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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Literary historians are practically agreed as to the origin of the two elements which comprise the main plot of Ben Jonson's Epicorne. The story of a man induced by false pretences to marry an almost insanely loquacious woman is a version of a declamation by the Greek Sophist Libanius on the surly man who has married a talkative wife. In regard to this relationship there can be no question. The second, and more important, element of the main plot is the practical joke played upon an eccentric which results in his ostensible marriage to a boy disguised as a girl. The source of this story, the most authoritative German critics and Dr. Henry agree, is to be found in Plautus's Casina, in which a somewhat similar trick is played upon Lysidamus. To this opinion Herford and Simpson, the editors of the definitive edition of Jonson's works, add their endorsement:
1 Dr. Aurelia Henry in her edition of Epicœne (Yale Studies in English, Vol. xxi, N. Y. 1906, p. xxxviii) was the first to point out that Jonson probably read the folio edition of the work published at Paris in 1606, in which a Latin translation was printed in parallel columns with the Greek. At any rate, Jonson calls his protagonist Morose, and in this edition the Greek Δuσκoλoς is rendered by the Latin “Morosus.”
2 Moriz Rapp, Studien über das englishe Theatre, Tübingen, 1862, p. 390; Karl von Reinhardstöttner, Plautus, Leipzig, 1886, p. 390; and Emil Koeppel, Quellen Studien zu den Dramen Ben Jonson's, J. Marston's und Beaumont und Fletcher's, Leipzig, 1895, p. 11, in Münchener Beiträge zur romanischen u. englischen Philologie, 1895, Vol. xv.
3 Op. cit. p. xxxiv.
4 Ben Jonson, edited by C. H. Herford and Percy Simpson. Oxford 1925, ii, 76.
5 Act iv, Scene 1, 760–780.
6 This comedy was first published in Venice in 1533. Subsequent editions appeared in 1534, 1535, 1536, 1537, 1539, 1542, 1550, 1553, and 1588. Its popularity was immediate, intense and continuous. Creizenach, in his Geschichte des Neueren Dramas, iv, p. 2419, notices this similarity as follows: “Wenn in Ben Jonson's Epicœne ein wunderlicher alter Herr dadurch mystifiziert wird, dass man ihm einen Knaben in Mädchenkleidern als Braut zuführt, so erinnert das an Aretinos Marescalco.”
7 Il Marescalco, i, 4. e.g., “O benedetta santa Nafissa ponetegli le mani in capo et in mulieribus—nomen tuum, vita dulcedo—panem nostrum—benedicta te —s'egli la toglia ad te susperamus,” etc.
8 Marescalco, i, 6:
Mar. O Dio, O Dio, che tormento e questo mio.
Balia. Poveretto, poveraccio, poverino, sai tu ciò che si sia il tor moglie.
Mar. No'1 so, e no'l vo sapere.
Balia. Il paradiso, il paradiso è il torla.
Mar. Si, se lo inferno fosse paradiso.
9 This is a free colloquial translation of the following passage from Act ii, Sc. v, of Il Marescalco: Tu torni la sera a casa stanco fastidito e pieno di quelli pensieri, chi ha chi ci vive, et eccoti la moglie incontra: parti ora questa di tornare a casa? O da le taverne, o da le zambracche si viene, ben lo so bene; a questo modo si tratta la buona moglie, come sono io? a fare, a far sia; e tu, che ti credi consolare con la cena, entri in collera, e sofferto un pezzo, se le respondi, ella ti si ficca su gli occhi con le grida: e tu non mi meriti, tu non sei degno di me, e simili altre loro dicerie ritrose, di modo che fuggita la voglia del mangiare, ti colchi nel letto, e ella dopo mille rimbrontoli ti entra a lato con uno: sia squartato chi mi ti diede; ad un Conte, ad un Cavaliere potea maritarmi; et entrara a squinternare la sua geonologia, diresti ella è nata del sangue di gonzaga, cotanta puzza mena.
10 ii, v, Non fu a cotesto modo, tu esci del seminato, mettiti gli occhiali, tu sei fuor di te, inacqualo, dico … e se non che il buon marito serra gli orecchi a cotal rumore, che tanto più alza, quanto più crede essere udita, assordirebbe, et immattirebbe in un medesimo tempo.
11 Che crudeltà è come elle entrano a berlingare tutto, tutto di dalli, dalli, mai, mai, non danno requie a la lingua loro, e contano filastroccole le più ladre, le più sciocche, che s'udissero mai, et guai a chi gli rompesse i ragionamenti, o non ascoltare.
12 Maldicenti, non ti dico; sempre dan menda a tutte; e la tale ha i denti neri, e la cotale ha la bocca troppo grande, quella ha la carnagione livida, quella e piccola, questa non sa favellare, questa non sa andare …
13 Sia pur certo, che non hanno tanti bossoletti i medici da gli unguenti quanti ne hanno loro.
14 Altro ah? i o non so ciò che mi vorresti più dire, io sono si confitto (nailed) nel mio non voleria per i tuoi ottimi, senti, e divini consigli, che non mi sconficcarebbeno dal proposito mio tutti i Duchi del mondo, non che questo di Mantova.
