The
Brave infant of Saguntum,
Thy coming forth in that great year,
When the prodigious Hannibal did
His rage, with razing your immortal town.
Thou looking then
Ere thou wert half got out,
Wise child, didst hastily return,
And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.
How summed a circle didst thou leave
Of deepest lore, could we the centre find! The
Did wiser nature draw thee
From out the horror of that sack,
Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right,
Lay trampled on?—the deeds of death and
Urged, hurried forth, and
Upon th' affrighted world?
Sword, fire, and famine, with fell fury met,
And all on utmost ruin set:
As, could they but life's miseries foresee,
No doubt all infants would return like thee. The
For what is life, if measured by the space,
Not by the act?
Or maskèd man, if valued by his face,
Above his fact?
Here's one outlived his
And told forth fourscore years:
He vexèd time, and busied the whole state,
Troubled both foes and friends,
But ever to no ends:
What did this stirrer but die late?
How well at twenty had he fall'n or stood!
For three of his four score, he did no good. The
He entered well, by virtuous parts,
Got up and thrived with honest arts:
He purchased friends, and fame, and honours then,
And had his noble name advanced with men;
But, weary of that flight,
He stooped in all men's
To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,
And sunk in that dead sea of
So deep, as he did then death's waters sup,
But that the cork of title buoyed him up. The
Alas, but Morison fell young;—He never fell, thou fall'st, my tongue.
He stood, a soldier to the last right end,
A perfect patriot and a noble friend,
But most a virtuous son.
All offices were
By him, so ample, full, and
In weight, in measure, number, sound,
As, though his age imperfect might appear,
His life was of humanity the sphere. The
Go now, and tell out days summed up with fears,
And make them years;
Produce thy mass of miseries on the
To swell thine age;
Repeat of things a throng,
To show thou hast been long,
Not lived; for life doth her great actions spell,
By what was done and
In season, and so
To light: her measures are, how
Each syllab'e answered, and was formed how fair;
These make the lines of life, and that's her air. The
It is not growing like a
In bulk, doth make men better be,
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be. The
Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
And let thy looks with gladness shine:
Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,
And think, nay, know, thy Morison's not dead.
He leaped the present age,
Possest with holy rage,
To see that bright eternal day,
Of which we priests and poets
Such truths as we expect for happy men,
And there he lives with memory: and Ben The
Jonson, who sung this of him ere he
Himself to rest,
Or taste a part of that full joy he
To have
In this bright asterism:
Where it were friendship's schism,(Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry)To separate these twi-Lights, the Dioscuri,
And keep the one half from his Harry.
But fate doth so alternate the design,
Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine. The
And shine as you exalted are,
Two names of friendship, but one star,
Of hearts the union.
And those not by
Made, or indentured, or leased out t'
The profits for a time.
No pleasures vain did
Of rhymes, or riots at your feasts,
Orgies of drink, or feigned protests;
But simple love of greatness and of
That knits brave minds and manners, more than blood. The
This made you first to know the
You liked, then after to
That liking; and approach so one the t'other,
Till either grew a portion of the other;
Each stylèd by his end,
The copy of his friend.
You lived to be the great
And titles by which all made
Unto the virtue: nothing perfect done,
But as a Cary or a Morison. The
And such a force the fair example had,
As they that
The good and durst not practise it, were
That such a
Was left yet to mankind;
Where they might read and
Friendship in deed was written, not in words.
And with the heart, not pen,
Of two so early men,
Whose lives her rolls were, and records,
Who, ere the first down bloomèd on the
Had sow'd these fruits, and got the harvest in.
In this poem,
Jonson imitates the classical form of the Ode, specifically the 'Great Odes' written by Pindar (and hence the therm 'Pindarin Ode' that is applied to it).
Pindar's odes were designed to be sung by a chorus, and often followed a three-part scheme: the chorus moved in one direction while chanting the strophe, reversed direction for the antistrophe, and stood still for the epode.
Jonson imitates this pattern with his triple division of turn, counterturn and stand--the terms more or less literally translated from the original Greek.
His turns and counterturns rhyme in couplets, with line length varying in all stanzas according to a uniform scheme; the twelve-line stands follow a more complex but equally strict design.
Contextual Notes:
L2 - 'Saguntum' - a character from a fable by Pliny,
Sagunto was born while Spain was being ravaged by Hannibal; he dived back into his mother's womb and was buried there.
L2 - 'clear' -
L10 - 'summed' -
L10 - 'a circle' - an emblem of
L27 - 'fact' - deeds L37 - 'He' - i.e., another
L49 - 'fall'st' - Slip, with a Latin pun on fallo , "to make a mistake."L53 - 'offices' - duties of
L59 - 'tell out' -
L65 - 'spell' - tell
L69 - 'syllab'e' -
L70 - '' - Life is a poem set to music; life's "measures" are its metrical patterns as well as the standards by which it is judged.
L85 - 'this garland' - this
L98 - 'asterism' -
L102 - 'Dioscuri' - The mythical Greek twins,
Castor and Pollux, the principal stars of the constellation Gemini.
L110 - 'indentured' - contracted
L137 - 'early' - youthful
