The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

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Ben Jonson’s Sociable Rules for the Apollo, trans. Alexander Brome

 Leges Convivales
Quod felix, faustumque in Apolline sit

1. Nemo  asymbolus, nisi  umbra, huc venito.

2. Idiota insulsus, tristis, turpis, abesto.

3. Eruditi, urbani, hilares,  honesti,  adsciscuntor.

4. Nec lectae foeminae  repudiantor.

5. In apparatu, quod convivis  corruget nares, nil esto. 5

6. Epulae delectu potius, quam sumptu,  parantor.

7.  Opsonator et coquus, convivarum gulae periti sunto.

8. De discubitu non  contenditor.

9. Ministri a dapibus oculati et muti; a poculis auriti, et celeres, sunto.

10. Vina puris fontibus  ministrantor; aut  vapulet hospes. 10

11. Moderatis poculis provocare sodales, fas esto.

12. At fabulis magis, quam vino,  velitatio fiat.

13. Convivae nec  muti, nec loquaces sunto.

14. De seriis,  aut sacris, poti et saturi ne disserunto.

15.  Fidicen, nisi accersitus, non venito.

16. Admisso; risu,  tripudiis, choreis, cantu, salibus, omni gratiarum festivitate, sacra  celebrantor.

17.  Joci sine felle sunto.

18.  Insipida poemata nulla  recitantor.

19. Versus scribere, nullus cogitor.

20. Argumentationis  totus strepitus abesto.

21.  Amatoriis querelis, ac suspiriis, liber angulus esto.

22.  Lapitharum more scyphis pugnare,  vitra collidere, fenestras excutere, supellectilem dilacerare, nefas esto.

23.    Qui foras vel dicta, vel facta, eliminat, eliminator.

24.   Neminem reum pocula faciunto.

 FOCUS PERENNIS ESTO

   Ben Jonson’s Sociable Rules for the Apollo translated by Alexander Brome

Let none but guests or clubbers hither come,

Let dunces, fools, sad, sordid men keep home,

Let learnèd, civil, merry men b’invited,

And modest too; nor the choice ladies slighted.

Let nothing in the treat offend the guests; 5

More for delight than cost prepare the feasts.

The cook and purveyor must our palates know,

And none contend who shall sit high or low.

Our waiters must quick-sighted be and dumb,

And let  the drawers quickly hear and come. 10

Let not our wine be  mixed, but brisk and neat,

Or else the  drinkers may the vintners beat.

And let our only emulation be

Not drinking much, but talking wittily.

Let it be voted lawful to stir up 15

Each other with a moderate  chirping cup;

Let  none of us be mute, or talk too much;

On serious things or sacred let’s not touch

With sated heads and bellies. Neither may

Fiddlers unasked obtrude themselves to play. 20

With laughing, leaping, dancing, jests and songs,

And whate’er else to grateful mirth belongs,

Let’s celebrate our feasts; and let us see

That all our jests without reflection be.

Insipid poems let no man rehearse 25

Nor any be compelled to write a verse.

All noise of vain disputes must be forborne,

And let the lover in a corner mourn.

To fight and brawl (like  Hectors) let none dare,

Glasses or windows break, or hangings tear. 30

Whoe’er shall publish what’s here done or said,

From our society must be banishèd.

Let none by drinking do or suffer harm,

And while we stay, let us be always warm.

