Poems of the Week: Ben Jonson

It is some time since we had an article about one of the great poets, and so this week I have decided to review the work of Ben Jonson (1572 – 1637). Jonson was a remarkable man in a time of remarkable men: William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616), Christopher Marlowe (1564 – 1593), and John Donne (1573 – 1631) were active at the same time, and all knew each other. It should be noted that this was the time of the English literary Renaissance: the most important figure in this context was Edmund Spenser (1552/3 – 1599); and it has been said that his poem The Shepheardes Calender was the first work of this Renaissance: it was published in 1579.

Ben Jonson’s early history and background is not altogether clear, and the following material is extracted from half a dozen sources. What is known is that his father died a month before he was born, in Westminster close to the center of London. His father is generally described as a clergyman, but it is also suggested that he was of the upper class; Jonson claimed a coat of arms "three spindles or rhombi”, the family device of the Johnstones of Annandale, a fact which confirms Jonson's own assertion of Border descent (‘Border’ here means the border between England and Scotland). However, it is also clear that after his father’s death the family were penniless, and two years later his mother married a master bricklayer, which represented a significant reduction in social status! Nevertheless, he was educated first in a parish school in St. Martin’s Lane, and, as a result of the generosity of an unknown sponsor he was able to attend the prestigious Westminster School, where he came under the influence of the classical scholar William Camden

William Camden (1551 – 1623) was to be a great influence in Jonson’s life, and indeed in the lives of a number of his contemporaries. Spenser wrote:

Camden! the nurse of antiquity,
And lantern unto late succeeding age.

He is described as ‘scholar, historian and antiquary. He was the son of the painter Sampson Camden, and was educated at Magdalen College in Oxford University. Camden became second master at Westminster School in 1575. In 1582, he traveled throughout England, gathering bits of folklore and teaching himself Welsh and Anglo-Saxon in order to be able to study ancient accounts of Britain. This began for him the long research that would result in his Latin works Britannia (1586), a study of the British Isles, and Annales (1615 and 1625), a eulogistic account of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

However, although the majority of the students at Westminster School moved on to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Jonson left in1589 and was apprenticed to his stepfather. Apparently, he disliked this, and perhaps in remembrance of his father, enlisted with the English supporters of the Protestant Hollanders who were defending their religious and political liberties against Catholicism and Spanish rule. The fiery young poet proved to be as formidable with the sword as he was with the pen. In one particular act of bravado, he advanced before the English volunteers, challenged a Spaniard to single combat, slew him, and then -- in classic Homeric tradition -- stripped the corpse of its armor (the sources I consulted seem unsure of the truth of this story!).

In 1592, he returned to London and married Anne Lewis, whom he would later describe as "a shrew, yet honest." The registers of St Martin's Church state that their eldest daughter, Mary, died in November, 1593, when she was only six months old. In 1596, Anne gave birth to a son Benjamin, whom Jonson called his "best piece of poetry." He was devastated when the young boy was struck down with the plague at the age of seven. Another son, also named Benjamin, died in 1635. Here is Jonson’s poem on the death of his first-born:

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
      My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years thou'wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
      Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
      Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,
      And, if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say here doth lie
      Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
      As what he loves may never like too much.

In 1606 Jonson and his wife were brought before the consistory court in London to explain their lack of participation in the Anglican church. He denied that his wife was guilty but admitted that his own religious opinions held him aloof from attendance. The matter was patched up through his agreement to confer with learned men, who might persuade him if they could. Apparently it took six years for him to decide to conform. For some time before this he and his wife had lived apart, Jonson taking refuge in turn with his patrons Sir Robert Townshend and Esmé Stuart, Lord Aubigny.

