Ben Jonson's 'On My First Son' and the common prayer catechism. Bevan, Jonquil.

Abstract: An analysis of English dramatist and poet Ben Jonson's poem 'On My First Son' indicates that the poem's major themes are all those with which a Christian child of seven would be familiar. The primary concerns of the poem seem all to correspond with the first five Questions and Answers in the Catechism of 'The Book of Common Prayer.' Parallels may be seen in the focus on the boy's name in the poem, his adoption at baptism as a child of God and the certainty of inheriting the kingdom of heaven.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1997 Oxford University Press

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; My sinne was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy. Seven yeeres tho'wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. O, could I lose all father, now. For why5 Will man lament the state he should envie? To have so soone 'scaped worlds and fleshes rage, And, if no other miserie, yet age? Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say here doth lye Ben. Jonson his best piece of poetrie.10 For whose sake, hence-forth, all his vowes be such, As what he loves may never like too much.

This poem is commented on in detail by Ian Donaldson in his edition of Jonson's Poems (Oxford, 1985). Professor Donaldson's commentary is reprinted in subsequent Oxford paperback editions, for example, in the Oxford Poetry Library (1995). I am indebted to his commentary throughout.

Here we have a poem at once brief, tender, learned, and tough: perhaps the learning may seem to make it a strange tribute to address to a child who died on his seventh birthday. Yet I hope to show that its major themes are all those with which a Christian child of young Ben's age would have some acquaintance.

The poem's first preoccupation is with the child's name, Benjamin. The 'child of the right hand' is the English translation of this Hebrew name. This might seem an abstruse fact to a modern reader. But it would not have seemed so to young Benjamin, who could have consulted the list of Biblical names and their meanings at the end of the Geneva Bible, the usual household Bible of the early seventeenth century, which provided, with its maps, pictures, and cross-references, invaluable aid to Protestant Biblical study.

The Geneva Bible lists 'Beniamin, sonne of the right hand, who was first called Benoni, the sonne of sorrow, Gen. 35.18'. The Biblical text tells us that Rachel (who died at his birth) called her son Benoni, but this name was changed by the child's father, Jacob. The end of our poem's first line 'and joy' confirms the Biblical rejection of the earlier name 'sonne of sorrow'. Many will not like this patriarchical rejection of the mother, her suffering, and her voice; but that is part of the background of our text.

Even if the Geneva Bible were not accessible to young Ben - his father at this date was a Roman Catholic - it seems likely that the child would have known, from his learned father, the etymology of his baptismal name.

The poem's concern with the child's name reappears in lines 9-10: 'here doth lye | Ben. Jonson' is a complete statement in itself, and an accurate one: the child whose death is commemorated was named Ben Jonson. We can well believe that this tombstone bears the inscription - the final inscription - 'Here doth lye Ben. Jonson'.

But as line 10 continues we are forced to revise our reading. The subject of the sentence is, after all, the 'best piece of poetry' (poetry: thing made - a Greek pun akin to the Hebrew one in the first line). The best piece of poetry is the product of Ben Jonson, the father. So, as we read on, what has first seemed to be the son's name turns out to be that of his father: a replacement in reverse chronological order - reverse chronology in life, but not in death.

This interidentification of father and son leads us back to the beginning of the poem. The son, sitting on the right hand of his father, reminds the Christian reader of the Creed, in which the Son 'sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.'

And with judgement we move to line 4: what does Jonson mean by 'the just day'? Three things, perhaps. First, the exact, precise, day: little Ben died upon his birthday. Secondly, the just day because this was the day when (previously unknown to his father) it was preordained that the debt should be called in and repayment duly - justly - be made. Thirdly, the Just Day refers to the Day of Judgement.

It was a matter of debate at this period whether the soul at death passes at once to Judgement, or whether it awaits Judgement with all other souls until the Last Day. The Age of Innocence is a child's first seven years. Young Ben therefore died at the age of innocence - just - and so his soul may be presumed to have passed straight to judgement, and thence to redemption.

