John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

  Yet I can own no joy, nor conquest boast, [To Almanz.

  While in this blood I see how dear it cost.

  Almanz. This honour to my veins new blood will bring;

  Streams cannot fail, fed by so high a spring.

  But all court-customs I so little know,

  That I may fail in those respects I owe.

  I bring a heart which homage never knew;

  Yet it finds something of itself in you:

  Something so kingly, that my haughty mind

  Is drawn to yours, because ’tis of a kind.

  Q. Isabel. And yet that soul, which bears itself so high,

  If fame be true, admits a sovereignty.

  This queen, in her fair eyes, such fetters brings,

  As chain that heart, which scorns the power of kings.

  Almah. Little of charm in these sad eyes appears;

  If they had any, now ’tis lost in tears.

  A crown, and husband, ravished in one day! —

  Excuse a grief, I cannot choose but pay.

  Q. Isabel. Have courage, madam; heaven has joys in store,

  To recompence those losses you deplore.

  Almah. I know your God can all my woes redress;

  To him I made my vows in my distress:

  And, what a misbeliever vowed this day,

  Though not a queen, a Christian yet shall pay.

  Q. Isabel. (Embracing her.)

  That Christian name you shall receive from me,

  And Isabella of Granada be.

  Benz. This blessed change we all with joy receive;

  And beg to learn that faith which you believe.

  Q. Isabel. With reverence for those holy rites prepare;

  And all commit your fortunes to my care.

  K. Ferd. to Almah.

  You, madam, by that crown you lose, may gain,

  If you accept, a coronet of Spain,

  Of which Almanzor’s father stands possest.

  Q. Isabel. to Almah.

  May you in him, and he in you, be blest!

  Almah. I owe my life and honour to his sword;

  But owe my love to my departed lord.

  Almanz. Thus, when I have no living force to dread,

  Fate finds me enemies amongst the dead.

  I’m now to conquer ghosts, and to destroy

  The strong impressions of a bridal joy.

  Almah. You’ve yet a greater foe than these can be, —

  Virtue opposes you, and modesty.

  Almanz. From a false fear that modesty does grow,

  And thinks true love, because ’tis fierce, its foe.

  ’Tis but the wax whose seals on virgins stay:

  Let it approach love’s fire, ‘twill melt away: —

  But I have lived too long; I never knew,

  When fate was conquered, I must combat you.

  I thought to climb the steep ascent of love;

  But did not think to find a foe above.

  ’Tis time to die, when you my bar must be,

  Whose aid alone could give me victory;

  Without,

  I’ll pull up all the sluices of the flood,

  And love, within, shall boil out all my blood.

  Q. Isabel. Fear not your love should find so sad success,

  While I have power to be your patroness.

  I am her parent now, and may command

  So much of duty as to give her hand. [Gives him Almahide’s hand.

  Almah. Madam, I never can dispute your power,

  Or as a parent, or a conqueror;

  But, when my year of widowhood expires,

  Shall yield to your command, and his desires.

  Almanz. Move swiftly, sun, and fly a lover’s pace;

  Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race!

  K. Ferd. Mean time, you shall my victories pursue,

  The Moors in woods and mountains to subdue.

  Almanz. The toils of war shall help to wear each day,

  And dreams of love shall drive my nights away. —

  Our banners to the Alhambra’s turrets bear;

  Then, wave our conquering crosses in the air,

  And cry, with shouts of triumph, — Live and reign,

  Great Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain! [Exeunt.

  EPILOGUE.

  They, who have best succeeded on the stage,

  Have still conformed their genius to their age.

  Thus Jonson did mechanic humour show,

  When men were dull, and conversation low.

  Then comedy was faultless, but ’twas coarse:

  Cobb’s tankard was a jest, and Otter’s horse.

  And, as their comedy, their love was mean;

  Except, by chance, in some one laboured scene,

  Which must atone for an ill-written play.

  They rose, but at their height could seldom stay.

  Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;

  And they have kept it since, by being dead.

  But, were they now to write, when critics weigh

  Each line, and every word, throughout a play,

  None of them, no not Jonson in his height,

  Could pass, without allowing grains for weight.

  Think it not envy, that these truths are told;

  Our poet’s not malicious, though he’s bold.

  ’Tis not to brand them, that their faults are shown,

  But, by their errors, to excuse his own.

  If love and honour now are higher raised,

  ’Tis not the poet, but the age is praised.

  Wit’s now arrived to a more high degree;

  Our native language more refined and free.

  Our ladies and our men now speak more wit

  In conversation, than those poets writ.

  Then, one of these is, consequently, true;

  That what this poet writes comes short of you,

  And imitates you ill (which most he fears),

  Or else his writing is not worse than theirs.

  Yet, though you judge (as sure the critics will),

  That some before him writ with greater skill,

  In this one praise he has their fame surpast,

  To please an age more gallant than the last.

  DEFENCE OF THE EPILOGUE

  OR,

  AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMATIC POETRY OF THE LAST AGE.

