From
Thomas Farnaby’s
Seneca,
1613 The poem
appears in a group of five dedicatory verses printed (unusually) after
the index to Farnaby’s Seneca (
1613). The volume was entered in the
Stationers’ Register 20 Nov. 1612. Jonson’s poem was not reprinted in
the edition of 1624. Translation: ‘The handmill of Plautus gave us
comedies full of holiday language, of the kind that the muses themselves
would have wished to speak, if they had wanted to speak Latin. The toils
of Farnaby in the treadmill of the classroom polished the Latin
tragedies which the muses should hear, which the gods should declaim,
and which men should read to their benefit, once the oil-lamp of
Farnaby’s scholarship (worthy of Cleanthes himself!) gave light to these
works. For he pumps out lakes of water by night, and pores over
classical authors and scholarly works, so he could carry on his paid
work by day. And having done that, Farnaby, our wise, accurate, acute,
and admirably brief commentator, poured out these notes.’
[Editor: Colin Burrow]
1 mola Titus Maccius Plautus (
c. 254–184
bc) was poor when he came to Rome, and is said
by
Aulus Gellius
(3.3.14) to have written three of his comedies while turning a
hand-mill (
trusatilis) for a baker.