|
England: A Hard Stepmother To Poets
England: A Hard Stepmother To Poets
But since I have run so long a career in this matter, methinks, before I
give my pen a full stop, it shall be but a little more lost time to inquire
why England, the mother of excellent minds, should be grown so hard a
stepmother to poets; who certainly in wit ought to pass all others, since all
only proceedeth from their wit, being indeed makers of themselves, not takers
of others. How can I but exclaim,
Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso?^40
[Footnote 40: "O Muse, recall to me the causes by which her divine will had
been insulted." - Virgil, "Aeneid," I. 12.]
Sweet poesy! that hath anciently had kings, emperors, senators, great
captains, such as, besides a thousand others, David, Adrian, Sophocles,
Germanicus, not only to favor poets, but to be poets; and of our nearer times
can present for her patrons a Robert, King of Sicily; the great King Francis
of France; King James of Scotland; such cardinals as Bembus and Bibbiena; such
famous preachers and teachers as Beza and Melancthon; so learned philosophers
as Fracastorius and Scaliger; so great orators as Pontanus and Muretus; so
piercing wits as George Buchanan; so grave counsellors as - besides many, but
before all - that Hospital of France, than whom, I think, that realm never
brought forth a more accomplished judgement more firmly builded upon virtue; I
say these, with numbers of others, not only to read others` poesies but to
poetize for others` reading. That poesy, thus embraced in all other places,
should only find in our time a hard welcome in England, I think the very earth
lamenteth it, and therefore decketh our soil with fewer laurels than it was
accustomed. For heretofore poets have in England also flourished; and, which
is to be noted, even in those time when the trumpet of Mars did sound loudest.
And now that an over-faint quietness should seem to strew the house for
poets, they are almost in as good reputation as the mountebanks at Venice.
Truly even that, as of the one side it giveth great praise to poesy, which,
li e Venus - but to better purpose - hath rather be troubled in the net with
Mars, than enjoy the homely quiet of Vulcan; so serves it for a piece of a
reason why they are less grateful to idle England, which now can scarce endure
the pain of a pen. Upon this necessarily followeth, that base men with servile
wits undertake it, who think it enough if they can be rewarded of the printer.
And so as Epaminondas is said, with the honor of his virtue to have made an
office, by his exercising it, which before was contemptible, to become highly
respected; so these men, no more but setting their names to it, by their own
disgracefulness disgrace the most graceful poesy. For now, as if all the Muses
were got with child to bring forth bastard poets, without any commission they
do post over the banks of Helicon, till they make their readers more weary
than posthorses; while, in the meantime, they,
Queis meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan,^41
[Footnote 41: Upon hearts the Titan has formed better clay." - Adapted from
"Juvenal," XIV. 34-5.]
are better content to suppress the outflowings of their wit, than by
publishing them to be accounted knights of the same order.
But I that, before ever I dust aspire unto the dignity, am admitted into
the company of the paper-blurrers, do find the very true cause of our
wanting estimation is want of desert, taking upon us to be poets in despite of
Pallas.^42 Now wherein we want desert were a thank-worthy labor to express;
but if I knew, I should have mended myself. But as I never desired the title,
so have I neglected the means to come by it; only, overmastered by some
thoughts, I yielded an inky tribute unto them. Marry, they that delight in
poesy itself should seek to know what they do and how they do; and especially
look themselves in an unflattering glass of reason, if they be inclinable unto
it. For poesy must not be drawn by the ears, it must be gently led, or rather
it must lead; which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned affirm
it was a divine gift, and no human skill, since all other knowledges lie ready
for any that hath strength of wit, a poet no industry can make if his own
genius be not carried into it. And therefore is it an old proverb: Orator fit,
poeta nascitur.^43 Yet confess I always that, as the fertilest ground must be
manured,^44 so must the highest-flying wit have a Daedalus to guide him.