Jonson first gained fame in the theatre. London’s theatres were closed for two years during a time of plague, reopening in 1594. As a result of this hiatus, there was a significant amount of reorganization of the theatrical companies, and two major companies formed. One of these was called Chamberlain’s Men, or Lord Chamberlain’s Men. This came about as a result of the amalgamation of two companies: one was originally formed under the patronage of Henry Carey, 1st Lord Hunsdon, around 1564 – 1567, as Hunsdon’ s Men. He took office as Lord Chamberlain in 1585, and in 1590 or so another company was formed under his patronage as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Following the reorganization, these two companies were amalgamated to form a strong Lord Chamerlain’s Men. Following the death of their sponsor in 1596, they came under the protection of George Carey, 2nd Lord Hunsdon; and once again changed their name back to Hunsdon’s Men. In 1597, Carey became Lord Chamberlain, and the company reverted to its previous name. (Are you keeping up with this? There’ll be a quiz later – Ed.) In March 1603, with the accession of King James I, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were taken under royal patronage, and became the King’s Men. The most famous actor in the company was Richard Burbage (1567 – 1619), whose father was a prominent theatre manager and owner, and built the Globe Theatre for the Company on the South Bank of the Thames. William Shakespeare was a major figure in the Chamberlain’s Men, and was one of the owners (called ‘housekeepers’}of the Globe Theatre with the two Burbages and four others.

The other major company was the Admiral’s Men. The Admiral's Men, or the Lord Admiral's Men, was first patronized by Charles Howard, 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham. The company acted first at court between 1576 and 1579 under the name of Lord Howard's Men, after which the next mention of the company is as the Admiral's Men after Howard's appointment as Lord High Admiral in 1585. Around 1587 the company gained a new star when Edward Alley, formerly of the Earl of Worcester's Men, joined them. The company played at court and at inn yards until finding a home at the Rose Theatre. The Rose, and subsequently the Admiral's Men, were managed by Phillip Henslowe, a London entrepreneur and the most famous of Elizabethan theatre managers.

In 1597, Howard was created Earl of Nottingham, and the company was alternately known as Nottingham's Men. The Admiral's Men had an impressive repertoire which included Marlowe’s Faustus and Tamburlaine, Greene's Orlando Furioso, as well as plays by George Chapman, Thomas Dekker, and Ben Jonson. Edward Alleyn, the company's leading actor, decided to retire in 1597, leaving the company with no-one to rival Richard Burbage of the Chamberlain's Men. When the Rose Theatre started losing out to the newly-built Globe, Henslowe and Alleyn, now business partners, decided to build a new theatre north of the city in 1600. The Fortune became the new home of the Admiral's Men, and Alleyn even came out of retirement to speed the company along. The Fortune did give the Globe tough competition, and Alleyn retired permanently in 1603, the year of the death of Queen Elizabeth I.

Soon, the patronage of the company was transferred to Prince Henry, eldest son of King James I, and was renamed Prince Henry's Men, or the Prince's Men. After the Prince's untimely death in 1612, the company was patronized by Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and became known as the Palsgrave's Men. The company was already in decline when Henslowe died in 1616. The company floundered on for several more years, and was disbanded by 1631.

By the summer of 1597, Jonson had a fixed engagement in the Lord Admiral's company, and was also doing some editing work, notably for a new production in 1601 of the Spanish Tragedy, written by Thomas Kyd (1558 – 1594) in 1589. This is Kyd's best known play, and was nothing less than the most popular and influential tragedy of Elizabethan times. Inspired by the tragedies of Seneca, it tells the story of Horatio, the only son of the marshal of Spain, who falls in love with the beautiful Belimperia but is murdered by the Prince of Portugal and by Belimperia's brother Lorenzo who wants her to marry the Prince. Before she is whisked away by her brother, Belimperia manages to send Horatio's grief-stricken father a letter using her own blood for ink, and the old man soon sets out to avenge his son's death, feigning madness - like Hamlet - to avoid suspicion. In its day, The Spanish Tragedy was even more popular than Shakespeare's plays, and it continued to be performed throughout the Elizabethan period. For a time, Jonson was regarded as a leading writer of tragedies, but none of his own early tragedies survive: he quickly became much better known for his comedies, the first of which was Every Man in His Humour which appeared in 1598.

Jonson had a number of run-ins with the law, most of which had to do with the content of his plays, which were regarded as seditious. (I think he might have had significant problems with the Patriot Act!)  However, the most serious was that in the same year he fell into a quarrel with the actor Gabriel Spencer and, in a duel in Hogsden Fields on September 22nd, killed the man, though his blade was ten inches shorter than Spencer's. He was arrested, and in prison he was visited by a Roman Catholic priest. As a result he converted to Catholicism, to which he adhered for twelve years. (As an aside, he was apparently suspected to have some involvement with the 1605 Gunpowder Plot because of what were perceived as his Catholic sympathies.)

