced with ‘transformation’ (Butler, 1993, 160–3; Knowles, 2000, 103). Other masque writers presented variations on the form: Middleton’s Inner Temple Masque, or Masque of Heroes (1619) espoused greater martial and heroic readiness, and dramatized the absorption of the antemasque (Middleton’s normal spelling) into the proper order, symbolized by the opposed qualities of fasting and feasting days being correctly placed in the calendar; and Chapman’s Masque of the Twelve Months also stressed harmony and the integration of divergent forces (Knowles, 2000, 103; Knowles, 2007b, 1323).

Although the masque provoked much contemporary comment, and some accounts provide information about costumes, the designs are largely missing. Orgel and Strong associate one headdress and one small, feathered, figure with it (see Illustrations 78, 79; Orgel and Strong 107, 108), although neither of these attributions is particularly secure. It is not even clear what role the masquers danced but, given the Augustan associations of the Prince’s part, they may have appeared in some form of classical garb, such as that illustrated (but not attached to any masque) in O&S 119 and 120. No music associated with the masque has survived.

This edition is based on F2, the only printed text.

 

     NEWS FROM THE NEW WORLD  DISCOVERED IN THE MOON

A masque, as it was presented at court before King James, 1620.

   Nascitur è tenebris: et se sibi vindicat orbis.

Enter  

FIRST

 

HERALD,

SECOND HERALD, PRINTER,

 

CHRONICLER, [and]

 

FACTOR.

FIRST HERALD

News, news, news! 5

SECOND HERALD

Bold, and brave  news!

FIRST HERALD

 New as the night they are born in –

SECOND HERALD

Or the   fant’sy that begot ’em.

FIRST HERALD

Excellent news!

SECOND HERALD

Will you hear any news? 10

PRINTER

Yes, and thank you too, sir. What’s the price of ’em?

FIRST HERALD

Price,  coxcomb? What price but the price o’your ears? As if any

man used to pay for anything here!

SECOND HERALD

Come forward. You should be some dull tradesman by your

 pig-headed  sconce now, that think there’s nothing good anywhere but what’s 15

to be sold.

PRINTER

Indeed, I am all for sale, gentlemen, you say true. I am a printer, and a

printer of news, and I do hearken after ’em, wherever they be at any rates. I’ll

give anything for a good  copy now, be’t true or false, so’t be news.

FIRST HERALD

A  fine youth! 20

CHRONICLER

And I am for matter of state, gentlemen, by consequence,    story,

to fill up my great book, my  chronicle, which must be three  ream of paper

at least. I have agreed with my  stationer aforehand to make it so big, and I

want for ten  quire yet. I ha’ been here ever since seven o’clock i’the morning

to get matter for one page, and I think I have it complete; for I have both 25

noted the number and the capacity of the  degrees here, and told twice over

how many candles there are i’th’ room lighted, which I will set you  down to a

snuff precisely, because I love to give  light to posterity in the truth of things.

FIRST HERALD

This is a finer youth!

FACTOR

Gentlemen, I am neither printer, nor  chronologer, but one that otherwise 30

take pleasure i’my pen:  a factor of news for all the shires of England.

I do  write my thousand letters a week  ordinary,  sometime twelve hundred,

and maintain the business at some charge, both to hold up my reputation

with mine own  ministers in town and my friends of correspondence in the

country. I have friends of all ranks, and of all religions, for which I keep 35

an answering catalogue of dispatch, wherein I have my  puritan news, my

protestant news, and my  pontificial news.

SECOND HERALD

A superlative, this!

FACTOR

And I have hope to erect a  staple for news ere long, whither all shall be

brought and thence  again vented under the name of staple-news, and not 40

trusted to your printed  conundrums of the  serpent in Sussex, or the  witches

bidding the devil to dinner at Derby; news, that when a man sends them

down to the shires where they are said to be done, were never there to be

found.

PRINTER

Sir, that’s all one,  they were made for the common people, and why 45

should not they ha’ their pleasure in believing of lies are made for them, as

you have in  Paul’s that make ’em for yourselves?

FIRST HERALD

There he speaks reason to you, sir.

FACTOR

I confess it, but it is the printing I am offended at. I would have no

news printed, for when they are printed they leave to be news. While they are 50

written, though they be false, they remain news still.

PRINTER

See men’s diverse opinions! It is the printing of ’em makes ’em news

to a great many, who will indeed believe nothing but what’s in print. For

those I do keep my presses and so many pens going to bring forth wholesome

 relations, which once in half a score years (as the age grows forgetful) I  print 55

over again with a new date, and they are of excellent use.

CHRONICLER

Excellent abuse, rather.

PRINTER

Master Chronicler do not you talk, I shall –

FIRST HERALD

Nay, gentlemen, be at peace one with another. We have enough

for you all three, if you dare take upon trust. 60

PRINTER

I dare, I assure you.

FACTOR

And I, as much as comes.

CHRONICLER

I dare too, but nothing so much as I ha’ done. I have been so cheated

with false relations i’my time, as I ha’ found it a far harder thing to correct

my book, than collect it. 65

FACTOR

Like enough. But to your news gentlemen, whence come  they?

FIRST HERALD

From the moon, ours sir.

FACTOR

From the moon! Which way? By sea, or by land?

FIRST HERALD

By moonshine, a nearer way, I take it.

PRINTER

 Oh, by a trunk! I know it, a thing no bigger than a flute-case. A neighbour 70

of mine, a spectacle-maker, has drawn the moon through it at the   bore of a

whistle, and made it as great as a  drumhead twenty times, and brought it

within the length of this room to me I know not how often.

CHRONICLER

Tut, that’s no news; your  perplexive glasses are common. No, it

will fall out to be  Pythagoras’ way, I warrant you, by writing and reading i’th’ 75

moon.

PRINTER

Right, and as well read of you, i’faith; for  Cornelius Agrippa has it,  in

disco lunae, there ’tis found.

FIRST HERALD

Sir, you are lost, I assure you; for ours came to you neither by the

way of Cornelius Agrippa nor  Cornelius Dribble. 80

SECOND HERALD

Nor any glass of –

FIRST HERALD

No philosopher’s fantasy.

SECOND HERALD

 Mathematician’s  perspicil.

FIRST HERALD

Or brother of the  Rosy Cross’s  intelligence; no forced way, but by

the  neat and  clean power of poetry – 85

SECOND HERALD

The mistress of all discovery.

FIRST HERALD

Who, after a world of these curious  uncertainties, hath employed

thither a servant of hers in search of truth, who has been there –

SECOND HERALD

In the moon.

FIRST HERALD

In person. 90

SECOND HERALD

And is this night returned.

FACTOR

Where? Which is he? I must see his  dog at his girdle and the bush of

thorns at his back ere I believe it.

FIRST HERALD

Do not trouble your faith, then, for if that bush of thorns should

prove a goodly grove of oaks,  in what case were you and your expectation? 95

SECOND HERALD

Those are  stale ensigns o’the  stage’s man i’th’ moon, delivered

down to you by musty antiquity, and are of as doubtful credit as the makers.

CHRONICLER

Sir, nothing  again’ antiquity, I pray you! I must not hear ill of

antiquity.

FIRST HERALD

Oh, you have an old wife  belike, or your venerable jerkin there, 100

make much of ’em. Our relation, I tell you still, is news.

SECOND HERALD

Certain and sure news –

FIRST HERALD

Of a new world –

SECOND HERALD

And new creatures in that world.

FIRST HERALD

In the orb of the moon – 105

SECOND HERALD

Which is now  found to be an earth inhabited!

FIRST HERALD

With navigable seas and rivers.

SECOND HERALD

Variety of nations,  polities, laws.

FIRST HERALD

With havens in’t, castles, and port towns!

SECOND HERALD

Inland cities, boroughs, hamlets, fairs, and markets! 110

FIRST HERALD

Hundreds and   wapentakes! Forests, parks,  cony-ground,

meadow-pasture, what not?

SECOND HERALD

But differing from ours.

FACTOR

And has your poet brought all this?

CHRONICLER

Troth, here was enough; ’tis a pretty piece of poetry as ’tis. 115

FIRST HERALD

Would you could hear on, though.

SECOND HERALD

Gi’ your minds to’t a little.

FACTOR

What inns or alehouses are there there? Does he tell you?

FIRST HERALD

Truly, I have not asked him that.

SECOND HERALD

Nor were you best, I believe. 120

FACTOR

Why, in   travel a man knows these things without offence. I am sure if

he be a good poet he has discovered a good tavern in his time.

FIRST HERALD

That he has. I should think the worse of his verse else.

PRINTER

And his prose too, i’faith.

CHRONICLER

 Is he a man’s poet or a woman’s poet, I pray you? 125

SECOND HERALD

Is there any such difference?

FACTOR

Many, as betwixt your man’s tailor and your  woman’s tailor.

FIRST HERALD

How, may we beseech you?

FACTOR

I’ll show you. Your man’s poet may break out strong and deep i’th’

mouth, as  he said of  Pindar,  monte decurrens velut amnis. But your woman’s 130

poet must  flow and stroke the ear and, as one of them said of himself sweetly,

 Must write a verse as smooth, and calm as cream,

In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream.

SECOND HERALD

Ha’ you any more on’t?

FACTOR

No, I could never arrive but to this  remnant. 135

FIRST HERALD

Pity! Would you had had the whole piece for a pattern to all

poetry.

PRINTER

How might we do to see your poet? Did he undertake this journey, I

pray you, to the moon o’foot?

FIRST HERALD

Why do you ask? 140

PRINTER

Because one of our  greatest poets – I know not how good a one – went to

  Edinburgh o’foot, and came back. Marry, he has been  restive, they say, ever

since, for we have had nothing from him; he has  set out nothing, I am sure.

FIRST HERALD

 Like enough, perhaps he has not  all in. When he has all in,  he

will  set out, I warrant you, at least those from whom he had it. It is the very 145

same party that has been i’th’ moon now.

PRINTER

Indeed! Has he been there since? Belike he rid thither then.

FACTOR

Yes, post, upon the  poet’s horse for a wager.

FIRST HERALD

No, I assure you, he rather flew upon the wings of his muse.

There are in all but three ways of going thither. One is  Endymion’s way, by 150

rapture in sleep, or a dream; the other,   Menippus his way, by wing, which

the poet took;  then the third, old  Empedocles’ way, who when he leapt into

 Etna, having a dry,  sere body and light, the smoke took him and  whift him

up into the moon, where he lives yet, waving up and down like a feather, all

 soot and embers coming out of that  coal-pit. Our poet met him and talked 155

with him.

CHRONICLER

In what language, good sir?

SECOND HERALD

Only by signs and gestures, for they have no articulate voices

there, but certain  motions to music. All the discourse there is harmony.

FACTOR

A fine  lunatic language, i’faith. How do their lawyers then? 160

SECOND HERALD

 They are  Pythagoreans, all dumb as fishes, for they have no

 controversies to exercise themselves in.

FACTOR

How do they live then?

FIRST HERALD

 O’th’dew o’th’moon, like  grasshoppers, and confer with the

 Doppers. 165

FACTOR

Ha’ you Doppers?

SECOND HERALD

A world of Doppers! But they are there as lunatic persons,

 walkers only, that have leave only to  hum and ha, not daring to  prophesy or

 start up upon stools to raise doctrine.

FIRST HERALD

The brethren of the Rosy Cross have their  college within a mile 170

o’the moon, a  castle i’th’ air that runs upon wheels with a winged  lantern –

PRINTER

I ha’ seen’t in print.

SECOND HERALD

All the fantastical creatures you can think of are there.

FACTOR

’Tis to be hoped there are women there, then?

FIRST HERALD

And  zealous women, that will out-groan the  groaning wives of 175

Edinburgh.

FACTOR

And lovers as fantastic as ours?

SECOND HERALD

But none that will hang themselves for love, or eat candles’

ends, or drink to their  mistress’ eyes till their own bid ’em goodnight, as the

 sublunary lovers do. 180

FACTOR

No, sir?

SECOND HERALD

No, some few you shall have that sigh or whistle themselves

away, and those are presently hung up by the heels like  meteors, with  squibs

i’their tails, to give the wiser sort warning.

PRINTER

Excellent! 185

FACTOR

Are there no self-lovers there?

SECOND HERALD

There were, but they are all dead of late for want of tailors.

FACTOR

’Slight, what luck is that? We could have spared them a colony from

hence.

SECOND HERALD

I think some two or three of them live yet, but they are turned 190

 moon-calves  by this.

PRINTER

Oh, ay, moon-calves! What monster is that, I pray you?

SECOND HERALD

Monster? None at all; a very familiar thing, like our fool here

on earth.

FIRST HERALD

The ladies there play with them instead of little dogs. 195

FACTOR

Then there are ladies?

SECOND HERALD

And knights, and squires.

FACTOR

And servants, and  coaches?

FIRST HERALD

Yes, but the coaches are much o’the nature of the ladies, for they

go only with wind. 200

CHRONICLER

Pretty, like China-wagons.

