The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

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To the Most Noble, and Above His Titles, Robert, Earl of Somerset (1613)

  To the Most Noble, and Above His Titles, Robert, Earl of Somerset

They are not those are present with their face

And clothes, and gifts, that only do thee grace

At these thy nuptials; but whose heart and thought

Do wait upon thee, and their love not bought.

Such wear true wedding robes, and are true friends, 5

That bid  ‘God give thee joy’ and have no   ends;

Which I do,  early, virtuous Somerset,

And pray thy joys as lasting be as great.

Not only this, but every day of thine,

With the same look, or with a better, shine. 10

May she, whom thou for spouse, today, dost take,

 Out-be that wife, in worth, thy friend did make;

 And thou to her, that husband, may exalt

Hymen’s amends, to make it worth his fault.

So be there never discontent or sorrow 15

To rise with either of you on the morrow.

So be your concord still as deep, as mute,

And every joy in marriage turn a fruit.

So may those marriage pledges comforts prove,

And every birth increase the heat of love. 20

 So in their number may  you never see

Mortality, till you  immortal be.

 And when your years rise more than would be told,

Yet neither of you seem to th’other old.

That all that view you then, and late, may say, 25

 ‘Sure, this glad pair were  married but this  day.’

Autograph copy in JnB 529 preceded by a MS note in a seventeenth-century hand: ‘These verses were made by the aucthor of this booke, and were delivered to the Earle of Somersett vpon his Lo: pps wedding day: they are written by his owne hande’
TITLE Robert, Earl] Robert ʌCarrʌ, Earl JnB 529 The insertion is in a later hand
6 ‘God . . . joy’] this edn; God . . . ioy, JnB 529
To Robert, Earl of SomersetJonson’s autograph manuscript (first printed in Anon., 1852) is pasted into a copy of F2 which was once in the possession of Henry Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle (the son of William Cavendish, Jonson’s patron), British Library, shelfmark C.28.m.11. This volume may once have been Carr’s; see Braunmuller (1991), 242. Robert Carr (1585/6?–1645), the favourite of James I, was created Earl of Somerset on 13 Nov. 1613, and married Frances Howard, Lady Essex, at a sumptuous wedding on 26 Dec. 1613, which is vividly described in Chamberlain, Letters, 1.495–500. Frances Howard had had her marriage to the Earl of Essex annulled in 1613 on the grounds of his impotence. Rumours had circulated that she had plotted to poison him (D. Lindley, 1993, 50–1). The marriage was to become the most notorious of its age: a sequence of trials from 1615–16 eventually found that Thomas Overbury had been poisoned in Sept. 1613 for his resistance to the match. Rumours about this did not begin to carry weight until summer 1615, although suggestions of underhand doings surfaced from 1614 (Bellany, 2002, 71). Somerset and his wife were not detained until 17 Oct. 1615, well after this poem’s composition. Lines 1–5 imply that Jonson was not present at the wedding, although he composed Challenge and Irish to celebrate the match. The autograph MS is folded as though it was delivered as, or enclosed within, a letter. It ‘does not seem to have detained its author long’ (Dubrow, 1990, 225), and the fact that it is preserved in a unique autograph copy suggests that Jonson either failed to keep his own copy or else thought publication among Epigrams in 1616 impolitic by that date (see 12n.). Donne composed an eclogue and epithalamium for the occasion, and William Alabaster wrote a Latin epithalamium (MS Royal 12A, xxxv); Chapman defended the annulment and remarriage in Andromeda Liberata. On literary response to the wedding, see D. Lindley (1993), 123–44.
6 ends ulterior motives.
7 early ripe at an early date. For this Jonsonian usage, see Epigr. 23.3n.
12 Thomas Overbury’s poem The Wife was printed in 1614. It was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 13 Dec. 1613, and Jonson knew it in manuscript (Informations, 160–1). It was certainly in circulation by Nov. 1612. See Considine (2000). The reference to Overbury was not necessarily awkward at this date (see headnote) although Jonson probably realized the imprudence of printing the poem once Somerset and his countess had been accused of his murder. ‘It is impossible to be sure whether the poet is consciously including a clever but subtle critique or whether his own psychological ambivalences generate textual ambiguities of which he may not be fully aware’ (Dubrow, 1990, 226).
13–14 Frances Howard’s marriage to the Earl of Essex was annulled on the grounds that he was impotent, hence: ‘And you be to her such a good husband that may induce Hymen to make amends for the impotence of her previous husband.’
21–2 May none of your children predecease you.
21 you] conj. H&S (replicating the reading in Anon., 1852): JnB 529 is damaged
22 immortal] conj. H&S (replicating the reading in Anon., 1852): JnB 529 is damaged, obliterating the first syllable of the word
23–4 Cf. Martial, 4.13.9–10: diligat illa senem quondam, sed et ipsa marito / tum quoque, cum fuerit, non videatur anus, ‘Let her love him when, one day, he is an old man, but let her too not seem old to her husband even when she is indeed old.’ Ironically enough Jonson celebrated the previous marriage of Frances Howard with a similar wish, Hym., 509-10. Cf. Und. 75.165–8.
26 ‘Sure . . . day.’] this edn; Sure . . . day. JnB 529
26 married] JnB 529 (mari’ed)
26 day.] H&S; day JnB 529