The Works of Ben Jonson/Volume 6/The Sad Shepherd/Prologue

by Ben Jonson

Enter THE PROLOGUE.

He that hath feasted you these forty years,^[1]
And fitted fables for your finer ears.
Although at first he scarce could hit the bore;
Yet you, with patience harkening more and more,
At length have grown up to him, and made known
The working of his pen is now your own:
He prays you would vouchsafe, for your own sake,
To hear him this once more, but sit awake.
And though he now present you with such wool,
As from mere English flocks his muse can pull,
He hopes when it is made up into cloth,
Not the most curious head here will be loth
To wear a hood of it, it being a fleece,
To match, or those of Sicily or Greece.^[2]
His scene is Sherwood, and his play a Tale,
Of Robin Hood's inviting from the vale
Of Belvoir, all the shepherds to a feast:
Where, by the casual absence of one guest,
The mirth is troubled much, and in one man
As much of sadness shewn as passion can:
The sad young shepherd, whom we here present,
Like his woes figure,^[3] dark and discontent,
[The Sad Shepherd passeth silently over the stage.
For his lost love, who in the Trent is said
To have miscarried; 'las! what knows the head^[4]
Of a calm river, whom the feet have drown'd?—
Hear what his sorrows are; and if they wound
Your gentle breasts, so that the end crown all,
Which in the scope of one day's chance may fall;
Old Trent will send you more such tales as these,
And shall grow young again as one doth please.
[Exit, but instantly re-enters.

 But here's an heresy of late let fall,^[5]
That mirth by no means fits a pastoral;
Such say so, who can make none, he presumes:
Else there's no scene more properly assumes
The sock. For whence can sport in kind arise,
But from the rural routs and families?
Safe on this ground then, we not fear to-day,
To tempt your laughter by our rustic play;
Wherein if we distaste, or be cried down,
We think we therefore shall not leave the town;
Nor that the fore-wits that would draw the rest
Unto their liking, always like the best.
The wise and knowing critic will not say,
This worst, or better is, before he weigh
Whêr every piece be perfect in the kind:
And then, though in themselves he difference find,
Yet if the place require it where they stood,
The equal fitting makes them equal good.
You shall have love and hate, and jealousy,
As well as mirth, and rage, and melancholy:
Or whatsoever else may either move,
Or stir affections, and your likings prove.
But that no style for pastoral should go
Current, but what is stamped with Ah! and O!
Who judgeth so, may singularly err;
As if all poesie had one character
In which what were not written, were not right;
Or that the man who made such one poor flight,
In his whole life, had with his winged skill
Advanced him upmost on the muses' hill.
When he like poet yet remains, as those
Are painters who can only make a rose.
From such your wits redeem you, or your chance,
Lest to a greater height you do advance
Of folly, to contemn those that are known
Artificers, and trust such as are none!

1. He that hath feasted you these forty years.] If we suppose this to have been written the year before the poet's death, this will carry up the commencement of his dramatic career to 1595-6, and we know from Mr. Henslowe's memorandums, that he wrote for the stage at that early period.
2. To match, or those of Sicily or Greece.] In this, Jonson is echoed by Horne Tooke, who was one of his warmest and steadiest admirers, and whose works are crowded with unnoticed quotations from him. By the fleeces of Sicily and Greece, are understood the pastoral poems of Theocritus, Moschus, and Bion.
3. Like his woe's figure,] Tt appears that Eglameur wore blacks, and was further distinguished by a wreath of cypress and yew.
4. 'Las! what knows the head, &c.] This is imitated from Donne:
   "Greatest and fairest Empress, know you this?
   Alas! no more than Thames' calm head doth know,
   Whose meads his arms drown, or whose corn o'erflow."
   Sat. 5.
   
   
   Jonson seems to have taken his delineation of a river (which is less common, and indeed, less graceful, than Donne's) from the pictures in Drayton's Polyolbion, of which he was a careful reader, and in this pastoral, an occasional imitator.
5. But here's an heresy of late let fall, &c] One would be tempted to think that Jonson had his treacherous "friend," Drummond of Hawthornden in view, were it not that this gentleman, whose prudence was almost equal to his malignity, kept his libel to himself, at least, while the poet lived. "Jonson bringeth in (he says) clowns making mirth and foolish sports, contrary to all other pastorals." Fol. p. 224. The criticism is worthy of the critic. What would Drummond have clowns brought in for? To settle the dispute between the Romish and Reformed Churches? That had been done by Spenser and others—but Jonson wants no assistance from me.