The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

  • You are here:
  • /
  • Works
  • /
  • From John Stephens, Cynthia’s Revenge (1613), ‘To His Much and Worthily Esteemed Friend the Author’

From John Stephens, Cynthia’s Revenge (1613), ‘To His Much and Worthily Esteemed Friend the Author’

 [From John Stephens, Cynthia’s Revenge, 1613]

To His Much and Worthily Esteemed Friend the Author

Who takes thy volume to his virtuous hand

Must be intended still to  understand;

Who bluntly doth but look upon the same,

May ask   ‘What author would  conceal his name?’

Who reads may  rove, and call the passage dark, 5

Yet may, as blind men, sometimes hit the  mark.

Who reads, who roves, who hopes to understand,

May take thy volume to his virtuous hand.

Who cannot read, but only doth desire

To understand, he may at length admire. 10

To John Stephens First printed in John Stephens, Cynthia’s Revenge (1613), sig. A4. Stephens (fl. 1611–17) was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1611. He was a satirist whose works included ‘a new Satire in Defence of the Common Law’. His play is influenced by Lucan and Ovid. It describes the spread of madness through the upper echelons of Sparta, which culminates in the King Maenander’s turning from a poet to a player. He comes to believe that he is Mercury, and so invulnerable. He is then killed by Euphorbus. The play has many affinities with Poet., since it invites its readers to see in it both political satire and a satire on contemporary poets. Its radical and anti-absolutist edge explains its anonymous publication. [Editor: Colin Burrow]
2 understand This picks out a central concern of ‘The Authors Epistle Popular’: S[tephens], sig. A2v: ‘I could now descant (like some sage fabulist) upon real difference betwixt readers, and understanding readers.’ Cf. Epigr. 1.2n.
Italic in Stephens
4 ‘What . . . name?’] this edn; What . . . name? Stephens
4 conceal his name The dedication to Mr John Dickinson is signed ‘Your industrious friend, I. S.’ The anonymity of the volume is stressed in ‘The Authors Epistle Popular’: S[tephens], sig. A2v: ‘And withal so unwilling am I to play Tom-fool in print for name-sake, as I have purposely concealed it from the impression, so as this petty volume enjoys his fortune fatherless.’ A cancelled title-page to the volume does contain Stephens’s name; this was probably suppressed at his request.
5 rove ‘To shoot with arrows at a mark selected at pleasure or at random, and not of any fixed distance’ (OED, †1). The verb anticipates ‘hit the mark’ (i.e. to score a bull’s-eye).
6 mark bullseye.