BEN JONSON'S HORATIAN THEORY AND

PLAUTINE PRACTICE

by

D. AUDELL SHELBURNE, B.A., M.A.

A DISSERTATION

IN

ENGLISH

Submittecj to the GracJuate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Approved

-/

/ August, 1997 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank all of the people at Texas Tech University who have made my years in the doctoral program enjoyable and educational. In particular, I am gratefixl to my committee for their assistance in the preperation of this study; Donald W. Rude, who promised to champion my cause and has done so by offering his guidance and support throughout the process; Paul Allen Miller, who introduced me to the joys of reading

Plautus and Catullus and whose own scholarship has made this study better than it would have been otherwise; Celeste A. Patton, whose careful reading and commentary helped me complete and refine my argument; and Ernest W. Sullivan, 11, who taught

me what a scholar is and who has promoted my work from the beginning. Each of them provided valuable insights into my topic and offered much encouragement to me.

I also thank the English Department at Texas Tech University for creating a program conducive to my education and for its financialassistance . In addition, I appreciate the families of George T. Prigmore, William Bryan Gates, Helen Hodges, and Eldon Durrett, who endowed scholarships which have supported my education over the years.

Finally, I must acknowledge Theresa Shelbume, my v^fe. She and my four sons, Nicholas, William, Peter, and Thomas, have sacrificed more than I care to admit, and their patience and love allowed me to complete my work.

u TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

PREFACE iv

CHAPTER

I. THE INTERTEXTUALITY OF

JONSON, HORACE, AND PLAUTUS 1

n. JONSON, HORACE, AND POETIC THEORY 22

ffl. JONSON, PLAUTUS, AND COiVL4AfflV^ 770 60

IV. JONSON, PLAUTUS, AND THE

CHARACTERIZATION OF THE CLEVER SLAVE 117

V. CONCLUSION 162

ENDNOTES 168

BIBLIOGRAPHY 198

m PREFACE

We are uniquely situated to constmct a reading of Jonson's intertextual relationship to Horace and Plautus due to the increased interest in and improved approaches to these two classical authors over the last 25 years. While Horace has enjoyed a prominent position throughout various periods, views of his poetry have graduated from relatively simplistic reductions of his work to a monolithic set of mles to a more sophisticated approach which acknowledges the dialectical potential of his poetry. For instance, in her essay in Horace Made New (1993), Joanna Martindale argues convincingly that the persona constmcted by Horace in Ars Poetica is locked in a dialectical stmggle between the necessity of his common sense mles for poetry and the reality that his mles mean little and have little use for the vast majority of people.

On the one hand, he puts forth his famous assertion that poetry ought to teach and delight, but, on the other, he despairs that his effort means nothing. The complexity of his poetic expression is better appreciated today than it has been before, when critics tended to gloss over problematic and multivalent passages in order to subordinate them to the unified theory of poetry they preferred to see in Horace's poems.

Likewise, critics are in a position now to see and appreciate facets of Plautus's plays that have escaped notice. Beginning with Erich Segal's groundbreaking book

Roman Laughter (1968), critical interest in Plautus's comedy has increased. Where earlier critics found only trivial humor and rollicking good fun, critics today discover

iv plays full of social awareness and conmientary, as well as an astute and talented writer whose ability to constmct good drama outweighs the technical flaws that so frequently dominated the attention of earlier critics. David Konstan's Roman Comedy (1983), a study of Plautus' comedy within the social and historical context, and Wolfgang

Riehle's Shakespeare, Plautus, and the Humanist Tradition (1990), a carefol study of

Plautus' extensive influence on Shakespeare, indicate a promising future for Plautine scholarship. In addition to an improved critical approach to Plautus in particular, the reevaluation of comedy as a significant literary form contributes to our heightened awareness of Plautus's abilities. As the estimation of farce as "low" comedy is revised, comedy gains status as a legitimate and worthwhile topic of study. With this status comes our ability to discern significance in the plays that have been frequently dismissed as merely amusing distractions.

In the cases of both Horace and Plautus, our knowledge of the texts and their contexts, our awareness of literary influences and practices, and our openness to multivalent and complex interpretations of the texts create a foundation unlike that available to previous Jonsonians. It permits the constmction of a better understanding of Jonson's relationship to these two prominent figures. If we add to those benefits the advances made in intertextual approaches promoted by Thomas Greene and others, we find that Jonsonian critics are better equipped than ever to confront the cmcial gap between Jonson's theory and practice that is illuminated by his use of borrowed material in his plays. The following chapters address this gap between Jonson's theory and practice.

Chapter I focuses the inquiry on a clear-cut instance of the conflict—the schism

between Jonson's averred tmst in Horace's critical positions and his willingness to

follow a Plautine model, which Horace had condemned. This focus exposes the

inadequacy of the common approaches to Jonson's comedies, for it illuminates the

complex intertextual relationship that exists between the works of Jonson, Horace, and

Plautus. Chapter II examines the similarity between Horatian and Jonsonian theories

of drama, focusing in particular on the five requisites for the poet—ingenium (natural

wit), exercitatio (exercise), imitatio (imitation), lectio (reading), and ars (art); on the

overarching principle of decorum, or literary propriety; and on the famous Horatian

dictum that art should delight and teach. Although Jonson appears to be a

thoroughgoing Horatian in his view of these fundamental critical topics, he adapts

Horace's theory in order to promote a poetic program, which is founded on the

intellect and industry of the poet.

The remainder of the study, however, shows that Jonson is also clearly

something other than a Horatian in his willingness to embrace sources that Horace and

other Horatian critics would have found at least potentially objectionable. Chapter III

examines Jonson's principal method of generating the content for his plays, a method

known traditionally and often pejoratively as contaminatio, which is the practice of

combining more than one source into a new work. We will see Jonson's tendency to unite disparate sources in his plots, not unlike Plautus who has been altematingly

vi accused of and defended for his practice of combining plots to create his own works.

The Case is Altered XQWQdXs Jonson's most basic use of this method: he combines the

plots of Plautus' Aulularia and Captivi to form his own play. His use of the method

becomes more complex, however, as his skill as a dramatist develops. In Ihe

Alchemist, Jonson combines elements fromsevera l Plautine plays, including

Mostellaria, Pseudolus, Poenulus, and Persa, while in Volpone, his selection extends

to an even wider range of source material, including Erasmus' In Praise of Folly,

Lucian's satires, Petronius' Satyricon, and Catullus' carmina. In order to show how

far Jonson extended the practice of contaminatio, the primary focus of Chapter HI will

be Jonson's use of Catullus, to whom Jonson owes a larger debt than has so far been

assumed. While all of Jonson's plays may not stem directly from the comedies of

Plautus as The Case is Altered does, Jonson's method of invention is based upon the

process of contaminatio that Terence had attributed to Plautus.

In addition to the method of invention, Jonson borrows Plautus' approach to

characterization. Chapter FV examines the characters of Face and Mosca as specimens

of the Plautine seruus callidus, the clever slave who manipulates and dkects the action

of the plays. Like the Plautine clever slave. Face and Mosca assume such stature in

the plays that one can reasonably question whether they, in fact, overwhehn the titular

characters in importance to the play. Like Psuedolus, Sosia, Tranio, and other

Plautine clever slaves. Face and Mosca follow a well-established code of behavior, working out and comphcating the plots of their plays as they strive to raise the stakes

vii of their intrigue while, simuhaneously, trying to minimize the potential of their own

discovery and punishment. They assume the roles of stage directors, playwrights,

military strategists, generals, and gods, as they exercise their abilities to control and

manipulate others. Like Plautus' clever slaves. Face and Mosca drive the outcomes of

the plays in their roles as clever slaves.

Finally, Chapter V presents the conclusions about the contrast between Ben

Jonson the theorist and Ben Jonson the dramatist: as we will come to see, his theory

tends to elevate the mles and precepts of classical authorities over the sometimes

messy reality of real drama. At the same time, his own drama reveals an unstated

compromise with the "mess)^' reality of putting on an attractive and stimulating play

for an audience who enjoyed the very plays he condemned in his strict, classical

theory. Thus, the gap between his theory and his practice reveals, among other things,

the rhetorical nature of Jonson's activity as a critic and a plajwright. On the one hand,

as an advocate of classical mles and learning, he tries to position himself as the

preeminent playwright of the day, more informed and more knowledgeable than his

contemporaries with whom he competes on the stage. As a classical critic, Jonson defends himself and his plays, attacks others and their plays, and attempts to elevate himself On the other hand, he subtly conceals his ovm practice of incorporating many of the techniques that his theory disallows, producing a style of drama with which he hopes to entertain and edify his audience.

vm CHAPTER I

THE INTERTEXTUALITY OF JONSON,

HORACE, AND PLAUTUS

One of the central questions regarding Ben Jonson to arise in the last century is

the degree of his indebtedness to classicism. The common view before the 1950's was

that Jonson conforms to classical mles. For instance, Helena Watts Baum identifies

Jonson as a standard bearer of classical theory:

In the midst of such seemingly contradictory statements regarding . . . [dramatic theory and practice], it has been customary to tum to Jonson, the great exponent of Tmth, to find unity of theory and practice. On dramatic theory he was the most vocal of the dramatists, and he had much to say about the high purpose of poetry. (21)

By the 1970's, however, Jonson's clacissism began to be de-emphasized. Ian

Donaldson, for instance, notes:

More fundamental, however, [than Dryden's praise of Jonson's Epicoene] has been the challenge to the larger idea of Jonson as a "classical" dramatist, who adhered closely to the traditions of New and Roman Comedy, and especially to the concept of the classical unities. This idea . . . was given powerful currency by Dryden, but is not tme to the facts. (25)

Thora Burnley Jones and Bernard de Bear Nicol add that "close analysis of his plays makes it clear that [Jonson's] adherence to 'mles' is less than one might expect from the kind of labels traditionally fixed on him" (48). Thus, critics contend vsdth one another in efforts to determine how classical Jonson was in his plays and in his critical

theory.

The contest frequentlymanifest s itself in efforts to characterize Jonson's

indebtedness to sources such as Aristotle and Horace While some critics emphasize

Jonson's association with dramatic traditions native to England,^ most have been

content to trace the transmission of Aristotelian and Horatian principles through

influential critical essays, such as those by Julius Caesar Scaliger, Antonio Sebastiani

Mintumo, Franciscus Robortellus, and Sir Philip Sidney, and to discover the kernels of

those principles in Jonson's own remarks.^ Jonson is outspoken: he offers critical

commentary in the "Letters to Readers," prologues, and epilogues affixed to his plays,

in the plays themselves, and in his non-dramatic worics, including his poems, his

translations, and in his commonplace book. Discoveries. Traditionally, Jonson has

been seen as steadfast classicist who borrows an eclectic, but firmly-rooted, set of

rules, all of which derive fromth e Roman and Greek authorities on poetry and drama.

This view has dominated the study of Jonson's work to a point where James A.

Redwine concludes his overview of Jonson's critical comments by affirming Jonson's adherence to classical dramatic laws:^

Jonson never mistakes a pedantic adherence to the laws for art.. . but his emphasis from Volpone onward is on the necessity for laws. As he observed the contemporary world of letters, especially the drama, he fancied that he saw the ravages of ignorance and Ucense, not of pedantry, and he set out to teach his age the remedy—poetic laws, the "good grace of everything in this kind" and the "strict and regular forms." (xvi) Regarding Jonson's theory of literary criticism, Redwine is at least partly correct because Jonson's remarks reveal clearly his classical—and, in particular, his Horatian— bias.

In contrast to his theory, Jonson's practice as a dramatist is not so easily classified because it contains a number of elements unaccounted for by a strictly

classical theory. While many critics find cormections between Jonson's plays and both

Old and New Comedy, little in the critical statements of Aristotle or Horace, or in their

commentators for that matter, prepares us for Jonson's willingness to open The

Alchemist with Subtle's scatological and indecorous remark, "I fart at thee" (1.1.1).'*

Certainly our knowledge of Horace's theory prepares us for Jonson's repeated claim that poetry ought to teach and delight, just as our knowledge of Aristotle and

Aristotelian commentators prepares us for Jonson's avowed adherence to the unities, but classical theory does little to prepare the way to accommodate the surprise ending

of the boy-bride in Epicoene. In spite of Jonson's consistent critical view which leads him to criticize his contemporaries' plays, in his practice Jonson departs wiUingly from the Horatian principles that inform his position as a critic. While Jonson praises

Horace as "the best master of both virtue and wisdom, an excellent tme judge upon cause and reason" {Discoveries 8.2592-593), Jonson's plays, particularly the "great comedies" including Volpone and The Alchemist, reveal that at the peak of his skill and art Jonson employed a practice derived from a Plautine model—a model specifically censured by Horace. It is perhaps pmdent to begin a study of the relationships between the texts of

Ben Jonson, Horace, and Plautus with a caution; Horace and Plautus were obviously

not the only poets to influence Jonson, and the relationship between them is complex.

This caution is necessary, for generic principles that seem virtually omnipresent in

Renaissance literary circles and common dramatic elements that abound on the Enghsh

stage could, for Jonson, be found in many sources. Thomas Greene says in his careful

analysis of imitation; "Where one is indubitably dealing with a topos, the etiological

itinerary is frirmor e jagged and less than fully knowable. It is also to some degree

dehistoricized; if the topos has been everywhere, then it derives specifically from

nowhere" (50). That is to say, when topics become so common that they flood the

literary field, it becomes impossible for us to discern a definite transmission of those topics from one writer to another.

Greene's study of methods of imitation during the Renaissance helps to identify part of the difficulty of deaUng with Jonson's works; the prevalence of common literary topics. Theoretical topics, such as the function of poetry or the poet's office, appear with frequency and in similar forms in the essays and translations of Sidney,

Heinsius, Scaliger, Mintumo, and others. In addition, Jonson clearly had access to editions of Cicero, Donatus, and others. Theatrical elements of interest to critics, such as the use of intrigue, of disguise, of stereotypical characters, and so on, are present on the EUzabethan stage, in the continental and Enghsh dramatic traditions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as well as in the English educational curricula of the time. If the point, as has long been the case, is to identify sources and argue the issue of indebtedness versus originality, speculation will remain the dominant feature of

Jonsonian studies, whether critics are addressing Jonson's theoretical or theatrical elements. The problematic nature of tracing the transmission of dramatic theories and practices is reduced to a manageable situation, however, if we are v^Uing to accept that the theories and practices themselves, not their origins, ought to be the primary focus of inquiry.

On one hand, scholars know with some certainty the terminus ad quem of many dramatic elements and they can reconstmct a fairly accurate timeline of the development from one period to the next, from one writer to the next. Greene and others advocate a "diachronic" view of intertextuality, arguing that, given time and careful analysis, literary critics can constmct the "archives" of intertextual relationships, which trace "every code and register its continuities and discontinuities"

(Miola 15).^ From this perspective, a critic might work to findth e sources of Jonson's

"unity of time, place, and person" which he claims to follow in Volpone and strive to locate the reason for his departure from the more standard notion of the unities wrongly attributed to Aristotle, the unities of time, place, and action. In such a process, the transmission of the idea becomes almost as important, if not more so, than

Jonson's use of the idea.

On the other hand, Charles Grivel and others advocate a "synchronic" view of intertextuality, viewing "all texts as existing simultaneously vsith each other" and combining to form a "musee imaginaire" (Malraux), a "chambre d'echos" (Barthes), or a "bibhotheque generate" (Grivel as cited in Mola 15). Unlike the diachronic approach, the synchronic approach uses a model in which the texts exist together, creating what amounts to a timeless dialogue; it forces us to recognize that Jonson had access to many texts which contained, for example, similar versions of the unities and that all of the texts influenced his own perception of these mles. In this approach,

Jonson's use of material is emphasized; the approach reconstmcts a more suitable context of the texts and traditions in question in order to determine how Jonson understands and reacts to the ideas he findsthere . In a sense, the synchronic approach recreates a more accurate context than does the diachronic, because the knowledge and ideas discovered in any extant text are to some extent dehistoricized by an active reader.

Both the diachronic and synchronic approaches are, of course, usefiil to

Jonsonian critics who are interested in intertextuality. These two methods reinforce our understanding of Horace and Plautus as text and tradition, influencing Jonson from both perspectives simultaneously. The chronological itinerary, however, becomes less cmcial if we recognize that Jonson was not terribly preoccupied with the issue of estabUshing a point of origin, In fact, Jonson appears to be more concemed with synthesizing the diverse dramatic theories and elements which he had at his disposal.

For instance, he advocates a thorough knowledge of Uterary authorities, while reserving the right to adapt and amend their teachings; I know Nothing can conduce more to letters then to examine the writings of the Ancients, and not to rest in their sole Authority, or take all upon tmst from them; provided the plagues of Judging, and Pronouncing against them, be away; such as are envy, bittemesse, precipitation, impudence, and scurrile scoffing. For to all the observations of the Ancients, wee have our own experience; which, if wee will use, and apply, wee have better meanes to pronounce. It is tme they open'd the gates, and made the way that went before us; but as Guides, not Commanders; Non domini nostri, sedDuces fuere. {Discoveries 8.128-39)

Here, Jonson asserts that the authorities establish conventions, but these conventional boundaries are not absolute; the writer and critic may depart fromth e norm if they have good reason to do so. As he says later, 'Tor I thank those, that have taught me, and will ever, but yet dare not think the scope of their labour, and inquiry, was to envy their posterity, what they also could add, and find out. Sed cum ratione [But with reason]" {Discoveries 8.146-49). While Jonson recognizes the historical significance of ancient authorities who went before him, he also advocates a position that places these authorities in the present; Jonson suggests a program m which the authorities are to be examined and carefully considered in light of the poet's own experience, which is placed on an equal footing with the authorities and accepted if there is reason to do so.

Thus, we see Jonson working both in the historical tradition and in the present textual dialogue, forming his own ideas fromth e materials that he finds there.

This observation of Jonson's attitude toward the authorities of the past casts an interesting hght on current critical practices, in which Jonson's borrowmgs are frequently identified, but rarely examined in detail. Whether Jonsonian critics are 8 deaUng with a passage in a play, a play as a whole, or some principle that extends through several plays, they are quick to point out Jonson's sources. This practice seems constant since people began to write about Jonson's plays. In 1598, for instance, an Oxford student named Charles Fitzgeoffiey composed a Latin epigram, in which he simultaneously praised Jonson's The Case is Altered and playfully accused

Jonson of plagiarizing Plautus' Aulularia and Coptivi (Kay 227) Thus begins a line of critical inquiry into Jonson's practice as a dramatist who imitates and borrows from classical sources. Over the years, this particular avenue has been well-travelled, resulting in many informative works on Jonson's theory and practice of imitation.

Source hunting has, in feet, made up a large part of Jonsonian scholarship, as scholars announce the discovery of Jonson's sources, which range from Aristophanic Old

Comedy to technical treatises on alchemy.^ Such pronouncements, however, are rarely anything more than that; a critic declares a debt owed but looks no further to examine the nature of the debt or to consider what the borrowing might mean.

Three examples fromwork s by well-respected Jonsonian critics—Claude

Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth, C.G. Thayer, and Harry Levin—will serve to illustrate the conventional scholarship on the relationship of Jonson's plays and his source material. It should be noted that none of these critics is a source-hunter, per se, however, the way that they identify and, then, gloss over Jonson's use of sources epitomizes the typical approach. First, in their survey of Jonson's achievements as a poet and dramatist, entitled Ben Jonson, Summers and Pebworth mention several of Jonson's borrowings from Plautus. For instance, they note that The Case is Altered combines two Plautine plots (40); that Epicoene "combines elements fromPlautus' s

Casina, the sixth declaration of Libanius, and other sources, but with much elaboration and transformation" (71); that Every Man in His Humour "owes much of its shape to

Latin comedy, particularly Plautus" (50); and that The Alchemist combines "such disparate sources as Vlswtxxs'^Mosiellaria, Erasmus's De Alcumista, alchemical and religious treatises, and the written and oral reports of contemporaneous quackery of all kinds, [out of which] Jonson constmcted a comedy of enormous vitahty and freshness" (81). Thayer, similarly, notes the coimection between Every Man in His

Humour and Roman New Comedy "in its general tone, in most of its characters, and perhaps in its situation" (19), but he offers Uttle to substantiate that claim. He offers several generalizations, such as "The characters ... as already suggested, are basically

Plautine; and the situation ... is the sort of thing commonly found in Plautus" (20).

Then, rather than substantiate his generalizations, he leaps to the conclusion that

"Jonsonian comedy is on the whole closer to Aristophanes than it is to either Plautus or Terence" (20). Thayer later suggests that Plautus' Mostellaria influences The

Alchemist. He notes one verbal similarity; '"Nothing's more wretched than a guiltie conscience'. . . is a direct echo of Tranio" (104); he offers one parallel in plot stmcture; ". . . the house is haunted {The Mostellaria again)" (106); and, he summarizes the plot of Mostellaria in one sentence (103-04). He does not, however, clarify or explain the cormections between the two plays. Finally, Harry Levin asserts. 10

"The forms of dramatic stmcture, in comedy and tragedy, Jonson had obviously generalized from Latin models, more precisely fix)mPlautus , Terence, and Seneca"

(45) What exactly those forms are or what sort of generalization Jonson reached from them is left unstated. To be fair, these critics are not focused directly on intertextual relationships. However, their focus is precisely my point; the intertextual relationship is often mentioned, but rarely, if ever, is it the focus of inquiry. Any mention of intertextuahty becomes what amounts to a throw-away line.

This feilure to inquire further into the relationship between an original and its new position in a play by Jonson produces an oversimplification. Scholars who seek only to identify the source of a borrowing assume a number of things about their task as critics. Their practice apparently stems froma n assumption either that the borrowed material, once it has been hfted out of its original context, loses its coimection to the original location, or that the original source contains a clear, fixed meaning—that is, a meaning which is obvious to all and needs no examination In addition, they tend to treat all borrowings as imitations of sources, which is to say that the material shared by the old and the new works will carry an approximately equal meaning. Finally, their approach suggests that verbal similarity is the only basis for identifying imitations.

Each of these assumptions reveals a failure to recognize the significance of the connections between works Pointing out this significance, Julia Haig Gaisser summarizes Giorgio Pasquah's seminal essay, ''Arte allusiva,^' in her Catullus and his 11

Renaissance Readers, ". . . it has been recognized that imitation and allusion function

as an essential element of meaning whereby the context of the imitated passage is

evoked and made present in the later work" (196). She then quotes Gian Biagio

Conte;

The gap between the letter and the sense in figuration is the same as the gap produced between the immediate, surface meaning of the word or phrase in the text and the thought evoked by the allusion. ... In both allusion and [imitation], the poetic dimension is created by the simultaneous presence of two different reahties whose competition with one another produces a single[,] more complex reality. (196)

The interaction of an original and its imitation creates multivalent possibilities; the

meaning of each and of both are modified by their relationship. By limiting the scope

of their efforts to the identification of a source, scholars fail to examine a rich fieldo f

inquiry which rests in that "more complex reality" created out of the connections

between works.

The recognition of that complexity rests, in part, on the reahzation that

imitations can represent a wide range of response to their sources. The assumption

that all borrowings are imitations depends upon the definition one has of imitation.

Imphcit in any definition is the notion that, no matter how loose the connection between the two, an imitation v^l be hke its source. To some extent, the word connotes the idea of a copy. But, in the case of a parody, for instance, the assumption that a borrowing has the same meaning in its new context as it originally held causes a failure to recognize the active, adaptive process that occurs in most Uterary imitation. 12

In Light in Troy, Thomas Greene identifies four strategies of imitation during the

Renaissance; the reproductive (i.e., an imitative copy), the eclectic; the heuristic; and the dialectic.^ The latter two are particularly important for a study of Jonson's use of classical authors because Greene recognizes that while a heuristic imitation may emphasize its cormections to its source, a dialectical imitation emphasizes the disparity between the ideas and meanings in the old and new contexts. Jonson himself consistently condemns "servile" imitation and advocates an imitation that transforms the source into something new Harold Ogden White offers this commentary on

Jonson's view of what imitation should be;

As opposed to these three false attitudes toward imitation [which he condemns as servile], Jonson eloquently develops what he considers the tme one. A poet practices imitation correctly when he is "able to convert the substance or Riches of another Poet, to his owne use". . . . This ideal type of imitation could hardly be characterized more exactly and concisely than by the chemical figure used in Conversations, "he quintessenceth their brains." Whatever the comparison Jonson employs, it is always an active one. The borrower must do something very definite and personal with what he borrows; he must convert, grow like, concoct, divide, turn, draw forth. He must be a bee turning nectar into honey, a figure of which not only Jonson and Bacon approved, but which goes back at least as far as Horace, and which was repeated by scores of classical and Renaissance writers, Enghsh and Continental. (199-200)

White provides a fair summary of Jonson's position, which leans toward Greene's dialectical imitation. If the writer tmly transforms his source, the "imitation" may be less obvious—it will seem less of a copy and more of an origmal work in its own right.

The image of the bee turning nectar into honey, which derives fromPindar , captures the transformational process of imitation for Jonson.* As a result of this 13 transformation, an imitation may, or may not, share verbal similarities with the source.

It may, or may not, share a similar meaning with the source Still, it may be indebted to a source.

When, for instance, we recognize the allusion to Spenser's Faerie Queene in

Dol Common's role, the Queen of Faerie, in The Alchemist, we must also recognize that Jonson is demythologizing and subverting the earher text, offering an ironic commentary upon the mythologized view of the pohtical realm, more precisely that of the millenarians.^ In this latter case, Jonson borrows the language to constmct his

own point, and few would be willing to call this action an imitation. Yet, he is clearly

indebted to both the text of the Faerie Queene and the tradition surrounding Queen

Ehzabeth that elevated her to a status of legend and myth. This cursory overview of

Jonson's allusion to Spenser's Faerie Queen offers two insights. First, borrowings are

not, strictly speaking, Umited to exact copies, quotations, or even close paraphrases.

They may extend to include loosely connected material that may or may not have verbal similarities. Parallels in plots, dramatic situations, or treatments of ideas may provide the evidence necessary for a critic to recognize intertextuahty even when verbal echoes are absent. Consequently, such parallels expand the scope of inquiry beyond verbal echoes and make possible a better understanding of the works in question. Second, there is no neccessity that borrowings must mean the same thing or roughly the same thing as they originally meant Both of these points reinforce my earher remark that the critic's task must involve more than simply identifying the 14

source of a borrowing. The critic must constmct a meaning for both contexts

independently, estabhsh a connection between the passages in the new and original

locations, and, then, consider the force that the original conveys to the new context.

Only then can one begin to understand how the passage operates in its new location; is

the borrowed expression to be taken Uterally or ironically? Is the borrowed expression

a product of a speaker or character who is a clear-thinking individual or a lunatic, or,

perhaps, someone who stands somewhere between lucidity and lunacy? These

questions cannot be answered without considering the original context

The final assumption—that imitations are identifiable by verbal similarity-

appears even in the intertextuahsts' remarks, where they emphasize the "word or

phrase" or the "passage" (as Conte and PasquaU do in the passages quoted above) in their discussions of intertextuahty. Maurice Chamey, in his paper presented at the

1995 MLA convention in Chicago, encouraged critics to consider the influence and imitation of materials beyond those indicated by parallel verbal stmctures. Similarly,

Robert S. Miola cautions in his 1995 book, Shakespeare and Classical Comedy, against "a narrow critical approach that privileges verbal echo as evidence of influence" (11).^° While both Chamey and Miola appreciate verbal parallels, they also encourage Uterary critics to recognize that influential texts can and, in fact, probably do prompt authors to adopt ideas and concepts at least as much as exact words.

Parallels between texts may appear as paraphrases or in totally different language, or they may extend to larger elements, such as plot stmctures or technical devices used in 15 similar ways. Thus, critics who attend to both verbal and non-verbal similarities will discern a fiiUerrang e of influence than the one who searches only for verbal paraUels.

AU of the assumptions hidden in the conventional approach to Jonson's use of sources Umit critics' abiUty to recognize the range and depth of Jonson's use of sources. Consequently, these assumptions circumvent a potentially rich fieldo f inquiry into Jonson's dramatic practice. The inquiries are not easy, but they are as relevant as they are difficult; we cannot hope to understand Jonson's art and techniques if we cannot determine what his art and technique are. Since his use of classical authors occupies a central position in his work as a theorist and dramatist, it makes sense to scmtinize those uses.

In his astute study of aesthetics. The Transfiguration of the Commonplace,

Arthur C. Danto teUs of a statue of a cat which is chained to a handrail in a conference center at Columbia University;

Presumably [the statue] is of some value, or beUeved to be of some value, masmuch as the managers have chained it to the railing— forestaUing theft, I suppose, as if it were a television set in a squaUd motel. But I am open to the suggestion that it is not a chained sculpture of a cat but a sculpture of a chained cat, one end of which is wittily attached to a piece of reaUty. . . . Of course, what we take to be a bit of reaUty can in fact be part of the work, which is not a sculpture of a cat-chained-to-an-iron-railing, though the moment we allow // to be a part of the work, [we must ask,] where does or can the work end? It becomes a kind of metaphysical sandpit, swallowing the universe down into itself In any case, suppose we have just cat-cum-chain. The question is what is to be subtracted, if anything? Is the chain part of the work or not? (102) 16

Although Danto is illustratmg here a point about aesthetic theory as it relates specificaUy to visual arts—a point in which he asserts that the boundaries of the art work are significant to its meanings and possible interpretations—he provides us a vantage point from which to view the terrain to be covered in this study of Jonson's dramatic theory and practice, both of which involve the use of classical sources as both text and tradition.

Jonson's use of sources creates a situation similar to that of Danto's cat. If we substitute one of Jonson's borrowings for Danto's cat, the questions and impUcations remain largely unchanged. For example, take Volpone's famous song to CeUa

(3.7.165-72) or Face's echo in The Alchemist of Tranio's Une in Mostellaria, "Nothing is more wretched than a guilty conscience" {Alchemist 5.2.47;Mostellaria 544).

How exactly is the Catullus-inspired song connected to Volpone's attempt to seduce

(and failing to do so, his attempt to rape) CeUa and to the larger context of Volpone as a whole? How much ofCatuUus does Jonson's version bring with it? How does

Tranio's observation of the power of guilt suit Face's situation and what does that shared view do to our understanding of The Alchemist} How much of the Mostellaria comes into play in The Alchemist due to the statement borrowed fromTranio ? That is, just as it is virtually impossible to discem where the artwork stops and reaUty begins in the case of the cat-cum-chain, it is virtually impossible to determine the degree to which Catullus's carmina or Tranio's expression and their contexts influence our understanding and interpretation of Jonson's plays. The questions remain the same in 17 another sense; in both cases the questions are ultimately problematic ones that defy absolute answers, but they also offer msight into the many facets of Jonson's art. Just as the perception of the cat-cum-chain is likely to undergo revision as one ponders the coimection, the examination of Jonson's plays and sources creates a link that remains uncertain. While there is no doubt that Jonson used Catullus in Volpone's song or

Plautus in Face's exclamation, what exactly those uses mean is open to discussion.

Thus, the image of the cat-cum-chain is a usefiil one to describe the present study; far from attempting to find some absolute value to which Jonson's plays can be reduced, the investigation of Jonson's use of sources opens the fieldo f inquiry further, offering an approach that provides more, not less, opportunity to scholars and critics m search of a better understanding of Jonson's art.

These opportunities exist because of the inherent quaUties of imitations.

Imitations do not happen by accident. Even if they occur unconsciously, as might be argued in some unusual and extreme cases, imitations indicate that a writer had at least some knowledge of the original in order to imitate it; they register the fact that the original had some unpact on the writer; and they suggest that the writer had some reason or logic to motivate the decision to include the imitated material. That knowledge, impact, and motivation may, of course, take many forms. The writer may have read the original, a translation of the original, or, perhaps, merely have heard a report of the original. The impact of the original may arouse a range of responses from the utmost respect to absolute disrespect, but the writer has some reason for 18 taking the effort to remember the original weU enough to use it. Likewise, the reason for its inclusion may be rhetorical or artistic, or both. These motivations may range broadly; writers may wish to exhibit their emdition to others; writers may wish to invoke the authority of an original to elevate their own work; they may wish to rest upon another's words to distance themselves from whatever has been said; they may seek a warrant for thier own works; or, they may wish to expand the depth and breadth of their works. These three ranges of the knowledge, unpact, and motivation involved in a writer's use of a source obviously do not represent every possibility, but they do suggest that the use of imitation is an intentional act that may carry significant meaning. ^^

In Jonson's case, a careful examination of his use of sources is pivotal to any attempt to understand his plays, for such an examination reveals at least three items of significance that are cmcial to understanding Jonson's theory and practice. First, a careful analysis of his borrowings offers some indication of Jonson's criteria for evaluating an original, by which a source would be deemed suitable to a new context; second, it gives us a glimpse at the juncture of Jonson's theory and practice as he makes his selection from a source and puts it to use in his own work; and, third, it suggests the relevance of the original source to its new context, offering a means to interpret Jonson's works. These three points are most apparent when Jonson's borrowings enter into conflict with principles which he has stated and foUowed. These cases are particularly useful because they provide a vantage point fromwhic h to view 19

Jonson's work without undue influence from the monolithic image of the Horatian

Jonson that commands so much attention fromcritics . Jonson's persona is so large

that his stated principles tend to overshadow his actual practice, making his works

seem more consistent with and more constramed by classical literary theory than they

actually are.

Jonson's use of his sources tends to foUow two general patterns. First, he

readily acknowledges his debts to those authors of antiquity whom he feels v^l lend

Wm credibility and authority. For example, we see him claiming a connection with

Horace repeatedly m Discoveries, Poetaster, and elsewhere. Or, we see him openly

quoting the authority of the ancients when he seeks to give warrant to his critical

views. As a coroUary to this firstprinciple , Jonson openly condemns those whom his

authorities condemn: for instance, part of the remedy in Poetaster includes Horace's

directive to "Shun Plautus" (5.3.491). Second, Jonson tends to conceal his use of

sources which occupy a less authoritative position. For instance, although he clearly

follows Plautus by merging the plots of Aulularia and Ccq)tivi in The Case is Altered,

he never specifically mentions this fact. In The Alchemist, Jonson's catastrophe follows the situation in VXdjatws's Mostellaria, yet he says nothing to indicate that this is the case. Jonson offers only one hint of his debt to Plautus; Face's echo of Tranio's remark about the power of a guilty conscience. In Volpone, he borrows the basic motivation for his plot and the cannibalism motif fromth e legacy-hunting literature of

Rome, including Lucian's satires and Petronius's Satyricon, where the get-rich scheme 20

of entertaining the legacy-seekers is laid out. To that material he adds the general tone

and some specific echoes out of CatuUus' carmina, which he does not identify as his

source. In contrast to his unattributed borrowings, Jonson places his opening remarks

in Volpone where he says that he has not "made his play, for jests, stolen fromeac h

table" (27). While this remark arguably asserts Jonson's denial of satirizing individuals

in his play, it also suggests that Jonson is claiming originaUty for his play. Thus, the

gap occurs between Jonson's theory and practice In theory, he is the conservative

moraUst that most critics have encountered as they read Jonson His positions are

calculated, consistent, and classical. In practice, he is less predictable, more volatile,

less constrained, and more vibrant than his theory seems to allow.

The gap between what someone says and does may be plain old hypocrisy. It

may arise because the person does not care to avoid the contradiction, or it may signal

a matter of unresolved tension within the constitution of the person. There has been a

major temptation for critics to reduce Jonson to a singularly motivated character,

because that is the image that Jonson tried to cultivate in pubUc. Later readers have

attached many adjectives—moral, rare, laborious, morose, and, even, Edmund Wilson's

"anal neurotic"—to Ben Jonson's name, each one, in turn, attempting to sum up the primary motivation in Jonson and his art. But this sdf-made poet is surely as compUcated as any person is, and his use of divergent sources to formulate his own art prevents such a reduction to a single word. In fact, his use of sources insists upon a careful and flexible examination that remains open to qualification and refinement. 21

For some, the whole issue of Jonson's use of his sources is hopelessly obscure.

Harry Levin, for instance, says;

We can distinguish between what is classical and what is native in the traditions available to Jonson, but we have no means of measuring the extent to which they make themselves feh in his work. It would be futile to try to determine the preponderating element or to weigh them both in the clumsy balance of form and content. (45)

The situation created is complex, but it is not futile. As Dryden recognized long ago,

Jonson provides a trail which enables us to "track him everywhere in their [the ancients'] snow" {Essay of Dramatic Poesy 43). EarUer critics have tracked him.

Now, the time has come to uncover the convergent and divergent paths of intertextual connections between Jonson and his classical sources, and to examine what those connections have to say about his work. The connection between Jonson, Horace, and

Plautus is an ideal place to begin such an inquuy because it reveals Jonson's attempts to reconcile his theory and practice. CHAPTER n

JONSON, HORACE, AND POETIC THEORY

Jonson obviously knew his Horace. ^^ He refers to, aUudes to, translates,

imitates, and adapts Horace's poetry throughout his career. In his own words, Jonson

regarded Horace as "the best master, both of vertue and wisdome; an exceUent, and

tme judge upon cause, and reason" {Discoveries 8.2592-593).*^ As Joanna Martindale

suggests, Jonson's "association with Horace is particularly strong," and it was a

comparison "frequently made by both Jonson and his contemporaries" (54), who often

refer to him as the "EngUsh Horace" in their commemorative verses. ** In fact, the

connection between Jonson and Horace is so strong that Jonson's modifications and

adaptations of Horace's theory have been overlooked.*^ Jonson's mdebtedness to

Horace is, thus, weU-estabUshed by Jonsonian critics, but the similarities between

Jonson's and Horace's theories of poetry tend to overwhehn the subtle alterations of the poetic program in Jonson's formulation. These alterations appear clearly in a

comparison of Horace's Ars Poetica to Jonson's two works, the translation of the Ars

Poetica and his essay on the poet's requisites in his commonplace book. Discoveries.

Reading these three works together reveals that Jonson adapts Horace's views in his treatments of the requisites of the poet, his understanding of decorum, and his beUef that poetry ought to be a civiUzing force in society. From these three strands of

Horace's theory, Jonson constmcts his own theory that emphasizes the poet's inteUect

22 23 and labor. This comparison of the three works also reveals Jonson's tendency to

simplify and reduce Horatian principles to a set of codified rules. Consequently, the

comparison exposes the mherent contradiction that exists in Jonson's divided

affections for Horace and Plautus. In light of Jonson's affinity to Horace, his rejection

of Horace's negative appraisal of Plautus comes as somethmg of a surprise, and his

announcement at the end of the essay in Discoveries that he intends to reclaim Plautus

from Horace's censure reveals his attempt to reconcile his Horatian thoery and

Plautme practice.

