Still to be neat, still to be dressed

“Still to be neat, still to be dressed” is from early in the first scene of Ben Jonson’s play, Epicoene. As he is getting dressed for a high society social event, Clerimont requests that his page sing a song Clerimont has written on the subject of Lady Haughty—a woman who wears heavy makeup to hide physical defects. This song also foreshadows the play’s main plot, which involves Clerimont helping to dress a young boy as a woman to deceive another man. In performance, this concern about female deception via make-up and costumes had an ironic and amusing undertone. The theatrical use of make-up to have its all-male performers appear as women would not be lost on the audience members when listening to this song.

This poem helps to show why Jonson is considered a Cavalier poet. Cavalier poets, a group of gentlemen poets, politically supported King Charles I during the English Civil War. This group includes notable poets like Richard Lovelace and Robert Herrick in addition to lesser-known poets like Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling, and Edmund Waller. Their lifestyle emphasized the concept of carpe diem, translated from Latin to mean “seize the day”—a sentiment made famous by Roman poet Horace.