A Defence of Poesie and Poems
the excellences of it may be so easily and so justly confirmed, and the
low creeping objections so soon trodden down {74}; it not being an art of
lies, but of true doctrine; not of effeminateness, but of notable
stirring of courage; not of abusing man’s wit, but of strengthening man’s
wit; not banished, but honoured by Plato; let us rather plant more
laurels for to ingarland the poets’ heads (which honour of being
laureate, as besides them only triumphant captains were, is a sufficient
authority to show the price they ought to be held in) than suffer the
ill-favoured breath of such wrong speakers once to blow upon the clear
springs of poesy.
But {75} since I have run so long a career in this matter, methinks,
before I give my pen a full stop, it shall be but a little more lost time
to inquire, why England, the mother of excellent minds, should be grown
so hard a step-mother to poets, who certainly in wit ought to pass all
others, since all only proceeds from their wit, being, indeed, makers of
themselves, not takers of others. How can I but exclaim,
“Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine læso?” {76}
Sweet poesy! that hath anciently had kings, emperors, senators, great
captains, such as, besides a thousand others, David, Adrian, Sophocles,
Germanicus, not only to favour poets, but to be poets; and of our nearer
times can present for her patrons, a Robert, King of Sicily; the great
King Francis of France; King James of Scotland; such cardinals as Bembus
and Bibiena; such famous preachers and teachers as Beza and Melancthon;
so learned philosophers as Fracastorius and Scaliger; so great orators as
Pontanus and Muretus; so piercing wits as George Buchanan; so grave
councillors as, besides many, but before all, that Hospital {77} of
France, than whom, I think, that realm never brought forth a more
accomplished judgment more firmly builded upon virtue; I say these, with
numbers of others, not only to read others’ poesies, but to poetise for
others’ reading: that poesy, thus embraced in all other places, should
only find in our time a hard welcome in England, I think the very earth
laments it, and therefore decks our soil with fewer laurels than it was
accustomed. For heretofore poets have in England also flourished; and,
which is to be noted, even in those times when the trumpet of Mars did
sound loudest. And now that an over-faint quietness should seem to strew
the house for poets, they are almost in as good reputation as the
mountebanks at Venice. Truly, even that, as of the one side it giveth
great praise to poesy, which, like Venus (but to better purpose), had
rather be troubled in the net with Mars, than enjoy the homely quiet of
Vulcan; so serveth it for a piece of a reason why they are less grateful
to idle England, which now can scarce endure the pain of a pen. Upon
this necessarily followeth that base men with servile wits undertake it,
who think it enough if they can be rewarded of the printer; and so as
Epaminondas is said, with the honour of his virtue, to have made an
office by his exercising it, which before was contemptible, to become
highly respected; so these men, no more but setting their names to it, by
their own disgracefulness, disgrace the most graceful poesy. For now, as
if all the Muses were got with child, to bring forth bastard poets,
without any commission, they do post over the banks of Helicon, until
they make their readers more weary than post-horses; while, in the
meantime, they,
“Queis meliore luto finxit præcordia Titan,” {78}
are better content to suppress the outflowings of their wit, than by
publishing them to be accounted knights of the same order.
But I that, before ever I durst aspire unto the dignity, am admitted into
the company of the paper-blurrers, do find the very true cause of our
wanting estimation is want of desert, taking upon us to be poets in
despite of Pallas. Now, wherein we want desert, were a thankworthy
labour to express. But if I knew, I should have mended myself; but as I
never desired the title so have I neglected the means to come by it;
only, overmastered by some thoughts, I yielded an inky tribute unto them.
Marry, they that delight in poesy itself, should seek to know what they
do, and how they do, especially look themselves in an unflattering glass
of reason, if they be inclinable unto it.
For poesy must not be drawn by the ears, it must be gently led, or rather
it must lead; which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned
affirm it was a divine, and no human skill, since all other knowledges
lie ready for any that have strength of wit; a poet no industry can make,
if his own genius be not carried into it. And therefore is an old
proverb, “Orator fit, poeta nascitur.” {79} Yet confess I always, that
as the fertilest ground must be manured, so must the highest flying wit
have a Dædalus to guide him. That Dædalus, they say, both in this and in
other, hath three wings to bear itself up into the air of due
commendation; that is art, imitation, and exercise. But these, neither
artificial rules, nor imitative patterns, we much cumber ourselves
withal. Exercise, indeed, we do, but that very forebackwardly; for where
we should exercise to know, we exercise as having known; and so is our
brain delivered of much matter which never was begotten by knowledge.
For there being two principal parts, matter to be expressed by words, and
words to express the matter, in neither we use art or imitation rightly.
