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JOHN DRYDEN Epilogue To The Conquest of Granada
JOHN DRYDEN Epilogue To The Conquest of Granada
JOHN DRYDEN Epilogue To The Conquest of Granada
JOHN DRYDEN
1631–1700
1671 1672
1. This epilogue, in which Dryden compared unfa- 3. A character in Jonson’s play Every Man in His
vorably the manners, the conversation, and the Humor; “Otter” appears in Jonson’s Epicocene, or
drama of the earlier 17th century with those of his the Silent Woman.
own time, had provoked such hostile criticism that, 4. Without weighting the scale in his favor. A
when he published the play in 1672, he included a “grain” is the smallest unit of weight.
long prose defense of his position. 5. The two themes of the rhymed herbic play, of
2. The eccentricities of artisans, as opposed to which The Conquest of Granada is the most dis-
people of the middle and upper classes. tinguished example.
2 / John Dryden
1667 1670
1. In 1667 Dryden collaborated with the poet lau- Essay of Dramatic Poesy.
reate, Sir William Davenant, in adapting Shake- 3. John Fletcher (1579–1625), who collaborated
speare’s Tempest to the Restoration stage and the with Francis Beaumont (on 1584–1616) in writing
tastes of Restoration audiences. plays. During the early years of the Restoration
2. The view of Shakespeare as a natural genius, period, their dramas were the most frequently
writing without the advantages of classical learn- revived plays “of the last age.”
ing, was a critical commonplace. Compare Jon- 4. Details of the plot of The Sea Voyage (1622), by
son’s To the Memory of * * * Shakespeare, line 31, Fletcher and Philip Massinger, suggest The Tempest.
Milton’s L’Allegro, lines 131–34, and Dryden’s 5. The common run of poets.
The Indian Emperor / 3
1669 1670
1. The famous actress Nell Gwynn (“Mrs.”—i.e., dria. Valeria is killed in the general slaughter which
“Mistress”—was the title given all young unmarried ends the play.
women); her beauty and wit made her not only a 2. Pope develops this idea brilliantly in the sylphs
favorite of London audiences, but eventually a mis- and gnomes of The Rape of the Lock.
tress of Charles II. As he lay dying he was heard to 3. One of the four periods of the year when the law
say, “Don’t let poor Nelly starve.” Her great roles courts sit.
were comic parts, but in Tyrannic Love she acted 4. Punish.
Valeria, the daughter of the wicked Roman Emperor 5. The normal pronunciation of Catharine at the
Maximin, who puts to death St. Catharine of Alexan- time.
4 / John Dryden
1665 1667
1. The symbol of victory (cf. Revelation 7.9). father at the moment of conception. Because
2. Dryden is speculating on where the soul of the Henry Killigrew had written a tragedy, his daughter
dead poet has come to rest: is she the tutelary deity is said to have inherited a poet’s soul from him.
of a planet (“neighboring star”)? or of one of the Dryden goes on to propose the theory that the soul
remote “fixed” stars? or does she enjoy the higher exists before birth, and less seriously, that through
(“superior”) bliss of having joined the “seraphim,” the ages it transmigrates from body to body.
the guardians of the throne of God? (cf. Isaiah 6). 4. Killigrew is said to have been Sappho (the Greek
Like Milton, Dryden makes use of the Ptolemaic lyric poet of the 7th century b.c.e.) twice: “once
universe of concentric spheres moving around the before,” when her soul transmigrated into Sappho’s
earth “in procession fixed and regular.” body, and most recently (“last”), when it inhabited
3. The idea that the soul is transmitted by the the body of the modern Sappho, Anne Killigrew.
6 / John Dryden
5. The familiar idea that character and destiny are 6. It was said that bees clustered on the lips of the
determined by the position of the planets at the infant Pindar, thus foretelling his greatness as a
moment of birth (“horoscope”). Killigrew’s horo- lyric poet.
scope was fortunate (“auspicious”): even those 7. Lewd and corrupted.
planets that are usually baleful (“malicious”) were 8. Cf. Milton’s Lycidas, line 85. “Thy vestal”: i.e.,
“in trine”—120 degrees apart and hence favorable thy virgin. The Roman vestal virgins guarded the
in their influence. fire in the Temple of Vesta, goddess of the hearth.
Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew / 7
80
By great examples daily fed,
What in the best of books, her father’s life, she read.
And to be read herself she need not fear;
}
Each test and every light her Muse will bear,
Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.9
Even love (for love sometimes her Muse expressed)
Was but a lambent flame1 which played about her breast,
85 Light as the vapors of a morning dream;
So cold herself, whilst she such warmth expressed,
’Twas Cupid bathing in Diana’s stream.
6
Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,2
One would have thought she should have been content
90 To manage well that mighty government;
But what can young ambitious souls confine?
To the next realm she stretched her sway,
For Painture3 near adjoining lay,
A plenteous province, and alluring prey.
