Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900/Simplex Munditiis

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Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900 (1931)
edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch

Simplex Munditiis by Ben Jonson

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Also known in some anthologies as Clerimont's Song, being recited by the character of that name from Jonson's comedy, Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, first performed in 1609.^[1] The Latin title derives from one of the odes (Odes I, 5) of Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), and could be rendered in English as "Artless Elegance"; although one scholar has stated that the phrase is "untranslatable".^[2]

Ben Jonson6583Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900 — Simplex Munditiis1931Arthur Quiller-Couch

186.

Simplex Munditiis

STILL to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powder'd, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th' adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

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