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Sarah King

ENG 352

Dr. Rahimzadeh

November 21, 2017

Importance of Immortality and Death in Human Nature

Ben Jonson was a Renaissance playwright and poet, often discussing the troubles of court

along with love and religion. Jonson’s main purpose in his writing is to demonstrate the aspects

and principles that result in a person living a good and fulfilling life. However, Jonson

demonstrates that this ideal life does not always mean the acceptance of love and friendship but

that for a fulfilling life one must experience hardships and loss along the way. Jonson does not

singularly focus on the beautiful and lovely parts of life; rather, he discusses the connection

between immortality and death, using this concept to illustrate the depression and pain of human

nature.

Throughout his poems, Jonson displays an articulate interest in the concept of

immortality and its relation to death, specifically exploring the idea in his two poems “Song: To

Celia” and “Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount.” While these two poems have seemingly unrelated stories,

the underlying thoughts investigated within them demonstrate how Jonson believed that to reach

immortality, once must experience death and lost beforehand. In “Song: To Celia,” Jonson

discusses this idea through the perspective of an admirer lamenting over a female who has

rejected his advances. In this poem, Jonson treats immortality as a curiosity ready to be studied,

and indeed the speaker performed an experiment by sending the woman a wreath to see if it

would wither after being in her presence. She denies it and sends it back, but the speaker

considers it a success since her breath made it continue to grow and not wither (v 9-16).
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However, the peculiarity with these results is that to create the wreath the speaker would have to

first pluck the flowers and plants, therein killing them. This is significant as it demonstrates

Jonson’s idea towards immortality that to experience the phenomenon a person must first

experience death.

Furthermore, Jonson uses this same ideology in “Slow, Slow, Fresh Flount” to

demonstrate immortality, though in this poem he used a more negative outlook on the concept.

This work is a play on the ancient Roman story of Echo and Narcissus, where Echo, who can

only repeat what is said back to her, falls in love with Narcissus, who only loves himself. The

setting of the poem takes place moments after Echo finds Narcissus turned into a daffodil after

staring at himself for too long in a pond and begins with Echo lamenting over the loss of her

love. Due to Echo’s curse, she cannot express her grief and sorrow as there is no one else around

for her to repeat, which is the reason for the personification in the lines, “Droop herbs and

flowers; / Fall grief in showers” (v 5-6). She wants nature to feel the deep and powerful pain she

is feeling so that she might be able to mourn the loss of her loved one. However, Jonson’s ideas

on immortality become prevalent in the lines, “O, I could still, / Like melting snow upon some

craggy hill, / Drop, drop, drop, drop,” (v 8-10). It is not Narcissus who dies but rather Echo who

is fading away like melting snow, demonstrating Jonson’s views on the connection between

immortality and death.

Jonson uses this concept when he demonstrates the depressed and painful side of human

nature in his poems through the fatality of three youth. The first of these poems is “Epitaph on

S.P., a Child of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel” where he discusses the death of Samuel Pavy, a boy

actor who performed in many of Jonson’s plays. Jonson begins this epitaph by addressing the

audience, proclaiming for them to “Weep with me, all you that read / This little story / And know
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for whom a tear you shed, / Death’s self is sorry” (v 1-4). Jonson not only assumes that the

readers will be grieving the loss of Samuel but that Death itself is regretful it had to take away

the boy. These starting lines are significant as they demonstrate a merging of both a certain

public awareness and intimacy, two contrasting factors not typically placed together, especially

when lamenting the death of a loved one. Jonson continues to discuss Samuel’s death by stating

how “Years he number'd scarce thirteen / When fates turn'd cruel, / Yet three fill'd zodiacs had

he been / The stage's jewel” (v 8-12). These lines are important in that the reader learns many

important facts about Samuel, such as that he was thirteen, had performed three seasons in

theatre, and was an amazing actor before he died. Following this, however, Jonson begins to

demonstrate the powerful emotion that follows the loss of a loved one as he tries to resolve and

justify the boy’s death by using his views on immortality. Jonson explains that an angel mistook

him for an old man ready to pass away due to the boy’s flawless acting and that even after

realizing their mistake, the angels will not return him because he is too great for Earth (v 13-25).