FACTOR

Ha’ they any places of meeting with their coaches, and taking the fresh

open air, and then covert when they please, as in our  Hyde Park, or so?

SECOND HERALD

Above all the Hyde Parks in Christendom, far more  hiding

and private. They do all in clouds there. They walk i’the clouds, they sit i’the clouds, they lie i’the 205

clouds, they ride and tumble i’the clouds, their very

coaches are clouds.

PRINTER

But ha’ they no  carmen to meet and  break their coaches?

SECOND HERALD

Alas! Carmen, they will  over a carman  there, as he will do a

child here. You shall have a coachman with cheeks like a trumpeter, and a 210

wind in his mouth blow him afore him as far as he can see him, or  skirr over

him with his bat’s wings a mile and a half ere he can steer his  wry neck to

look where he is.

FACTOR

And they ha’ their  new wells too, and physical waters, I hope, to visit all

time of year? 215

FIRST HERALD

Your  Tunbridge, or the   Spa itself, are mere puddle to ’em. When

the pleasant months o’the year come, they all flock to certain  broken islands

which are called there the  Isles of Delight.

FACTOR

By clouds still?

FIRST HERALD

What else? Their boats are clouds, too. 220

SECOND HERALD

Or in a mist; the mists are ordinary i’the moon. A man that

owes money there, needs no other protection; only buy a mist and walk in’t,

he’s never discerned. A matter of a  bawbee does it.

FIRST HERALD

Only one island they have is called the  Isle of the  Epicenes, because

there under one article both  kinds are signified; for  they are fashioned alike, 225

male and female the same,  not-heads and broad hats, short doublets, and

long  points; neither do they ever  untruss for distinction, but  laugh and lie

down in  moonshine, and stab with their  poniards. You do not know the

delight of the  Epicenes in  moonshine.

SECOND HERALD

And when they ha’ tasted the springs of pleasure enough, 230

and billed and kissed, and are ready to come away, the shes only lay certain

eggs – for they are never with child there – and of those eggs are disclosed a

race of creatures like men, but are indeed a sort of fowl, in part covered with

feathers (they call  ’em  volatees), that hop from island to island. You shall see

a  covey of ’em if you please presently. 235

FIRST HERALD

Yes, faith, ’tis time to exercise their eyes, for their ears begin to

be weary.

SECOND HERALD

Then know we do not move these wings so soon,

On which our poet mounted to the moon

 Menippus-like,  but all ’twixt it and us 240

Thus clears and helps to the  presentment, thus.

The antimasque of Volatees.

SECOND HERALD

We have all this while, though the  muses’ heralds, adventured

to tell Your Majesty no news, for hitherto we have moved rather to your

delight than your belief. But now be pleased to expect a more noble discovery 245

 worthy of your ear, as the object will be  of your eye: a  race of your own, formed,

animated, lightened, and heightened by you, who rapt above the moon far

in  speculation of your virtues, have remained  there entranced certain hours,

with wonder of the piety, wisdom, majesty  reflected by you on them from the

divine light, to which only you are less. These, by how much higher they have 250

been carried from earth to contemplate your greatness, have now conceived

the more haste and hope in this their return home to approach your goodness;

and led by that excellent likeness of yourself, the   Truth, imitating  Procritus’

endeavour, that all their motions be formed to the  music of your peace and

have their ends in your  favour, which alone is able to resolve and thaw the 255

cold they have presently contracted in coming through the  colder region.

   

They descend and shake off their

 

icicles.

First Song

Howe’er the brightness may amaze,

Move you, and stand not still at gaze, 260

As dazzled with the light;

But with your motions fill the place,

And let their fullness win your grace

Till you collect your sight.

So while the warmth you do confess, 265

And temper of these rays, no less

To quicken  than refine,

You may by knowledge grow more bold,

And so more able to behold

The body whence they shine. 270

The first dance follows.

Second Song

Now look and see in yonder throne

How all those beams are cast from one.

This is that orb so bright 275

Has kept your wonder so awake,

Whence you as from a mirror take

The sun’s reflected light.

Read him as you would do the book

Of all perfection, and but look 280

What his proportions be;

No  measure that is thence contrived,

Or any motion thence derived,

 But is pure harmony.

Main dance and revels.

285

Third Song

 Not that we think you weary be,

For he

That did this motion give,

And made it so long live, 290

Could likewise give it perpetuity.

Nor that we doubt you have not more,

And  store

Of changes to delight;

For they are infinite, 295

As is the power that brought forth those before.

But since the earth is of his name,

And fame

So full you cannot add,

Be both the first, and glad 300

To  speak him to the region whence you came.

The last dance.

   

[FAME appears.]

Fourth Song

FAME

  Look, look already where I am, 305

Bright Fame,

Got up unto the sky

Thus high

Upon my better wing

To sing 310

The knowing king,

And make the music here

With yours on earth the same.

CHORUS

Join then to tell his name,

And say but James is he; 315

All ears will take the voice,

And in the tune rejoice,

Or Truth hath left to breath, and Fame hath left to be.

FIRST HERALD

See, what is that this music brings,

And is so carried in the air about? 320

SECOND HERALD

Fame that doth nourish the renown of kings,

And keeps that fair which  Envy would  blot out. 


