Linguistics and Poetry

1 PREFACE TO SIDNEYS ASTROPHEL AND STELLA slimly To Read For Them That List Tempus adest plausus, aurea pompa venit, so force forbiddens the mise en scene of idiots, and enter Astrophel in pomp.Gentle custody, that sport seen a super Csand assembly lines of folly drawn fore ex uno puncto impudentiae, & group A two storied mountains to go to the conception of unmatchable mouse, that present had your ears deafened with the echo of Fames cheap towers, when just now they cast been touched with a leaden pen, that put on seen Pan seance in his bower of delights, & ampere a number of Midases to admire his miserable hornpipes, permit non your surfeited sight, new come from such puppet play, think scorn to tour aside into this theatre of pleasure, for hither you sh tot each(prenominal)y specify a paper stage strewed with pearl, an schmalzy heaven to eclipse the fair frame, & crystal walls to encounter your curious eyes, eras the tragi-comedy of cognise is performed by starlight. The chief actor present is Melpomene, whose dusky robes, dipped in the ink of tears, as only seem to declension when I overtake them near. The argument, cruel sexual abstention the prologue, hope the epilogue, despair Videte, queso, et linguis animisque fauete.And hither, peradventure, my witless young person may be taxed with a margent find of presumption for offering to put up both motion of applause in the be fractional of so excellent a poet (the to the lowest degree syllable of whose name, sounded in the ears of judgement, is able to give the meanest line he writes a dowry of immortality), yet those that observe how jewels oftentimes come to their custody that know not their value, & that the coxcombs of our days, same Aesops cock, had rather have a barley- nucleus wrapped up in a ballad than they pass on dig for the riches of wit in any(prenominal) estate that they know not, I hope exit also hold me excused, though I open the gate to his glo ry, & require idle ears to the admiration of his melancholy. Quid petitur sacris inconclusive tantum fama poetis?Which although it be oftentimes imprisoned in ladies casks & the precedent hold ins of such as backsidenot see without another mans spectacles, yet at length it breaks aside in spite of his clutchesers, and useth some closed-door pen (instead of a picklock) to procure his ruffianly enlargement. The sun for a time may mask his well-disposed head in a spoil, yet in the end the thick veil doth vanish, and his embellished blandishment appears. presbyopic hath Astrophel (Englands sun) withheld the beams of his spirit from the common view of our dark sense, and night hath hovered over the gardens of the nine sisters, while ignis fatuus and gross fatty flames (such as commonly arise out of dungh ill fortunes) have took occasion, in the middest eclipse of his shining perfections, to assert abroad with a wisp of paper at their tails like hobgoblins, and lead men up and down in a circle of absurdity a only week, and never know where they are.But now that cloud of sorrow is dissolved which fiery have it off exhaled from his dewy hair, and affection hath unburdened the drudging streams of her womb in the low water tank of his grave the night hath resigned her jetty tidy sum unto Lucifer, and clear daylight possesseth the sky that was dumb wherefore break off your dance, you fairies and elves, and from the handle with the torn carcasses of your timbrels, for your kingdom is expired. Put out your rush candles, you poets and rimers, and bequeath your crazed quartorzains to the chandlers, for lo, here he cometh that hath broken your legs. Apollo hath resigned his ivory populate unto Astrophel, & he, like quicksilver, essential allay you 2 ________________________________________________________________________ PREFACE TO SIDNEYS ASTROPHEL AND STELLA hypnoid with his music. Sleep Argus, sleep ignorance, sleep impudence, for Mercury h ath Io, & only Io Paean belongeth to Astrophel.Dear Astrophel, that in the ashes of thy love livest again like the genus Phoenix O, cleverness thy body (as thy name) live again likewise here amongst us, precisely the earth, the commence of mortality, hath snatched thee too soon into her chilled ratty arms, and let alone not let thee by any means be drawn from her fatal embrace, and thy divine soul, carried on an angels wings to heaven, is installed in Hermes place, sole prolocutor to the gods. consequently mayest though never return from the elysian fields like Orpheus therefore must we ever mourn for our Orpheus. Fain would a second spring of passion here spend itself on his sweet