Jonson's essay on the poet's requisites amounts to a commentary on Horace's

Ars Poetica}^ and it reveals that, hke Horace, Jonson perceives the mles of art within the context of the artist's duty. That is to say, the work of art and the precepts which inform its stmcture and composition are subordinate to the larger function of the artist in society. To that end, Jonson examines five requisites for the poet; (1) ingenium or natural wit, (2) exercitatio or exercise, (3) imitatio or imitation, (4) lectio or reading, and (5) ars or art. In this examination of the requisites, Jonson expresses his view of the poet in Ught of Horace's views in the Ars Poetica, but his treatment reveals that he adapts Horace's views to support the comerstone of his dramatic theory—labor and mdustry.*^

Jonson begins his essay on the poet's requisites by paraphrasing Horace; "... I would leade you to the knowledge of our Poet, by a perfect Information, what he is, or should bee by nature, by exercise, by imitation, by Study"' (8.2403-405; emphasis 24

added). The corresponding passage in the Ars Poetica reads, ''scribens ipse docebo, / unde parentur opes, quid alat formetque poetam, /quiddeceat, quid non, quo virtus,

quoferat error" (306-08). Jonson translates the passage in this way;

... [I] wiU teach them yet Their Charge and Office; whence then- wealth to fet. What nourisheth, what formed, what begot The Poet, what becommeth, and what not; Whether tmth may, and whether error bring.(8.435-39)*'

The primary difference between Jonson's formulation in the essay and Horace's

statment in the Ars Poetica Ues in Jonson's substitution of the specific sub-topics—

nature, exercise, imitation, and study—for Horace's indirect questions, which are

retained in Jonson's translation. These specific topics are, indeed, those that both

Horace and Jonson pursue in then- discussions of the poet, but Jonson's essay reveals his attempt to make concrete the abstractions that he finds in Horace. The subjunctive mood of the mdirect questions in the Ars Poetica creates a more ambiguous, less definitive statement; in essence Horace announces that these are the topics that he washes to discuss, but he hnplies that his discussion wiU remain somewhat ambivalent.

Conversely, Jonson imposes the declarative stmcture in his essay, indicating his intention to constmct a more definite examination of the topics. That intention requires him to simplify and reduce the potential ambiguities of the Ars Poetica.

For instance, in Jonson's discussion of the first requisite, the poet's natural wit, or ingenium, he emphasizes a more basic inteUectual capacity than Horace does.

Jonson asserts that '*the Poet must bee able by nature, and instinct, to powre out the 25

Treasure of his mmde" (8.2412-413). Horace puts it; ''Scribendi recte sapere est et principium etfons'" (309). Jonson translates: 'The very root of writing weU, and spring / Is to be wise ..." (8.440-41). Horace's use of sapere indicates a more concrete action—that of tasting something-than Jonson's translation, "to be wise," suggests. While wisdom is connoted by sapere, which is the root for sapientia

("knowledge" or "wisdom"), sapere is more closely aUgned with sapor or "taste"

(Brink 338). Thus, Jonson elhninates the metaphor of taste in his rendering of the word. In doing so, he adapts a potentially problematic formulation and reduces it to a more practical appUcation. This reductive adaptation becomes clear in the foUowing lines of the poem:

scribendi recte sapere est et principium etfons. rem tibi Socraticae poterunt ostendere chartae, verbaque prouisam rem non irmita sequentur. (3 09-11)

The very root of writing weU, and spring Is to be wise; thy matter firstt o know; Which the Socratick writings best can show; And where the matter is provided still. There words wiU foUow, not against their wiU. (8.440-44)

Horace relates the fountain of poetry to a philosophical ideal, which he locates in the

Socratic dialogues; a knowledge of the rem, the form of a matter, allows the verba, the expression of it, to follow easily. Jonson, however, reduces the difficulty of that concept to a materialistic concern by omitting the philosophical underpinnings of the lines and locating the source of wisdom in the texts themselves, rather than in the more difficult task of knowing the rem, the subject matter of poetry. 26

This reduction stems fromth e ambivalent stance that Horace assumes in regard to the role of inspiration. For Jonson, Horace's view of taste or knowledge of the

Platonic rem as the origin of poetry stands in contrast to Horace's description of poetic madness. This opposition arises when Horace locates the "weU-spring" in

Plato's dialogues, not mspiration (310). Horace attributes the beUef in divine inspiration and a poet's "insanity," the furor poeticus, to philosophers like Democritus, who beUeve ''Ingenium misera. .. fortunatius arte" (295), which Jonson translates, "a wit [is] / Happier than wretched art" (8.419-20). Horace beUttles the "inspired" poet by characterizing him as insane; first,h e describes those who would cultivate the appearance of a poet by neglecting to trim their fingernails and hair (296ff). Later, he compares the plight of Empedocles, who casts himself into Mount Etna's fires, to that of a poet who caUs attention to himself by throwing himself down a weU (458fF).

Due to these negative characterizations of inspiration, Jonson reformulates

Horace's view of ingenium, all but eliminating inspiration in the process although

Horace himself does not do so. In spite of such a negative characterization of poetic inspiration, Horace does not deny its part in natura or ingenium, the poet's character or nature;*^

Natura fieret laudabile carmen, an arte, Quaesitum est.... alterius sic Alteraposcit opem res, et conjurat amice. (408-11)

'Tis now inquired which makes the nobler verse. Nature or art ... . 27

So doth the one the other's help require

And friendlyshoul d unto one end conspire. (8.581-86)

Although I will delay a fuUer discussion of nature and art until later in the chapter, it should be noted here that Horace and Jonson link natura, or wit, and art, both of which become inseparable parts of one process. Freda Townsend points out that durmg the Renaissance poets knew Plato's insistence that "poets create not by art, but by divine gift," but that they added to that beUef an emphasis on the poet's rational control: "Renaissance modification of the furor poeticus derived in part fromHorace , who had urged that study and training come to the aid of wdt. . ." (25-6). That is to say, Horace modified Plato by reducing the role of inspiration and emphasizing the poet's exercise of his own skiUs.

Jonson's development of the topic, however, extends that modification ahnost to the exclusion of mspiration. Although he cites authorities ranging fromAristotl e and Plato to Seneca and Ovid in the discussion of a poet's inspiration as a divine gift, the product of which is what he caUs "PoeticaU Rapture" (8.2416), Jonson undermines the role of mspiration. Jonson frames the paragraph in which he discusses ingenium with two highly suggestive statements, both of which undercut the formerly privileged status of inspiration. The two statements indicate that the "PoeticaU Rapture" is Uttle more than a rhetorical weapon which Jonson uses in his attempt to explain why he sees so few "good poets" in England:

For, wheras aU other Arts consist of Doctrme, and Precepts: the Poet must be able by nature, and instmct, to powre out the Treasure of his 28

minde. . . . And hence it is, that the comming up of good Poets, (for I mind not mediocres or imos) is so thinne and rare among us, every beggerly Corporation affoords the State a Major, or two Bailiffs, yearly; but solus Rex, out Poeta, non quotannis nascitur [Only a king, or a poet, is not bom every year]. (8.2411-434)

These remarks show that Jonson, Uke Horace before him, but to a greater extent, subverts the notion of the furor poeticus with a more basic, less enthusiastic understanding of ingenium.

In the last sentence of the paragraph, Jonson characterizes ingenium as a primary cause in the scarcity of poets; "And, hence it is, that the comming up of good

Poets, (for I minde not mediocres, or imos) is so thinne and rare among us. . . . solus

Rex, out Poeta, non quotannis nascitur [Only a king, or a poet, is not bom every year]" (8.2429-434). Jonson emphasizes that his mterest Ues with good poets—an emphasis that parallels Horace's declared intention to distinguish between the "insane" or affected poet and the good poet by acting as a critical whetstone upon which others may sharpen their judgment (304).

Jonson is making a similar distmction, though in a different way. In Jonson's quotation of Petronius {"solus Rex, aut Poeta, non quotannis nascitur^'), the association of kings and poets serves at least two ends; first,i t elevates the poet in stature, suggesting that the birth of a poet is of no less significance than that of a kmg; and, second, it offers a vantage point to observe what exactly Jonson means by ingenium. In the case of a king, the buth is cmcial only msofar as it is a happy coincidence-one becomes hek apparent only if he happens to be bom into the right 29 family at the righttime. ^ The poet, however, has no such good fortune, as the self-made Jonson knew weU The poet's mind is cmcial to his success and advancement. Jonson says elsewhere in Discoveries.

In the difference of wits, I have observ'd; there are many notes; And it is a Uttle Maistry to know them: to disceme, what every nature, every disposition wiU beare; For, before wee sow our land, we should plough it. There are no fewer formes of minds, then of bodies amongst us. The variety is incredible; and therefore wee must search. Some are fit to make Divines, some Poets, some Lawyers, some Physicians, some to be sent to the plough, and trades. There is no doctrine wiU doe good, where nature is wanting. (8.669-78)

Jonson associates one's potential occupation with one's inteUectual capacity to perform the work. Even given the basic capacity, however, Jonson contends that one needs to develop the mind. Jonson's metaphor of ploughing and sowing reveals the need to "cultivate" the mind, a view which contrasts with the divine inspiration of the furor poeticus. Similarly, his conclusion that no amount of work can overcome the lack of wit reinforces this contrast, because, if one aUows for inspiration from outside, one's inteUectual capacity becomes less cmcial to the process of making art. Thus, it seems that Jonson views ingenium as a simple inteUectual endowment, a natural mental capacity for the work of a poet.

In the first of the two sentences that frameth e paragraph on the fur or poeticus,

Jonson says that the poet must be able to "powre out the Treasures of his minde"

(8.2413). His choice of metaphor-the "Treasures"- indicates that he views thoughts and ideas of the poet as valuable possessions Furthermore, it suggests that the poet's 30 thoughts are to be coUected, stored, and spent like so much treasure. Thus, Jonson once again seems to sidestep the inspiration of the furor poeticus, by implying that a poet's ingenium is nothing more than the abiUty to coUect, develop, and articulate his thoughts.

Although Jonson overtly emphasizes the "PoeticaU Rapture" by citing the ancient authorities who encourage poets to seek "their Helicon, Pegasus, or

Parnassus'' (8.2424-425), his understanding of ingenium as a basic inteUectual capacity becomes clearer as he moves to his discussion of the poet's studiousness, which consists of the next three requisites; exercise, imitation, and reading. Once again, Jonson's essay reflects his effort to constmct a practical appUcation out of

Horace's generaUzations about poetry. As we have seen, Horace locates the weU-spring of wisdom and taste in the Platonic rem, the knowledge of which prepares the way for poetry. Jonson's translation of the Ars Poetica, however, indicates his beUef that Horace had located inspiration m the substance of others' works; "thy matter firstt o know; / Which the Socratick writmgs best can show; / And where the matter is provided stiU" (8.441-43). The texts themselves "show" and "provide" the matter, the rem. Likewise, Jonson says;

If his vAt wiU not arrive soddamly at the dignitie of the Ancients, let hun not yet faU out with it, quarreU, or be over-hastUy Angry; offer, to tume it away from Study, in a humor, but come to it againe upon better cogitation; try an other time, with labour. If then it succeed not. . . bring it all to the forge, and file, againe; toume it anew. (8.2435-443) 31

Of note here is the fact that Jonson, just as he beUeved Horace to have done, clearly connects inspiration, the sudden arrival of wit, to texts of the "Ancients," not to divine intervention. Thus, Jonson makes the wit dependent upon study, both for its inspiration and, faiUng that, for a more labored attempt to write. Jonson's reading of

Horace becomes clearer in this passage, for in the finalsentenc e he incorporates three of Horace's metaphors—the forge {Ars Poetica 441), the file {Ars Poetica 295ff), and the potter's wheel {Ars Poetica 21-2). In doing so, Jonson demonstrates that one of his primary interests in Horace's poem is its emphasis on the poet's control of his poem and the labor such control requires of him.

Although Horace uses these metaphors in the Ars Poetica to support various topics, Jonson focuses them squarely on the writer's industriousness. Such is the case of the potter's wheel, which supports Horace's notions of unity and purpose;

amphora coepit institui; currente rota cur urceus exit? denique sit quiduis, simplex dumtaxat et unum. (21-3)

A great jarre to be shap'd. Was meant at first. Why, forcing stUl about Thy labouring wheele, comes scarce a Pitcher out? In short, I bid, Let what thou work'st upon. Be simple quite throughout, and whoUy one. (8.28-32)

In the translation, one sees Jonson's emphasis; "currente," literally "mnning" or perhaps "spinning" here, becomes "labouring," and "quiduis" becomes the expanded

"what thou work'st upon." Jonson's translation of the metaphor, thus, focuses attention on the poet's labor rather than on the image of the potter's spinning wheel 32

In the case of the forge, Jonson merely emphasizes the hard work which

Horace indicates is necessary;

melius te posse negares bis terque expertum frustra, delere tube bat et male tomatos incudi reddere versus. (439-41)

If you denied, you had no better straine. And twice, or thrice had 'ssayd it, stUl in vaine; Hee'd bid, blot all; and to the anvUe bring Those iU-tom'd Verses to new hammering. (8.625-28)

Jonson's loose translation of Une 439 shifts the denial away fromth e the abUity to do better (^'melius te posse negares") toward the quaUty of the poem itself ("had no better strame"). At the same time, it retains the force of the original by introducing a pun on

"straine," which can be read both as the song and as the effort of the poet. Jonson also expands the metaphor, the recasting, mto two Unes, emphasizmg the labor exerted in hammering out new work on the anvil. Jonson's translation of both metaphors underscores his interest in labor. In effect, just as Jonson combines these diverse metaphors into one sentence, he draws together elements fromth e whole of the Ars

Poetica in order to support this one point; a poet must labor to be successful.

A large part of that labor, for Jonson, is the study of others' works and an active assimilation of those works into one's repertoire. That is to say, for Jonson the requisites of exercitatio, lectio, and imitatio are different aspects of the same project; and they comprise the buUc of the effort a poet expends in the production of his work.

The discovery and imitation of knowledge are united m Jonson's view, and his 33 definitions of imitatio and lectio demonstrate this unity. He defines his third requisite, knitation, as the abUity "to convert the substance, or Riches of another Poet to his ovme use" (8.2468), and he says that this abiUty is learned by "observ[ing] how the best writers have imitated" others (8.2479). Then, when defining lectio, his fourth requisite, Jonson characterizes this type of observation as "an exactnesse of Studie, and multipUcity of reading" (8.2483-484). LogicaUy, for Jonson, unitation requires careful study of the writers to be imitated.^*

Jonson's motto, "Tanquam Explorator [Always the Explorer]," with which he inscribed his books, indicates that Jonson viewed reading as a search. In Discoveries, he says, "Wits made out their severall expeditions then, for the discovery of Tmth, to find out great and profitable Knowledges" (8.228-30). As Robert C. Evans argues in

Habits of Mind: Evidence and Effects of Ben Jonson's Reading, 'Tor Jonson . . a good reader is mentaUy active, moraUy alert, and motivated by a different kind of curiosity than stimulates the masses" (28). Jonson makes it clear, however, that the reading of others is in fact an exploration both of their ideas and style and of his own thmking;

If in some things I dissent from others, whose Wit, Industry, Diligence, and ludgement I looke up at, and admire: let me not therefore heare presently of Ingratitude and Rashnesse. For I thanke those, that have taught me, and wUl ever: but yet dare not thinke the scope of then- labour, and enquiry, was to envy their posterity, what they also could adde and findout . If I erre, pardon me: Nulla ars simul & inventa est, & absoluta ["No art is, at the same time, both discovered and perfected"]. I do not desire to be equal to those that went before; but to have my reason examin'd with theirs, and so much faith to be given 34

them or me, as those shaU evict. ... but if I have any thing right, defend h as Tmth's, not mine (save as it conduceth to a common good.) (8.143-57)

Notable in this statement is Jonson's Ust of quaUties that he esteems; wit, industry, diUgence, and judgment. In the Jonsonian scheme of things, industry and dihgence are synonymous to the requisites of exercitatio, lectio, and imitatio. Also notable is the detaUed account of Jonson's own reading style On the one hand, he knows that reading can act as a catalyst in the writing process. As he says elsewhere in

Discoveries, "I know Nothing can conduce more to letters, than to examine the writings of the Ancients" (8.129-30). On the other hand, he also recognizes the danger unpUdt in the overestimation or misevaluation of his sources. The misunderstanding or misappUcation of one's sources thwarts the purpose of reading, which for Jonson is the estabUshment of tmth. In his essay on the requisites of a poet,

Jonson employs a metaphor common during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which portrays education as a diet and knowledge as food. In his discussion of imitatio, he suggests that sources ought to be consumed, digested, and transformed;

The third requisite in our Poet, or Maker, is Imitation; to bee able to convert the substance, or Riches of another Poet to his owne use. To make choice of one exceUent man above the rest, and so to foUow him tiU he grow very hee; or so like him as the Copie may be mistaken for the Principall Not, as a Creature that swaUowes, what it takes in, cmde, raw, or indigested; but, that feedes with an Appetite, and hath a Stomacke to concoct, divide, and tume aU into nourishment. Not, to imitate servilely, as Horace saith, and catch at vices, for vertue; but, to draw forth out of the best, and choicest flowers, with the Bee, and tume aU into Honey. . . . (8.2466-478) 35

The writing of others is, as Jonson characterizes it, food for thought; it is not a substitute for one's own thinking. "It profits not me," Jonson declares, "to have any man fence, or fightfo r me" (8.157-68), a declaration that reinforces Jonson's insistence on independence of thought. Thus, he concludes, the writing of others should neither govern tyrannically, nor determine absolutely one's thmking;

Nothing is more ridiculous then to make an Author a Dictator, as the schooles have done Aristotle. The dammage is infinite, knowledge receives by it. For to many things a man should owe but a temporary beliefe, and a suspension of his owne ludgement, not an absolute resignation of himselfe or a perpetuaU captivity. (8.2095-2100)

To guard against such captivity, Jonson argues that a person should read many things^^ and avoid placing too much emphasis on any one writer; "One, though he be exceUent and the chief is not to be " imitated alone" (8.884-85).

The proper dUigence in Jonson's schema of the liberal education includes experiences with diverse texts, out of which come three possible ends. As Jonson consistently maintains, there is a difference in people and then- levels of understanding;^^

There are no fewer formes of minds, then of bodies amongst us. . . . There is no doctrine will doe good, where nature is wanting. Some wits are swelling, and high, others low and stiU; some hot and fiery; others cold and duU; One must have a bridle, the other a spurre. (8.672-680)

For those who lack the necessary inteUect to profit from their study of texts, the study has no effect. For those who are inteUectuaUy equipped, imitatio and lectio promote the abUity to become their own masters. Jonson declares this to be his motivation for 36 his views: "I take this labour in teaching others, that they should not be alwayes to be taught; and I would bring my Precepts into practice. For mles are even of lesse force and valew then experiments" (9.1755-758). In the lines famous for Horace's metaphor of the critic as a whetstone, we find a very simUar platform;

ergofungar vice cotis, acutum reddere quaeferrum valet exsors ipsa secandi; munus et officium nil scribens ipse docebo, unde parentur opes, quid non, quo virtus, quoferat error. (304-08)

[I 'd] rather, I, Be Uke a Whet-stone, that an edge can put On Steele, though't selfe be duU, and cannot cut. I, writing nought myself, wiU teach them yet Their Charge and Office, whence their wealth to fet. What nourisheth, what formed, what begot The Poet, what becommeth, and what not; Whether tmth may, and whether error bring. (8.432-39)

For those who are particularly weU-equipped, the program of imitatio and lectio produces another resuh that Ues at the heart of both Horace's and Jonson's efforts— the abiUty to become successful poets.^ This ability depends upon the poet's abiUty to do more than know the readmg materials on a superficial level or to dupUcate those materials; he must go beyond that level:

. . . [His] exactnesse of Studie, and multiplicity of reading . . . maketh a fuU man, not alone enabUng him to know the History, or Argument of a Poeme and to report it: but so to master the matter, and StUe, as to shew, hee knows, how to handle, place, or dispose of either, with elegancie, when need shall bee. And not thinke, hee can leape forth soddainely a Poet, by dreaming hee hath been m Parnassus, or, having washt his lipps (as they say) in Helicon. (8.2483-491) 37

Jonson rejects the CaUimachean inspiration and insists that careful reading, imitation, and studious exercise of these skiUs produce the foundation for the poets' office and clarify their understanding of how difficuh their task will be; the reahzation of the difficulty, in turn, reinforces the need for their dUigence and study.

Indeed, Jonson emphasizes the labor of the poet throughout his essay.

Starting from Horace's advice to Piso to let his poetry mature nine years in order to aUow time for revision (388). Jonson deduces the logical corollary to this principle when he declares; "Indeed, things, wrote with labour, deserve to be so read, and wiU last their Age" (8 2465-466) Thus. Jonson cleark associates a poem's worth and abiUty to endure with the time and effort spent in writing it. He recounts the anecdote in which Alcestis mocks Euripides for his slowness, "glorying [that] hee could with ease have sent forth a htmdred" lines in same three days that Euripides wrote three

Euripides responds; "Like enough. But. here is the difference: Thy verses will not last those three daies. mine wiU to all time" (8 2254-462). Horace uses a amilar anecdote in the Satires, where he compares his own Unes to those of Lucilius Again, it would seem that Jonson insists that time and effort make good poetr>

Jonson defends his own work on the basis of his effort. In the "Epistie" affixed to y^olpone, Jonson says "And though my catastrophe may in the strict rigouro f comic law meet with censure, as turning back to my promise, I desire the learned and charitable critic to have so much faith in me to think it was done of industry'' (112-16)

Of course, Jonson's prevaiUng \iew of his critics is that they are anything but learned 38 and charitable," so one must wonder how serious Jonson was in rendering this defense. His defense is, nevertheless, perfectly consistent with the principles expressed in the essay in Discoveries where he reUes on his labor as his chief defense.

For example, earher m Discoveries, Jonson posits;

For a man to write weU, there are required three Necessaries. To reade the best Authors, observe the best Speakers; and much exercise of his owne style. ... So did the best Writers in their beginnings, they impos'd upon themselves care, and industry. (8.1697-699; 1723-725)

Here, one finds not wit, but simply industry—the poet's effort. Joanna Martindale argues that a consistent theme of Jonson occurs when he "turns to himself and his own powers, resolving to emulate the ancient lyric poets, mcluding 'thine own Horace'"

(59). Jonson does so, Martindale suggests, because he desires to "express [his] beUef in the value of art and his Horatian conviction of the need for effort in writing good poetry" (59). Thus, it would seem that regardless of how seriously Jonson took his critics or thek charges against Volpone for its violation of "comic law," Jonson viewrs industry as his best defense.

In fact, Jonson not only defends his own work, but also criticizes others' work on this basis. A good example occurs in Jonson's famous and often-discussed criticism of Shakespeare's plays^' Jonson recaUs in Discoveries that actors often praised Shakespeare:

... in his writing, (whatsoever he penn'd) hee never blotted out a Une. My answer hath beene. Would he had blotted a thousand. . . Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and freenature ; had an exceUent Phantasie, brave notions, and gentle expressions wherein hee flow'd 39

with that faciUty, that sometime it was necessary he should be stop'd. (8.647-49; 655-59)

Criticizing Shakespeare's disregard for mastery of poetic control, Jonson anticipates in this passage his commendatory poem for the first foUo of Shakespeare's Complete

Works. The ambivalent praise is balanced by Jonson's caveat that Shakespeare needed more control. In the commendatory poem, he says;

Yet must I not giue Nature aU: Thy Art, My gentle Shakespeare, must enioy a part. For though the Poets matter. Nature be. His art doth give the fashion. And, that he. Who casts to wrrite a liuing Une, must sweat. . . . (8.55-59)

While he gives art some credit for Shakespeare's dramatic success, the measure of a poem, for Jonson, is based to a large extent upon the quantity of sweat produced by the poet.

Jonson's attribution of Shakespeare's success, in part, to his art calls the final requisite of the poet, ars, to our attention. In his essay, Jonson asserts that the first four requisites alone are not enough to equip the poet for success;

There goes more to his [the poet's] making, then so. For to Nature, Exercise, Imitation, and Studie, Art must bee added, to make all these perfect. And though these challenge to themselves much, in the making up of our Maker, it is Art only can lead him to perfection, and leave him there in possession, as planted by her hand. (8.2491-496)

This description seems self-evident; the poet's natural intellectual predisposition, his exercise of his mind, his imitation of other writers, and his studious reading are 40

inadequate unless he also has the art to complete his effort. This view parallels the one

he findsi n Ars Poetica:

natura fieret laudabile carmen an arte quaestitium est: ego nee studium sine divite vena nee rude quid prosit video ingenium; alterius sic altera poscit opem res et coniurat amice. (408-11)

'Tis now inquir'd which makes the nobler Verse, Nature, or art. My Judgement will not pierce Into the Profits, what a meere mde braine Can; nor all toUe, without a wealthie veine: So doth the one, the others helpe require. And friendly should unto one end conspu-e. (8.581-86)

As he contmues the essay, however, Jonson's description of the final requisite

becomes ambiguous The difficulty arises fromth e inconsistent use of the terms

nature and art.

For . . . without Art, Nature can ne're be perfect; & without Nature, Art can clayme no being. But, our Poet must beware, that his Studie bee not only to leame of himself; for, hee that shaU affect to doe that, confesseth his ever having a Foole to his master. (8.2499-507)

At the beginning of his discussion of ingenium, Jonson says "the Poet must bee able by

nature" to perform his role. There Jonson uses nature as the word for ingenium and natura, both of which Horace uses to discuss the genius, ingenuity, or basic mental

and inteUectual capacity of a person. Here, however, the art and nature seem to be paraUel to the rem and verba, they are the form and content or the subject matter and expression of the earher passage from Ars Poetica (310-11). "Without Art, Nature can never be perfect"; the subject matter ("Nature") can exist, but only hnperfectly, 41 without an articulate expression ("Art"); but "without Nature, Art can clayme no being"; if there is no subject matter, there can be no expression.

Then, less than ten Imes later, Jonson returns to his earlier use of nature as a person's inteUectual capacity. He contends that a person may read the best thinkers and writers, including "Horace, and (hee that taught him) Aristotle," both of whom

"deserve to bee the firsti n estimation" (8.2510-511), yet his study might "aU [be] in vaine, without a naturaU wit, and a PoeticaU nature in chiefe. For, no man, so soone as hee knowes this, or reades it, shall be able to write the better; but as he is adapted to it by Nature, he shaU grow the perfecter Writer" (8.2518-522). The "naturaU wit" and

"poeticall nature" seem to represent the ingenium of the first requisite. If so, the first two clauses imply somethmg entirely different than the interrelatedness of a poem's subject matter and its language. In fact, the last sentence of the paragraph affirms that this nature is something outside the poet, for Jonson directs the poet to learn of other things, not merely of himself It seems that Jonson is actuaUy addressing the poet's

"nature," his natural incUnation to poetry, and suggesting that this native inteUect is incomplete without the skiUs (his "art"), which are developed through exercise, readmg, and imitation. His nature remains imperfect without the skiU to hammer out the art work. By coroUary, without a natural incUnation and inteUect, the skiU cannot exist. Thus, once again, Jonson pushes his reading of the Ars Poetica toward his own poetic thoery that emphasizes the poet's inteUect and studiousness 42

In addition to the requisites of the poet, which we have aheady discussed,

Jonson discerned in the Ars Poetica the basic outUnes of a theory that promoted consistency of character, speech, and tone, accuracy of detaUs, and a rhetorical awareness of the audience. AU of these are significant to Jonson's work, just as they are to any dramatist's work. In terms of this discussion, however, they can be discussed together under the single heading of decomm.

Decomm is a remarkably slippery term. Although the specific mles which stem from Horace's aesthetic sensibility are readUy observed m many dramatic works and critical essays during the Renaissance in England, decomm remams a general and sometimes nebulous concept. In his Art of English Poetry (1589), George Puttenham translates the term as "decency," or "seemliness," or "comelmess." Before Puttenham,

Roger Ascham remarked in Ihe Scholemaster that a reader of classical authors should

"diUgetly [diUgently] marke the difference they [the ancients] vse, in proprietie of wordes, in forme of sentence, in handlyng of their matter, [and] he shaU easeUe perceive, what is fitte and decorum m everie one, to the trew vse of perfite Imitation"

(284). The difficulty results fromth e evaluative nature of these descriptions, for what makes something decent, seemly, comely, proper, and fittingi s not at aU clear.

To counter that difficulty, both Horace and Jonson spend much of then- effort defining what decomm is not, citing various examples of indecorous elements; Horace opens the Ars Poetica, for instance, by evoking the monstrous (and laughable) unage of a horse-necked, feathered mermaid; and, in the prologue to Volpone, Jonson denies 43 the presence of farcical elements (broken eggs and "quaking custards"), satire (the table scraps), and disjointed or digressive additions in his plot (8.19-32). By Usting examples of indecorous elements, the two poets acknowledge the reaUty: whUe the unspoken and unwritten mles of any social contract govern the decisions, actions, and behaviors of that society's members, these mles tend to go unnoticed untU they are violated.

The same situation exists in literature and drama.^^ The conventions of society and of poetry determine what will be deemed courteous and decorous. Jonson acknowledges this fact in both the social and literary spheres;

Custome is the most certaine Mistresse of Language. . . . Yet when I name Custome, I understand not the vulgar Custome; For that were a precept no lesse dangerous to Language, then life, if wee should speake or live after the manners of the vulgar; But that I caU Custome of speech, which is the consent of the Learned; as Custome of Ufe, which is the consent of the good. (8,1926-944)

Language is a common denominator in life and poetry, and Jonson realizes that the social contract, the mfluence of both educated and uneducated, and the conflict between moral and immoral desires motivate the usage of language. SimUarly, in the

Ars Poetica, the metaphor of words as foliage captures Horace's view of the organic nature of language, full of the capacity to grow and die;

ut silvae foliis pronos mutantur in annos, prima cadunt: ita verborum, vetus interit aetas, et iuvenum rituflorent mode nata vigentque. (60-63)

As woods whose change appeares StUl in their leaves, throughout the shding yeares. 44

The first-bome dying; so the aged state Of words decay, and phrases borne but late Like tender buds shoot up, and freshly grow. (8.85-89)

His view seems to stem from a recognition, similar to Jonson's, that a society mfluences the usage of language, and that both of them are essentiaUy capable of growth and decay. Thus, as it relates to decomm, the social influences of custom and taste are the driving force behind the defintion of what is decorous, yet, what is decorous exerts a force in return on those customs and tastes.

Jonson professes his Horatian view of decomm repeatedly throughout his career. Perhaps one of the best examples to Ulustrate his closeness to Horace on this matter is the prologue to Volpone. Jonson emphasizes that the play adheres to the mles;

Yet, thus much I can give you, as a token Of his play's worth, no eggs are broken; Nor qualdng custards with fierce teeth affrighted. Wherewith your rout are so delighted; Nor hales he in a guU, old ends reciting. To stop gaps in his loose writing; With such a deal of monstrous and forced action As might make Bedlam a faction; Nor made he his play, for jests, stolen from each table. But makes jests, to fit his fable. And so presents quick comedy, refined. As best critics have designed. The laws of time, place, persons he observeth. From no needful mle he swerveth (Prologue, Volpone 19-32)

Jonson proclaims his play free of the elements of farce and popular theater: the playwright claims to have rejected the antics of low comedy and slapstick in order to 45 maintain decomm, the order and harmony of the play. LUcewise, in the "Epistle," he indicates that the decomm which results from his adherance to the mles wiU serve as a warrant for his play:

This is it, that hath not only rapt me to present indignation, but made me studious heretofore; and, by all my actions, to stand off from them; which may most appear in this my latest work . . . wherem I have laboured, for their instmction and amendment, to reduce not only the ancient forms, but manners of the scene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and last the doctrine, which is the principle end of poesy, to inform men in the best reason for living. (xUi-xiv)

He indicates that his adherance to the mles of art—the "manners of the scene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and ... the doctrine"—ought to persuade the critic to accept his work.

Also notable, however, is Jonson's indignation and his conviction that his effort as a poet is essentially a moral activity. This view of decomm as a moral value stems dkectly from Jonson's perception of the poet's office. In Discoveries, Jonson describes the poet's character;

Hee must have Civil Prudence, and Eloquence, & that whole; not taken up by snatches, or peeces, in Sentences, or remnants, when he wiU handle businesse or carry CounseUs, as if he came then out, of the Declamors GaUarie, or Shadowe, but fiirnish'd out of the body of the State, which commonly is the Schoole of men. (8.2522-527)

In other words, the poet must be ethical and have mtegrity, moraUty, and virtue.

Jonson returns consistently to his conviction that the tme poet is one who exhibits order and harmony m his Ufe as weU as his poetry. In the "Epistle" affixed to Volpone,

Jonson explicitly connects the morals and literary output of poets: 46

It is certain, nor can it with any forehead be opposed, that the too much Ucence of Poetasters, in this tune, hath much deformed their mistress .... But for then- petulancy, it were an act of the greatest injustice, either to let the learned suffer; or so divine a skiU (which indeed should not be attempted with unclean hands) to faU under the least contempt. For if men will impartially, and not a-squint, look toward the offices and function of a Poet, they wiU easily conclude to themselves the impossibUity of any man's being the good Poet, without first being a good man. (3.xi)

In his attack on contemporary playwrights for then- shortcomings, Jonson borrows freely from the language of religion; he argues that they are fiiU of "Ucence" and work with "unclean hands;" their poetic sins create "an act of the greatest injustice" and deserve "contempt." Conversely, the tme poet is, accordmg to Jonson, is engaged in a

"divine" project and must, therefore, necessarily be "good."

As Jonson reveals here and elsewhere, he is convinced that a very real Unk exists between the a person's character and language, and by extension between a society's moraUty and its language.^^ There is precedent hi the Ars Poetica for

Jonson's contention; Horace observes the association between the pohtical situation and the state of poetry, the decUne of one fueling the decUne of the other. Cyms Hoy summarizes the situation;

Neither Horace nor his speaker [in Ars Poetica] seem to have been anti-unperiaUsts, but miUtary expansion is expUcitly cited (I. 208) as one of the factors that led to social cormption. As society became cormpt, drama followed, becoming loud, vulgar, and pretentious. Thus art . . . became another means of spreading the general bUght. (63)

In essence, drawing upon the conservative poet of the Ars Poetica, Jonson seems to suggest that art is ideally an overarching concept which describes the necessary unity 47 and order of a poet's life in relation to the social community, as weU as a force that transforms the basic materials of literature mto a product worthy of the elevated status

Jonson confers upon it. As James D. Redwine, Jr., and Lily B. Campbell note,

"decomm was in drama not [only] a law of aesthetic theory, but [also] a law of moral philosophy" (Redwine xxv). In sum, art is to the poet what decomm is to the artwork.^* Both are, in essence, concepts that involve circular arguments; together art and decomm are the capstone of the requisites, and they simuhaneously create the successful integration of the poet's labor and demonstrate the effects of that success.

They are, in sum, both the cause and the effect of the poet's effort.^^

The moral underpinning of the poet, decomm, and art are Imked to the function of poetry. Throughout Discoveries, Jonson affirms the two-fold function of poetry: teaching and dehghting. At the beginning of the essay on the poet's requisites, he defines the word, poem and describes the Sanction of poetry:

A Poem, as I have told you, is the worke of the Poet; the end, and fruit of his labour, and studye. Poesy is his skiU, or Crafte of making; the very Fiction it selfe, the reason, or form of the worke. . . The study of it [poesy], if wee vdll tmst Aristotle) offers to mankmde a certain mle, and Patteme of living well, and happily; disposing us to aU CiviU offices of Society. If wee will believe Tully, it nourisheth and mstmcteth our Youth; delights our Age; adorns our prosperity; comforts our Adversity; entertaines us at home; keepes us company abroad; travaUes with us; watches; divides the times of our earnest, and sports; shares in our Country recesses, and recreations; insomuch as the wisest and best learned have thought her the absolute Mistresse of manners, and neerest of kin to Vertue. (8.2375-396) 48

According to Jonson's description of poetry, the poet uses his skiU of poesy to fashion

a decorous work, which instmcts and delights. The unity of these elements in

Jonson's theory is often recognized, but the significance is overlooked. WhUe Jonson

cites Aristotle and Cicero in the privacy of his commonplace book, his primary debt is

to Horace, and he pubhcly acknowledges his Horatian bias toward the dual function of

poetry.

It is perhaps a moot pomt to say that Horace does not prescribe both teaching

and delighting in the Ars Poetica. In fact, he offers three alternatives;

autprodesse volunt aut delectare poetae aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere vitae. (333-34)

Poets would either profit, or deUght,

Or mixing sweet, and fit, teach life the right. (8.477-78)

Horace offers the poet a choice of either teaching, or deUghtmg, or mixing the two.

The alternatives, however, tend to be eUminated m later commentaries, leaving only

the final one, the combined ends. Sir Phillip Sidney is, perhaps, the most weU-knovm

and articulate of critics who foUow this reasoning, when he equates the teaching with

phUosophy, the deUght with history, and marries the two m Uterature {Defense of Poesy 311-402).^^

Nevertheless, Horace does offer the alternatives, and in different parts of the poem he embraces them all. In Unes 99-100, for example, Horace emphasizes delight

and anticipates the addition of persuasion to the formula: 49

non satis estpulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto, et quocumque volent animum auditoris agunto. (99-100)

'Tis not enough, th'elaborate Muse affords Her Poem's beautie, but a sweet deUght

To worke the hearers minds, stiU, to theh plight. (8.140-43)

Horace distinguishes between the beauty of a poem and its sweetness, implymg that

there is both an aesthetic and a rhetorical concern for the poet. Cicero states a three­

fold ahn of oratory ("to teach, to deUght, and to move") m Partitiones Oratoriae and

he is often credited with adding the persuasive element. Horace's formulation m Unes

99-100 also recognizes the persuasive element and the influence that poetic elements

have on an audience. In fact, a common motif in the Ars Poetica is that the work's

accuracy, consistency, and decomm are necessary msofar as they are convincing to the

audience.^*

Like most Horatian commentators before him, Jonson accepts Horace's

simpler formulation found in Unes 343-44, which emphasizes the mixture of a poem's

sweetness and utUity: "omne tulitpunctum qui miscuit utile dulci, /lectorem delectandopariterque monendo" (343-44); Jonson translates, "But he hath every

suffiage, can apply / Sweet mix'd with sowre, to his Reader, so / As doctrine, and dehght together go" (8.514-16). More literally translated, the lines read, "he [the poet], who mingles the useful with the sweet, has met every demand equaUy by deUghting and admonishing the reader." Jonson's translation captures the essential 50

Imk between the two ends of dehghting and teaching, which becomes the accepted

Horatian declaration on the fimciono f poetry in society.'^

In the plays, Jonson consistently stresses this Horatian perspective on the dulce et utile of poetry. In the prologue to Volpone, for instance, Jonson declares his purpose, "In all his poems, still, hath been this measure, / To mix profit with your pleasure" (3.7-8). In the second prologue to Epicoene, titled "Another," Jonson asserts, "The ends of aU, who for the scene do write, / Are, or should be, to profit, and delight" (3.1-2). And, in the prologue to The Alchemist, he claims that he "Did never aim to grieve, but [to] better men" by offering "wholesome remedies [which] are sweet, / And in their workmg, gain and profit meet" (3.12; 15-16).

