SCENE V.[1349

_To them_ [_enter_] E. KNOWELL, WELLBRED, _and_ BRIDGET.

Who be these? O, the young company; welcome, welcome! Gi’ you joy. Nay, mistress Bridget, blush not; you are not so fresh a bride, but the news of it is come hither afore you. Master bridegroom, I ha’ made your peace, (5) give me your hand: so will I for all the rest ere you forsake my roof.[1352]

_E. Know._ We are the more bound to your humanity, sir.

_Clem._ Only these two have so little of man in ’em, they are no part of my care. 11

_Wel._ Yes, sir, let me pray you for this gentleman, he belongs to my sister the bride.

_Clem._ In what place, sir?

_Wel._ Of her delight, sir, below the stairs, (15) and in public: her poet, sir.

_Clem._ A poet! I will challenge him myself presently at extempore. _Mount up thy Phlegon,[1353] Muse, and testify How Saturn, sitting in an ebon cloud, 20 Disrobed his podex, white as ivory, And through the welkin thund’red all aloud._

_Wel._ He is not for extempore, sir: he is all for the pocket muse; please you command a sight of it. 25

_Clem._ Yes, yes, search him for a taste of his vein. [_They search_ MATHEW’S _pockets_.]

_Wel._ You must not deny the queen’s justice, sir, under a writ o’ rebellion. 29

_Clem._ What! all this verse? Body o’ me, he carries a whole realm,[1354] a commonwealth of paper in his hose. Let us see some of his subjects. [_Reads._] _Unto the boundless ocean of thy face, Runs this poor river, charg’d with streams of eyes._[1355] How! this is stol’n. 35

_E. Know._ A parody! a parody! with a kind of miraculous gift, to make it absurder than it was.

_Clem._ Is all the rest of this batch? Bring me a torch; lay it together, and give fire. (40) Cleanse the air. [_Sets the papers on fire._] Here was enough to have infected the whole city, if it had not been taken in time. See, see, how our poet’s glory shines! brighter and brighter! still it increases! O, now it’s at the highest; (45) and now it declines as fast. You may see, _sic transit gloria mundi_!

_Know._ There’s an emblem for you, son, and your studies. 49

_Clem._ Nay, no speech or act of mine be drawn against such as profess it worthily. They are not born every year, as an alderman. There goes more to the making of a good poet, than a sheriff. Master Kitely, you look upon me!—though I live i’ the city here, amongst you, I (55) will do more reverence to him, when I meet him, than I will to the mayor out of his year. But these paper-pedlars! these ink-dabblers! they cannot expect reprehension or reproach; they have it with the fact. 60

_E. Know._ Sir, you have sav’d me the labour of a defence.[1356]

_Clem._ It shall be discourse for supper between your father and me, if he dare undertake (64) me. But to dispatch away these: you sign o’ the soldier, and picture o’ the poet, (but both so false, I will not ha’ you hang’d out at my door till midnight,) while we are at supper, you two shall penitently fast it out in my court without; and, if you will, you may pray there (70) that we may be so merry within as to forgive or forget you when we come out. Here’s a third, because we tender your safety, shall watch you, he is provided for the purpose.[1357]—Look to your charge, sir. 75

_Step._ And what shall I do?

_Clem._ O! I had lost a sheep an he had not bleated: why, sir, you shall give master Downright his cloak; and I will intreat him to take it. A trencher and a napkin you shall (80) have i’ the buttery, and keep Cob and his wife company here; whom I will intreat first to be reconcil’d; and you to endeavour with your wit to keep ’em so.

_Step._ I’ll do my best. 85

_Cob._ Why, now I see thou art honest, Tib, I receive thee as my dear and mortal wife again.

_Tib._ And I you, as my loving and obedient husband. 90

_Clem._ Good compliment! It will be their bridal night too. They are married anew. Come, I conjure the rest to put off all discontent. You, master Downright, your anger; you, master Knowell, your cares; Master Kitely and his wife, their jealousy. 96 For, I must tell you both, while that is fed, Horns i’ the mind are worse than o’ the head.

