The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

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Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1618)

Edited by Martin Butler

INTRODUCTION

Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue was performed in the Whitehall Banqueting House on Twelfth Night 1618. This was the first occasion on which Prince Charles danced as principal masquer (he had previously appeared only as the minor figure Zephyrus in Samuel Daniel’s Tethys’ Festival, 1610). For the seventeen-year-old prince, Jonson devised an educational fable based on several of the myths associated with Hercules, in his Renaissance guise as the hero renowned for his superhuman strength and dedication to virtue. The central motif is the story of ‘Hercules at the crossroads’. In this fable, first recorded by Xenophon (see 167–7n.), Hercules hesitates between rival pathways marked out as the routes to Vice and Virtue; the course of his future life is determined by his decision to follow Virtue and avoid Vice. To this Jonson added unrelated stories associated with Hercules’ adventures in North Africa: his search for the apples of the Hesperides, his defeat of the inhospitable Lybian monster Antaeus and Antaeus’s brothers the pygmies, and his encounter with Atlas, here imagined as a living mountain upholding the heavens – the very embodiment of the discipline and labour that virtue requires. Details for these episodes were taken from the Imagines of Philostratus, and the Bibliotheca of Diodorus Siculus (see 69n., 110n., 143n., 145–61nn.).

Jonson presented Hercules’ heroic striving as a model for the young prince of what the active life should be, though he tempered the picture by representing the hero at leisure, enjoying the relaxation he had earned once he defeated his enemies. He thus accommodated the fable to the festive occasion, and developed it thematically by replacing Vice in Xenophon’s story with Pleasure. This allowed him to imply that the virtuous life did not necessitate an austere rejection of the world, but that secular delights were consistent with virtue if they were enjoyed moderately. The virtuous man could have his pleasures, so long as he refrained from overindulgence and kept his moral bearings intact. This truce between virtue and pleasure allowed Jonson to insinuate a broader critique of court values, for it effectively put the conduct of court festivity itself under scrutiny, and the habits of wastage and conspicuous consumption that were so central to it. These habits the masque embodied in the figure of Comus, god of revelry. Against inherited iconographic tradition, Jonson depicted Comus not as an elegant youth but as a rollicking Rabelaisian sensualist (see 1n.); his enjoyment of bodily pleasures is amusing, but Hercules judges such self-indulgence to be monstrous and in need of controlling. There was thus a tension in the masque, not readily resolved, between the robust delights provided by Comus and the code of self-discipline that the fable propounded. Moreover, many spectators must have been aware that behind this concern with personal restraint and the policing of pleasure lay real financial pressures, for in the winter of 1617–18 the crown was nearly bankrupt and Whitehall was in the middle of its most determined economy drive for a generation. Just days before the performance Lord Treasurer Cranfield had instituted reforms designed to curtail the wastefulness that was traditionally deemed necessary to princely magnificence, by cutting back excess spending in the royal household (see Butler, 1994). By implying that Christmas pleasures had to be taken with one eye on self-control and another on cost, Jonson’s critique cut against some of the fundamental principles of Stuart court life.

The literary quality and ethical seriousness of Pleasure Reconciled have long been admired by critics, but its performance was a disaster, and a sheaf of newsletters (collected in the Masque Archive) testify to a mood of disappointment among the audience that is unmatched for Jonson’s other masques. Both Jonson and Jones came in for humiliating criticism from spectators who expected something more stupendous for this first important showcase for the Prince. Neither the scenery nor the fable seems to have pleased. Edward Sherburn told Sir Dudley Carleton that ‘Master Inigo Jones hath lost in his reputation’, for ‘some extraordinary device was looked for’ but ‘a poorer was never seen’. Jonson’s invention was judged ‘dull’ by John Chamberlain, and Nathaniel Brent, more unkindly, said the masque was ‘not worth the relating, much less the copying out. Diverse think fit [the poet] should return to his old trade of brick-laying again’ (Masque Archive, Pleasure Rec., 11, 12). It seems likely that spectators who the previous year had enjoyed the multiple scene-changes and fanciful antimasques of The Vision of Delight found the stagecraft – a single opening and closing set – comparatively unambitious, while the alterations that Jonson made for the Shrovetide repeat performance (see below) imply that the antimasques had been found inadequate and not worth reviving. Nor was the evening helped by sicknesses that were afflicting the royal family. The Queen was absent from the performance, and although the King came, his enjoyment was hampered by tiredness resulting from a long-standing illness. At the height of the revels, according to the circumstantial account left by Orazio Busino, chaplain to the Venetian embassy, the performance flagged and James lost patience, shouting out ‘Why don’t they dance? What did you make me come here for? Devil take all of you, dance!’ At which point, writes Busino, Buckingham ‘sprang forward, cutting a score of high and very tiny capers, with such grace and lightness that he made everyone admire and love him, and also managed to calm the rage of his angry lord’ (Masque Archive, Pleasure Rec., 19). By this dazzling intervention, Buckingham rescued something from the evening and confirmed his status as Whitehall’s most able courtier. It is difficult not to feel, though, that his success in pleasing the King was achieved at the cost of compromising the masque’s ideas about pleasure’s necessary economic and moral connection with virtue.

The masque was scheduled to be repeated on Shrove Tuesday (17 February), and Jonson partially redeemed his reputation by replacing some of the opening antimasques with a new action, For the Honour of Wales (the rest of the masque was replayed unchanged). This presented a group of chauvinistic Welshmen who attempted to repair the damage that had been done to their prince on Twelfth Night. They petitioned the King to visit Wales as he had recently visited Scotland, and defended the dignity of their country and its traditions in the face of the disgrace they had received. This new device allowed Jonson to respond combatively to his critics, making light of their complaints, and appealing to audience solidarity against figures stereotyped as comic intruders unfamiliar with Whitehall. Even so, the court response was mixed. Sir Gerard Herbert said the revision was ‘much better liked than Twelfth Night’, but John Chamberlain thought it ‘scarcely bettered’ and Nathaniel Brent declined to send Carleton a transcript (Masque Archive, Wales, 1, 2, 3).

The Welsh topic additionally allowed Jonson to extend his exploration of the iconography of British identity that the early masques had broached. He ransacked Camden’s Britannia for details of Welsh customs and topography, and thickened the dialogue with borrowings from Camden’s work on the history and etymology of Welsh place names, which he consulted in Philemon Holland’s English translation, 1610 (some of Jonson’s errors in the orthography of Welsh names correspond with misprints in that edition). A few extra details not present in Britannia must have come from another source: probably he was using Itinerarium Cambriae (‘The Journey through Wales’) and Descriptio Cambriae (‘The Description of Wales’) by the medieval historian Giraldus Cambrensis, texts which Camden had himself edited in an anthology printed at Frankfurt, Anglica, Hibernica, Normannica, Cambrica, a veteribus scripta (1602). But Jonson must also have had access to some specialist advice on Wales, for his characters speak a dialect which – though confusingly rendered by the printer – accurately corresponds to early modern Welsh. Perhaps in composing this masque he had linguistic help from a Welsh friend, such as Hugh Holland (who was born in Denbighshire), or from a friend of a friend such as Camden or John Hoskyns (who was the dedicatee of a book of Welsh poetry, Henry Perry’s Egluryn phraethineb, 1595). In the 1630s Jonson was still sufficiently interested in the Welsh language to acquire a Welsh grammar (see Jonson’s Library, and Literary Record, Electronic Edition).

Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue and For the Honour of Wales were both printed in the second folio. F2 is necessarily the copy-text for Wales, but its text of Pleasure Reconciled is inferior in many respects to an early manuscript copy in the Duke of Devonshire’s collection at Chatsworth (JnB 691). This was written by the professional scribe Ralph Crane at around the time of performance, probably for a performer or spectator who wished to have a souvenir of the occasion, and it is the copy-text for this edition. Some of Inigo Jones’s costume designs have been preserved for both masques (see Illustrations 73–5), though no music survives for either.

[Illustrations 73-5: Inigo Jones costume designs for Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue.
These images cannot be reproduced online. They can be consulted in the printed edition of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson (ISBN 9780521782463)]

Although Pleasure Reconciled failed to please in 1618, it had a significant literary afterlife, for Milton’s decision to make the central character of his Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle (1634) a dangerous pleasure-loving figure called Comus seems to hark back deliberately to Jonson. Milton cannot have read Pleasure Reconciled in print, but he could have seen a manuscript copy like Crane’s, or heard details of it through his composer, the court musician Henry Lawes. Even if in many ways Milton’s masque sets itself in opposition to the tradition of court festivity that it imitates, occasional echoes of Jonson’s language (noticed in the commentary) suggest that Milton’s acquaintance with Pleasure Reconciled was more than merely hearsay.

 

PLEASURE RECONCILED TO VIRTUE
  A masque
As it was presented at court before King James,   1618

 The   scene the mountain   Atlas,   his top ending in the figure of an old man, his head and beard

all hoary and frost, as if his shoulders were covered with snow, the rest wood and rock. A   grove

of ivy at his   feet, out of which, to a   wild music of cymbals, flutes, and   tabors, is brought forth

  COMUS, the god of cheer, or the Belly, riding in triumph; his head crowned with roses and

other flowers,   his hair curled; they that wait upon him crowned with ivy, their   javelins done 5

about with it; one of them going with   Hercules’   bowl   bare before him, while the rest   present

him with this     song.


 Room, room, make room for the bouncing Belly,

First father of sauce and deviser of jelly,

Prime  master of arts and the  giver of wit,10

That found out the excellent engine, the spit,

The plough and the  flail, the mill and the  hopper,

The  hutch and the  bolter, the furnace and  copper,

The oven, the  bavin, the mawkin  and peel,

The hearth and the range, the  dog and the wheel!15

He, he first invented  both  hogshead and tun,

The  gimlet and vice too, and taught ’em to run,

And  since, with the funnel,  an  hippocras bag

 He’s made of himself, that now he  cries swag;

Which shows, though the pleasure be but of four inches,20

Yet he is a   weezle, the gullet that pinches

Of any delight, and not spares from  the back

Whatever to make of the belly a sack!

Hail, hail, plump paunch, O the founder of taste

For fresh meats or  powdered, or pickle, or paste;25

Devourer of broiled,  baked, roasted, or  sod,

And emptier of cups, be they  even or odd;

All which have now made thee so wide i’the waist

As scarce with no pudding thou art to be  laced,

But eating and drinking until thou dost nod,30

Thou  break’st all thy girdles, and break’st forth a god.

To this, the

 

BOWL-BEARER:

Do you hear, my friends? To whom  do you sing all this now? Pardon me only

that I ask you, for I do not look for an answer; I’ll answer myself. I know it

is now such a time as the  saturnals for all the world, that every man  stands 35

under the eaves of his own hat, and sings what please him; that’s the   rite and

the liberty of it. Now you sing of god Comus here, the Belly-god; I say it is

well, and I say it is not well. It is well as it is a ballad, and the Belly worthy

of  it, I must needs say, an ’twere forty yards of ballad  more – as much ballad

as  tripe. But when the Belly is not edified by it, it is not well; for  where did 40

you ever read or hear that the Belly had any ears? Come, never  pump for an

answer, for you are defeated. Our fellow Hunger there, that was as ancient a

retainer to the Belly as any of us, was turned away for being  unseasonable –

not unreasonable, but unseasonable – and now is he, poor thin-gut, fain to

get his living with teaching of  starlings, magpies, parrots, and jackdaws those 45

things he would have taught the Belly. Beware of dealing with the Belly; the

Belly will not be talked to, especially when he is full.  There is no venturing

upon   Venter, then; he will blow you all up, he will thunder, indeed, la. Some

in derision call him the   Father of Farts; but I say he was the first  inventor of

great ordnance, and taught us to  discharge  ’em on festival days. Would we 50

had a fit feast for him, i’faith, to show his  activity! I would have something

  now fetched in to please  his five senses, the throat, or the two senses, the eyes.

Pardon me for my two senses, for I that carry  Hercules’ bowl i’the service may

see double by my place, for I have  drunk like a frog today. I would have a  tun

now brought in to dance, and so many bottles about  it. Ha! You look as if you 55

would make a problem of this.  Do you see a problem? Why  bottles, and why

a tun? And why a tun, and why bottles to dance? I say that men that drink

hard and serve the Belly in any place of quality – as The  Jovial Tinkers, or  The

Lusty Kindred – are living  measures of drink, and can transform themselves,

and do every day, to bottles or tuns when they please. And when they ha’ 60

done all they can, they are, as I say again – for I think I said somewhat like

it afore – but moving measures of drink, and there is a  piece i’the cellar can

hold more than all they. This will I make good, if it please our new god    to

give a  nod; for the Belly  does all by signs, and I am all for the Belly, the truest

 clock i’the world to go by. 65

Here the

     

first antimasque

 [of bottles and a tun. HERCULES

wrestles with ANTAEUS], after which,

HERCULES

 What rites are these?  Breeds Earth more monsters yet?

 Antaeus scarce is cold; what can beget

This  store?  And  stay, such  contraries upon her? 70

Is Earth so fruitful of her own dishonour?

Or ’cause  his vice was inhumanity,

Hopes she  with vicious hospitality

To work an expiation first? And then –

Help, Virtue! – these are sponges, and not men. 75

Bottles? Mere vessels? Half a tun of paunch?

How, and the other half thrust forth in  haunch?

Whose feast? The Belly’s? Comus? And my cup

Brought in to fill the drunken orgies up,

And here abused, that was the crowned reward 80

Of thirsty   heroes after labour hard?

Burdens and shames of nature, perish, die!

For yet you never lived, but  in the sty

Of vice have wallowed, and in that swine’s strife

Been  buried under the offence of life. 85

 Go, reel and fall under the load you make,

Till your swollen bowels burst with what  they take.