In Discoveries, Jonson employs the didactic fiinctiono f poetry as a defense of his own work and as a weapon to denigrate his contemporaries' works for their shortcomings. WhUe he maintains that poetry may be rightlyuse d in a didactic role, he also admits its abuse. In his discussion of the similarities of poetry and painting, for mstance, he asserts that some works can be aimed improperly, creating a pernicious resuh:

For that [poetry] can speake to the Understanding; the other [picture], but to the Sense. They both behold pleasure, and profit, as their common Object; but should abstame from aU base pleasures, lest they should erre from their end; and whUe they seeke to better mens mmds, destroy their manners. (8.1515-519)

In his own effort to "better mens minds," however, Jonson insists that potentiaUy objectionable material is shnply a negative example through which he mtends to reform 51 his audience. He defends these examples by appealuig to the mirror-like quality of drama as a defense:

It sufficeth I know, what kinde of persons I displease, men bred in the decUning, and decay of virtue, betroth'd to their owne vices; that have abandoned, or prostituted their good names; hungry and ambitious of infamy, mvested in all deformity, enthrall'd to ignorance and maUce, of a hidden and conceal'd maUgnitie, and that hold a concomitancy with aUevil. (8.2339-345)

He defends his comedy by attributing its representation of negative behavior to aU of society while allowing an escape from the indictment for those who pubhcly condemn such behavior. That escape, of course, is to approve his plays, or at the very least to remain sUent about them. This rhetorical ploy advances the notion that those who take offense are, in fact, those who are guilty of the behaviors that Jonson represents. They are protesting too much, he says;

But they that take offence where no Name, Character, or Signature doth blazon them, seeme to mee Uke affected woemen; who, if they heare any thing iU spoken of the ill of their Sexe, are presently mov'd, as if the contumely respected their particular; and on the contrary, when they heare good of good woemen, conclude, that it belongs to them aU. If I see an thing that toucheth mee, shaU I come forth a betraier of my selfe, presently? No; if I be wise. Tie dissemble it; if honest, I'le avoid it; lest I pubUsh that on my owne forehead, which I saw there noted without a title. A man, that is on the mending hand, will either mgeniously confesse, or wisely dissemble his disease. (8.2319-331)

In other words, Jonson argues that offense is not given; it is taken. He postures those who take offense, attempting to silence them or to win their acquiesence to his

Horatian judgment of poetry's usefulness. 52

The extent of Horace's influence certainly goes beyond Jonson's understanding

of the poet's requisites, the decomm of poetry, and its purpose. StiU, one sees that

Jonson forges his own understandmg of these terms fromHorac e and that he

constmcts from them the comerstone of his theory. In his attempt to subordinate

ingenium to sXadiioumes^—exercitatio, imitatio, and lectio—and, then, to subordmate

all four to ars and decomm, Jonson assimUates Horace's poetic principles into his own

theory, providing himself with the means both to defend his own work and to criticize

others' work on the basis of the poet's industry. Out of his understanding of Horace's

poetic doctrine comes a staunchly conservative critic who argues on behalf of poetic

correctness throughout his career.

There is, paradoxicaUy, no instance that reveals Jonson's Horatian theory more clearly than his attempt to reclaim Plautus from Horace's censure. In the Ars Poetica,

Horace had criticized Plautus as the recipient of undue praise froma n ignorant pubUc;

at vestri proavi Plautinos et numeros et laudavere sales, nimium patienter utrumque, ne dicam stulte, mirati, si modo ego et vos scimus inurbanum lepido seponere dicto legitimumque sonum digitis callemus et aure. (270-74)

Our Ancestors did Plautus numbers praise. And jests; and both to admiration raise Too patiently, that I not fondly say; If either you, or I, know the right way To part scurrilitie fromwit ; or can A lawfuU Verse, by th'eare, or finger scan, (399-404)^^ 53

Jonson's translation preserves the important points; Plautus violates metrical sense and uses indecorous language; the public praises him although an informed critic would not do so. His translation of'ne dicam stulte," however, seems to be an attempt to soften

Horace's criticism. Tempering "not to say stupid" with "not fondly" is significant in that it shows Jonson's attempt, conscious or not, to excuse his own affections for

Plautus. His use of Plautus in his comedies makes necessary a defense of Plautus against the charges leveUed by Horace, and he must at the same tune defend his own taste m a way that exempts hun from Horace's condemnation.

At the conclusion of the essay on the poet's requisites in Discoveries, Jonson indicates his intention to examine Horace's criticism of Plautus:

Horace did so highly esteeme Terence and his Comedies, as he ascribes the Art in Comedie to him alone, among the Latines, and joynes him with Menander. Now, let us see what may be said for either, to defend Horace his judgement to posterity; and not wholly to condenme Plautus. (8.2619-624)

For some reason, the text breaks off and omits the argument. Herford and Simpson note that an unexplained lacuna occurs in the text at Une 2624 before Jonson develops the book's final essay on the parts of a drama and dramatic unity.^"* However, even without the essay, there is much evidence that reveals how Jonson, working within the framework of his thoroughly Horatian theory, counters the judgment of Horace, his

'•best master" {Discoveries 8.2592-593).

The hundred lines leading up to Jonson's thesis reveal much. For mstance, although he never expUcitly defines the basis of Horace's criticism, he notes that it has 54 troubled "many"—presumably writers and critics, but possibly also spectators—who have found Plautus worthy of praise; "But chiefly his opinion of Plautus, vmdicated against many, that are offended, and say, it is a hard Censure upon the parent of aU conceipt and sharpnesse" (8.2602-604). By identifying Plautus as the parent of comic wit, Jonson impUes his own respect for Plautus' wit and verbal dexterity. At the same tune, he alludes to the lines in the Ars Poetica where Horace mocks the judgment of those who praise that wit and language. It seems obvious that Jonson had these lines in mind when he began this essay, because he quotes two authorities who praise

Plautus' language. First, he cites Lucius Aelius Stilo's famous Une: "Musas, si latine loqui voluissent, Plautine sermone fuisse loquuturas" ["The Muses, if they had wished to speak Latin, would have spoken Plautus' speech"]. Then, he offers "that Ulustrious judgement by the most learned M. Varro of hun [Plautus]; who pronounced hun the

Prince of letters, and Elegancie, in the Roman Language" (8.2549-554).

The absence of the argument is tellmg. It is interesting, for example, that

Jonson introduces this proposed essay more tentatively than he does others m

Discoveries. For instance, in the essay on education, Jonson simply declares that he is answering a request;

It pleas 'f/your Lordship of late, to aske my opmion touchmg the education of your sonnes, and especially to the advancement of their studies. To which, though I retum'd somewhat for the present; which rather manifested a will m me, then gave any just resolution to the thmg propounded; I have upon better cogitation caU'd those ayds about mee, both of mind and memory; which shall venter my thoughts clearer, if not fuUer, to your Lordships demand. (8.1636-644) 55

Here, the request serves as his warrant, and he simply launches into his essay.

Elsewhere, he begms even more certamly, asserting his points with Uttle hesitancy.

These three, for example, are the first sentences of the sections that they head; "For a man to wrrite weU, there are requked three Necessaries" (8.1697-698); "A good man wiU avoide the spot of any smne" (8.1323); "In the difference of wits, I have observ'd; there are many notes. . ." (8.669-70). Many other examples exist, but from these few it is clear that Jonson never hedges much at the opening of an argument, preferring instead to state his theses boldly. In the attempt to reclaim Plautus, however, he begins by appealing to authorities who oppose Horace and by emphasizmg the problematic nature of the issue. Even the thesis, which is essentiaUy a spUt one, reveals his uncertainty as he prepares to reconcUe his opinions of the two writers.

Jonson's uncertainty also appears in the plays where his characters address aesthetic issues. For mstance, in Poetaster, Horace gives medicine to Crispmus, purgmg Mm of his "windy words" that are symptoms of his "windy bram" (5.3.451-

52). Both Madaleme Doran and John J. Enck note that Jonson casts Horace as the character who speaks for the playwright (163; 41). VhgU, aUgned with Horace in the play, concludes that these piUs work only temporarily, and he offers guidehnes for a complete recovery:

'Tis necessary, therefore, he observe A strict and wholesome diet. Look, you take Each morning, of old Cato's principles A good draught, next your heart; that walk upon, TUl it be weU digested: then come home. 56

And taste a piece of Terence, suck his phrase Instead of Uquorice; and, at any hand. Shun Plautus, and old Ennius, they are old meats Too harsh for a weak stomach. (5.3,485-92)

Vu-gU adopts Horace's stance, here, suggestmg that Plautus is not a writer for everyone, especiaUy those who cannot digest his substance. It remains unclear whether the removal of Plautus fromCrispinus ' menu is the result of Plautus' scurrilous wit or of Crispmus' own undeveloped and inadequate mteUect. Perhaps, it is both. Nevertheless, we see Jonson echomg Horace's contention that the popular reception of Plautus was unacceptably favorable and that mformed critics should know better than to be so mcUned to Plautus.

At the same time, we can see Jonson defending Plautus for his violations of

Horatian mles and for his extension of dramatic conventions in Every Man out of His

Humour. Asper is the poet, aligned with Jonson hunself in the play, and Cordatus is his friendan d defender. In the choms {Grex) before Act 1, Cordatus defends Asper's wiUingness to disregard the laws of comedy;

MlTUS; Does he observe aU the laws of comedy m it? CORDATUS; What laws mean you? MiTUS; Why, the equal division of it mto acts and scenes, according to the Terentian manner, his tme number of actors; the furnishing of the scene with Grex or Choms, and that the whole argument fall within compass of a day's business. CORDATUS; Oh no, these are too nice observations. Mrrus: They are such as must be received, by your favour, or it cannot be authentic. CORDATUS; Troth, I can discem no such necessity. (231-40) 57

Cordatus continues by summarizmg the history of comedy and its development,

concluding that praticmg playwrights have always been free to manipulate the

conventions of drama;

And (though that in him [Aristophanes] this kmd of poem appeared absolute, and fiiUy perfected) yet how is the face of it changed since, in Menander, PhUemon, CecUius, Plautus, and the rest; who have utterly excluded the choms, altered the property of the persons, theh names, and natures, and augmented it with aU Uberty according to the elegancy and disposition of those tunes where in they wrote? I see not then but we should enjoy the same Ucence or freepower , to Ulustrate and heighten our invention as they did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms, which the niceness of a few (who are nothing but form) would thmst upon us. (251-61)

Although it seems odd to us, Jonson is, m fact, arguing on the side of hcense rather

than on the side of the mles. In our discussion of Jonson's Horatian theory, we have

seen critics repeatedly appeal to Jonson's unflinching and resolute conviction on

matters of poetic mtegrity. If we balance VkgU's declaration m Poetaster with, say,

Cordatus' defense of Asper's art m Every Man out of His Humour, we are able to

recognize the division in Jonson's theoretical and practical approaches. More

importantly, as Cordatus' remarks reveal, we see that Jonson was preoccupied from an eariy pomt m his career with his attempt to authorize Plautus' plays m spite of

Horace's objections to them.

Although the evidence is too scattered to constmct an iron-clad argument, a carefiil reading of Jonson's explorations throughout Discoveries Ulustrates that he may weU have decided that such an essay to reclaim Plautus from Horace's censure was 58

either unnecessary or so fliU of potential contradictions that he was unable or

disinclmed to finish it. However, as we have seen in the discussion of the poet's requisites, Jonson equips hunself with mdependence fromslavis h obedience to any

authority (see the passage from Discoveries, 8.143-57, quoted on pages 33-34).

SunUariy, he justifies the poet's mdependence through Cordatus' words, declaring his

and others' rights to dissent from authority and to exercise the Ucense of a poet.

ParadoxicaUy, Jonson findsth e warrant to dissent fromHorace' s theory in

Horace himself Speakmg of diction, Horace declares;

ego cur, acquirere pauca si possum, invideor, cum lingua Catonis etEnni sermonem patrium ditaverit et nova rerum nomina protulerit? licuit semperque lice bit signatumpraesente notaproducere nomen. (55-59)

Jonson translates; Why am I now envi'd so. If I can give some smaU increase [to language]? when, loe, Cato's and Ennius tongues have lent much worth. And wealth unto our language; and broght forth New names of things. It hath beene ever free. And ever wiU, to utter termes that bee Stamp'd to the tune, (8,78-85)

Speaking on the unity of a work, Horace declares, "denique sit quodvis, simplex dumtaxat et unum" (23). Horace grants the writer the latitude to define his own subject ("let it be whatever you wish"), provided that the woiic is whole and complete.

LUcewise, on the matter of consistency in the treatment of the subject and of character,

Horace counsels imitation, but he makes aUowance for originaUty, provided that the 59 writer achieve a credible and consistent work (119-27). This aUowance stems from the inevitable inadequacy of a mle-based approach to poetry; a prescriptive theory ultimately faUs to account for or to control the creative practice of poets, Jonson heightens the conflict between his theory and practice by pushing Horace's principles toward more concrete codifications.

Lacking a clear precedent m Horace to justify Plautus' comedy, Jonson turns to a defense of Plautus based on his own Ucense to depart fromHorace' s authority.

Between the opening lines of his discussion in Discoveries, where he appeals to StUo and Varro's remarks praising Plautus' eloquence and his statement of his thesis,

Jonson inserts what seems at firstglanc e to be a digression;

I am not of that opmion to conclude a Poets hberty withm the narrowe limits of lawes, which either the Grammarians or Philosophers prescribe. For, before they found out those Lawes, there were many exceUent Poets, that fiilfiU'd them. (8.2555-559)

Jonson exempts Plautus from the mles because he Uved before Horace had articulated them. This remark seems to jar with our experience with Jonson, the resolute critic of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, it Ulustrates the lengths to which he would go in order to rationahze his conflictmg opmions of Horace and Plautus. CHAPTER m

JONSON, PLAUTUS, AND CONTAMINATIO

As we saw in the last chapter, imitatio, lectio, and the exercise of one's poetic skUls comprise the chief part of both Horace's and Jonson's artistic process; even the insphational element of ingenium is, for these two conservative theorists, planted firmly within the context of other writers' works that stimulate the poet's mteUectual efforts. I have suggested that Jonson's attempts to reclaun Plautus from Horace's censure extended beyond the mcomplete essay in Discoveries to mclude what seems at first to be an uncharacteristicaUy Uberal poUcy of poetic Ucense. This chapter wUl explore the basic motivation for Jonson's conflicted position. Standing between

Horace and Plautus, Jonson crafts his plays carefiiUy to conform for the most part to the principles of drama expressed by Horace, but his skUls as a dramatist are predicated upon his knowledge of Plautus' comedies. His method of mvention paraUels a practice known as contaminatio, which is consistent with the method used by Plautus m his plays. From Plautus Jonson takes not only plots, devices, and jests, but also the practice of contaminatio, the practice, which Terence attributes to his predecessor, of combining discrete sources into a smgle, new work.

The meaning of the term contaminatio has been disputed by modem critics, some of whom deny that it involves the combmation of sources. The word literaUy means "poUution" and suggests a contammation of something, and it is often employed

60 61 to describe the "spoihng" of a virgin. As early as Terence, however, the term takes on its specialized literary sense of joining sources in a new union. For mstance, in the

Andria Terence uses the prologue to defend himself agamst charges of contaminatio, here translated as the "spoihng" of plays;

Now please note the charge he faces today. Menander wrote two plays. The Girl from Andros and The Girl from Perinthos; know one and you know them both, for the plots are much the same, though there are differences in dialogue and style. The author admits that he has transferred anything suitable fromth e latter play to his adaptation of the former and made free use of it. This is the practice attacked by his critics, who argue that by so doing he is "spoUing" the origmal plays. Surely they miss the pomt here, for aU theh clevemess. In attacking the present author they are reaUy attacking Naevius, Plautus and Ennius, wdiom he takes for his models and whose "carelessness" he would far rather imitate than his critics' dreary accuracy. (Radice 40)

Terence returns to the subject in the "Prologue" to Ihe Eunuch:

As to the mmors spread by the maUcious that he creates a few Latin plays by taking a lot of Greek ones and "spoUing" them for others, he doesn't deny this, m fact he is quite unrepentant and declares he wiU do the same agam. He has the precedent of good authors, and sees no reason why he shouldn't foUow it in domg what they have done. (Radice 101)

Terence's defenses reveal that his rival playwrights held a dun view of contaminatio, which means the contammation or poUution of plays;^^ if they did not, why would the pejorative language be employed and why would Terence findth e defense of this practice necessary? Terence's defense rests on two bases. Fust, he finds a warrant m earher Roman comic playwrights, including Plautus. Second, he acknowledges his practice, claimmg it as a commendable method and defiising the negative connotations 62 of the charge because, he argues, his rivals are motivated by mahce, not reason. Later

Terentian commentators, such as Donatus, foUow Terence's lead and use the less pejorative meamng of "combming." Donatus, for mstance, defines the word as a poUution of the original, but he adds an mfluential mterpretation of Terence's use of the word in Andria: he says that "ex multis unam non decere facere" ["that one ought not make one out of many"]. Twentieth-century scholars of Roman comedy have argued about how we are to understand the term and whether Plautus ever practiced contaminatio, whatever the term means.^^ Nonetheless, as Donatus' interpretation shows, the combination of sources is long accepted as at least one of the meamngs, if not the primary meaning, of the term.

Jonson appears to be sUent on the issue of contaminatio, nevertheless, we can by mference draw some conclusions. For mstance, Jonson acknowledges Plautus' plots as worthy of his respect, and he mdicates that Plautus' plays ought to be included m the curriculum for mature students;

Tragicke, and Liricke Poetry is good too; and Comicke with the best, if the manners of the Reader be once m safety. In the Greeke Poets, as also in Plautus, wee shaU see the Oeconomy, and disposition of Poems, better observed then m Terence, and the later; who thought the sole grace, and vertue of theh Fable, the sticking m of sentences, as ours doe the forcmg m of jests. {Discoveries 8. 1802-820)

Jonson rates Plautus above Terence m "oeconomy" and "disposition." At firstglance , the meamng ofthese terms seems vague and obscure. However, the comparision of

Terence to Jonson's contemporaries, whom he criticizes for "the forcmg m of jests," 63 provides a vantage point from which to view his preference for Plautus. Jonson denies a simUar remark about his own plays in the "Prologue" to Volpone, where he says that he has not "made his play, for jests, stolen from each table, / But makes jests, to fit his fable" (27-28). He claims that his jests, or anecdotal fables, are his own. In

Discoveries when he discusses "the difference of wits," Jonson notes that there are some who "utter aU they can thinke, with a kind of violence, and indisposition, unexamin'd, without relation, either to person, place, or any fitnesse else" (8.752-54).

Lackmg decomm and respect for the unities, the result is meffective;

For their jests, and their sentences (which they onely, and ambitiously seeke for) sticke out, and are more eminent; because aU is sordid, and vile about them. . . . Now because they speake aU they can (how ever unfitly) they are thought to have the greater copy [i.e. copiousness]; Where the learned use ever election, and a meane; they looke back to what they mtended at first, and make aU an even, and proportion'd body. (8.764-772)

This passage appears also in "To the Reader" of The Alchemist, but Jonson alters the final sentence sUghtly and adds a significant conclusion;

But I give thee this warning, that there is a great difference between those that (to gain the opinion of copy) utter all they can, however unfitly; and those that use election and mean. For it is only the disease of the unskilful to thmk mde things greater than polished; or scattered more numerous [i.e. harmonious] than composed. (27-31)

In his denial of taking jests from others and m his criticism of those who force jests,

Jonson's concern seems to be the unity or disunity of the product. Havmg taken too much fromto o many places and not integrating the bortowings successfiiUy, the end 64 result is an example of "mdisposition." Conversely, his preference for Plautus seems to be motivated by his superior skiU in "disposing" his sources in an efficient way.

This seems to be a reasonable, although speculative, reconstmction of Jonson's unstated argument since Terence himself appeals to the authority of Plautus in his defense of the practice. The transformation of the sources mto a unified whole, rather than the combming of sources, seems to be the pertinent issue for Jonson's evaluation.

I see no other way to accomodate both Jonson's flat denial of combming sources in

Volpone and his extensive borrowings m the play, unless his point is dhected at the incomplete or ineffective borrowing, which he criticizes in his discussion of the orator and in his comparison of the "disposition" of Terence's plays to that of Plautus' plays.

Whether or not Jonson alludes to contaminatio m his discussion of Plautus' superior "disposition," his practice as a dramatist confirms that he knew the concept weU enough to employ it consistently in his own writing. Early m his career, he adopts this practice in a sunple form m The Case is Altered, combinmg two of Plautus' plays to form his own. As his dramatic skUl mcreases, however, Jonson extends the concept, and he uses not only plots that he found in dramatic sources, but also characters, themes, and motifs that he found m his explorations of many types of works. In The Alchemist Jonson combines elements froma t least four of Plautus' plays, and in Volpone he enlarges the scope of the contaminatio to mclude non- dramatic sources, such as Catullus' carmina. Perhaps most unportant is that as his method of invention becomes more refined his bortowings are more thoroughly 65 transformed, revealing Jonson's genius and conceaUng his indebtedness to classical authors.

The most obvious and basic example of Jonson's use of contaminatio is The

Case is Altered. In this play, Jonson marries the plots of two of Plautus' plays,

Aulularia and Captivi, combming the major characters and the main actions to form his own play. The plot of Aulularia has two focal points; Eucho's pot of gold, which he values more than anything, and his daughter Phaedria. Because Phaedria has been ravished by a young nobleman named Lyconides and because she is devoted and faithful, the god Lars FamiUaris decides to assist her by allowing EucUo to find the treasure. Thus, the play begms with EucUo greedily guarding the knowledge of his secret treasure.

Megadoms, Eucho's neighbor and Lyconides' uncle, plans to marry Phaedria for her exceUent character. Eucho, however, suspects that Megadoms wants to get his gold by marrying his daughter. Nevertheless, he agrees to the marriage on the condition that Megadoms accept Phaedria without a dowry. Megadoms gladly agrees and sends servants to prepare the weddmg feast. Theh presence unsettles Eucho, who is certam that they are intent on steaUng his gold. He therefore decides to re-hide the gold in the shrine of Fides. One of Lyconides' slaves overhears EucUo unploring Fides to keep his treasure safe and begms searching the shrine for the hidden treasure.

EucUo returns, however, to catch the slave. After he mtertogates the slave and confirms the safety of his gold, he sends the slave away. He moves the gold to the 66 grove of Silvanus. Havmg overheard this plan, the slave hides himself in a tree, waits for EucUo to bury his treasure, and then steals the gold. MeanwhUe, it is decided that

Lyconides will make a better husband than Megadoms, and Phaedria begins her labor pains.

EucUo, having discovered the theft of his gold, enters bemoanmg his misfortune. Lyconides assumes that EucUo is lamentmg the discovery of his daughter's pregnancy. Consequently, he admits his guUt to EucUo, who assumes that

Lyconides means that he has stolen the gold. This ironic discussion unravels when

EucUo demands the return of what he has lost, meaning the gold, and Lyconides cannot understand how he can return Phaedria's virginity. Having learned of the gold,

Lyconides denies stealmg it and asks for Phaedria's hand, acknowledging his crime agamst her. Lyconides learns that his slave is the thief of Eucho's gold and demands that the slave give it to hun. Although the text of the play breaks off here, the fragments allow a fauly certam reconstmction of the conclusion: the key element is

Eucho's decision to let go of his treasure, an action confirmed by the argument at the begmmng of the play.^^ From this romantic comedy, Jonson takes the major characters of EucUo, Lyconides, Phaedria, and the slave, and he retains the basic dramatic action. He compUcates this material from Auluaria, however, by addmg to it

Plautus' Captivi.

At the beginning of the Captivi, Hegio, a wealthy Aetohan, has lost both of his sons, Tyndams and PhUopolemus. At the age of four, Tyndams was stolen by a slave 67

and sold to an EUan. PhUopolemus, fighting m the war with EUs, was taken captive.

In an attempt to secure the return of PhUopolemus, Hegio buys two EUan captives,

intending to offer them m a prisoner exchange. The two prisoners are PhUocrates, the

son of a richEhan , and his servant, who happens to be Tyndams. PhUocrates and

Tyndams agree to swap roles as master and slave. Consequently, when Hegio sends

the "slave" back to Ehs to arrange the exchange, he unknowingly releases the master,

PhUocrates. When another Ehan captive reveals that Tyndams is actually PhUocrates'

slave, Hegio punishes Tyndams severely by sending him to the quarries, an almost

certain death sentence. PhUocrates, however, is honorable. He returns to Aetoha with

PhUopolemus and a slave Stalagmus, who had stolen Tyndams from Hegio years

before. Hegio remands Tyndams' sentence and sends Stalagmus to take his place in

the mines.

A chronological plot summary of The Case is Altered presents difficulties

because its two actions occur in alternating scenes, creating the sense of sunultaneity

of the events.^* Nevertheless, Jonson's mdebtedness to the two plays is clear as he

combines the romantic comedy of Aulularia with the more serious Captivi. In the

process, he reUes on four tactics; he combmes roles frombot h Plautme plays mto

single characters, he divides actions of smgle characters m the originals between two or more characters in his own play; he multipUes elements of the plots; and he introduces origmal elements. AU four tactics strengthen the connections between the two main Plautine plots which are present in the play. 68

Jonson's primary manipulation of the two plots involves the combmation of central characters from Aulularia and Captivi in his own mam characters. Count

Femeze, for instance, is part Hegio, part Megadoms. Like Hegio, he suffers the loss of two children and experiences the fortuitous return of both. His anger, caused by the capture of Paulo and the switched identity of his captives, motivates his desire to execute Gaspar/CamUlo, just as Hegio is motivated to condemn Tyndams to the mines. However, hke Megadoms, Femeze is, in his daughter's description, "looser" and engages in some trivial actions. He mdulges Onion and Juniper, for example, and he mocks Angelo's attempt to woo his daughter. Also like Megadoms, Femeze woos the poor young daughter of the miser and, then, yields upon learning that there is a more suitable match for her. Jonson also combmes the roles of Philopolemus and

Lyconides in the character of Paulo, Femeze's son. Like Philopolemus, Paulo is captured by the enemy and eventually retumed to his father by the loyal and honest

son of the enemy. Like Lyconides, he loves the miser's daughter. In the figure of

Jaques de Prie, Jonson unites the characters of the miser EucUo and the slave

Stalagmus. Stalagmus had stolen Tyndams from Hegio; Jaques performs the same action, except it is transferred to Chamont's child, Rachel. LUcewise, Rachel plays the role of Phaedria, the miser's daughter, and a female version of Tyndams. In aU four cases, the doubled roles increase the linkage between the two plots, tying the serious tale of lost chUdren and prisoners of war to the Ughter love mterests surrounding

Rachel. His combmation of two different Plautine characters m each of his own mam 69 characters provides the linkage between the two actions taken from Plautus and increases the unity of his plot.

WhUe Jonson combines two roles in the mam characters, he also divides the roles of individual characters, distributing them to mukiple characters of his own. For instance, in the Auluaria, a slave of Lyconides overhears Eucho's prayer to Fides, gets mterrogated by EucUo, and spies on him as he buries the treasure in the grove of

Silvanus, In Ihe Case is Altered, Jonson divides the actions of this character between two characters; Juniper is apprehended and questioned by Jaques whUe Onion climbs a tree and remains hidden. Thus, when Jaques tums Juniper away. Onion remains and

Jaques unknowingly reveals the secret treasure to him. The character of Lyconides is also partially divided. As we have seen, he loves Phaedria, and that part is given to

Paulo who loves Rachel. However, in Aulularia, Lyconides has raped and impregnated Phaedria at a festival. The baby is bom during the play, and this comphcation provides the basis for perhaps the funniest scene m the play which resuhs when Euclio bemoans the loss of his treasure and Lyconides misunderstands hun to mean the loss of Phaedria's vuginity. Jonson apparently takes exception with the plausibUity of having his young hero Paulo accost his beloved in this way. He gives this action to Angelo, Paulo's supposed friend. Doing so accompUshes two thmgs; first, Jonson transforms a reported action in Aulularia into an active scene m his play; and, second, by staging the attempted rape he elevates Paulo, who rescues Rachel. ^^ 70

One of Jonson's favorite strategies, judgmg from its frequent appearance in later plays including The Alchemist and Volpone, is the multipUcation of certain plot elements. In The Case is Altered, Jonson doubles the lost chUdren by adding the theft of Rachel to the anticipated one, CamiUo. Likewise, Aulularia contams only two rivals for Phaedria's hand, Lyconides and his uncle Megadoms. Jonson, however, gives Rachel no fewer than five suitors; Paulo, his father Count Femeze, Onion,

Christophero, and Angelo. The muhiphcation of rivals serves at least two ends in the play. Fu^st, it exacerbates Jaques' paranoia because the rivals appear on his door-step with far more frequencytha n would otherwise be possible. Each time one appears,

Jaques is driven into a frenzy because he suspects that he is about to lose his gold.

Second, and more central to the play's larger thematic development, the presence of the rivalsemphasize s the betrayal of tmst which contrasts sharply with Chamont's and

CamiUo's dedication to each other.

Finally, Jonson adds his ovm material to complete the marriage of the two plays. The primary addition is the presence of Femeze's two daughters, AureUa and

PhoenixeUa, and theu love mterests, which are also doubled (first, Francisco and

Angelo; later, Chamont and Gaspar/CamiUo). These sisters contribute to the exposition of the play's situation and add depth to the play's substance by discussing their mother's death and by debating what constitutes sociaUy acceptable behaviors for grieving daughters. In addition, they provide ironic commentary on the appearance of

Gaspar/CamiUo, noting that he resembles their mother. Jonson also adds MaximUian, 71 the general who at times resembles a Plautine miles gloriousus. MaximiUan heightens the intensity of Femeze's loss, for the Count cannot comprehend MaximUian's faUure to secure the safety of Paulo after he has promised to guard hun in the battle. He also cannot understand why MaximUian has retumed to Milan without Paulo. While he ostensibly forgives MaximiUan, his anger is simply redirected toward Gaspar/CamiUo when he discovers the switched identity of his captive. FmaUy, Jonson adds numerous small scenes between subordinate characters, in which the characters engage in horse­ play, sword-play, and discussions of drama. These scenes contribute Uttle to the overall action of the play, and most critics beUeve that they were added later in

Jonson's attempt to satirize Anthony Munday (Herford and Simpson 2.305-06).

This cursory overview reveals the basic outlines of Jonson's adoption of contaminatio as a method of invention. He adapts the Plautine plays through muhiphcation and division of characters, through the multipUcation of actions, and through the addition of his own material. This method of adaptation is strikingly sunilar to the one identified by WiUiam S. Anderson in Barbarian Play: Plautus'

Roman Comedy where he examines Plautus' "deconstmction" of Menander's The

Double-Deceiver by analyzing "Plautus' deconstmctive techniques of expansion, overelaboration, and overstatement... and omission" (22). Based on this analysis,

Anderson demonstrates Plautus' general tendencies as a playwright and examines his techniques to show parallel treatments of characterization, action, and ideas throughout his plays that reveal his method of adaptmg his Greek originals. The Case 72 is Altered is, however, neither indicative of Jonson's potential as a comic playwright, nor typical of his style of drama. It lacks the quick action and depth of characterization found in later plays, and its scenes at times contribute little or nothmg to the primary action of the plot. Nevertheless, the play illustrates Jonson's early attempt to master the Plautine method of invention and, thus, merits some attention.

That method of invention can also be seen, however, in Volpone and The Alchemist.

As we would expect, it is far more subtly employed in the latter plays than it is in Ihe

Case is Altered, but as Jonson's dramatic skiU matures he continues to rely on the combination of sources to create his plays.""^

In Ihe Alchemist Jonson borrows freely fromPlautu s himself Consequently, the case can be made for his Plautine method of invention more easUy than in the case of Volpone, where his source materials are more eclectic, including Erasmus' In Praise of Folly, Petronius' Satyricon, Lucian's satires, beast fables, and Catullus' carmina, and where his uses involve less verbal similarity to his sources. Ihe Alchemist combines elements from Plautus' Mostellaria and Poenulus, and contains hmts of other Plautine plays such as Pseudolus and Persa. His use ofthese sources shows great similarity to the method employed in The Case is Altered, for Jonson again manipulates characters m the originals to form his own characters, multiphes significant actions, and completes the composition with his own original material. In contrast, Jonson subordmates the Plautine plots to his owni design m The Alchemist, rather than simply merging the earUer plots as he does in Ihe Case is Altered. The 73 resulting comedy is more fiiUy Jonson's own creation than is The Case is Altered, consequently, the presence of contaminatio is more difficult to discem but also more fully reaUzed in The Alchemist.

The most obvious Plautine source in The Alchemist is Mostellaria, one of

Plautus' finest and funniest comedies. Critics have long recognized some connection between Plautus and ionson's Alchemist, but few examine the connection in detaU.

The recognition is generally seen between Act 5 and Plautus's Mostellaria and between the opening scenes of The Alchemist and Poenulus. The general tendency, however, has been to dismiss the significance; in one editor's words, "That they [the connections] have caught the attention of critics at aU . . . is largely due to the fact that

Jonson conforms to classical mles" (Hathaway 95)."** Such dismissals fail to discem the depth of Jonson's debt to Plautus in this play.

V^en Mostellaria begins, Philolaches, the wild son of Theopropides, is in charge of the household because his father has been pursuing busmess interests abroad for three years. With the help of his clever slave Tranio, Philolaches has made the most of his father's absence; he has borrowed money to purchase the freedomo f his mistress Philematium and, along with his friend CalUdamates and his mistress, he enjoys a merry lifestyle filled with parties. When Theopropides returns unexpectedly,

Tranio assumes command. He prevents Theopropides from entering the house by concoctmg a ghost story: smce the house is haunted, Theopropides does not enter it to discover the waywardness of his son. Matters become more comphcated, however. 74 when the money-lender appears and demands payment on the loan, Tranio accomodates this wrinkle by expandmg his he to include PhUoloches' supposed purchase of his neighbor's house. When Theopropides msists on seeing the house,

Tranio arranges a tour whUe managing to keep Theopropides ignorant of the real situation. Nevertheless, Theopropides eventuaUy discovers the tmth that his son bought a mistress, not a house, and that his own house, far frombein g haunted, has been the headquarters for his son's free lifestyle. Tranio barely escapes punishment by taking refiige on an altar, where he remains untU CalUdamates, PhUoloches' fiiend, convinces the hate Theopropides to relent and pardon the slave.

From the Mostellaria, Jonson appropriates several specific items. He takes, for instance, the premise of the plot: a house temporarily vacated by a master and controUed by his slave. He adopts the opemng scene of the play where Tranio quarrels with another slave for his own beginning where Face and Subtle argue. He borrows the central deception; the slave's ghost story which he converts mto a visitation by the plague. He recreates the dramatic situation after Theopropides return, which mcludes a scene where neighbors contradict the slave's story. He quotes one Une; "Nothing is more wretched than a guUty conscience" {Mostellaria 554; The

Alchemist 5.2.47). And, perhaps most significantly, he expands Tranio's part m the role of Face.

Conversely, Jonson eUminates the son and his fiiends, choosmg instead to multipfy the minor role of the money-lender and the second slave. The money-lender 75 m Mostellaria provides the motivation to Tranio for the elaboration of his scheme. He does so by insistmg on payment of his interest, not the principal, on the loan. Each time he appears, his arrival threatens to reveal the tmth of the situation. Sunilarly,

Dapper, Dmgger, Sh Epicure Mammon, Tribulation Wholesome, Ananias, and Kastril come repeatedly to the house to secure the profit on theu investments. Theh appearances force Face to juggle his plans and shift his character m his attempt to maintain the secrecy of the scheme. Jonson also multipUes the second slave by two, creating Subtle and Dol Common as Face's co-conspirators in the "venture tripartite."

Other than the initial argument, however, this second slave offers little to Jonson's characters of Subtle and Dol, who are more simUar to Tranio and Face than they are the undeveloped second slave m Plautus.

Other than Face's character which wiU be examined fully in the next chapter, the basic premise of the absent master and the slave's mvention of the ghost story are

Jonson's primary debts to Mostellaria. Jonson unites these two borrowings by updatmg the scene to modem London, wracked by the plague. Whereas

Theopropides travels abroad on business. Face notes that his master Lovewit wiU not return "while there dies one a week / O' the plague" (1.1.182-83). This fear of the plague provides the motivation for Face's later alteration of the ghost story, for he knows his master's predisposition to avoid contact with the disease, ^nMostellaria no such mtemal logic or motivation is present to justify Tranio's story of the ghost of a murdered guest who haunts the house. 76

To this adaptation of Mostellaria, Jonson adds a brief scene out of Poenulus.

As early as 1936, critics such as C. M. Gayley noted the similarity of Surly's role as the Spanish don to the Carthagmian Hanno's role in Poenulus.^^ The comparison rests on the similar treatments of the foreigner who feigns ignorance of the local language.

In Poenulus, Hanno, a Carthaginian, is searching for his daughters, who have been kidnapped. He encounters Milphio and Agorastocles, who happens to be another of

Hanno's relatives stolen at a young age, Milphio and Agorastocles are trying to secure the freedom of Hanno's daughters. The three characters (Hanno, MUphio, and

Agorastocles) join their efforts to defeat the leno—a. slave-dealer, a punp of sorts, and the most abused and hated character type on the Roman stage. The exchange between them, thus, is innocent, deriving its humor fromMilphio' s pretense to know the

Carthaginian language. As Gayley and others note, Jonson adopts this basic situation; in The Alchemist, Surly plays the foreigner, the Spanish don, who lacks a knowledge of Enghsh, and Face plays the role of Milphio, "translating" the Spanish don's remarks for the others.

Surly adopts Hanno's primary fijnctioni n Poenulus—to defeat the leno—as his own objective. When, for instance. Surly receives the letter arranging a meeting with

Captain Face, he declares:

Now, I am sure, it is a bawdy-house;

The naming of this Commander doth confirm it. Don Face! Why, he's the most authentic dealer r these commodities. The superintendent 77

To all the queinter traffickers in town. He is theh Visitor, and does appoint Who Ues with whom; and at what hour; what price Which gown, and in what smock, what faU; what tire. Him wiU I prove, by a third person, to find The subtleties of this dark labyrinth. (2.3.299-308)

When Surly performs his role as Hanno, he is trying to cast Face as the leno of

Poenulus, and-if the action of 77z^ Alchemist followed the precedent estabUshed by that comedy-Surly's disguise as the foreigner would expose Face for the pimp that he is and lead to Face's punishment for his misdeeds.

Critics have not, however, noticed Jonson's conversion of the relatively innocent scene between Hanno, Milphio, and Agorastocles in Poenulus to one of conflict between Surly, Face, and Subtle in The Alchemist. UnlUce Hanno's exchange with Milphio, Surly's conversation with Subtle is marked by abuse. Subtle, assuming

Surly's ignorance of English, proceeds to mock Surly and goes so far as to announce his mtentions;

I do not like the dulhiess of your eye: It hath a heavy cast. . . And says you are a lumpish whore-master. Be lighter, I wiU make your pockets so, (4.6.22-5)

Subtle's announcement is met with Surly's sword. Unlike Hanno, Surly enters as a spy in enemy territory, preparing to do battle with Subtle and Face. Unlike Hanno who defeats a despicable leno. Surly commands little sympathy fromth e audience, whose interests are firmly fixedo n the side of Face and the alchemical venture. 78

Jonson, thus, transforms his model by heightening the dramatic conflict during the biUngual exchange and by reversing the direction of the audience's sentiment.

Recognizing this transformation of the basic situation enables us to see also

Jonson's extensive use of contaminatio m The Alchemist: Jonson compounds his borrowing from Plautus by giving Face the wherewithal to outmaneuver Surly's portrayal of Hanno. Face defeats Surly by playing the parts of the clever slaves in

Persa and Pseudolus while, at the same time, forcing Surly to play the parts of two defeated characters in those two plays. Face borrows for himself the roles of the clever slaves Toxilus {Persa) and Pseudolus {Pseudolus), and he recasts Surly as the leno Dordalus {Persa) and as the military messenger Harpax {Pseudolus). The basic sunilarities in Poenulus, Persa, and Pseudolus lend themselves to Jonson's purposes in

The Alchemist. aU three Plautine plays deal with the attempt to secure a beloved from a leno, all three resuh in the success of the clever slaves' deceptions; all three involve disguise; and, aU three conclude with the fiscal,i f not physical, beating of the leno.

