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Hello everybody,in my choir we are singing "Drink to me only", Text by Ben Johnson, and there is one line that puzzles me : "But might I of Jove´s nectar sip I would not change for thine". In the rest of the poem the speaker admires his beloved, she´s the best that happend to him, but here he mentions something he prefers to her (or her wine). What is ist that I don´t get? Is it an idiom or some reference or...??Thanks,Edith

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[nq:1]Hello everybody, in my choir we are singing "Drink to me only", Text by Ben Johnson, and there is one ... beloved, she´s the best that happend to him, but here he mentions something he prefers to her (or her wine).[/nq]
?? I think you're misinterpreting the line.
"But might I of Jove's nectar sip" = "Even if I could sip Jove's nectar"
"I would not change for thine" = "I wouldn't switch to that one instead of yours".

Cheers, Harvey
Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 21 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs)

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[nq:1]Edith Duerbaum wrote[/nq]
[nq:2]Hello everybody, in my choir we are singing "Drink to ... he mentions something he prefers to her (or her wine).[/nq]
[nq:1]?? I think you're misinterpreting the line. "But might I of Jove's nectar sip" = "Even if I could sip Jove's nectar" "I would not change for thine" = "I wouldn't switch to that one instead of yours".[/nq]
Yes, but usually a "change for" indicates the goal of the change, as in "change for the better", so it would be correct to expect the "I would not change for thine" to mean "I would not switch to yours". I would have expected a "from", not a "for".
Is the song's epression an archaism?

Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

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[nq:2]Edith Duerbaum wrote ?? I think you're misinterpreting the line. ... = "I wouldn't switch to that one instead of yours".[/nq]
[nq:1]Yes, but usually a "change for" indicates the goal of the change, as in "change for the better", so it ... change for thine" to mean "I would not switch to yours". I would have expected a "from", not a "for".[/nq]
Think of the "for" as "because of". "For thine" is why "I would not change".
[nq:1]Is the song's epression an archaism?[/nq]
I'd say so.

Evan Kirshenbaum + HP Laboratories >If I may digress momentarily from
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 >the mainstream of this evening'sPalo Alto, CA 94304 >symposium, I'd like to sing a song

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

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[nq:2]Edith Duerbaum wrote ?? I think you're misinterpreting the line. ... = "I wouldn't switch to that one instead of yours".[/nq]
[nq:1]Yes, but usually a "change for" indicates the goal of the change, as in "change for the better", so it ... would not switch to yours". I would have expected a "from", not a "for". Is the song's epression an archaism?[/nq]
It could be a mistake. That's what Alice Meynell, the editor of an 1893 collection of English poetry thought. She wote this note about Johnson: http://library.floresca.net/402-1.html
The freshest of Ben Jonson's lyrics have been chosen. Obviously it is freshness that he generally lacks, for all his vigour, his emphatic initiative, and his overbearing and impulsive voice in verse. There is a stale breath in that hearty shout. Doubtless it is to the credit of his honesty that he did not adopt the country- phrases in vogue; but when he takes landscape as a task the effect is ill enough. I have already had the temerity to find fault for a blunder of meaning, with the passage of a most famous lyric, where it says the contrary of what it would say -
"But might I of Jove's nectar sup
I would not change for thine;"
and for doing so have encountered the anger rather than the argument of those who cannot admire a pretty lyric but they must hold reason itself to be in error rather than allow that a line of it has chanced to get turned in the rhyming.
I like her last bit I'm sure I've said much the same about some arguments there have been around here.

Best Donna Richoux

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Jonson, people, Jonson
[nq:2]Yes, but usually a "change for" indicates the goal of ... "from", not a "for". Is the song's epression an archaism?[/nq]
[nq:1]It could be a mistake. That's what Alice Meynell, the editor of an 1893 collection of English poetry thought. and ... like her last bit I'm sure I've said much the same about some arguments there have been around here.[/nq]
The OED chooses to cite old Ben in it's entry for 'change'
5. intr. To make an exchange. ?a. with for (also with) before the thinggiven.

1567 J. Maplet Gr. Forest 13b, In Indie, saith Isidore, there is neytherLead nor Brasse of his owne, therefore it chaungeth for his owne Marchandise (as with Gemmes and Margarets). a1637 B. Jonson 'Drink to me only', But might I of Jove's nectar sip I would not change for thine.

I may be reaching a little here, but I think they're saying that there was a construction '(ex)change A for X' where X was the thing you had and A was the thing on offer. So Ben & Will's contemporaries would say 'I would not change all the tea in China for a kiss from your sweet lips' where we would say 'I would not exchange your sweet lips for ...'

So Ben is saying, 'I would not swap Jove's nectar with yours, (even if Jove's nectar was on offer)'.

John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply

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(snip discussion of Ben Jonson's "But might I of Jove's nectar sip I would not change for thine.")
[nq:1]The OED chooses to cite old Ben in it's entry for 'change' 5. intr. To make an exchange. ?a. with ... ...' So Ben is saying, 'I would not swap Jove's nectar with yours, (even if Jove's nectar was on offer)'.[/nq]
Yes, but wouldn't it be far more convincing if they had plenty of other* quotes showing the same meaning? Instead, they only illustrate it with the very one in question. I know we're supposed to trust that this *meant they had other quotes on file, but sometimes I wonder.

I went looking for other uses of "change for thine." Google turns up several hundred hits but all except three are from this very same Ben Jonson poem/song.
Of those three, two have it the way we'd normally expect, and one is uncertain.
1) A John Clare (1793 - 1864) poem, a century or so later

Ah, happy child! thou mak'st me sigh,
This once as happy heart of mine,
Would nature with the boon comply,
How gladly would I change for thine.
That has the meaning we would expect. "I now have mine, I will give it up in order to get yours."
2) The Progress of Wit and OtherJean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) Translation not dated.

(Two villagers are considering wife-swapping)
And, Mister Oudinet, since that's the case,
Should he not add, at least, his mule to boot?
My mule? rejoined the first, that will not suit;
In this world ev'ry thing has got its price:
Mine I will change for thine and that's concise.
Again, I read that as the expected meaning; I have a wife, I'll trade her for yours.
3) MOORISH LITERATURE - various translators named. Book pub. ca. 1900?

And even were this thought no more than the wild vision of my mind, Yet in a thousand worlds no face to change for thine this heart could find.
That's almost the Ben Jonson use. "I now have your face in my heart; I could not find another face to (ex)change for yours."

I can't tell from what's provided when this translation was written. If it was late 1800s, it might have been affected by the Jonson poem/song which was extremely well-known.

Best - Donna Richoux

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