THE END

Title 2 NEWS (1) new occurrences as a subject of report; (2) the reporting of important or interesting events – the predominant modern senses (OED, 2a, 2b); also (3) ‘novelties’ (OED, 1). Often with a plural verb in early modern English: see 50, 55–6, and OED, 2a). Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, 1.2.4.5, 200, suggests the interconnection: ‘man’s nature is still desirous of news, variety, delights’. The masque predates the publication of the first corantos in English in Holland or the likely date of Archer’s London news-sheets, both c. February 1620 (Dahl, 1953, 31, 49), so ‘news’ encompasses gossip (47n.), manuscript newsletters (4n., 32n.), the larger, normally semi-annual quarto newsbooks such as the Mercurius Gallobelgicus (which commenced publishing in Cologne in 1594), the occasional news pamphlet such as News out of Holland (1619) (cf. 55n.), and the ‘wonder’ pamphlet and ‘news-flash’ from the provinces (41n.). See Morison (1980), 328–33.
Title NEWS . . . 1620.] F2 (NEWES FROM / THE NEVV VVORLD / DISCOVER’D IN THE / MOONE. / A Masque, / AS IT VVAS PRESEN- / TED AT COVRT BE- / FORE KING IAMES. 1620.)
0 new . . . moon See Introduction. Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius (1610) included the first telescopic observations of the moon’s surface, exploring the controversial issue of its ‘seas’, mountains, and atmosphere, and occasioning speculation about it being habitable (Galileo, 1880; Kepler, 1965, 29). Possibly News NW also draws on Jacobean court interests in astronomy and astrology, which culminated in the invitation of Johannes Kepler to England in 1620 (Wotton, 1907, 2.205): Kepler (1571–1630) had dedicated De Stella nova in pede Serpentarii (A New Star in the Foot of Serpentarius; 1606) and Harmonice mundi (The Harmony of the World; 1619) to James (Kepler, 1997, 2–5; Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 7.289–312; cf. 284n.). Contemporary scientific thought is combined with classical influences (particularly Lucian) and narratives of would-be moon voyagers (cf. Staple, 3.2.42, which satirizes the Jesuits as moon travellers). Although Orgel and Strong argue that Jones’s designs for the Volatees show American elements (see 234n.), the new worlds of this text are imaginary and produced by overheated ‘fant’sy’ (8n.), suggested by the moon’s contemporary associations with lunacy, ephemerality, illusion, and magic.
0 discovered Punning on (1) geographical and scientific discovery, e.g., Ralegh, The Discovery of the . . . Empire of Guiana (1618) (cf. Burse, 8, 226); (2) theatrical revelation (the ‘noble discovery’, 245); and (3) wonder pamphlets, e.g., Luke Hutton, Discovery of a London Monster Called the Black Dog of Newgate (1596).
2 Epigraph et] F2 (&)
2 Nascitur . . . orbis ‘A world is born out of darkness and sets itself free’, an untraced quotation (H&S); Sellin (1986), 323, offers an alternative translation.
3 FIRST…SECOND] 1, 2 F2 (and throughout)
3 HERALD An official messenger who made royal and state proclamations and acted as a messenger between sovereign states; later an officer of the College of Arms charged with maintaining precedence and pedigrees. He is one of the muses’ heralds (243). Cf. Piedmantle, the ‘Heraldet’, in Staple.
3 CHRONICLER Writer or compiler of chronicles: see 22n.
4 FACTOR Merchant. Sellin (1986), 326–7, argues that Jonson refers specifically to the compilers of handwritten news (usually merchants), initially economic, but latterly diplomatic and political news.
6 news] Wh; new F2; new<es> H&S
7 New] Newe F2 (state 2); Newes F2 (state 1)
8 fant’sy] F2 (Phant’sie)
8 fant’sy (1) imagination; (2) supposition; (3) caprice (OED, Fancy, 4a, 6, 7a). The complex overlapping of meanings is apparent in F2’s spelling ‘Phant’sie’, which suggests the problematic differentiation between legitimate imagination, illegitimate fantasy, and ephemeral and illusory phantasms. The news industry, with its pursuit of commercial advantage through novelty, is envisaged as creating a world of fantastic grotesques (cf. Fant’sy’s speech in Vision, 49–106).
12 coxcomb fool.
15 pig-headed obstinate (the first use recorded in OED).
15 sconce head.
19 copy Copy-text prepared for printing (OED, 9a). H&S compare, ‘I according to my copy have down set it in enprint’ (Caxton, Malory, Preface).
20, 29, 38 fine . . . finer . . . superlative The Heralds greet each ‘youth’ (Printer, Chronicler, Factor) as better that the last. Versions of this joke are also used in Alch., 3.2.10–18, and Informations, 331–6.
21–2 story . . . chronicle] Evans; story, my Chronicle, to fill up my great booke F2
21–2 story . . . chronicle F2 reads ‘story, my chronicle, to fill up my great book’ (as do H&S), but the present sensible emendation was suggested by Evans and followed by Orgel.
21 story history.
22 chronicle A detailed history of events (‘without any attempt at literary style’) (OED). It is possible Jonson had in mind the plodding continuations of John Stow’s Chronicles of England, from Brute unto this Present Year (1580), such as that by Edmund Howes (1614) or Anthony Munday’s A Brief Chronicle of the Success of Times, from the Creation (1611). H&S suggest that both Epicene, 2.5.95, and Staple, 1.5.32, allude to Howes. Cf. Und. 43.171.
22 ream a quantity of paper (480 or more sheets); sometimes used imprecisely to mean any large quantity (OED).
23 stationer Someone engaged in any of the trades associated with books such as paper-selling and printing; a bookseller.
24 quire Usually a set of four sheets of paper, folded in half to make a small booklet of eight leaves.
26 degrees Tiers of seats in the Banqueting House. Newsletters often reported the participants and audience members for masques.
27–8 down . . . snuff down to the last, dull detail. The snuff is the candle end or burned wick (OED) usually removed so that the candle can burn brightly. Cf. Epigr. 59; Und. 43.188.
28 light . . . things A garbled version of Cicero’s dictum (from De Oratore, 2.9.36) that history is ‘lux veritatis’ and ‘vita memoriae’ (‘The light of Truth, and the life of memory’, Und. 24.18). Und. 24 was written to accompany the frontispiece to Ralegh’s History of the World which depicts Truth and Good and Ill Fame (Illustration 125).
30 chronologer Someone who studies chronology, the date and order in time of events (OED). The Factor may intend to disparage the Chronicler.
31–7 a factor . . . news Reworked in Staple, 1.5.14–21.
32 write . . . letters Manuscript newsletters remained the main form of news dissemination even as printed newsbooks began to appear. Writers might either provide a general newsletter or, for greater payment from a patron, a tailor-made product. John Pory (1572–1636) provides the best example of this sort of service (Powell, 1977, 51–62).
32 ordinary ordinarily.
32 sometime] F3; sometim F2
34 ministers agents.
36–7 puritan . . . pontificial Newsbooks pretended to be balanced accounts but most foreign news came from Protestant sources (especially Amsterdam and the Low Countries). The two customers in Staple, 3.2 seek Protestant and Catholic news, and the satire is directed towards ‘niche’ marketing that simply confirms prejudice (see 165n. below). Cf. Staple, 1.5.14–5, 3.2.63.
37 pontificial About the pope (pontiff); Catholic.
39 staple Principal market; also implying a monopoly.
40 again vented published again. See 55–6n.
41 conundrums fantasies, absurdities (Orgel). Cf. Volp., 5.11.17, conundrum = whims, conceits (tricks and imaginings) (OED, 2).
41 serpent in Sussex Reported in A.R., True and Wonderful. A Discourse Relating to Strange and Monstrous serpent (or dragon) lately discovered . . . in Sussex (1614). This tract attracted considerable attention: it features in the description of a ballad-monger who can ‘at a need . . . find you out a Sussex dragon’ (R. Brathwaite, Whimzies, 1631, B3), and was itself reprinted in ballad form in 1652 (Johnson, 1986, 193). Its printer, John Trundle (c. 1573–1626), was a notorious publisher of ballads, pamphlets, and other cheap literature; his output included Hic Mulier (1620) and Haec Vir (1620), which are possibly alluded to later in the masque (see 224n.). Jonson also refers to him in EMI (F), 1.3.47 (Johnson, 1986, 177–8, 196). Cheap print specialized in monstrous births, strange events, and weird creatures.
41–2 witches . . . Derby Unknown; perhaps an early version of the Cock Lorel ballad from Gypsies.
45–56 they . . . use Reworked in Staple, 1.5.41–61.
47 Paul’s The London cathedral church at the east end of Ludgate; famous for its booksellers (in Paul’s Yard) and its role as an exchange for news (in Paul’s Walk) (Sugden, 395–8). Paul’s Walk was called ‘the ear’s brothel’ in John Earle’s Microcosmographia (1628), K1. EMO, 3, is set in the middle aisle of St Paul’s.
55, 64 relations accounts, narratives. The term was often used in the titles of newsbooks, e.g., A Relation of Weekly Occurences of News (22 October 1622).
55–6 print over again A common accusation about cheap print was the surreptitious repetition of material lifted from earlier pamphlets. H&S cite the Miracle of Miracles (1613), reprinted as Most Fearful and Strange News (1614) which actually reworks a 1584 pamphlet. Cf. Staple, 1.5.58–62, and Raymond (2003), 124.
66 they the news.
70 trunk telescope; the lenses of which were made by spectacle-makers such as Hans Lippersley and Zacharias Janssen.
71 bore] F2 (boare)
71 bore The cavity of a tube, e.g., of a gun (OED, 2a).
72 drumhead drumskin.
74 perplexive perplexing; a malapropism for ‘perspective’ = telescope. OED only cites this example and one other.
75 Pythagoras’ way Pythagoras was believed to have discovered a way to write on the moon by reflecting letters written in blood on a mirror: cf. Blackness, 190–1 (H&S). The moon was sometimes known as ‘Pythagoras’ mirror’ (Nicolson, 1936, 11).
77 Cornelius Agrippa German doctor, soldier, and magician (1486–1535); he described moon-writing in De Occulta Philosophica (1553), A5.
77–8 in disco lunae on the moon’s disc (Lat.).
80 Cornelius Dribble Cornelis Drebbel (1592–1633) and his perpetual motion machine housed at Eltham, a royal palace south-west of London (Sugden) were often objects of Jonson’s scorn as in Epigr. 97 (‘the Eltham thing’), Burse, 223, Epicene, 5.3.47–8, and Staple, 3.1.59. For Drebbel, see Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 4.183–5; Harris (1961); Colie (1954), 253–9; and Augurs, 75n.
83 Mathematician’s Astrologer’s (OED, 2).
83 perspicil lens, optic glass, telescope. Cf. Staple, 1.1.6.
84 Rosy Cross’s Rosicrucian’s. This mystical sect emerged in Germany in the early seventeenth century, following the doctrines of Christian Rosenkreuz (supposedly 1378–1484). They believed in magical writing concealed in biblical texts, numerology, alchemy, and so on. Rosicrucianism created major controversy in England between 1614 and 1620. See 171–2n.; cf. Fort Isles, 24n.; Staple, 3.2.99, 4.2.34; and Und. 43.72.
84 intelligence The Herald puns on (1) information (OED, 7a); (2) understanding, or the faculty of understanding (OED, 1 and 2). To demonstrate the intelligence of a member of the Rosicrucians who live next door to a castle in the air (171) is to have neither accurate information nor understanding.
85 neat elegant. Cf. Discoveries, 1325: ‘Pure and neat language I love’.
85 clean clear, free from anything that dims lustre or effects transparency (OED, a., 1). The image of poetry’s powers as unclouded or transparent contrasts with the inefficient and uncertain optical instruments employed by the philosophers, astrologers, and charlatans.
87 uncertainties Things not definitely known (OED, 2c).
92–3 dog . . . thorns Standard props for the man in the moon. Cf. MND, 3.1.46–7 and 5.1.134–5. The man, sometimes seen as Cain, was banished to the moon either for gathering wood on a Sunday or for stealing the thorns. H&S cite a 1601 entertainment which included ‘the man in the moon with thorns on his back’.
95 in . . . expectation in what situation would you and your assumption be; that is, he would look credulous.
96 stale . . . moon The conventional stage props for the man in the moon (ensign = conventional sign, emblem: OED, Ensign, 3). See 92–3n.
96 stage’s] Wh; Stages, F2
98 again’ against.
100 belike perhaps.
106 found . . . inhabited A classical idea espoused by Heraclitus and Pythagoras among others; it was accepted by Kepler, although Galileo remained more cautious (Galileo, 1880; Nicolson, 1948, 27–8). Galileo’s discoveries of the similarity of the moon’s and earth’s surfaces stimulated the debate. The implications are stressed in Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621): ‘if it be so, the earth is a moon, then are we also giddy, vertiginous, and lunatic within this sublunary maze’ (Burton, 1989, 1.66).
108 polities governments, political organizations (OED, Polity, 2a); often used to describe city-states.
111 wapentakes] F2 (Weapontakes)
111 Hundreds and wapentakes Two archaic measures of land. A hundred was the subdivision of a county which could hold its own law courts; a wapentake was an equivalent area of a county. Some English counties retained this Danish division of the shire. F2’s spelling ‘weapontakes’ is etymological.
111 cony-ground rabbit warrens.
121 travel] F2 (travaile)
121 travel F2’s spelling, ‘travaile’ (= work, effort), emphasizes the pun. Cf. Burse, 39–40, ‘they studied little and travailed less’, said of returning travellers.
