William Shakespeare - The Complete Works/William Shakespeare - The Complete Works on CD-ROM.iso/library/text/pre/pre0.txt

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COMMENDATORY POEMS AND
PREFACES (1699 - 1640)



Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare
1    Honey-tongued Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue
2    I swore Apollo got them, and none other,
3    Their rosy-tainted features clothed in tissue,
4    Some heaven-born goddess said to be their mother.
5    Rose-cheeked Adonis with his amber tresses,
6    Fair fire-hot Venus charming him to love her,
7    Chaste Lucretia virgin-like her dresses,
8    Proud lust-stung Tarquin seeking still to prove her,
9    Romeo, Richard, more whose names I know not
10    Their sugared tongues and power-attractive beauty
11    Say they are saints although that saints they show not,
12    For thousands vows to them subjective duty.
13    They burn in love, thy children; Shakespeare het them;
14    Go, woo thy muse more nymphish brood beget them.
                John Weever, Epigrams (1599)


Preface to the Sonnets (1609)
1    TO.THE.ONLY.BEGETTER.OF.
2    THESE.ENSUING.SONNETS.
3    Mr.W.H.ALL.HAPPINESS.
4    AND.THAT.ETERNITY.
5        PROMISED.
6            BY.
7    OUR.EVER.LIVING.POET.
8        WISHETH.
9    THE.WELL-WISHING.
10        ADVENTURER.IN.
11        SETTING.
12        FORTH.
13            T.T.


A never writer to an ever reader: news
1    Eternal reader, you have here a new play never staled
2    with the stage, never clapper-clawed with the palms of
3    the vulgar, and yet passing full of the palm comical, for
4    it is a birth of that brain that never undertook anything
5    comical vainly; and were but the vain names of comedies
6    changed for the titles of commodities, or of plays for pleas,
7    you should see all those grand censors that now style
8    them such vanities flock to them for the main grace of
9    their gravities, especially this authorÆs comedies, that are
10    so framed to the life that they serve for the most common
11    commentaries of all the actions of our lives, showing such
12    a dexterity and power of wit that the most displeased
13    with plays are pleased with his comedies, and all such
14    dull and heavy-witted worldlings as were never capable
15    of the wit of a comedy, coming by report of them to his
16    representations, have found that wit there that they never
17    found in themselves, and have parted better witted than
18    they came, feeling an edge of wit set upon them more
19    than ever they dreamed they had brain to grind it on. So
20    much and such savoured salt of wit is in his comedies
21    that they seem, for their height of pleasure, to be born
22    in that sea that brought forth Venus. Amongst all there
23    is none more witty than this, and had I time I would
24    comment upon it,though I know it needs not for so
25    much as will make you think your testern well bestowed,
26    but for so much worth as even poor I know to be stuffed
27    in it. It deserves such a labour as well as the best comedy
28    in Terence or Plautus. And believe this, that when he is
29    gone and his comedies out of sale, you will scramble for
30    them, and set up a new English Inquisition. Take this for
31    a warning, and at the peril of your pleasureÆs loss and
32    judgementÆs, refuse not, nor like this the less for not being
33    sullied with the smoky breath of the multitude; but thank
34    fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you, since
35    by the grand possessorsÆ wills I believe you should have
36    prayed for them rather than been prayed. And so I leave
37    all such to be prayed for, for the states of their
38    witsÆ healths, that will not praise it.
39            Vale.
            Anonymous, in Troilus and Cressida (1609)


To our English Terence, Master Will Shakespeare
1    Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing,
2    Hadst thou not played some kingly parts in sport
3    Thou hadst been a companion for a king,
4    And been a king among the meaner sort.
5    Some others rail; but rail as they think fit,
6    Thou hast no railing but a reigning wit,
7        And honesty thou sowÆst, which they do reap
8        So to increase their stock which they do keep.
            John Davies, The Scourge of Folly (1610)


To Master William Shakespeare
1    Shakespeare, that nimble Mercury, thy brain,
2    Lulls many hundred Argus-eyes asleep,
3    So fit for all thou fashionest thy vein;
4    At thÆ horse-foot fountain thou hast drunk full deep.
5    VirtueÆs or viceÆs theme to thee all one is.
6    Who loves chaste life, thereÆs Lucrece for a teacher;
7    Who list read lust, thereÆs Venus and Adonis,
8    True model of a most lascivious lecher.
9    Besides, in plays thy wit winds like Meander,
10    Whence needy new composers borrow more
11    Than Terence doth from Plautus or Menander.
12    But to praise thee aright, I want thy store.
13    Then let thine own works thine own worth upraise,
14    And help tÆ adorn thee with deservΦd bays.
        Thomas Freeman, Run and a Great Cast (1614)


Inscriptions upon the Shakespeare monument, Stratford-upon-Avon
1    Iudicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
2    Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet.

