Jonson and the Morris
Ben Jonson's references to morris dancing include:
Bartholemew Fair
Act V, Scene iv:
| I ha' beene at the Eagle, and the blacke
Wolfe, and the Bull with the five legges,
and two pizzles; (hee was a Calfe at Uxbridge Fayre,
two yeeres agone) And at the dogges that daunce the
Morrice, and the Hare o'the Taber;
and mist him at all these! |
Act V, Scene v:
| I wil remove Dagon there, I say, that
Idoll, that heathenish Idoll, that remaines
(as I may say) a beame, a very beame, not a beame of the
Sunne, nor a beame of the Moone, nor a beame
of a ballance, neither a house-beame, nor a Weavers beame, but
a beame in the eye, in the eye of the brethren; a very great
beame, an exceeding great beame; such as are your
Stage-players, Rimers, and
Morrise-dancers, who have walked hand in hand, in
contempt of the Brethren, and the Cause; and
beene borne out by instruments, of no meane countenance. |
Epigrammes
CXXIII "On the Famous Voyage":
(in worthy scorne
Of those, that put out moneys, on returne
From Venice, Paris, or some in-land passage,
Of sixe times to, and fro, without embassage,
Or him that backward went to Berwicke, or which
Did dance the famous Morrisse, unto Norwich.) |
It may be of interest to note that Richard Helgerson has described "On
the Famous Voyage" as "among the filthiest, the most deliberately and
insistently disgusting poems in the language." ["Ben Jonson," in
The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to
Marvell, ed. Thomas N. Corns (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993).]
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