}
95 A chamber of dependences was framed
(As conquerors will never want pretense,
When armed, to justify the offense)
And the whole fief in right of Poetry she claimed.4
The country open lay without defense;
100 For poets frequent inroads there had made,
And perfectly could represent
The shape, the face, with every lineament;
And all the large demains which the dumb Sister5 swayed,
All bowed beneath her government,
105 Received in triumph wheresoe’er she went.
Her pencil6 drew whate’er her soul designed,
And oft the happy draft surpassed the image in her mind.
The sylvan scenes7 of herds and flocks
And fruitful plains and barren rocks;
110 Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear
The bottom did the top appear;
Of deeper too and ampler floods,
9. A collector is said to have paid a large sum for most of Alsace, Lorraine, and Luxembourg to his
the lamp of the philosopher Epictetus in the faith realm through his policy of réunions, by setting up
that owning it would make him wise. Dryden Chambres de Réunions. These chambers by quasi-
merely means that Killigrew’s poems would appear legal means awarded to Louis, as overlord, towns,
pure even if judged in the light of the most severe cities, and estates with all their “dependences” or
Stoic ethical standards. fiefs, i.e., estates held under the feudal system
2. The Nine Muses, who preside over the arts of lit- from overlords, to whom the holders owed services
erature, the dance, music, and astronomy. and rents.
1. I.e., a flickering flame (cf. Mac Flecknoe, line 111) 5. The muse of painting. “Large demains”: i.e., an
3. The art of painting (a Gallicism). estate held in one’s own right, as opposed to a fief.
4. In the elaborate figure that dominates these 6. Painter’s brush.
lines, Dryden alludes to recent peaceful annexa- 7. Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost 4.140.
tions by Louis XIV of France, who in 1679 added
8 / John Dryden
190
And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
For they are covered with the lightest ground,
}
And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing,
7. The poet Katharine Philips (1631–1664), fanci- 1. The Pleiades, a cluster of stars (six are visible to
fully referred to by her admirers as “Matchless the unaided eye) in the constellation Taurus.
Orinda,” who, like Killigrew, died of the disfiguring 2. Joel 3.12; Ezekiel 37.
disease smallpox. 3. “Assizes”: periodical sessions of superior courts
8. “Warlike brother”: Henry Killigrew, an officer in held in each county in England. Here, of course,
the Royal Navy. Pennons (“streamers”) fly from the the Last Judgment—at which some will be alive on
mast of his ship. earth (“wake”) and many will have already died
9. Perceivest. (“sleep”).
10 / John Dryden
195
As harbinger4 of heaven, the way to show,}
The way which thou so well hast learned below.
}
1686
[Enter janus.2]
janus. Chronos,3 Chronos, mend thy pace;
An hundred times the rolling sun
Around the radiant belt4 has run
In his revolving race.
5 Behold, behold, the goal in sight;
Spread thy fans,5 and wing thy flight.
[Enter chronos, with a scythe in his hand, and a great globe on his
back, which he sets down at his entrance.]
4. One who goes ahead to provide a lodging. applied to the games, plays, and shows celebrated
1. A masque is a dramatic performance, usually in Rome once an “age,” a period of 120 years. It is
mythological in character, that combines poetry, not certain that Dryden lived to see his masque
music, dance, and spectacle. Unlike the court performed.
masques of Ben Jonson, this masque was written 2. The god of beginnings, who here presides over
for public performance as an afterpiece to the the opening of the new century.
revival of Fletcher’s The Pilgrim, revised by Sir 3. God of time.
John Vanbrugh and produced for the financial ben- 4. The Zodiac. The sun, in the course of a year,
efit of Dryden himself. It is a “secular” masque passes through all twelve signs.
because it celebrates the end of the century, “sec- 5. Wings.
ular” being derived from the Latin saeculares, 6. God of mockery and faultfinding.
The Secular Masque / 11
7. Diana, the virgin goddess of the moon, a civil wars and the Commonwealth.
huntress. She symbolizes England before the civil 2. Breathe into.
wars, an allusion to James I’s passion for the chase. 3. I.e., the costume has changed from the green of
8. Wearing hunting boots. the hunter to the crimson of the soldier (at once
9. Waxing (i.e., increasing, because in the first the color of blood and of “Tyrian dye,” known to
quarter). the ancients as “purple”).
1. God of war, who represents the period of the
12 / John Dryden
4. Goddess of love and beauty, representing the 5. Sir Walter Scott suggested that this line refers to
licentious reigns of Charles II and James II. the exiled Queen Mary of Modena, wife of James II.
The Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern / 13
chorus of all.
All, all of a piece throughout:
Thy chase had a beast in view;
Thy wars brought nothing about;
95 Thy lovers were all untrue.
’Tis well an old age is out,
And time to begin a new.
[Dance of huntsmen, nymphs, warriors, and lovers.]
1700
would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters
are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity: their discourses are such as
belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such as are becoming of
them, and of them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some virtuous;
some are unlearned, or (as Chaucer calls them) lewd, and some are learned.
Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different: the Reeve, the Miller, and
the Cook are several men, and distinguished from each other as much as the
mincing Lady Prioress and the broad-speaking, gap-toothed Wife of Bath. But
enough of this; there is such a variety of game springing up before me that
I am distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow. ’Tis sufficient to
say, according to the proverb, that here is God’s plenty. * * *
1700