Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AN EXPOSTULATION WITH INIGO JONES, by BEN JONSON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Master surveyor, you that first began Last Line: With all remonstrance make an honest man. Subject(s): Jones, Inigo (1573-1652) | ||||||||
Master Surveyor, you that first began From thirty pound in pipkins, to the man You are; from them leapt froth an architect, Able to talk of Euclid, and correct Both him and Archimede; damn Architas, The noblest engineer that ever was! Control Ctesibius: overbearing us With mistook names out of Vitruvius! Drawn Aristotle on us! And thence shown How much architectonic is your own! Whether the building of the stage or scene, Or making of the properties it mean! Visors or antics! Or it comprehend Something your sir-ship doth not yet intend! By all your titles, and whole style at once Of tire-man, mountebank and Justice Jones, I do salute you! Are you fitted yet? Will any of these express your place or wit? Or are you so ambitious 'bove your peers You would be an asinigo, by your ears? Why, much good do it you! Be what beast you will, You'll be, as Langley said, an Inigo still. What makes your wretchedness to bray so loud In town and court? Are you grown rich and proud? Your trappings will not change you. Change your mind: No velvet sheath you wear, will alter kind. A wooden dagger, is a dagger of wood Though gold or ivory hafts would make it good. What is the cause you pomp it so? I ask, And all men echo, you have made a masque. I chime that too: and I have met with those That do cry up the machine, and the shows! The majesty of Juno in the clouds, And peering forth of Iris in the shrouds! The ascent of Lady Fame which none could spy; Not they that sided her, Dame Poetry, Dame History, Dame Architecture too, And Goody Sculpture, brought with much ado To hold her up. O shows, shows, mighty shows! The eloquence of masques! What need of prose, Or verse, or sense to express immortal you? You are the spectacles of state! 'Tis true Court hieroglyphics, and all arts afford In the mere perspective of an inch board! You ask no more than certain politic eyes, Eyes that can pierce into the mysteries Of many colours, read them, and reveal Mythology there painted on slit deal! O, to make boards to speak! There is a task! Painting and carpentry are the soul of masque! Pack with your peddling poetry to the stage, This is the money-get, mechanic age! To plant the music where no ear can reach, Attire the persons as no thought can teach Sense what they are, which by a specious fine Term of the architects is called design! But in the practised truth destruction is Of any art, beside what he calls his! Whither, O whiter will this tireman grow? His name is Skeuopoios we all know, The maker of the properties; in sum The scene, the engine! But he now is come To be the music master, fabler too! He is, or would be, the main dominus-do- All in the work! And so shall still for Ben: Be Inigo, the whistle, and his men! He's warm on his feet now, he says, and can Swim without cork! Why, thank the good Queen Anne. I am too fat to envy him. He too lean To be worth envy. Henceforth I do mean To pity him, as smiling at his feat Of lantern-lerry: with fuliginous heat Whirling his whimsies, by a subtlety Sucked from the veins of shop-philosophy. What would he do now, giving his mind that way In presentation of some puppet play! Should but the king his justicehood employ In setting forth of such a solemn toy! How would he firk like Adam Overdo Up and about! Dive into cellars too, Disguised, and thence drag forth enormity, Discover vice, commit absurdity, Under the moral! Show he had a pate Moulded or stroked up to survey a state! O wise surveyor, wiser architect, But wisest Inigo! Who can reflect On the new priming of thy old sign posts Reviving with fresh colours the pale ghosts Of thy dead standards: or (with miracle) see Thy twice conceived, thrice paid for imagery? And not fall down before it and confess Almighty architecture? Who no less A goddess is, than painted cloth, deal boards, Vermilion, lake, or cinnopar affords Expression for, with that unbounded line Aimed at in thy omnipotent design! What poesy e'er was painted on a wall That might compare with thee? What story shall Of all the Worthies hope to outlast thy one, So the materials be of Purbeck stone? Live long the Feasting Room. And ere thou burn Again, thy architect to ashes turn! Whom not ten fires, nor a parliament can With all remonstrance make an honest man. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE TOWN'S HONEST MAN by BEN JONSON TO INIGO, MARQUESS WOULD BE, A COROLLARY by BEN JONSON AN EPIGRAM OF INIGO JONES by MARCUS VALERIUS MARTIALIS A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS: 1. HIS EXCUSE FOR LOVING by BEN JONSON A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS: 4. HER TRIUMPH by BEN JONSON A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS: 5. HIS DISCOURSE WITH CUPID by BEN JONSON A FIT OF RHYME AGAINST RHYME [OR, RIME] by BEN JONSON A NYMPH'S PASSION by BEN JONSON A SONNET, TO THE NOBLE LADY, THE LADY MARY WROTH by BEN JONSON |
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