RPO -- Ben Jonson : Epigrams: An Epitaph on S.P.

Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

Epigrams: An Epitaph on S.P.
A Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel

1Weep with me, all you that read

2 This little story:

3And know, for whom a tear you shed

4 Death's self is sorry.

5'Twas a child, that so did thrive

6 In grace and feature,

7As heaven and nature seem'd to strive

8 Which own'd the creature.

9Years he number'd scarce thirteen

10 When fates turn'd cruel,

11Yet three fill'd zodiacs had he been

12 The stage's jewel;

13And did act (what now we moan)

14 Old men so duly,

15As, sooth, the Parcæ thought him one,

16 He play'd so truly.

17So, by error, to his fate

18 They all consented;

19But viewing him since (alas, too late)

20 They have repented;

21And have sought (to give new birth)

22 In baths to steep him;

23But being so much too good for earth,

24 Heaven vows to keep him.

Notes

1] Works 1616. S.P. was Salomon Pavy, a boy-actor in the children's company of the Queen's Revels, who played Anaides in Jonson's Cynthia's Revels. He died in 1602.

15-18] Here Jonson retouches a fancy of Martial, Epig. X, 53, on Scorpus, a chariot-driver in the Circus Maximus, who in a short career won many victories (Pavy was an actor for only three years).

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Ben Jonson, The workes of Benjamin Jonson (London: Will Stansby, 1616). STC 14751.
First publication date: 1616
RPO poem editor: F. D. Hoeniger
RP edition: 3RP 1.155.
Recent editing: 4:2002/4/3

Composition date: 1602
Rhyme: ababcdcd ...

Other poems by Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

Epigrams: An Epitaph on S.P.A Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel

Epigrams: An Epitaph on S.P.
A Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel