This noble King John, as a faithful Moses,

Withstood proud Pharaoh for his poor Israel,

Minding to bring it out of the land of darkness;

But the Egyptians did against him so rebel,

That his poor people did still in the desert dwell,

Till that duke Joshua, which was our late King Henry,

Closely brought us into the land of milk and honey.

As a strong David, at the voice of verity,

Great Goliah, the pope, he struck down with his sling,

Restoring again to a Christian liberty

His land and people, like a most victorious king;

To his first beauty intending the Church to bring

From ceremonies dead to the living word of the Lord.

This the second act will plenteously record.

As put into the mouth of the king himself, these other lines are hard to

beat for deliberate partisan misrepresentation. The king feels himself

about to die.

I have sore hungered and thirsted righteousness

For the office sake that God hath me appointed,

But now I perceive that sin and wickedness

In this wretched world, like as Christ prophesied,

Have the overhand: in me it is verified.

Pray for me, good people, I beseech you heartily,

That the Lord above on my poor soul have mercy.

Farewell noblemen, with the clergy spiritual,

Farewell men of law, with the whole commonalty.

Your disobedience I do forgive you all,

And desire God to pardon your iniquity.

Farewell, sweet England, now last of all to thee:

I am right sorry I could do for thee no more.

Farewell once again, yea, farewell for evermore.

Prompted by a different motive, yet not far removed in actual effect

from the politico-religious class of play represented by _New Custom_,

are the early Interludes of John Heywood. It is quite impossible to read

such a play as _The Pardoner and the Friar_ and believe that its author

wrote under any such earnest and sober inspiration as did the author of

_New Custom_. His intention was frankly to amuse, and to paint life as

he saw it without the intrusion of unreal personages of highly virtuous

but dull ideas. Yet he swung the lash of satire as cuttingly and as

merrily about the flanks of ecclesiastical superstition as ever did the

creator of Perverse Doctrine.[47]

The simplest plot sufficed Heywood, and the minimum of characters. _The

Pardoner and the Friar_ (possibly as early as 1520) demands only four

persons, while the plot may be summed up in a few sentences, thus: A

Pardoner and a Friar, from closely adjoining platforms, are endeavouring

to address the same crowd, the one to sell relics, the other to beg

money for his order. By a sort of stichomythic alternation each for a

time is supposed to carry on his speech regardless of the other, so that

to follow either connectedly the alternate lines must be read in

sequence. But every now and then they break off for abuse, and finally

they fight. A Parson and neighbour Prat interfere to convey them to jail

for the disturbance, but are themselves badly mauled. Then the Pardoner

and the Friar go off amicably together. There is no allegory, no moral;

merely satire on the fraudulent and hypocritical practices of pardoners

and friars, together with some horseplay to raise a louder laugh. The

fashion of that satire may be judged from the following exchange of home

truths by the rival orators.

_Friar._ What, should ye give ought to parting pardoners?--

_Pardoner._ What, should ye spend on these flattering liars,--

_Friar._ What, should ye give ought to these bold beggars?--

_Pardoner._ As be these babbling monks and these friars,--

_Friar._ Let them hardly labour for their living;--

_Pardoner._ Which do nought daily but babble and lie--

_Friar._ It much hurteth them good men's giving,--

_Pardoner._ And tell you fables dear enough at a fly,--

_Friar._ For that maketh them idle and slothful to wark,--

_Pardoner._ As doth this babbling friar here to-day?--

_Friar._ That for none other thing they will cark.--

_Pardoner._ Drive him hence, therefore, in the twenty-devil way!--

_The Four P.P._ (? 1540), similarly, requires no more than a palmer, a

pardoner, a 'pothecary and a pedlar, and for plot only a single

conversation, devoid even of the rough play which usually enlivened

discussions on the stage. In the debate arises a contest as to who can

tell the biggest lie--won by the palmer's statement that he has never

seen a woman out of patience--and that is the sole dramatic element.