_Kit._ Sir, thus they go from me; kiss me, sweetheart. 100 _See what a drove of horns fly in the air, Wing’d with my cleansed and my credulous breath! Watch ’em, suspicious eyes, watch where they fall. See, see! on heads that think they’ve none at all! O, what a plenteous world of this will come! 105 When air rains horns, all may be sure of some._[1358] I ha’ learn’d so much verse out of a jealous man’s part in a play.

_Clem._ ’Tis well, ’tis well! This night we’ll dedicate to friendship, love, and laughter. (110) Master bridegroom, take your bride and lead; every one, a fellow. Here is my mistress, Brainworm! to whom all my addresses of courtship shall have their reference: whose adventures this day, when our grandchildren shall (115) hear to be made a fable, I doubt not but it shall find both spectators and applause. [_Exeunt._]

SEJANUS, HIS FALL

BY BEN JONSON

_Non hic Centauros, non Gorgonas, Harpyiasque Invenies: Hominem pagina nostra sapit._

PERSONS OF THE PLAY

TIBERIUS, [Emperor]. DRUSUS SENIOR, [Nephew of Tiberius]. NERO, } DRUSUS JUNIOR, } [Sons of Germanicus]. CALIGULA, } [LUCIUS] ARRUNTIUS, } [CAIUS] SILIUS, } [Gentlemen [TITIUS] SABINUS, } opposed [MARCUS] LEPIDUS, } to [CREMUTIUS] CORDUS, } Sejanus]. [ASINIUS] GALLUS, } REGULUS, [Consul]. TERENTIUS. [GRACINUS] LACO. EUDEMUS, [a Physician]. RUFUS. SEJANUS. LATIARIS. VARRO, [Consul]. [SERTORIUS] MACRO. COTTA. [DOMITIUS] AFER. HATERIUS. SANQUINIUS. POMPONIUS. [JULIUS] POSTHUMUS. [FULCINUS] TRIO, Consul. MINUTIUS. SATRIUS [SECUNDUS]. [PINNARIUS] NATTA. OPSIUS.

AGRIPPINA, [Widow of Germanicus]. LIVIA, [Wife of Drusus senior]. SOSIA, [Wife of C. Silius]. Tribuni. Praecones. Flamen. Tubicines. Nuntius. Lictores. Ministri. Tibicines. Servus, [_etc._].

SCENE.—_Rome._

TO THE NO LESS NOBLE BY VIRTUE THAN BLOOD, ESME, LORD AUBIGNY

MY LORD,—If ever any ruin were so great as to survive, I think this be one I send you, The Fall of Sejanus. It is a poem, that, if I well remember, in your lordship’s sight, suffer’d no less violence from our people here, than the subject of it did from the rage of the people of Rome; but with a different fate, as, I hope, merit;[1361] for this hath outliv’d their malice, and begot itself a greater favour than he lost, the love of good men. Amongst whom, if I make your lordship the first it thanks, it is not without a just confession of the bond your benefits have, and ever shall hold upon me,

Your Lordship’s most faithful honourer, BEN. JONSON.

TO THE READERS[1362]

The following and voluntary labours[1363] of my friends, prefixed to my book, have relieved me in much whereat, without them, I should necessarily have touched. Now I will only use three or four short and needful notes, and so rest.

First, if it be objected, that what I publish is no true poem, in the strict laws of time, I confess it: as also in the want of a proper chorus; whose habit and moods are such and so difficult, as not any, whom I have seen, since the ancients, no, not they who have most presently affected laws, have yet come in the way of. Nor is it needful, or almost possible in these our times, and to such auditors as commonly things are presented, to observe the old state and splendour of dramatic poems, with preservation of any popular delight. But of this I shall take more seasonable cause to speak, in my observations upon Horace his Art of Poetry, which, with the text translated, I intend shortly to publish.[1364] In the meantime, if in truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence, I have discharged the other offices of a tragic writer, let not the absence of these forms be imputed to me, wherein I shall give you occasion hereafter, and without my boast, to think I could better prescribe, than omit the due use for want of a convenient knowledge.