3     Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast?
4    Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath placed
5    Within this monument: Shakespeare, with whom
6    Quick nature died; whose name doth deck this tomb
7    Far more than cost, sith all that he hath writ
8    Leaves living art but page to serve his wit.
                Obiit anno domini 1616,
                aetatis 53, die 23 Aprilis


On the death of William Shakespeare
1    RenownΦd Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
2    To learnΦd Chaucer; and rare Beaumont, lie
3    A little nearer Spenser, to make room
4    For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
5    To lodge all four in one bed make a shift
6    Until doomsday, for hardly will a fifth
7    Betwixt this day and that by fate be slain
8    For whom your curtains need be drawn again.
9    But if precedency in death doth bar
10    A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre,
11    Under this carvΦd marble of thine own,
12    Sleep, rare tragedian Shakespeare, sleep alone.
13    Thy unmolested peace, unsharΦd cave,
14    Possess as lord, not tenant, of thy grave,
15    That unto us or others it may be
16    Honour hereafter to be laid by thee.
            William Basse (c.1616 - 22), in Shakespeare's
                Poems (1640)


The Stationer to the Reader
(in The Tragedy of Othello, 1622)
1     To set forth a book without an epistle were like to the
2    old English proverb, ôA blue coat without a badgeö, and
3    the author being dead, I thought good to take that piece
4    of work upon me. To commend it I will not, for that
5    which is good, I hope every man will commend without
6    entreaty; and I am the bolder because the authorÆs name
7    is sufficient to vent his work. Thus, leaving everyone to
8    the liberty of judgement, I have ventured to print this
9    play, and leave it to the general censure.
                Yours,
                Thomas Walkley.


To the Reader
1    This figure that thou here seest put,
2    It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
3    Wherein the graver had a strife
4    With nature to outdo the life.
5    O, could he but have drawn his wit
6    As well in brass as he hath hit
7    His face, the print would then surpass
8    All that was ever writ in brass!
9    But since he cannot, reader, look
10    Not on his picture, but his book.
            by Ben Jonson


The Epistle Dedicatory
(in Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, 1623)
1        TO THE MOST NOBLE
2            AND
3        INCOMPARABLE PAIR
4            OF BRETHREN

5            WILLIAM
6    Earl of Pembroke, etc., Lord Chamberlain to the
7        KingÆs most excellent majesty,
8            AND

9            PHILIP
10    Earl of Montgomery, etc., gentleman of his majestyÆs
11    bedchamber; both Knights of the most noble Order
12    of the Garter, and our singular good
13            LORDS.


14    Right Honourable,
15    Whilst we study to be thankful in our particular for the
16    many favours we have received from your lordships, we
17    are fallen upon the ill fortune to mingle two the most
18    diverse things that can be: fear and rashness; rashness
19    in the enterprise, and fear of the success. For when we
20    value the places your highnesses sustain, we cannot but
21    know their dignity greater than to descend to the reading
22    of these trifles; and while we name them trifles we have
23    deprived ourselves of the defence of our dedication. But
24    since your lordships have been pleased to think these
25    trifles something heretofore, and have prosecuted both
26    them and their author, living, with so much favour, we
27    hope that, they outliving him, and he not having the
28    fate, common with some, to be executor to his own
29    writings, you will use the like indulgence toward them you
30    have done unto their parent. There is a great difference
31    whether any book choose his patrons, or find them. This
32    hath done both; for so much were your lordshipsÆ likings
33    of the several parts when they were acted as, before they
34    were published, the volume asked to be yours. We have
35    but collected them, and done an office to the dead to
36    procure his orphans guardians, without ambition either
37    of self-profit or fame, only to keep the memory of so
38    worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare,
39    by humble offer of his plays to your most noble patronage.
40    Wherein, as we have justly observed no man to come
41    near your lordships but with a kind of religious address,
42    it hath been the height of our care, who are the presenters,
43    to make the present worthy of your highnesses by the
44    perfection. But there we must also crave our abilities to
45    be considered, my lords. We cannot go beyond our own
46    powers. Country hands reach forth milk, cream, fruits,
47    or what they have; and many nations, we have heard,
48    that had not gums and incense, obtained their requests
49    with a leavened cake. It was no fault to approach their
50    gods by what means they could, and the most,though
51    meanest, of things are made more precious when they
52    are dedicated to temples. In that name, therefore, we
53    most humbly consecrate to your highnesses these remains
54    of your servant Shakespeare, that what delight is in them
55    may be ever your lordshipsÆ, the reputation his, and the
56    faults ours, if any be committed by a pair so careful
57    to show their gratitude both to the living and the dead
58    as is
59            Your lordshipsÆ most bounden,
60            JOHN HEMINGES.
61            HENRY CONDELL.


