The Prince’s Masque had another, and for our purpose far more significant title—Time Vindicated to Himself and His Honours. Time, no Time of long ago, but the age that was then passing, had been slandered, taxed with being mean and dull and sterile, and the intention of the Masque or Pageant was to refute these calumnies in presence, not of an inquisitive world, but of Time’s living ornaments (as well as himself). If report speak true, it was presented on the 19th of January, 1623—the Sunday in that memorable year which fell nearest to Bacon’s birthday—presented in circumstances of unprecedented splendour, “the Prince leading the Measures with the French embassador’s wife.” The Masque (as given in Jonson’s Works) is sub-divided into Antimasque and Masque proper.
Fame, the accredited mouthpiece of the author, is by far the most important personage in the Antimasque. Her first business is to proclaim that she has been sent to invite to that night’s “great spectacle,” not the many, but the few who alone were worthy to view it. An inquisitive mob nicknamed The Curious at once begins to heckle Fame. A thrasonical personage called Chronomastix, a caricature compounded in unequal proportions of George Wither and the Ovid Junior of Jonson’s Poetaster, then appears on the scene. Chronomastix, I may say in passing, seems to have deluded John Chamberlain, for he (J. C.) tells a correspondent that Jonson in the Prince’s Masque “runs a risk by impersonating George Withers as a whipper of the times, which is a dangerous jest.” At sight of Chronomastix The Curious jeer at Fame for not recognising their idol, while Chronomastix himself has the effrontery to call her his “mistress,” and tells her it is for her sake alone that he “revells so in rime.” Fame retorts (in effect): “Away thou wretched Impostor! My proclamation was not meant for thee or thy kind; goe revell with thine ignorant admirers. Let worthy names alone.” Chronomastix is furious, brags of his popularity, and appeals to The Curious to “come forth ... and now or never, spight of Fame, approve me.” The stage direction here runs: “At this, the Mutes come in.” The first Mute, an elephantine creature, meant of course for Jonson himself, is about to bring forth a “male-Poem ... that kicks at Time already.” (Jonson’s Ode to Shakespeare was probably ruminated, if not written, at the very time that this “male-Poem” was struggling to be born.) The second Mute, a quondam Justice—reminding one of Justice Clement in Jonson’s earliest comedy—is in the habit of carrying Chronomastix about “in his pocket” and crying “‘O happy man!’ to the wrong party, meaning the Poet, where he meant the subject.” (This I take for a hint at the confusion of mind that must have existed among lovers of the drama as to who Shakespeare really was.) The succeeding pair of Mutes are, the one a printer in disguise who conceals himself and “his presse in a hollow tree, and workes by glow-worm light, the moon’s too open”; the other a compositor who in “an angle inhabited by ants will sit curled whole days and nights, and work his eyes out for him.”[29] The fifth Mute is a learned man, a schoolmaster, who is turning the works of the caricature Chronomastix into Latine. (“Some good pens”—as we learn from his letters—were at this time engaged in turning Bacon’s Advancement of Learning into Latin, the “general language.”) The sixth and last Mute is a “Man of warre,” reminiscent of Gullio in the Return from Parnassus, who it may be remembered worships “sweet Mr. Shakspeare,” talks “nothing but Shakspeare,” etc. Not one of the Mutes ever opens his mouth, and all that the audience knows of them is told by The Curious, whose function is to connect the Antimasque with the Masque and act as nomenclators for the elephantine poet and his suite. The Mutes came, or seemed to come, at the bidding of Chronomastix, in order to snub Fame for having insulted him. But Chronomastix himself is the person actually snubbed by them, seeing that they ignore him utterly. As for Fame, she treats the Mutes very coolly, her only comment being “What a confederacy of Folly is here!”
Following hard on this observation (of Fame’s) comes a dance, in which The Curious adore Chronomastix and then carry him off in triumph. Afterwards The Curious come up again, and one of them, addressing Fame, asks: “Now, Fame, how like you this?” Another chimes in: “He scornes you, and defies you, has got a Fame of his owne, as well as a Faction.” A third adds: “And these will deify him, to despite you.” Fame answers: “I envie not the Apotheosis. ’Twill prove but deifying of a Pompion.” (If The Curious had scented what Fame was about, a retort like this would have been enough to let them into the secret. But this hint, as well as her previous taunt, “My hot inquisitors, what I am about is more than you understand,” was lost on them and they continue their futile cackle.) Fame gets rid of The Curious at last by means of the Cat and Fiddle, who, according to the stage direction, “make sport with and drive them away.”
Relieved of the presence of all who were unfit to view the “great Spectacle” now on the point of being exhibited “with all solemnity,” Fame at last lets herself go: “Commonly (says she) The Curious are ill-natured and, like flies, seek Time’s corrupted parts to blow upon, but may the sound ones live with fame and honour, free from the molestation of these insects.”
The stage direction here runs: “Loud musique. To which the whole scene opens, where Saturne sitting with Venus is discovered above, and certaine Votaries coming forth below, which are the Chorus.”
Addressing the King, Fame announces that Saturn (Time) urged by Venus (emblem of affection) had promised to set free “certaine glories of the Time,” which, though eminently fitted to “adorn that age,” had nevertheless for mysterious reasons been kept in “darknesse” by “Hecate (Queene of shades).” Venus puts in her word; assures Time that the liberation of the “glories” is a “worke (which) will prove his honour” as well as exceed “men’s hopes.” Saturn answers her gallantly and then addressing the Votaries says: “You shall not long expect: with ease the things come forth (that) are born to please. Looke, have you seene such lights as these?”
This is the very climax of the Masque. “The Masquers (so runs the stage direction) are discovered and that which obscured them vanisheth.” The Votaries exclaim with rapture: “These, these must sure some wonders be.... What grief, or envie had it beene, that these and such had not beene seene, but still obscured in shade! Who are the glories of the Time ... and for the light were made!”
(Who were these “glories” whom Fame, the Prince, Ben Jonson, and the rest had with difficulty rescued from the underworld, in whose behalf inquisitive intruders had been excluded, about whom absurd mistakes of identity had been made, and who according to Fame were destined to play parts in the “apotheosis” of a pumpkin?[30] The only answer that occurs to me is that the spectacle consisted essentially of a selection from among the dramatis personæ who were about to figure in the First Folio, especially characters out of the sixteen or twenty then unpublished plays.)
The Masque ends with an exhortation to charity, the final words being:
Man should not hunt mankind to death,
But strike the enemies of man.
Kill vices if you can:
They are your wildest beasts:
And when they thickest fall, you make the Gods true feasts.