125–33 Discoveries, 513–19, explores the same territory and uses the same quotation (132–3), linking poetic style to manliness and, in the case of some ostentatious poetic forms, to those who pursue ‘singularity’ of fashion. H&S argue that the ‘Women’s poets’ in Discoveries, 515 refers to Daniel, but Evans, Masques, 136, argues that in the present passage it may mean Middleton, who claimed his Inner Temple Masque (1619) was ‘made for ladies’ (Middleton, 2007, 1324). This possibility is strengthened by Middleton’s hostile allusion to Jonson as a ‘silenced bricklayer’ in the same text (Limon, 1994, 512). Here the discussion of the gendering of poetry is more general and connected to the vision of a world of confused gender (224–9).
127 woman’s tailor Womens’ tailors were associated with sexual and financial excess (cf. East. Ho!, 1.2.39–49) and were often seen as effeminate (cf. ‘nine tailors makes a man’, Tilley T23) and unmanly (Shepherd, 1992, 17–21).
130 he Horace, whose Odes are cited immediately after.
130 Pindar Greek lyric poet (518–c.446 bc), the model poet of heroic verses for an aristocratic audience (OCD).
130 monte . . . amnis like a torrent rushing down from the stream: Horace, Odes, 4.2.5.
131 flow] F2 (state 2); flow, F2 (state 1)
132–3 Unidentified quotation; perhaps an invention.
135–6 remnant . . . pattern The Herald picks up on the Factor’s commercial language from haberdashery (remnant = scrap of cloth), with puns equating poetry and cloth (‘whole piece’, ‘pattern’). Cf. the discussion of ‘the fashion of play-making’ in The Roaring Girl (1611), Epistle.
141 greatest fattest.
142 Edinburgh] F2 (Endenburgh)
142 Edinburgh o’foot Jonson had walked to Scotland’s capital in 1619–20: see Donaldson (1992), Sanders (2003), and Knowles (2006).
142 restive refusing to go forwards, intractable (OED, 3). ‘Restive’ is usually applied to horses, so the application to a poet is comic.
143 set out put into print (OED, Set, v., 149j).
144 Like Likely.
144 all i.e. all his information. The Herald makes the poet sound like the news factor.
144–5 he will] F3; he he will F2
145 set out (1) publish; (2) reveal the names of (his informants); (3) translate (his sources) (Orgel). ‘Set out’ could also mean ‘lay out money’, as in a wager (cf. 148); Donaldson (1992), 14–15, argues that Jonson had a bet with Sir William Craven that he could accomplish the journey.
148 poet’s horse Pegasus.
150 Endymion’s way Lucian’s A True Story tells how some travellers, whose boat has been lifted up to the moon in a whirlwind, meet the king of the moon who explains to them ‘that he too was a human being, Endymion by name, who had once been from our country in his sleep, and on coming there had been made king of the land’ (Lucian, 1913, 261).
151 Menippus] F2 (Minipus)
151 Menippus Greek satirist (third century bc); used by Lucian as a character in his satires, notably Icaromenippus, or the Sky Man, but also associated with the Roman satirist Varro. According to Renaissance critical thought, Menippean satire used ‘salted jestings, and powdered, merry conceits of good words to make men laugh, and to discover . . . vicious men’ (T.W., A Pleasant Satire, 1595, 2B1).
152 then the] H&S; The the F2; The F3
152 Empedocles’ In Icaromenippus, Menippus meets Empedocles, the philosopher, who had thrown himself into Etna’s crater and been blown up to the moon where he lived on dew (Lucian, 1915, 291).
153 Etna] F2 (AEtna)
153 sere dry, withered.
153–4 whift him up i.e. carried him up on a puff of air (OED, Whiff, v., 2a).
155 soot and embers In Icaromenippus, Empedocles looks like a cinder and is ‘covered with ashes and all burned up’ (Lucian, 1915, 289).
155 coal-pit mine.
159 motions movements.
160 lunatic (1) mad; (2) from the moon (luna = moon, Lat.).
161 Pythagoreans . . . fishes Pythagoras’ disciples were enjoined to silence while novices in the religion. Cf. Poet., 4.3.112, and Epicene, 2.2.2. Cf. Tilley F300: ‘as mute as fishes’.
161 Pythagoreans] F2 (Pythagorians)
161–84 This anti-Protestant satire has specific origins in Jonson’s trip to Edinburgh and in events leading to the 1621 Scots parliament. The Scottish church was in turmoil over the King’s insistence on the 1618 Articles of Perth (which required submission to Anglican forms such as kneeling in church), and repressive measures were instituted, including the seizure of seditious tracts, and the banishment of David Calderwood. Edinburgh congregations were in dispute with their ministers, riven by accusations of Anabaptism, and apocalyptic responses to the 1618 comet flourished. There emerged at least one conventicle (‘private meetings of good Christians . . . who convened to deplore the iniquity of the law’, as Calderwood claims), led by Nicholas Balfour (a woman), and at Easter 1621 twenty Edinburgh women sat and refused to kneel for communion. See Calderwood (1842–9), 7.355–457, esp. 361, 380–1, 425, 449, 457; Brown (1992), 94–6.
164 dew o’th’moon See 152n.
164 grasshoppers Pliny, Natural History, 325, explains that mouthless grasshoppers ‘have a certain sharp, pointed thing in their breast . . . and with it they suck and lick in the dew’.
165 Doppers Anabaptists (from Dutch dooper, dopper = dipper, baptist). Anabaptists believed in adult baptism by total immersion. Cf. Staple, 3.2.123ff., where the staple’s first customer is a ‘she-Anabaptist’.
168 walkers (1) someone who pursues a certain line of conduct (OED, Walker, sb1, 4, cites a 1680 sermon describing ‘a close walker, that waits upon God in an humble and obedient fashion’); cf. OED, Walk, v.1, 6a, chiefly a religious expression, following the metaphorical path of the Bible; (2) a fuller (OED, Walker, sb.2), a suitable profession for someone who believes in baptism by immersion. To ‘full’ is both to cleanse and thicken cloth, but also to baptise (OED, v.1, v.3).
168 hum and ha A whining vocal pitch associated with puritan sermons: cf. ‘a sober drawn exhortation of six hours, whose better part was the “hum-ha-hum”’ (Bart. Fair, 1.3.75–6).
168 prophesy interpret or expound the Scriptures, utter divine mysteries and edifying communications (OED, 1c); applied esp. to puritan gospelling. Puritans often held ‘prophesyings’ in which the Bible was expounded by those claiming divine inspiration (cf. OED, Prophesying, esp. b). Cf. the ‘prophet’ in Pan’s Ann., 99.
169 start . . . stools stand on the pews in their religious fervour (stool = pew, see OED, Stool, 1b). Possibly also the simple stool is used because they are outwith the established church.
170 college fellowship or association, here, religious (originally Catholic but could be applied to any religious group, OED, 1a); there was, in fact, a sect of ‘collegians’ founded in Holland in 1619 (OED, Collegians, 3). Also possibly a parody of the mystical institutions described in imaginary narratives, e.g., ‘The College of the Six Days Works’ (Salomon’s House) in Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627; written c. 1620) (Bacon, 2002, 471, 486–8).