To the Great Variety of Readers
1    From the most able to him that can but spell: there
2    you are numbered; we had rather you were weighed,
3    especially when the fate of all books depends upon your
4    capacities, and not of your heads alone, but of your
5    purses. Well, it is now public, and you will stand for your
6    privileges, we know: to read and censure. Do so, but buy
7    it first. That doth best commend a book, the stationer
8    says. Then, how odd soever your brains be, or your
9    wisdoms, make your licence the same, and spare not.
10    Judge your six-pennÆorth, your shillingÆs worth, your five
11    shillingsÆ worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the
12    just rates, and welcome. But whatever you do, buy.
13    Censure will not drive a trade or make the jack go; and
14    though you be a magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage
15    at Blackfriars or the Cockpit to arraign plays daily, know,
16    these plays have had their trial already, and stood out
17    all appeals, and do now come forth quitted rather by
18    a decree of court than any purchased letters of
19    commendation.
20        It had been a thing, we confess, worthy to have been
21    wished that the author himself had lived to have set forth
22    and overseen his own writings. But since it hath been
23    ordained otherwise, and he by death departed from that
24    right, we pray you do not envy his friends the office of
25    their care and pain to have collected and published them,
26    and so to have published them as where, before, you
27    were abused with divers stolen and surreptitious copies,
28    maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of
29    injurious impostors that exposed them, even those are
30    now offered to your view cured and perfect of their limbs,
31    and all the rest absolute in their numbers, as he conceived
32    them; who, as he was a happy imitator of nature, was
33    a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went
34    together, and what he thought he uttered with that
35    easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in
36    his papers. But it is not our province, who only gather
37    his works and give them you, to praise him; it is yours,
38    that read him. And there we hope, to your diverse
39    capacities, you will find enough both to draw and hold
40    you; for his wit can no more lie hid than it could be lost.
41    Read him, therefore, and again, and again, and if then
42    you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest
43    danger not to understand him. And so we leave you to
44    other of his friends whom if you need can be your guides;
45    if you need them not, you can lead yourselves and others.
46    And such readers we wish him.
        John Heminges, Henry Condell, in Comedies, Histories,
                and Tragedies (1623)


