The Accidence of Ben Jonson's plays, Masques and Entertainments

291 Pages·2015·22.5 MB·English

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THE ACCIDENCE
OF
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BEN JONSON'S
. PlAYS, MASQUES AND ENTERTAINMENTS.
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A. Parttridge
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·Thesfs p' retlented for the Ph. D.
degree of the University of
Cape Town.
1946
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The copyright of this thesis vests in tohe author. No
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quotation from it or information derive d from it is to be
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published without full acknowledgemp ent of the source.
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The thesis is to be used for Cprivate study or non-

commercial research purposes ofnly.
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Published by the Universistiy of Cape Town (UCT) in terms
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of the non-exclusive liceense granted to UCT by the author.
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To the Mem·ory of My Friend en Jonson
2
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
I can protest, it was no itch to write,
Nor ny vain ambition to be read,
But merely love and justice to the dead,
Which raised my fameless muse; and caused her bring
'
These drops, as tribute thrmvn into that spring,
To whose most rich and fruitful head we owe
The purest streams of language which can flow.
For 'tis but truth; thou taught1st the ruder age,
To speak by grammar; and reform'dst the stage;
Thy comic sock induced such purged sense,
A Lucrece might have heard without offence.
Amongst· those soaring wits that did dilate
Our English', and advance it to the rate
And value it now holds, thyself was one
Helped l ift it up to such proportion,
That, thus refined and robed, it shall not spare
ith the full Greek or Latin to compare.
* * * * * ·
All I would ask for thee, in recompen e
Of thy successful toil and time's expense
Is only this poor boon; that those who can,
Perhaps, read French, or talk Italian;
Or do the lofty Spaniard affect,
(To shew their skill in foreign dialect)
Prove not themselves so' unnaturally
~ise
They therefore should their mother-tongue despise;
(As if her poets both for style and w:tt,
Not-equalled, or not passed the:f.r best that writ)
• Until by studying JONSON they have knovm
The heighth, and strength, and plenty of their own.
Henry King, 1592-1669, from Jonsonus
Vir~bius
PREFACE
The object of this study i.s to give an historical account of
the morphology of Ben Jonson's plays, masques and entertainments.
A definitive edition of t hese works is now available in the first
seven volumes of Herford and Simpson' s en Jonson, and in it there
are numerous forms' of words which strike the modern .reader as un-
usual. It is mainly these that I have selected for treatment and
explanation. Similar work was done for Shakespeare ·by v:. Abbott
in his Shakespearian Grammar; subsequently, and more thoroughly,
w.
by Franz in his
Shakespeare-Gra~~atik.
By 'definitive' one means an edition which presents a critical
text, and which gives due conside;rati·on, inter alia, to the ortho-
graphy, punctuation and writing conventions of t he time. Accurate
investigation into the accidence of an author is almost i mpossible
until some scholar or scholars have undertaken this deli cate and
difficult preparation.
The chojce of Jonson as the subject of linguistic investigation
needs little comment. By his he was regarded as an
contempo~aries
accomplished scholar and a considerable dramatist. Though his re
putation has suffered some vicissitudes, there can be no question
of Jonson' s i mportance as an influence in the development of the
English language at a critical period, and of the effect of that
influence in directing ·English literature into channels that critics,
for the sake of conven1.ence, generally label 'classic '.
Jonson was also a or at l east a grammatical
ra~arian,
archivist, for his l i brary was the repository of any grammar, new
or old, which he could lay hands upon. His merits as a student
of grammar, though he was frankly an amateur, are not to be judged
by the scant, often naive, notes which survived the destruction of
his library by fire. His original were certainly lost,
research~
and the brief sketch which survives is of l ittle moment, save as an
indication of the value which Jonson himself attached to the sub-
ject. Unfortunately the volume containing Herf ord·and Simpson's
edition of the Grammar has not yet appeared, and the text at present
available is a thoroughly bad one.
The dramatic Nork of Ben Jonson is the more val uable because
(ii)
of his practical: attitude to problems of language. In his
t~e
Masques and Entertairtments he treated foibles
~lays, l~nguistic
realistically and critically.· ·. There is a .doubt that the
~rdly
speech in these works is. an authentic document; · we appear to have
them the opportunity of studying Elizabethan and Jacopean Eng
~n
lish· practically was _spoken.
~sit
. In the Herford and ·Simpson editi6n>of.· Ben Jonson the plays
- appear in chronological order,_n ot the of publication. For
ord~r
the purposes of this study there seemed rio go.od reason for de
parting from this arrangement·. A.T ale of a Tub, acted with cer
tain modifications at the end or Jonson's career, but not printed
until after his death (2nd Folio, 1640), andThe Case is Altered,
which first appeared or 1609, were probably written
inthe _q~rto
·before EverY Men in His Humour; but the linguistic evidence (to .
mention no other) shows that they were revised later. This evi-
dence rests ma.inly.on a study or orthography, such as the use or
the apostrophe, and the greater use or' the -.1. ending .in the 3rd
person singular present indicative or the verbs, ·.especially bu.
and for hM!l and
~ ~~ .
Eastward Ho, written jointly with Chapman and Marston, has
..
not been investigated. To have done this adequately would have
involved a study or the language of Jonson's collaborators and
an·-attempt to determine what part or the play was written by each
of the
dra~tists.
The plays, as a whole, were dealt wi.th first, then the
masques and entertainments. This separate treatment is that of
the Herford and Simpsqn edition. In the analysis of collected
examples, it was round that practical considerations often out
across chronological citation. . System has been the prior aim;
otherwise the quotations are in date order, first for the plays,
then for the masques and entertainments.
It remains to discharge debts or gratitude. No acknowledg-
ment can reflect the extent or my obligation to my supervisor,
Profess.o r W. S. Mackfe, Head of the of English ·
D~partment
.
at the University of Cape Town, who initiated andpiloted me
(iii)
<
through this study. In one or two places I have specifically
referred to suggestions which I have incorporated; but throughout
he has given valuable advice and saved me from several blunders.
The librarians of the Universities of Cape Town and Pretoria,
and their been equally untiring in their efforts to
staffs,~ have
provide me with the materjal for this study. I am particularly
grateful to Mr . R.F. Immelman, Librarian of the Jagger Library, not
only for the efficj.ency of the instrument which he commands , but
the year's secluded accommodation which he afforded, at con
fo~
side·rable inconvenience to himself, when I was deep in the spade
work of these investigations.
It need hardly be added that the N'ew Oxford F..nglj.sh Dictionar;t
bas been constantly at my elbow. It is a comfort, when one is
tracing the hi tory of a form, to know that its evolution is in
variably well illustrated in this vast mine of philological
material. I have used the Dictionary freely, as the following
pages show; and it is not too much to say that without the in
formation gleaned from this 1onderful compilation, I should hardly
have made any progress at all. y admiration for the knowledge,
skill, and method of its editors has increased with use.
c 0 NT EN T S
Page
Preface (i)
Chronological list of p;tays, masques and
entertainments, with abbreviations used 1
Introduction 5
ACCIDENCE
Nouns
umber 10
• • • • • • • • • •
Voicing of medial fricatives in plural; • • 31
Archaic plurals in ~en • • • • • • 35
Possessive Genitive 36
• • • • •
Gender 60
• • • • • • • • • •
Pronouns
Personal • 63
• • • • • • • • •
Reflexive and emphatic • • • • • • 73
Possessive • • • • • • • • • 73
Demonstrative • • • • • • • 79
Relative and Interrogative 81 ·
• • • • •
Indefinite 85
• • • • •
Articles
.
Indefinite 86
• • . • • • •
Definite • • • • • • • • • 90
Adjectives
Comparison • e • • • • • • • 93
Numerals
Cardinals 105
• • • • • • •
Ordinals 107
• • • • • • •
Multip1icatives 109
• • • • • • •
Adverbs
Formation 110
• • • • • • • •
Contracted forms 119
• • • • • • •
Comparison 121
• • • • • • •
Prepositions
Original forms 123
• • • • • • •
Aphetic, contracted and unemphatic
colloquial forms 125
• • • • • • •
Conjunctions
Original forms • • • • • • 133
Aphetic and contracted forms 134
• • • •
•'
-Page
Verbs
Inflexions of the present indicative active 137
Archaic prefixes and suffixes of participles 154
'eak verbs 156
• • • • • • 0 • •
Verbs with mixed forms 175
• • • 0 0
Strong verbs 190
• • • • • • • •
Notional verbs: miscellaneous forms 215
• •
O.E. past-present verbs 222
• • 0 • •
Verb 'to be ' • • • • • • • • 224
Auxiliary verbs 231
• • • 0 • 0 0
Auxiliary verbs also used as notional verbs 232
APPENDICES
/' • ', /· I!' I. Dialect forms • • • • • • • • 238
!I. Comparative tudy of the accidence of Shakespeare
and Ben Jonson, with notes on the forms found or
recommended in the grammars of Gill, Jonson,
Butler and Cooper 250
• • • • • • •
Bibliography 299
• • • • • • •

3
Abbreviation Title Remarks
F.H.W. For the Honour of 1618
Wales
E.Black An Entertainment at 1620 Monthly Text from Harley
the Biackfriars Mag.Feb. MS 4955
1816
P.A. P n• Anniversary 1620-4 F2-1640 · Brotanek fixes
date of perform
ance at 1620, Her
ford & Simpson
uggest 1623 or
1624.
N.N.W. News from the New 1621
{orld Discovered in
the Moon
G.M. The Gypsies Meta- 1621 Duodecimo Text based on MS
morpho sed 1640 ,in Henry E.Hunt
F2-1640 ington Library
M.A. The Masque of Augurs 1622 Q-1622 F2 a revi ed and
enl rged text
T.V.H. Time Vindicated to 1623 Q-1623
Himself and to His
Honours
.T. Neptune's Triumph for De igned Q-1623· 4
the Return of Albion to be acted
1623
.! • 0. The rl.asque of Owls 1624 F2-1640
F. I . The Fortunate ·Isles, 1625 Q-1624-5 A remodelled ver
and Their Union sion of Neptune '
Triumph
L.T.C. Love 's Triumph thro- 1631 Q-1630
ugh Callipolis
Chlor. Chloridia 1630-31 -1630-31
K.E.W. The King's Entertain- 1633 Also in Harley
ment at Welbeck MS 4955'
Love 's ·welcome at 1634 Also in Harley
Bolsover MS 4955
=
F1 Folio 1616; includes plays from E. 1.I.H. to Catiline and
masques and entertainments to The Golden Age Restored.
F2 = Folio 1631 - 40; includes plays of Fl + 'I'. T. and Eart .F. M.F.
(except .Inn); also remaining masques and entertainments, ex
cept An tertainment at the Blackfr"ars, which remained in ms.
=
F3 Folio 1692
The figures i brackets at the end of each c·tation indicate
the page in the Herford and Simpson edition.
In the Herford a1d Simpson edition the First Folio, which was