In Persa, the clever slave Toxilus arranges for a parasite friend to sell his daughter to the leno Dordalus. The parasite and his daughter are disguised as

Persians, and when the disguise is revealed Dordalus is exposed to legal action for deahng in free citizens. Jonson borrows two points from this play: (1) m an arrangement similar to ToxUus' plan to sell the parasite's daughter. Face arranges for

Kastril to bring his widowed sister. Dame PUant, to the alchemist; and (2) lUce Toxilus, who exposes the pimp and coordinates the efforts of the other characters to abuse the 79 pimp. Face announces Surly's intention to take Dame PUant for himself, "This cheater would ha' cozened thee o' the widow" (4.7.29); and, he organizes the efforts of

Dmgger, Kastril, and Ananias to drive Surly out of the house. Face thwarts Surly's attempts to expose him as a punp, turning them into the mechanism for Surly's own defeat as a pimp. Thus, Jonson's use of Persa realigns Surly's role fromth e sympathetic one of Hanno to the despised one of Dordalus, transforming Surly from the punp exposer mto the pimp.

This twist in the plot is complicated further by an additional borrowing from

Plautus' Pseudolus, in which Jonson finds sunilar treatments of disguise and the clever slave's intrigue. In Plautus' play, the clever slave Pseudolus is trying to secure the money necessary to free his master's beloved from a leno. The leno, however, has sold the girl to a Macedonian miles who sends his messenger Harpax with a rmg and the remaining money for the girl. Pseudolus operates concurrent schemes, wagering with his master's father that he can (1) get the money for the ghl from him and (2) trick the leno into givmg him the girl. Pseudolus accompUshes both by duping the soldier's messenger and disguising a fellow slave to impersonate the messenger. Thus, the leno delivers the giri to one of Pseudolus' agents, and Pseudolus wins his bets.

From Pseudolus, Jonson takes only a few things, but the borrowed elements are cmcial to the dramatic situation in The Alchemist, for they provide the means of recasting Surly's Hanno, the pimp exposer, as a defeated character. Surly's arrival, which on the surface parallels the arrival of Hanno in Poenulus, is arguably more like 80 the arrival of Harpax m Pseudolus. Like the situation in Poenulus, the one in

Pseudolus involves a foreigner; both Hanno and Harpax enter the actions of their respective plays in order to take the beloveds fromth e leno. However, as we have seen, Hanno, unlike Harpax, is on the side of the clever slave; Harpax is a target of the clever slave's mtrigue. This aUgnment places Surly in a situation simUar to Harpax' in

Pseudolus because Surly's role is defined by his antagonism to Captain Face. When

Face arranges the match between PUant and the Spanish don, he in fact is actmg lUce the leno who seUs the beloved to the miles. Surly's Spanish don is, then, a substitute for both the miles and his messenger Harpax. Face confirms Surly's role as Harpax by arranging for an unpersonator of the Spanish don, just as Pseudolus had done by disguismg a feUow slave as the military messenger. Face orders Abel Dmgger to get a

Spanish cloak, intenduig to replace Surly as the Spanish don. Although Face intends to place himself m the role and claim Dame PUant for himself—an intention that evokes the Persa because its clever slave is, in fact, working to secure his own beloved—he eventuaUy substitutes his master Lovewit for Surly. This substitution parallels

Pseudolus because in that play the clever slave defeats the miUtary messenger Harpax, just as Face defeats Surly, and secures the beloved for his master.

Surly attempts to undo Face by casting him as a leno, but Face rejects the role, assumes the role of clever slave, and consigns Surly to the losing roles of Harpax and

Dordalus. In addition to his borrowings from Mostellaria and Poenulus, Jonson incorporates elements from Persa and Pseudolus in a way that nearly defies a specific 81 listing because the elements are completely reworked to fit the dramatic conflict between Surly and Face. Nonetheless, the borrowmg from Mostellaria and Poenulus is obvious, and Face's revision of Surly's Hanno commands attention because the similarities between Face's maneuvers and those in Persa and Poenulus provide the basis for his success in overcoming Surly's threat.

Thus, Jonson extends his use of contaminatio to mclude a larger number of sources in The Alchemist. He uses his sources in a freeran d looser way, allowing him to borrow smaUer pieces of the plays and to convert those pieces to his own ends. No longer confined by the complete adoption of plots as he was in The Case is Altered,

Jonson borrows the kemals of dramatic situations and elaborates on them, creating his critically acclaimed masterpiece that epitomizes the intricate and fast-paced actions that are so characteristic of his other so-caUed "Great Comedies," Epicoene, Volpone, and Bartholomew Fair.

While The Alchemist is perhaps Jonson's greatest comedy, Jonson accompUshes his most sustained use of contaminatio in Volpone. Erasmus' In Praise of Folly, Petronius' Satyricon, Lucian's satires, and beast fables are commonly cited as sources of Jonson's Volpone. All ofthese are integral to Volpone, and they have received a great deal of attention, though in less detail than one might wish."^^ One source, however, that receives inadequate attention is Catullus' Carmina. The relationship between Jonson's play and Catullus' poems deserves examination because it provides Jonson with the raw materials out of which he shapes the cormpt Venetian 82

worid in the play. This examination will show that the extension of contaminatio seen

m The Alchemist is carried even fixrther m Volpone. In The Alchemist, Jonson's only

quotation of Plautus' Mostellaria is a single line, yet he borrows a wide range of plot

devices and characters from several Plautme plays. Similarly, m Volpone Jonson

translates parts of two of Catullus' poems, but his borrowing of Catullus extends far

beyond that translation. Although his method of combining sources in Volpone

reduces the number of verbal echoes, thematic parallels show the furthest extension of

Jonson's use of contaminatio in his incorporation of Catullus' carmina in Volpone.

Virtually every critic and editor of Volpone notes that the song to CeUa m the

famous scene where Volpone attempts to seduce and, faihng to do so, to rape Ceha

(3.7) has its roots in Catullus's carmina 5, one of the famous kiss poems. Their

assessments of the relationship between the two works, however, are mistakenly based

on an mcomplete evaluation of Catullus' poems and of the connection between the

poems and Jonson's play. The discussions of Jonson's unitation generally center on

the notion that Volpone somehow perverts the expression of love in the CatuUan

origmal, twisting the supposed innocence of the carmina into a radical and violent

expression of his insatiable lust. WiUiam WE. Slights, for instance, comments on the borrowing;

Volpone continues his virtuoso performance with the famous carpe diem lyric adapted fromCatullu s . . [which is] charming in itself but devastating to his cause in this context. . . , The social divisiveness that Volpone advocates in the song, harmless enough in the context of CatuUus's littie book of verse, but thoroughly nasty m Jonson's play. 83

compounds itself ironically when the effect of the song is further to aUenate the "beloved." (377-78)

Slights reveals his assumption of CatuUus' innocence in his reference to his "Uttle book of verse," which dismisses Catullus as both trivial and Ught. SunUariy, James RiddeU suggests that Volpone's song ends on a note that is "not anythmg close to the letter or the spuit of [CatuUus's] poem" (317). He extends his evaluation into an mdictment of

Volpone's manipulation of language; "To employ Catullus's lovely poem to such perverse ends is to deny what poetry's chief aim must be, to deUght and to teach—the two, properly speaking, are not separate" (316). James AS. McPeek goes even fiirther and shifts the blame to the playwright for the cormption of CatuUus' poem;

"No one can read this dainty song to CeUa without feehng that Jonson is indecorous m putting it in the mouth of such a thoroughgoing scoundrel as Volpone" (115). Thus, critics generally contend that the poem jars with its new position in Volpone.

The common view of Jonson's use of the poem, however, is skewed by an inadequate understanding of Catullus' carmina, which results fromcritics ' wiUingness to foUow a traditional, but incomplete and maccurate, reading of CatuUus. This reception is typified either by the exclusion of those poems that editors deem unacceptably offensive or by the bowdlerized version of the poems m translations after

Jonson.** When Jonson prepared his adaptation of poem 5, only one other complete translation in Enghsh of a poem by Catullus appears to have existed, and that translation, Sh PhUip Sidney's rendering of poem 70 in Certain Sonnets, was not 84 pubUshed until 1598 (McPeek 241; Ringler 424-25). Thus, Jonson's knowledge of the carmina stems from his experience with the Latin text printed in C. Val Catulli, Albti

Tibulli, Sex. Aur. Propertu Opera omnia quae exstant, pubUshed in Paris in 1604 and known to have been in Jonson's library (Herford and Simpson 11.598). Conversely, after Volpone, Jonson's efforts begin a popularizing movement, carried out by Thomas

Campion, Thomas Carew, Richard Crashaw, Edmund Waller, and Robert Herrick among others. Consequently, Catullus' poems begin to appear in translation with some regularity.*' At the same time, however, the process of selection by translators privileged a few poems, creating the perception that Catullus was tamer than he really is. Lacking evidence to the contrary, readers and critics accepted, and often stUl do, this tamed version of Catullus as complete and authoritative. This is tme even now because most people read Catullus in anthologies, where the superficially mnocent poems appear in isolation, having been dislocated fromth e context of the other poems.

Paul AUen MiUer notes this phenomenon;

The price of canonicity is the amputation of offending members. In carnival, this mutUation appears most radically in the reduction of the rowdy forces of the market square to the anodyne forms of the state fair. In Catullus, it is evidenced by those editions which either suppress sexuaUy expUcit and scatalogical passages or print them but refuse all comment. The result is the tamed CatuUus of the oft anthologized kiss poems or the pathetic "odi et amo" ["I hate and I love"], carefiiUy insulated from theu far more complex and troubling contexts. ("Reading CatuUus" 2)

Whether the common reading of Catullus' poems stems from the assumptions made by critics who work with an incomplete or bowdlerized version of CatuUus or from the 85

tamed adaptations of the carmina in seventeenth century lyrics, the common readmg

of Volpone misrepresents the relationship between Catullus and Jonson and mhibits a

fuU understanding of the play. It does so because the connection extends beyond the

translation of one poem and part of a second; it extends to include the dommant

themes and motifs in the carmina which Jonson uses in Volpone to depict the

cormption of famihal and civU relationships. To Ulustrate Jonson's extension of

contaminatio to include the incorporation of non-dramatic sources and to show how

far-reaching the CatuUan influence is in Volpone, we will need to examine CatuUus's

poems m more detail.*^

It is understandable why early translators and critics up to the present day have

viewed carmina 5 as a lovely poem. Its lyricism is beautiful and, on the surface, the

poem sounds innocent enough;

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, rumoresque senum severiorum omnes unius aestimemus assis. soles occidere et redire possunt: nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda. da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum, dein, cum milia multa fecerimus, conturbabimus ilia, ne sciamus, aut ne quis malus invidere possit, cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Barriss MiUs translates:

Let's live and love, my Lesbia, 86

and value at a pennyworth what the crabbed old folks say.

Suns may set and riseagain , but once our own brief Ught goes out, night's one perpetual sleeping.

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand. Then a second hundred, and then StiU another thousand, and then a hundred more. And when we've got to many thousands, we'U lose count, tUl we don't know.

And spiteful persons won't be able to put jinxes on us, unless they know how many were our kisses. (MiUs 31)

The poem has a certain lyrical playfulness, but it is not merely a sunple love ditty.

Even if we isolate the poem from its context in the coUection, luniting the evidence to

this one piece, we can see something more than the innocence of a "dainty" and

"charming" poem, as McPeek calls it (113-15). Just as CatuUus voices his deshe to his beloved, the threats to the satisfaction of those desires impose themselves; the mmors and condemnation of society figured m the "severe old men," the threat of being held accountable for the affair, and the speaker's superstitious fear of an envious observer answer each of CatuUus' pleas for more kisses. Surely the threats from outside mdicate that the speaker perceives, even if most critics have not, something that is not wholly pure in his desire. As the speaker puts it, the couple should act quickly in order to insure that their time for loving does not expire, and they should act 87 in spite of the consequences, the mmors, and the observations of others. Catullus echoes this sentiment in poem 7, the second of the pair of famous kiss poems In this poem, Catullus responds to Lesbia's question of how many kisses it would take to satisfy him. He answers by providing a list of figurativeexpressions— a number equal to the sands on an African beach, for example-aU of which amount to, in essence, an infinite number. He concludes the poem, once again, by turning to the outside observer;

quae nee pemumerare curiosi possint nee mala fascinare lingua. (7.11-2)

[so that the curious can neither number (the kisses) nor an evil tongue bewitch]

Thus, Catullus appears to recognize that his desire is the object of scom and that others will not appreciate the enormity of it. That recognition undercuts the purity and innocence often attributed to both the poet and the poem.

Jonson obviously makes the correlation of Catullus's poems 5 and 7, as evidenced by the inclusion of an imitation of poem 7, lines 11-12, less than fiftyline s after the song to CeUa in Volpone:

That the curious shaU not know. How to tell them, as they flow; And the envious, when they find. What theh number is, be pined. (3.7.238-38) 88

Like Catullus, Jonson chooses to emphasize the presence of an outside observer, and

he expands the notion of the criminal nature of Volpone's action-a notion only hmted

at in the original poem by Catullus. Jonson's version of the poem 5 in Volpone reads;

Come, my Celia, let us prove While we can, the sports of love; Time will not be ours forever. He at length, our good will sever; Spend not then his gifts m vain. Suns that set may rise again; But if once we lose this light, 'Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer our joys? Fame and mmour are but toys. Cannot we delude the eyes Of a few household spies? Or his easier ears beguile. Thus removed by our wile? 'Tis no sin love's fruit to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen. These have crimes accounted been. (3.7.165-82)

Although he translates the firstsi x hues of the carmina fairly closely in the first eight

lines of the song, in the last nine he magnifies Catullus' awareness of the iU-wishing

on-lookers in an expanded paraphrase. Jonson's emphasis on the criminal element is

clear in his choice of words; the observers become "spies" (3.7.176); the kisses are

stolen and become "sweet thefts" (3.7.179-80), which is an allusion to the furta of

poem 7; and the actions are evaluated as "these crimes" (3.7.182). In terms of the dramatic action, Volpone attempts to persuade CeUa that the only crime would be "to be taken, to be seen," but CeUa recognizes the situation for what it is: a lurid attempt 89 by Volpone to satisfy his lust by exploiting her husband's greed. Although critics have held the song in high esteem for its lyric beauty, it is worth mentioning that the song does not prove effective to its immediate audience; Celia commends neither the poem nor Volpone for his recitation; she begs for hghtning to strike her dead (3.7.183).

In Volpone's song Jonson makes explicit the veiled threats of retaUatory actions in CatuUus's poems 5 and 7; however, he does not depart fromth e spirit of the poem, as RiddeU and others contend. As we will come to see, Jonson fuUy integrates

Catullus' poems into his play, drawing on a dynamic reading of the poems in his composition. Indeed, it seems that RiddeU, McPeek, and SUghts encounter the difficulties associated with the assumptions which earlier critics in their hunt for sources tended to make; first, they consider carmina 5 as a simple love lyric, an expression of the carpe diem theme without any potential for multivalent meamngs; second, they fail to attend to the poem in its original context, in the process missuig the d)mamic conflict of the poems when taken as a whole; third, they fail to recognize the possible relevance of carmina 5 to Volpone's situation, all but rejectmg its suitabUity to its new position in the play; and, fourth, privileging verbal echoes as evidence of influence, they claim, conversely, that Jonson departs from his source when he stops translating Uterally; consequently, the uhimate sunUarity of tone and theme in the poems and Jonson's adaptation goes unheralded. These assumptions, either singly or together, obscure the connections between Jonson's Volpone and

Catullus' Carmina. 90

Jonson's mdebtedness to CatuUus extends beyond his use of poems 5 and 7, and the evidence of the relationship goes beyond the verbal echoes of his two imitations. Evidence of intertextuality exists also in the presence of common themes and motifs in both the poems and the play. Two such paraUels exist, both of which demonstrate Jonson's mtegration of CatuUus mto his play. The fu-st ofthese common treatments is the way CatuUus and Jonson unpose shifting evaluations of the beloveds' worth in the poems and the play. CatuUus vaciUates between the highest and lowest esteem for Lesbia, as do Volpone and Corvmo in relation to CeUa. These reevaluations in both works ultimately involve a wUhngness to degrade personal relationships to the level of financialones , relegating the beloved m both cases to the position of a prostitute. The second common treatment is the way both writers mdicate the absolute cormption of theu respective societies by emphasizing violations of famihal bonds. Catullus returns time after time to the exploitation and abuse of relatives m his carmina, and Jonson borrows this theme to portray the decadence of the Venetian world. Both ofthese treatments reveal Jonson's distinctive reading of

Catullus, and both enlarge our understanding of Volpone's severity and darkness4. 7

In thek respective works, both Lesbia and Ceha occupy an unportant place as the objects of the protagonists' desires, and the works are filled with attempts to appraise theu worthmess of those desires. CatuUus, for instance, often uses the epithet

"mea vitd' as a substitute for Lesbia's name. Although the expression borders on a cUche, he apparently recognizes the literal meamng behmd the figure. Even when he 91 compares her sexual appetite to Jupiter's, he continues to view her as the reason for hving;

et longe ante omnes mihi quae me carior ipso est, lux mea, qua viva vivere dulce mihi est. (68.159-60)

[and, my light, who is dearer by far than all,

dearer than myself, by which Ufe living is sweet to me]

Catullus places a value upon Lesbia which elevates her above everything mcluding himself, and his use of "mea lux" anticipates Mosca's description of Ceha as "the bright star of Italy" (1.5.108). In other poems, Catullus offers insight to the sacrifices he has made; poem 63 suggests that he, lUce Attis, has given up his mascuUnity for his love; poem 64 unphes that he, like Peleus, has given up his family. In essence, these two poems assert that he has subordinated himself to Lesbia in every way, making himself an object of ridiculefo r his devotion.** Apparently, although he defends himself in his poems, no sacrifice is too great for CatuUus when it comes to securing his relationship with Lesbia..

Catullus' absolute devotion to the most-esteemed Lesbia, however, is short- hved. While other poems, such as poem 104, contain descriptions of Lesbia as dearer than life and dearer than eyes, in poem 107 Catullus degrades her value to merely dearer than gold, a comparative which Mosca borrows to describe Ceha (107.3;

1.5.114-18). In addition to this re-evaluation, his assertions that she makes hun the happiest man alive lose their force, and he resorts, instead, to rhetorical questions:

quis me uno vivit felicior, aut magis hac rem 92

optandam in uita dicere quispoterit? (107.7-8)

Who will have been able to teU of a thing

in life more to be wished for than this? (Garrison 161n)

Obviously, the passionate CatuUus wants the response that none is happier and no circumstance could be better than the proposed reconciliation. Yet, the poet places a record of 106 other poems for the reader to consider before respondmg. In that context, the question of Lesbia's worth becomes a dynamic aspect of the poems. Far from static m his perception of his beloved's worthmess of his attention, Catullus vaciUates between the two extemes of love and hate so aptly captured in the "Odi et amo" of poem 85.*^

Jonson obviously perceives this dynamic relationship and Catullus' shifting assessment of Lesbia, for in Volpone Celia's value undergoes a simUar treatment. In the opening of the play, we witness Volpone's famous paean to gold in which he declares gold to be the highest good. It is, he says; The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot. Is made worth heaven! Thou art vutue, fame. Honour, and all things else! Who can get thee. He shaU be noble, valiant, honest, wise[.] (1.1.24-27)

Volpone revels in his riches. But, Mosca plants the seed of dissatisfaction by praising

CeUa. He caps his praise of the "blazing star of Italy" with his assertion that she is

"Bright as your gold! And lovely as your gold!" whUe notmg that Corvino keeps her

"as warily as is your gold" (1.5.108,114; 118). The description of Celia as the

"blazing star" and the comparisons of CeUa to gold echo CatuUus' formulation in 93 poem 107. These echoes emphasize a finedistinctio n between the worids of the two works, for in CatuUus the comparison of Lesbia to gold is obviously a depreciation of her value whUe in Jonson the imphcation is that CeUa's worth is elevated, at least for

Volpone, by such a comparison. That is to say, in Catullus the value of the beloved undergoes a constant reappraisal, ranging fromsomethin g worth Ufe hself to

somethmg worth money; in Volpone, the beloved is worth money, and in Volpone's view that elevates her because money is life to him. Nevertheless, the effect on the reader in both cases is essentiaUy the same because the comparisons debase the value

of the beloveds and indicate the cormption of values in the CatuUan and Jonsonian worlds. CeUa's value to Volpone becomes apparent when he offers to sacrifice all in

his desue to obtain her;

, . . take my keys. Gold, plate, and jewels, all's at thy devotion; Employ them how thou wih; nay, coin me, too: So thou m this but crown my longings. (2.4.21-24)

However, just as CatuUus' estimation of Lesbia changes, so does Volpone's evaluation of CeUa. Although, as the lines above mdicate, he prizes his acquisition of Ceha above everything for a time, Volpone's estimation of CeUa's worth is not constant. For mstance, after Volpone escapes discovery m the first court scene, he declares that his deception of the court and the guUs means more to him than the possession of Ceha: he enjoys it "more than if [he] had enjoyed the wench: / The pleasure of aU womankind's not like it" (5.2.10-1). Thus, Volpone devahies Celia. 94

Volpone, however, is not the only appraiser of Ceha's worth. As we saw m

The Case is Altered and The Alchemist, Jonson was fond of dividing characters m his sources and muhiplying the effects of their actions. In this case, Jonson divides the passionate and vacUlatmg speaker of Catullus' carmina between Volpone and

Corvino. Volpone gets his passion, which he spends, Uke CatuUus, on a married woman whom he hopes to seduce. Corvino gets the jealousy. Jonson thus transfers part of the speaker's character to the husband, who in CatuUus remains a mere shadow. As a consequence, Corvino's character reflects the extreme and often contradictory passions found in Catullus' poems, such as Catullus' railing at Lesbia for her sexual encounters with various men.^

In the fust three acts of the play, Corvmo prizes the fidelityo f Ceha above all else. When Mosca wishes to make Corvino leave, he must only hint at his interest in

Celia and it is enough to motivate Corvino's departure (1.5.80-84). FoUowing the mountebank scene, Corvino is enraged at the thought of Ceha's forwardness, misinterpreting her purchase of the oglio del Scoto, the snake-oU concoction of the disguised Volpone, as an invitation to the mountebank; "He shall come home, and minister unto you / The fricace, for the mother. Or, let me see, /1 thmk, you had rather mount? Would you not mount?" (2.5.16-18). In a perfect example of the Ulogical reasomng motivated by his jealousy, he determines that he'U defend his name and her purity; before she can become an aduhress ("ere you did this, you whore" in 2.5.26) he wiU murder her and, in order to save her dowry for himself, declare himself a cuckold. 95

Just as CatuUus depreciates Lesbia, Corvino's estimation of CeUa, however, is drasticaUy reduced in the foUowing scene when Mosca mforms hun of the prescribed remedy for Volpone's sickness, a remedy that involves Volpone's sexual encounter with a "young woman . . . / Lusty, and fiiU of juice" (2.6.34-5). Corvino returns to

CeUa and prepares her for his sacrifice to Volpone. ParadoxicaUy, his encouragement of her aduhery takes exactly the same form as his condemnation of her supposed infideUty. Corvino declares;

Be damned. Heart, I wiU drag thee hence, home, by the hah; Cry thee a stmmpet through the streets; rip up Thy mouth unto thine ears; and sUt thy nose. Like a raw rochet. . . I wUl buy some slave. Whom I wiU kiU, and bmd thee to him, ahve; And at my window hang you forth; devismg Some monstrous crime, which I, in capital letters. Will eat into thy flesh, with aqua-fortis. And burning corsives, on this stubborn breast. (3.7.95-105)

Perhaps even more remarkable than the hideous threat to disfigure his beloved as easUy as he would clean a fish ("raw rochet" is a red gumet, according to WiUces' notes to the line) is Corvino's defense of his decision to prostitute his wife as righteous. When Mosca prompts him earlier to offer CeUa, he argues with himself that

"In the point of honour, / The cases are all one" (2.6.72-3). To Celia herself, he declares that he thinks this plan involves no sin: "I grant you: if I thought it were a sin,

/1 would not urge you" (3.7.57-8). The act, in other cases, might be sinfiil, but m the case of Volpone's remedy "'tis contrary, / A pious work, mere charity, for physic, / 96

And honest policy, to assure mine own" (3.7.64-6). Corvino's piety involves his wiUmgness to pander CeUa. Similarly, Catullus defends his fideUty to Lesbia as pious, but his faithfuhiess to her, a married woman, mvolves a violation both of her marriage to Metellus and of Roman societal norms govemmg such affairs. In both cases, the statements of piety generate considerable irony in their larger contexts because the

"virtuous" actions can only be deemed virtuous by a suspect set of values. Like the carmina, Volpone centers upon the shifting values of the characters, and theh wiUmgness to reappraise and devalue the thmgs that they prize the most whUe mamtaining that theu- actions merit praise, not scom.

In addition to their sunUar treatment of cormpted values, both CatuUus and

Jonson present a view of their worlds as decadent, as places populated by unscmpulous and vicious characters who are motivated by self-interests and who are epitomized by the extremes to which they are wUUng to go to satisfy those interests.

The most significant embodunent of that cormption occurs when a family member wiUingly violates the natural bond of kinship. Catullus presents a wide range ofthese violations, and Jonson concentrates on them in his depiction of the unnatural famihal relationships in the play.

Although Jonson includes only the innocent CeUa and Bonario and no pure relationships, Catullus is capable of depicting positive relationships, as he does in carmina 65 and 101 lamenting his brother's death and in carmina 64 where he describes a father's suicide caused by the grief over a lost son.'* On the whole. 97 however, the coUection of poems is shaded by the perverse violations of kinship, the result of which is to color the innocent-sounding poems with a darker tone and noxious atmosphere, akin to those in Jonson's Venice. For example, after Catullus' description of Aegeus' suicide in poem 64, Catullus goes on to paint a tainted view of father-son relationships. He shifts his attention from the Golden Age to a cormpt world:

sedpostquam tellus scelere est imbuta nefando iustitiamque omnes cupida de menta fugarunt, perfudere manusfratemo sanguine fratres, destitit extinctos gnatos lugere parentes, optauit genito primaeui funera nati, liber ut innuptae poteratur flore nouercae, ignaro mater substemens se impia nato impia non uerita est diuos scelerare penates. Omnia fanda nefanda malo permixta furore iustificam nobis mentem auertere deorum. (64.397-406)

Barris MUls translates the end of poem 64 in this way;

But after the earth was cormpted with unspeakable crimes and aU men banished honor fromthe u lustful souls, and brothers sprinkled their hands with brother's blood, and a son forgot to mourn his dead partents, and a father longed for the death of his own young son (to be free to deflower a young virgin as his second wife), and a mother without shame (shamelessly coupling with her own unknowmg son) wasn't afraid of offending the household gods-after these thmgs, right and wrong are everywhere confounded in madness and crime. (MiUs 123) 98

This "heavy-handed moral mcitement," as Qumn describes it {Catullus: An

Interpretation 264), contains the unage of fathers wantmg sons to die so that they can enjoy theu- daughters-in-law. The nefarious crimes of fratricide,incest , and impiety define the insane world m Catullus' vignette. These repeated motifs constmct a context that alters the meaning of seemingly innocent poems, such as the kiss poems.

Although Jonson substitutes parricide for fratricide and aduhery for incest, his criminalized world of sex and greed m Volpone has its precedent in the msanity of

Catullus' Rome, and by returning repeatedly to the violation of kin as an emblem

Jonson constmcts a context, lUce the original CatuUan one, for his adaptation of the kiss poems that prevents it from being mnocent in any way.

In addition to the examples of violated km mentioned aheady, CatuUus records the father's "astonishing sense of duty" {"mirapietate parentem"), which moves hun to perform his son's husbandly responsibUity for him, in his famousparaclausithuron

(67.29). Perhaps the best example of the perverse famUy relations in Catullus are the

GeUius poems; in 74, Catulhis says that GeUius commits adultery with his aunt to sphe his uncle; m poems 88-90, he expands his charge, mcluding GelUus' mcest with his mother, sister, and female cousins. The point of the attention paid to GeUius becomes clear in poem 91 where Catullus discusses GeUius' betrayal of his ovm affak with

Lesbia. Thus, we see CatuUus creatmg a picture of a worid where universal cormption begins at home. 99

In both Catullus and Jonson, bonds of kinship are sacrosanct in theory, but m reahty are defined by self-interest. As in the carmina, in Volpone the perverse violation of the bond of kinship is a recurrent theme. Corvino, insanely jealous of his wife for the first three acts, wilUngly offers to pander her for a chance to mherit

Volpone's estate. Corbaccio, similarly, disowns his son, naming Volpone as his heir in an attempt to win Volpone's favor and to prompt a reciprocal move on Volpone's part. Lady Politic willmgly perjures herself to testify agamst Sir Pohtic because she beUeves Mosca's accusation of his infidelity.'^ Similarly, Catullus accuses Lesbia of dishonesty, infideUty, and general abuse. His accusations reveal him to be far more serious about Lesbia than Roman social norms would allow, and they offer his enemies an opportunity to attack him as we see in poems such as 16. Like CatuUus, who airs his troubled relationship to the pubUc by writing the carmina and exposes hunself to ridicule and scom for his affair, Jonson's characters pubhcly humiUate themselves, exposing themselves to pubUc scom. They do so by levelhng false accusations against their kin. Paradoxically, the accusations mvolve crimes which carry a social stigma for the "betrayed" family member; the aduherous wife, the prodigal son, and the phUandering father may be guilty, but their misdeeds unply the compUcity of the cuckold, the meffective father, and the scorned wife. LUce the aU-too-serious Catullus who woos Lesbia, these figures lack whatever it takes to win the loyalty and fideUty of their betrayers. Unsure whether his declaration of CeUa's mfidehiy is worth the ridicule, Corvino discusses this point with Mosca; 100

MOSCA: Signior Corvino, I would have you go. And show yourself, that you have conquered. CORVINO: Yes, MOSCA; It was much better, that you should profess Yourself a cuckold thus, than that the other Should have been proved. CORVINO; Nay, I considered that; Now, it is her fauh. MOSCA; Then, h had been yours. (4.6.67-73)

The irony is rich; Corvino believes he has escaped the discovery of his sordid attempt to prostitute Ceha for a chance to inherit Volpone's estate. The declaration of "fauh" is clearly misdirected, and Mosca knows that the ridicule of Corvino is just as great ehher way. Like Catullus, he heaps ridiculeo n his own head by declaring the abuse he suffers at the hands of a loved one.

There is a remarkable confluence of the two themes of cormpted values and violated kin in poems 70 and 72, and this pair bears a remarkable simUarity to the totality of Jonson's dramatic situation and atmosphere in Volpone. An examination of the relationship between these two poems in the context of the carmina and Jonson's

Volpone illustrates Jonson's mastery of his method of invention, for he takes over the essence ofthese poems and integrates them so fiiUy that the seams between the works disappear.

Next to poems 5 and 7, poems 70 and 72 form probably the second most famous pah of poems from the collection. Poem 70 reads;

Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle quam mihi, non si se luppiter ipse petat Dicit: sed mulier cupido quoddicti amanti 101

in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.

Sidney offers this translation of poem 70;

Unto no body, my woman saith she had rather a wife be. Then to my selfe, not though Jove grew a sutor of hers. These be her words, but a woman's words to a love that is eager. In wind or water streame do require to be writ. (Ringler 143)

Poem 72 builds on the same occasion of Lesbia's profession of love, expanding on the mixed emotions of the speaker as he tries to balance the ambiguity of her statement with what he knows of his beloved;

Dicebas quondam solum te nosse Catullum, Lesbia, necprae me uelle tenere louem. dilexi tum te non tantum ut uulgus amicam, sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos. nunc te cognoui: quare etsi impensius uror, multo mi tamen es uilior et leuior. quipotis est, inquis? quodamantem iniuria talis cogit amare magis, sed bene velle minus.

[You were saying before that you knew only CatuUus, Lesbia, and that you did not wish to hold Jupiter before me. At that time I loved you not so much as a common man does his gkUfriend, But as a father loves his sons and sons-m-law. Now I have known you; wherefore, although I bum more vehemently. You are, to me, much cheaper and more fickle. How is this possible? you ask. Because such mjustice Compels the lover to love more, but also to wish well, less.]

The two poems join the themes of value and famUial relationships m the pivotal simile of a father's love. By constmcting a reading of this poem that reveals the darker tones often overlooked by most readers and critics, I beUeve we can discern the basic material that Jonson saw and used in his own creation of Volpone. ^^ By examming the 102 supposedly innocent "father's love" at the heart of poem 72 in the context of Catulhis' poems, one finds a wider range of meaning than the pure, non-sexual love that is often asserted. That range includes the darker, self-serving motivations which repeatedly cause the breakdown of famihal relationships. The hues on a father's love, thus,

reinforce the constant tension in the poems between the natural and unnatural relations

m the CatuUan world. Catullus' treatment of that perversion, typified by the reduction

of personal and famihal relationships to financial or sexual ones, anticipates Jonson's

ovm treatment and Uluminates our understanding of the unnatural world depicted m

Volpone.

In poem 72, Catullus mtroduces what ROAM. Lyne describes as "perhaps

one of the most famous Unes in Catullus. It is unique and it is briUiant and h does not

quite come off' (40), The uniqueness and briUiance of the sunile of a father's love m

Unes 3-4, according to Lyne and the common view, is its insistence upon the

uncompromismg, absolute commitment Catullus claims to have for Lesbia; his love for

Lesbia was Uke that of a father's for his sons or sons-in-law. Its incomplete success,

then, for Lyne resides in its uhunate dissunUarity of the father's love and a lover's

passion. This dissunUarity, he says, forces the reader to "mterpret the simile

selectively, eliminating much of our natural response" to it (40-41). A close reading of

the Unes, however, suggests that the sunile anticipates the "natural response" and, at

the same time, contradicts such a response unplicitly by way of its connections with

other poems.'* That is to say, while the reader expects the simile to mean that 103

Catullus' love for Lesbia is pure, a "father's love" in the context of poems such as 67 or 33-where one father performs his son's conjugal duty and where another uses his son as sexual bait to distract men in the baths while he steals fromthem-carrie s with it the negative implications of violation and exploitation prevalent m the rest of the poems. In order to estabhsh the connection between Catullus and Jonson on this point, we will need to first examine poem 72 in more detaU.

Catullus' poem consists of four elegiac couplets, divided mto two antithetical halves." The antitheses estabhshed in each couplet are far from absolutely opposed.

Indeed, the comparatives require a readmg of sunuhaneity;'^ CatuUus does not say he had no sexual passion for Lesbia before she mistreated him, only that such passion was less than the love that was lUce a "father's love." And, he does not say he has no general benevolence now that she has hurt him, only less.

The third couplet of poem 72 implies that CatuUus fromth e beginning viewed the relationship, as he does now {nunc), as an investment. By using the comparatives

{vilior et levior), Catullus suggests that the feelings are not new, only more intense.

Just as poem 107 incorporates the implicit reduction hi Catullus's estimation of

Lesbia's worth, poem 72 presents a similar reduction in value in the shift that occurs between Unes 4 and 5. Readmg cognoui in the double sense of discovering Lesbia's tme character and of having a sexual experience, the Unes indicate that, at least in part, the knowledge causes the declme m value. Catullus bums more strongly {impensius), but also in a way that is more costly to him. This financial sense is picked up by both 104

vilior and levior. Both make sense on muhiple levels; vilior as "meaner," but also as

"cheaper, more common"; and levior as "more capricious," but also as "more trivial,

insignificant, and poor," metaphorically suggesting that Lesbia weighs less on the scale

of values. This financial reckoning echoes the one seen in poem 5 where, as Wiseman

and Quinn suggest, the number of kisses are tabulated in a way that evokes the

calculation done on an abacus (104; Catullus: An Interpretation 86). Thus, we see

CatuUus employmg economic and financialterm s to describe his personal relationship

with Lesbia, a tactic that, in Jonson, is translated into the defining characteristic of the

Venetian world as the characters attempt to satisfy their greed through the violation of

their loved ones. The prevalence of this greed is self-evident in the wiUingness of

Corbaccio and Corvino to sacrifice their relatives for a chance to mherit Volpone's

estate, and the financial assessment of personal relationships is just as evident between

Volpone and Mosca and between each legacy-seeker and Volpone as it is in the

famihal relationships.

The breakdovm of relationships in both Catullus and Jonson appears clearly in

the abuse of language as a weapon of dishonesty. Within the financial framework of the relationship estabUshed by Catullus' diction, the Ukely source for Catullus'

reappraisal of the relationship hes ui Lesbia's ovm assertions. Catullus' emphasizes

Lesbia's act of speaking, as opposed to what she has said, by placing dicit and dicebas

near or at the beghming of poems 70 and 72;'^

Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle 105

quam mihi, non si se luppiter ipse petat. (70.1 -2)

[My woman says that she prefers to marry no one more than me, not if Jupiter himself should ask her]

Dicebas quondam solum te nosse Catullum, Lesbia, necprae me velle tenere lovem. (72.1-2)

[You were saying before that you knew only Catullus,

Lesbia, and that you did not wish to hold Jupiter before me]

If one reads these hues as a profession of Lesbia's commitment to Catullus, they sound sincere enough. But, the hyperbole surrounding the comparison of Catullus to Jupiter suggests a need to reconsider their sincerity. Catullus himself caUs into question the veracity of the proposal in poem 70 by saying that the wind and water are appropriate places to wdte such words.'* Catullus recognizes-from the begmmng (70.3-4) or eventually (72)-that what Lesbia says has no real value. Thus, the real injury is not her unfaithfuhiess, but the way she hedges her commitment in ambiguity.'^ In the financial language of the poem, Lesbia has either made a contract which is unenforceable, or she has made a contract that she has no mtention of keepmg. LUce the child who confesses, "I love you more than broccoli," Lesbia has admitted to little in her statement.^ Once Catullus recognizes that Lesbia's promises mean so little, he addresses the breach of faith in verse.^* He returns her ambiguous remarks with his own; he declares his love to have been Uke a father's-a mixed blessmg when we take mto account the catalogue of the unnatural acts performed by fathers m CatuUus' poems. 106

Jonson borrows the ambiguity of a father's love for Volpone. Mosca characterizes Corbaccio's actions in the process of explaining why he has invited

Bonario to Volpone's home;

... I told his son, brought, hid him here. Where he might hear his father pass the deed; Being persuaded to it, by this thought, sir. That the uimaturakess, first, of the act. And then his father's oft disclaiming hi hun, . . . would sure enrage hun To do some violence upon his parent. (3.9.28-34)

WhUe Mosca and Bonario certainly ascertain the perversity of Corbaccio's decision, one must wonder if Corbaccio himself sees it at aU. Immediately foUowing his decision to disinherit Bonario, he declares to Mosca, "I do not doubt, to be a father to thee"

(1.4.127). Mosca's aside assures that the audience wiU not miss the irony of that claun; "Nor [do] I [doubt] to guU my brother of his blessmg" (1.4.128). Whether or not Corbaccio knows the absurdity of what he has said, the statement echoes CatuUus' declaration of his love for Lesbia. The audience is left to wonder about his self- awareness, but that issue also has a paraUel in CatuUus when he declares, for instance, in poem 76 that his good deeds wiU provide much joy for him in the future. When one realizes that Catullus pursues a married woman far too seriously to be acceptable m his society, one wonders what good deed the poet is thinkmg about, just as one must wonder whether Corbaccio mtends a blessing or a curse on Mosca.