  The promises of authors, that they will write again, are, in effect, a threatening of their readers with some new impertinence; and they, who perform not what they promise, will have their pardon on easy terms. It is from this consideration, that I could be glad to spare you the trouble, which I am now giving you, of a postscript, if I were not obliged, by many reasons, to write somewhat concerning our present plays, and those of our predecessors on the English stage. The truth is, I have so far engaged myself in a bold epilogue to this play, wherein I have somewhat taxed the former writing, that it was necessary for me either not to print it, or to show that I could defend it. Yet I would so maintain my opinion of the present age, as not to be wanting in my veneration for the past: I would ascribe to dead authors their just praises in those things wherein they have excelled us; and in those wherein we contend with them for the pre-eminence, I would acknowledge our advantages to the age, and claim no victory from our wit. This being what I have proposed to myself, I hope I shall not be thought arrogant when I enquire into their errors: For we live in an age so sceptical, that as it determines little, so it takes nothing from antiquity on trust; and I profess to have no other ambition in this essay, than that poetry may not go backward, when all other arts and sciences are advancing. Whoever censures me for this inquiry, let him hear his character from Horace:

  Ingeniis non ille favet, plauditque sepultis,

  Nostra sed impugnat; nos nostraque lividus odit.

  He favours not dead wits, but hates the living.

  It was upbraided to that excellent poet, that he was an enemy to the writings of his predecessor Lucilius, b
ecause he had said, Lucilium lutulentum fluere, that he ran muddy; and that he ought to have retrenched from his satires many unnecessary verses. But Horace makes Lucilius himself to justify him from the imputation of envy, by telling you that he would have done the same, had he lived in an age which was more refined:

  Si foret hoc nostrum fato delapsus in ævum,

  Detereret sibi multa, recideret omne quod, ultra

  Perfectum traheretur, &c.

  And, both in the whole course of that satire, and in his most admirable Epistle to Augustus, he makes it his business to prove, that antiquity alone is no plea for the excellency of a poem; but that, one age learning from another, the last (if we can suppose an equality of wit in the writers,) has the advantage of knowing more and better than the former And this, I think, is the state of the question in dispute. It is therefore my part to make it clear, that the language, wit, and conversation of our age, are improved and refined above the last; and then it will not be difficult to infer, that our plays have received some part of those advantages.

  In the first place, therefore, it will be necessary to state, in general, what this refinement is, of which we treat; and that, I think, will not be defined amiss, “An improvement of our Wit, Language and Conversation; or, an alteration in them for the better.”

  To begin with Language. That an alteration is lately made in ours, or since the writers of the last age (in which I comprehend Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson), is manifest. Any man who reads those excellent poets, and compares their language with what is now written, will see it almost in every line; but that this is an improvement of the language or an alteration for the better, will not so easily be granted. For many are of a contrary opinion that the English tongue was then in the height of its perfection; that from Jonson’s time to ours it has been in a continual declination, like that of the Romans from the age of Virgil to Statius, and so downward to Claudian; of which, not only Petronius, but Quintilian himself so much complains, under the person of Secundus, in his famous dialogue De Causis corruptæ Eloquentiæ.

  But, to shew that our language is improved, and that those people have not a just value for the age in which they live, let us consider in what the refinement of a language principally consists: that is, “either in rejecting such old words, or phrases, which are ill sounding, or improper; or in admitting new, which are more proper, more sounding, and more significant.”

  The reader will easily take notice, that when I speak of rejecting improper words and phrases, I mention not such as are antiquated by custom only and, as I may say, without any fault of theirs. For in this case the refinement can be but accidental; that is, when the words and phrases, which are rejected, happen to be improper. Neither would I be understood, when I speak of impropriety of language, either wholly to accuse the last age, or to excuse the present, and least of all myself; for all writers have their imperfections and failings: but I may safely conclude in the general, that our improprieties are less frequent, and less gross than theirs. One testimony of this is undeniable, that we are the first who have observed them; and, certainly, to observe errors is a great step to the correcting of them. But, malice and partiality set apart, let any man, who understands English, read diligently the works of Shakespeare and Fletcher, and I dare undertake, that he will find in every page either some solecism of speech, or some notorious flaw in sense; and yet these men are reverenced, when we are not forgiven. That their wit is great, and many times their expressions noble, envy itself cannot deny.

  — Neque ego illis detrahere ausim

  Hærentem capiti multâ cum laude coronam.