Jonson’s explanation for Samuel’s death completely reflects his views of immortality as now that

Samuel is death, he can live forever in Heaven. Jonson’s explanation also is important as it

exhibits the lengths a person in a depressed state will go to in order to create a glorious reason

for death, even if unrealistic, as a way to cope with immeasurable grief and sadness. In this

poem, Jonson demonstrates his own resolution and justification for death as well as his mask of

hope that Samuel is in a better place.

Another instance of Jonson demonstrating the relevance of death and pain for human

nature is through his elegy “To My First Daughter.” It is the second elegy about the fatality of

youth and discusses the passing of his six-month-old daughter while demonstrating the grief of

both him and his wife. The structure of the poem reflects Jonson’s feelings over his daughter’s
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death, with a total amount of six rhyming couplets, which could refer to his daughter’s age and

also the short life his daughter was able to live. Additionally, the rhyme scheme doesn’t have any

sudden changes, leaving it uncorrupted and perfect similar to how Jonson says his daughter died

with her innocence intact. In contrast to the previous poem, this work takes a more distanced

approach on the subject of death, as shown in the beginning lines, “Here lies, to each her parents’

ruth, / Mary, the daughter of their youth” (v 1-2). The speaker of the poem keeps the perspective

in third person as though they are an observer of the grief taking place rather than an active

participate. This is troubling as since Mary was the child of Jonson and his wife’s “youth,” he

should be deeply affected by this tragedy; however, Jonson puts on a mask of numbness in

regard to his daughter’s death. Furthermore, in the lines “Yet all heaven’s gifts being heaven’s

due, / It makes the father less to rue,” Jonson is repeating his earlier coping mechanism relating

to his immortality views by explaining that it is easier for him to accept her death by thinking she

was a gift that Heaven decided needed to return, forever living with the angels. Jonson’s

purposeful structure, numb façade, and unrealistic explanation demonstrates in this poem how he

is focused on more than just representing the good parts of life; rather, he was searching for a

way to cope with the death of those he loved and trying to find any means of resolution.

Jonson again demonstrates the importance of the human need for resolution and

justification of death in his most emotional elegy, “To My First Son.” In this work, Jonson is

trying to work through the grief of his son’s death, describing him as “thou child of my right

hand, and joy” (v 1). By giving him this intimate name, Jonson could be hinting at how the late

son was his favorite and the one he felt the strongest connection to. This intimacy and emotional

wreckage is further enhanced when Jonson separates “and joy” with the use of a comma, forcing

the reader to take a slight pause before the words to fully grasp the deep and powerful pain that
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Jonson feels over the loss of his son. After this, Jonson reiterates his coping mechanism from the

previous poems by trying to offer an explanation on why his son had to die, saying that “Seven

years tho' wert lent to me” (v 2). As in his two other elegies about the passing of youth, Jonson

incorporates his views of immortality to offer an explanation on how the children were sent from

Heaven and destined to return at the point Heaven deemed. However, different this time is how

Jonson then continues to try to justify his son’s death, stating that “For why / Will man lament

the state he should envy? / To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage, / And if no other

misery, yet age?” (v 5-8). Jonson defends that it is better that his son has moved on to become

immortal in Heaven as now he will not have to face the horrors and struggles that reside on

Earth. It can be slightly disconcerting that a father would apparently be relieved of his son’s

passing but this just demonstrates the sea of grief Jonson is having to wade through with small

dismissals like this his only crutch. Furthermore, Jonson plainly states the significance of this

poem when he states, “Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, ‘Here doth lie / Ben Jonson his best

piece of poetry’” (v 9-10). To defend that Jonson believes only in focusing on the love and

happiness presented in life would be denying his own statement that this elegy is his best work,

therein proving the necessity to experience pain and sorrow in life.

Throughout his works, Jonson discusses the connection between immortality and death

and uses that concept to illustrate the depression and pain of human nature. The fact that Jonson

includes experiences such as the search for immortality and the death of children demonstrates

how he was concerned with more than just the beautiful and lovely parts of life. Jonson

incorporated these experiences into his poetry as a public example of one’s inner feelings when

presented with significant elements in the human experience of existentialism and tragedy,

revealing the necessity to encounter pain in order to live a fulfilled life.