Masques and entertainments - 1890 Author:Ben Jonson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HYMENI; THE SOLEMNITIES OF MASQUE AND BARRIERS AT A MARRIAGE. It is a noble and just advantage that the things subjected to understanding have of those wh... more »ich are objected to sense ; that the one sort are but momentary, and merely taking; the other impressing, and lasting : else the glory of all these solemnities had perished like a blaze, and gone out in the beholders' eyes. So short lived are the bodies of all things in comparison of their souls. And though bodies ofttimes have the ill-luck to be sensually preferred, they find afterwards the good fortune (when souls live) to be utterly forgotten. This it is hath made the most royal princes and greatest persons (who arc commonly the personators of these actions) not only studious of riches, and magnificence in the outward celebration or show, which rightly becomes them; but curious after the most high and hearty inventions, to furnish the inward parts ; and those grounded upon antiquity and solid learning: which though their voice be taught to sound to present occasions, tlieir sense or doth or should always lay hold on more removed mysteries. And howsoever some may squer.mishly cry out, that all endeavour of learning and sharpness in these transitory devices, especially where it steps beyond their little or (let me not wrong them) no brain at all, is superfluous : I am contented, these fastidious stomachs should leave my full tables, and enjoy at home their clean empty trenchers, fittest for such airy tastes ; where perhaps a few Italian herbs, picked up and made into a salad, may find sweeter acceptance than all the most nourishing and sound meats of the world. For these men's palates, let not me answer, O Muses. It is not my fault, if I fill them out nectar, and they run to metheglin. Vaticaiia bitant, si delcctent...« less