The irony of Corbaccio's remark is compounded further by his treatment of

Bonario, just as CatuUus' remarks are charged by his own contradictory avowals in the 107 poetry. Corbaccio fulfiUs his fatherly duties to Bonario in a CatuUan manner; he not only disowns his son, but also defends that decision in court He aUows Conino's argument to stand uncontested, even though Corvino accuses Bonario of aduhery with

CeUa and the attempted murder of his father (4.5.66-76). Instead of correcting

Corvino's account of Bonario's "foul, felonious intent" (4.5.75), Corbaccio attacks his son, calling him the "Monster of men, swine, goat, wolf, parricide" (4.5.111). This remarkable breach in the father-son relationship is summed up fahly by the 2nd

Avocatori: "This is strange!" (4,5.115). With fathers like Corbaccio, husbands like

Corvino, and wives Uke Lady Politic, the world of Volpone, lUce that of the carmina, is mdeed perverse.

Like Catullus who pays special attention to the value and abuse of language in poems 70 and 72, Jonson places a special emphasis on what is said and by whom in

Volpone. The ambiguity of language is noted as praiseworthy by Mosca, speaking on behalf of Volpone, who flatters lawyers for their particular skiU in this area:

I often heard him say, how he admired Men of your large profession, that could speak To every cause, and things mere contraries, TUl they were hoarse agam, yet aU be law; That with most quick agiUty, could tum. And return; make knots, and undo them; Give forked counsel; take provoking gold On either hand, and put it up[.] (1.3.52-59)

Mosca notes the lawyer's abihty to argue any side of a case, or aU sides of a case, as long as he profits m domg so. We have already seen Corvmo's abiUty to recast his 108 descriptions of actions, converting his wilUngness to pander his wife into a "point of honour" and transforming his encouragement of her infidelity as piety (2.6.72ff;

3.7.37ff). It is notable, however, that twelve times in the first 110 Imes of Act 3, scene

7, Corvino refers directly or aUudes to his ovm speech acts: "Come, do it, I say," he commands Ceha (3.7.93).^^ In addition to Mosca's praise of double-speaking lawyers and Corvino's emphasis of the authority of his own speech. Lady Politic, identified by

Volpone as "My Madam with the everlasting voice" (3.5.4) serves primarily to assauh

Volpone with her verbal barrage, an action which points up, paradoxically, the power of language while at the same time deflating hs significance as a vehicle of real meaning.

One of the most striking examples of the similar treatments of language m

Volpone and the carmina mdicates just how complete the cormption of values is in the two worlds. In the seduction scene of Volpone, Ceha attempts to reason with

Volpone, arguing that, if he will aUow her to escape, she wiU pray for hun and

"Report, and thmk [Volpone] virtuous" (3.7.259). Volpone's response to this is odd; he asks, "Thmk me cold, / Frozen, and impotent, and so report me?" (3.7.260).

Volpone's response indicates that a report of vutue is a slander. SunUariy, m poem

42, Catullus uses bitter invectives in an attempt to convmce a prostitute to return his poems. When this verbal assault faUs, however, he takes a different tack by praising her vutue. It is usuaUy argued that in praismg the prostitute's vutue, Catullus attempts to win his way through flattery. Such a readmg, however, suggests a 109 remarkable lack of rhetorical sophistication on the parts of both the speaker and the prostitute, for h assumes that the speaker actuaUy thmks the sudden reversal from bitter invectives to flattery might work and that the prostitute might actually forgive such vicious language in so short a tune. In fact, the poem supports a different readmg; the possibUity that, rather than flatteringth e prostitute, he is threatenmg to pubUcize her chastity presumably on the basis that such an advertisement wiU be persuasive since it wiU destroy her business. If this reading is correct, h provides

Jonson with an analogous situation for the seduction scene; after protesting her treatment vehemently, CeUa tums to a gentler approach. She makes the effort to assuage Volpone with a promise to report his virtue to the world, and that effort strikes a nerve, prompting hun to escalate his attempt to satisfy himself;

I do degenerate and abuse my nation. To play with opportunity thus long; I should have done the act, and then have parleyed. Yield, or I'U force thee. (3.7.262-65)

The scoundrel cannot bear to think about such a report, so CeUa's naive and innocent argument, rather than weakening his resolve, inflames his desire to sate his perverse tastes. As in the cormpt world of CatuUus, the pubhcation of crimes in Jonson's

Venice is of little matter because they are so common. The threat to publish virtue, however, is too much for Volpone to bear.

This perversion of values and language in Volpone echoes the loss of meaning in Catullus' poems. In Volpone's conclusion, the legacy-hunters decry theu abuse at no the hands of Mosca, repeatedly singUng out his false loyalty to theu respective causes.

In the openmg of the final scene, in fact, the primary focus rests upon what has been

said; the first Avocatori declares that the various reports "can ne'er be reconcUed"

(5.12.1), but the characters nonetheless contmue to uisist on reportmg to each other what others have said. The remarkable lack of substance and tmth attached to words

in this Venetian court is affirmed by Vohore's confirmation that Volpone is dead

(5.10.25) and by his declaration that he has never said that Volpone is dead (5.12.45-

48). Although these remarks occur in two separate scenes, less than one hundred Unes

separate them. The flexibility and adaptability of language to represent actions in varyuig ways, thus, becomes a central motif m the play combining the themes of

evaluation and violation, just as m the carmina. Yet, the crimes of the inhabitants of this world are crimes, and the avocatori conclude this to be the case. In the earUer court scene, the judges debate whose crime is worst, "the more unnatural part that of his father" or "More of the husband" or "the unpostor, [who] is a thing created / To exceed example" (4.5.5, 6, 8-9). But most notably, the crimes are such that the first

Avocatori declares them nefarious, unspeakable because they are so hideous; "I not know to give / His act a name, h is so monstrous" (4.5.7-8). The judge is referring directly to Corvmo's prostitution of Celia, but by the end of the play his statement is appUcable to all ofthese crimes; Bonario declares them "gross crimes" and the judges concur (5.12.98). This world of broken promises, perjured testunony, and deceptions draws its color from CatuUan Rome. In the worid of Volpone, Corvmo, Corbaccio, Ill

Vohore, Volpone, and Mosca share Catullus' experience; they suffer severely and lose everything because they pursue their self-interests at the expense of theu loved ones.

Like Catullus, they riskthe u most valued possessions to gam something that tums out to be, paradoxically, far too-costly and worthless at the same tune.

Re-viewing carmina 72 in its context of the coUection provides a new impetus for the famous lines; "At that time I valued you not so much as a common man does

his girl, but as a father values his sons and sons-in-law." WhUe clarifying the multi- faceted and shifting meanuigs m the carmina, this readmg also provides a basis for

understandmg Jonson's adaptation of the material he found in Catullus. In effect,

Catullus is sayuig that he knew fromth e beginnmg that Lesbia was going to cost hun

dearly, but, just as a father is willing to go to any expense for a son, he was wiUuig to

pay anythmg to save his investment. Yet, nunc te cognovi, he sees through her witty

charade and, feehng outmaneuvered, tums to bitter innuendo to denigrate her; "I've

had you, and you are too cheap" to cost so much, he unphes. That is, he Unks the

financial connotations of impensius, levior, and vilior with the sexual ones of dilexi, congovi, and amare, reducing her to an overly-expensive prostitute. UnUke the

Ameana of poem 41, who charges too much because she is both used up (defutata

41.1) and ugly (turpiculo 41.3), Lesbia arouses Catullus's scorn because she dares to

set the price and finagle her way out of the agreement. Her words, the iniuria,

defraud or extort (cogit 72.8) Catullus into paymg a price for nothing. 112

In fact, Catullus' world and the Venetian worid are revealed to be close paraUels; they are the one Volpone envisions, and he draws that vision with the help of

Catullus, When he sets the final stage of his scheme into action. He bids the news of his death be spread m the streets so that he can observe the carnage of his plan:

Oh, I shall have, instantly, my vulture, crow. Raven, come flying hither, on the news To peck for carrion, my she-wolf, and all. Greedy, and fliU of expectation— (5.2.63-67)

Mosca completes his thought; "then to have it ravished fromthe u mouths" (5.2.68).

The image of the buds of carrion and the she-wolf feasting on the corpse of a miscreant echoes CatuUus;

Si, Comini, populi arbitrio tua cana senectus spurcata impuris moribus intereat, non equidem dubito quinprimum inimica bonorum lingua exsecta avido sit data vulturio, effossos oculos voret atro gutture corvus, intestina canes, cetera membra lupi.

MiUs translates;

If your white old age, Cominius, disgraced by your fihhy behavior, should be brought to a sudden close by the popular wiU, I've no doubt that firsttha t tongue of yours (the enemy of all good things) would be cut out and given to a gluttonous vulture. And a crow would gulp your gouged-out eyes dovm his black throat. And dogs would devour your guts. And wolves eat up your other parts. 113

The description of Cominius' punishment, hke Volpone's description of his

expectations, characterizes the severe and vicious CatuUan worid, just as it does the

worid of Volpone. Just as Catullus portrays the moral corrosion and deterioration of

his world through his unsuccessfiil affair with Lesbia, Jonson depicts a world in which

all of the various relationships have decayed completely. After years of successfuUy

conning the legacy-seekers, even the partnership between Mosca and Volpone

deteriorates so badly that Mosca forces Volpone's hand to reveal theu crimes. Like

CatuUus, who is forced to reappraise his investment in Lesbia, Mosca reevaluates his

patnership with Volpone and decides, "I cannot now / afford it so cheap" (3.12.69-

70); Volpone, uncovering himself, concurs.

In readmg Catullus beside Jonson, we see that "behavioral norms, sexual

identities, gender, power, and the affirmative powers of representation are but

different strands in the complex weave of the text of experience" (MUler, "Reading

CatuUus" 4-5). Although MiUer directs his statement at the reading of Catullus, h also

apphes remarkably weU to the reading of Jonson's Volpone with its cormpt values, its violations of kin, and hs emblematic bastards of Volpone (the sexual monstrosities known as Nano, Castrone, and Androgyno). On one level, there is the unmediate connection between Volpone's song and Catullus' kiss poems. Reevaluatmg the seemingly innocent and innocuous carmina and seemg its complex range of meaning in its original position, however, causes us to Ukewise reevaluate Jonson's use of h.

When we do so, we find that Volpone, m fact, is caught in a position simUar to that of 114

Catullus. He woos a beloved who happens to be married, and his wooing is an act that goes against the norms of his society. The out-of-bounds attempt to seduce Celia, hke

CatuUus' attempt to win Lesbia's love, charges the song with negative unplications, no matter how sensrtive or innocent its carpe diem appeal sounds. Both Volpone's song and Catullus's carmina also reveal an awareness of this potential problem by, on the one hand, trivializing the mmors and denigrating the witnesses of their love, whUe, on the other, insisting that the pleasures of love wiU be worth the risk. Ultimately, both poems show that, ahhough their desues impinge on a sphere of criminal behavior, both

Volpone and CatuUus play the fool in love, wilhng to sacrifice all in order to satisfy their desires. On this level, it appears that Jonson, far fromcormptm g the original, borrows what amounts to an exemplum fromCatullus , illustrating by extension the unnatural relationship pursued by Volpone as one like that pursued by Catullus.

On a deeper level, the superficially innocent carmina invest the text of the play with theu pervasive darker elements. As the complex relationship of poem 72 to the rest of the collection suggests, the experience represented in Catullus' poems is many- sided, dynamic, and difficuh to classify in simple terms. By momentarily suggesting the purity of his affection, while simuhaneously undercuttmg that purity in the subtext created by the surroundmg poems, Catullus heightens the impact of the faUure of his relationship with Lesbia. The simile of the father's love evokes the natural response of pure affection, only to oppose such a response with a love that becomes aU the more 115 unnatural as the relationship decays, Jonson, as we have seen, clearly adapts the range of experience that he found in Catullus to add depth and darkness to his play.

Thus, we see in Volpone Jonson's mastery of contaminatio as he pushes the method to hs fiirthestextensio n by appropriating fromCatuUus , in addhion to poems 5

and 7, the pervasive themes of shifting values and familial violations. Early in his

career, he used a far simpler approach based on the combination of a few closely

related sources. Jonson apparently thought little of his effort to join Aulularia and

Captivi in The Case is Altered, for he never pubhshed the play himself His own

remarks on the failings of others to constmct successful imitations, as we have seen

before, hinge upon the incomplete transformation of the source material. In The Case

is Altered it seems reasonable to assume that Jonson rejected h for publication, seemg

it as an unsuccessful unitation, marked by its too heavy reUance on the Plautme plays

which provide hs plot. If, as he argues in Discoveries, the point of imitation is to

"quintessenceth [the] brains" of the earUer writer. The Case is Altered faXls short. But,

by the time he began the composhion of Volpone and the Alchemist, he had learned to

incorporate a wider range of source material in subtle and effective ways. His skiU had

developed to a point where the exact parallels of plot stmctures and verbal

constmctions recede. The transformation of his sources becomes more complete;

consequently, the borrowings from his sources becomes less obvious. He leaves only traces of evidence in the plays, such as the similar treatments of thematic materials, to

counter his denial in the "Prologue" to Volpone that he has not "made his play, for 116 jests, stolen from each table" (27). Nevertheless, through the process of contaminatio,

Jonson joins diverse materials together in his own plays. Indeed, Jonson spreads his ovm lavish table m Volpone and The Alchemist, but he complements his fare with the wealth of those who came before him. CHAPTER rV

JONSON, PLAUTUS, AND THE CHARACTERIZATION

OF THE CLEVER SLAVE

Any comparison of Jonson's two greatest plays invariably mcludes a contrast of the endings. WhUe the characters of The Alchemist escape punishment in spite of, perhaps, deserving h, Jonson claims that in Volpone he takes "special aim ..to put the snaffle hi [the] mouths" of those critics of comedy who find there a lack of poetic justice ("Dedication" 106-07). Oddly enough, the two endings of the plays have both aroused their share of criticism, and the general consensus of critics seems to be that

Jonson's difficulty with the conclusions of his plays is his primary weakness as a dramatist. Lawrence Danson, for instance, notes, "Jonson himself had most problems with the last of 'the parts of a Comedie.' He acknowledges his difficulty typicaUy by denymg it" (179); Danson then asserts that the problem "is not hmited to the technical or ethical [aspects]; h is more broadly ontological" (179). The contrast of the two endings, however, Ulustrates perfectly the juncture of Jonson's Horatian theory and

Plautine practice: they do so by exposing the nearly irreconcUable schism in his dual purpose of edifying his audience while criticizmg h and, at the same tune, of entertaining h. The Plautine and Horatian cmx illuminates the difference, offering not only a means of understanding the endings, but also the plays. More specifically,

117 118

Jonson's use of a standard Plautine character type, the clever slave {seruus callidus), in the two plays suppUes the driving force of the two outcomes and shapes the two plays.

The Alchemist concludes with a lenient, though pointed, situation: the guilty

suffer no legal, moral, or pubUc punishment. Many critics would agree with Judd

Arnold's assessment that the ending of The Alchemist is "the feature of the play . . .

proven least satisfactory" (152) or with Jonathan Haynes's recognition that h is a

"famously 'difficuh' denouement" (39). The punishments, such as the ones that befall

Subtle, Dol, and the guUs, are, in essence, self-imposed and involve little more than

flight fromth e scene and escape with some financialloss . Face, the primary culprit,

emerges unharmed and unpunished before returning to his role as Lovewit's servant.

The failure of the enduig of The Alchemist to satisfy many critics stems, in part,

from their desire to morahze the play. F. H. Mares, for example, argues that the

escape of the rogues—a class in which all the characters fit for Mares—"obliges us to recognize our own potentiality for vice and folly" (180). WiUiam Empson expands the moral further: "the audience [members] are to feel [that] 'People oughtn't to be such mugs. If a man can be cheated by obvious rogues Uke this, he deserves h.' They may be doing him a kindness by teachmg him a bh more sense" (193). In fact, such

"kmdness" for Empson explains the unmunity frompunishment-"Th e fun was permissible as m a good cause" (193)-with a sort of Panglossian view of the play's conclusion.^^ At the opposite extreme, Haynes criminalizes the whole play, pushmg 119 the question of moraUty into a legal sphere. He argues that Face's "rehabilitation" at the end occurs because his criminal behavior leads him to perform "a genuine service

in the market of marriages"; the rogue tums legitimate (38).

The moral questions raised by Lovewit's participation in the deception and

Face's escape from punishment are not new, occupying center stage of the arguments

about the play for some 300 years. In the "Preface" to An Evening's Love (1668),

John Dryden defends himself of charges that he makes "debauch'd . . . Protagonists . .

. happy at the conclusion of [his] Play; against the law of Comedy, which is to reward

virtue, and punish vice" (141). His defense rests upon the authority and example

estabUshed by Jonson's Alchemist. A later detractor, Jeremy ColUer, wiU have none of

Dryden's analogy. In A Short View of the Immorality and Prophaneness of The

English Stage (1698), Collier argues that Jonson's moral strength is clear hi his care

"to prevent the IU Impressions of his Play\ He brings both Man and Master to

Confession. He dismisses them Uke Malefactours; And moves for their Pardon before

he gives them theu Discharge" (190). One must wonder where, unless he saw an adaptation of the play, CoUier fuids either a confession or a dismissal of Face and

Lovewit in Jonson's play; nevertheless, he demonstrates the early tendency and anticipates the later habit of unposing a moral stmcture on the play. Also notable, however, is the basis of the original charge levelled against Dryden's play, a violation of the "law of Comedy" as Dryden caUs h. Dryden contends later in the Preface that

"no such law," wherein vice and folly need meet punishment, "[has] been consistently 120 observ'd in Comedy, either by the ancient or modem poets" (141). Dryden defends himself by appealing to The Alchemist to show that the law is no law, while ColUer defends the moral vision of Jonson's play by wedging h into a conformity with the comic law and its moral impUcations.

In The Alchemist, the moralizing of its ending pushes critics toward uiteresting, but unlikely, arguments.^ The problems, though, arise fromth e disparity between the

stated goal of the play, which is to apply "fair correctives" as Jonson's typically

Horatian comedy usually does ("Prologue" 18), and a very different goal of mocking the current state of morality in London;

If there be any, that will sh so nigh Unto the stream, to look what h doth mn. They shaU findthings , they'd think, or wish, were done; They are so natural foUies, but so shown.

As yet the doers may see, and yet not own. ("Prologue" 20-24)

Katherine Eisaman Maus offers a generalization of Jonson's work: "The identical formula will echo through Jonson's prefaces, prologues, and critical remarks for the rest of his life; comedy-and poetry in general-should be mimetic, delightful, and morally persuasive" (47). To fit the formula, most would have Jonson abide by the mles and punish the deceivers in The Alchemist as he does those in Volpone. Doing so would make for neater moral interpretations. But, in The Alchemist, Jonson creates an inverted, upside-down worid, much akin to the "topsy- turvydom" of the Plautine worid in which the "god-fearing, fahhfiU, and forthright" find a hcense to quk their severity, if only for two hours (Segal 39-41, 99).^' In the world of holidays, as Barber, 121

Frye, and Bakhtin have noted, the carnival ends and participants return to the real world; Face resumes his duties as Jeremy the butier and requires no punishment.

In Volpone, on the other hand, harsh punishments are imposed on both the deceivers and the guUs, and each sentence is carefully fitted to the nature of the misbehavior. Oddly enough, later critics findth e severity of the punishments disconcerting—prompting much debate over questions of the genre of the comedy^

and the moral impUcations of a comedy whose world, as we have seen, is vicious,

cormpt, and corrosive and whose characters deserve the bitter ends they receive.

Some critics find, for instance, the virtuoso performance of Volpone appealing; rogue

sentiment may seduce some of the audience for a tune.^^ If properly regarded,

however, the attacks on natural relationships and innocent people, such as Celia and

Bonario, overwhelm the attractive qualities of Volpone and Mosca and justify theu

punishments.

Although most critics recognize Volpone as one of the greatest plays on the

Enghsh stage or, at least, as Jonson's greatest play, many of them quarrel over the appropriateness of hs conclusion.^* Jonas Barish, in fact, notes, "The problem of the play's final moments has become, as Jonson was the first to understand ... the cmcial problem for the play as a whole" (22). The debate stems from Dryden's assertion in

An Essay on Dramatic Poesy (1668) that Volpone contains "two actions ... the first naturally ending with the fourth Act; the second forc'd from it in the fifth" (73). Like

Dryden, many critics notice this mpture between the fourth and fifthact s of the play 122 when Volpone releases news of his death and proceeds to mock the legacy-hunters after they discover Mosca's inheritance of the estate. For instance, hi 1696 John

Dennis criticizes the final act of the play;

Lastly, the Character of Volpone is Inconsistent with h self . . The Inconsistence of the Character appears in this, that Volpone in the fifth Act behaves himself Uke a Giddy Coxcombe, in the Conduct of that very Affau which he manag'd so Craftily in the first four. In which the Poet offends first against that Fam'd mle which Horace gives for the Characters. . . . And Secondly, against Nature, upon which, all the mles are grounded. For so strange an Alteration, in so Uttle a time, is not in Nature, unless h happens by the Accident of some violent passion; which is not the case here. . . The design of Volpone is to Cheat, he has carried on a Cheat for three years together, with Cunning and with Success. And yet he on a sudden in a cold blood does a thing, which he cannot but know must Endanger the mining aU. (384-85)

Dennis here summarizes positions taken by other early critics of the play, including

Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle, Dryden, and Nicolas Boileau.^^

Nevertheless, others have defended the play's conclusion as moral and just. In A

Study of Ben Jonson, Charles Algernon Swinburne, for instance, praises the conclusion as a perfect catastrophe:

Nor can I admit, as I cannot discem, the blemish or imperfection which others have aUeged that they descry in the composition of Volpone—the unlikelihood of the device by which retribution is brought down in the fifth act on the crimmals who were left at the close of the fourth act in impregnable security and triumph. .1 know not where to fmd a thud instance of catastrophe comparable with that of either The Fox or The Alchemist m the whole range of the highest comedy; whether for completeness, for propriety, for interest, for ingenious felicity of event or for perfect combination and exposition of aU the leading characters at once m supreme simphcity, unity, and fiilhiesso f culminating effect. (41-42) 123

As they do in the case of The Alchemist, Dryden and ColUer stake out opposing poshions. Dryden's contention is that Jonson violates the unity of character and action by mtroducing the final scheme to ridiculeth e legacy-seekers in the fifth act. ColUer, however, contends that Dryden distorts the play to smt his own premise that comedies ought to delight their audiences;

Ben Jonson's Fox is clearly against Mr. Dryden. And here I have his own Confession for proof He declares the Poets end in this Play was the Punishment of Vice, and the Reward of Virtue. Ben was forced to straui for this piece of Justice, and break through the Unity of Design. This Mr. Dryden remarks upon him; How ever he is pleased to commend the Performance, and caUs it an exceUent Fifth Act (191-92)

ColUer then collects various quotes fromJonson' s Discoveries, asserting that poetry's

chief aim is edification, not delight. He concludes;

Lastly, [Jonson] adds, that "he has imitated the Conduct of the Antients in this Play, The goings out (or Conclusions) of whose Comedies, were not always joyful but oft-thnes the Bawds, the Slaves, the Rivals, yea and the Masters are muhed, and fitly, it being the Office of a Comtek Poet (mark that!) To imitate Justice, and Instmct to Life &c'' Say you so! Why then if Ben Jonson knew any thing of the Matter, Divertisement and Laughing is not as Mr. Dryden affirms, the Chief Endof Comedy. (197^98)

In the cases of both The Alchemist and Volpone, the issue is a question of precedent; who are the "Antients" and what "Comic Law" underpins the conventional models of comedy? That is, are comedies properly to impose poetic justice or aUow immunity from punishment? Although Dryden and Collier fail to verbalize the point, Richard

Hurd, a later critic of Volpone, seems inadvertantly to identify the fiilcmm upon which 124 their arguments balance. He says in A Dissertation on the Provinces of the Drama

(1753);

And we shall not wonder that the best of his plays are Uable to some objections of this sort, if we attend to the character of the writer. For his nature was severe and rigid, and this in giving a strength and manliness, gave, at times too, an intemperance to his satyr. His taste for ridicule was strong but indeUcate, which made him not over-curious m the choice of his topics. And lastly, his style in picturing characters, though masterly, was without that elegance of hand, which is required to correct and aUay the force of so bold a colouring. Thus, the biass [sic] of his nature leading him to Plautus rather than Terence for his model, it is not to be wondered that his wit is too frequentlycaustic ; his raUlery coarse; and his humour excessive. (103)

Hurd contrasts the moral and critical Jonson, the Horatian theorist, with the playfijl and indulgent Jonson, the Plautine dramatist. The opposing views of the ending of the play result from the critics' failures to accommodate both the Horatian and Plauthie aspects of Jonson's work.

Although Hurd identifies the root of the problems with Jonson's endmgs as his

Plautine tendency, no critic of whom I am aware has examuied this tendency in an effort to clarify our understanding of the plays' conclusions. Instead, the public image of Jonson as a strict and rigorous classicist in the vein of Horace has influenced critics too much. In a typically Horatian pose, Hurd impUes that the difficuhies and less-than- perfect aspects of the plays reveal Jonson's indebtedness to Plautus, as if such imitations are necessarily prone to be defective because the model hself is lacking. As we saw in the preceding chapter, h has long been the case in Plautine scholarship for critics to attribute flaws and errors to Plautus while credhing his sources with anything 125 positive. Nevertheless, just as we saw that Jonson expands Plautus' method of invention, we wiU see how he borrows the stereotyped clever slave and tums him mto a dynamic and muhi-faceted character. In the process, his clever slaves in The

Alchemist and Volpone, Face and Mosca, to a large degree determine the opposing endings of immunity and punishment.

The ending of The Alchemist, which exempts Face, the chief deceiver in the play, from what most see as his due punishment, becomes more satisfying and less difficuh if it is viewed within the Plautine tradhion of comedy. Indeed, Face's character is clearly drawn from the model of the Plautine seruus callidus, who not only controls the action in the play, but also manages to receive a reprieve at the end, just as his punishment seems inevitable. As Robert N. Watson has noted, the mverted world m The Alchemist leaves the audience "an easy choice between identifymg with these fools in demanding conventional resolution of the plot [i.e., punishment] or identifying instead with the aptly named Lovewh and endorsing Jonson's satirical stmcture that gives innovative wh precedence over standard moraUty" (360), A careful examination of Face as a clever servant in the tradition of the Plautine clever servant reveals that Jonson, lUce Plautus, constmcts a world in the play where a man's wh is the measure of his success and where the daily tedium of everyday life is banished, but not before becoming a source of laughter.

Although Volpone also celebrates hmovative wit, wit remains subordinate to the moral censure imposed in the end by the avocatori on both the deceivers and the 126 legacy-hunters. It is, perhaps, not readily apparent how the Plautine connection can offer any insight into this rigorous,mora l catastrophe. It does so, however, not-as we might expect-because Jonson abandons the Plautine model and embraces the Horatian dicta, but because he foUows the model to its logical coroUaries in both the pseudo- conclusion in Act 4 and the uhimate catastrophe in Act 5. Thus, as we shall see,

Jonson uses for his authority in The Alchemist and Volpone a wholly different law of comedy consisting of Plautine conventions. This model not only secures the status of the clever servant as an unmune schemer in the world of the play, but also provides for the punishment of characters who take themselves too seriously in the course of the play.''

Before turning to the endings themselves, we need to examine more carefully how Face and Mosca fit into the Plautine tradition of the clever slave. The clever servant is, in Segal's words, an "old gag" found in Old and New Comedy, one which remains common during the Renaissance (99).'^^ The clever slave has many distinct characteristics.*^^ Duckworth notes the role of typical slaves;

The function of the seruus is twofold; (1) to provide humor, often of a farcical nature, and, hi Plautus, frequentlydescendm g to buffoonery or slapstick; (2) to supervise or assist in trickery and impersonation. The slaves most active in both capacities are the serui callidi, the cunning masters of intrigue. (250)

And, he adds that the slave is notable for his "gaiety, clevemess, and unscmpulousness" (250). To these traits, Richard Beacham would add the slaves' tendency to act spontaneously, as though his plotting is part of "improvised, non- 127 literary entertainments" (34). The clever slave is, thus, defined by his abUity to constmct witty schemes that enable him to manipulate others.

Certainly some aspects of the type are almost universal and are shared with other types of characters; the elevation of servant over master, for instance, occurs with many types of servants in Saturnalian comedies, and the abundance of miUtary imagery associated figurativelywit h the clever slave is also a common feature of the miles, with whom the descriptions are, of course, usually Uterally apphcable.^^ Other characteristics of the clever slave, however, seem to be innovations made by Plautus, and, even if other pla5^wrights are responsible for the innovations, Plautus' plays offer the oldest extant source for these features. They include the clever servant's preoccupation whh status (more so than whh profit) achieved by his trickery (Segal

105); the servant's self-awareness and theatrical nature, both of which often provide commentary on the play as a play (Slater); the awareness and expectation that punishment awahs him for his acts (Segal 137-62); and, finally,th e servant's escape from punishment in the end (Segal 162; 215n45).

First, both Plautine clever slaves and Jonson's Face and Mosca are concemed more with status than money. Money is not, however, altogether inconsequential because h often figures significantly in the plots of both Plautus' and Jonson's plays.

For instance, in Pseudolus, Bacchides, and Mostellaria, young lovers {adolescens amans figures) charge the clever slaves with the responsibility of securing the funds 128 needed to free their beloveds. Pseudolus guarantees his master, Calidoms, that he wiU help him;

But fear not! I won't abandon you in your love. Somewhere today, by fair means—or by my own—I hope to findyo u some financial assistance. Just where it's coming from I can't say. I only know h's on hs way! Look, my eyebrow is twhching ... By Hercules! You know what an ocean of commotion I stir up! Once I set things going with my magic wand! (143-50)

LUce other clever slaves, Chrysalus, in Bacchides, accepts his duty with reUsh, but he seems to enjoy the deception hself as much as he does accumulating the money;

Not at aU a bad web I've started to weave. To supply my master's son in his love affair, I've seen that he'U have as much gold as he wants . . . The old man wiU go off to Ephesus to get his money whUe we lead a plushy life here. . . What a mess I'U make! (541-47)

In other cases, such as Miles Gloriosus, the money is even less significant, appearing to be Uttle more than an afterthought. In this play, the clever slave Palaestrio helps his master to secure the freedom of his beloved Philocomasium from a miles. In the process, Palaestrio leads the miles to beheve that another woman wants him. He convinces the miles to release Philocomasium so that he may pursue the other woman.

Then, after the intrigue has already been won, he encourages the miles to offer

Philocomasium treasures in order to win her cooperation. Palaestrio tells

Pyrgopolynices;

Why ask me for advice on what to do? I've told you How to do h gently-with the most compassion: Let her keep the jewels and fancy clothes you gave her. Tell her to prepare 'em, wear 'em, bear 'em off. Say the time is ripe for her to go back home .... (1083-087) 129

Havmg arranged for the reunion of the two lovers by securing PhUocomasium's freedom, Palaestrio tacks on a bonus, the soldier's loot. The financial gain, however, remains a subordmate concern.

The money or treasure won by the slaves may provide the basic motive for their plots and h may add to the magnitude of their victories in the plays, but, as Segal demonstrates, the Plautine clever slave values recognition of his stature far more than he does profit or even freedom.^* Money is merely a way of demonstrating that stature. In Bacchides, for instance, Chrysalus compares his role as a clever slave to the Greek prototype and he findsth e original lacking; "Oh, you timid slaves in Greek comedy, you're not for me! You only earn two or three minas of gold for your masters. What could be more worthless than a slave without a plot? You're no good unless you have a powerful brain" (974-77). Chrysalus clearly distinguishes between merely procuring money and doing so in a clever way; he elevates himself above his

Greek theatrical ancestors on the basis of his wit. Similarly, other clever slaves achieve grand status through their plots. Many examples exist; Pseudolus refers to his own words as comparable to a Delphic oracle, and he declares that his deeds will unmortalize him {Pseudolus 687; 840); Toxilus compares himself to Hercules and to

Jupher {Persa 1-15; 165); Tranio compares himself to Alexander the Great, BCing

Agathocles of Sicily {Mostellaria 970-75); and, Epidicus is said to be the son of

Vulcan and to employ Jupher as his henchman {Epidicus 863-70). Thus, by working their schemes, the clever slaves in Plautus' plays seek military, diplomatic, and divuie 130 status, or at least to be told that they have such status."^' They seem to focus theu attention here because, as slaves, they are afforded no status.

Similarly, money is never far from the forefront m The Alchemist and Volpone.

In both plays, the plots center around the duping of the guUs; in the The Alchemist,

Face, Subtle, and Dol mn a confidence game based on the gulls' greed and their desire to use alchemy to enrich their lives; in Volpone, Volpone and Mosca prompt the legacy-seekers to offer increasingly precious gifts in an attempt to win Volpone's favor and to be named his heir. The compUcations hi both plays provide the frameworkan d stmcture, but the emphasis remains squarely fixedupo n the status, financial success being only an indicator of success. For example, whUe the basic deception in The

Alchemist involves money. Face revels more in the elevation conferred on the "venture tripartite." He announces to the audience of one of the tricksters' goals when he teUs

Dol;

. . thou shall sh in triumph. And not be styl'd Dol Common, but Dol Proper, Dol Singular: the longest cut at night Shall draw thee for his Dol Particular. (1.2.176-79)

The triumph is won when Mammon elevates the common bawd to the level of an

"Austriac pruices[s]" (4.1.56) and when Dapper beholds his Queen of Faery

(5.4.20-61). Face proclahns this success; "Why, this is yet / A kmd of modem happmess, to have / Dol Common for a great lady" (4.1.22-24). Conversely, Face 131 makes no such declarations when he receives money, suggesting the hnportance of status to him.

Face himself experiences a similar elevation of his character. One instance is clear in Mammon's speech, arismg m part from his tendency toward hyperbole and hi part from the subtie irony. He calls Face "Zephyms," "Lungs," and "Ulen" or

"Ulenspiegel" The Zephyms-Lungs association is obvious enough; the name reflects

Face's role as Subtle's "fire-drake" or beUow's blower, but the common job is elevated to a mythical level. The irony is Mammon's failure to see through the disguise and deception, through Face's hot air, while at the same time calUng him by a name which unphes Face's control, just as the West Wind controls the fate of saUors.

A similar irony occurs in Mammon's use of Ulen. Claude Summers and Ted-Larry

Pebworth suggest that Ulenspiegel is the "merry prankster of German legend, a low character who uses his wit to trick his social betters" (83), a character whom one edhor calls the German counterpart of the EngUsh Robin Hood. Thus, Mammon elevates Face to legendary status, thinking that Face is helping him to steal the

"covering off o' churches" (2.2.14), when in fact Face is fleechig Mammon.

In Volpone, the elevation of Mosca's character occurs on two levels. First, the references to Mosca become inflated as the play advances. ^^ Early m the play,

Volpone refers to Mosca as his "beloved Mosca" (1,1.30), "kind Mosca" (1.2.118),

"Excellent Mosca" (1.3.78), and "dear Mosca" (1.5.84). These general, endearing terms, however, give way to heightened adjectives; "divine Mosca" (1.5.84), 132

"exquisite Mosca" (5.2.3), "precious Mosca" (5.2.14), and "rare Mosca" (5.3.61).

The legacy-seekers foUow a similar pattern in theu addresses: Vohore refers to Mosca as "sweet Mosca" (1.3,48) and "faithfiil Mosca" (5.3.76), Corbaccio adds "good

Mosca" (1.4.86) and "sweet Mosca" (1.4.122); and, Corvmo addresses Mosca as

"dear Mosca" (1.5.38), "fiiend . . . fellow . . . companion /. . . [and] partner" (1,5.80-

81). Second, Mosca undergoes a transformation in social status after he inherits

Volpone's estate. The servant parades himself on the streets of Venice as a gentleman, and even the minor characters contribute to the perception of Mosca's status; Nano calls Venice's newest clarissimo, "master Mosca" (5.11.10), and the fourth Avocatori calls him "a proper man" (5.12.50).

The degree of status achieved in the process of the clever servant's scheme is linked to the size of the game. In Roman Laughter, Segal says that "hi a deposuit, the greater the victim, the greater the pleasure" (119), and he argues;

For each merry deposuit there is a corresponding exaltavit. The mighty are overthrown and the humble elevated, leapmg proudly onto the temporarily unoccupied pedestals, ... the slaves themselves become (for the thne being) . . . of the highest rank. (128)

Segal's argument is that the depth of the guU's fall corresponds to the height of the slave's elevation.

While this description seems accurate enough in both Plautus's and Jonson's plays, h can be extended, for the wilUngness or lack of wilUngness of the guU also contributes to the degree of status lost or won. That is, a fuUy-informed and wary 133 guU, being harder to deceive, contributes far more status to the slave than an unmformed dupe does. For example, m Plautus's Asinaria, two servants, Leonida and

Libanus, lead their willing master, Argyrippus (an adolescens amans figure),an d his love, Philaenium, to debase themselves as they plead for a purse of money;

ARGYRIPPUS; Why don't you hand the wallet over and let h cmsh my shoulder? LEONIDA; She's the one {pointing to Philaenium) the one you'U give it to, teU her to ask me for h, tease me for it... . PHILAENIUM: Oh, Leonida, you apple of my eye, my rosebud ... do give me the money! Don't separate us lovers. LEONIDA; . . . WeU, then . , . take hold ... and match my Uttle Ups to your Uttle Ups. ARGYRIPPUS; She kiss you, you scoundrel? LEONIDA; Yes, h does seem [shamefijl {indignas)], doesn't h. However, you don't get the cash this day . . . unless you mb my knees. ARGYRIPPUS; "Need knows no shame." Rubbed they shaU be. (661-71)

The slaves demand kisses, piggy-back rides, and, even, a Uttle "knee-mbbmg" from

Argyrippus and PhUaenium, and the master compUes, acknowdedging the inversion of the master-slave relationship when he declares, "Need knows no shame" (671). The humor of this scene resides in the outlandish reversal of station and the predicament which forces the two lovers to wiUmgly depose themselves. As Argyrippus and

PhUaenium assume subservient roles and fiilfiUth e sexual requests, their wilUngness reduces the humor to a farcical level and minhnizes the heightened status of the slaves.

At times Ihe Alchemist operates on much the same farcical level as the scene from Asinaria, and thus adds Uttle to the elevation of Face as a trickster; Kastril brings 134 his sister to Lovewit's house, where Subtle and Face both get their kisses fromher , and they do so at the behest of the aU-too-wilUng Kastril; "Please you to kuss her, and be proud to know her" (4,2.54), That Face and Subtle, a servant and vagabond, get the kisses from "the lady" Dame Phant is comical, as is Dapper's later willingness to kiss Dol's "departing part" (5,4.57), but neither scene adds much to the status of the deceivers. In fact, the wilhng guUs—Dapper, Dmgger, Mammon, and Wholesome—set themselves up for Empson's criticism that they deserve what they get, because they do it themselves (193). The reduction of the exaltavit stems fromth e guUs' wiUingness in these instances of physical humor. The same is tme when the scenes involve money; the financial stakes of the game increase with each case, fromth e small amounts in the cases of Dapper and Dmgger to 170 pounds in Mammon's case (5.5,61) and 610 pounds in Wholesome's (5.5.104); however, the mcrease in the status of Face and his feUow conspirators is not proportionate to the increase in the amount of money due to the willingness of the guUs.