That Daedalus, they say, both in this and in other, hath three wings to bear
itself up into the air of due commendation: that is, art, imitation, and
exercise. But these neither artificial rules nor imitative patterns, we much
cumber ourselves withal. Exercise indeed we do, but that very fore -
backwardly, for where we should exercise to know, we exercise as having known;
and so is our brain delivered of much matter which never was begotten by
knowledge. For there being two principal parts, matter to be expressed by
words, and words to express the matter, in neither we use art or imitation
rightly. Our matter is quodlibet indeed, though wrongly performing Ovid`s
verse,
[Footnote 42: Though lacking inspiration.]
[Footnote 43: "The orator is made, the poet is born."]
[Footnote 44: Cultivated.]
Quicquid conabar dicere, versus erat;^45
[Footnote 45: "Whatever I tried to say was poetry." - Changed from Ovid,
"Tristia, " IV. 10, 26.]
never marshalling it into any assured rank, that almost the readers cannot
tell where to find themselves.
Chaucer, undoubtedly, did excellently in his Troilus and Cressida; of
whom, truly, I know not whether to marvel more, either that he in that misty
time could see so clearly, or that we in this clear age walk so stumblingly
after him. Yet had he great wants, fit to be forgiven in so revered antiquity.
I account the Mirror of Magistrates meetly furnished of beautiful parts; and
in the Earl of Surrey`s lyrics many things tasting of a noble birth, and
worthy of a noble mind. The Shepherd`s Calendar hath much poetry in his
eclogues, indeed worthy the reading, if I be not deceived. That same framing
of his style to an old rustic language I dare not allow, since neither
Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, nor Sannazzaro in Italian did affect it.
Besides these, I do not remember to have seen but few (to speak boldly)
printed, that have poetical sinews in them. For proof whereof, let but most of
the verses be put in prose, and then ask the meaning, and it will be found
that one verse did but beget another, without ordering at the first what
should be at the last; which becomes a confused mass of words, with a tinkling
sound of rime, barely accompanied with reason.
Our tragedies and comedies not without cause cried out against, observing
rules neither of honest civility nor of skilful poetry, excepting Gorboduc, -
again I say of those that I have seen. Which notwithstanding as it is full of
stately speeches and well-sounding phrases, climbing to the height of
Seneca`s style, and as full of notable morality, which it doth most
delightfully teach, and so obtain the very end of poesy; yet in truth it is
very defectious in the circumstances, which grieveth me, because it might not
remain as an exact model of all tragedies. For it is faulty both in place and
time, the two necessary companions of all corporal actions. For where the
stage should always represent but one place, and the uttermost time
presupposed in it should be, both by Aristotle`s precept and common reason,
but one day; there is both many days and many places inartificially imagined.
But if it be so in Gorboduc, how much more in all the rest? where you
shall have Asia of the one side, and Afric of the other, and so many other
under-kingdoms, that the player, when he cometh in, must ever begin with
telling where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived. Now ye shall have
three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be
a garden. By and by we hear news of shipwreck in the same place, and then we
are to blame if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that comes out a
hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are
bound to take it for a cave. While in the mean time two armies fly in,
represented with four swords and bucklers, and then what hard heart will not
receive it for a pitched field?
Now of time they are much more liberal. For ordinary it is that two young
princes fall in love; after many traverses she is got with child, delivered of
a fair boy, he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to get
another child, - and all this in two hours` space; which how absurd it is in
sense even sense may imagine, and art hath taught, and all ancient examples
justified, and at this day the ordinary players in Italy will not err in. Yet
will some bring in an example of Eunuchus in Terence, that containeth matter
of two days, yet far short of twenty years. True it is, and so was it to be
played in two days, and so fitted to the time it set forth. And though Plautus
have in one place done amiss, let us hit with him, and not miss with him. But
they will say, How then shall we set forth a story which containeth both many
places and many times? And do they not know that a tragedy is tied to the laws
of poesy, and not of history; not bound to follow the story, but having
liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the
most tragical conveniency? Again, many things may be told which cannot be
showed, - if they know the difference betwixt reporting and representing. As
for example I may speak, though I am here, of Peru, and in speech digress from
that to the description of Calicut; but in action I cannot represent it
without Pacolet`s horse. And so was the manner the ancients took, by some
Nuntius^46 to recount things done in former time or other place.
