fundamental Horatian comment on decorum in art, expressing the proper relation between speech and situation and the distinct differences between a god and a hero, an old man and a young man, a housewife and a nurse, a merchant and a farmer, and between men from different places and countries:
Si dicentis erūnt fortunis absona dicta:
Romani tollent equites peditesque cachinnūm.
Intererit multūm divusne loquatur an heros:
Maturusne senex an adhuc florente iuvēnta
Fervidus: & matrona potens an sedula nutrix:
Mercatorne vagus cultorne virentis agelli.
Colchus an Assyrius, Thebis nutritus an Argis.
(If the speaker’s words sound discordant with his fortunes, the Romans, in boxes and pit alike, will raise a loud guffaw. It will make a vast difference, whether a god be speaking or a hero, a ripe old man or one still in the flower and fervour of youth, a dame of rank or a bustling nurse, a roaming trader or the tiller of a verdant field, a Colchian or an Assyrian, one bred at Thebes or at Argos.)
Another aspect of the principle of appropriateness, decorum of genre, is given attention. This is indeed a rule that Jonson strictly obeyed as critic and dramatist. The comic and the tragic should not be mixed; the genre must remain within its appropriate frame:
Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non volt:
Indignatur itēm privatis ac prope socco
Dignis carminibusi narrari cena Thyestae:
Singula quaeque locūm teneānt sortita decentem.
(A theme for comedy refuses to be set forth in verses of tragedy; likewise the feast of Thyestes scorns to be told in strains of daily life that well nigh befits the comic sock. Let each style keep the becoming place allotted it.)
But Horace adds that sometimes the tragic and the comic laguage may overlap to convey the right feelings, ‘at times even comedy raises her voice’. Jonson had also marked the section on tradition and originality in art, which gives preference to conventional models in artistic imitation:
Si quid inexpertum scenae committis et audes
Personam formare novam, servetur ad imum:
Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.
(If it is an untried theme you entrust to the stage, and if you boldly fashion a fresh character, have it kept to the end as it came forth at the first, and have it self-consistent.)
The remarks on convention in imitation is part of the whole concept of decorum in character and links up perfectly with the next annotation which expands the section on decorum of age to express the psychological features appropriate to the four ages of Man – childhood, youth, maturity and old age:
Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum,
Multa recedentes adimunt. Ne forte seniles
Mandentur iuveni partes pueroque viriles:
Semper in adiunctis aevoque morabimur aptis.
(Many blessings do the advancing years bring with them; many as they retire, they take away. So, lest haply we assign a youth the part of age, or a boy that of manhood, we shall ever linger over traits that are joined and fitted to the age.)
Added to the psychological appropriateness of age the manuscript outlines the correct behaviour for the child, the unbearded youth, the grown man and the old man.
The section on the principle of dramatic unity, the unity of beginning, middle and end, is clearly annotated with stress on the line Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum (the middle is not discordant with the beginning, nor the end with the middle). Further, the parallels between creative writing and painting are noted, ut pictura, pöesis (a poem is like a picture), and the way art pleases, Haec placuit semel, haec deciens repetita placebit (this pleased but once; that, though ten times called for, will always please). The warning against the average and minor poet and publication of inferior works, Nescit vox missa reverti (the word once sent forth can never come back) is also underlined.
Jonson’s translation of the Ars Poetica and the frequent references to Horace and his works both in the conversations with Drummond and in the Discoveries defines Horace as the classical inspirator who had been selected to play a main part. The Horatian rules, decorum of speech, age (and the relevant psychology and behaviour for each age), occupation, social position, nationality and genre were not challenged. To Jonson, Horace was the master of virtue and wisdom:
Either follow tradition or invent what is self-consistent. If haply, when you write, you bring back to the stage the honouring of Achilles, let him be impatient, passionate, ruthless, fierce; let him claim that laws are not made for him, let him ever make appeal to the sword. Let Medea be fierce and unyielding, Ino tearful, Ixion forsworn, Io a wanderer, Orestes sorrowful. If it is an untried theme you entrust to the stage, and if you boldly fashion a fresh character, have it kept to the end even as it came forth at the first, and have it self-consistent.22
But Horace was not the only guide among the ancients. Horatian theories reached back to similar concepts in the Aristotelian writing. Jonson had strong views on ancestry and the importance of mentors and masters. Few men, he insisted, were wise by their own counsel or learned by their own teaching. Jonson’s signature and even his motto are found in some of the copies of Aristotle’s works in his library without annotations and underlining, but the importance of Aristotelian critical theory was made perfectly clear by Jonson:
Aristotle was the first accurate Criticke, and truest Judge; nay, the greatest Philosopher, the world ever had: for, hee noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men’s perfections in a Science, has formed still one Art. So hee taught us two Offices together, how we ought to judge rightly of others, and what wee ought to imitate specially in our selves.23
Again, the focus is on judgment and imitation according to a set of rules. The Aristotelian comment on decorum of age, sex and nationality comes very close to the later Horatian ideal. The same standard is apparent in the four Aristotelian qualities of the dramatic character. The first point is that the character must be good. Natural goodness can be found in any type of person, independent of birth, rank and position. Thus, a slave may be portrayed as good. It is only in the ‘dramatic picture of the Ridiculous’ that the bad, unworthy or ugly characters appear. The second quality is appropriateness that outlines the differences between the sexes and, for example, rules out cleverness in a woman, but Jonson portrayed the intelligent woman (cf Sempronia in Catiline). The third requirement is to identify character with reality, the obedience to an accepted pattern of man in society. The final point is consistency in characterization. It rules out any change or development of character away from the original conception: ‘Even if inconsistency be part of the man before one for imitation as presenting that form of character, he should still be consistently inconsistent.’24
Hippocrates’25 essay on decorum has reference to the medical science and sets out to instruct physicians in correct manners and behaviour. The didactic
