Topic Three ~ Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson’s significant poem, that contains the line: “Thou stand’st as if a mystery thou didst!” In that poem Ben Jonson sang the praises of Francis Bacon on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. Ben Jonson would sing the praises of the sixty year old Lord Chancellor, he would extol the man whose birthday was to be celebrated, and he begins with the words: “Hail, happy genius of this ancient pile.” And how antiquated, how far-fetched the word “pile” for house, building, palace, even in those days. Was Ben Jonson such a clumsy poet? He chose that ambiguous word as being the one with which to conclude the first line, rhyming with the following one, and which conveys at once the idea of “house” and “hurling-spear,” i.e., a word which (like his “Shake-lance”) again means Shakespeare.

Pilum in Latin, as “pile” in English, means “hurling-spear.” Muret’s carefully compiled dictionary will convince any one who might entertain a doubt. There we find the original meaning of “pile.” It is not the Genius of the house in which Bacon was born and in which he lived; it is above all his great fellowpoet Shakespeare that Ben Jonson addresses in the opening line: “Hail, happy genius of the ancient Shakespeare.” Three lines further we read the words: “Thou stand’st as if a mystery thou didst!” And towards the end we find another play on words suited to the times and the occasion.

Bacon, the man whose sixtieth birthday is being celebrated, is to be extolled. Is it likely that such a poem should terminate with lines referring to another person? Does the word “King,” at the end, really refer to King James? If we listen attentively, we shall find that also that word refers rather to Bacon. The meaning of the two last lines is: “Give me a deep-bowl’d crown, that I may sing, in raising him (Bacon), the wisdom of my King.” No doubt, it was very nice of Ben Jonson to extol the wisdom of King James, who had appointed Bacon Lord Chancellor. But the idea which the witty author of those verses had in his mind surely was: I, the poet, Ben Jonson, in extolling the poet Bacon, sing the praises of my King, the King of England’s Poets, Shakespeare, the ancient Pile, who did a mystery. 1