    To the memory of my beloved,
        The AUTHOR
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
            AND
    what he hath left us
1    To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name
2    Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
3    While I confess thy writings to be such
4    As neither man nor muse can praise too much:
5    ÆTis true, and all menÆs suffrage. But these ways
6    Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise,
7    For silliest ignorance on these may light,
8    Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
9    Or blind affection, which doth neÆer advance
10    The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
11    Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
12    And think to ruin where it seemed to raise.
13    These are as some infamous bawd or whore
14    Should praise a matron: what could hurt her more?
15    But thou art proof against them, and indeed
16    Above thÆ ill fortune of them, or the need.
17    I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!
18    The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
19    My Shakespeare, rise. I will not lodge thee by
20    Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
21    A little further to make thee a room.
22    Thou art a monument without a tomb,
23    And art alive still while thy book doth live
24    And we have wits to read and praise to give.
25    That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses:
26    I mean with great but disproportioned muses.
27    For if I thought my judgement were of years
28    I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
29    And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
30    Or sporting Kyd, or MarloweÆs mighty line.
31    And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
32    From thence to honour thee I would not seek
33    For names, but call forth thundÆring Aeschylus,
34    Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
35    Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
36    To life again, to hear thy buskin tread
37    And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,
38    Leave thee alone for the comparison
39    Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
40    Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
41    Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
42    To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
43    He was not of an age, but for all time,
44    And all the muses still were in their prime
45    When like Apollo he came forth to warm
46    Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
47    Nature herself was proud of his designs,
48    And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines,
49    Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
50    As since she will vouchsafe no other wit.
51    The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
52    Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please,
53    But antiquated and deserted lie
54    As they were not of natureÆs family.
55    Yet must I not give nature all; thy art,
56    My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
57    For though the poetÆs matter nature be,
58    His art doth give the fashion; and that he
59    Who casts to write a living line must sweat
60    Such as thine are and strike the second heat
61    Upon the musesÆ anvil, turn the same,
62    And himself with it that he thinks to frame;
63    Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn,
64    For a good poetÆs made as well as born.
65    And such wert thou. Look how the fatherÆs face
66    Lives in his issue, even so the race
67    Of ShakespeareÆs mind and manners brightly shines
68    In his well turnΦd and true-filΦd lines,
69    In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
70    As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.
71    Sweet swan of Avon! What a sight it were
72    To see thee in our waters yet appear,
73    And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
74    That so did take Eliza and our James!
75    But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
76    Advanced, and made a constellation there!
77    Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage
78    Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage,
79    Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night
80    And despairs day, but for thy volumeÆs light.
        Ben Jonson, in Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623)


Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous
    Scenic Poet, Master William
        Shakespeare
1    Those hands which you so clapped go now and wring,
2    You Britons brave, for done are ShakespeareÆs days.
3    His days are done that made the dainty plays
4    Which made the globe of heavÆn and earth to ring.
5    Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian spring,
6    Turned all to tears, and Phoebus clouds his rays.
7    That corpse, that coffin now bestick those bays
8    Which crowned him poet first, then poetsÆ king.
9    If tragedies might any prologue have,
10    All those he made would scarce make one to this,
11    Where fame, now that he gone is to the grave
12    DeathÆs public tiring-house the (nuntius) is;
13    For though his line of life went soon about,
14    The life yet of his lines shall never out.
        Hugh Holland, in Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623)


    TO THE MEMORY
of the deceased author Master
    William Shakespeare
1    Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellows give
2    The world thy works, thy works by which outlive
3    Thy tomb thy name must; when that stone is rent,
4    And time dissolves thy Stratford monument,
5    Here we alive shall view thee still. This book,
6    When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look
7    Fresh to all ages. When posterity
8    Shall loathe whatÆs new, think all is prodigy
9    That is not ShakespeareÆs evÆry line, each verse
10    Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy hearse.
11    Nor fire nor cankÆring age, as Naso said
12    Of his, thy wit-fraught book shall once invade;
13    Nor shall I eÆer believe or think thee dead
14    Though missed until our bankrupt stage be sped
15    Impossible with some new strain tÆ outdo
16    Passions of Juliet and her Romeo,
17    Or till I hear a scene more nobly take
18    Than when thy half-sword parleying Romans spake.
19    Till these, till any of thy volumeÆs rest
20    Shall with more fire, more feeling be expressed,
21    Be sure, our Shakespeare, thou canst never die,
22    But crowned with laurel, live eternally.
        Leonard Digges, in Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies
(1623)


To the memory of Master William Shakespeare
1    We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou wentÆst so soon
2    From the worldÆs stage to the graveÆs tiring-room.
3    We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth
4    Tells thy spectators that thou wentÆst but forth
5    To enter with applause. An actorÆs art
6    Can die, and live to act a second part.
7    ThatÆs but an exit of mortality;
8    This, a re-entrance to a plaudite.
        James Mabbe, in Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623)


The Names of the Principal Actors in all these Plays
1     William Shakespeare.    Samuel Gilburn.
2    Richard Burbage.    Robert Armin.
3    John Heminges.    William Ostler.
4    Augustine Phillips.    Nathan Field.
5    William Kempe.    John Underwood.
6    Thomas Pope.    Nicholas Tooley.
7    George Bryan.    William Ecclestone.
8    Henry Condell.    Joseph Taylor.
9    William Sly.        Robert Benfield.
10    Richard Cowley.    Robert Gough.
11    John Lowin.        Richard Robinson.
12    Samuel Cross.    John Shank.
13    Alexander Cook.    John Rice.