Can this be pleasure, to extinguish man,

Or so quite change him in his  figure? Can

The belly love his pain, and be content 90

With no delight but what’s a punishment?

These monsters plague themselves, and fitly too,

For they  do  suffer what and all  they do.

But here must be no shelter, nor no shroud

For such. Sink, grove, or vanish into cloud! 95

 

After this the whole grove

 

vanisheth, and

 

the whole music

 

is discovered sitting at the foot

of the mountain, with PLEASURE and VIRTUE seated above them. The

 

CHOIR

 

invite

Hercules to rest with this song.

Great friend and servant of the good,

Let cool awhile thy heated blood, 100

And from thy mighty labour cease.

Lie down, lie down,

And give thy troubled spirits peace,

Whilst Virtue, for whose sake

Thou dost this godlike travail take, 105

May of the choicest  herbage make,

 Upon this mountain bred,

A crown, a crown

For thy immortal head.

Here Hercules being laid down at their feet, the

 

second antimasque, which

 

is of

 

PYGMIES,

110
 

appears.

first pygmy

  Antaeus dead, and Hercules yet live!

Where is this Hercules? What would I give

To meet him now! Meet him? Nay, three such other,

 If they had hand in murder of our brother! 115

 With three? With four? With ten? Nay, with as many

As the name yields! Pray anger there be any

Whereon to feed my just revenge, and  soon.

How shall I kill him? Hurl him ’gainst the moon

And break him in small portions? Give to Greece 120

His brain, and every tract of earth a piece?

SECOND PYGMY

  He is yonder.

FIRST PYGMY

Where?

THIRD PYGMY

At the hill foot, asleep.

FIRST PYGMY

Let one go steal his  club.

SECOND PYGMY

My charge, I’ll creep.

FOURTH PYGMY

 He’s ours.

FIRST PYGMY

Yes, peace.

THIRD PYGMY

Triumph, we have him, boy.

FOURTH PYGMY

Sure, sure, he is sure.

FIRST PYGMY

Come, let us dance for joy. 125

They dance;

 

at the end whereof they

think to surprise him, when suddenly being

 

waked by

the music

 

and rousing himself, they all run into holes.

Song

CHOIR

 Wake Hercules, awake! But heave up thy  black eye;

’Tis only asked from thee to look, and these will die, 130

Or fly.

Already they are fled,

Whom scorn had else left dead.

At which

 

MERCURY

 

descendeth from the hill, with a garland of

 

poplar to crown him.

MERCURY

Rest still, thou active friend of Virtue! These 135

Should not disturb the peace of  Hercules.

Earth’s worms and honour’s dwarfs, at too great odds,

 Prove or provoke the  issue of the gods.

See here a crown the agèd hill hath sent thee,

My  grandsire Atlas, he that did present thee 140

With the best sheep that in his fold were found,

Or golden fruit  on the Hesperian ground,

For rescuing his fair  daughters, then the prey

Of a rude pirate as thou cam’st this way;

And taught thee all the  learning of the sphere, 145

And how, like him, thou might’st the  heaven upbear,

As that thy labour’s virtuous recompense.

He, though a mountain now, hath yet the sense

Of thanking thee for more, thou being still

Constant to goodness, guardian of the  hill; 150

Antaeus, by thee suffocated here,

And the voluptuous Comus, god of cheer,

Beat from his grove, and that defaced. But now

The time’s arrived that Atlas told thee of, how

 By unaltered law, and working of the stars, 155

There should be a cessation of all jars

’Twixt Virtue and her noted opposite,

Pleasure; that both should meet here in the sight

Of  Hesperus, the glory of the west,

The brightest star that from his burning crest 160

Lights all on this side the Atlantic seas,

As far as to thy  pillars, Hercules.

See where he shines: Justice and Wisdom placed

About his throne, and those with Honour graced,

Beauty, and Love. It is not with his brother 165

Bearing the world, but ruling  such another

Is his renown.  Pleasure, for his delight,

Is reconciled to Virtue, and this night

Virtue brings forth twelve princes have been bred

In this rough mountain, and near Atlas’ head, 170

The  hill of knowledge;  one and chief of whom

Of the bright race of Hesperus is come,

Who shall in time the same that he is be,

And now is only a less light than he.

These now she trusts with Pleasure, and to these 175

She  gives an entrance to the Hesperides,

Fair Beauty’s  gardens; neither can she fear

They should grow soft or  wax effeminate here,

Since in her sight and by her charge all’s done,

Pleasure the servant, Virtue looking on.180

Here the whole choir of music

 

call the twelve masquers forth from the

   

lap of the mountain,

which

 

now opens with this song.

CHOIR

 Ope, agèd Atlas, open then thy lap,

And from  thy  beamy bosom strike a light,

That men may read in thy mysterious  map 185

All lines

And signs

Of royal education, and the right.

See how they come and show,

That are but born to know. 190

Descend,

Descend,

 Though Pleasure lead,

Fear not to follow;

They who are bred 195

Within the hill

Of skill,

May safely tread

What path they will;

No  ground of good is hollow. 200

In their descent from the hill

,  

DAEDALUS

 

comes down before them, of whom Hercules

 

demands Mercury:

HERCULES

 But Hermes stay a little, let me pause.

Who’s this that leads?

MERCURY

A guide that gives them laws

To all their  motions, Daedalus the wise. 205

HERCULES

And doth in sacred harmony comprise

His precepts?

MERCURY

Yes.

HERCULES

They may securely  prove

Then any labyrinth, though it be of love.

Here, while they put themselves in

 

form, Daedalus

 

hath his first song.

Come on, come on; and where you go, 210

So  interweave the  curious  knot,

As ev’n th’observer scarce may know

Which lines are Pleasure’s, and which not.

First figure out the  doubtful way

At which awhile all youth should stay, 215

Where she and Virtue did contend

Which should have Hercules to friend.

Then, as all actions of mankind

Are but a labyrinth or maze,

So let your dances be entwined, 220

Yet not perplex men  unto gaze;

But  measured, and so  numerous too,

As men may read each act  you do,

And when they see the graces meet,

Admire the wisdom of your feet. 225

For dancing is an exercise

Not only shows the movers’ wit,

But maketh the  beholder wise,

As he hath power to  rise to it.

 

First dance. After which Daedalus again:

230
 

Second Song

Oh, more, and more! This was so well

As praise wants half his voice to tell.

Again yourselves  compose,

And now put all the aptness on 235

Of  figure, that  proportion

Or colour can disclose;

That if those silent arts were lost,

 Design and picture, they might boast

From you a newer  ground, 240

Instructed  to that  height’ning sense

Of dignity and reverence

In  your true motions found.

Begin, begin; for look,  the fair

Do longing listen to what air 245

You form your second  touch,

That they may  vent their murmuring hymns

Just to the  tune you move your limbs,

And wish their own were such.

Make haste, make haste, for this 250

 The labyrinth of beauty is.