In Volpone, each of the guUs is wilhng to offer gifts and to violate his or her familial relations in order to be named Volpone's heir. This willingness is, perhaps, illustrated best by the loquacious Lady Politic Would-be, who tortures Volpone with her discourses on dreams, remedies, poetry, and phUosophy. Volpone seeks only to be rid of the woman and her zealous verbal assauh. Volpone complains of Lady Pol's verbosity, "A lawyer could not have been heard; nor scarce / Another woman, such a hail of words / She has let faU" (3.5.9-11), then, he begs Mosca to remove her. Mosca 135 asks, "Has she presented?" and Volpone declares, "Oh, I do not care, / I'U take her absence, upon any price, / With any loss" (3.5.9-15). Consequently, Lady Politic's wiUmgness actually diminishes our perception of Volpone as a deceiver, not only because he is unable to extricate himself fromth e situation, but also because he abandons his main goal of gaining wealth through deception in his attempt to escape her company.

Like Lady Pol, the other legacy seekers seem to need little prompting. Indeed,

Mosca positions himself, as many of Plautus's clever slaves do, in such a way as to make the legacy seekers beUeve that the plotting is their own. Mosca allows

Corbaccio, for instance, to claim as his own the plan to disovm Bonario;

CORBACCIO; He must pronounce me, his? MOSCA; 'Tis tme. CORBACCIO; This plot Did I think on before. MOSCA; I do believe h. CORBACCIO; DO you not beUeve h? MOSCA; Yes, sh. CORBACCIO; Mme own project. MOSCA: Which when he hath done, sir— CORBACCIO; PubUshed me his heir? MOSCA; And you so certain to survive him— CORBACCIO: Aye. MOSCA: Being so lusty a man— CORBACCIO: 'Tis tme. MOSCA: Yes, sh. CORBACCIO: I thought on that too. See, how he should be The very organ, to express my thoughts! MOSCA; YOU have not only done yourself a good— CORBACCIO; But muhipUed h on my son? MOSCA; 'Tis right, su. CORBACCIO; StiU, my invention, (1,4.109-19) 136

As this passage reveals, Corbaccio believes that he has devised the plan even though

Mosca leads him to both the plan and that beUef Likewise, Mosca leads Conino to a similar belief when he convinces him to offer Celia to Volpone. Mosca patiently tells

Corvino to "think, think, think, think, think, think, think" untU Corvmo determmes to pander his wife (2.6.59). Corvino insists that Mosca tell Volpone the news;

Go home, prepare him, teU him with what zeal And willingness I do h; swear h was On the first hearing (as thou mayest do, tmly) Mme own free motion, (2.6.92-95)

In both cases, Mosca seems to forego the elevation of his own status by aUowing the guUs to take credh for the schemes. On another level, however, his reputation as a master of deception and rhetoric climbs as the audience perceives the ease with which he manipulates Corvino and Corbaccio, leading them to make decisions contrary to their own principles. It is, for instance, a humorous, but also victorious moment for

Mosca, when Corvino's jealousy as a overly-protective husband gives way to his greed and is translated into his willingness to surrender Celia to Volpone.

Volpone, himself, is one of Mosca's wiUing guUs and his deposuit does not confer status on Mosca until he becomes unwiUing. Repeatedly, Volpone defers to

Mosca. Succombing to love-sickness after he has seen Celia, Volpone declares, "I cannot Uve, except thou help me, Mosca" (2.4.7)."^"^ Emphasizing his helplessness in the situation, he contmues;

Mosca, take my keys. Gold, plate, and jewels, all's at thy devotion; 137 Employ them how thou wih; nay com me, too; So thou in this but crown my longings. (2.4.20-24)

Mosca is elevated by Volpone's consistent reliance upon and submission to hun, but

Volpone's willingness to submit reduces the potential magnitude of that elevation.

When Mosca verbally abuses Volpone in order to prove his mcapacity to Corvmo in Act 1, scene 1, the resuh is humorous;

CORVINO; Art sure he does not hear? MOSCA; Sure, sir? Why, look you, credh your own sense. [He shouts in Volpone's ear] The pox approach, and add to your diseases. If h would send you hence the sooner, sir. For your incontinence, it hath deserved h Throughly and throughly, and the plague to boot. (You may come near, sir) would you would close Those filthyeye s of yours, that flow with slhne. Like two frog-phs; and those same hanging cheeks. Covered with hide instead of skin; (nay, help, sir) That look like frozen dish-clouts, set on end. (1.5.50-60)

The bitter invective is made funnier by the fact that Volpone v^Uingly suffers the abuse. Yet, the scene adds nothing to Mosca's status as a clever slave. Thus, at first, the relationship between Volpone and Mosca is typical of the Plautine master-slave relationship, the master wiUingly subordinating himself to the slave in order to prosper and profit from the slave's wit.

Although the deception of a wiUing gull adds humor to a play and, perhaps, a slight increase in the stature of a deceiver, the clever slave's exaltavit is greater when he overcomes an unwilling gull. In Pseudolus, Pseudolus announces his mtention to

Simio, his target; "I warn you to look out, I teU you. Look out! Look! . . . With those 138 very hands you'U give me the money today" (517-18), Simio becomes convmced that

Pseudolus cannot possibly cheat him, and Pseudolus spends much thne lamenting the

odds against his success.^^ Both ofthese actions raise the stakes of the con. By

deceiving the fiilly informed Simio, Pseudolus becomes a strategist on the level of

Ulysses {Pseudolus 1063; 1244) and a mler greater than Alexander the Great and

Agathocles, King of Sicily (Segal 131; Pseudolus 531-32).

The cheating of an informed and, consequently, unwilling guU occurs also in

Bacchides. The young lover, MnesUochus, instmcts his slave, Chrysalus, to dupe his

father for a second time. Because MnesUochus has returned the loot that Chrysalus

had taken from the father in the first scheme, the slave is hestitant to try agam;

CHRYSALUS; NO problem? . . . Make a fool of a man who just caught me in a he? He wouldn't beUeve a word I said. The only way he'U beUeve me is if I teU him not to believe me. . . , MNESILOCHUS; He said that if you told hun that the sun was the sun, he'd beUeve h was the moon, and that if you told him h was dayUght, he'd know for sure h was really night. CHRYSALUS; Then I will swindle him again today! ... I don't want him to be accused of exaggeration. (1050-59)

Chrysalus succeeds in his second swindle precisely because he knows that the father

(Nicobulus) is predisposed agamst him. Chrysalus arranges for the son to write a

letter to his father, exposmg Chrysalus' dupUcity and mstmcting the father to punish

the slave. Havmg his suspicions confirmed by the letter, Nicobulus is little prepared to

counter Chrysalus' new scheme: Chrysalus reveals that MnesUochus is m danger for,

supposedly, having taken a soldier's woman, and he becomes the father's conduit for 139 buyuig off the outraged and violent soldier. In the process, he secures the means to provide MnesUochus with the money to buy the freedom of his giri. In an extended soUloquy, Chrysalus compares his success to the sacking of Troy: Mnesilochus is

Paris, the letter is the Trojan horse, the father is Priam, and Chrysalus plays both

Agamemnon and Ulysses (1387-1450). Thus, the second con elevates Chrysalus far more than the first because it is accomphshed in spite of Nicobulus' awareness of his intent.

Likewise, the unwilluig guUs play a significant role in exalting Face. Surly announces his position clearly when he says to Mammon: "Faith, I have a humour, /1 would not wilUngly be guU'd, Your stone / cannot transmute me" (2,1.78-80).

Mammon introduces him to Subtle as an "heretic" in need of conversion—that is, a skeptic with no faith in alchemy (2.3.3). While Face rejoices in Mammon's taking of the bah (2.4.1-4), he clearly values the chaUenge of duping the unwiUing and skeptical

Surly;

FACE; I must not lose my wary gamester yonder. SUBTLE; O, Monsieur Caution, that wiU not be guU'd? FACE; Ay, if I can strike a fine hook into him, now! (2,5.14-16)

Surly poses the most serious threat to Face's world by infiltrathig the house disguised as the Spanish Don. Surly manages to catch and beat Subtle, but he becomes obsessed with his moralizing and allows Face to escape (4.6.34-47), As Surly pontificates. Face rallies the other gulls to his defense. Dmgger and Kastril attack Surly, because Face has accused Surly of his own misdeeds; he tells Dmgger that Surly was a "cheater 140

[who] would ha' cozened thee o' the widow" (4.7.29), and he teUs Kastril that Surly

"does not love the doctor, and would cross him" (4,7.10). While Surly is beaten. Face draws a victory from the episode; he proves his superiority to Subtle, which is the real game of the play, as h is announced m Act 1-to "prove to-day who shall shark best"

(1.1.160). Thus, Face achieves an elevation greater than Subtie by defeating the unwilling guU, Surly.

Indeed, the status gained by Face in exiling the agelast, to use Bakhtin's term for the non-laugher, is confirmed when the agelast tries to return for justice with the

now-mformed and irate guUs. Surly, Mammon, Kastril, Ananias, Wholesome and the neighbors demand that justice be hnposed. Indeed, before he strikes a deal with

Lovewit, Face orders Lovewh to "dismiss the rabble" (5.4.75). Lovewh immediately does so, explaining that he is an "indulgent master" (5,4.78).^^ Securing their safety for "this night" is another victory for Face; Subtle himself praises Face; "Why, then triumph and sing / Of Face so famous, the precious king / Of present wits" (5.4.12-

14). The measure of success is something more than monetary gain. Just as greed is only a sign of the guU's larger fantasies (Watson 339), the financialrewar d is only a sign of an ennobling and conquering wit.

In Volpone, Celia and Bonario fimction as the agelasts. In contrast to Plautine agelasts and the typical Puritan agelasts like Surly, CeUa and Bonario do nothmg to suggest that they deserve theu treatment. This difference stems, primarily, from their purity and innocence. One suspects that they are "non-laughers" due to their poshion 141 as innocents surrounded by decadents and rogues, not due to some innate flaw, such as self-righteousness. Their temporary defeat in the court exposes the cormption of aU of the other characters, including Mosca and Volpone. The wilUngness of the others to sacrifice these two innocents signals how indefensibly cormpt and vicious they are.

Not only is the success of the guilty to defame the innocent reprehensible, h is also a major contributor to Mosca's status as a trickster. Mosca's plan raises the legacy- seekers' suspicions that he is not being forthright and honest about Volpone's situation and his wiU, providing Mosca the opportunity to convince the guUs, who are not as willing as they were before. In the space of forty lines, Mosca manages—in spite of their growing suspicion of his double-dealing—to eUch the tmst of Corvino (4.6.75),

Corbaccio (4.6.85), and Lady Pol (4.6.101).'"

On another level, however, Mosca's explohation of the situation in Act 5 clearly heightens the tension in the relationship between Mosca and Volpone to that of a trickster and his guU. The rhetorical pattern of Mosca's scheme to dupe Volpone is remarkably similar to the eariier scheme involving Corvino, Corbaccio, Vohore, and

Lady Pol. In each case, the guU beUeves that he or she has determined the course of events when, actually, Mosca is in control. Volpone also beUeves he controls events, but a retrospective reading reveals that Mosca manipulates Volpone's actions and passions from the beginning.

In addition, both Volpone and Mosca clearly value theu escape fromth e charges brought by CeUa and Bonario, and h serves as a rhetorical weapon for Mosca. 142

Mosca characterizes the successfiil defense as a "masterpiece" which they "cannot think to go beyond" (5.2.13-14). His declaration is, hi essence, a challenge to

Volpone to try to do so. In the opening scene of the play, Volpone idolizes his gold.

Later, Mosca displaces his passion for gold, substituting in hs place Corvino's wife,

Celia, who is "Bright as . . . gold! And lovely as , . , gold!" (1,5.113). Now, in Act 5, scene 2, Volpone declares, that the success in court is even more deUghtful than CeUa would have been; Mosca claims, "You are not taken with h enough, methinks?" to which Volpone contends, "Oh, more than if I had enjoyed the wench; / The pleasure of aU womankind's not like h" (5.2.9-11), Mosca pursues Volpone relentlessly, remmding Volpone of his fear ("It seemed to me, you sweat sir / ... , Were you not daunted?" (5.2.37; 39)) and prompting Volpone to push the scheme to hs logical conclusion; his feigned death and Mosca's inheritance of the estate. Volpone wilUngly follows Mosca's lead, declaring "for thy sake, at thy entreaty, /1 will begin, e'en now, to vex'em all" (5.2.55-56). It is noteworthy that Volpone clearly believes that he is hi charge of the situation ("I will begin . . ."), but, Uke the other gulls, Mosca cultivates exactly that beUef while inciting the action.

Even after Volpone discovers Mosca's trap, he continues to credh his own ingenuity for his problems until he faces the reality of the punishment in store for him;

To make a snare for mine own neck! And mn My head mto h, wilfuUy! Whh laughter! When I had newly 'scaped, was free and clear! Out of mere wantonness! Oh, the duU devil Was in this brain of mine when I devised h; 143

And Mosca gave h second ... (5,11.1-6)

The audience has already learned the extent of Mosca's manipulation when he declares his intention to spring the "Fox-trap" (5.5.18), and, in retrospect, his involvement is clear from the beginnmg of the play, but Volpone stUl fails fliUy to recognize Mosca's part."

Perhaps the greatest exaltavit m Volpone comes when Mosca transforms himself into the clarissimo and both the legacy-seekers and Volpone are fully aware of his intention to exclude them from his prosperity. The frequencyo f dejected exclamations in scenes 3-12 of Act 5 raises the audience's awareness of Mosca's new stature, which is confirmed visuaUy in the inventory scene as Mosca counts his treasures and in the court scenes by Mosca's new costume. Only in the finalscen e of the play does Volpone come to reaUze Mosca's intention to steal the whole estate and to cause Volpone's punishment. He declares, "Wih thou betray me? / Cozen me?"

(5.12.78-79). Mosca's status reaches hs highest point in this scene. In an aside,

Mosca bargains with Volpone, insisting on keeping more than half the estate for himself

MOSCA; WUl you gi' me hah? VOLPONE: First, I'U be hanged. MOSCA: I know. Your voice is good, cry not so loud.

VOLPONE; thou shalt have half. MOSCA; I cannot now Afford h so cheap. (5.12.63-69) 144

Mosca confidently rejects a compromise with Volpone, countuig on his wit and his role-playing as the clarissimo to be sufficient to protect him. LUce all clever slaves, he seems to assume that he is uhimately invulnerable and immune from punishment. In the process, he raises the stakes of the game too far, causing Volpone to opt for a complete exposure of the scheme rather than to suffer alone. Nevertheless, Mosca raises himself to the pinnacle of his career as a clever slave immediately before his fall to the ranks of a common criminal.

In addition to emphasizing the confidence game and status rather than money, both the Plautine and Jonsonian clever servants and exhibh an acute self-awareness as characters playing roles. Niall Slater notes this characteristic;

While other characters usually remain trapped in the stock roles to which their plot functions assign them, the clever slaves have the self- transformational power of the versipellis (skin-changer). They may themselves adopt [other]. . , roles of Roman comedy. (16)*^

Slater argues this abiUty to transform the self is almost magical or supernatural in nature (104). Frances Muecke argues, however, that the disguise motif is generally connected to the character's awareness of theatrical conventions and, hence, becomes a vehicle of metatheater (217).^^ As Slater and Muecke point out, the clever slaves in

Plautus cast other characters in roles to achieve their deceptions, write letters which become scripts, and, in general create and manage the action of the plays. Thus, in the works of Plautus and Jonson, the clever servants occupy a position where they 145 recognize themselves as characters acting within a play and, at the same time,wher e they recognize the play as a theatrical performance.

Throughout The Alchemist, Face demonstrates his theatrical skill. Like the

Plautine clever slave, for instance, he is a master of disguise, a man of many roles and many names, Jeremy, Face, Lungs, and Ulenspiegel, Summers and Pebworth notice that Face suits his roles to the weaknesses of his dupes;

He is the chief possessor of the deceiving wit necessary to the triumvhate. In exercising his wit, he assumes the outward show, the face, of a number of roles. To those awed by the paraphenalia of science, he is Lungs, the conscientious laboratory assistant. To those impressed by swagger and worldUness, he is Captain Face, succesful gambler and gallant about town. (83)

In addition to his abUity to transform himself. Face casts and directs the other characters in their roles. For instance, in the guise of a servant, he delivers to Surly a letter or message from Captain Face, attempting to get Surly out of the house and to isolate him for a new swindle of some sort (2.3.295). In much the same way, although

KastrU beUeves he is signing up for lessons to become a noble dueler. Face casts him as a pimp to prostitute his sister. Dame Pliant; Face says, "[Subtie] made me a captahi.

I was a stark pimp, / Just o' your standmg, 'fore I met with him" (3.4.45-46). After

Face faUs to match the Spanish Don, who is actually Surly in disguise, with Dame

PUant, he perseveres and convinces Dmgger to assume the role (4.7.62-72). (We learn, however, after Dmgger's exit that Face mtends to assume the role of the

Spanish Don m order to woo Dame PUant for himself) Face even duects his co- 146 conspirators in their roles. He prepares Dol, for example, to play the Spanish Don's lady;

Sweet Dol, You must go tune your vuginal, no losmg O' the least time. And do you hear? Good action. Firk like a flounder, kiss Uke a scaUop, close; And tickle him whh thy mother-tongue. His great Verdugo-ship has not a jot of language; So much the easier to be cozened, my Dolly. (3.3.66-72)

He also prepares her to act as Dapper's Queen of Faery (3.3.78) and as Mammon's lady, the "most rare scholar" (4.1.32), Even Subtle, Face's rivali n the game to discover who cons best, fears Face's ability to control him. He declares in an aside,

"we must keep Face in awe, / Or he wUl overlook us lUce a tyrant" (4,3,18-19). In fact. Face does so. For instance, upon hearing the news of Master Lovewit's return.

Face orders Subtle and Dol to "Be silent," before he answers Subtle's plea, "What shaU we do now. Face" (4.7.118-19). Face assumes the dictatorial role Subtle feared earUer, and he issues orders to Subtle and Dol;

FACE: Be sUent: not a word, if he call, or knock. I'll into mine old shape agam, and meet him. Of Jeremy, the butier. I' the meanthne. Do you two pack up all the goods, and purchase. That we can carry i' the two tmnks. I'U keep him Off for today, if I cannot longer; and then At night, rU ship you both away to RatcUffe, Where we'U meet tomorrow, and there we'll share. . . . But, Dol, 'Pray thee, go heat a little water, quickly. Subtle must shave me. (4.7.119-29) 147

When the stakes are highest and when the threat of discovery is most real. Subtle and

Dol tum to Face in his role as the architectus, the grand plotmaker.

Perhaps the most convincing evidence of Face's role as an architectus is his response to the threat of being discovered by Surly, a response discussed more fully earlier in the discussion of cantaminatio in Chapter III. Watson notes that Surly assumes a role from Plautus's Poenulus, that of Hanno, "who rescues a young woman from a thieving procurer after strategically feigning ignorance of his native language and enduring the consequent abuse" (353). He is unsuccessful, however, because

Face knows his Plautus well enough to improvise. Watson suggests that Face counters Surly's Hanno with the scene from Mostellaria, which begins in Act 5 after

Lovewit's return (353). A closer parallel exists, however, in Pseudolus, when

Pseudolus uses Simio to defeat the agelast, Ballio (a leno), while at the same time winning his bet that he could cheat Simio out of his money. While the situations in the two plays are not identical, Face manages essentiaUy the same thing; he defeats the agelast. Surly, whUe at the same time satisfying his agreement with the gulls.

Mosca, Ukewise, displays his theatrical awareness in the Volpone. On one level, he does so when, like a stage manager, he directs the entrances and exits of characters on the stage or when he instmcts them to act theh parts m a certain way.'8 4

Although his directions are somethnes disregarded by the characters-say, when

Corvino arrives too quickly with CeUa or when Bonario faUs to remain in the room where Mosca has placed him-Mosca's directions signal a more fimdamentalelemen t 148 of his character than has been noticed. His theatricality is often disparagingly compared to Volpone's virtuosity,^' and his character is rarely seen as anything but that of a parasite.

The classical parashe, however, is a character defined by his nutritional needs and his attempts to secure a free meal. Plautus offers us a typical example in

Menaechmi, where Peniculus (Sponge) spends his time hounding others for mvitations to meals. ^^ The difference between the parashe and the clever slave is also clear in

Menaechmi because the play has examples of each. While Peniculus mns errands in the hopes of arranging an afternoon of feasting, Messenio solves the question of the

Menaechmus brothers' identities and resolves the problems of the play. WhUe the parasite may, in fact, participate in the comic deceptions created by the architectus of the plot, he usually does not play a central role in the invention of the plot hself In his

solUoquy, Mosca calls our attention to the vast gulf between the typical parashe and hun;

I fear I shaU begin to grow in love With my dear self, and my most prosperous parts. They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel A whimsy i' my blood: I know not how. Success hath made me wanton. I could skip 5 Out of my skin now, like a subtle snake, I am so limber. Oh! Your parashe Is a most precious thing, dropped from above. Not bred 'mongst clods and clot-poles, here on earth. I muse, the mystery was not made a science, 10 It is so Uberally professed! Almost AU the wise worid is httle else, m nature. But parashes, or sub-parashes. And yet. 149

I mean not those that have your bare town-art. To know who's fit to feed'em; have no house, 15 No family, no care, and therefore mould Tales for men's ears, to bait that sense, or get Kitchen-invention, and some stale receipts To please the beUy and the groin; nor those With theu court-dog-tricks, that can fawn and fleer, 20 Make their revenue out of legs and faces. Echo my-Lord, and lick away a moth: But your fine, elegant rascal, that can rise And stoop (ahnost together) Uke an arrow; Shoot through the ah, as nimbly as a star; 25 Tum short, as doth a swaUow; and be here. And there, and here, and yonder, aU at once. Present to any humour, aU occasion; And change a visor swifter than a thought! This is the creature had the art bom with him; 30 ToUs not to learn it, but doth practise it Out of most exceUent nature: and such sparks

Are the tme parashes, others but their zanies. (3.1.1-33)

Mosca emphasizes the typical role of the parasite in his decription, specificaUy denymg that he fits into that category. Instead, he claims the chief attributes of the clever slave, his versatUity (5-7), his role-playmg abUity (23-29), and his wit or ingenium

(30). In the process, Mosca uses theatrical terminology—speaking of parashes, sub- parashes, zanies, and visors-and employs a reveaUng pun in the beghinmg of the soUloquy. He fears, he says, that he "shaU begin to grow in love" with his "most prosperous parts" (1-2).

On the one hand, as a parashe, Mosca seems to express his satisfaction in a physical gratification: he feels a "whunsy i' [his] blood" and he describes hhnsetfas

"wanton" (4-5), The "prosperous parts," in this context, appear to be body parts. 150 particularly those that "spring and burgeon" which he explichly identifies later as "the belly and the groin" (19). Mosca offers a typically baroque insight akui to

Shakespeare's recognition that "all the worid's a stage" when he declares that "Ahnost

/ All the wise worid is little else, in nature, / But parasites, or sub-parasites" (12-13).

Here, h seems, Mosca recognizes the greed and selfishness that dominates the

Venetian world of the play, offering, perhaps, a bh of Jonsonian satire of the English society of his day. If, as Mosca says, the world consists of only parasites, it is a world devoid of any purpose greater than the satisfaction of physical appetites

On the other hand, this level of meaning is undercut by the rest of the solUoquy. Mosca expUcitly distances himself fromth e standard parasite by qualifying his praise of the type; "I mean not those," he declares, "But your fine, elegant rascal"

(14; 23). His discussion of the parasite shifts the praise away fromthos e who pursue the satisfaction of gustatory and sexual desires toward his success in the parts he has played as a character. He has recently succeeded in convincmg Conino to bring CeUa to Volpone, and his delight hi the solUoquy stems from this successfiil dupe. His success pleases not his "beUy" or "groin," but his brain.

This revelation of Mosca's tme character is hnmediately apparent in his melodramatic act with Bonario in the following scene. In another example of the unwiUing guUs' contribution to the clever slave's exaltation, this scene reveals Mosca's mastery of role-playing and rhetoric. Bonario meets him with skepticism, scorning his every word. He identifies Mosca as a parashe, but Mosca rejects this characterization; 151

BONARIO; Aye, answer me, is not thy sloth Sufficient argument? Thy flattery? They means of feeding? MOSCA; Heavens, be good to me. These imputations are too common sir. And easily stuck on virtue ... (3.2,9-13)

The role of parashe is merely "stuck on," like a mask that covers the face of a clever slave. Within the space often Unes, Mosca's tears and words convince Bonario to surrender his doubt, perhaps not completely, but enough for hhn to submit to Mosca, eventually accepting him as a guide when he says, "Lead. I follow thee" (3.2.70). The stakes of this paricular scheme are the highest yet m the play because Bonario enters the scene committed to his distmst. He declares that anj^hing Mosca does "shah give

[him] leave to hate [Mosca's] baseness" (3.2.8).

Bonario's reversal, however, clarifies to us Mosca's theatrical ability, and, in retrospect, helps us to see that he has had this ability fromth e very beghming of the play. As early as the second scene of the play, we see Mosca's creative ability in the masque-Uke production of the transmigration of Pythogoras' soul, which is performed by the dwarf, hermaphrodhe, and eunuch. We see, too, his mastery of rhetoric when

Volpone asks if he is the author, and Mosca responds, "If h please my patron, / Not else" (1.2.64-65). Our awareness of his skiU prepares us to accept his announcement that he wiU enact the Fox-trap. Thus, we see Mosca's dramatic skiUs throughout the play, which enable him to succeed at everything from creating the right appearance for

Volpone's eyes to scriptmg the successful defense strategy at the court. He can pen 152 an obscure piece on metaphysics or he can provide the necessary costumes to disguise

Volpone as an invalid, as a mountebank, or as one of the commandadori. In other words, like an accomplished clever slave, not a parasite, Mosca plays the role of architectus.

The presence of theatrical awareness in the clever servant suggests a vantage

point for viewing his expectation of and escape frompunishment . In Bacchides,

Chrysalus says, "What wiU happen to me then? Gad! I suppose he'U change my name

for me the minute he gets back, and transform me from Chrysalus to Crossalus on the

spot" (360-62). Chrysalus expresses the common anticipation of punishment. Segal

argues that the defining feature of a Roman slave as opposed to the Roman chizen is

his subjection to punishment, extremely severe punishment almost at whim of the master (137-38). But, Chrysalus's remark shows an amazing lack of concern: he goes

on to say, "Oh, weU, I'll mn for h, if h looks advisable. If I'm caught, he'U have his fiU of discomfort . . . weU, I've got a back on my person" (363-65). In a case in another play, the slave takes volunteers fromth e audience to stand in for what he imagines wiU be his inevitable execution, even offering a bh of money to the volunteer

{Mostellaria 354-55). The humorous and witty acceptance of the inevitabUity of punishment suggests an ironic tone. No Plautine clever servant is punished. Even in

Mostellaria where the threat of punishment is carried untU the last two Unes of the play, the clever servant escapes. 153

It is difficuh, if not impossible, to determine exactly why Plautus pardons all clever slaves. Segal asserts that the dramatically "unmotivated pardons" occur primarily because the audience wished h (360; 344). Whatever the reason, the

"unmotivated pardons" of the clever slaves in Plautus are often Imked either to a

recognition that other opportunities will arise in which the master may punish the

unreformed and, by nature, irrepressible clever slave or to an awareness of the general

complicity of the master in the misbehaviors that might motivate punishment of the

slave. Both cases are represented clearly by Tranio's escape from punishment hi

Mostellaria. Theopropides, angered by Tranio's contribution to his son's wayward

lifestlye during Theopropides' absence, insists repeatedly that he mtends to punish

Tranio. Tranio argues successfuUy, however, that he deserves a pardon. He asks

Theopropides, "Why be so reluctant? As if tomorrow I won't cause you just as much

trouble as I'm doing today! Then you can take revenge on me for both thnes" (1593-

595). He also invokes a recognition that misbehavior is the norm for comedy; "But

now hear me; /1 admit he [the son] misbehaved while you were away /... But is h

mis-1 Behavior, I ask you? Or is h standard conduct?" (1525-530). Thus, although

the motivation for pardon appears less than compeUing to us outside the world of the

comedy, Tranio and those of his dramatic type escape the punishment that they often

humorously anticipate.

The lack of fear on the clever slaves' part stems from his theatrical awareness.

Using others' guUt to shield oneself from exposure is a strategy found often in Plautus. 154

For instance, in Rudens, a leno is offered a choice; "Punp, do you prefer to be quieted

by a dmbbing or quiet without one, as at present, if you have the choice" (780-81).

Plautine pimps can never go public. They are generally caught in the criminal act of

dealmg m free citizens, usually because of mistaken identity (Leadbetter 10).

Consequently, they remahi sUent in their attempts to avoid legal action. The clever

slave as a theatrical creature is able to redirect the tragic potential of the action and

transform h into a comic celebration of wit, wherein his own guUt is mitigated by the

guUt of others,*^

In The Alchemist, Face exhibhs the same recognition that punishment is lUcely,

In fact. Act 1, scene 1, establishes the threat repeatedly when Dol asks, "D'you know

who hears you, sovereign?" (1.1.87). The threat of discovery is the reality of

punishment. But, Face's statements, like the Plautme clever servant's, seem ahnost, if

not completely, ironic; he perceives Surly in his Spanish Don disguise beating Subtle,

and his only response is "How, Surly!" (4.6.34); he is told that Lovewit has retumed,

and he replies, "We are undone, and taken" (4.7.114). This remark may weU reflect an

earnest fear, but it sounds similar to an earUer statement, "My brain is quhe undone . .

, sir, /1 ne'ev must hope to be mine own man agam" (4,5.77-78), which is said to

Mammon after he falls for Dol's antics. The feigned fear in this case suggests that the

first, in such similar words, expresses no greater and no more genuine fear.

In Ihe Alchemist, Face operates the house during his master's absence, "For the vacations" we are told by the seventeenth line of the play. As Face demonstrates 155 during the play, only those with a guilty conscience suffer punishment; Mammon explodes his hopes with his pursuh of Dol, which he calls an "error." He is quickly corrected, however: "Error? / Guih, guih, my son, give h the right name" (4.5.44-47),

Face uses others' guih to beat them. In his contest with Subtie for Dame PUant, Face threatens to call Dol and reveal Subtle's intention (4.3.82). When Dol and Subtie are conspiring to flee with the money. Face uses their guih to make them flee the house empty-handed. Likewise, when Lovewit ultimately defeats Mammon, Lovewit offers the chance to reclaim his money "By order of law, sir, but not otherwise" (5,5,64).

Earlier, Face fears that his guUs will "tell aU," and he asks in an aside (quoting Tranio m Plautus' Mostellaria), "How shall I beat them off? What shall I do? / Nothmg's more wretched than a guUty conscience" (5,3.45-47). He provides the answer to his own question—others' guUt provides his escape because, like Plautine pimps, his gulls have no real choice. Their guUt keeps them quiet. The crimes go unreported by the crimmals, or, perhaps more appropriate to the hoUday spuit in the play, the folly goes unreported by the foolish. As for Lovewit's indulgence of Face's behavior, the controversy will probably remain. In the Plautine world of the play, though, his love of wit elevates Face to diplomatic unmunity, giving him a Ucense which seems to expire as the play ends when Lovewit teUs Face, "Speak for thyself, knave" (5.5.157).

But, the immunity extends long enough for Lovewit to play out his role as the

"indulgent master" and long enough to let Face finish his role as the clever slave who escapes punishment before he returns to being a common knave. 156

In Volpone, Mosca and Volpone both reveal theh awareness of potential punishment, but Mosca mdicates that he expects to escape that punishment. That is,

Volpone's fear of punishment seems real while Mosca's seems feigned. For example, after Bonario discovers Volpone's attempted rape of Celia, Volpone tragically declares;

FaU on me, roof, and bury me in min. Become my grave, that wert my sheher. Oh! I am unmasked, unspirited, undone. Betrayed to beggary, to mfamy- (3.7.275-78)

In the foUowing scene, Mosca's Unes may express a sunilar despair. He says, for instance, "Where shall I mn, / most wretched shame of men, / To beat out my unlucky brains?" (3.8.1-2). However, Mosca is engagmg m hyperboUc and overwrought acting here. First, m response to Volpone's observation that Mosca is bleedmg, Mosca declares his wish that Bonario had been "so courteous [as] to have cleft [him] down, /

Unto the navel" (3.8.4-5). He clahns to know no remedy for the current situation, offering to sacrifice his Ufe if h would undo the damage; "I know not [what to do], if my heart / Could expiate the mischance, / I'd pluck h out. / WUl you be pleased to hang me? Or cut my throat?" (3.8.11-13). LUce Plautme clever slaves, Mosca expresses the expectation that his action wiU lead to the forfeiture of his life; however, also hke his dramatic ancestors, the expression is not one of real fear. The uony of his expression is made obvious by his next remark, "Let's die Uke Romans, / Since we have lived lUce Grecians" (3.8.13-14). Mosca exposes here his theatrical awareness: 157

Plautus uses a verbal oddity, praegraeci, which Mosca borrows in translation.

Praegraeci is often translated "to Greek h up," meaning to live lasciviously or with

reckless abandon. Clearly, Mosca intends his remark to carry this force. He impUcitly

recaUs the theatrical precedent of Plautus' plays and ironically invokes the punishment

that awaits those who commit such crimes of loose living. That he has no intention to

suffer any punishment becomes clear in the following seven Unes; hearing a knock at

the door, Volpone resumes his despairing cries, but Mosca casually returns to the

confidence game. He directs Volpone to return to his couch and to continue the

charade, noting the salvation of all clever slaves; "GuUty men / Suspect what they

deserve StiU" (3.8.21-22).

In Volpone, as in Ihe Alchemist, guih is used against the gulls, motivating the

legacy-seekers to defend Mosca and Volpone against the charges set forth by Bonario

and CeUa. It forces them to conform to Mosca's planned defense, even though that

defense ironically requires Corvino to confess that he is a cuckold, Corbaccio to

confess his son's supposedly prodigal nature, and Lady Pol to charge her husband whh

infidelity. In essence, Mosca creates a defense based on the guUt of others; the legacy

seekers offer false testimony, resuhing in theh ovm humiliation, in exchange for hiding

their tme guih.

The false ending of Volpone, which occurs m Act 5, scene 2, is, perhaps, the

one expected by an Elizabethan audience, who had been conditioned by comedies

which follow the Plautine model, Volpone's question, "Shall we have a jig now?" and 158

Mosca's response, "What you please, sir" (5.2.59), signals the potential for a conventional conclusion to the comedy in which Mosca and Volpone escape unpunished and the guUs escape with only financial losses. C.G. Thayer remarks that

Jonson imposes the severe conclusion to the play, however, as a criticism of hs audience;

Here vice is punished, in a way that should fully satisfy those so uncritical as to demand that in comedy vice should be punished. The audience Jonson seems to imply, demands punishment because it doesn't understand comedy: and it wiU accept these punishments because it doesn't understand life. This is not an apology [in the dedication], it is an honic explanation. (63)

Unlike his prologue to The Alchemist where he promises that "the doers may see, and yet not own" theh folUes showm on the stage, Jonson's prologue to Volpone suggests that the play wUl have a bh of a sting; "Only, a little sah remaineth; / Wherewith he'll mb your cheeks, tiU red with laughter, / They shaU look fresh, a week after"

("Prologue" 33-35). He associates the flushed cheeks with laughter, but the play's severity and noxious atmosphere also suggest that the redness resuhs fromth e play's exposure of greed as a general condhion of humanity. The laughter is replaced with humiUation because Jonson's Volpone forces the guilty to own theh crimes.

The second ending of the play does not, however, depart fromth e Plautine model entuely. It merely extends the logic of the Plautme model to a new situation.

As we saw earlier, Plautus aUows the punishment of the guilty in his plays who, lacking the wit to do so, can findn o way out of their situation other than a dhect 159 appeal to the law. This avenue is barred from them because h would require the exposure of theh own guUt. In Volpone, Volpone and Mosca depart from theh earher roles after the false ending, Mosca and Volpone switch roles, and Volpone becomes the architectus of the finalgam e in which he mtends to ridiculeth e legacy-seekers for their exclusion from the will. Mosca assumes the role of clarissimo, but more hnportantly he seeks to make his new status permanent. For the fust thne m the play, he actually seems to take himself seriously. He is now the "proper man" and wishes to keep h so. He has emerged victorious from his gammg, and he undertakes the business of trying to be the clarissimo. His earnestness sets him up for punishment because he has departed from the theatrical blueprint which would secure his immunity. UnlUce his earUer victories, this one is marked by his earnest attempt to retain the status he has won. He rejects a division of the profit and declares that he cannot afford Volpone "so cheap." In other words, he wants h all. LUce serious characters in Plautus' plays, he is exposed because he cannot keep his con game in the proper perspective.

Although his plan shares the same basic approach as vhtually aU clever slaves m that it reUes on the standard use of guUt agamst the guUty, Mosca presumes that the legacy-seekers wiU prefer to remain sUent and that Volpone wiU prefer to escape unpunished rather than to expose his triumph. All of the punishments, thus, hinge on the miscalculation of Mosca; Volpone is to be punished anyway; consequently. 160

Volpone has nothing to lose by revealing his identity to the court and exposmg the tmth of their crimes.

The endings of The Alchemist and Volpone are determined by the actions of

Face and Mosca in their roles as clever slaves. LUce Plautine serui callidi. Face and

Mosca rely on their own theatrical nature and the guih of others to manage theh intrigues. They employ a rhetorical strategy that, in modem criminology, is described as "the block." Fay Faron, a weekly columnist in the Dallas Morning News and the owner of the Rat Dog Dick detective agency, describes the block as "a tactic designed to dissuade the victhn [of a flim-flam] fromreportin g the loss. Shame.

Embarrassment. Fear. CulpabUity. Alone or in combination, they seem to work just fine" (8C). In essence, the modus operandi of the modern day scam and the comic intrigue is the same; the successfiil trickster compromises his guUs so that they choose to minimize the publicity of their ovm misbehavior, whether h be foolishness or criminal act. Face and Lovewh impose the block by aUowing their guUs the opportunity to pursue justice in the courts, but they know the guih will prevent such an action. Similarly, Mosca and Volpone use the block effectively untU the end of the play when Mosca's miscalculation resuhs m the inevitable punishment of Volpone.

Volpone, consequently, has nothing to lose and the block dissolves.