  But the times were ignorant in which they lived. Poetry was then, if not in its infancy among us, at least not arrived to its vigour and maturity: Witness the lameness of their plots; many of which, especially those which they writ first (for even that age refined itself in some measure), were made up of some ridiculous incoherent story, which in one play many times took up the business of an age. I suppose I need not name “Pericles, Prince of Tyre,” nor the historical plays of Shakespeare: besides many of the rest, as the “Winter’s Tale,” “Love’s Labour Lost,” “Measure for Measure,” which were either grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written, that the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your concernment. If I would expatiate on this subject, I could easily demonstrate, that our admired Fletcher, who wrote after him, neither understood correct plotting, nor that which they call “the decorum of the stage.” I would not search in his worst plays for examples: He who will consider his “Philaster,” his “Humorous Lieutenant,” his “Faithful Shepherdess,” and many others which I could name, will find them much below the applause which is now given them. He will see Philaster wounding his mistress, and afterwards his boy, to save himself; not to mention the Clown, who enters immediately, and not only has the advantage of the combat against the hero, but diverts you from your serious concernment, with his ridiculous and absurd raillery. In his “Humorous Lieutenant,” you find his Demetrius and Leontius staying in the midst of a routed army, to hear the cold mirth of the Lieutenant; and Demetrius afterwards appearing with a pistol in his hand, in the next age to Alexander the Great. And for his Shepherd, he falls twice into the former indecency of wounding women. But these absurdities, which those poets committed, may more properly be called the age’s fault than theirs. For, besides the want of education and learning, (which was their particular unhappiness) they wanted the benefit of converse: But of that I shall speak hereafter, in a place more proper for it. Their audiences knew no better; and therefore were satisfied with what they brought. Those, who call theirs the golden age of poetry, have only this reason for it, that they were then content with acorns before they knew the use of bread; or that αλις δρυος was become a proverb. They had many who admired them, and few who blamed them; and certainly a severe critic is the greatest help to a good wit: he does the office of a friend, while he designs that of an enemy; and his malice keeps a poet within those bounds, which the luxuriancy of his fancy would tempt him to overleap.

  But it is not their plots which I meant principally to tax; I was speaking of their sense and language; and I dare almost challenge any man to shew me a page together which is correct in both. As for Ben Jonson, I am loth to name him, because he is a most judicious writer; yet he very often falls into these errors: and I once more beg the reader’s pardon for accusing him of them. Only let him consider, that I live in an age where my least faults are severely censured; and that I have no way left to extenuate my failings, but by showing as great in those whom we admire:

  Cædimus, inque vicem præbemus crura sagittis.

  I cast my eyes but by chance on Catiline; and in the three or four last pages, found enough to conclude that Jonson writ not correctly.

  — Let the long-hid seeds

  Of treason, in thee, now shoot forth in deeds

  Ranker than horror.

  In reading some bombast speeches of Macbeth, which are not to be understood, he used to say that it was horror; and I am much afraid that this is so.

  Thy parricide late on thy only son,

  After his mother, to make empty way

  For thy last wicked nuptials, worse than they

  That blaze that act of thy incestuous life,

  Which gained thee at once a daughter and a wife.

  The sense is here extremely perplexed; and I doubt the word they is false grammar.

  — And be free

  Not heaven itself from thy impiety.

  A synchysis, or ill-placing of words, of which Tully so much complains in oratory.

  The waves and dens of beasts could not receive

  The bodies that those souls were frighted from.

  The preposition in the end of the sentence; a common fault with him, and which I have but lately observed in my own writings.

  What all the several ills that visit earth,

  Plague, famine, fire, could not reach unto,

  Th
e sword, nor surfeits, let thy fury do.

  Here are both the former faults: for, besides that the preposition unto is placed last in the verse, and at the half period, and is redundant, there is the former synchysis in the words “the sword, nor surfeits” which in construction ought to have been placed before the other.

  Catiline says of Cethegus, that for his sake he would

  Go on upon the gods, kiss lightning, wrest

  The engine from the Cyclops, and give fire

  At face of a full cloud, and stand his ire.

  To “go on upon,” is only to go on twice. To “give fire at face of a full cloud,” was not understood in his own time; “and stand his ire,” besides the antiquated word ire, there is the article his, which makes false construction: and giving fire at the face of a cloud, is a perfect image of shooting, however it came to be known in those days to Catiline.

  — Others there are,

  Whom envy to the state draws and pulls on,

  For contumelies received; and such are sure ones.

  Ones, in the plural number: but that is frequent with him; for he says, not long after,

  Cæsar and Crassus, if they be ill men,

  Are mighty ones.

  Such men, they do not succour more the cause, &c.

  They redundant.

  Though heaven should speak with all his wrath at once,

  We should stand upright and unfeared.

  His is ill syntax with heaven; and by unfeared he means unafraid: Words of a quite contrary signification.

  “The ports are open.” He perpetually uses ports for gates; which is an affected error in him, to introduce Latin by the loss of the English idiom; as, in the translation of Tully’s speeches, he usually does.

  Well-placing of words, for the sweetness of pronunciation was not known till Mr Waller introduced it; and, therefore, it is not to be wondered if Ben Jonson has many such lines as these:

  “But being bred up in his father’s needy fortunes; brought up in’s sister’s prostitution,” &c.

  But meanness of expression one would think not to be his error in a tragedy, which ought to be more high and sounding than any other kind of poetry; and yet, amongst others in “Catiline,” I find these four lines together:

  So Asia, thou art cruelly even

  With us, for all the blows thee given;