The second dance. That ended, Daedalus:

Third Song

It follows now you are to  prove

The subtlest maze of all, that’s Love, 255

And if you stay too long,

The fair will think you do ’em wrong.

Go choose among – but with a mind

As gentle as  the stroking wind

 Runs o’er the gentler flowers. 260

And so let all your actions smile,

As if they meant not to beguile

The ladies, but the hours.

Grace, laughter, and discourse may meet,

And yet the beauty not  go less; 265

For what is noble should be sweet,

But not dissolved in wantonness.

 Will you that I give the law

To all your sport, and  sum it?

 It should be such should envy draw, 270

But  ever overcome it.

Here they

 

dance with the ladies, and the whole revels

 

follow; which ended, Mercury

 

calls to

   

him in this following speech, which

 

is after repeated in song by two trebles, two tenors, a bass,

and the whole chorus.

Fourth Song

275

An eye of looking back were well,

Or any murmur that would tell

Your thoughts, how you were sent,

And went

To walk with Pleasure, not to  dwell. 280

These, these are hours by Virtue spared

Herself,  she being her own reward,

But she will have you know

That though

Her sports be soft, her life is hard. 285

You must return unto the hill

And  there advance

With labour, and inhabit  still

That height and crown,

From whence you ever may look down 290

Upon  triumphèd Chance.

 She, she it is in darkness shines,

’Tis she that still herself  refines

By her own light to every eye,

More seen, more known when Vice stands by. 295

And though a stranger here on earth,

In heaven she hath her right of birth;

There, there is Virtue’s seat.

Strive to keep her your own;

’Tis only she can make you great, 300

Though place here make you known.

After which they

 

dance their last dance

 

and return into the scene, which

 

closeth and

 

is a

mountain again as before.


 THE END


 This pleased the King so well as he would see it again, when it was presented with these  additions.

