Ben
Jonson, from The Sad Shepherd: or, A Tale
of Robin-Hood (1641)
Edited and introduced by Stephen Bending & Andrew McRae
Ben Jonson’s last play, left unfinished at his death in
1637, is a striking attempt to bring to the stage a spirit of rural festivity.
The play was conceived in reaction to the prevailing taste at court for a
highly stylized form of pastoral, in which the shepherds and shepherdesses were
little more than ciphers for courtiers, and the fields merely a convenient
setting for love intrigue. The play’s prologue states that Jonson will present
‘such wool, / As from mere English
flocks his muse can pull’, and asserts the capacity of native literary
traditions to match those of classical times. He targets the Caroline ‘heresy
of late let fall; / That mirth by no means fits a pastoral’. In the play
itself, Jonson’s use of the Robin Hood legend draws on a tradition of ballad
literature and drama, which flourished particularly in the reign of Elizabeth.
Yet the underlying sense of nostalgia for a golden past is combined with a contribution
to ongoing debates. The play depicts a struggle over values of rural community,
in which Robin Hood’s band is threatened by evil figures characterized by their
individualism and unneighbourliness. In the following scene (I iv) Robin Hood
and his followers confront the attacks on their festivities launched by ‘sour’
proponents of reform.
Recommended edition
Ben Jonson, ed. C.
H. Herford and Percy Simpson (11 vols., Oxford, 1965-70)
Suggested secondary reading
Anne Barton, Ben
Jonson, Dramatist (Cambridge, 1984), ch. 16
Tom Hayes, The Birth of Popular Culture: Ben Jonson,
Maid Marian and Robin Hood (Pittsburgh, 1992)
Stephen
Knight, Robin Hood: A Complete Study of
the English Outlaw (Oxford, 1994), ch. 4
Leah S.
Marcus, The Politics of Mirth: Jonson,
Herrick, Milton, Marvell, and the Defense of Old Holiday Pastimes, ch. 4
Robin Hood. Welcome bright Clarion, and sweet Mellifleur,[1]
The courteous Lionel, fair Amy;
all
My friends and neighbours, to the
Jolly Bower
Of Robin-Hood, and to the
green-wood walks.
Now that the shearing of your
sheep is done,
And the washed flocks are lighted
of their wool,
The smoother ewes are ready to
receive
The mounting rams again; and both
do feed,
As either promised to increase
your breed
At eaning time; and bring you lusty
twins.[2]
Why should, or you, or we so much
forget[3]
The season in our selves: as not
to make
Use of our youth, and spirits, to
awake
The nimble horn-pipe, and the
timburine,[4]
And mix our songs, and dances in
the wood,
And each of us cut down a
triumph-bough.[5]
Such are the rites, the youthful
June allow.
Clarion. They were, gay Robin, but the sourer sort
Of shepherds now disclaim in all
such sport:[6]
And say, our flocks the while,
are poorly fed,
When with such vanities the
swains are led.[7]
Friar Tuck. Would they, wise Clarion, were not hurried more[8]
With covetise and rage, when to
their store[9]
They add the poor man’s eanling,
and dare sell[10]
Both fleece, and carcase, not
gi’ing him the fell.[11]
When to one goat, they reach that
prickly weed,
Which maketh all the rest forbear
to feed;[12]
Or strew Tod’s hairs, or with
their tails do sweep[13]
The dewy grass, to d’off the
simpler sheep;[14]
Or dig deep pits, their
neighbours neat to vex,[15]
To drown the calves, and crack
the heifers’ necks.
Or with pretence of chasing thence
the brock,[16]
Send in a cur to worry the whole
flock.[17]
Lionel. O Friar, those are faults that are not seen,
Ours open, and of worse example
been.
They call ours, pagan pastimes,
that infect
Our blood with ease, our youth
with all neglect;
Our tongues with wantonness, our
thoughts with lust,
And what they censure ill, all
others must.
Robin. I do not know, what their sharp sight may see
Of late, but I should think it
still might be
(As ’twas) a happy age, when on
the plains,
The woodmen met the damsels, and the
swains
The neat’erds, ploughmen, and the
pipers loud,[18]
And each did dance, some to the
kit, or crowd,[19]
Some to the bag-pipe, some the
tabret moved,[20]
And all did either love, or were
beloved.