Acceptance, if it is that, of the justice of the child's return to its Heavenly Father, is accompanied by the earthly father's rebuke to himself:

My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy,

words nearly repeated in the final lines

. . . [may] all his vows be such As what he loves may never like too much. (My italics)

It is easy to accept Ian Donaldson's suggestion that here we have the classical idea 'that excessive good fortune aroused the jealousy of the gods'. But we need to be careful about our reading. Jonson twice avoids condemnation of loving too much: in each line he leaves loving uncondemned: little Ben remains 'lov'd boy' and there is no suggestion that the poet will not enjoy, in the future, 'what he loves'. Jonson speaks instead about 'too much hope' and 'like too much', the latter deriving from Martial, VI.xxix.8: 'quidquid ames, cupias non placuisse nimis': ['whatever thou lovest, pray that it may not please thee too much']. The distinction, it may be, is close to the distinction between loving and doting: that love which first considers the beloved, and that love which first considers itself.

These difficult final lines seem to draw us back into the poem's consideration of the true fatherhood of the child: what is the distinction between loving (permitted) and liking too much (condemned)?

O, could I lose all Father now, For why Will man lament the state he should envie?

Here, and in the following lines, Jonson recognizes that his grief for his son is not to do with what is best for the child himself (whose state is to be envied) but to do with his own personal feelings as a father who has suffered loss. From the point of view of the child's Father in Heaven, who really owns but has lent young Ben, all is very well with the child; it is only from the limited - and self-regarding - point of view of the child's earthly father that this death can be lamented. Specifically, the child has escaped the three Enemies of Man: the Devil, the World, and the Flesh (but the Devil needs not to be mentioned, because of the child's youth and freedom from Original Sin).

But if the loan of the child's soul has been restored to heaven, what can it be which responds to the earthly father's command in the poem's last four lines to speak the epitaph?

Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say here doth lye Ben. Jonson his best piece of poetrie.

The obedient speaker of the epitaph can only be the child's dust: and it is that dust only (not the child's soul), which, most touchingly, is declared to be Ben Jonson's best piece of poetry. Here is Ben Jonson at his least arrogant.

So much for a brief reading of some aspects of this poem. I want now to relate it to the Catechism in The Book of Common Prayer; for, whatever Jonson's religious allegiance at the time of his son's death, the central concerns of the poem seem all to correspond with the first five Questions and Answers in that Catechism. No other catechism of this date(1) seems to start with a concentration on given names, and other topics also seem too closely related to be accidental. But the reader must judge.

The Book of Common Prayer (like the table of definitions of personal names) was contained within the Geneva Bible, and I quote from a copy of the Geneva Bible of 1609 (a little late for young Ben, but not misleadingly so):(2)

A Catechisme, that is to say, An instruction to be learned of every childe, before he be brought to be confirmed by the Bishop.

Question.

What is your name?

Answere.

N. or M.

Question.

Who gave you this name?

Answere.

My Godfathers and Godmothers in my baptisme, wherein I was made a member of Christ, the childe of God, and an inheritour of the kingdome of heaven.

Question.

What did your Godfathers and Godmothers then for you?

Answere.

They did promise and vow three things in my name. First, that I should forsake the devill and al his works, the pompes and vanities of the wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh. Secondly that I should beleeve al the Articles of the Christian faith. And thirdly, that I should keepe Gods holy will and commandements, and walke in the same all the dayes of my life. . . .

Question

Rehearse the Articles of thy beleefe.

Answere.

I Beleeve in God the Father Almightie, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his onely Sonne our Lord, which was conceived by the holy Ghost, borne of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, he descended into hell, the third day he rose again from the dead, hee ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almightie: from thence hee shall come to judge the quicke and the dead. I beleeve in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholique Church, the Communion of Saints, the forgivenesse of sinnes, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, Amen.

It seems needless to labour the parallels: the emphasis on the boy's name (inherited, as so often for an eldest son, from his father); the boy's adoption at baptism as 'the childe of God' and the assurance of his inheritance of the kingdom of heaven; the repudiation of the Devil, the World, and the Flesh (or, if no other misery, yet age); the identification of the Son who sits at the right hand of his Father as he who will come to judge the living and the dead: all these seem central to the poem, and all, if largely unfamiliar today, would be ideas completely familiar to a well-educated small child of the early seventeenth century. The poem, for all its delicate and modest tribute to little Ben's childish learning in Hebrew and in Greek, does not fail to keep decorum.

JONQUIL BEVAN Edinburgh

1 [STC.sup.2] (4794-4813) catalogues Catechisms within its period (1475-1640) with reference to their opening words.

2 My copy of the Geneva Bible (1609) was given me by my friend and former colleague, Winifred Maynard. I am grateful not only for this gift, but for her tuition in many ways; but nothing here can be laid to her blame.