171–2 castle . . . print The castle is depicted in Theophilus Schweighardt, Speculum Sophicum Rhodostauroticum (1618): see Fort Isles, 56–9n., and Illustration 96. H&S cite a Latin tract that labels the print ‘Vide collegium suspensum in libero aere’.
171 lantern] F2 (lanthorne)
175 zealous fervent (connoting puritanical zeal) (OED, 1a).
175–6 groaning . . . Edinburgh Cunningham suggests a reference to the zealous, presbyterian women of Edinburgh (like Jenny Geddes during Charles I’s reign) who ‘groaned’ in the High Street. Presbyterians and other non-Episcopalian protestant ‘painful professors’ groaned in public worship to signal earnest contendings of the spirit. Cf. the ‘sichs and sobbis’, ‘grones’, ‘mones’, and ‘cairfull cryes’ in Lady Melville’s Ane Godlie Dreame (1603). There may also be a jest about being in labour (OED, Groaning, vbl. n., 2: the lying-in for and after childbirth).
179 mistress’ eyes] F2 (mistresse-eyes)
180 sublunary earthly (lit. ‘below the moon’); possibly a reference to Donne, ‘A Valediction Forbidding Mourning’, 13.
183 meteors comets (OED, 2a). Comets had been an important news item in October to November 1618 with the appearance of the ‘blazing star’ and the consequent scientific controversy: see Introduction, and Knowles (2000), 90, 132. Cf. Lovers MM, 72–4, where the transformed lovers ‘burn / On earth / For others’ good’.
183 squibs Fireworks that usually finish with a small explosion (OED, 1a). This may be another Jonsonian joke against apocalypticism.
191 moon-calves congenital idiots (OED, Moon-calf, 1c).
191 by this by this time (OED, By, 21b).
198–201 coaches . . . China-wagons Sail-powered carts were an often-cited feature of Chinese life; see Van Linschoten (1999), 54 (from Itinerario, ch. 24). H&S note they are also depicted on the map of China in Ortelius, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.
203 Hyde Park A central London park preserved for royal hunting. It became a fashionable place for driving, especially by coach, and socializing (see Staple, Prol., 14) (Sugden, 259). Parks and coaches could also be places for sexual encounters: hence ‘do’ = have sex (205). Cf. Marylebone Park in The Roaring Girl, 5.5 (ed. Knowles and Giddens, 255, 399n.).
204 hiding concealing.
208 carmen carters, carriers (of goods).
208 break (1) unload; (2) stop (= brake).
209 over go over, run over.
209–10 there . . . here On the moon, a carman’s life is as held as cheap as any carman (‘he’) holds a child’s life in this world.
211 skirr fly; implying the whirring sound accompanying the movement (OED, 2).
212 wry bent, distorted.
214 new wells Mineral wells were discovered at Epsom, Surrey, in 1618 (see Sugden, 181).
216 Tunbridge Mineral springs were discovered near Tunbridge, Kent, by Lord North in 1606 (Sugden, 528).
216 Spa] F2 (Spaw)
216 Spa A town near Liège, Belgium; famous for its hot mineral springs (Sugden, 476).
217 broken scattered.
218 Isles of Delight Perhaps an echo of Lucian’s A True History which describes the travellers’ arrival at the paradisal Isle of the Blest (Lucian, 1913, 275), although the emphasis upon ‘delight’ seems more bodily, recalling Spenser’s ‘Idle Lake’ and its island, or Acrasia’s floating islands (Faerie Queene, 2.6.11, 2.12.11).
223 bawbee A Scots coin ‘originally equivalent to three, and afterwards to six, pennies of Scotch money, about a half-penny of English coin’ (OED).
224 Isle . . . Epicenes Hall’s Discovery of A New World (a translation of his Mundus Alter et Idem) includes ‘Double-sex Isle, otherwise called skrat or hermaphrodite isle’, peopled with double-sexed cross-dressers (‘their habits . . . a coaptation of both sexes in one’) (Hall, 1609, 110–11). Lucian’s moon world is also peopled by men who change sex at age twenty-five (Lucian, 1913, 275), and the description of their generation by moonlight (230–2) may echo Spenser’s use of Lucretian and Ovidian creation myths in the figure of Chrysogone who ‘fructifide’ by lying in the sun (Faerie Queene, 3.6.7). Jonson’s satire, however, seems more targeted towards the contemporary concern with male effeminacy and female mannishness, ‘the new hermaphrodites’ ‘not half man, half woman, half fish, half flesh, half beast, half monster, but all odious, all devil’ (Hic Mulier, 1620, C2v, A3v; see also Haec Vir, 1620, and 41n. above). King James was incensed by the issue and ordered the London clergy to preach against women wearing ‘broad-brimmed hats, pointed doublets, their hair cut short or shorn and some of them stilettos or poniards’ (Chamberlain, 1939, 2.286–7).
224 Epicenes] F2 (Epecænes)
225 kinds genders.
225–8 they are  . . . poniards Many of these features were condemned by the king: see 224n.
226 not-heads short-haired (OED, Not, adj. 1b).
227 points tagged ribbon, for attaching doublet and hose.
227 untruss for distinction unlace (themselves) to determine (their) sex.
227–8 laugh . . . down The name of a card game (with a clear sexual implication): cf. Cat., 3.3.208, and TNK, 2.2.152.
228 moonshine moonlight.
228 poniards daggers, stilettos.
229 Epicenes] F2 (Epicænes)
229 moonshine insubstantial things (cf. ‘moonshine in water’ = a proverbial expression for something insubstantial (Tilley M1128), used in Staple, 3.2.56).
234 ’em] F3; ’hen F2
234 volatees Not listed in OED; source (if any) unknown. The name is clearly related to volare (It. and Lat.) = to fly (cf. Florio, 1611, 607). The adj. ‘volant’ = active, nimble, ‘passing rapidly through air, floating lightly’ (OED, 5a) was used in Holland’s translation of Plutarch in the phrase ‘star volant’; Jonson uses ‘volary’ = aviary; see New Inn, 5.2.37. O&S, 1.312, link them with a feather-covered figure in Jones’s designs, based on Vecellio’s drawings of American Indians, but the conception of these figures is also related to ‘Phant’sie’ (Vision, 49; and 8n. above). Gilbert (1948), 193–4, relates this figure to Spenser’s Fancy, clothed in ‘painted plumes . . . / Like as the sunburnt Indians do aray’; his vanity and lightness are symbolized by the feathers and the ‘windy fan’ he carries that ‘in the idle aire he mou’d still here and there’ while ‘dauncing in delight’ (Faerie Queene, 3.12.8). This description could easily apply to the ‘hop’ that characterizes the volatees’ movements.
235 covey group, brood. Normally used of birds such as partridges.
240 Menippus-like See 151n.
240–1 but . . . clears See 257n.
241 presentment (1) formal offering, presentation; (2) a theatrical or dramatic representation (OED, 3, 5a).
243 muses’ heralds See 3n.