[Footnote 46: Messenger.]
Lastly, if they will represent a history, they must not, as Horace saith,
begin ab ovo,^47 but thee must come to the principal point of that one action
which they will represent. By example this will be best expressed. I have a
story of young Polydorus, delivered for safety`s sake, with great riches, by
his father Priamus to Polymnestor, King of Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He,
after some years, hearing the overthrow of Priamus, for to make the treasure
his own murdereth the child; the body of the child is taken up by Hecuba; she,
the same day, findeth a sleight to be revenged most cruelly of the tyrant.
Where now would one of our tragedy writers begin, but with the delivery of the
child? Then should he sail over into Thrace, and so spend I know not how many
years, and travel numbers of places. But where doth Euripides? Even with the
finding of the body, leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of Polydorus.
This needs no further to be enlarged; the dullest wit may conceive it.
[Footnote 47: From the egg.]
But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither
right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the
matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a
part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as neither
the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their
mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is
a thing recounted with space of time, not represented in one moment; and I
know the ancients have one or two examples of tragi-comedies, as Plautus
hath Amphytrio. But, if we mark them well, we shall find that they never, or
very daintily, match hornpipes and funerals. So falleth it out that, having
indeed no right comedy in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing
but scurrility, unworthy of any chaste ears, or some extreme show of
doltihsness, indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing else; where
the whole tract of a comedy should be full of delight, as the tragedy should
be still maintained in a well-raised admiration.
But our comedians think there is no delight without laughter, which is
very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of
delight, as though delight should be the cause of laughter; but well may one
thing breed both together. Nay, rather in themselves they have, as it were, a
kind of contrariety. For delight we scarcely do, but in things that have a
conveniency to ourselves, or to the general nature; laughter almost ever
cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Delight hath a
joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling.
For example, we are ravished with delight to see a fair woman, and yet are far
from being moved to laughter. We laugh at deformed creatures, wherein
certainly we cannot delight. We delight in good chances, we laugh at
mischances. We delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at
which he were worthy to be laughed at that would laugh. We shall, contrarily,
laugh sometimes to find a matter quite mistaken and go down the hill against
the bias, in the mouth of some such men, as for the respect of them one shall
be heartily sorry he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than
delighted with laughter. Yet deny I not but that they may go well together.
For as in Alexander`s picture well set out we delight without laughter, and in
twenty mad antics we laugh without delight; so in Hercules, painted with his
great beard and furious countenance, in woman`s attire, spinning at Omphale`s
commandment, it breedeth both delight and laughter; for the representing of so
strange a power in love, procureth delight, and the scornfulness of the action
stirreth laughter.
But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical part be not
upon such scornful matters as stir laughter only, but mixed with it that
delightful teaching which is the end of poesy. And the great fault, even in
that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly by Aristotle, is that they stir
laughter in sinful things, which are rather execrable than ridiculous; or in
miserable, which are rather to be pitied than scorned. For what is it to make
folks gape at a wretched beggar or a beggarly clown, or, against law of
hospitality, to jest at strangers because they speak not English so well as we
do? what do we learn? since it is certain:
Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se,
Quam quod ridiculos homines facit.^48
[Footnote 48: "Unhappy poverty has nothing in it harder than this, that it
makes men ridiculous." - Juvenal, "Satires," III. 152-3.]
But rather a busy loving courtier; a heartless threatening Thraso; a self-
wise-seeming schoolmaster; a wry transformed traveller: these if we saw walk
in stage-names, which we play naturally, therein were delightful laughter
and teaching delightfulness, - as in the other, the tragedies of Buchanan do
justly bring forth a divine admiration.
