The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

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  • From Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623), ‘To the Reader’

From Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623), ‘To the Reader’

[From Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, 1623 ]

 To the Reader

This  figure that thou here seest put,

It was for  gentle Shakespeare  cut;

Wherein the graver had a  strife

With nature, to out-do the life.

 Oh, could he but have drawn his wit 5

As well in  brass as he hath hit

His face, the print would then surpass

All that was ever writ in brass.

But since he cannot, reader, look

Not on his picture, but his book. 10

To the Reader First printed directly facing the Droeshout engraving of Shakespeare in Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623); entered in the Stationers’ Register 8 Nov. 1623. [Editor: Colin Burrow]
1 figure engraving.
2 gentle Possibly alludes to Shakespeare’s acquisition of a coat of arms in 1596; Donaldson (1997a), 20–1 takes it as a reference to the steady fluency with which Shakespeare composed.
2 cut Engravings were cut into copper plates (which gives rise to the play on brass as a durable material; see l. 6n.).
3 strife Perhaps deliberately recalling moments when Shakespeare engages with the paragone tradition (formal debates between the arts of painting and writing); see, e.g. Tim., 1.1.1–95 and Ven. lines 291–2.
5–8 Cf. Martial, Epigrams, 10.32.5–6: ars utinam mores animumque effingere posset! / pulchrior in terris nulla tabella foret, ‘If only art could paint his character and mind! There would be no more beautiful painting in the world.’
6 brass Actually copper, but the terms were interchangeable at this date: see Schoenbaum (1970a), 12.