Leges Convivales First printed in Daniel Tossanus, Oratio panegyrica (1636), 32–4, who reports the rules of conviviality in his lament for the death of John James Frey (1606–36), who died as dean designate of Armagh. Tossanus describes Frey’s visit to London, and the royal tombs at Westminster Abbey, and continues Ut autem tristibus, aliquid joci admisceam; Londini taberna vinaria est (Apollo ei nomen) famosissima; cujus non usquequaque vituperandae leges convivales, nisi mea memoria decoxit, sunt istae, ‘So that I should intermix something lighter with this sad fare, there is a famous tavern in London, called the Apollo, of which the laws of conviviality (which should never be criticized) are these, unless my memory deceives me.’ Reprinted, along with an English translation in A. Brome, Songs (1661), sigs. d3v-d4v. The Leges were rules for conduct at the Apollo Room, which was upstairs in the Devil and St Dunstan Tavern, a place at which Jonson and close friends met later in the poet’s life (see Illustration 77). See Esdaile (1943). The room drew its name from an anecdote in Plutarch’s Life of Lucullus, 41.5–4: Cicero and Pompey insisted on dining with Lucullus as he would do if he were dining alone. He ordered dinner in the Apollo room, which was the location in which he served his best meals. The rules for the English equivalent of this classical banqueting hall were, according to F3, engraved in marble over the mantelpiece. The marble does not survive, and may have been destroyed when the tavern was demolished in 1788 as part of a development of a row of houses and a bank. A painted panel with light yellow letters on a black ground is still found in the premises of Child & Co. (now part of The Royal Bank of Scotland) in Fleet Street. The panel includes only the ‘Verses Over the Door’ and not the rules themselves. Jonson’s authorship of the Leges is attested by a letter of John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carlton on 19 June 1624 (CSPD 1623–5, 278): ‘I send here certain Leges Convivales of Ben Jonson’s for a fair room or chamber lately built at the tavern or sign of the devil and St Dunstan by Temple Bar’ (quoted in P. Simpson, 1939a). Chamberlain is wrong to describe the chamber as ‘lately built’. Buxton (1953) shows that an MS inscription by Richard Butcher ‘written at the Devil and St Dunstan in the poets’ hall called Apollo’ in a copy of Drayton’s Poems (1619) dated 30 Nov. 1620 refers to the room. Therefore Drayton’s ‘The Sacrifice to Apollo’ (Drayton, The Works, ed. Hebel et al., 1961, 2.357–8) is likely to derive from the Leges Convivales, which probably date from 1619. The frequent echoes of Horace, Epistles, 1.5 and Martial, 10.48 suggest that the Leges as a whole were aimed at turning Latin descriptions of the happy life into injunctions for conviviality. [Editor: Colin Burrow]
1 asymbolus without paying. Cf. ‘Drayton’ (6.161), line 10n.
1 umbra a scrounger, hanger on, or uninvited guest (as in Horace, Epistles, 1.5.28).
3 honesti] Tossanus; modesti A. Brome, Songs (1661)
3 adsciscuntor] Tossanus; adsciscuntur A. Brome, Songs (1664)
4 repudiantor] Tossanus; repudiantur A. Brome, Songs (1664)
5 corruget nares make your nose wrinkle. Cf. Horace, Epistles, 1.5.23.
6 parantor] Tossanus; parentur F3, Dryden; parantur A. Brome, Songs (1664)
7 Opsonator The purchaser of provisions. (The word is used as the title of Martial, 14.218.)
8 contenditor] Tossanus; contenditur A. Brome, Songs (1664)
10 ministrantor] Tossanus; ministrentur F3, Dryden; ministrantur A. Brome, Songs (1664)
10 vapulet let him be thrashed.
12 velitatio battles conducted as though by a veles, or foot-soldier.
13 muti] Tossanus; multi A. Brome, Songs (1661)
14 aut] Tossanus; ac F3
15 Fidicen Lyre-player; but also ‘writer of lyric poetry’ (OLD, 2).
16 tripudiis a dance in triple time (cf. Und. 86.27n.).
17 celebrantor] Tossanus; celebrantur A. Brome, Songs (1664)
17 Cf. Martial, 10.48.21.
18 Cf. Epigr. 101.24.
18 recitantor] Tossanus; recitantur A. Brome, Songs (1664)
20 totus] Tossanus; totius A. Brome, Songs (1661)
21 Brome’s translation is free: ‘Let there be a corner free for the complaints of lovers and their sighs’.
22 Cf. Horace, Odes, 1.18.7–9 and 1.27.1–4. The Lapiths disturbed the wedding of the king of Thessaly by fighting with the centaurs.
22 vitra] Tossanus; vitrea Brome, F3
23 Cf. Horace, Epistles, 1.5.24–5.
23–24 Cf. Epigr. 101.36–42.
24 eliminat] Tossanus; eliminet A. Brome, Songs (1661)
24 Cf. Martial, 10.48.24.
FOCUS PERENNIS ESTO From Martial’s epigram on the good life (10.47.4), which Jonson translated.
Title ‘Ben. Johnsons sociable rules for the Apollo’] A. Brome, Songs translated by Alexander Brome] this edn.
Ben Jonson’s Sociable Rules The text here is modernized from the corrected version in A. Brome, Songs (1664), 324–6.
10 the] A. Brome, Songs (1664); our A. Brome, Songs (1661)
11 mixed diluted.
12 drinkers] A. Brome, Songs (1661); dinkers A. Brome, Songs (1664)
16 chirping merry. (OED cites Christmas, 170, as the first usage in this sense.)
17 none . . . much] A. Brome, Songs (1664); not our Company be, or talk too much A. Brome, Songs (1661)
29 Hectors Braggarts (Brome’s equivalent for the Lapiths and Centaurs of Jonson’s original).