But I have lavished out too many words of this playmatter. I do it,
because as they are excelling parts of poesy, so is there none so much used in
England, and none can be more pitifully abused; which, like an unmannerly
daughter, showing a bad education, causeth her mother Poesy`s honesty to be
called in question.
Other sorts of poetry almost have we none, but that lyrical kind of songs
and sonnets, which, Lord if he gave us so good minds, how well it might be
employed, and with how heavenly fruits both private and public, in singing the
praises of the immortal beauty, the immortal goodness of that God who giveth
us hands to write, and wits to conceive! - of which we might well want words,
but never matter; of which we could turn our eyes to nothing, but we should
ever have new-budding occasions.
But truly, many of such writings as come under the banner of unresistible
love, if I were a mistress would never persuade me they were in love; so
coldly they apply fiery speeches, as men that had rather read lovers`
writings, and so caught up certain swelling phrases - which hang together like
a man which once told me the wind was at north-west and by south, because he
would be sure to name winds enough - than that in truth they feel those
passions, which easily, as I think, may be bewrayed by that same forcibleness,
or energia (as the Greeks call it) of the writer. But let this be a
sufficient, though short note, that we miss the right use of the material
point of poesy.
Now for the outside of it, which is words, or (as I may term it) diction,
it is even well worse, so is that honey-flowing matron eloquence apparelled
or rather disguised, in a courtesan-like painted affectation: one time with
so farfet^49 words, that many seem monsters - but must seem strangers - to any
poor Englishman; another time with coursing of a letter,^50 as if they were
bound to follow the method of a dictionary; another time with figures and
flowers extremely winter-starved.
[Footnote 49: Far-fetched.]
[Footnote 50: Alliteration.]
But I would this fault were only peculiar to versifiers, and had not as
large possession among prose-printers, and, which is to be marvelled, among
many scholars, and, which is to be pitied, among some preachers. Truly I could
wish - if at least I might be so bold to wish in a thing beyond the reach of
my capacity - the diligent imitators of Tully and Demosthenes (most worthy to
be imitated) did not so much keep Nizolian paper-books of their figures and
phrases, as by attentive translation, as it were devour them whole, and make
them wholly theirs. For now they cast sugar and spice upon every dish that is
served to the table; like those Indians, not content to wear ear-rings at
the fit and natural place of the ears, but they will thrust jewels through
their nose and lips, because they will be sure to be fine. Tully, when he was
to drive out Catiline as it were with a thunderbolt of eloquence, often used
that figure of repetition, as Vivit. Vivit? Immo vero etiam in senatum
venit,^51 etc. Indeed, inflamed with a well-grounded rage, he would have his
words, as it were, double out of his mouth; and so do that artificially, which
we see men in choler do naturally. And we, having noted the grace of those
words, hale them in sometime to a familiar epistle, when it were too much
choler to be choleric. How well store of similiter cadences^52 doth sound with
the gravity of the pulpit, I would but invoke Demosthenes` soul to tell, who
with a rare daintiness useth them. Truly they have made me think of the
sophister that with too much subtility would prove two eggs three, and though
he might be counted a sophister, had none for his labor. So these men bringing
in such a kind of eloquence, well may they obtain an opinion of a seeming
fineness, but persuade few, - which should be the end of their fineness.
[Footnote 51: "He lives. Lives? Ay, he even comes to the Senate." - Cicero,
"Catiline," I. 2.]
[Footnote 52: E. G., rhyme.]
Now for similitudes in certain printed discourses, I think all
herbarists, all stories of beasts, fowls, and fishes are rifled up, that they
may come in multitudes to wait upon any of our conceits, which certainly is as
absurd a surfeit to the ears as is possible. For the force of a similitude not
being to prove any thing to a contrary disputer, but only to explain to a
willing hearer; when that is done, the rest is a most tedious prattling,
rather overswaying the memory from the purpose whereto they were applied, then
any whit informing the judgment, already either satisfied of by similitudes
not to be satisfied.
