In remembrance of Master William Shakespeare.
ODE
I.
Beware, delighted poets, when you sing
To welcome nature in the early spring,
Your num‘rous feet not tread
The banks of Avon; for each flower
(As it ne’er knew a sun or shower)
Hangs there the pensive head.
2.
Each tree, whose thick and spreading growth hath made
Rather a night beneath the boughs than shade,
Unwilling now to grow,
Looks like the plume a captive wears,
Whose rifled falls are steeped i‘th’ tears
Which from his last rage flow.
3.
The piteous river wept itself away
Long since, alas, to such a swift decay
That, reach the map and look
If you a river there can spy,
And for a river your mocked eye
Will find a shallow brook.
Sir William Davenant, Madagascar, with other
Poems (1637)
An Elegy on the death of that famous Writer and Actor, Master William Shakespeare
I dare not do thy memory that wrong
Unto our larger griefs to give a tongue;
I’ll only sigh in earnest, and let fall
My solemn tears at thy great funeral,
For every eye that rains a show‘r for thee 5
Laments thy loss in a sad elegy.
Nor is it fit each humble muse should have
Thy worth his subject, now thou’rt laid in grave;
No, it’s a flight beyond the pitch of those
Whose worthless pamphlets are not sense in prose.
Let learnèd Jonson sing a dirge for thee,
And fill our orb with mournful harmony;
But we need no remembrancer; thy fame
Shall still accompany thy honoured name
To all posterity, and make us be
Sensible of what we lost in losing thee,
Being the age’s wonder, whose smooth rhymes
Did more reform than lash the looser times.
Nature herself did her own self admire
As oft as thou wert pleased to attire
Her in her native lustre, and confess
Thy dressing was her chiefest comeliness.
How can we then forget thee, when the age
Her chiefest tutor, and the widowed stage
Her only favourite, in thee hath lost,
And nature’s self what she did brag of most?
Sleep, then, rich soul of numbers, whilst poor we
Enjoy the profits of thy legacy,
And think it happiness enough we have
So much of thee redeemed from the grave
As may suffice to enlighten future times
With the bright lustre of thy matchless rhymes.
Anonymous (before 1638), in Shakespeare’s
Poems (1640)
To Shakespeare
Thy muse’s sugared dainties seem to us
Like the famed apples of old Tantalus,
For we, admiring, see and hear thy strains,
But none I see or hear those sweets attains.
To the same
Thou hast so used thy pen, or shook thy spear,
That poets startle, nor thy wit come near.
Thomas Bancroft, Two Books of Epigrams and
Epitaphs (1639)
To Master William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, we must be silent in thy praise,
‘Cause our encomiums will but blast thy bays,
Which envy could not; that thou didst so well,
Let thine own histories prove thy chronicle.
Anonymous, in Wit’s Recreations (1640)
To the Reader
I here presume, under favour, to present to your view some excellent and sweetly composed poems of Master William Shakespeare, which in themselves appear of the same purity the author himself, then living, avouched. They had not the fortune, by reason of their infancy in his death, to have the due accommodation of proportionable glory with the rest of his ever-living works, yet the lines of themselves will afford you a more authentic approbation than my assurance any way can; to invite your allowance, in your perusal you shall find them serene, clear, and elegantly plain, such gentle strains as shall recreate and not perplex your brain, no intricate or cloudy stuff to puzzle intellect, but perfect eloquence, such as will raise your admiration to his praise. This assurance, I know, will not differ from your acknowledgement; and certain I am my opinion will be seconded by the sufficiency of these ensuing lines. I have been somewhat solicitous to bring this forth to the perfect view of all men, and in so doing, glad to be serviceable for the continuance of glory to the deserved author in these his poems.
John Benson, in Shakespeare’s Poems (1640)
Of Master William Shakespeare
What, lofty Shakespeare, art again revived,
And Virbius-like now show‘st thyself twice lived?
’Tis Benson’s love that thus to thee is shown,
The labour’s his, the glory still thine own.
These learnèd poems amongst thine after-birth,
That makes thy name immortal on the earth,
Will make the learnèd still admire to see
The muses’ gifts so fully infused on thee.
Let carping Momus bark and bite his fill,
And ignorant Davus slight thy learnèd skill,
Yet those who know the worth of thy desert,
And with true judgement can discern thy art,
Will be admirers of thy high-tuned strain,
Amongst whose number let me still remain.
John Warren, in Shakespeare’s Poems (1640)
THE COMPLETE WORKS
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
THE accomplished elegance of the lyrical verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, as well as the skilful, theatrically effective prose of Lance’s monologues, demonstrates that Shakespeare had already developed his writing skills when he composed this play. Nevertheless—and although the earliest mention of it is by Francis Meres in 1598—it may be his first work for the stage; for its dramatic structure is comparatively unambitious, and while some of its scenes are expertly constructed, those involving more than, at the most, four characters betray an uncertainty of technique suggestive of inexperience. It was first printed in the 1623 Folio.