Time & Perspective Quote by Ben Jonson

Power has a funny way of laundering its own sins: commit the act, survive the backlash, win the spoils, and the story rewrites itself as morality. Jonson’s line is a scalpel aimed at that alchemy. “Mischief” is the name society gives to disruption while it’s still dangerous and undecided. “Virtue” is what the same act becomes once it has “past and prospered” - once the gamble pays off, once the new order gets to write the labels.

The syntax does a lot of work. “Let them call it” shrugs at public judgment as something noisy but temporary, a chorus that doesn’t control outcomes. Jonson isn’t pleading innocence; he’s exposing how reputation follows success like a courtier. The pivot from present tense to future (“When it is past... ’twill be”) is the whole thesis: ethics, in practice, often trails victory rather than guiding it.

Jonson’s theatrical world matters here. In early modern England, “mischief” wasn’t just prankishness; it was political and social instability, the kind that could get you punished if it failed. Plays of the period repeatedly stage schemes, usurpations, and risky wit that are condemned mid-plot and applauded at curtain call. Jonson, who lived in a culture of patronage, censorship, and precarious favor, knew that survival could sanctify almost anything.

The subtext is not “be bad.” It’s colder: legitimacy is frequently retrospective, and virtue is sometimes just the medal pinned on the winner.