Title A . . . 1618] F2; not in JnB 691
1618] 1619 F2
1 The . . . Atlas] four lines, centred, JnB 691; two lines F2
1 scene] JnB 691; Scene was F2
1 Atlas In mythology, one of the Titans, fabled to support the sky on his shoulders. Identified with the Atlas mountains in north-west Africa, as in Virgil’s Aeneid, 4.246–51: ‘Atlas, that dour mountain which props the sky with his summit; Atlas, his pine-bristled head for ever enwrapped in a bandeau of glooming cloud . . . Snow lies deep on his shoulders, and watercourses plunge down that ancient’s chin, while his shaggy beard is stiff with ice’ (trans. C. Day Lewis, 1952). Hercules encountered Atlas while he was searching for the apples of the Hesperides (see 143n. below). Atlas offered to fetch them if Hercules would hold the sky for him; on returning, he refused to resume his burden, but Hercules found a trick that forced him to take it back. Jonson uses the hill to symbolize the laborious life of virtue (see 171n. below), but it may be relevant to the masque’s subsidiary themes that Ovid claims Atlas’s transformation into a mountain was a punishment for failing in hospitality (Met., 4.639–56). Orazio Busino’s eyewitness account (see Masque Archive) says that Jones’s design personified the mountain as a giant, with a head and eyes that moved, and the dialogue in Wales (121) implies it had a grey beard. This recalls the ambitious plans of some Renaissance princes for carving hills into colossal human forms, and particularly the famous figure representing Mount Apennine in the garden of Pratolino, near Florence. The traveller Fynes Moryson described this as the ‘statua of a giant, with a curled beard, like a monster, some forty-six ells high, whose great belly will receive many men at once’; Prince Henry’s plans for his uncompleted gardens at Richmond included a colossus three times the size of Pratolino’s (Strong, 1979, 78, 98). Later, in Carew’s Coelum Britannicum, Jones would depict Atlas more conventionally, as a kneeling giant holding a globe on his back (Orgel and Strong, 2.566).
1 his] JnB 691; WHO had his F2
2 grove For similar stage arrangements, cf. Campion’s Lord Hay’s Masque (1607) and The Lords’ Masque (1614).
3 feet This indicates a split-level staging, since the masquers will emerge from the mountain’s ‘lap’ (178).
3 wild disorderly; unlike the main masque’s harmonious music. Cf. Love Freed, 1–2.
3 tabors small drums; like cymbals and flutes, associated with Bacchic orgies. Cf. the kettledrum that is used in the antimasque for Pan’s Ann., 76.
4 COMUS God of banquets and revelry. He is depicted in Philostratus’s Imagines (‘Images’; 1.2) as a drowsy youth, flushed with wine and garlanded with roses, details that are repeated in Cartari’s Le imagini de i dei de gli antichi (‘Images of the Gods of the Ancients’; Gilbert, 1948, 70). But the attributes of Jonson’s Comus owe more to Rabelais’s grotesque figure Gaster, in Gargantua and Pantagruel, bk 4, chs 57–62. Gaster personifies the stomach, and is worshipped by the Gastrolaters, who sacrifice vast quantities of food to him. A design by Jones (Illustration 73; Orgel and Strong, 1.284–5) shows Comus as a pot-bellied man reclining in a chariot, drawn along by his followers. Busino described Comus as ‘a very chubby Bacchus’. Jonson’s masques of 1616–25 often feature a fat or pot-bellied character, and it is possible that Comus was played by the actor William Rowley, who specialized in outsize roles (see Christmas, Introduction; and Augurs, 17n., Neptune, 4n., Fort. Isles, 34n.). If so, Comus was the only such role that was not a speaking part.
5 his hair curled Curled hair is also a feature of Comus in Milton’s Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle: ‘I’ll find him out / And force him to restore his purchase back, / Or drag him by the curls to a foul death’ (Complete Shorter Poems, ed. J. Carey, 1971, 605–8).
5 javelins The thyrsus, or light spear wreathed with ivy, was carried by devotees of Bacchus. See Euripides, Bacchae, 25–6. One appears in the carved gem mentioned in Oberon, marginalia n.3.
6 Hercules’] JnB 691 (Hercules); Hercules his F2
6 bowl Hercules was often characterized as a great drinker and depicted holding a cup. Cartari (1581), 288, shows him thus (Gilbert, 1948, plate 59), and Plutarch describes Alexander ‘drinking up Hercules’ cup all at a draught’ (Life of Alexander, 75). H&S compare Herrick’s ‘Hymn to Bacchus’: ‘I have drunk up for to please / Thee, that great cup Hercules’ (Poems, ed. Martin, 1956, 122). There was also a tradition that Hercules crossed the ocean in a huge cup given to him by the sun, discussed in Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 11.781d, 469c–170d, and Macrobius, Saturnalia, 5.21.16 (Peterson, 1981, 130–3). At the English court, the cup-bearer was a minor but conspicuous royal servant, whose post involved waiting on the king at mealtimes. George Villiers was appointed cup-bearer in 1614, one of the earliest marks of James’s favour towards him.
6 bare Given that the figure carrying the bowl is the bowl-bearer, it seems likely that ‘bare’ is an acceptable seventeenth-century preterite form of ‘borne’. Alternatively, it could mean ‘bare-headed’ (a sign of respect to Comus or King James), but the previous clause says that the revellers were crowned with ivy, and 35–6 explains that during the Saturnalia men have no need to show respect to their superiors and can keep their hats on.
6 present] JnB 691; presented F2
7 song F2 calls it a ‘Hymne’, and it is possible that ‘song’ was substituted by Ralph Crane when he wrote out the manuscript (see Textual Essay). Perhaps Jonson wished to position the praise of Comus as a religious ritual, answered by the ‘hymns’ (246) sung to virtue in the main masque (cf. OED, 2a, ‘an ode or song of praise in honour of a deity, a country, etc.’). For another masque organized as a ritual, see Pan’s Ann.
7 song] JnB 691; Hymne F2
8 Room The traditional call for space to perform made by mummers. Cf. Owls, 1.
10 master of arts Rabelais calls Gaster the ‘premier maistre es ars du monde’ (title to bk 4, ch. 57). He devotes two chapters to explaining how the belly is the source of human ingenuity, and invented every art, trade, machine, and craft, including husbandry, milling, grinding, baking, clocks, carts, and transportation, all for the sake of making and distributing bread. However, the ultimate source for calling the belly ‘master of arts’ is Persius, Prologue to the Satires, 10–11: Magister artis ingenique largitor / venter, ‘that great teacher of art and bestower of mother-wit, the stomach’ (trans. J. Conington, 1998). See 46–7n. below.
10 giver of wit Perhaps an echo of Falstaff, who is ‘not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men’ (2H4, 1.2.11).
12 flail hinged stick used in threshing.
12 hopper funnel, through which grain passes into a mill.
13 hutch bolting-hutch; the bin that catches the bran after sifting (cf. 1H4, 2.4.450: ‘that bolting-hutch of beastliness’).
13 bolter cloth used for sifting grain.
13 copper boiling pot.
14 bavin . . . peel All material used in bakers’ ovens: bavin is brushwood bundled ready for firing, the mawkin is the cleaning mop, and the peel is a long-handled shovel, for placing and removing loaves.
14 and] JnB 691; the F2
15 dog . . . wheel mechanism for roasting meat: a spit turned by a dog walking inside a wheel.
16 both] JnB 691; the F2
16 hogshead, tun liquor casks, holding around 50 and 250 gallons, respectively.
17 gimlet, vice boring-tool and tap, for broaching the casks.
18 since since then.
18 an] JnB 691; and F2
18 hippocras bag conical cloth bag, used as a strainer for hippocras (= wine mixed with spices; named after the Greek physician Hippocrates).
19 He’s] h’has JnB 691; H’as F2
19 cries swag ‘Proclaims himself a swag-belly, with his hanging paunch’ (H&S). Cf. Oth., 2.3.78: ‘your swag-bellied Hollander’.