ShnUariy, this type of block is employed also by Jonson, the playwright, in an attempt to secure the success of his plays. In the "Induction" to Bartholmew Fair, for instance, Jonson declares as the first of the "Articles of Agreement": 161

It is convenanted and agreed, by and between the parties above-said, and the said Spectators, and Hearers, as weU the curious and envious, as the favouring and judicious, as also the grounded judgements and understandmgs, do for themselves severaUy Covenant, and agree to remain in the places, their money or friends have put them in, with patience, for the space of two hours and an half, and somewhat more. In which thne the Author promiseth to present them by us, with a new sufficient Play caUed BARTHOLOMEW FAIR, merry, and as fiiUo f noise, as sport; made to deUght all, and to offend none. Provided they have either, the wit or the honesty to thmk weU of themselves. (64-74)

Jonson hnpUcates those who take offense as those who are guUty. He postures his

audience, just as Face and Mosca attempt to manipulate theu guUs. Implich in his

provisions at the end of the agreement is a veUed indictment. Members of the

audience, according to Jonson, wiU not complain unless they either are too ignorant to

appreciate his play or are guUty. RhetoricaUy, the endings of The Alchemist and

Volpone, with theh^ respective leniency and severity, resonate in Jonson's theater;

those who have the wit or the clear conscience to enjoy unmunity from guUt discover the celebration of wit m The Alchemist satisfying and appropriate; those who have

nehher wit nor a clear conscience clamor for punishment, and h is given them m

Volpone, a play bmtaUy honest about the cormption of human deshes. CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

A major goal of the present study has been to expand the examination of the

conflict between Ben Jonson's Horatian theory and Plautme practice. Although

Jonson's indebtedness to Horace for the formative principles of his theory has long

been recognized, Jonson's attempts to codify those principles and his efforts to reduce

them to absolute rules create a conflict. That conflict resuhs mevitably out of the

madequacy of any set of codified rules to account for the complexity of reaUty, That

inadequacy appears in Jonson's use of the Plautme model m Volpone and The

Alchemist and in his unfinished argument m Discoveries where he announces his

intention of defendmg Plautus agamst Horace's criticism,

Jonson's debts to Plautus and—by extension of the method of contaminatio—to

CatuUus are far greater than have so far been assumed. For example, Charles

Algernon Swinburne, who stands at the beghmmg of modem Jonsonian criticism,

lamented Jonson's supposed abandonment of the Plautme model after he wrote The

Case is Altered:

It is to be regretted, h is even to be deplored, that the mfluence of Plautus on the style and method of Jonson was not more permanent and more profound. Had he been but content to foUow his firsthnpulse , to work after his earUest model [as he did m The Case is Altered]-h2id he happUy preferred those "Plautinos et numeros et sales" for which his courtly fiiend Horace expressed so courtierly a contempt to the

162 163 heavier numbers and the more laborious humours which he set himself to elaborate and to cultivate mstead, we might not have had to applaud a more wonderful and admuable resuh, we should unquestionably have enjoyed a harvest more spontaneous, and more gracious, more generous and more deUghtful. , , , [His] sweet straightforward fluency and instmctive Ughtness of touch, would have tempered the severity and soUdity of his deliberate satue and his heavy-handed reaUsm, (11- 12)

The "more wonderful and admhable resuh" for Swmbume is an mteUectual, laborious art, which deserves "deep reverence" (89). Swinburne's respect for Jonson is exactly that type which T. S, EUot later finds so damagmg to Jonson's reputation as a dramatist. Unlike Swinburne, few modem critics would agree that Jonson's decision to leave Plautus was regrettable. Almost aU of them would agree, however, that

Jonson does tum away fromPlautus , focusing his efforts on creating the so-caUed

"Great Comedies" for which he is known best. These comedies, which critics, foUowing Dryd^i and Coleridge, have proclaimed the best of theh kind because they foUowed classical mles and helped to estabhsh the neo-classical platform, are, m fact,

Jonson's masterpieces. Their prominence as classical masterpieces, however, must be quahfied, for h faUs to account for the Plautme method of invention and characterization m Jonson's mature works of Volpone and The Alchemist.

As we have seen, this classical view of Jonson's plays origmates m Jonson himself He strikes a Horatian pose through the pubhcation of his translation of

Horace's ^r5 Poetica and m his attempts to mfluence the perception of his plays m the prologues to his plays. Jonson's creation of this hnage receives ahnost as much of the 164

critics' attention as his drama does, and Jonson's figurei s so large that h can at tunes

overshadow other significant matters. It has long been supposed that Jonson's learned

classical doctrine was as consistent as he tried to make his contemporaries beUeve, He

had tried to present hunself as the natural inheritor of the title poet laureate by

creatmg an almost unassailable and monolhhic image of hhnself as a weU-read and

well-reasoned critic. As D, Heyward Brock and James M. Welsh suggest in theh

Quadricentennial Bibliography:

For the most part, critics have adjudged Jonson's artistic temperament to be overly inteUectual. ... his artistic craftmanship to be arduous and labored; his poetic works to be decorous and well-constmcted but heavy-handed and stiff; and his classicism, except m the profimdity of its influence, to be beyond question and fundamentaUy pervasive in all of his artistic endeavors. (11)

There is somethmg m Jonson's ego which suggests that he would have valued such an

appraisal. He might have taken exception on the point of his questionable influence,

but he was pamfuUy aware that his contemporaries never fuUy embraced his poetic

platform. The so-caUed War of the Theatres, Jonson's hnprisonments for his parts m

Ihe Isle of Dogs and Eastward Ho!, his duel with actor Gabriel Spenser, his spats with

Anthony Munday and Inigo Jones—aU ofthese pubhc conflicts show that he was far from accepted. StUl, Jonson persevered. Out of ego, out of opportunism, or out of conviction—whatever the reason, Jonson was able to stake a claim, m aU but name, on the office of poet laureate, and his identity as the EngUsh Horace was secure by the 165 time of his death. That identity, however, is misleading if we reduce ehher Horace's or Jonson's art to a set of regulations for poetry.

Like Horace, Jonson advocated a theory that encompassed the whole art of poetry. What was omitted in detaU was covered nonetheless in the general concept of decomm. As Jonson's proposed defense of Plautus reveals, this general concept is possibly the most problematic of them all. It is so because of hs dual function. Fust, decomm serves as a regulating agent for writers who wish to produce unified and coherent works. As such, h is an overarching mle that limits the writer to conventional formulations which are likely to be accepted by an audience. Second, decomm serves as an evaluative tool for the critic, whose job at the time consisted primarily of passing judgment on the suhabUity and propriety of literary works. As such, decorum becomes a central plank in the critical doctrine of Jonson and other later critics, assuming its position of primacy by the thne of Dryden and the neoclassicists. Horace had also been concemed with the overaU efficacy of poetry, as we saw in his discussions of unity and consistency in the Ars Poetica. Horace's concern, however, remains generaUzed: his examples are iUustrations, not hardened laws carved in stone. His suggestions are good advice to writers, not pontifical pronouncements, but as Jonson's translation of the Ars Poetica and his adaptation of it in his essay in Discoveries reveals, Jonson consistently reduces and Umits what he reads in Horace. He does so by transforming the often ambiguous expressions in

Horace to a more definitive and certain declaration in his own writing. He does so by 166

converting Horace's speculations and suggestions into prescriptions for poetry that

seem to carry the force of law.

The opposhion of his critical theory and his dramatic practice, when seen from

this perspective, appears inevitable; as Jonson expands his Horatian theory and

codifies hs regulations, he virtually guarantees that no play, let alone his own, can

meet the standard. As a consequence, Jonson spends much effort defending his plays

and attempting to ensure a poshive reception for them. He does so by arguing both

the merits of his ovm plays and the inability of his critics to judge his plays properly.

Interestingly, both arguments stem from a parallel rhetorical stmcture employed by the

Plautine clever slaves in their various attempts to secure theh goals while sUencing

others. Jonson borrows that rhetorical stmcture ft)r Face and Mosca m the plays, but

he also extends it to the world outside the plays. Like the block that prevents a guU

from seeking justice due to the fear of public ridicule or even punishment, Jonson's

rhetoric exposes those who criticize his plays to his scom of their ignorance and guilt.

In his echo of Tranio, Face declares in The Alchemist that "Nothing is more wretched than a guilty conscience" (5.2.47); Jonson, in tum, echoes Tranio and Face in his own

defense in Barholomew Fair where he claims that his play was "made to deUght aU, and to offend none. Provided they have ehher the wit or the honesty to thmk weU of themselves" ("Induction" 72-4).

In Discoveries, Jonson compares Ufe to drama in an expression that parallels

Shakespeare's famous lines in As You Like It: 167

All the world 's a stage. And all the men and women merely players. They have theh exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts . . . (2.7.139-42)

Jonson says;

/ have considered, our whole Ufe is Uke a Play: wherein every man, forgetfuU of himselfe, is in travaile with expression of another. Nay, wee so msist in imitating others, as wee cannot (when necessary) retume to our selves; Uke Children, that imitate the vices of Stammerers so long, tiU at last they become such; and make the habh to another nature, as h is never forgotton. (8.1093-99)

Jonson suggests that people are Umited to imitatmg others; they leam to do so early m

Ufe and forget how to act m any other way. For Jonson, this metaphor is more than a banal aphorism. In fact, h seems to capture the cmx of the matter m his conflicted affections for Plautus and Horace. Early m his career, Jonson imitates Plautus by both adopting his method of mvention and by borrowing the plots of Aulularia and Captivi.

Through contaminatio of the two Plauthie plays, Jonson fashions The Case is Altered.

Through his mastery of this method of invention and of Plautine characterization,

Jonson creates his greatest comedies, mcluding Volpone and The Alchemist. Although he recognizes that Horace, his "best master, both of vertue and wisdome" {Discoveries

8.2592), had censured Plautus, Jonson remains dedicated to his Plautme practice. In sphe of the refinement of his Horatian theory over the ensumg years, Jonson never abandons the Plautme model. He improves h, extends h, and makes h his own. 168

ENDNOTES

See, for instance, Ian Donaldson's remarks hi his book. The World Upside- Down, Comedy from Jonson to Fielding, in which he argues for viewing Epicoene in a context of the "festive" plays of England (25 ff),

^ Manin T. Herrick's Comic Theory in the Sixteenth Century (1950) and The Fusion of Horatian and Aristotelian Literary Criticism, I53I-I555 (1946) remain the most thorough treatments of the transmission and cultivation of Horatian and AristoteUan theory during the Renaissance.

^ As Richard Dutton pomts out, Redwine's .8e« Jonson's Literary Criticism is; a helpful compUation, and Redwine's introduction is the best general survey of Jonson's criticism and hs phUosohpical premises. But his volume is resolutely unhistorical, in the sense that it treats Jonson's critical classicism as, m effect, part of a dismterested debate about timeless Uterary vaules . . . (xxi) Dutton's book, Ben Jonson: Authority: Criticism, carefully reconstmcts the historical, pohtical sphere of Jonson's experience as a pubUc and private poet, and examines his critical views within that context.

* Horace's theory, which derived primarily fromth e Ars Poetica, hself contrasts with his earher practice in the Satires and Epodes, both of which contain precedents for Jonson's scatalogical remark that opens of The Alchemist. This contrast between theory and practice exists in Horace and Jonson alike, just as it does many other vmters who have verbalized theh theories of peotry.

' Miola attributes this quote to Foucauh, but he misreads Foucauh, who eschews diachronic developmental models.

^ See, for mstance, Herford and Simpson, Edgar HiU Duncan, and Supriya Chaudhuri on Jonson's indebtedness to such works as; Arnold de VUlanova's Rosarium Philosophorum, Martin del Rio's Disquisitiones Magicae (Louvain, 1599-1600), Robertus VaUensius' De Veritate & Antiquitate Artis Chemicae (Paris, 1561; printed m Lazams Zetzner's coUection, the Theatrum Chemicum of 1602). . . . [and Chrysogonus Polydoms'] coUection of treatises entitled De Alchemica. (Chaudhuri 71) Chaudhuri notes that the De Alchemica also contains Geber's Summa perfectionis metallorum, Roger Bacon's Speculum Alchemine, and Hortulanus' commentary on Tabula Smaragdina (71). 169

^ Green classifies and defhies the four types; (1) the reproductive or sacramental imitation is "the simplest" of the four, and h "governs chiefly a few passage in the Latin poems that follow whh religious fidelitythei r classical subtexts" (38); (2) the eclectic or explohative imitation, which "essentially treats all traditions as stockpiles to be drawn upon ostensibly at random. History becomes a vast container whose contents can be disarranged endlessly without suffering damage" (38-9); (3) the heuristic imiatation, which "can come about only through a double process of discovery; on the one hand through a tentative and experimental gropmg for the subtext in its specificity and otherness, and on the other hand through a groping for the modem poet's own appropriate voice and idiom" (42); and (4) the dialectical imitation, which is not completely distinct fromth e heuristic (43), but which "exposes the vulnerabiUty of the subtext while exposing itself to the subtext's potential aggression" (45),

^ For a fuU discussion of this trope, see S. NeU's "A Bee m Pindar's Bonnet" m Recapturing the Renaissance. NeU points out the mistaken attribution of the hnage of the bee to Horace; The origin of the image, as Isidore Silver demonstrates, is found in Pindar's Pythian 10; "For the song of praise / darts fromthem e to them, like a bee." ... In Pindar, the bee is neutral; hs actions "dart" but that is the only description the poet provides. The bee is the poem ("the song of praise"). Elsewhere in Pindar, the poem is the product of the bee's labor; "My voice is sweeter than the bee-wrought honeycombs" {Odes 601). In Horace's Ode 4.2, on the other hand . . . the poet becomes the bee. (183)

^ For a fuU discussion, see Gerard H. Cox's "Apocalyptic Projection and the Comic Plot of The Alchemist," in which he argues that Lovewit's triumph in the end of the play contrasts sharply with the apocalyptic, visionary wishes of most of the other characters.

^° Miola finds problems in traditional source-hunting criticism on Shakespeare similar to those I have found while working on Jonson; T.W. Baldwin's monumental labours, of course, have long since settled many major pomts in the debate about Shakespeare's classical learning. Yet, the problems which hindered the first attempts to discuss Shakespeare's indebtedness to New Comedy stUl persist today, albeh m new forms; (1) the failure to recognize the range and variety of New Comedy; (2) a narrow critical approach that privUiges verbal echo as evidence of influence; (3) an madequate understanding of sources, texts, and their relations. (11) 170 Imitations may have significance, but not necessarily. Imitation, like any other artistic endeavor, can fail. However, even in the case of a faUed imitation, the first two ofthese qualities remam soUdly in place; the writer's knowledge of the origmal and his motivation to mclude it are givens. The reasoning, however, which leads the reader or critic toward the question of significance and meaning may be lacking.

Horace's influence obviously goes beyond Jonson; h was extensive during the early years of the Renaissance in England, Thora Burnley Jones and Bernard de Bear Nicol offer three reasons for Horace's stature. Fust, the Ars Poetica "had better luck than the text of Ihe Poetics m continuing to lead a lively existence throughout the medieval period" (13). In fact, until hs rediscovery in the early sixteenth century, Aristotle's Poetics was unknovm in England. After hs rediscovery, h was largely subordinated to the Ars Poetica and the two texts were seen as supportmg one another, a view which created a synthesis of the Roman and Greek Uterary theories. Hardison and Golden note; When Aristotle's Poetics was rediscovered around 1535, h did not displace The Art of Poetry. In sphe of what seem today obvious differences in theory and specific mformation, the two works were regarded as complementary, and where differences ocurred that were impossible to paper over-as for example, the difference between Aristotle's theory of catharsis and Horace's idea that poetry should profit (or instmct) and delight—the problem was usually resolved by bending Aristotle's ideas to fit the more famiUar ideas of Horace. (3) Second, Jones and Nicol argue that rhetorical modes dominated at that thne and Horace's dicta suited rhetorical analysis and interpretations (13). Third, Horace's language was immediately recognizeable to any gentleman of letters, and "his emphasis on decorum, propriety, conformism, suhed the age" (13), Indeed, Horace's emphasis on conventional and consistent Iherature is his primary gift to the critics and playwrights in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, Hardison and Golden add that the Ars Poetica is "the only classical essay on literary criticism that has been known with something lUce continuity from the date of hs composition to the present day" (3). Marvin T. Herrick summarizess the debt owed to Horace and Aristotie; For convenience I have tried to divide the dramatic mles under more or less distinct headings. Actually, the doctrine of decorum which colors almost every passage in the Ars Poetica, might be called the most important of all dramatic mles. ... I find that the [other] mles of the drama may be classified under seven headings; (1) plot is the should of poetry. (2) The dramatic unities must be observed. (3) Characters should be conventionalized. (4) All plays should be divided into five acts. (5) The choms should be treated as one of the actors. (6) The 171

deus ex machina should be used but sparingly. (7) Spectacle is the least artistic element m the theatre. All the mles are derived, dhectly or indirectly, fromth e Poetics and the Ars Poetica. (Herrick, Fusion 68- 69)

^^ All references to Discoveries and Jonson's translation of the Ars Poetica, thled Horace, of The Art ofPoetrie, are to the texts in volume 8 of Ben Jonson, compUed and edhed by Herford and Shnpson, which remains the most authoritative edition ofthese two works. References to Jonson's plays are to G.A. Wilkes' edhion. The Complete Plays of Ben Jonson, 4 volumes, which are based on and improvements of Herford and Simpson's edition.

^* The unidentified author ("I.C") of "Ode; To Ben Jonson upon his Ode to himselfe" declares in an apostrophe to Jonson, "Sing EngUsh Horace, Sing" (Herford and Simpson 11.338), and Sh Edward Herbert says in "Upon his Friend Mr. Ben Jonson and his Translation," "Thy glory is / To be the Horace of our times, and his" (Herford and Simpson 11.352).

^' Robert B. Pierce examines the association between Horace and Jonson, extending the comparison to hs limits. He suggests that Jonson "could see himself in the low-bom Horace . . . who rose to a position of Uterary and social importance through his talent and its recognition by wealthy men of good taste" (28). Pierce goes on to offer many similarities in the two men's lives; both lived in poUtically dangerous positions; both led fuU mteUectual lives and mdulged their "love for books, wine, food, and conviviality" (28); and, both were masters of Uterary theory and practice who pursued theh art as a way to edify their audiences (29). He goes on; There are similarities of life and habhs to justify the association [between Jonson and Horace]. . . . Horace overcame a pohticaUy dangerous poshion as a foUower of Bmtus at Philippi, to become a fiiend of the mighty. In his place in Maecenas' circle, he was subject to the sneers of the vulgar and ignorant but confident of his own worth. He led a quietly full Ufe, mdulging his love for books, wine, food, and conviviality. Even by 1601 and Poetaster, Jonson could see part of this pattern flilfiUed in his own life and could hope for more, which fortune was at least for a time to give him. StiU, Horace is more than a poet of similar career. Above all, he is what Jonson sought to make himself . . . Horace is the poet of ars as weU as ingenium. Jonson's own ideal of conscious craftmanship is manifested in the author of the Ars Poetica, master of both the theory and practice of the poetic craft. Unlike the sneering poetasters of his 172

day and Jonson's, Horace knows that writmg slowly is a virtue, that one should publish one's works with care, that one should educate the public by discussing the poetic art in and around one's poems. Horace has a conscious poetic enterprise, to domesticate the leamed and self- conscious art of Alexandria so as to make h expressive of Roman Ufe and of a self-knowing, sophisticated way of living and thmkmg.

Jonson surely had no more illusion that he personally was the Horace of the poems than that James was Augustus. He knew enough of himself to suggest both strengths and weaknesses of his own nature in the impatient ideaUst of satire. Asper in Every Man Out of His Humour, and in those two failed moral guides, Humphrey Waspe and Adam Overdo of Bartholomew Fair. What we know of the private man is in many ways far fromth e poetic Horace (and, one suspects, fromth e real Augustan), The EUzabethan who kiUed his man in single combat, who fought a duel, who was in and out of prison, who abmptly committed himself for a decade to a religion that was iUegal, indeed treasonous; such a man seems a strange candidate to imitate the urbane Roman who laughed at fleeingwithou t his shield from PWUippi. . . whose confession of being Laodicean in religion. , . is more convincing than the repentance that the ode goes on to describe. (28-30)

*^ Many critics have lamented the loss of the accompanying commentary to Jonson's translation of Ars Poetica. Its loss has evoked "nearly universal mourning," suggests Townsend, for "Jonson would certainly have told us with characteristic exhaustiveness how thoroughly imbued he was with the stmctural principles of Attic comedy . . . how learnedly he revived the men and manners of ancient Rome" (19). One cannot help but think his commentary would be useful; yet, his translation of Ars Poetica and his other writmg provides much insight into his understandmg of the ancients and their dramatic theory, and this essay in Discoveries presents a synopsis of the main principles in Horace's poem.

*^ Jonson's distinction between wh and labor is at the heart of his critical reception over the last three hundred plus years. As Freda L. Townsend suggests, the reception has usually pitted Jonson's "slower pen and the inferiority of his laborious and leamed Art to Shakespeare's easy and Abundant Nature" (2). Townsend's summary of the major movement of the critics' poshions shows that critics line up according to their view of wit and labor, coloring their reaction to Jonson's work (2-30). 173

^^ The Latin text is that of NiaU Rudd's edhion. Translations which are enclosed in square brackets are mine. All others, unless noted otherwise, are Jonson's, taken from his Horace, of the Art ofPoetrie.

19 Hardison and Golden note Horace's shift of focus from inspiration to rational control; In most primitive poetry, including the Hebrew psalms, the Homeric hymns, the odes of Pindar, and the Iliad and Odyssey, the poet attributes the poem to a higher power caUed a Muse and equated, m general, with inspiration. Related to inspiration is another, imponderable talent (Latin ingenium, sometimes translated "genius" or "wit"). Talent is something we are bom with. It is a gift of nature and cannot be leamed. Rhetoric and poetics teach that writmg is an art—a technique that can be mastered by following mles. The Art of Poetry is m this tradition and reflects the fact by the profiision of mles that the speaker lays down, (69) They add to this distmction the notable omission of any "mention of poetic frenzyo r fantastic images" in Horace's discussion of poetry's civilizing force in lines 391-407 of Ars Poetica {16-1).

^° If one acknowledges the official stance on the Divine Right of Kings, the analogy of the births of kings and poets seems to support the idea of inspired poets; the happy coincidence of being born to the right family is actually, then, providential. From this perspective, the analogy might suggest that God's influence is, in fact, controlling the events that create the kmg or the poet. Nevertheless, the argument seems unlikely when one considers the context of the quotation, not to mention Jonson's discussion of the poet's office.

^^ Harold Ogden White also notices this reciprocal relationship between imitatio and lectio: "Reading and imitation . . . may be considered together, as two steps in a smgle process" (197). His study provides an exceUent overview of imitation and the emerging concept of plagiarism during the Renaissance.

^^In Disoveries, Jonson suggests a program of reading for students; And as h is fit to read the best authors to youth first,s o let them be of the openest and clearest, as Livy before Sallust, Sidney before Donne; and beware of letting them taste Gower or Chaucer at first, lest falUng too much m love with antiquity, and not apprehendmg the weight, they grow rough and barren in language only. When their judgments are firm and out of danger, let them read both the old and the new, but no less take heed that their new flowers and sweetness do not as much 174

cormpt as the others' dryness and squalor, if they do not choose carefuUy. Spenser, in affectmg the ancients, writ no language, yet I would have him read for his matter, but as VirgU read Ennius. The reading of Homer and VugU is counseUed by QuintUian as the best way of informing youth and confiirming man, for besides that the mind is raised with height and subhmity of such a verse, h takes spirit fromth e greatness of the matter and is tincted with the best things. Tragic and lyric poetry is good too, and the comic with the best, if the manners of the reader be once m safety. In the Greek poets, as also in Plautus, we shaU see the economy and disposition of poems better observed than in Terence and the later, who thought the sole grace and vutue of theh fable the sticking in of sentences, as ours do the forcing in of jests. (8.1796-820) Jonson, here, raises a number of issues of importance; the reader's preparedness and maturity help to determine the reading selections because, in Jonson's view of the unready, certain reading material may cause a negative or destmctive effect. At the same time, for the prepared reader, reading a wide range of ancient and contemporary wniters provides the best education,

^ Jonson, perhaps uncharacteristicaUy, argues at one point in Discoveries that most people, if they appUed themselves, could participate m the inteUectual activities he is discussing; Wee should not protect our sloath with the patronage of difficulty. It is a false quarreU against nature, that shee helpes understanding, but in a few; when the most part of mankind are mchn'd by her thither, if they would take the paines, no lesse then birds to fly, horses to mn, &c Which if they lose, h is through theh owne sluggishnesse. , . . (8.1821- 826) This statement reinforces Jonson's position on ingenium as an mteUectual capacity and his subversion of mspiration, for, if sloth is responsible for the lack of understandmg, inspiration is obviously outside of the picture,

^* In his detaUed anafysis of theories of hnitation during the Renaissance, Harold Ogden White notes Jonson's admonition to his readers against "three dangerous attitudes toward this process [of hnitation]; opposition, or the refusal to read and hnitate, pretended opposition, cloaking secret serviUty; avowed seviUty" (197). He then provides Jonson's description of those who exhibh these problems; Those who adopt the first attitude, "the obstmate contemners of aU helpes, and Arts; suchas presuming on theh own Naturals . . . dare deride aU dUigence, and seeme to mock at the termes, when they understand not the things"—these would-be poets "utter aU they can 175

thinke, whh a kind of violence, and indisposhion; unexamin'd, without relation, either to person, place, or any fitnesse else". . . This second group is composed of all those writers who "by cunning protestation against aU readmg, and false venditation of theh own naturals, thmk to divert the sagacity of their Readers from themselves, and coole the scent of theh own fox-like thefts. (197-98) Those in the thud group grant too much authority to sources; "Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an Author a Dictator,as the schooles have done Aristotie" (198),

^' Jonas A. Barish, in his introductory essay to Ben Jonson: A Collection of Critical Essays, offers a concise and cogent summary of the discussions surrounding the Jonson/Shakespeare relationship. Most ofthese discussions before 1950 and almost aU of them before Herford and Shnpson's first volumes appeared in 1925 engage in adhominem attacks on Jonson, The bardolaters seemed to believe that casting aspersions on Jonson, would lead to Shakespeare's increased fame. Unfortunately, although Jonson's reputation and critical interest m him have rebounded sUghtly in the late twentieth century, these faUacious arguments seem to have worked during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early to mid-twentieth centuries, FinaUy, scholars have realized that both poets can be respected at the same time for their different attributes,

^^ As Herrick notes, Erasmus saw two types of decomm of character, which reflect this link between social customs and literary propriety. These two types are; (1) decomm in the philosophical or social sense, i.e. proper, conventional behavior accordmg to established social custom—the "mirror of custom", (2) artisitic decomm, i.e. proper and natural behavior according to the dramatic art of the poet, according to what the particular dramatic situation calls for. (140)

^^ Jonson makes the connection of language and character frequently m Discoveries. For instance, he asserts, "Wheresoever, manners, and fashions are cormpted. Language is. It imitates the publicke riot. The excesse of Feasts, and apparell, are the notes of a sick State; and the wantonnesse of language, of a sick mind" (8.954-58); and, in a section titie marginally as "Oratio imago animi [Speech, the hnage of the soul], he suggests that "Language most shewes a man. ..." (8.203 Iff).

^* Richard Dutton seems to discern this connection in Ben Jonson: Authority: Criticism: 176

. . where Jonson findsfau h with his contemporaries he does so with a consistent view of the qualities that poetry ought to have, and most particularly of the relationship that ought to pertain between poet and reader. What he says about letter-writing, ahhough m many ways a tmism, is also a key to this: "respect to discem what fits yourself, him to whom you write, and that which you handle, which is quaUty fit to conclude the rest, because h doth include all" {Discoveries 2305-8). That is, find a a proper relationship between yourself as writer and those you expect to read you, and finda n equally proper relationship between your subject-matter and the words with which you will express it. . . . This is the essence of poetic decorum: that which is fitting. (134)

^^ It is a commonplace in Jonsonian criticism to single out Jonson for praise in his elevation of the poet's output to the status of literary "work." This point is particularly apphcable in the case of drama, the "plays" which had tradhionaUy been regarded as trivial. As Claude Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth pomt out; When he began writing for the stage in the mid-1590s, few were wiUing to admit that popular drama could be considered Iherature, Plays were published almost invariably in cheap, hastily produced, often inaccurate quartos which were read once or twice and then either thrown away or sold to wastepaper dealers. But Jonson had a noble conception of drama. To him, plays, whether written in verse or prose, were or should be poems; and he considered poetry one of the highest and most usefiU of human expressions. (43) The audacity of publishing his collected works, including the plays, shows (in addition to a glimpse at his ego) that he beUeved in the height and the usefulness of poetry.

^° Sidney says; Therefore compare we the poet with the historian and with the moral philosopher; and if he go beyond them both, no other human skill can match him. . . . The phUosopher . . . and the historian are they which would win the goal, the one by precept, the other by example. But both, not having both, do both halt. . . . Now doth the peeriess poet perform both; for whatsoever the philosopher saith should be done, he giveth a perfect picture of h m someone by whom he presupposeth h was done, so as he coupleth the general notion with the particular example. (371-402)

^^ Horace's awareness of the audience and the effect of decorous and mdecorous art on that audience is central to the poem. A brief list of Unes to address 177 his concern includes: 1-5, 101-05; 108-13, 153-57; 180-88; 248-50; 263-74; 319-22, 333-36; 341-50; and 361-62. The audience's reaction to poetic elements is frequently discussed under the heading of verisimilitude.

The UtUity of poetry, however, undergoes a transformation as the concept moves into currency during the Renaissance, To the civil and ethical behavior of ancient morahty, squarely fixed on the promotion of the state, is added a strong spiritual emphasis. While a thorough examination of this topic could easUy consume a whole volume, the issue is significant enough to require at least a brief overview for, m the history of EngUsh drama as weU as in Jonson's drama, the edification of the audience is a central plank in the defense of the theater. As Helena Watts Baum notes; The course of the development of the didactic theory hself may be traced along an almost unbroken path from Horace to Jonson. Throughout sixteen hundred years, there were few poets and critics who totally disregard the didactic element in Uterature. Some poets are more emphatic about the moral value of their work than are others, but no poet and no critic attempts to state a theory of art based solely on aesthetic principles. (Buam 6) The utility of poetry remains central to critical discussions precisely because the single most damagmg charge leveUed at the theater, particularly at the comedies acted upon its stage, is its contribution to wanton and lascivious behaviors. Gaining some momentum by appealing to Plato's willingness to banish certain poets from his ideal state, the attackers deshe to control their society by controlling hs theater. Whether critics of drama speak of Plautus' prodigal sons and insubordinate slaves or of Beavis and Butthead's pyromania and rebellion against authority, a common objection against drama resides in the notion that the sight of such thmgs will influence some to emulate the misbehavior. Defenders of the theater often note this objection, and they respond with either a partial acceptance of hs claim, or by a flat denial, which is buttressed by the reassertion of the conclusion that drama instmcts and couldn't possibly do such damage, or most commonly by a combination of the two arguments. The partial acceptance of the objection operates rhetorically Uke a scape-goat; the defender heaps the indecorous offenses onto a particularly illustrative play, offers h up as pernicious and indefensible, and, then, defends the "right" kind of drama. Sidney's discussion of this objection in The Defense of Poesy exempUfies this tactic; The third [objection to poetry] is, how much h abuseth men's wit, training h to wanton sinfulness and lustful love, for indeed that is the principal, if not the only, abuse I can hear alleged. They say the comedies rather teach then reprehend amorous conceits, . . . Nay tmly, though I yield that poesy may not only be abused, but that bemg abused, by the reason of his sweet charming force, h can do more hurt than any other army of words, . . . Contrariwise, h is good reason that 178

whatsoever, being abused, doth most harm, bemg rightlyuse d (and upon the rightus e each thmg receives his thle) doth most good. (970- 1004) Sidney, clearly no fiiend or defender of the contemporary Renaissance EngUsh comedy, m a rhetorical masterstroke acknowledges that some plays faU to edify, but he denies them the status of poetry, withholdmg even the name of poetry from them because they have disqualified themselves through theh abuses Thomas Heywood concurs in An Apology for Actors, making h clear that he defends only plays that edify: "I speake not in the defence of any lascivious shewes, scurrelous jeasts, or scandalous invectives. If there be any such I banish them quite from my patronage" (54). The complete denial of the charge rests on a two-pronged argument. First, in a version of the et tu accusation, the defender claims that comedy is a mirror of custom; comedy merely reflects the world and the behaviors of people as they are. A particularly pointed statement of this argument appears m Richard Baker's Theatrum Redivivum, or the Theatre Vindicated, published m 1662; Indeed, the Passages of the world are exceUent Glasses, if they be had within reasonable distance, which, as it is the purpose of Histories to do by Relation, so it is the purpose of Plays to do it by Representation, as Cicero sahh, Haec conflcta arbitror a Poetis esse, ut effictos mores nostros, expressamque imaginem nostrae quotidianae vitae videamus: Plays, I conceive, were devised by Poets for this purpose; that in them, as m a Gla[ss], we might see the maners, and very Image of our daUy Ufe. Plays mdeed are Glasses of the Passages, and Actions of the world; and it is unhappy for Glasses, when they faU mto the hands of Ill-favoured faces; for they may chance to lay the Illfavouredne[ss] of their faces upon the Glasses: and just so h is with this man; for he lays aU the blame of the world's bad actions upon Plays, where he ought rather to lay aU blame of Plays bad actions upon the worid; for, if the world were good. Plays would be good; but, if the worid be bad. Plays are but the Glasses, they do but theu kmde to represent h as h is; and therefore no fauh of thehs, if they be bad too, (m Platz 71) As a mhror, the play can be only as vhtuous and moral as the society to wiiich h belongs; if society wishes to object to the plays on the stage, this argument tums the objection mto an accusation of those who would object. The second prong of the argument rests also on the conception of drama as a mirror which exposes a society to hself. In the process, accordmg to this argument, the exposure of social Uls aUows a metamorphosis to occur; the negative example represented on stage becomes a positive precept that encourages reform. Perhaps one of the earUest statements m EngUsh to this effect is Sh Thomas Elyot's. In the first book of The Governour, he denies the contention that, m poetry, there "is nothyng contayned but inchation to lechery"; 179

First, comedies, whiche they suppose to be a doctrinaU of rybaudrie, they be undoutedly a picture or as h were a mirrour of mans hfe. Wherin iueU is nat taught but discouerd; to the intent that men beholdynge the promptnes of youth unto vice: the snares of harlottes and baudes laide for yonge myndes; the disceipte of servantes; the chaunces of fortune contrary to mennes expectation; they beinge therof warned: may prepare them selfe to resist or prevente occasion, (Rude 62) In reahty, the second prong is virtually identical to the first because h assumes that the society is m need of reform. Pushed to hs furthest extension, the argument becomes an indictment of those who object most strenously by aUudhig to the scriptures and, especiaUy, the parables of Christ to demonstrate the precedent for teaching through negative example. Elyot, Sidney, and, MUton aU employ this tactic m theh defenses of hterature.

^^ James Hynd offers this Uteral translation of Imes 270-74: But you may say, our ancestors praised the metrics and the wit of Plautus—and they were overindulgent, not to say stupid, in admiring either; if you and I, that is, can separate a coarse from an elegant expression, and with fingersan d ear check the observance of metrical law m a sequence of sounds. (54)

^* The lacuna which occurs after he asserts his thesis raises some interesting questions. Did Jonson become occupied with something else? Since the next entry in Discoveries discusses the parts of a comedy and its relation to tragedy, did Jonson intend to weave a defense of Plautus out of his systematic study of the genre and hs conventions? Was Jonson unable to reconcUe the opposition of his affections for the two figures? Did Jonson's faiUng health, or his death m 1637, prevent the completion of his essay which was probably written somethne m the last two years of his Ufe? Unless we uncover new evidence, these questions wiU remahi unanswered.

^' For a fiiU discussion of the derivation of the term contaminatio, see W. Beare's The Roman Stage (first edhion 1-44; thud edition Appendix K). Although he pushes the etymology too far in his conclusion that the term cannot mean "spoUmg by combining"—a meaning which he admits exists m general usage m his argument to reject this sense m hs hterary appUcation—his overview provides a clear and concise summary of the issue. In The Nature of Roman Comedy, George^. Duckworth provides a less dogmatic view m his summary of the problems associated with the term and, thus, offers a good counter-balance to Beare,

^ The two meanings of shnply "spoiling" or "spoiling by combming" lead to the commounon division in critical approaches; contaminatio is employed (1) negatively. 180

servmg as evidence to mdict Plautus for his mferior and madequate artistry, (2) poshively, servmg as evidence to praise his skiU m the handUng his sources, or (3) denied altogether. The weaknesses of the firstpositio n are summarized effectively by Duckworth; There are several basic weaknesses m the methods of the scholars favoring contammation [i.e., beUevmg contaminatio is at work m the plays]; (1) they explain by contaminatio many features of the plays which are more propCTly attributed to the stagmg of the plays with a Umited cast, to conventions of ancient comedy, to the playwright's deshe for clarity and humor; (2) they ascribe to Plautus or Terence aU real or hnagined weaknesses in the plays and assume that the origmals were free from repetitions and mconsistencies—a most unUkely assumption, since, as Bowra says, "aU authors contradict themselves, many contradict themselves violently"; (3) they beheve that the Roman playwrights had Uttle origmaUty and no abUity to compose scenes or episodes of any value, so that any additions or msertions must necessarily betray the cmde and faulty workmanship of the Roman playwright; (4) above aU, they faU to look upon the plays as comedy created for the entertahiment and deUght of spectators. (206-07) In other words, contaminatio is given as a common reason for flaws m Plautus' plays. He added too much to his source, they argue; or, he omitted too much of h, they contend. From this perspective, Plautus, an mferior comic writer, is unable to manage and manipulate his sources adequately to provide a worthy vehicle for his jests. The second view revises our understandmg of Plautus and his technique The discovery of Menander's Dyskolos has helped to Uhuninate Plautus' method of invention, showing his abihty to manipulate his origmal through multipUcation of characters and actions, through abridgement of the origmal and expansion of key elements. (See WUUam S. Anderson's Barbarian Play: Plautus' Roman Comedy for its discussion of Plautus' adaptation through expansion, elaboration, hyperbolic extension, and omission of source material.) Although discussions of contaminatio m Plautus remains speculative, it gains a basis m verifiable evidence through this examination of his adaptation of the Dyskolos. FinaUy, there are those that avoid the question altogether; they reject the theories for a lack of evidence. As Beare says m the first edition of his book, almost any proposed solution [to the problems m Plautus' plays], however farfetched, Ues nearer at hand than a theory of contamination, , . . [But] for the statement of Terence, scholars would scarcely have wasted theh- thne in spinning these cobwebs, (47) WhUe these poshions are cmcial to a modem understandmg of contaminatio, I have relegated them to the position here m the notes because these arguments would have been unavaUable to Jonson, who inherits his understanding of the situation from 181

Terence and Donatus, Both suggest strongly that Plautus, in fact, spoiled his origmals by combinmg them into smgle plays.

37 Pahner Bovie suggests that Lyconides returns the gold to EucUo, wms Eucho's forgiveness and Phaedria's hand in marriage. In addhion, Euclio realizes that the gold has caused hhn only grief and anxiety, so he decides to give the gold to the young family as a dowry for his daughter ("Introduction" to Auluaria 90-1).

