Читать книгу The Arte of English Poesie - George Puttenham - Страница 32

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Of short Epigrames called Posies.

There be also other like Epigrammes that were sent vsually for new yeares giftes or to be Printed or put vpon their banketting dishes of suger plate, or of march paines, & such other dainty meates as by the curtesie & custome euery gest might carry from a common feast home with him to his owne house, & were made for the nonce, they were called Nenia or apophoreta, and neuer contained aboue one verse, or two at the most, but the shorter the better, we call them Posies, and do paint them now a dayes vpon the backe sides of our fruite trenchers of wood, or vse them as deuises in rings and armes and about such courtly purposes. So haue we remembred and set forth to your Maiestie very briefly, all the commended fourmes of the auncient Poesie, which we in our vulgare makings do imitate and vse vnder these common names: enterlude, song, ballade, carroll and ditty: borrowing them also from the French al sauing this word (song) which is our naturall Saxon English word. The rest, such as time and vsurpation by custome haue allowed vs out of the primitiue Greeke & Latine, as Comedie, Tragedie, Ode, Epitaphe, Elegie, Epigramme, and other moe. And we haue purposely omitted all nice or scholasticall curiosities not meete for your Maiesties contemplation in this our vulgare arte, and what we haue written of the auncient formes of Poemes, we haue taken from the best clerks writing in the same arte. The part that next followeth to wit of proportion, because the Greeks nor Latines neuer had it in vse, nor made any obseruation, no more then we doe of their feete, we may truly affirme, to haue bene the first deuisers thereof our selues, as [Greek: autodidaktoi], and not to haue borrowed it of any other by learning or imitation, and thereby trusting to be holden the more excusable if any thing in this our labours happen either to mislike, or to come short of th'authors purpose, because commonly the first attempt in any arte or engine artificiall is amendable, & in time by often experiences reformed. And so no doubt may this deuise of ours be, by others that shall take the penne in hand after vs.