Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
A little further, to make thee a roome:
Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mixe thee so, my braine excuses,
I meane with great, but disproportion'd Muses;
For if I thought my judgement were of yeeres,
I should commit thee surely with thy peeres,
And tell, how farre thou didst our Lily out-shine,
Or sporting Kid, or Marlowe's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latine, and lesse Greeke,
From thence to honour thee, I would not seeke
For names; but call forth thund'ring Eschilus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life againe, to heare thy Buskin tread
And shake a Stage: Or, when thy Sockes were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughtie Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britaine! thou hast one to showe,
To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warme
Our eares, or like a Mercury to charme!
Nature her-selfe was proud of his designes,
And joy'd to weare the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other Wit.
The merry Greeke, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, willy Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lye,
As they were not of Natures family.
Yet must I not give Nature all; thy Art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part:
For though the Poets matter, Nature be,
His Art doth give the fashion. And, that he,
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses anvile: turne the same,
(And himselfe with it) that he thinkes to frame;
Or, for the lawrell, he may gain a scorne,
For a good Poet's made, as well as borne.
And such wert thou. Looke how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakespeares minde and manners brightly shines
In his well-torned and true-filed lines:
In each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance,
As brandish't at the eyes of Ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appeare,
And make those flights upon the bankes of Thames, ·
That so did take Eliza and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere
Advanc'd, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage
Or influence, chide or cheere the drooping Stage;
Which, since thy flight frō hence, hath mourn'd like night,
And despaires day, but for thy Volumes light.
Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous Scenicke Poet, Master WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
Those hands which you so clapt, go now and wring,
You Britaines brave; for done are Shakespeare's dayes:
His dayes are done, that made the dainty Playes
Which make the Globe of heav'n and earth to ring.
Dry'de is that veine, dry'd is the Thespian Spring,
Turn'd all to teares, and Phœbus clouds his rayes:
That corps, that coffin, now besticke those bayes,
Which crown'd him Poet first, then Poets' King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue have,
All those he made, would scarce make one to this:
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the grave,
(Death's publique tyring-house) the Nuncius is.
For, though his line of life went soone about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.
Zu diesen vier Gedichten fügte die zweite Folioausgabe von 1632 noch folgende drei, deren zweites von Milton ist.
Upon the Effigies of my worthy Friend, the Author, Master William Shakespeare,
and his Workes.
Spectator, this Life's Shaddow is; To see
The truer image and a livelier he,
Turne Reader. But, observe his Comicke vaine,
Laugh, and proceed next to a Tragicke straine,
Then weep, So when thou find'st two contraries,
Two different passions from thy rapt soule rise,
Say, (who alone effect such wonders could)
Rare Shake-speare to the life thou dost behold.
An Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet, W. Shakespeare.
What neede my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones
The labour of an Age in piled stones,
Or that his hallow'd Reliquies should be hid
Under a star-ypointing Pyramid?
Dear Sonne of Memory, great Heire of Fame,
What needst thou such dull witness of thy Name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyselfe a lasting Monument:
For whilst, to th' shame of slow-endevouring Art,
Thy easie numbres flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued Booke
Those Delphicke Lines with deep Impression tooke;
Then thou, our fancy of herself bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceiving;
And, so Sepulcher'd, in such pompe dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tombe would wish to die.
On Worthy Master Shakespeare and his Poems,
A mind reflecting ages past, whose cleere
And equall surface can make things appeare
Distant a Thousand yeares, and represent
Them in their lively colours, just extent.
To out-run hasty Time, retrive the fates,
Rowle backe the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of Death and Lethe, where (confused) lye
Great heapes of ruinous mortalitie.
In that deepe duskie dungeon to discerne
A royal Ghost from Churles; By art to learne
The Physiognomie of shades, and give
Them suddaine birth, wondring how oft they live;
What story coldly tells, what Poets faine
At second hand, and picture without braine,
Senselesse and soullesse showes. To give a Stage
(Ample and true with life) voice, action, age,
As Plato's yeare and new Scene of the world
Them unto us, or us to them had hurld:
To raise our auncient Soveraignes from their herse,
Make Kings his subjects; by exchanging verse
Enlive their pale trunkes, that the present age
Joyes in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet so to temper passion, that our eares
Take pleasure in their paine: And eyes in teares
Both weepe and smile: fearefull at plots so sad,
Then, laughing at our feare; abus'd, and glad
To be abus'd; affected with that truth
Which we perceive is false; pleas'd in that ruth
At which we start; and by elaborate play
Tortur'd and tickled; by a crablike way
Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort
Disgorging up his ravaine for our sport —
While the Plebeian Impe, from lofty throne,
Creates and rules a world, and workes upon
Mankind by secret engines; Now to move
A chilling pitty, then a rigorous love:
To strike up and stroake down, both joy and ire;
To steere th' affections; and by heavenly fire
Mould us anew. Stolne from ourselves
This, and much more which cannot bee express'd
But by himselfe, his tongue, and his own brest,
Was Shakespeare's freehold: which his cunning braine
Improv'd by favour of the nine-fold traine,
The buskind Muse, the Commicke Queene, the grand
And lowder tone of Clio; nimble hand,
And nimbler foote of the melodious paire,
The silver-voyced Lady; the most faire
Calliope, whose speaking silence daunts,
And she whose prayse the heavenly body chants.
These jointly woo'd him, envying one another,
(Obey'd by all as Spouse, but lov'd as brother),
And wrought a curious robe of sable grave,
Fresh greene, and pleasant yellow, red most brave,
And constant blew, rich purple, guiltlesse white,
The lowly Russet, and the Scarlet bright;
Branch'd and embroidred like the painted Spring,
Each leafe match'd with a flower, and each string
Of golden wire, each line of silke; there run
Italian workes whose thred the Sisters spun;
And there did sing, or seeme to sing, the choyce
Byrdes of a forraine note and various voyce.
Here hangs a mossey rocke; there playes a faire
But chiding fountaine, purled: Not the ayre,
Nor cloudes nor thunder, but were living drawne,
Not out of common Tiffany or Lawne,
But fine materialls, which the Muses know,
And onely know the countries where they grow.
Now, when they could no longer him enjoy,
In mortall garments pent, death may destroy,"
They say, his body, but his verse shall live,
And more then nature takes, our hands shall give.
In a lesse volume, but more strongly bound,
Shakespeare shall breath and speak, with Laurell crown'd
Which never fades. Fed with Ambrosian meats
In a well-lyned vesture, rich and neate."
So with this robe they cloath him, bid him weare it,
For time shall never staine, nor envy teare it.
The friendly admirer of his Endowments,
Endlich enthält die Folioausgabe unter einem zweiten Titel: The Workes of William Shakespeare, containing all his Comedies, Histories and Tragedies: Truely set forth, according to their first Originall, ein Verzeichniss der Schauspieler:
A Catalogue of the severall Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies contained in this Volume
In diesem Namensverzeichnisse fehlt Troilus and Cressida. Vgl. darüber die Einleitung zu den
genannten Drama, Bd. 2, pag. 2.
Am Ende des Bandes sind die Namen der Verleger angegeben, welche sich zur Herausgabe der Folioausgabe vereinigten: Printed at the charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, I. Smithweeke and W. Aspley. 1623.
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