An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet, William Shakespeare
1    What need my Shakespeare for his honoured bones
2    The labour of an age in pilΦd stones,
3    Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
4    Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
5    Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
6    What needÆst thou such dull witness of thy name?
7    Thou in our wonder and astonishment
8    Hast built thyself a lasting monument,
9    For whilst to thÆ shame of slow-endeavouring art
10    Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
11    Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
12    Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,
13    Then thou, our fancy of herself bereaving,
14    Dost make us marble with too much conceiving,
15    And so sepulchered in such pomp dost lie
16    That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
John Milton (1630), in Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1632)


    Upon the Effigies of my Worthy
    Friend, the Author Master William
    Shakespeare, and his Works
1    Spectator, this lifeÆs shadow is. To see
2    The truer image and a livelier he,
3    Turn reader. But observe his comic vein,
4    Laugh; and proceed next to a tragic strain,
5    Then weep. So when thou findÆst two contraries,
6    Two different passions from thy rapt soul rise,
7    Say who alone effect such wonders could
8    Rare Shakespeare to the life thou dost behold.


On Worthy Master Shakespeare and his Poems
1    A mind reflecting ages past, whose clear
2    And equal surface can make things appear
3    Distant a thousand years, and represent
4    Them in their lively coloursÆ just extent;
5    To outrun hasty time, retrieve the fates,
6    Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
7    Of death and Lethe, where confusΦd lie
8    Great heaps of ruinous mortality;
9    In that deep dusky dungeon to discern
10    A royal ghost from churls; by art to learn
11    The physiognomy of shades, and give
12    Them sudden birth, wondÆring how oft they live;
13    What story coldly tells, what poets feign
14    At second hand, and picture without brain
15    Senseless and soulless shows; to give a stage,
16    Ample and true with life, voice, action, age,
17    As PlatoÆs year and new scene of the world
18    Them unto us or us to them had hurled;
19    To raise our ancient sovereigns from their hearse,
20    Make kings his subjects; by exchanging verse
21    Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age
22    Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage;
23    Yet so to temper passion that our ears
24    Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears
25    Both weep and smile: fearful at plots so sad,
26    Then laughing at our fear; abused, and glad
27    To be abused, affected with that truth
28    Which we perceive is false; pleased in that ruth
29    At which we start, and by elaborate play
30    Tortured and tickled; by a crablike way
31    Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort
32    Disgorging up his ravin for our sport,
33    While the plebeian imp from lofty throne
34    Creates and rules a world, and works upon
35    Mankind by secret engines; now to move
36    A chilling pity, then a rigorous love;
37    To strike up and stroke down both joy and ire;
38    To steer thÆ affections, and by heavenly fire
39    Mould us anew; stolÆn from ourselves
40    This, and much more which cannot be expressed
41    But by himself, his tongue and his own breast,
42    Was ShakespeareÆs freehold, which his cunning brain
43    Improved by favour of the ninefold train.
44    The buskined muse, the comic queen, the grand
45    And louder tone of Clio; nimble hand
46    And nimbler foot of the melodious pair,
47    The silver-voicΦd lady, the most fair
48    Calliope, whose speaking silence daunts,
49    And she whose praise the heavenly body chants.
50    These jointly wooed him, envying one another,
51    Obeyed by all as spouse, but loved as brother,
52    And wrought a curious robe of sable grave,
53    Fresh green, and pleasant yellow, red most brave,
54    And constant blue, rich purple, guiltless white,
55    The lowly russet, and the scarlet bright,
56    Branched and embroidered like the painted spring,
57    Each leaf matched with a flower, and each string
58    Of golden wire, each line of silk; there run
59    Italian works whose thread the sisters spun,
60    And there did sing, or seem to sing, the choice
61    Birds of a foreign note and various voice.
62    Here hangs a mossy rock, there plays a fair
63    But chiding fountain purlΦd. Not the air
64    Nor clouds nor thunder but were living drawn
65    Not out of common tiffany or lawn,
66    But fine materials which the muses know,
67    And only know the countries where they grow.
68    Now when they could no longer him enjoy
69    In mortal garments pent: death may destroy,
70    They say, his body, but his verse shall live,
71    And more than nature takes our hands shall give.
72    In a less volume, but more strongly bound,
73    Shakespeare shall breathe and speak, with laurel crowned,
74    Which never fades; fed with Ambrosian meat
75    In a well-linΦd vesture rich and neat.
76    So with this robe they clothe him, bid him wear it,
77    For time shall never stain, nor envy tear it.
        The friendly admirer of his endowments", I.M.S., in
Comedies,
    Histories, and Tragedies (1623)


