SpokenVerse | A Farewell To The World by Ben Jonson (read by Tom O'Bedlam) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded January 2013 | Updated October 2024, 8 hours ago.
This is from The Oxford Book of English Verse. It's an abbreviated version of a poem published in The Forest, called "To the World, A Farewell for a Gentlewoman, virtuous and noble." The other verses are interesting but they don't add much to the sense.
luminarium.org/editions/forest.htm
As an intellectual, Ben Jonson is at the top of the tree, along with Goethe and Shakespeare.
telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9423214/Why-should-William-Shakespeare-have-the-last-word-over-Ben-Jonson.html
Many intellectuals have come to express a similar despair and resignation from the world. It's more about how Ben Johnson feels than a real resignation - he went on to do a lot more creative work.
The most influential people in society are the professional classes: the doctors, the lawyers, the teachers, the businessmen and the politicians. They have above average intelligence - an IQ of 120 plus or minus 10 points. If the professions required more intelligence there wouldn't be enough people to fill the positions. Society runs on inherited learning, beliefs and established practices. Whether right or wrong, good or evil, it continues to do what it does almost impervious to reason or reform.
Most people have cherished beliefs about things no one knows for sure. They divide into factions, such as political parties, with opposing theories they express vehemently as the absolute truth.
"Oh! let us never, never doubt;
What nobody is sure about!"... Hilaire Belloc
People who are more intelligent tend to work as specialists, innovators, creative artists, writers, critics and comedians. Comedians tell us the truth - oddly, hearing the truth for a change is funny. Jon Stewart is the modern equivalent of a Ben Jonson.
Intellectuals tend to see things more accurately, they are not so influenced and defrauded by emotion. They see the faults and attempt to change the world they live in. Ben Jonson's work is concerned with the various nature of humanity - what he called the "humours". His play The Alchemist is an example:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alchemist_(play)_
What happens to would-be reformers is that they are abused and vilified by the people who would be inconvenienced by change. They will never know how successful they eventually become - because if reform does happen then it happens too late for them to get the credit for it. It's a sad irony that the people who do the most good suffer vilification while they are alive and die thinking of themselves as failures. There are so many examples.
The pictures are from two different French films of Volpone by Ben Jonson.
False world, good night! since thou hast brought
That hour upon my morn of age;
Henceforth I quit thee from my thought,
My part is ended on thy stage.
Yes, threaten, do. Alas! I fear
As little as I hope from thee:
I know thou canst not show nor bear
More hatred than thou hast to me.
My tender, first, and simple years
Thou didst abuse and then betray;
Since stir'd'st up jealousies and fears,
When all the causes were away.
Then in a soil hast planted me
Where breathe the basest of thy fools;
Where envious arts professèd be,
And pride and ignorance the schools;
Where nothing is examined, weigh'd,
But as 'tis rumour'd, so believed;
Where every freedom is betray'd,
And every goodness tax'd or grieved.
But what we're born for, we must bear:
Our frail condition it is such
That what to all may happen here,
If 't chance to me, I must not grutch.
Else I my state should much mistake
To harbour a divided thought
From all my kind—that, for my sake,
There should a miracle be wrought.
No, I do know that I was born
To age, misfortune, sickness, grief:
But I will bear these with that scorn
As shall not need thy false relief.
Nor for my peace will I go far,
As wanderers do, that still do roam;
But make my strengths, such as they are,
Here in my bosom, and at home.
This is from The Oxford Book of English Verse. It's an abbreviated version of a poem published in The Forest, called "To the World, A Farewell for a Gentlewoman, virtuous and noble." The other verses are interesting but they don't add much to the sense.
luminarium.org/editions/forest.htm
As an intellectual, Ben Jonson is at the top of the tree, along with Goethe and Shakespeare.
telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9423214/Why-should-William-Shakespeare-have-the-last-word-over-Ben-Jonson.html
Many intellectuals have come to express a similar despair and resignation from the world. It's more about how Ben Johnson feels than a real resignation - he went on to do a lot more creative work.
The most influential people in society are the professional classes: the doctors, the lawyers, the teachers, the businessmen and the politicians. They have above average intelligence - an IQ of 120 plus or minus 10 points. If the professions required more intelligence there wouldn't be enough people to fill the positions. Society runs on inherited learning, beliefs and established practices. Whether right or wrong, good or evil, it continues to do what it does almost impervious to reason or reform.
Most people have cherished beliefs about things no one knows for sure. They divide into factions, such as political parties, with opposing theories they express vehemently as the absolute truth.
"Oh! let us never, never doubt;
What nobody is sure about!"... Hilaire Belloc
People who are more intelligent tend to work as specialists, innovators, creative artists, writers, critics and comedians. Comedians tell us the truth - oddly, hearing the truth for a change is funny. Jon Stewart is the modern equivalent of a Ben Jonson.
Intellectuals tend to see things more accurately, they are not so influenced and defrauded by emotion. They see the faults and attempt to change the world they live in. Ben Jonson's work is concerned with the various nature of humanity - what he called the "humours". His play The Alchemist is an example:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alchemist_(play)_
What happens to would-be reformers is that they are abused and vilified by the people who would be inconvenienced by change. They will never know how successful they eventually become - because if reform does happen then it happens too late for them to get the credit for it. It's a sad irony that the people who do the most good suffer vilification while they are alive and die thinking of themselves as failures. There are so many examples.
The pictures are from two different French films of Volpone by Ben Jonson.
False world, good night! since thou hast brought
That hour upon my morn of age;
Henceforth I quit thee from my thought,
My part is ended on thy stage.
Yes, threaten, do. Alas! I fear
As little as I hope from thee:
I know thou canst not show nor bear
More hatred than thou hast to me.
My tender, first, and simple years
Thou didst abuse and then betray;
Since stir'd'st up jealousies and fears,
When all the causes were away.
Then in a soil hast planted me
Where breathe the basest of thy fools;
Where envious arts professèd be,
And pride and ignorance the schools;
Where nothing is examined, weigh'd,
But as 'tis rumour'd, so believed;
Where every freedom is betray'd,
And every goodness tax'd or grieved.
But what we're born for, we must bear:
Our frail condition it is such
That what to all may happen here,
If 't chance to me, I must not grutch.
Else I my state should much mistake
To harbour a divided thought
From all my kind—that, for my sake,
There should a miracle be wrought.
No, I do know that I was born
To age, misfortune, sickness, grief:
But I will bear these with that scorn
As shall not need thy false relief.
Nor for my peace will I go far,
As wanderers do, that still do roam;
But make my strengths, such as they are,
Here in my bosom, and at home.
