My ear appreciates these lines of Jonson - senses, I guess, a partnership of
sound and sense - until:
They, then, that living where the matter is bred,
Dare for these poems, yet, both ask and read
and this couplet disconcerts me, making me wonder if it has been transcribed
correctly.
Max
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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