Our matter is “quodlibet,” {80} indeed, although wrongly, performing
Ovid’s verse,
“Quicquid conabor dicere, versus erit;” {81}
never marshalling it into any assured rank, that almost the readers
cannot tell where to find themselves.
Chaucer, undoubtedly, did excellently in his Troilus and Cressida; of
whom, truly, I know not whether to marvel more, either that he in that
misty time could see so clearly, or that we in this clear age go so
stumblingly after him. Yet had he great wants, fit to be forgiven in so
reverend antiquity. I account the Mirror of Magistrates meetly furnished
of beautiful parts. And in the Earl of Surrey’s Lyrics, many things
tasting of a noble birth, and worthy of a noble mind. The “Shepherds’
Kalendar” hath much poesy in his eclogues, indeed, worthy the reading, if
I be not deceived. That same framing of his {82} style to an old rustic
language, I dare not allow; since neither Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in
Latin, nor Sannazaro in Italian, did affect it. Besides these, I do not
remember to have seen but few (to speak boldly) printed that have
poetical sinews in them. For proof whereof, let but most of the verses
be put in prose, and then ask the meaning, and it will be found that one
verse did but beget another, without ordering at the first what should be
at the last; which becomes a confused mass of words, with a tinkling
sound of rhyme, barely accompanied with reason.
Our {83} tragedies and comedies, not without cause, are cried out
against, observing rules neither of honest civility nor skilful poetry.
Excepting _Gorboduc_ (again I say of those that I have seen), which
notwithstanding, as it is full of stately speeches, and well-sounding
phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca his style, and as full of
notable morality, which it does most delightfully teach, and so obtain
the very end of poesy; yet, in truth, it is very defectuous in the
circumstances, which grieves me, because it might not remain as an exact
model of all tragedies. For it is faulty both in place and time, the two
necessary companions of all corporal actions. For where the stage should
always represent but one place; and the uttermost time presupposed in it
should be, both by Aristotle’s precept, and common reason, but one day;
there is both many days and many places inartificially imagined.
But if it be so in Gorboduc, how much more in all the rest? where you
shall have Asia of the one side, and Afric of the other, and so many
other under kingdoms, that the player, when he comes in, must ever begin
with telling where he is, {84} or else the tale will not be conceived.
Now shall you have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must
believe the stage to be a garden. By and by, we hear news of shipwreck
in the same place, then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock.
Upon the back of that comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke,
and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while,
in the meantime, two armies fly in, represented with four swords and
bucklers, and then, what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched
field?
Now of time they are much more liberal; for ordinary it is, that two
young princes fall in love; after many traverses she is got with child;
delivered of a fair boy; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and
is ready to get another child; and all this in two hours’ space; which,
how absurd it is in sense, even sense may imagine; and art hath taught
and all ancient examples justified, and at this day the ordinary players
in Italy will not err in. Yet will some bring in an example of the
Eunuch in Terence, that containeth matter of two days, yet far short of
twenty years. True it is, and so was it to be played in two days, and so
fitted to the time it set forth. And though Plautus have in one place
done amiss, let us hit it with him, and not miss with him. But they will
say, How then shall we set forth a story which contains both many places
and many times? And do they not know, that a tragedy is tied to the laws
of poesy, and not of history; not bound to follow the story, but having
liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to
the most tragical convenience? Again, many things may be told, which
cannot be showed: if they know the difference betwixt reporting and
representing. As for example, I may speak, though I am here, of Peru,
and in speech digress from that to the description of Calicut; but in
action I cannot represent it without Pacolet’s horse. And so was the
manner the ancients took by some “Nuntius,” {85} to recount things done
in former time, or other place.
Lastly, if they will represent an history, they must not, as Horace
saith, begin “ab ovo,” {86} but they must come to the principal point of
that one action which they will represent. By example this will be best
expressed; I have a story of young Polydorus, delivered, for safety’s
sake, with great riches, by his father Priamus to Polymnestor, King of
Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He, after some years, hearing of the
overthrow of Priamus, for to make the treasure his own, murdereth the
child; the body of the child is taken up; Hecuba, she, the same day,
findeth a sleight to be revenged most cruelly of the tyrant. Where, now,
would one of our tragedy-writers begin, but with the delivery of the
child? Then should he sail over into Thrace, and so spend I know not how
many years, and travel numbers of places. But where doth Euripides?
Even with the finding of the body; leaving the rest to be told by the
spirit of Polydorus. This needs no farther to be enlarged; the dullest
wit may conceive it.
But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither
right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not
because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and
shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor
discretion; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right
sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius
did somewhat so, but that is a thing recounted with space of time, not
represented in one moment: and I know the ancients have one or two
examples of tragi-comedies as Plautus hath Amphytrio. But, if we mark