For my part, I do not doubt, when Antonius and Crassus, the great
forefathers of Cicero in eloquence, the one (as Cicero testifieth of them)
pretended not to know art, the other not to set by it, because^53 with a plain
sensibleness they might win credit of popular ears, which credit is the
nearest step to persuasion, which persuasion is the chief mark of oratory, - I
do not doubt, I say, but that they used these knacks, very sparingly; which
who doth generally use any man may see doth dance to his own music, and so be
noted by the audience more careful to speak curiously than truly. Undoubtedly
(at least to my opinion undoubtedly) I have found in divers small-learned
courtiers a more sound style than in some professors of learning; of which I
can guess no other cause, but that the courtier following that which by
practice he findeth fittest to nature, therein, though he know it not, doth
according to art - though not by art; where the other, using art to show art
and not to hide art as in these cases he should do - flieth from nature, and
indeed abuseth art.
[Footnote 53: In order that.]
But what! me thinks I deserve to be pounded for straying from poetry to
oratory. But both have such an affinity in the wordish consideration, that I
think this digression will make my meaning receive the fuller understanding: -
which is not to take upon me to teach poets how they should do, but only,
finding myself sick among the rest, to show some one or two spots of the
common infection grown among the most part of writers; that, acknowledging
ourselves somewhat awry, we may bend to the right use both of matter and
manner: whereto our language giveth us great occasion, being, indeed, capable
of any excellent exercising of it.
I know some will say it is a mingled language. And why not so much the
better, taking the best of both the other? Another will say it wanteth
grammar. Nay, truly, it hath that praise that it wanteth not grammar. For
grammar it might have, but it needs it not; being so easy in itself, and so
void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses,
which, I think, was a piece of the Tower of Babylon`s curse, that a man should
be put to school to learn his mother-tongue. But for the uttering sweetly
and properly the conceits of the mind, which is the end of speech, that hath
it equally with any other tongue in the world; and is particularly happy in
compositions of two or three words together, near the Greek, far beyond the
Latin, - which is one of the greatest beauties that can be in a language.
Now of versifying there are two sorts, the one ancient, the other modern.
The ancient marked the quantity of each syllable, and according to that framed
his verse; the modern observing only number, with some regard of the accent,
the chief life of it standeth in that like sounding of the words, which we
call rime. Whether of these be the more excellent would bear many speeches;
the ancient no doubt more fit for music, both words and tune observing
quantity; and more fit lively to express divers passions, by the low or lofty
sound of the well-weighed syllable. The latter likewise with his rime
striketh a certain music to the ear; and, in fine, since it doth delight,
though by another way, it obtaineth the same purpose; there being in either,
sweetness, and wanting in neither, majesty. Truly the English, before any
other vulgar language I know, is fit for both sorts. For, for the ancient, the
Italian is so full of vowels that it must ever be cumbered with elisions; the
Dutch so, of the other side, with consonants, that they cannot yield the sweet
sliding fit for a verse. The French in his whole language hath not one word
that hath his accent in the last syllable saving two, called antepenultima,
and little more hath the Spanish; and therefore very gracelessly may they use
dactyls. The English is subject to none of these defects. Now for rime,^54
though we do not observe quantity, yet we observe the accent very precisely,
which other languages either cannot do, or will not do so absolutely. That
caesura, or breathing-place in the midst of the verse, neither Italian nor
Spanish have, the French and we never almost fail of.
[Footnote 54: Rhythm is meant.]
Lastly, even the very rime itself the Italian cannot put in the last
syllable, by the French named the masculine rime, but still in the next to the
last, which the French call the female, or the next before that, which the
Italians term sdrucciola. The example of the former is buono: suono; of the
sdrucciola is femina: semina. The French, of the other side, hath both the
male, as bon: son, and the female, as plaise: taise; but the sdrucciola he
hath not. Where the English hath all three, as due: true, father: rather,
motion: potion; with much more which might be said, but that already I find
the triflingness of this discourse is much too much enlarged.
|