15 Epicœne ii, 1 passim.
16 Herford and Simpson, op. cit., ii, 77.
17 The content of Truewit's monologue has long been recognized as a modernization of ideas expressed in the sixth satire of Juvenal. cf. Aurelia Henry, op. cit., pp. l–liii.
18 Epicœne, ii. 2. Works, ii p. 396.
19 iv. 2.
20 Vid. infra.
21 v. 10 Marescalco: “Non mi fate despiacere che vi dirò. Perche non posso torla.”
Conte: “Perchè?”
Marescalco: “Io sono aperto.”
22 Ibid. Balia: Io non vò questa bugia in su l'anima, non è la verità.
23 Pedante: Piacevi, deliziozissima Madonna, per vostro singular consorte il Marescalco de nobilibus?
de nobilibus?
Sposa: Signoor siiiii.
24 Non vi ho io detto che non posso, perchè io sono aperto.
26 v, 10, “O castrone, O bue, O bufalo, O scempio che io sono, egli è Carlo paggio, ah, ah, ah.”
26 v, 9, Venite tutti in casa, che la cena è in ordine, e dopo cena finirete di ridere de la burla.
27 Epicœne, v, 1.
28 Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Drama, Wien, 1897. Litterarshistorische Forschungen. i p. ix.
29 Ibid. p. x. My collection of references has not yet mounted to Meyers's impressive total.
30 Edward Hutton in his Pietro Aretino, London, 1922, p. 265, opines that an Aretino allusion book would be very “monotonous and profitless,” because the 16th century English writers all treat him as the great exemplar of the obscene, and only as that. Curiously, the examples which he quotes from Gabriel Harvey's Marginalia all belie this assertion, as would many similar quotations from other Elizabethan writers.
31 Preface to his Readers of Lenten Stuffe, Works, ed. by P. B. McKerrow, London, 1908, iii, 152.
32 To the Gentlemen Readers of Foure Letters Confuted, Works i, 259. He makes an indirect reference to the Ragionamenti when in The Unfortunate Traveller, he calls Aretino the “Searcher and chief Inquisitor to the College of Curtizans.” Works ii. pp. 264–265.
33 Cf. Einstein in The Italian Renaissance in England. p. 351, and the author of the article on Nashe in the Dict. of Nat. Biog. Mr. McKerrow admits (Nashe, Works v, 129), with engaging frankness, that his knowledge of Italian is too superficial to enable him to pursue this important subject.
34 Donne, Satire iv. 1. 70; Guilpin, Skialetheia etc. London 1598, (Collier Reprint) p. 32 and p. 44; Marston, Satire ii, 1. 145, The Scourge of Villainy, Satire iii, ll. 79–80, Ibid., Satire xi, l. 144. For texts vid. Works, ed. by A. H. Bullen, London, 1887. pp. 275, 320, and 377.
35 Nashe, Works v. 129.
36 Volpone iii, Sc. ii, Works iii p. 234–236.
37 Vide Herford and Simpson, op., cit. ii, 49.
38 Ibid., p. 69.
39 Drummond's statement that Jonson knew no Italian should be challenged at this point. Drummond, it will be recalled, quotes a number of his guest's judgments of “Stranger Poets,” among whom are du Bartas, Petrarch, Guarini, and Ronsard. He then adds with obvious ill-nature, “All this to no purpose, for he neither doeth understand French nor Italianne” (Herford and Simpson, op. cit. i, 134.). This is not the place to discuss exhaustively the extent of Jonson's knowledge of Italian. At this point it is enough to remember that Drummond later in the Conversations contradicts his own incredible statement. He gives a list of Jonson's own works which he says that his friend read to him. Among them he places “Paraboste's Pariane with his Lettere” (Herford & Simpson i, 35). This is probably a reference to a poem which appeared in Girolamo Parabosco's Il Terzo Libro delle Lettre Amorose, published in Venice in 1553. At least it is a fact that in Volume viii of the Drummond manuscript, there is an Italian poem entitled “Parabosco in his lettere amorose sendeth this madrigal to on (sic) of his mistresses.” It begins “Donna, un tempo di voi l'ira soffersi.” This is apparently the poem which Jonson had translated and to which Drummond refers. (For the whole matter cf. Herford & Simpson i, 156.) This is evidence of considerable knowledge of Italian on the part of Jonson. There is of course the possibility, which McKerrow suggests, that there was an Elizabethan translation of some of Aretino's work. In that case Jonson could have had a knowledge of it without using his Italian. After this article had been completed, my colleague, Professor M. P. Tilley, called my attention to H. Sellers' article on “Italian Printed Books in England” [The Library, 4th Series, No. 2, Sept. 1924]. The author there chronicles the publication by John Wolfe of four of Aretino's comedies in England, in Italian, during the year 1588, under the title Quattro Comedie [Marescalco, Talanta, Cortegiana, Hipocrito]. Although they were intended for circulation in Italy, illegal because of their having been placed on The Index, this English publication is an additional reason for assuming Jonson's knowledge of Aretino's comedies.
