> and this couplet disconcerts me, making me wonder if it has been
> transcribed
> correctly.
>
> Max
I checked the original 1616 publication of the text, Max, and here's how the
relevant lines read there:
They, then, that liuing where the matter is bred,
Dare for these poemes, yet, both aske, and read,
And like them too .
... so it looks as if the text dave originally posted is pretty accurate.
For what it's worth, in line three there is a "the" elide marked: "If
workes (not th'authors) ."
But there what's marked is an elided "the" followed by a vowel.
One way or the other, it seems as if "the matter is bred" should be
pronounced with four rather than five syllables. But it's been suggested to
me that the elide may be on "matter is", which would then be have the phrase
pronounced something like, "the matt'ris bred" rather than the elide on "the
matter".
Robin
> Quoting David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>> Well I haven't yet unburied my Jonson, but pulling up the net, I like the
>> fittingness of this, accompanying Donne's Satires. Although the
>> enjambement
>> isn't as frequent as in the excerpt from the Horace translation, it's
>> distinct enough. And look at the caesuras and tempi.
>> It's not him at his best either, but typicality is better for examples
>> sake,
>> is it not?
>>
>>
>> To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires by Ben Jonson
>> Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are
>> Life of the Muses' day, their morning star!
>> If works, not th' author's, their own grace should look,
>> Whose poems would not wish to be your book?
>> But these, desir'd by you, the maker's ends
>> Crown with their own. Rare poems ask rare friends.
>> Yet satires, since the most of mankind be
>> Their unavoided subject, fewest see;
>> For none e'er took that pleasure in sin's sense
>> But, when they heard it tax'd, took more offence.
>> They, then, that living where the matter is bred,
>> Dare for these poems, yet, both ask and read
>> And like them too, must needfully, though few,
>> Be of the best; and 'mongst those best are you,
>> Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are
>> The Muses' evening, as their morning star.
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