Nevertheless, by sheer wit interest is maintained to the end, every one

smiling over the rival claims of such veteran humbugs as the old-time

pardoner and apothecary; scant reverence does 'Pothecary vouchsafe to

Pardoner's potent relics, his 'of All Hallows the blessed jaw-bone', his

'great toe of the Trinity', his 'buttock-bone of Pentecost', and the

rest. One of the raciest passages occurs in the Pardoner's relation of

the wonders he has performed in the execution of his office. Amongst

other deeds of note is the bringing back of a certain woman from hell to

earth. For this purpose the Pardoner visited the lower regions in

person--so he says--and brought her out in triumph with the full and

joyful consent of Lucifer.

[_The_ PARDONER _has entered hell and secured a guide._]

_Pardoner._ This devil and I walked arm in arm

So far, till he had brought me thither,

Where all the devils of hell together

Stood in array in such apparel

As for that day there meetly fell.

Their horns well-gilt, their claws full clean,

Their tails well-kempt, and, as I ween,

With sothery[48] butter their bodies anointed;

I never saw devils so well appointed.

The master-devil sat in his jacket,

And all the souls were playing at racket.

None other rackets they had in hand,

Save every soul a good firebrand,

Wherewith they played so prettily

That Lucifer laughed merrily,

And all the residue of the fiends

Did laugh thereat full well like friends.

[_He interviews_ LUCIFER _and asks if he may take away_ MARGERY

CORSON.]

Now, by our honour, said Lucifer,

No devil in hell shall withhold her;

And if thou wouldest have twenty mo,

Wert not for justice, they should go.

For all we devils within this den

Have more to-do with two women

Than with all the charge we have beside;

Wherefore, if thou our friend will be tried,

Apply thy pardons to women so

That unto us there come no mo.

_Johan Johan_, or, at greater length, _The Merry Play between Johan

Johan the Husband, Tyb his Wife, and Sir Jhon the Priest_ (printed

1533), contains only the three characters mentioned, but possesses a

theme more nearly deserving the name of plot than do the other two,

namely, the contriving and carrying out of a plan by Tyb for exposing

her boastful husband's real and absolute subjection to her rule. Yet,

even so, it is extremely simple. Johan Johan is first heard alone,

declaring how he will beat his wife for not being at home. The tuggings

of fear and valour in his heart, however, give his monologue an

argumentative form, in which first one motive and then the other gains

the upper hand, very similar to the conflict between Launcelot Gobbo's

conscience and the Devil. He closes in favour of the beating and

then--Tyb comes home. Oh the difference! Johan Johan suspects his wife

of undue friendliness with Sir Jhon the Priest, but he dare not say so.

Tyb guesses his doubts, and in her turn suspects that he is inclined to

rebel. So she makes the yoke heavier. Johan Johan has to invite Sir Jhon

to eat a most desirable pie with them; but throughout the meal, with

jealousy at his heart and the still greater pangs of unsatisfied hunger

a little lower, he is kept busy by his wife, trying to mend a leaky

bucket with wax. Surely never did a scene contain more 'asides' than are

uttered and explained away by the crushed husband! Finally overtaxed

endurance asserts itself, and wife and priest are driven out of doors;

but the play closes with a very pronounced note of uncertainty from the

victor as to what new game the vanquished may shortly be at if he be not

there to see.

The all-important feature to be noticed in Heywood's work is that here

we have the drama escaping from its alliance with religion into the

region of pure comedy. Here is no well planned moral, no sententious

mouthpiece of abstract excellence, no ruin of sinners and crowning of

saints. Here, too, is no Vice, no Devil, although they are the chief

media for comedy in other Interludes, nor is there any buffoonery; even

of its near cousins, scuffling and fighting, only one of the three plays

has more than a trace. Hence the earlier remark, that Heywood was before

his time. It is not devils in bearskins and wooden-sworded vices that

create true comedy; they belong to the realm of farce. Yet they

continued to flourish long after Heywood had set another example, and

with them the cuffing of ears and drunken gambolling which we may see,

in the works of other men, trying to rescue prosy scenes from dullness.