Lionel. The dexterous shepherd then would try his sling,
Then dart his hook at daisies,
then would sing,
Sometimes would wrastle.[21]
Clarion.
Ay, and with a lass:
And give her a new garment on the
grass;[22]
After a course at barley-break,
or base.[23]
Lionel. And all these deeds were seen without offence,
Or the least hazard o’ their
innocence.
Robin. Those charitable times had no mistrust.[24]
Shepherds knew how to love, and
not to lust.
[1] 1. the greetings are apt: ‘Clarion’ is derived
from the Latin clarus (clear,
bright); and ‘Mellifleur’ is based on mel
(honey; also used as a term of endearment). Jonson’s list of characters
nominates Clarion ‘the rich’ and Mellifleur ‘the sweet’.
[2] 10.
eaning time: eaning, or
yeaning, is the time of birth.
[3] 11.
or you, or we: either you or
we.
[4] 14.
timburine: tambourine.
[5] 16.
triumph-bough: a bough of a
tree carried as a sign of festivity. The associations of ‘triumph’ with
(military) victory are subsumed in this tradition beneath a celebration of a
pacific and communal joy.
[6] 19.
sourer … sport: a reference to
attacks by Puritans on rural festivities. This passage may be intended in part
as a response to a dialogue in Spenser’s ‘May’ eclogue in The Shepheardes Calender (1579), which sides with the opponents of
rural mirth.
[7]18-21. a significant strain of Renaissance pastoral
used the shepherd as a figure of the preacher or pastor. Here Jonson refers to
the Puritan accusation that clergy who condone festivities overlook more
important matters concerning the spiritual sustenance of their ‘flocks’.
[8] 22.
Friar Tuck: named in Jonson’s
list of characters as ‘chaplain and steward’ to Robin and Marian.
[9] 23.
covetise: obsolete form,
equivalent to ‘covetousness’.
[10] 24.
eanling: new-born lamb.
[11] 25.
gi’ing: giving. not …
fell: Friar Tuck continues the pastoral allegory introduced in Clarion’s
speech. Tuck depicts Puritans as covetous and opposed to traditional customs:
here they appropriate the lamb, perhaps through economic power, and leave not
even the hide (‘fell’) for the poor.
[12] 27.
they … feed: the particular
‘prickly weed’ is unclear; more important, however, is the conflation of a rustic
mythology concerning dangerous plants, with the allegorical attack on the
unneighbourly practices of Puritans.
[13] 28.
Tod’s hairs: a fox’s hairs.
[14] 29.
d’off: ward off; turn aside.
[15] 30.
neat: cattle.
[16] 32.
brock: badger.
[17] 22-33.
Tuck endorses a popular image of puritans as individualistic.
[18] 43-4.
the convergence of wood-men, cow-herds (neat’erds)
and ploughmen suggests the peaceful coexistence of different forms of
agriculture. At the time there were in fact considerable pressures on
traditional patterns of land-use, and regional differences were becoming
increasingly apparent. (Cf. Milton’s representation of rural labourers in
‘L’Allegro’, below, ll. 63-8.)
[19] 45.
kit: a small fiddle. crowd:
an early form of fiddle. (The distinction between ‘kit’ and ‘crowd’ is unclear;
Jonson may mean the same instrument, called by a different name in different
places.)
[20] 46.
tabret: a small tabor (drum).
[21]50.
wrastle: wrestle.
[22]51.
give … grass: Clarion appears
unconcerned by Puritan attacks on the morality of rural festivities. His bawdy
comment, suggesting the ‘green gown’ given a sexual partner in the fields,
would merely confirm the fears of his opponents; though Robin Hood’s subsequent
speech is perhaps intended to modify the boistrous enthusiasm of his follower.
[23] 52.
barley-break, or base: in
barley break, a game commonly played by three couples, a central couple occupy
a central space called ‘hell’, and try to catch the others as they cross this
space. Base, also known as ‘prisoner’s base’, is a game generally played by
boys, in which members of two sides occupy adjoining ‘bases’, and any player
who leaves his territory may be chased and captured by his opponents.
[24] 55.
charitable times: ‘charity’ is
used here in the sense principally derived from the biblical ‘caritas’, and
signifies both godly and neighbourly love and benevolence. Like the related
concept of hospitality, this traditional notion of charity was often seen to be
under seige in early modern England.