John Denham

Sir John Denham (1614 or 1615 – 10 March 1669) was a Anglo-Irish poet and courtier. Son of the Chief Baron of Exchequer in Ireland, he was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity College, Oxford and at Lincoln's Inn in London.

Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate,
That few but such as cannot write, translate.

Quotes

Poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum, there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words...

• I conceive it is a vulgar error in translating poets, to affect being fidus interpres... [for] poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum, there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words... therefore if Virgil must needs speak English, it were fit he should speak not only as a man of this nation, but as man of this age.
  • The Destruction of Troy (1656), Preface

• But whither am I strayed? I need not raise
  Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;
  Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built;
  Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt
  Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,
  Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.
  • On Mr. John Fletcher's Works. Compare: "Poets are sultans, if they had their will; For every author would his brother kill", Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, Prologues (republished in Dramatic Works, 1739); "Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne", Alexander Pope, Prologue to the Satires, line 197

The Sophy (1641)

The Sophy (London: Thomas Walkley, 1642)

• Actions o' th' last age are like almanacks o' th' last year.
  • Act II, scene i, p. 12

• Ambition is like love, impatient
  Both of delays and rivals.
  • Act II, scene i, p. 14

• Whatsoever
  Is worthy of their love, is worth their anger.
  • Act IV, scene i, p. 36

Cooper's Hill (1642)

• But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor.
  • line 122

• Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
  Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold;
  His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
  Search not his bottom, but survey his shore.
  • line 165

• Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
  My great example, as it is my theme!
  Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
  Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.
  • line 189

• Variety, which all the rest endears.
  • line 228

• [U]ncertain ways unsafest are.
  • line 299

To Sir Richard Fanshaw (1648)

"To Sir Richard Fanshaw. Upon His Translation of Pastor Fido" (1648)

• Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate,
  That few but such as cannot write, translate.
  • line 1

• Nor ought a genius less than his that writ
  Attempt translation.
  • line 9

• That servile path thou nobly dost decline
  Of tracing word by word, and line by line;
  A new and nobler way thou dost pursue
  To make translations, and translators too;
  They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,
  True to his sense, but truer to his fame.
  • line 15

Of Prudence (1668)

Wisdom's first progress is to take a view
What's decent or indecent, false or true.

Search not to find how other men offend,
But by that glass thy own offences mend;
Still seek to learn, yet care not much from whom,
(So it be learning) or from whence it come.

Often by small, great matters we discern:
Youth what man's age is like to be doth show;
We may our ends by our beginnings know.

• Wisdom's first progress is to take a view
  What's decent or indecent, false or true.
  • line 1

• Wisdom of what herself approves makes choice,
  Nor is led captive by the common voice.
  Clear-sighted Reason Wisdom's judgment leads,
  And Sense, her vassal, in her footsteps treads.
  That thou to Truth the perfect way may'st know,
  To thee all her specific forms I'll show:
  He that the way to honesty will learn,
  First what's to be avoided must discern.
  Thyself from flatt'ring self-conceit defend,
  Nor what thou dost not know to know pretend.
  Some secrets deep in abstruse darkness lie:
  To search them thou wilt need a piercing eye.
  Not rashly therefore to such things assent,
  Which, undeceived, thou after may'st repent;
  Study and time in these must thee instruct,
  And others' old experience may conduct.
  Wisdom herself her ear doth often lend
  To counsel offer'd by a faithful friend.
  • line 11

• Books should to one of these four ends conduce,
  For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
  • line 83

• When any great design thou dost intend,
  Think of the means, the manner, and the end.
  • line 185

• Search not to find how other men offend,
  But by that glass thy own offences mend;
  Still seek to learn, yet care not much from whom,
  (So it be learning) or from whence it come.
  Of thy own actions, others' judgments learn;
  Often by small, great matters we discern:
  Youth what man's age is like to be doth show;
  We may our ends by our beginnings know.
  • line 225

• Let not the pleasing many thee delight,
  First judge if those whom thou dost please judge right.
  • line 229

• Search not to find what lies too deeply hid,
  Nor to know things whose knowledge is forbid;
  Nor climb on pyramids, which thy head turn round
  Standing, and whence no safe descent is found.
  • line 231

Misattributed

• We're ne'er like angels till our passion dies.
  • Not by Denham, as often stated, but by Thomas Dekker. It is in his The Honest Whore Part 2, Act I, scene 2.

Quotes about Denham

• In the time of the civill warres, George Withers, the poet, begged Sir John Denham's estate at Egham of the Parliament, in whose cause he was a captaine of horse. It happened that G. W. was taken prisoner, and was in danger of his life, having written severely against the king, &c. Sir John Denham went to the king, and desired his majestie not to hang him, for that whilest G. W. lived he should not be the worst poet in England.
  • Anecdote recounted in Brief Lives (1669 - 1696), by John Aubrey, Vol. I (1898), edited by Andrew Clark, p. 221

External links

• Works by John Denham at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about John Denham at Internet Archive