The next is, lest in some nice nostril the quotations might savour affected, I do let you know, that I abhor nothing more; and I have only done it to show my integrity in the story, and save myself in those common torturers that bring all wit to the rack; whose noses are ever like swine spoiling and rooting up the Muses’ gardens; and their whole bodies like moles, as blindly working under earth, to cast any, the least, hills upon virtue.

Whereas they are in Latin, and the work in English, it was presupposed none but the learned would take the pains to confer them; the authors themselves being all in the learned tongues, save one,[1365] with whose English side I have had little to do. To which it may be required, since I have quoted the page, to name what editions I followed: _Tacit. Lips. in quarto_, _Antwerp, edit. 1600. Dio. folio_, _Hen. Steph. 1592_. For the rest, as _Sueton_, _Seneca_, &c, the chapter doth sufficiently direct, or the edition is not varied.

Lastly, I would inform you, that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen[1366] had good share: in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation.

Fare you well, and if you read farther of me, and like, I shall not be afraid of it, though you praise me out.

_Neque enim mihi cornea fibra est._

But that I should plant my felicity in your general saying, _good_, or _well_, &c., were a weakness which the better sort of you might worthily contemn, if not absolutely hate me for.

BEN. JONSON; and no such,

_Quem Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum._

THE ARGUMENT

Aelius Sejanus, son to Seius Strabo, a gentleman of Rome, and born at Vulsinium; after his long service in court, first under Augustus; afterward, Tiberius; grew into that favour with the latter, and won him by those arts, as there wanted nothing but the name to make him a co-partner of the Empire. Which greatness of his, Drusus, the Emperor’s son, not brooking; after many smother’d dislikes, it one day breaking out, the prince struck him publicly on the face. To revenge which disgrace, Livia, the wife of Drusus (being before corrupted by him to her dishonour, and the discovery of her husband’s counsels) Sejanus practiseth with, together with her physician, called Eudemus, and one Lygdus, an eunuch, to poison Drusus. This their inhuman act having successful and unsuspected passage, it emboldeneth Sejanus to farther and more insolent projects, even the ambition of the Empire; where finding the lets[1367] he must encounter to be many and hard, in respect of the issue of Germanicus, who were next in hope for the succession, he deviseth to make Tiberius’ self his means; and instils into his ears many doubts and suspicions, both against the princes, and their mother Agrippina; which Caesar jealously heark’ning to, as covetously consenteth to their ruin, and their friends’. In this time, the better to mature and strengthen his design, Sejanus labours to marry Livia, and worketh with all his ingine,[1368] to remove Tiberius from the knowledge of public business, with allurements of a quiet and retired life; the latter of which, Tiberius, out of a proneness to lust, and a desire to hide those unnatural pleasures which he could not so publicly practise, embraceth: the former enkindleth his fears, and there gives him first cause of doubt or suspect towards Sejanus: against whom he raiseth in private a new instrument, one Sertorius Macro, and by him underworketh, discovers the other’s counsels, his means, his ends, sounds the affections of the senators, divides, distracts them: at last, when Sejanus least looketh, and is most secure; with pretext of doing him an unwonted honour in the senate, he trains[1369] him from his guards, and with a long doubtful letter, in one day hath him suspected, accused, condemned, and torn in pieces by the rage of the people. [This do we advance, as a mark of terror to all traitors, and treasons; to show how just the heavens are, in pouring and thundering down a weighty vengeance on their unnatural intents, even to the worst princes; much more to those, for guard of whose piety and virtue the angels are in continual watch, and God himself miraculously working.][1370]