I grow to like Jonson ever more.
-
Where dost thou careless lie,
Buried in ease and sloth?
Knowledge that sleeps doth die;
And this security,
It is the common moth
That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.Are all th' Aonian springs
Dried up? lies Thespia waste?
Doth Clarius' harp want strings,
That not a nymph now sings?
Or droop they as disgrac'd,
To see their seats and bowers by chatt'ring pies defac'd?If hence thy silence be,
As 'tis too just a cause,
Let this thought quicken thee:
Minds that are great and free
Should not on fortune pause;
'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.What though the greedy fry
Be taken with false baites
Of worded balladry,
And think it poesy?
They die with their conceits,
And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.Then take in hand thy lyre,
Strike in thy proper strain,
With Japhet's line aspire
Sol's chariot for new fire,
To give the world again;
Who aided him will thee, the issue of Jove's brain.And since our dainty age
Cannot endure reproof,
Make not thyself a page
To that strumpet, the stage,
But sing high and aloof,
Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass's hoof. -
And he who was in every need my succour
Said: "Turn thee hitherward; see two of them
Come fastening upon slothfulness their teeth."In rear of all they shouted: "Sooner were
The people dead to whom the sea was opened,
Than their inheritors the Jordan saw;And those who the fatigue did not endure
Unto the issue, with Anchises' son,
Themselves to life withouten glory offered." -
@Horace said in I grow to like Jonson ever more.:
Right, better to be slow and alive than quick and dead. There are no old gunfighters. Thanks Aqua.
Nicely done. That's actually a far better interpretation than what you'd receive in any accredited humanities program today. (What's funny is, the fact that my degree program isn't recognized by American institutions as accredited is now turning into social street cred. Thanks, Harvard!)