Ben Jonson

Prologue to Every Man in His Humour

Though need make many Poets, and some such

As art, and nature have not bettered much;

Yet ours, for want, hath not so loved the stage,

As he dare serve thπill customs of the age;

Or purchase your delight at such a rate,

As, for it, he himself must justly hate.

To make a child, now swaddled, to proceed

Man, and then shoot up, in one beard, and weed,

Past threescore years; or, with three rusty swords,

And help of some few foot-and half-foot words,

Fight over York, and Lancasterπs long jars:

And in the tiring-house bring wounds, to scars.

He rather prays, you will be pleased to see

One such, to-day, as other plays should be.

Where neither Chorus wafts you oπer the seas;

Nor creaking throne comes down, the boys to please;

Nor nimble squib is seen, to make afeared

The gentlewomen; nor rolled bullet heard

To say, it thunders; nor tempestuous drum

Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth come;

But deeds, and language, such as men do use:
And person, such as Comedy would choose,

When she would show an Image of the times,

And sport with human follies, not with crimes.

Except, we makeπhem such by loving still

Our popular errors, when we know theyπre ill.

I mean such errors, as youπll all confess

By laughing at them, they deserve no less:

Which when you heartily do, thereπs hope left, then,

You, that have so graced monsters, may like men.