He
acknowledges himself overreached by Bartervile, and confesses:
I came to teach, but now (me thinkes) must learne.
acknowledges himself overreached by Bartervile, and confesses:
I came to teach, but now (me thinkes) must learne.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
The first scene is
in the infernal regions; not, however, the Christian hell, as in the
prose history, but the classical Hades. This change seems to have
been adopted from Machiavelli. Three devils are sent to earth with
the object of corrupting men and replenishing hell. They return, on
the whole, successful, though the corrupted king of Naples is finally
redeemed.
In certain respects, however, the play stands closer to Jonson's drama
than the history. In the first place, the doctrine that hell's vices
are both old-fashioned and outdone by men, upon which Satan lays so
much stress in his instructions to Pug in the first scene, receives a
like emphasis in Dekker:
. . . 'tis thought
That men to find hell, now, new waies have sought,
As Spaniards did to the Indies.
and again:
. . . aboue vs dwell,
Diuells brauer, and more subtill then in Hell. [34]
and finally:
They scorne thy hell, hauing better of their owne.
In the second place Lurchall, unlike Rush, but in the same way
as Pug, finds himself inferior to his earthly associates.
He
acknowledges himself overreached by Bartervile, and confesses:
I came to teach, but now (me thinkes) must learne.
A single correspondence of lesser importance may be added. Both devils,
when asked whence they come, obscurely intimate their hellish origin.
Pug says that he comes from the Devil's Cavern in Derbyshire. Rufman
asserts that his home is Helvetia. [35]
[28] _Discovery_, p. 522.
[29] _O. Pl. _, 4th ed. , 3. 213.
[30] _Early Eng. Prose Romances_, London 1858.
[31] See Herford's discussion, _Studies_, p. 305; also _Quarterly
Rev.
in the infernal regions; not, however, the Christian hell, as in the
prose history, but the classical Hades. This change seems to have
been adopted from Machiavelli. Three devils are sent to earth with
the object of corrupting men and replenishing hell. They return, on
the whole, successful, though the corrupted king of Naples is finally
redeemed.
In certain respects, however, the play stands closer to Jonson's drama
than the history. In the first place, the doctrine that hell's vices
are both old-fashioned and outdone by men, upon which Satan lays so
much stress in his instructions to Pug in the first scene, receives a
like emphasis in Dekker:
. . . 'tis thought
That men to find hell, now, new waies have sought,
As Spaniards did to the Indies.
and again:
. . . aboue vs dwell,
Diuells brauer, and more subtill then in Hell. [34]
and finally:
They scorne thy hell, hauing better of their owne.
In the second place Lurchall, unlike Rush, but in the same way
as Pug, finds himself inferior to his earthly associates.
He
acknowledges himself overreached by Bartervile, and confesses:
I came to teach, but now (me thinkes) must learne.
A single correspondence of lesser importance may be added. Both devils,
when asked whence they come, obscurely intimate their hellish origin.
Pug says that he comes from the Devil's Cavern in Derbyshire. Rufman
asserts that his home is Helvetia. [35]
[28] _Discovery_, p. 522.
[29] _O. Pl. _, 4th ed. , 3. 213.
[30] _Early Eng. Prose Romances_, London 1858.
[31] See Herford's discussion, _Studies_, p. 305; also _Quarterly
Rev.