21 weezle An obsolete spelling of ‘weasand’, i.e. the gullet or windpipe, as in G. Peele’s David and Bethsabe: ‘The mastiffs of our land shall worry ye, / And pull the weezles from your greedy throats’ (cited in OED, Weezle, 1). It was also used for the epiglottis; OED, 2, cites Florio’s dictionary (1598), ‘Epiglotti, the cover or wesill of the throat’. Alternatively, though less plausibly, Jonson might be referring figuratively to the weasel, an animal known for its ferocious appetite; cf. Tub, 1.6.13–14, ‘Wherefore did I, sir, bid him / Be called, you weasel, vermin of an usher?’ Whichever interpretation is correct, the meaning seems to be that the gullet will not stint its pleasures, whether they are only small (‘but of four inches’) or will put a strain on the back (by increasing the size of the belly). Perhaps there is a reminiscence of Cesare Ripa’s description of Gola (Gluttony) as a woman with a neck like a stork, her neck being extended because she wishes to enjoy the taste of her food as long as is possible (Ripa, Iconologia, 1603, 193). There are also bawdy overtones in the mere ‘four inches’ of pleasure and the strain to the back that the gullet creates.
21 weezle] Foakes; weesell JnB 691, F2; weasel Wh
22 the] JnB 691; this F2; his F3
25 powdered salted.
26 baked] JnB 691; back’d F2
26 sod boiled.
27 even or odd in whatever quantity. For the ancient superstition that to drink an even number of cups was unlucky, see Plautus, Stichus, 706–7.
29 laced tied around. A pudding would be sausages in a string.
31 break’st . . . god make yourself manifest as a god. There is a verbal play on the physical breaking of girdles, and the implication that Comus is anarchic (cf. Lear, 1.4.222, ‘Breaking forth in rank and not-to-be endured riots’).
32 BOWL-BEARER A sketch by Jones, possibly for the bowl-bearer, shows a drunken Silenus figure, holding a cup and supported by two attendants. It is based on an engraving of an antique sarcophagus, by Marcantonio Raimondi, whose images Jonson also drew on for Oberon (Illustration 74; Orgel and Strong, 1.292).
33 do] JnB 691; did F2
35 saturnals Saturnalia, the Roman mid-winter feast; a time of general merry-making and misbehaviour.
35–6 stands . . . hat keeps his hat on (with its brim resembling the eaves of a house). Court servants would normally go bare-headed out of reverence to the king.
36 rite] JnB 691 (ryte); right F2
36 rite F2 has ‘right’, but the reading of the manuscript seems preferable, given ‘rites’ at 67.
39 it,] Wh; it JnB 691; it; F2
39 more –] Orgel; more: JnB 691; more, F2
40 tripe (1) rubbish; (2) intestines (hence suitable for the Belly).
40–1 where . . . ears In Gargantua, it is said that ‘Gaster was created without ears’ (Rabelais, trans. Urquhart and le Motteux, ed. Lewis, 1929, 2.220).
41 pump labour.
43 unseasonable Because Hunger belongs to Lenten entertainments. Cf. Christmas, 67; and the figure Fasting Day in Middleton’s Masque of Heroes (1619).
45 starlings . . . jackdaws birds that imitate human speech. Rabelais, 2.221, says Gaster turned starlings, magpies, parrots, and jackdaws into poets. Again, there is a common source in Persius, Prologue, 8–11: Quis expedivit psittaco suum chaere / picamque docuit nostra verba conari? / Magister artis ingenique largitor / venter, negates artifex sequi voces, ‘Who was it made the parrot so glib with its “Good morning”, and taught magpies to attempt the feat of talking like men? That great teacher of art and bestower of mother-wit, the stomach, which has a knack of getting at speech when nature refuses it’ (trans. J. Conington). Persius’s point is that even the poorest talkers will turn themselves into poets if they expect there is some hope of reward.
47 There] JnB 691; then there F2
48 Venter, then] JnB 691; Venter, F2
48 Venter Belly (Lat.); with a pun on ‘emitter’, which leads into the discussion of Comus’s spectacular power of breaking wind.
49 Father of Farts] F3; father of farts JnB 691, F2
49 Father of Farts (parodying the conventional description of the devil as Father of Lies).
49–50 inventor . . . ordnance Rabelais, 2.228–9, says Gaster invented cannons and weapons of war, for the sake of protecting his corn. Jonson transfers the claim to the festival custom of firing ordnance to mark special days on the calendar (such as the anniversary of Elizabeth’s accession, which was always celebrated with cannon and bonfires). Festivals are celebrated by firing ordnance in imitation of the Belly’s flatulence.
50 discharge A verb equally appropriate to farting and firing ordnance.
50 ’em] JnB 691; them F2
51 activity (1) holiday skills (as in Christmas, 248); (2) feats of farting.
52 now fetched in] F2; fetchd in, now JnB 691
52 now fetched in The manuscript has a different idiom (‘fetched in now’), but F2’s reading is supported by the recurrence of ‘now brought in’ only two lines later.
52 his five . . . throat Unexplained; maybe an instance of Rabelaisian exaggeration? Rabelais writes of a filly being ‘scared out of her seven senses’ (2.134). The eyes could be ‘two senses’ (52) because they are double.
53 Hercules’] JnB 691, F2 (Hercules); Hercules’s F3
54 drunk . . . frog Possibly proverbial, though the commoner idiom would be ‘drunk like a fish’.
54 tun great wine cask.
55 it] JnB 691; him F2
56 Do . . . see] do you see? JnB 691; doe you see? do you see? F2
56–7 bottles, . . . tun? . . . tun, . . . bottles] G; bottles? . . . tun? . . . tun? . . . bottles? JnB 691 (subst.), F2
58–9 Jovial . . . Kindred H&S think ‘The Jovial Tinker’ was a song, but these are more probably names of taverns; ‘any place of quality’ is ironical.
58–9 The Lusty Kindred] Gifford/C (subst.); a lusty kindred JnB 691; the lusty kindred F2
59 measures quantities.
62 piece cask.
63 to] JnB 691; but to F2
63–4 to give a nod ‘But’ or ‘merely’ is implied before ‘to give’, as supplied by the compositor of F2.
64 nod; . . . signs,] Gifford/C; nod: . . . signes: JnB 691; nod, . . . signes; F2
64 does . . . signs ‘He only speaks by signs; but those signs are more readily obeyed by everyone than the statutes of senates, or commands of monarchs’ (Rabelais, 2.220).
65 clock ‘So we find in Plautus a certain parasite . . . railing at the inventors of hour-glasses and dials, as being unnecessary things, there being no clock more regular than the belly’ (Rabelais, 2.235). Rabelais refers to a Plautine fragment preserved in Aulus Gellius, 3.3.5. Also proverbial: Tilley B287a, and Err., 1.2.66–7.
64 nod; . . . signs,] Gifford/C; nod: . . . signes: JnB 691; nod, . . . signes; F2
66 first antimasque Sir Edward Harwood wrote to Dudley Carleton that the antimasque was ‘little boys dressed like bottles, and a man in a great tun which the bottles drew out, and tossed to and fro; not ill liked’ (Masque Archive, Pleasure Rec., 9).
66 first] F2; .I. JnB 691
66–7 of . . . antaeus] this edn; not in JnB 691, F2
68 HERCULES Classical hero distinguished by his superhuman strength, as manifested in his twelve ‘Labours’, and the other miraculous feats that he performed. In the Renaissance, he was often treated as the exemplary figure of active virtue, albeit one whose heroism was complicated by human flaws, such as drink and sexual appetite.
68 Breeds . . . yet Because Earth was the mother of Antaeus, by Neptune.
69 Antaeus A giant living in Libya, who compelled strangers to wrestle with him and killed them all. Contact with his mother Earth gave Antaeus his strength, but Hercules – who met him when returning from the Hesperides – defeated him by lifting and crushing him in the air. Philostratus (Imagines, 2.21) describes Antaeus as huge, black, and muscle-bound. Busino’s eyewitness account of the masque says that, after the dance of bottles, Hercules was shown wrestling with Antaeus; this is confirmed by line 151 below, and by the reference to ‘Lantaeus’ in Wales, 156.
70 store abundance.
70 And stay,] Foakes; (& stay) JnB 691, F2 (subst.)
70 stay what!
70 contraries monsters; hybrids.
72 his Antaeus’s. Antaeus, who affronted strangers, is a negative exemplum of hospitality; by breeding drunkards, the Earth repeats his crime.
73 with] JnB 691; by F2
77 haunch buttock.
81 heroes] F2; Heröes JnB 691
