“On My First Son” by Ben Jonson

We’re all familiar with Shakespeare, but a lesser known contemporary of his is Ben Jonson, whose plays were more focused on satire. As comical as his stage plays were, however, Jonson actually suffered many tragedies in his lifetime, including the childhood deaths of his three children. He wrote a particularly beautiful poem after his oldest son Benjamin died, entitled “On My First Son”:

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy;
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
Oh! could I lose all father, now! for why,
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon ‘scaped world’s, and flesh’s rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age!
Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry;
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

Jonson uses unique metaphors to express his love for his son, like “child of my right hand” (1), a way of calling Benjamin his right-hand man, and “his best piece of poetry” (10). He uses simpler terms as well, like “joy” (1) and “loved boy” (2), which in this heartfelt poem are equally as endearing. He also uses the metaphor of currency for life and death, in saying “Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,/Exacted by thy fate, on the just day” (3-4). Fate, here, is seen as a kind of moneylender, and our lives are our debt to it. We get to live until fate makes us pay up.

But this fate of death is not viewed as a necessarily bad place. Jonson imagines it as “a state he should envy” (6), wondering “why” (5) he should “lament” (6) death if it is a better place. He believes that it is a form of relief from life, and for his young son, a salvation from the hardships of life: “To have so soon ‘scaped world’s, and flesh’s rage,/And, if no other misery, yet age!” (7-8). Benjamin has avoided such terrible things as living in a world where there is war and murder and so on, but he has also gotten to escape the process of aging, which, to Jonson, is a “misery” (8). He therefore paints his son’s unfortunate death as a positive thing, a form of rescue for Benjamin.

What Jonson regrets most is the fact that he cared about his son too much, that he “hope[d] too much of” (2) him, or had too high of hopes for him, and that he “like[d]” (12) him too much, in addition to loving him. These are, of course, the pangs of loss, but they show just how much Benjamin meant to his father. These lines are satirical in their own way, as one would never wish to care less about a child just to avoid the pain of losing them; and thus Jonson shows off his masterful wit and skill, even in his distress.