He pleaded guilty to the charges resulting from the duel, but avoided hanging by applying for ‘benefit of clergy’, but was sentenced to forfeiture of his property and being branded on his left thumb. He was back at work for Henslowe within a few months, and his release was celebrated by the performance of his new play Every Man Out of His Humour.

The term ‘benefit of clergy’ originally applied to the exemption of Christian clerics from criminal prosecution in the secular courts. The privilege was established by the 12th century, and it extended only to the commission of felonies. The ecclesiastical courts did not inflict capital punishment except in rare cases, in which event those adjudged guilty were turned over to local secular authorities for enforcement of the sentence. In the ecclesiastical courts the severest sentences usually were degradation and the imposition of penances. Many criminals posed as clerics to obtain benefit of clergy. In England the privilege was soon extended to all clerks, i.e., literate persons. The ecclesiastical courts lost all jurisdiction over criminal acts in 1576, and thereafter clerics were tried by the secular courts and, under statute law, were either discharged or sentenced to a year's imprisonment. Early in the 18th century the reading test was abolished and all persons were allowed to claim this privilege for the first conviction of felony; later the privilege was extended generally to peers and women. Benefit of clergy thus mitigated the severities of English criminal law, which imposed the death penalty for many offenses now deemed trivial. Criminal law was ameliorated in the early 19th century, and in 1827 benefit of clergy was abolished as being no longer necessary. In the United States it was abolished in 1790 for all federal crimes, and around 1850 it disappeared from the state courts. In the English court that Jonson would have been in, the test was the reading of a verse from the Latin bible: this was called the ‘neck verse’ because reading it saved your neck!

Anyway, in this article we are more interested in Ben Jonson as a poet, and in this context we should look at his social life and that of his peers. They met in inns (no great surprise!) and would essentially engage in competitions of wit. The most important of these was the Mermaid Tavern, and here is a poem about it written 200 years later by John Keats (1795 – 1821):

        Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

        I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac.

        Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

The Mermaid Tavern was the meeting place of the Friday Street Club, of which William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Donne, and Ben Jonson were notable members. It stood to the east of St. Paul's Cathedral, with entrances in Bread Street and Friday Street. The Club itself had been initiated by Raleigh (1552 – 1618). One of the members of this club was the playwright Francis Beaumont (1585 – 1616), who wrote the following in a poem entitled Mr. Francis Beaumont’s Letter to Ben Jonson:

                                What things we have seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one (from whence they came)
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life; then when there has been thrown
Wit able enough to justify the town
For three days past; wit that might warrant be
For the whole city to talk foolishly
Till that were cancelled, and when we were gone,
We left an air behind, which was alone
Able to make the two next companies
Right witty, though they were downright cockneys.

Ben Jonson’s leadership in this type of conversation was so recognized that young men felt it a great honor to be a member of what was called the Tribe of Ben!
His poetic style can be represented by a poem we have quoted in these pages before, To Cynthia:

Drinke to me, onely, with thine eyes,
    And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kisse but in the cup,
    And Ile not looke for wine.
The thirst, that from the soule doth rise,
    Doth aske a drinke divine:
But might I of Jove's Nectar sup,
    I would not change for thine.
I sent thee, late, a rosie wreath,
    Not so much honoring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there
    It could not withered bee.
But thou thereon did'st onely breath,
    And sent'st it back to mee:
Since when it growes, and smells, I sweare,
    Not of it selfe, but thee.

Here I have used the original spelling; in my earlier quotation of this I used the modern spellings. He wrote another poem to Celia:

Come, my CELIA, let us prove,
While we may, the sports of love ;
Time will not be ours for ever :
He at length our good will sever.
Spend not then his gifts in vain.
Suns that set, may rise again:
But if once we lose this light,
'Tis with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys?
Fame and rumor are but toys.
Cannot we delude the eyes
Of a few poor household spies ;
Or his easier ears beguile,
So removed by our wile ?
'Tis no sin love's fruit to steal,
But the sweet theft to reveal:
To be taken, to be seen,
These have crimes accounted been.