81 heroes The manuscript has a diaresis (Heröes) which may be one of Ralph Crane’s characteristic sophistications (see Textual Essay), though Jonson did sometimes treat ‘heroe(s)’ as trisyllabic. Cf. Epig. 133.163, and Horace, 162. H&S note other examples in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, 1.11.6, and Chapman’s Hesiod (1619), 9. However, the scansion here does seem to require a disyllable.
83–4 in the sty . . . wallowed A reminiscence of the myth of Circe (Homer’s Odyssey, 10), who had the power of turning men into swine. Cf. also Und. 75.153–4, and Love’s Tr., 83. This may be echoed in Milton’s Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle, 77: ‘To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty’ – though Milton perhaps had other intermediate sources, such as Grylle in Spenser’s Faerie Queene, 2.12.86–7 (the victim of Acrasia who prefers being a pig to being a man); or Ham., 3.4.91–4, ‘Nay, but to live / In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, / Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love / Over the nasty sty!’
85 buried . . . life A frequent trope in Jonson’s non-dramatic poetry. See Epigr. 11.5, 62.11–12, 64.9–10; Und. 70.40; Love’s Tr., 79–82; and Harp and Stewart (2000), 126–7.
86 Go,] JnB 691; Goe F2
87 they] JnB 691; you F2
89 figure likeness.
93 do . . . do ‘are pained by what they are doing now, and by all that they do’ (Foakes).
93 suffer] JnB 691; suffer; F2
93 they do.] JnB 691; the doe, F2
96 After] JnB 691; At F2
96 vanisheth] JnB 691; vanished F2
96 the whole music all the musicians.
96 is] JnB 691; was F2
97 CHOIR Busino’s narrative says the singers were dressed like priests, with gowns and mitres. This was a common convention in masques, used for, example, in Pan’s Ann., and Beaumont’s Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn (1613).
97 invite] JnB 691; invited F2
106 herbage vegetation.
107 Upon] JnB 691; Here on F2
110 second] F2; 2. JnB 691
110 is] JnB 691; was F2
110 PYGMIES In Philostratus’s Imagines, 2.22, the pygmies are described as children of Earth, living in the ground; an army of pygmies attempts to revenge their brother Antaeus’s death by assaulting Hercules while he is resting after the wrestling match, but on waking he easily defeats them. Busino’s eyewitness account says they were played by twelve masked boys, ‘like so many frogs’. The pygmies’ attack on Hercules is an icon of foolish overambition in Alciato’s Emblems (1531), no. 58, reprinted in Geffrey Whitney’s Choice of Emblems (1586).
111 appears] JnB 691; appeared F2
112 first pygmy] JnB 691 (1. Pigmee), F2 (1. Pigmie)
115 If Even if.
116–17 With three . . . yields The Hercules cult absorbed stories from many different cultures, and ancient writers speak of the Egyptian Hercules, the Greek Hercules, and so forth. Cicero (The Nature of the Gods, 3.16) mentions six Herculeses (H&S).
118 soon.] after G; soone, JnB 691; soone: F2
122 second pygmy] 2 Pig. JnB 691, F2 (subst.)
122–5 SHs] JnB 691, F2 list as 1. 2. 3. 4.
123 club A traditional iconographic attribute of Hercules.
124 He’s] F2; he is JnB 691
126 They . . . think] JnB 691; At the end of their dance they thought F2
126 waked] JnB 691; awak’d F2
127 and rousing] JnB 691; he rowsed F2
129 SH] not in JnB 691, F2
129 black eye I have been unable to trace any iconographic associations for the colour of Hercules’ eyes. Probably Jonson uses ‘black’ as a sign of Hercules’ fierceness towards his enemies the pygmies. Cf. ‘the black-eyed Greeks’ in Chapman’s translation of Homer’s Iliad (1598), 1.385; and cf. OED, Black 8 (‘deadly’) and 10 (‘gloomy, baleful’).
134 MERCURY Herald of the gods, and god of wit and eloquence. Philostratus (2.21) describes Mercury crowning Hercules after his conquest of Antaeus, though he says the crown is sent from the gods, not from Atlas.
134 descendeth] JnB 691; descended F2
134 poplar Sacred to Hercules, who was supposed to have introduced it into Greece. See Theocritus, 2.121; Virgil, Eclogues, 7.61, Georgics, 2.66, Aeneid, 8.275; Pausanias, 5.14.2; and Spenser, The Faerie Queene, 2.5.31.
136 Hercules.] F2; Hercules, JnB 691
138 Prove Make trial of.
138 issue descendants.
140 grandsire Mercury’s mother, Maia, was the daughter of Atlas (Horace, Odes, 1.10.1; Virgil, Aeneid, 8.138–41).
142 on] JnB 691; in F2
143 daughters the Hesperides, who guarded a golden tree in their garden, usually said to be located between the Atlas mountains and the western ocean. Hercules’ final labour was to collect apples from the tree. Diodorus Siculus, calling them daughters of Atlas, says they were abducted by pirates sent by one of Hercules’ enemies, the Egyptian king Busiris. Hercules killed the pirates and returned the Hesperides to Atlas, for which Atlas rewarded him, either by assisting his labour or with a gift of sheep (Bibliotheca, 4.27). The sheep are Diodorus’s attempt to rationalize the fable’s symbolism, since in Greek ‘sheep’ and ‘apples’ are the same word, mela. He says the Hesperides ‘possessed flocks of sheep which excelled in beauty and were therefore called for their beauty, as the poets might do, “golden apples”, just as Aphrodite is called “golden” because of her loveliness’ (Bibliotheca, 4.26.2–3).
145 learning . . . sphere Diodorus explains that the myth that Atlas upholds the heavens is a metaphor to express skill in astronomy, and that historically Atlas was the first man to discover the spherical arrangement of the stars. Hercules taking over the heavens from Atlas symbolizes the spread of astronomical learning to Greece (3.60.2, 4.27.5).
146 heaven] JnB 691; heavens F2
150 hill;] F2; Hill. JnB 691
155 By unaltered] Foakes; b’vn-alterd JnB 691, F2 (subst.)
159 Hesperus The evening star, used here as a figure for King James. Diodorus describes him as Atlas’s brother (see line 165), or alternatively as a son who was swept up to heaven from the top of Mount Atlas while he was observing the stars (4.27.1, 3.10.3). His daughter, Hesperis, was mother of the Hesperides.
162 pillars The promontories on either side of the straits of Gibraltar, supposedly built by Hercules at the entrance to the Mediterranean to indicate the westward limits of the world. See Diodorus, 4.18.4–5; and cf. Neptune, 2.
166 such another Alluding to the idea, originating with Virgil and prominent in the iconography of Union, that Britain was a world by itself. See King’s Ent., 39n.
167–8 Pleasure . . . Virtue Xenophon’s Memorabilia, 2.1.21–34, reports the fable of the Choice of Hercules written by Prodicus the Sophist. When Hercules was approaching manhood, he withdrew into a quiet place and meditated on which road to take in life. Here he was confronted by two women, who identified themselves as Virtue and Happiness. Happiness – whose name was really Vice – urged him to follow the short and easy path of pleasure, but Virtue advised him that earthly delights were superficial, and that honour, great deeds, and a respected old age would only be achieved with toil and effort. In the Renaissance, the story was frequently retold and illustrated, for its value as an educational fable or as a symbolic narrative concerning moral choice. See Panofsky (1931); Wind (1958), 78–88; and Peterson (1975).
171 hill of knowledge An ancient emblem for the difficulty of virtue, or intellectual pursuit. H&S compare Hesiod, Works and Days, 286–92: ‘Badness can be caught in great abundance, easily; the road to her is easy and she lives near by. But Good is harder, for the gods have placed in front of her much sweat; the road is steep and long and rocky at the first, but when you reach the top, she is not hard to find.’ See also Donne’s third Satire, 79–82.
171 one and chief Prince Charles.
176 gives] F2; give JnB 691
177 gardens] JnB 691; garden F2
178 wax effeminate lose their manliness by overindulgence in sexual pleasure.
181 call] JnB 691; call’d F2
181 lap] JnB 691; top F2
181 lap (probably) middle part, between the ‘feet’ (3) and the head. OED, n.1 5b offers ‘lap’ as ‘a hollow among hills’, but has no examples of this usage before 1745, in the developing cult of the picturesque. Without Jones’s design it is hard to be more precise, but Busino’s narrative indicates that some aspects of the mountain were anthropomorphic, so it might have had some approximation to a human lap. It is symptomatic that the compositor of F2 read ‘lap’ as ‘top’.