The exposhion of the play occurs over the first two acts. Count Femeze is a MUanese nobleman. His wife has died three months before, and he is preparing to send Paulo, his son, mto battle with the French. He requests that the MUanese general MaxhnUian take special precautions for Paulo's safety because he is worried that he wiU lose his only remaining son, the other (CamiUo) having been lost when the French laid seige to MUan nmeteen years earUer. Femeze also has two daughters, AureUa and PhoenixeUa. Paulo loves Rachel de Prie, the daughter of the "beggar" Jaques de Prie. Jaques is, in reaUty, Melun, the servant of the French nobleman Chamont. Jaques assumed his new identity after he stole Chamont's treasure and daughter Isabel, now Rachel. Thus, before the action begins, Femeze's son and Chamont's daughter have been abducted and are Uving in the opposed cities. The report of Paulo's capture is received. General Maximilian returns with his own captives, the young Chamont and his servant Gaspar, who is actuaUy Ferneze's son CamiUo. Chamont and Gaspar have traded places, so when Count Femeze decides to exchange the young Chamont for his own son Paulo, he unwittingly releases Chamont and keeps the servant. When a feUow captive, Pacua, reveals the deception to Count Femeze, Femeze is convmced that he has lost Paulo and becomes determined to take revenge on Gaspar/CamiUo by executing him. As the play unfolds, Rachel is wooed by Paulo, Onion, Christophero, Count Femeze, and Angelo. Each of the suhors serves to antagonize Jaques, who beUeves that the suitors want his gold. He resolves to throw off theh scent of money by burymg his gold in horse dung. When he discovers Juniper near the gold, he interrogates him and, confirming the safety of the gold, releases him. However, he fails to notice Onion hiding in a tree, and he unknowingly reveals the gold to Onion. Juniper and Onion steal the gold, usmg h to transform themselves into gentlemen. In this suit for Rachel, Angelo betrays his fiiendPaulo , Christophero betrays Onion, and the Count betrays Christophero. Angelo's offense is worst; he steals Rachel away and attempts to rape her. Jaques discovers the loss of his gold and his daughter at the same thne, and he comes to Count Ferneze to plead his case, reveaUng his concern for his money and not his daughter. Angelo's attempted rape is stopped by Paulo, who accompanies the faithful young Chamont to Ferneze's. They arrive just in time to stop the execution of 182

Gaspar/CamiUo. Femeze begs young Chamont's forgiveness, offering the loss of CamUlo as a reason for his rage. His reference to CamUlo catches young Chamont's attention and leads to the discovery that Gaspar is CamiUo, Jaques continues to sue for justice and, m the process, reveals his crhne agamst Chamont, leadmg to the discovery of Rachel's tme identity as young Chamont's sister. Young Chamont offers Paulo Rachel's hand m marriage, and Count Femeze reciprocates by offering Aureha to him.

^^ This handling of Angelo's attempted rape is remarkably shnUar to Volpone's attempt in Volpone. What seems particularly interesting is that, while critics have roundly condemned Bonario's and CeUa's characterizations, there can be no doubt that Bonario's counterpart in Ihe Case is Altered is intended to be held m high regard. Paulo's victory over Angelo confirms his love for Rachel and guarantees his success m his suit to win her hand. Because CeUa is already married and Bonario is not her suitor, his action seems even more altmistic.

*^ It should be admitted at the outset of the discussion that he leams to update his sources and to locate them in a pertment dramatic context more effectively than he had in The Case is Altered. That admission, however, merely reinforces my argument that contaminatio is a central part of Jonson's mvention; the improved appUcation shows that he spent the time and effort to master the skUl.

** Robert N. Watson's analysis, "The Alchemist and Jonson's Conversion of Comedy," is a notable exception, although it is mostly concemed with the play's connection with drama in Renaissance England.

*^ In Poenulus, Plautus constmcts a conventional comedy which centers on a young man's attempt, whh the help of his slave, to secure the freedom of his beloved from a leno. The play is compUcated, however, by the dramatic situation. The young Carthaginian Agorastocles was stolen as a child and sold to a wealthy Calydonian, who subsequently dies and leaves Agorastocles rich. Agorastocles' natural father has also died, leavmg his estate to Hanno. To confuse thmgs further, Hanno has also lost his two daughters, who were kidnapped along with their nurse and sold to Lycus the leno. Thus, as the play begms, Hanno, who has been searchmg for his daughters, is about to arrive in Calydon, and Agorastocles is trying to find some way to purchase his cousin Adelphasium as a mistress from the unscmpulous pimp. Agorastocles and his slave MUphio design a plan; they will disguise one of Agorastocles' slaves as a foreign traveUer with ready money. When Lycus takes the bah and offers to entertain the traveller, Agorastocles wiU appear demandmg the return of his slave. Not knowing about this set-up, Lycus wiU deny Agorastocles' demand, exposing Lycus to legal action for holding the slave unlaw^lly. 183

Agorastocles, in turn, can clahn damages equivalent to the value of Lycus' household, mcludmg the beloved Adelphasium and her sister. This plan proceeds as planned, and Agorastocles' hired witnesses order Lycus to appear in court the next day. As the play contmues, Lycus' slave mforms MUphio that the ghls are m fact free-bom sisters. WhUe Milphio discusses how to best use this mformation with Agorastocles, Hanno arrives. After some horse-play mvolvmg Hanno's language and MUphio's pretense to know Carthagmian, Hanno reveals that he is the ghls' father and Agorastocles' relative. The ghls' nurse confirms the identities of aU, and the reunited famUy combines their efforts to defeat Lycus, who loses not only the ghls but also his deal with a soldier to purchase the sister. Lycus promises to supply the soldier with another concubme and refunds Agorastocles' dovm-payment on Adelphasium.

*^ John D. Rea provides a thorough overview of Jonson's sources for Volpone in the mtroduction to his edition of the play (xi-xxx). The common treatments ofthese sources provide a thorough Ustmg of debts, but more attention needs to be paid to Jonson's uses of his sources.

** James AS. McPeek suggests that "m contrast to the tolerance and occasional enthusiasm displayed towards the Carmina by Contintental scholars, Enghsh scholars appear to have been mdisposed to making texts avaUable" (27), He goes on to argue that avaUabiUty of CatuUus' poems was intentionaUy restricted in Britain because the EngUsh "would never altogether accept his vituperative abuse [and] his darkly ribald bittemess" (28), Although the absolute is goes too far, McPeek is undoubtedly right in his assessment of the aversion to the offensive poems, which are stiU, fiffy years after his writmg, rarely translated in toto or in language faithful to the original.

*' See James A. S. McPeek's Catullus in Strange and Distant Britain for his comprehensive exammation of Catullus' influence m England. For Jonson's role m CatuUus' popularization, see particularly chapters 3-7. In these chapters, McPeek catalogues Jonson's adaptations of carmina 5 and 7; his allusions to carmina 8, 13, 21, 22, 36, 37, 55, 61, 62, 66, 68b, 69, 74, and 102; and some possible connections to carmina 6, 23, 35, 43, 45, 51, 58, and 68a. He findsth e aUusions and connections m a wide range of Jonson's works, mcludmg the plays: Cynthia's Revels, Sejanus, Poetaster, Volpone, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair, and A Tale of a Tub, the masques; Love Freed from Folly, Masque of Hymen, Masque of Queens, and Masque of Barriers, and the poems, particularly .£/7;^aw to the Small-Pox. Jonson, thus, had a fairly extensive, if not complete, knowledge of CatuUus and was central to the popularization of CatuUus m Britain. The sons of Ben advanced the work that Jonson began, but a complete version of CatuUus' carmina is avaUable only m Latm to readers before the nmetheenth century (McPeek 239). McPeek's findmgs need fiuther 184 attention, for some of his contentions about Jonson's uses of CatuUus are questionable. On the whole, however, his findmgs are defensible and supported by earUer readings by Gifford, Emperor, and Judson

I do not mtend to suggest that CatuUus is as cmcial to Volpone as, say, Aulularia and Captivi are to The Case is Altered. In fact, one could argue, as John D. Rea and Douglas Duncan have, that Lucian provides the basic legacy-huntmg scenario m the play. Jonson obviously owes debts to others for the plot; yet, at the same thne, his inclusion of the carmina, hke the quotation fromPlautus ' Poenulus m The Alchemist, hmts at Jonson's use of more than just the two poems. As I wiU argue, in his readmg of CatuUus Jonson adopts CatuUus' view to color his own portrayal of the Venetian world, and that shading becomes a pervasive, if not essential, component of the play through the thematic devolopments of deterioratmg values and relationships.

*^ Chapter I contams a caution which is worth repeatmg; as Thomas Greene says, a common topos defies attempts to clearly define hs transmission from one work to another. These two themes shared by Jonson and CatuUus may be coincidentally simUar; however, I wiU show that the preponderance of the evidence weights the case in favor of the connection.

** The t5T)ical affau, at least publicly, was generaUy a trivial and temporary arrangement (Arkins 4-45; Lyne 8-17). CatuUus, though, appears to be describmg his desue for a serious and permanent relationship with Lesbia, a deshe that exposes hhn to the charges of bemg effeminate m carmina 16.

*^ For a fliU treatment of the dynamic interplay between the poems and the constant dialogical tension in them, see Paul AUen MUler's chapter, "The Garden of Forking Paths; CatuUus and the Bhth of the CoUection," m Lyric Texts and Lyric Consciousness.

'^ See, for mstance, poems 11 and 58, where CatuUus accuses Lesbia of havmg sexual relations with some three hundred men and of being a prostitute.

'^ In 64, CatuUus describes the death of Aegeus: Aegeus's son, Theseus, faUs to fly the proper sail to signal his successful return, thereby mdicating that some disaster had stmck. So, thinking he has lost Theseus, who is described as "gnate mihi longa iucuruUor unice uita [my only son, more dehghtful than long life]" (64.215), Aegeus kUls hhnself. This example offers a "natural" meanhig of a father's love—a love founded upon absolute purity, devotion, and selfless sacrifice. But, as we wUl see, this love hardly typifies the usual paternal mstinct m CatuUus' poems. 185

Although not technicaUy famihal, even the relationship of Mosca and Volpone is marked by Mosca's betrayal of Volpone in his scheme to assume the role of the clarissimo. For discussions of the close, impUchly homosexual bond between Mosca and Volpone, see Howard MarchiteU's essay "Deshe and Dommation m Volpone"

'^ Paul AUen Miller suggests David Sweet's "Catullus 11: A Study in Perspective," for "an exceUent readmg of the temporal complexity of CatuUus' poetry and how each new reading both buUds on and surpasses all past readmgs" ("Sappho 11 and CatuUus 51" 194n). As Miller and Sweet suggest, the readmg and rereadmg of Catullus provides an mfinite range of mterpretations. The accuracy of that observation precludes any attempt to reconstmct Jonson's reading of CatuUus whh certainty; however, I beUeve my readmg of Catullus reflects the complex relationship between the poems and Jonson's play.

'* Gordon WUUams argues a simUar type pomt when he develops what he caUs "arbitrary assertion of similarity" m CatuUus's use of metaphor. He suggests that the connections between "fields of ideas" force a reconstmction of meaning for both, or aU, of the ideas, because of the mterplay of ideas (45-61).

" The division of the poem occurs on the basis of thne {nunc 72.4) and on the basis of knowledge {cognoui 72.4). That is, the nature of CatuUus' love for Lesbia changes because he has recognized some injustice {iniuria 72.7) on her part. Further, the antithesis resonates in each couplet, particularly in the comparisons. In the first couplet, quondam places Lesbia's words firmlyi n the past, hnplymg fromth e outset that her statement, at the very least, is no longer tme. In the second couplet, tum imphes that now, in fact, CatuUus does regard her as a common man does his girlfriend. The third couplet, whUe affirmmg the hnpUcations of the second {vilior et levior), impUes that Lesbia was somethmg special before. And, the fourth couplet Unks CatuUus's passion and affection on a scale that shifts due to the weight of an injury Lesbia inflicts.

'* The simuhaneity of the antithesis is stressed by CatuUus' use of the same verb in Unes 3 and 4; dilexi and diligit. Kenneth Quhm glosses dilexi by noting F.O. Copley's remark: "[CatuUus] means that his love had the same sphitual, non-physical quaUty that a father's love possesses" {Catullus: The Poems 402). Yet, CatuUus obviously uses the word m two senses here; the father loves his sons affectionately, and the common man loves his gul passionately. LUcewise, CatuUus uses the word m both senses elsewhere. In 76, Catullus uses the word in a sense akin to the father's affection; "non iam illudquero, contra me utdiligat ilia. .. [I do not seek that thmg as before, that she should love me in return . . .] (76.23). The meanmg of tme affection 186

is earned by Catullus' tone of resignation and by contra, which emphasizes the reciprocity of a love such as his own. Yet, CatuUus uses the same word when he castigates Flavius for not reveahng the name of his lover; \erum nescio quidfebriculosi scorti diligis. , . (6.4-5) [I tmly don't know what feverish slut you love . . .] Quhm suggests "you are fond of for diligis, notmg that the abmptness of scorti emphasizes the oxymoron, presumably between the affection and the object of that affection. In 81, CatuUus uses the word to describe Juventius' desue for the vishor {hospes) from Pisaumm, and he emphasizes that Juventius prefers the vishor to him {"quem tupraeponere nobis/audes [. . , whom you dare to place before me]" m 81.5- 6). The word in these passages seems to denote something less than ideal love, even if used m an honic way to heighten the lack of good taste displayed by Flavius and Juventius. In fact, it shows Catullus's tendency to associate the term whh such violations of taste.

'^ A similar emphasis occurs in poem 109, where Catullus mvokes the gods to make her tmly promise her love {"di magni,facite ut uerepromitterepossit" 109.3). Lesbia's action of speaking the promise is stressed, not, as one might expect, her commitment to CatuUus. Indeed, one could argue that "truly promised" love means much the same as tme love, but Catullus chooses to weight the spoken words more heavUy. ParaUels of this choice occur elsewhere; for example, m poem 87 CatuUus says that no woman can say she was loved as Catullus loves Lesbia, and in poem 76 he defines himself as a vhtuous man by declaring that he has said (and done) what he ought to say. For a fliUer discussion of Lesbia's words and the lack of veracity, see Paul AUen MUler's treatment of the analogous pahs of poems 70/72, 69/71, and 107/109 in Lyric Texts and Lyric Consciousness (58-61).

'* In addition to the hyperbole and CatuUus' remark about words consigned to the wind and waves, there is the ambiguity of the lines. Does Lesbia mean that she prefers to marry CatuUus more than anyone else, or that she prefers to marry no one, rather than marry Catullus? The firstrequire s a serious and sincere tone; the second opens up possibilities. Likewise, the openmg Unes of poem 72 offer ambiguity; perhaps Lesbia means that she would rather hold Catullus than Jupiter. But, could she just as easUy mean that she would not hold Jupher m front {prae) of CatuUus-that is openly or pubUcly-but hold him nonetheless? Or, fiirther,migh t she mean that, whUe she has excluded Jupher fromhe r desire, which CatuUus understands to mean Jupher and everyone else, she mtends to hold others—Rufiis, C^intius, Lesbius, etc.—if she wants to? The force of such ambiguities mcreases when one is wiUing to recognize the 187

double-edge of the father's love. Paul Allen MUler caUs attention to this ambiguity m his article "CatuUus, C. 70: A Poem and hs Hypothesis."

'^ Most critics argue that the iniuria must be Lesbia's contmued mfidelity after her expression of commitment in poem 70 (see Wiseman 164ff). Such a readmg seems plausible enough, yet h also seems to lack any real explanation of CatuUus' reappraisal, when one considers his resignation to her affahs at the end of poem 68.

^ Catullus places such high value on the spoken word that h is not surprising to see hhn most outraged when words are leveled agamst him, as m poem 16, or when words are discovered to be Ues. Consequently, h is surprising to see him recognize the worthlessness of words. For example, in poem 73, he gives an account of the unnamed man who says that Catullus is his only friend, but is clearly an enemy. The he Ulustrates a breakdown in CatuUus's world—a world where good deeds are ignored, even repaid with abuse: nihil fecisse benigne prodest, immo etiam taedet obestque magis (73.3-4) [no generous action havmg been done is useful, on the contrary, indeed, h irks and harms more.] Catullus chooses to conclude the poem with the deceitful claims of the man, summing up the widespread debasement of social relationships with his he. In a different way, poems 83 and 92 show CatuUus trying to devalue words; Lesbia mi praesente viro malaplurima dicit (83.1) [With her husband present, Lesbia says the most malicious things to me . . .] Lesbia mi dicit semper male nee tacet umquam deme (92.1-2) [Lesbia always speaks mahciously to me and never hold her tongue about me. . .] At face value, the words Lesbia speaks mdicate her hatred of CatuUus. He attempts to remterpret the words by associatmg them with his own experience; he blasts Lesbia (^'deprecor illam I assidue" 92.3-4) although he loves her, so he assumes that she does the same. His resolution of the expUcit, Uteral level of her words with the unspoken imphcation reveals an ambivalence in his view of language; on the one hand, he places the utmost importance in the tmthfulness of words. On the other, he recognizes the considerable potential for uony, at best, and hypocrisy, at worst. The difficulty is knowing the difference between the two, and—in terms of the poetry—recognizing when CatuUus expects the reader to see through the Uteral to the ironic or to catch the deception he perpetuates. Good examples of the difference occur m poems 76 and 104. Critics often ponder CatuUus's assertion that he has banked much joy for his later years on the basis of his good faith and piety: afterall, he 188

has engaged in an affau that violates Lesbia's husband, and he has pursued the affau m such a way that h violates society's tolerance of mconsequential flings (see Arkms 4- 45; Lyne 8-17). The irony lurks in the passage because the reader suspects that Catullus must see his own mcongmity, just as he does the absurd father's conscientious and lascivious service to his daughter-in-law in poem 67. In poem 104, the uony becomes more of a falsehood: Credis mepotuisse meae maledicere uitae, ambobus mihi quae carior est oculis? (104.1-2) [Do you beUeve me to have been able to say maUcious things of My Life, who is dearer to me than both eyes?] Obviously, the answer is "yes," since Catullus deems the charge worthy of a response-a response that consists of a denial {"nonpotui" 104.3), a rather bizarre qualification ("wee, sipossem, tamperdite amarem" 104.3) translated "nor if I could, should I love so hopelessly" by Quhm {Catullus: An Interpretation 114). In Ught of poem 83 and 92, m addition to poems placed much earUer in the coUection, such as 58 and 11, CatuUus's denial is patently false. Even if poem 104 represents a poem written early in the relationship, as one might be incUned to argue, the inclusion of h m the collection forces the reader to beheve CatuUus whoUy capable of what he refuses to admit; the poems are proof of his verbal abuse of Lesbia.

^^ Marilyn B. Skinner makes a shnUar argument about poem 10; CatuUus's verbal assault of Vams's girlfriend stems dhectly fromhi s perception that she has gained the upper-hand by unraveling his clahns of financialsuccess . Skinner says; Yet her triumph must be ephemeral, for as a woman and a plebian she cannot be aUowed to have the last word. That is why the text concludes as abmptly as h does, with hs withering denunciation of her as insulsa and molesta. If Roman hierarchies of rank, class, and gender are transmuted into a game of one-upmanship narrated in retrospect by the victor, textual play must hrevocably end this way, in a smug affhmation of the existmg order. (19) The girl's audacity to chaUenge CatuUus's wit results in a personal attack, which may or may not have a basis in the reality of the situation. As the chaUenge becomes greater, CatuUus's attack becomes more severe, moving from scortillum to ut decuit cinaediorem. (For a full treatment of the adjectival use of cinaedus, see Skinner 17-8.) A paraUel approach seems to be operatmg m the Lesbia poems, where CatuUus praises her beauty (43; 86), declares her worth more than anythmg (68.159-60, 58.2-3), threatens those who vie for her attention (40, 39; 77; 82; 88-91; et al), and, fhiaUy, attacks Lesbia herself (11; 37; 58). The impUch questioning of her character m poems 70 and 72 becomes a frontal assauh m poem 58; Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia ilia, ilia Lesbia, quam Catullus unam 189

plus quam se atque suos amauit omnes, nunc in quadriis et angiportis glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes MiUs translates; And now, CaeUus, my Lesbia— Lesbia herself—the Lesbia CatuUus loved more than himself or anythmg he ever had— is giving herself on street-comers and m aUeys to the descendants of noble-minded Remus. CatuUus describes Lesbia as a lurkmg streetwalker, "peeUng" {glubit) any man (presumably uncucumcised Romans) withm reach. A shnUar paraUel occurs between the AufiUena poems (110 and 111) and the Lesbia poems. Immediately foUowing 109, another of CatuUus' poems about Lesbia's promises which is couched m suspicion, comes the account of AufiUena's refijsal to honor a deal she has made with CatuUus. Whatever the nature of the bargain, Catullus's mdignation is expressed in terms of prostitution, classing her as one worse than a greedy whore {plus quam meretricis auarae est 110.7), because a whore, at least, meets the terms of agreement. In the foUowing poem, CatuUus again addresses AufiUena. He reflects that "h's fair enough for any girl to go to bed with anyone at aU, so long as a mother draws the Une at getting cousms via an uncle" (Quinn, The Poems 450). Thus, poems 11,37, and 79 fall hito place; the debasement of Lesbia, fromth e object of CatuUus' love worth defendmg, worth more than life hself, to an object of his scom. She embodies poem 111, havmg three hundred aduherers at once m her clutches (tenet 11.18; cf 72.2), possibly includmg her own brother, Lesbius (79), and she apparently welcomes aU-comers whh Uttle regard to taste (37).

^^ Not aU of Corvmo's references to his speech acts are obvious. Some are hnpUed m the response to CeUa's remarks which address his commands. A complete Ust mcludes Unes 9, 20, 29, 31, 32, 52, 58, 79, 91, 93, 106, and 109.

^^ Obviously Empson is not alone in this view; Judd Arnold, to che one of many examples, argues that "we can hardly condemn them for imposhig upon innocents. . , , [because] theu major fauh Ues in theh succumbmg to visions of exalted status" (162).

^ For instance, Nancy S, Leonard argues hnplausibly that Mammon has great vision: "In aU this, human deshe takes on a gargantuan scope and mclusiveness, and if Mammon is scarcely a disinterested shaper of magnificence, he is genuinely magnanimous" (67). Others, mcludmg Empson, Holdsworth and Fleming, contend that 190

Surly would be "agent of release" or hero of the play, if Jonson foUowed New Comedy (Watson 354n).

65 Segal notes that '"happy endmgs' and immunity from punishment are not identical phenomena." And, he ches Jonson as his example; "In the comedy of Jonson . . . aU ends weU and 'happUy' (for society), but the rogues do not escape retribution for theu rogueries. In fact, the judgment meted out at the end of Volpone is particularly severe" (140-41). This general tendency m Jonson, h seems, gives rise to the moral dUemma critics find m The Alchemist, where the dramatic conclusion does not fit the Jonsonian mold.

^ Geraldo U. deSousa offers a useful overview of this issue m his article, "Boundaries of Genre m Ben Jonson's Volpone and The Alchemist: Several scholars have helped us to understand better how Renaissance writers saw generic differentiation. Rosahe Cohe notes that "it was not enthely obvious in the Renaissance what the genres of hterature surely were, nor yet how to identify them", and Madeleine Doran observes that the clear-cut division of Elizabethan comedy along "sathic" and "romantic" lines is artificial because mingling of forms is the rule rather than the exception. Modem critics have created the categories of "dark comedy" and "romance" to describe Shakespearean plays that cannot simply or comfortably be classified as "comedy" or "tragedy." The relationship between genres is also becoming clearer, Claudio GuUlen convincingly argues that picaresque ("countergenre") developed out of pastoral romance ("genre"). Stephen Orgel sees a "fiiiitfiil relationship" between comedy and tragedy; the separation between the two genres was not, Orgel notes, always rigidlyobserved . Susan Snyder studies the "comic matrix" of Shakespeare's [work]. . . to show that the comedies and tragedies share "visions of human experience that are arrestingly simUar." Such studies demonstrate the overlap between genre and the problematic nature of genre classification. (134) These concerns about genre are reaUy nothing new. Ian Donaldson quotes a letter from Alexander Pope to CromweU, dated 29 August 1709; For the generaUty of men, a tme Modem Life is Uke a tme Modem Play, nehher Tragedy, Comedy, nor Farce, nor one, nor aU ofthese. Every Actor is much better known by his havmg the same Face, than by his keeping the same Character: For we change our minds as often as they can their parts, & he who was yesterday Cesar is to day Sh J. Daw, So that one might, with much better reason, ask the same Question of a Modem Life, that Mr, Rich did of a Modem Play; Pray 191

do me the favor, Sh, to mform me: Is this your Tragedy or your Comedy? (from The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, 171) Danson elaborates on this uncertamty of genre identification, asserting that it is connected to the ontological difficulty of definmg the setf: In real Ufe as m drama we have the question of genre: the self in any of Its models may be comic or tragic At times we conceive ourselves as continuous, stable, weU-coordinated bemgs .... At other times we know that the self is fragile, discontmuous, threatened, alone That contingent self, though native to tragedy, has found hs way mto the aUen landscape of Jonsonian comedy. (180)

Nancy Leonard, for mstance, findsVolpone' s character attractive m ways; Volpone's seduction of CeUa is a scene that so triumphantly combme lyricism with farce that h is easy to overlook the hnportance of hs stmcture. . The mtense romantascism of Volpone's seduction of Celia is framedb y an mtensely satirical opening action, and by a shnUar closure. But during the seductin hself there is no one to answer the magnificent rhetoric of Volpone but the meffectual CeUa. Ceha and Bonario are conventionalized romance characters They are so deUberately wooden that theh presence m this scene enhance Volpone's appeal by the contrast of msipid vutue and magnificent vice. (55-6)

^ The argument over the appropriateness of Volpone's ending has generated its fair share of unlikely arguments. For instance, Richard Cumberland bases his objections to the fifthac t on Volpone's willingness to ridiculeth e legacy-hunters; For who can deny that nature is violated by the absurdity of Volpone's unseasonable insults to the very persons, who had witnessed falsely hi his defence, and even to the very Advocate, who had so successfuUy defended him? Is h in character for a man of his deep cunning and long reach of thought to provoke those, on whom his aU depended, to retaUate upon him, and this for the poor triumph of a aUy jest? Certainly this is a glaring defect, which everv body must lament, and which can escape nobody . . The judgment pronounced upon the criminals in the conclusion of the play is so just and solemn, that I must think the poet has made a wanton breach of character and gained but a sorry jest by the bargain. . . {The Observer 110)

^^ Cavendish's remarks have been discussed more fiiUy in Chapter n under the discussion of Jonson's classicism She is particularly remarkable, however, for her 192 willingness to recognize violations of the unities, especiaUy that of thne, m Jonson's The Alchemist and Volpone, two plays which modem critics have found to adhere closely to the unities, especially that of time.

The overly-serious characters are those that Bakhtm describes as the agelasts, the non-laughers who set themselves up to become the butt of comic jests. Segal also notices the presence of agelasts in Plautus; he describes the conflict between otium and negotium, and notes that the characters who cannot resist the temptation to continue theh business, rather than relaxmg in the holiday worid of comedy, are inevitably the only ones to suffer punishment in Plautus' plays. See Segal's Roman Laughter, chapter 2, "From Fomm to Festival" (42-69) and Bakhtm's Introduction m Rabelais and his World.

Segal admits that "we must grant the possibiUty that among the myriad Greek comedies now lost to us there were characters simUar to Pseudolus, Tranio, or Epidicus, although there seems to be Uttle [evidence of h], even m the newer fragments"(202). Segal goes on to adopt a moderate view, expressed by Eduard Fraenkel and Gordan WUUams, that Plautus enlarged the slave role and hs importance to the plot.

^^ For the characteristics of the type and Plautus's use of the type, I am indebted to Eric Segal, who broke the ground with his semmal work, Roman Laughter. Niall W. Slater's Plautus in Performance and John Wright's Dancing in Chains also provide careful analyses of the seruus callidus. Face, clearly, fitsth e conventional description of the clever slave. Mosca, h might be contended, does not because he is expUcitly identified m the play as a parasite, an altogether different character type m New Comedy. However, I wiU argue later that Mosca's role as parashe is actuaUy that of a clever slave acting like a parashe. His soUloquy (3.1) makes h abundantly clear that he is no typical parasite, as Herford and Shnpson note; Mosca has thus hardly a closer relation than Sejanus to the parasite of classic comedy, though the title is expressly appUed to both. Jonson feh this, and has adroitly forestalled criticism by making Mosca himself, in an incisive sohloquy, explain his pomts of superiority to the ordmary breeds of the creature. (Introduction to Volpone 2.60-61)

^^ Daniel C. Boughner's The Braggart in Renaissance Comedy provides a thorough overview of this character type and hs use in EUzabethan comedy. VhtuaUy aU Plautme clever servants are referred to by mUitary names; to name but a few, Pseudolus is caUed dux {Pseudolus 447), and Chrysalos and Leonida are called imperator {Bachides 759; Asinaria 656). As Slater notes, ToxUus, the love-sick servant in Persa, is called mto his proper role as seruus callidus through miUtary 193 hnagery. Sagaristio says; "You make a fool's use of your fiiends ... you ought to give orders" {Persa 19; Slater 39). As he assumes his proper role, ToxUus becomes a general laying out his strategy and dhectmg his troops. SimUarly, m The Alchemist, Face disguises hhnself as Captam Face, and Dol refers to hhn as "general" (1.1.4). The house becomes a "camp" m which the guUers become "entrenched" to defend themselves "agamst the world" (3,4,33-35), In addition. Face's presence in his uniform at key times, particularly late in Act 4 when he caUs KastrU, Abel Dmgger, and Ananias as remforcements to stop Surly's beatmg of Subtle, visuaUy mamtams the association throughout the play.

Segal traces the concern back to the otiuminegotium conflict m Plautme comedy (104), a conflict m which the concern for busmess virtuaUy gaurantees punishment m the play (See Chapter 2; "From Fomm to Festival"). This concern wiU be central to the explanation of Volpone's punishments because, I wiU argue, Mosca (uncharacteristicaUy for a clever slave) seeks to make his status permanent at the end of the play. In his attempts to do so, Mosca requhes punishment much hke those characters in Plautus who cannot set aside theh busmess concems,

^' Segal provides a usefiil discussion of the clever slave's deshe for status (128-36).

^^ When Mosca assumes his role as clarissimo, however, the appeUations change. The legacy-seekers, out of jealousy, begm to derogate him with terms of abuse and Volpone, beghming to recognize the flaw m his plan to make Mosca his heu, also sWfts his references toward the negative. This shift wiU be discussed later in the chapter in relation to Mosca's abihty to dupe unwilling or suspicious guUs.

'''' Michael Cameron Andrews clarifies the severity of Volpone's condition: Volpone, in short, is suffering, more suo, fromlovesickness . And it thus devolves on Mosca "to effect my best / To your release of torment," . . . What is less obvious is that the sexual consummation that Volpone is eagerly awaiting was a recognized cure for lovesickness. As Mary Womack remarks, "Jacques Despars, an exposhor of Avicenna, clarifies the relationship of this cure to law and faith; 'Insani amantes' can make love to those whom the law permits; prostitutes, pubhc women, and slaves {'meretricibus autpublicis feminis aut de servis emptis quas aclauas vocamus') but not virgins, reUgious women, married women, or close relatives. In terms that smack of a connoisseur's appraisal," she adds, "he specifies that the 'bought woman' ought to be slim, beautiful, clean, 'fuU of juice' {'sued plenas') and animated {'corde vivido')"(145-46) 194

^* Pseudolus says, I have a suspicion that you foUcs suspect me now of promising these mighty deeds just to amuse you during the course of this play and of not doing what I said I would. I won't retract. And as for knowing how I'U do h, I am just certam—of knowing just nothing, except that h'U be done. (562-68)

The mdulgent master is a characteristic feature in Plautus's plays. Indeed, Segal uses h to distinguish Plautus fromMenander , although, m his argument to debunk the "harsh father" as blocking agent in Plautus, the indulgence is specifically attached to fathers (92ff).

*^ Only Vohore, at this pomt, seems unpersuaded, yet he obviously is convinced; m the scene where Mosca is taking mventory of his newly-mherited estate, Vohore is the last to cling to the hope that Mosca stiU serves him. He teUs Mosca, "Nay, leave off [the act] now, they are gone" (5.3.79).

*^ Interstingly, the avocatori, who most critics condemn as crooked and naive, recognize fiiUy Mosca's contribution to the scheme; . . . and, first,th e parasite. You appear To have been the chiefest minister, if not plotter. In aU these lewd impostures; and now, lastly. Have, with your hnpudence, abused the court. And habh of a gentleman of Venice, Being a feUow of no bhth or blood; For wich, our sentence is, first thou be whipped; Then Uve perpetual prisoner in our gaUeys. (5.12.105-14) Not only do the judges sentence Mosca first, but they also mete out a Ufe sentence which is arguably as severe as the one they hand to Volpone. Most hnportantly, they declare clearly the promment role Mosca has played m the events.

^ Indeed they do change. Muecke notes that physical disguises occur m eight of Plautus's plays: Captivi, Casina, Curculio, Miles Gloriosus (meretrix, Pleusicles), Persa, Poenulus, Pseudolus, and Trinummus. He notes five others with shnUar acts of hnpersonation without a change of costume; Asinaria, Cistellaria, Epidicus, Miles Gloriosus (Philocomasium), and Pseudolus (Pseudolus) (219).

*^ Leo Salmger describes the disguise motif m metadrama; "By a long tradition, the leader of a troupe of comedians has been a clown, the performer whose mask or make-up is the most glaring, who mhnics or changes costumes more than the others, who plays at playing and visibly reduplicates the act of actmg" (94). The general topic of disguise as metadrama in Plautus is discussed thoroughly by Muecke. 195

One notable paraUel is the expUch reference to the choragus, which occurs m three plays {Persa 154-60; Trinummus 853-60; and Curculio 462ff; Muecke 219-20) as weU as m The Alchemist: Face teUs Dmgger that he "must borrow / A Spanish suh Hast thou no credit with the players?" (4.7 57-58).

The play is fuUofMosca'sdhections to control entrances and exits. A partial list of some ofthehnportantmstances mcludes; 1.3.67-69; 1.4.1-5, 160, 162, 1.5.83-84; 2.6.98-100; 3.5,30-34; 3.6.1-3, 3.7,1-2, 89, 125-30; 3.8,19-20; 5.3.44, 60, 65-76, 101; 5.5.11.

*' Although Carol A. Carr asserts that both Volpone and Mosca exempUfy the role of rogue based on simUar traits, she denies Mosca's status. She says; They are both mteUigent; both show an astute knowledge of men's motives and great mgenuity m mventmg schemes to exploh that knowledge. Both have histrionic abUities. They are gUb at tongue, perfect at disguise. Both, although m different ways, show a superior detachment fromth e avarice which enslaves the legacy hunters. . . . [T]hey are engaged in gaining money from others through trickery and deceh. [And,] they take delight m guUing others, a deUght which overshadows theh pleasure m gaining money. (144) In other words, they both, accordmg to Carr, are fairly typical of the character m New Comedy known as the clever slave. As I have shown, however, Volpone is an actor who reUes on Mosca to plot his actions. Nevertheless, Carr continues by elevating Volpone and denigrating Mosca; [The] differences m personaUty between Volpone and Mosca correspond to theh respective roles m the play. Volpone as magnifico is m the position to ignore cost and seek pleasure, whereas Mosca as servant and parasite must scrape for his money. The contrast is often overlooked in readmg the play but becomes very evident if we try to visualize it in performance and focus on actions instead of words. Volpone, doubtless costumed m richgown s and fiirs, is seen being visited by suitors . , . and waited upon by Mosca. He is clearly secure. In contrast, there is a good deal of tmth m Vohore's characterization of Mosca as "A slave, / Would mn on errands, and make legs for cmmbs" (5.7.1-2). . . , Mosca is, in the final analysis, only a servant dependent on Volpone for his UveUhood. . . . Mosca's activity is merely the extension of his master's wiU. (147) Carr obviously reads the play differently than I do. The key points of rebuttal to her assertions are (1) Mosca is never shown "scraping" for his own money, (2) Volpone may be richlydressed , but he is an invaUd throughout most of the play; (3) Volpone repeatedly submits his wiU to Mosca, not vice versa, and (4) Vohore's 196 characterization comes long after he has discovered that he has been duped. It might be mterestmg to see what Carr would say to the Avocatori who pronounces Mosca the chief culprit in the final scene. Nevertheless, Carr's argument reflects a widespread view. B.A. Park, for mstance, notes off-handedly, "the relation of Volpone and Mosca is the traditional comic one of eiron and alazon, honic man toward pretender" (108). Park obviously sides with Carr; Volpone is the vhtuoso and Mosca a pale hnitation.

Wohgang Riehle offers this translation of a speech m which Peniculus provides a detaUed description of the type; The man you really want to keep from running off ought to be bound with . . food and drink. . . . Just you deal him out meat and drink to suit his pleasure and his appetite each day, and he'll never mn—Lord, no!—no matter if he's done a deed for hanging. You'U keep him easUy so long as you bmd him with these bonds. They're such extraordinarily tenacious bonds, these beUy-bands; the more you stretch'em, the closer they cUng. (45)

*^ One specific area where the clever slave's theatricaUty appears in aUusions or references to tragedy. Not aU ofthese are necessarUy commentary on the play, but, if the statement carries the imphcation that the play's world is a comic one, such an imphcation tends toward metadrama. For instance, Plautus often has the prologue quip about tragedy. The prologue's poshion—servmg as a bridge between the "real" world of the audience and the play's world—operates often as commentary. In Amphitryon, Mercury says m the prologue; Now first as to the favour I have come to ask, and then you shall have the argument of our tragedy. What? Frowning because I said this was to be a tragedy? I am a god; I'U transform it. I'U convert this same play fromtraged y to comedy, if you Uke, and never change a Une. Do you wish me to do h, or not? (50-56) Mercury, who plays Jupher's Sosia, equates his divinity with the power to rewrite plays, and specificaUy with his ability to change tragedy mto comedy. His threat of stagmg a tragedy is a widespread threat in Plautus's plays.(See, for example. Slater's discussion of Epidicus (32ff), Asinaria (58; 65n7), and Pseudolus (119-20).) In The Alchemist, Face makes shnUar tragic threats: for mstance, after Mammom begs forgiveness from Subtle for his pursuh of "a taste of [Dors]-wit or so" (2.3.263-64), Face warns him; Nay, look, sh. You grieve him now with staying m his sight. Good sh, the nobleman will come too, and take you. And that may breed a tragedy. (4.5.88-91) Of course, Dol's noble brother is not real and no tragedy is about to occur, except 197 possibly Mammon's discovery of the hoax. Nonetheless, Mammon assents hnmediately and exits. After Manunon's exit. Subtle responds to Face's encouragement "to be Ught," saymg "Ay, as balls, and bound and hit our heads agamst the roof for joy; / There's so much of our care cast away." (4.5.106-08). The truth of Mercury's "same Unes" gag m Amphitryon seem apparent: note Bosola's remark m The Duchess ofMalfi—"We are merely stars' tennis baUs, stmck and bandied / Which way please them" (5.4.60). The very threat of a tragedy hnplies that the characters act within a comic stmcture and expect actions to lead a certain direction. In Ihe Alchemist, Mammon is to escape fiirther punishment for his "sm"—that is, he is to pay dearly by bemg fleeced, but no mad revenger is scheduled to make an appearance to protect Dol Common's vhtue. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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