liv. 1604–5 (?). Ben Jonson.
[Prologue to Every Man In His Humour, first printed in Folio of 1616, and possibly written for a Jacobean revival.]
Though neede make many Poets, and some such
As art, and nature haue not betterd much;
Yet ours, for want, hath not so lou’d the stage,
As he dare serue th’ill customes of the age:
Or purchase your delight at such a rate,
As, for it, he himselfe must iustly hate.
To make a child, now swadled, to proceede
Man, and then shoote vp, in one beard, and weede,
Past threescore yeeres: or, with three rustie swords,
And helpe of some few foot-and-halfe-foote words,
Fight ouer Yorke, and Lancasters long iarres:
And in the tyring-house bring wounds, to scarres.
He rather prayes, you will be pleas’d to see
One such, to day, as other playes should be.
Where neither Chorus wafts you ore the seas;
Nor creaking throne comes downe, the boyes to please;
Nor nimble squibbe is seene, to make afear’d
The gentlewomen; nor roul’d bullet heard
To say, it thunders; nor tempestuous drumme
Rumbles, to tell you when the storme doth come;
But deedes, and language, such as men doe vse:
And persons, such as Comœdie would chuse,
When she would shew an Image of the times,
And sport with humane follies, not with crimes.
Except, we make ‘hem such, by louing still
Our popular errors, when we know th’are ill.
I meane such errors as you’ll all confesse
By laughing at them, they deserue no lesse:
Which when you heartily doe, there’s hope left, then,
You, that haue so grac’d monsters, may like men.