Upon Master WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, the Deceased
Author, and his POEMS
1    Poets are born, not made: when I would prove
2    This truth, the glad remembrance I must love
3    Of never-dying Shakespeare, who alone
4    Is argument enough to make that one.
5    First, that he was a poet none would doubt
6    That heard thÆ applause of what he sees set out
7    Imprinted, where thou hast I will not say,
8    Reader, his works, for to contrive a play
9    To him Ætwas none the pattern of all wit,
10    Art without art unparalleled as yet.
11    Next, nature only helped him, for look thorough
12    This whole book, thou shalt find he doth not borrow
13    One phrase from Greeks, nor Latins imitate,
14    Nor once from vulgar languages translate,
15    Nor plagiary-like from others glean,
16    Nor begs he from each witty friend a scene
17    To piece his acts with. All that he doth write
18    Is pure his own plot, language exquisite
19    But O! what praise more powerful can we give
20    The dead than that by him the KingÆs men live,
21    His players, which should they but have shared the fate,
22    All else expired within the short termÆs date,
23    How could the Globe have prospered, since through want
24    Of change the plays and poems had grown scant.
25    But, happy verse, thou shalt be sung and heard
26    When hungry quills shall be such honour barred.
27    Then vanish, upstart writers to each stage,
28    You needy poetasters of this age;
29    Where Shakespeare lived or spake, vermin, forbear;
30    Lest with your froth you spot them, come not near.
31    But if you needs must write, if poverty
32    So pinch that otherwise you starve and die,
33    On GodÆs name may the Bull or Cockpit have
34    Your lame blank verse, to keep you from the grave,
35    Or let new FortuneÆs younger brethren see
36    What they can pick from your lean industry.
37    I do not wonder, when you offer at
38    Blackfriars, that you suffer; Ætis the fate
39    Of richer veins, prime judgements that have fared
40    The worse with this deceasΦd man compared.
41    So have I seen, when Caesar would appear,
42    And on the stage at half-sword parley were
43    Brutus and Cassius; O, how the audience
44    Were ravished, with what wonder they went thence,
45    When some new day they would not brook a line
46    Of tedious though well-laboured Catiline.
47    Sejanus too was irksome, they prized more
48    Honest Iago, or the jealous Moor.
49    And though the Fox and subtle Alchemist,
50    Long intermitted, could not quite be missed,
51    Though these have shamed all the ancients, and might raise
52    Their authorÆs merit with a crown of bays,
53    Yet these, sometimes, even at a friendÆs desire
54    Acted, have scarce defrayed the seacoal fire
55    And doorkeepers; when let but Falstaff come,
56    Hal, Poins, the rest, you scarce shall have a room,
57    All is so pestered. Let but Beatrice
58    And Benedick be seen, lo, in a trice
59    The Cockpit galleries, boxes, all are full
60    To hear Malvolio, that cross-gartered gull.
61    Brief, there is nothing in his wit-fraught book
62    Whose sound we would not hear, on whose worth look;
63    Like old-coined gold, whose lines in every page
64    Shall pass true current to succeeding age.
65    But why do I dead ShakespeareÆs praise recite?
66    Some second Shakespeare must of Shakespeare write;
67    For me Ætis needless, since an host of men
68    Will pay to clap his praise, to free my pen.
        Leonard Digges (before 1636), in Shakespeare's Poems
(1640)


In remembrance of Master William Shakespeare.
            ODE
1    Beware, delighted poets, when you sing
2    To welcome nature in the early spring,
3        Your numÆrous feet not tread
4    The banks of Avon; for each flower
5    (As it neÆer knew a sun or shower)
6        Hangs there the pensive head.

7    Each tree, whose thick and spreading growth hath made
8    Rather a night beneath the boughs than shade,
9        Unwilling now to grow,
10    Looks like the plume a captive wears,
11    Whose rifled falls are steeped iÆ thÆ tears
12        Which from his last rage flow.