remembrance, and religion, that rebuketh profane lamentation, drinks in the rivers of those despairful tears which langorous poignancy hath outwelled, & bids me look back to the dwelling house of honour where, from one & the very(prenominal) root of renown, I shall find some(prenom inal) goodly branches derived, & such as, with the spread head increase of their virtues, may more or less overshadow the grief of his loss. Amongst the which, fair sister of Phoebus silverish secretary to the Muses, most rare Countess of Pembroke, thou art not to be omitted, whom arts do adore as a second Minerva, and our poets extol as the patronne of their invention, for in thee the Lesbian Sappho with her lyric repeat is disgraced, & the laurel garland which thy chum so bravely advanced on his lance is still kept commonality in the temple of Pallas. Thou only sacrificest thy soul to contemplation, thou only entertainest unsuccessful Homer, & keepest the springs of Castalia from being dried up. Learning, wisdom, beauty, and all other ornaments of nobility whatsoever, seek to sanction themselves in thy sight, and get a just seal of felicity from the smiles of thy favour O Ioue digna viro ni Ioue nata fores.I headache I shall be counted a mercenary flatterer fo r assortment my thoughts with such figurative admiration, save world-wide report, that surpasseth my praise, condemneth my rhetoric of dullness for so cold a commendation. Indeed, to say the truth, my style is somewhat heavy-gaited, and cannot dance trip and go so lively with Oh, my love, ah, my love, all my loves gone as other shepherds that have been fools in the morris time out of mind, nor hath my prose any skill to imitate the Almain leap verse, or sit taboring five years unneurotic nothing but to be, to be, on a paper drum. Only I can keep pace with Gravesend barge, and care not if I have water comme il faut to land my ship of fools with the term (the tide, I should say).Now either man is not of that mind, for some, to go the lighter away, will take in their fraught of spangled feathers, golden pebbles, straw, reeds, bulrushes, or anything, and then they bear out their sails as proudly as if they were ballasted with bull-beef. Others are so hardly bested for loading that they are travel to retail the cinders of Troy and the shivers of broken truncheons to suffice up their boat, that else should go empty, and if they have but a pound-weight of good merchandise, it shall be rigid at the poop, or plucked in a thousand pieces to credit their carriage. For my part, every man as he likes, Mens cuiusque is est quisque. Tis as good to go in cutfingered pumps as cork-shoes, if one wear Cornish diamonds on his toes.To explain it by a more familiar example, an ass is no broad state man in the beasts commonwealth, though he wear his ears upsevant muff, after the Muscovy fashion, & hang the lip like a cap-case half open, or look as demurely as a twopenny-halfpenny brown loaf, for he hath some 3 ________________________________________________________________________ PREFACE TO SIDNEYS ASTROPHEL AND STELLA imperfections that do keep him from the common council, yet of many he is deemed a very virtuous member, and one of the honestest sort of men that are , so that our sagacity (as Sextus Empiricus affirmeth) gives the name of good or ill to everything. Out of whose works (lately translated into English for the upbeat of unlearned writers) a man might collect a whole book of this argument, which no doubt would prove a worthy commonwealth matter, and far soften than wits wax kernel Much good worship have the author.Such is this golden age wherein we live, and so replenished with golden asses of all sorts that, if learning had lost itself in a grove of genealogies, we need do no more but set an old goose over half a dozen pottle-pots (which are, as it were, the testis of invention), and we shall have such a encompass of books within a little while after as will pick all the world with the wild-fowl of good marbles I can tell you this is a harder thing than making gold of quicksilver, and will trouble you more than the moral of Aesops glow-worm hath troubled our English apes, who, striving to straightaway themselves with the fla me of the philosophers stone, have spent all their wealth in buying bellow to blow this false fire. Gentlemen, I fear I have too much presumed on your idle leisure, and been too bold, to substructure talking all this while in another mans door, but now I will leave you to survey the pleasures of Paphos, and offer your smiles on the altars of Venus. Yours in all desire to please, Tho Nashe.