246 worthy . . . eye H&S insert ‘of’ here to establish a parallelism between the ‘ear’ and ‘eye’.
246 be of] H&S; be F2
246 race . . . own Cf. Irish, 152–5.
248 speculation (1) astronomical observation; (2) contemplation, profound study. The term is associated with subtle and abstract reasoning on subjects of a deep and abstruse nature (OED, 2b, 4, 6).
248 there] F2 (their)
249 reflected Both classical writing and early modern scientific thought supported the idea of the moon as only reflecting the sun’s light (Nicolson, 1936, 11; Drake, 1983, 36). Here the King functions as a surrogate sun lighting (and enlightening) the court.
253 Truth] Evans; truth F2
253 Truth Danced by Prince Charles. In Renaissance mythography, Truth was the daughter of Time, an allegory that was widely used in royal pageantry and Protestant thought, and had powerful political resonances discussed in the Introduction.
253 Procritus’ Procritus (as Orgel notes) was the Gk. form of the Lat. title princeps iuventutis (leader of the youth), a title used by the son of a Roman emperor, as described in Dio’s Roman History (52.26, 79.17). The iuvenes, youths of military age, were reorganized by Augustus into an educational and social group designed to instil Roman moral values, a military ethos (especially equestrian exercises), and the importance of imperial service (OCD, ‘iuvenes’; Yavetz, 1984, 16–19). The title is a double compliment: to James as the new Augustus, and to Charles as a leader of youth. Its military associations tilt the masque towards a more aggressive stance, in line with the Prince’s views, while containing them within the King’s order. The military tenor also responds to the more strident militarism of texts such as Middleton’s Inner Temple Masque.
254 music . . . peace Possibly an untraced quotation, used in King’s Ent., 659, Irish, 132, and Pan’s Ann., 55–6; the phrase associates the Jacobean peace with celestial harmony.
255 resolve melt.
256 colder region The highest region of the universe was supposedly hot and dry due to its proximity to the stars, and the earth was hot and moist, but the middle region ‘is always cold; yet surely in its own nature it would be warmer then the region which is here below, were it not cooled by a cold occasioned by a reflection of the sunbeams: for they, reflecting on the earth, drive up above the beams of their reflection much cold from below’ (John Swan, Speculum Mundi, 1635, L3). The moon was also regarded as cold and moist (Thomas Tymme, Dialogue Philosophical, 1612, H4). See also Johnson (1937), 45.
257–322 Jonson stages a royal masque of Truth: see Introduction and 253n. H&S suggest that the masquers were Knowledge, Harmony, and Fame, although only Fame clearly alludes to herself (306), and she is a singer, not a masquer. It is possible that the first song was sung by Knowledge and the second by Harmony, as these mention their defining qualities (268, 284), but the third song remains unattributable.
257 In the absence of any designs it is difficult to envisage the staging of this moment, but the 1619 masque had used a split-level stage (O&S 100), much as had been employed in many previous masques, such as Love Freed (Illustration 57). The Second Herald’s remark that ‘all ’twixt it and us / Thus clears’ (240–1) may point to the use of a traverse or machina ductilis (shutters) to provide a ‘discovery’ in line with the masque’s main idea. Possibly O&S 101, a cloud scene that has been linked with the 1619 masque (Butler, 2007), may belong to this text. The SD ‘They descend’ implies a stage set on which the masquers stand or are seated, although the descent may equally be to the dancing place, the floor of the hall. At 304 Fame probably appeared or was discovered above (again in the manner of Love Freed), as mechanical stage descents were only irregularly employed before the 1630s.
257 icicles The accounts include payments for white taffeta cloaks covered with silver lace which may have represented the icicles (Masque Archive, News NW, 5).
267 than] F2 (then)
282 measure (1) standard; (2) a stately dance (Orgel).
284 If 273–84 is sung by Harmony, then this line becomes a graceful tribute to King James. He had been praised in Kepler’s Harmonice Mundi (1619) for uniting his two kingdoms (‘for what else is a kingdom but a harmony’) and as the motivation for Kepler’s search for universal harmonic principles (‘my longings prompted me to look for some basis for reconstructing consonance from your Davidic harp’) (Kepler, 1997, 4). The allusion would carry more force if the song was sung by Harmony, who had previously appeared in Beauty carrying a lyre (Beauty, 181–4; Gilbert, 1948, 117–19).
287–96 The allusion is to Drebbel’s perpetual motion machine (see 80n.). In fact, this machine did not create perpetual motion in the modern sense but appears to have been a perpetual celestial almanac. The illustration in Tymme, Dialogue Philosophical, I3, shows a combined terrestrial globe and celestial globe, with a crystal glass representing the sea and a small globe for the moon’s phases (Harris, 1961, 150–7). Jonson contrasts Drebbel’s false perpetuity with royal power. Jonson may have treated Drebbel unjustly: writing in 1623 De Peiresc told Rubens to ensure he saw the still-operating perpetual motion at Brussels.
293 store plenty. Cf. Gypsies (Burley), 211, 862.
301 speak describe.
303 fame appears.] this edn; not in F2
303 FAME appears See 257–322n.
305 sh] this edn; not in F2
305 sh fame See 257–322n.; Walls (1996), 306. Cf. Queens, 406, and Chlor., 203–6, where Fame flies, a scenic effect that could not have been achieved in 1620. In Chloridia, she appears balanced on a globe, perhaps derived from the iconographic attributes of Fortune, and carries a trumpet (Illustration 118).
322 Envy Not usually treated as a personification by earlier editors, Envy provides the antithesis of Fame. She was usually shown wreathed in or eating snakes, and with sore eyes as loving darkness and hating light, as in Poet., Induction: see Gilbert (1948), 85–8.
322 blot The figurative use ‘sully’ or ‘stain’ is underpinned by a more literal sense in the case of the news culture, where the ink from printing and writing stains reputations or sullies paper with worthless text (OED, v., 1, 2).
322 a note on the masquers The ten masquers included the Marquis of Buckingham, and two lesser courtiers, Humphrey Palmer and James Bowey (Masque Archive, News NW, 5; Butler, 1993).
delight than your belief. But now be pleased to expect a more noble discovery See more
delight than your belief. But now be pleased to expect a more noble discovery See more
Or the See more
Like enough. But to your news gentlemen, whence come See more
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