The Best Plays of Ben Jonson
Notes by Brinsley Nicholson and C. H. Herford, three volumes
(Volume I) Every Man in His Humour - Every Man out of His Humour - The Poetaster
(Volume II) Bartholomew Fair - Cynthia's Revels; or, The Fountain of Self-Love - Sejanus His Fall
(Volume III) Volpone; or, The Fox - Epicœne; or, The Silent Woman - The Alchemist
Read more about this topic: Mermaid Series
Famous quotes containing the words ben jonson, the best, plays, ben and/or jonson:
“I now thinke, Love is rather deafe, than blind,
For else it could not be,
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my love behind:
I’m sure my language to her, was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence, of as subtile feet,
As hath the youngest Hee,”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“The best is the enemy of the good.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“The verbal poetical texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays. With Shakespeare it is the metaphor that is the thing, not the play.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do;
Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400)
“Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears;
Yet slower yet, oh faintly gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
“Woe weeps out her division when she sings.”
Droop herbs and flowers;
Fall grief in showers;
“Our beauties are not ours”:
Oh, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature’s pride is, now, a withered daffodil.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)