13    The piteous river wept itself away
14    Long since, alas, to such a swift decay
15        That, reach the map and look
16    If you a river there can spy,
17    And for a river your mocked eye
18        Will find a shallow brook.
    Sir William Davenant, Madagascar, with Other Poems (1637)


An Elegy on the death of that famous Writer and Actor,
Master William Shakspeare
1    I dare not do thy memory that wrong
2    Unto our larger griefs to give a tongue;
3    IÆll only sigh in earnest, and let fall
4    My solemn tears at thy great funeral,
5    For every eye that rains a showÆr for thee
6    Laments thy loss in a sad elegy.
7    Nor is it fit each humble muse should have
8    Thy worth his subject, now thouÆrt laid in grave;
9    No, itÆs a flight beyond the pitch of those
10    Whose worthless pamphlets are not sense in prose.
11    Let learnΦd Jonson sing a dirge for thee,
12    And fill our orb with mournful harmony;
13    But we need no remembrancer; thy fame
14    Shall still accompany thy honoured name
15    To all posterity, and make us be
16    Sensible of what we lost in losing thee,
17    Being the ageÆs wonder, whose smooth rhymes
18    Did more reform than lash the looser times.
19    Nature herself did her own self admire
20    As oft as thou wert pleasΦd to attire
21    Her in her native lustre, and confess
22    Thy dressing was her chiefest comeliness.
23    How can we then forget thee, when the age
24    Her chiefest tutor, and the widowed stage
25    Her only favourite, in thee hath lost,
26    And natureÆs self what she did brag of most?
27    Sleep, then, rich soul of numbers, whilst poor we
28    Enjoy the profits of thy legacy,
29    And think it happiness enough we have
30    So much of thee redeemΦd from the grave
31    As may suffice to enlighten future times
32    With the bright lustre of thy matchless rhymes.
        Anonymous (before 1638), in Shakespeare's Poems (1640)


To Shakespeare
1     Thy museÆs sugared dainties seem to us
2    Like the famed apples of old Tantalus,
3    For we, admiring, see and hear thy strains,
4    But none I see or hear those sweets attains.

To the same
1    Thou hast so used thy pen, or shook thy spear,
2    That poets startle, nor thy wit come near.
        Thomas Bancroft, Two Books of Epigrams and Epitaphs
                (1639)


To Master William Shakespeare
1    Shakespeare, we must be silent in thy praise,
2    ÆCause our encomiums will but blast thy bays,
3    Which envy could not, that thou didst so well;
4    Let thine own histories prove thy chronicle.
        Anonymous, in Wit's Recreations (1640)


To the Reader
1    I here presume, under favour, to present to your view
2    some excellent and sweetly composed poems of Master
3    William Shakespeare, which in themselves appear of the
4    same purity the author himself, then living, avouched.
5    They had not the fortune, by reason of their infancy in
6    his death, to have the due accommodation of proportionable
7    glory with the rest of his ever-living works,
8    yet the lines of themselves will afford you a more authentic
9    approbation than my assurance any way can; to invite
10    your allowance, in your perusal you shall find them
11    serene, clear, and elegantly plain, such gentle strains as
12    shall recreate and not perplex your brain, no intricate or
13    cloudy stuff to puzzle intellect, but perfect eloquence, such
14    as will raise your admiration to his praise. This assurance,
15    I know, will not differ from your acknowledgement; and
16    certain I am my opinion will be seconded by the sufficiency
17    of these ensuing lines. I have been somewhat solicitous
18    to bring this forth to the perfect view of all men, and in
19    so doing, glad to be serviceable for the continuance of
20    glory to the deserved author in these his poems.
        John Benson, in Shakespeare's Poems (1640)


Of Master William Shakespeare
1    What, lofty Shakespeare, art again revived,
2    And Virbius-like now showÆst thyself twice lived?
3    ÆTis BensonÆs love that thus to thee is shown,
4    The labourÆs his, the glory still thine own.
5    These learnΦd poems amongst thine after-birth,
6    That makes thy name immortal on the earth,
7    Will make the learnΦd still admire to see
8    The musesÆ gifts so fully infused on thee.
9    Let carping Momus bark and bite his fill,
10    And ignorant Davus slight thy learnΦd skill,
11    Yet those who know the worth of thy desert,
12    And with true judgement can discern thy art,
13    Will be admirers of thy high-tuned strain,
14    Amongst whose number let me still remain.
        John Warren, in Shakespeare's Poems (1640)