182 now opens] JnB 691; then opened F2
183 SH] not in JnB 691, F2
184 thy] JnB 691; the F2
184 beamy radiant. Busino reports that two doors opened in the mountain, and revealed a view of a distant landscape with the day dawning above it.
185 map The language figuratively acknowledges the appropriation of Atlas’s name in the sixteenth century to mean a volume of maps. OED, n.1 3 (probably following Brewer), explains that the association came about when Mercator used an image of Atlas on the title-page of his collection, and it chimes with the symbolic interpretation that understood the Atlas myth as expressing the spread of astronomical knowledge, hence his ‘mysterious map’ (see 145n. above).
193 Though . . . lead Virtue sends the masquers (169) and they return to her at the end (286), but for the duration of the festival they are followers of Pleasure (see 175, 280). Busino reports seeing a goddess in a long white robe, and she may have been Pleasure, though her part in the action does not quite correspond to the text, which suggests that the masquers were led out by Daedalus (205). There are several divergences between Busino’s account and the text. Some of these may be lapses of memory, though details that Busino adds in, such as Antaeus and this goddess, indicate that the masque as performed differed in some respects from the published text.
200 ground (1) principle; (2) foundation (on which one builds or treads). See also 240n.
201 DAEDALUS Legendary artist and craftsman, whose ingenious inventions included the artificial wings with which he escaped from imprisonment but which caused the death of his son, Icarus. He also built the Minotaur’s labyrinth in Crete, hence his role as leader of the masque’s intricate dances (203–5, 214). H&S note that Conti’s Mythologia (1581), 732, explains the Cretan labyrinth as a symbol of the perplexities of human life. A costume sketch by Jones (Illustration 75; Orgel and Strong, 1.293) shows Hercules (with his club), Daedalus (wearing his wings), and Mercury (with his caduceus). Daedalus is markedly smaller than the other figures, so perhaps Jones expected his role to be sung by a boy. Busino says that Daedalus accompanied himself on the guitar. Possibly he meant the lute, but the guitar was popular at the Spanish and French courts at this time, and was known in England by some musicians, for example the composer and lutenist Nicholas Lanier (information from Dr James Tyler). Lanier seems to have played the ‘guittara’ in Gypsies (Burley and Windsor), 48; and compare the citterns (an instrument closely related to the guitar) mentioned in Epicene, 3.5.48, Vision, 85.
201 comes] JnB 691; came F2
202 demands] JnB 691; questioned F2
203 SH] F2; not in JnB 691
205 motions movements; dance steps.
207 prove See 138n.
209 form i.e. their first ‘figure’, the symmetrical arrangement adopted by the body of dancers. Busino says the masquers initially danced in the shape of a pyramid; for the pyramid as a symbol of fame, see Queens, 324, 378.
209 hath] JnB 691; had F2
211 interweave] F2 (state 2); enter-weaue JnB 691, F2 (state 1, subst.)
211 curious intricate; exquisite; skilful.
211 knot crossing lines in a design or pattern.
214 doubtful way uncertain path; referring to Hercules’ choice between the diverging roads of Vice and Virtue (167–8n. above).
221 unto gaze into bewilderment.
222 measured regular; in metrical groups or ‘measures’.
222 numerous rhythmical (Latin, numerosus); composed of numbers, proportioned units.
223 you] JnB 691; they F2
228 beholder] JnB 691; beholders F2
229 rise to it A neoplatonic view of dance: the measures do not merely give pleasure but lead the spectator towards the divine harmonies which they embody (Lindley, Court Masques).
230 First] JnB 691 (1.); The first F2
231, 253, 275 Second (Third, Fourth) Song] Song. 2. (3., 4.) JnB 691
234 compose adopt positions.
236 figure (1) bodily posture; (2) section of a dance (not recorded in OED before 1636).
236–7 proportion, colour Orgel glosses these as ‘architecture’ and ‘painting’, respectively, but these meanings are not supported by OED, and Jonson elsewhere uses ‘proportion’ to refer to visual relationships within the painted image (see Discoveries, 1103). Jonson seems to be urging the masquers to make their performance as visually harmonious as they can, according to the principles of physical ratio and chromatic contrast. They thereby embody a capsule version of the whole system of pictorial art.
239 Design . . . picture The conception and accomplishment of visual representation. When Jonson fell out with Jones, he especially disparaged the term ‘design’: ‘Expostulation’, 6.378, line 56; Discoveries, 813n. Cf. Gordon (1975), 89–90; Gent (1981), 8–9.
240 ground fundamental principles of knowledge; in painting, the underpainting or background on which the main picture is laid. A similar thought to this passage occurs at New Inn, 3.2.65–70.
241 to that] JnB 691; by the F2
241 height’ning] F2 (subst.); heighting JnB 691
243 your] JnB 691; their F2
244 the fair the ladies.
246 touch attempt; act.
247 vent . . . hymns The women are imagined expressing their admiration for the performers to the tune of the men’s dance. For ‘hymns’, cf. 7n. above.
248 tune] JnB 691; F2 (word omitted)
252 second] F2; .2. JnB 691
254 prove See 138n.
259 the stroking wind For the idiom, cf. Catullus, 62.41: quem mulcent aurae.
260 Runs That runs.
265 go less be worth less. The phrase recurs at Volp., 3.5.37, but with a quite different meaning.
268 The manuscript and F2 agree in their reading of this line, but the metre reads awkwardly, as if an auxiliary verb, such as ‘should’, has dropped out after ‘I’. Alternatively, a hefty pause may be indicated by the punctuation ‘you, that’ in the MS.
269 sum summarize.
269 sum it] JnB 691, F2 (some-it)
271 ever] JnB 691; F2 (word omitted)
272 dance] JnB 691; Danced F2
272 follow] JnB 691; followed F2
272 calls] JnB 691; cald F2
273 him] F2, JnB 691; DÆDALUS G; them conj. Orgel
273 him Daedalus seems to be implied; however, the ensuing song is really addressed to the body of the masquers.
273 is] JnB 691; was F2
280 dwell Cf. Forest 2.102.
282 she . . . reward Proverbial: Tilley, V81.
287 there] JnB 691; their F2
288 still] F2; still. JnB 691
291 triumphèd Chance conquered Fortune – imagined as a captive that Virtue has enslaved. Cf. Queens, 518.
292–5 She . . . by Perhaps echoed in Milton’s Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle, 372–4: ‘Virtue could see to do what Virtue would / By her own radiant light, though sun and moon / Were in the flat sea sunk.’ There is a further similarity between the close of Jonson’s masque and the epilogue to Milton’s: ‘Mortals that would follow me, / Love Virtue, she alone is free. / She can teach ye how to climb / Higher than the sphery chime; / Or is Virtue feeble were, / Heaven itself would stoop to her’ (Complete Shorter Poems, ed. J. Carey, 1968, 1017–22).
293 refines clarifies.
302 dance] JnB 691; Danced F2
302 and return] JnB 691; returned F2
302 closeth] JnB 691; closed F2
302 is] JnB 691; was F2
305–6 the end This . . . additions.] F2; not in JnB 691
a note on the masquers: The masquers were Prince Charles, the Marquises of Buckingham and Hamilton, the Earl of Montgomery, Sir Thomas and Sir Charles Howard, Sir William Irwin, Sir Gilbert Haughton, Abraham Abercromby, John Achmouty, Roger Palmer, and ‘one Carr’ (presumably Sir Robert Kerr of Ancrum). The same group danced in Wales.
306 additions i.e. For the Honour of Wales. This statement was probably added by the editor of F2, though it might be authorial, if Jonson did any work towards preparing his later masques for publication (see the Textual Essay). Its claim about the royal reaction to the first performance is entirely misleading.
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