This, as you may recognize, is the underlying idea so popular amongst the poets of the time that echoes the ‘Carpe diem’ Ode of Horace that I have quoted here more than once!

Jonson’s poetry was a primary inspiration for a group of poets of the time who termed themselves the ‘Sons of Ben’ – this appears to be a little different to the Tribe, but there is quite a lot of overlap, as you might expect! The Sons included Robert Herrick (1591 – 1674), Thomas Carew (1594 – 1639), Sir John Suckling (1609 – 1642), and Richard Lovelace (1618 – 1658). Actually, while there is similarity between the poems of these ‘Cavalier Poets’ and Jonson, only Herrick really sounds like him, I think: the others seem to owe more to John Donne. The following is from a lecture note whose source I have not been able to identify (sorry!):

“While the stylistic and thematic differences between Jonson and Donne are clear, their respective followers often combined the influence of the two poets, which came together more often and more easily than could be expected of essentially opposed poetic styles.

Jonson was fond of classical cogency and symmetry; Donne, of poetry which combined violence of personal passion with intellectual ingenuity and an imagery both starkly realistic and startlingly cunning in its use of highly metaphorical language. Their followers incorporated both, with the Metaphysical poets more inclined to the use of extended metaphors.”

It is perhaps odd that although Jonson did not attend University after his stay at Westminster College, he was regarded as one of the most well-read people of his time, and knowledgeable in both Latin and Greek: this appears to have been as a result of his early contact with William Camden; and his reading habit persisted through his life.

Here is a poem from Herrick that sounds very like Jonson: it is to Julia, the mistress he appeared to value most, and is called Upon Julia’s Clothes:

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes!

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free,
- O how that glittering taketh me!

In the early part of King James’s reign Jonson’s reputation as a dramatist was at a peak, and in 1616 a pension of 100 marks a year was conferred on him, leading to his having been identified as the first poet laureate. This sign of royal favor may have encouraged him to publish the first volume of the folio collected edition of his works in the same year.

In 1618 Jonson set out for his ancestral Scotland on foot. He spent over a year there, and the best-remembered hospitality which he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet William Drummond (1585 – 1649). Drummond undertook to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could in his diary, and thus preserved for us aspects of Jonson's personality that would otherwise have been lost. Jonson delivers his opinions, terse as they are, in an expansive mood either of praise or of blame. In the postscript added by Drummond, he is described as "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others".

While in Scotland he was made an honorary citizen of Edinburgh, and on returning to England he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford University.

This was the high point for Jonson. In 1623 a fire in his library destroyed his books, and with the accession of King Charles he had fallen out of favor.

The poems for this week will cover some different aspects of his work. The first is the third of his poems to Celia. The second is a poem he wrote for William Shakespeare. The relationship between them is less clear than one might think: Shakepeare was his principal rival at the time, and worked for the Number One company, while Jonson worked for the Number Two; on the other hand Jonson appears to have ruled the Mermaid crowd, and he clearly felt himself superior intellectually to Shakespeare. But at the same time, they appear to have been friends. I think you will see the marks of this ambiguity in his poem, To the Memory of my Beloved Master William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us. My final poem is one written on his trip to Scotland, and presents an interesting view of his awareness of the passage of time so far as his love of women is concerned. It is worth pointing out that he had put on a great deal of weight: he told somebody that he now weighed “twenty-one stone” which is close to 300 pounds! The poem is called My Picture Left in Scotland.

Finally, here is another poem along similar lines! It is called His Excuse for Loving.

Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have, my peers.
Poets, though divine, are men;
Some have loved as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune gives the grace,
Or the feature, or the youth;
But the language and the truth,
With the ardor and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then would hear the story,
First, prepare you to be sorry
That you never knew till now
Either whom to love or how;
But be glad as soon with me
When you hear that this is she
Of whose beauty it was sung,
She shall make the old man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing hide decay,
Till she be the reason why
All the world for love may die.