In _Johan Johan_ is simple comedy, the comedy of laughter-raising

dialogue and 'asides'. We do not say it is perfect comedy, far from it;

but it is comedy cleared of its former alloys. It is the comedy which

Shakespeare refined for his own use in _Twelfth Night_ and elsewhere.

[Footnote 34: Translation by W.C. Robinson, Ph.D. (Bohn's Standard

Library).]

[Footnote 35: aright.]

[Footnote 36: world's.]

[Footnote 37: company.]

[Footnote 38: wealth.]

[Footnote 39: know.]

[Footnote 40: know not.]

[Footnote 41: solace.]

[Footnote 42: stealing.]

[Footnote 43: lying.]

[Footnote 44: fright.]

[Footnote 45: glad.]

[Footnote 46: alehouse sign.]

[Footnote 47: The reader is warned against chronological confusion. In

order to follow out the various dramatic contributions of the Interludes

one must sometimes pass over plays at one point to return to them at

another. Care has been taken to place approximate dates against the

plays, and these should be duly regarded. The treatment of so early an

Interlude writer as Heywood (his three best known productions may be

dated between 1520 and 1540) thus late is justified by the fact that he

is in some ways 'before his time', notably in his rejection of the

Morality abstractions.]

[Footnote 48: sweet.]

CHAPTER IV

RISE OF COMEDY AND TRAGEDY

No great discernment is required to see that, after the appearance of

_Johan Johan_, all that was needed for the complete development of

comedy was the invention of a well-contrived plot. For reasons already

indicated, Interludes were naturally deficient in this respect. Nor were

the Moralities and Bible Miracles much better: their length and

comprehensive themes were against them. There were the Saint Plays, of

which some still lingered upon the stage; these offered greater

possibilities. But here, again, originality was limited; the

_dénouement_ was more or less a foregone conclusion. Clearly, one of two

things was wanted: either a man of genius to perceive the need and to

supply it, or the study of new models outside the field of English

drama. The man of genius was not then forthcoming, but by good fortune

the models were stumbled upon.

We say stumbled upon, because the absence of tentative predecessors and

of anything approaching an eager band of successors, suggests an

unpreparedness for the discovery when it came. Thus _Calisto and

Melibaea_ (1530), an imitation of a Spanish comedy of the same name,

though it contained a definitely evolved plot, sent barely a ripple over

the surface of succeeding authorship. It represents the steadfastness of

the maiden Melibaea against the entreaties of her lover Calisto and the

much more crafty, indeed almost successful, wiles of the procuress,

Celestine. True, the play is dull enough. But if dramatists had been

awake to their defects, the value of the new importation from a foreign

literature would have been noticed. The years passed, however, without

producing imitators, until some time in the years between 1544 and 1551

a Latin scholar, reading the plays of Plautus, decided to write a comedy

like them. Latin Comedies, both in the original tongue and in

translation, had appeared in England in previous years, but only as

strayed foreigners. Nicholas Udall, the head master of Eton School,

proposed a very different thing, namely, an English comedy which should

rival in technique the comedies of the Latins. The result was _Ralph

Roister Doister_. He called it an Interlude. Posterity has given it the

title of 'the first regular English comedy'.

Divided into five acts, with subordinate scenes, this play develops its

story with deliberate calculated steps. Acts I and II are occupied by

Ralph's vain attempts to soften the heart of Dame Christian Custance by

gifts and messages. In Act III come complications, double-dealings.

Matthew Merrygreek plays Ralph false, tortures his love, misreads--by

the simple trick of mispunctuation--his letter to the Dame, and thus,

under a mask of friendship, sets him further than ever from success.

Still deeper complexities appear with Act IV, for now arrives, with

greetings from Gawin Goodluck, long betrothed to Dame Custance, a

certain sea-captain, who, misled by Ralph's confident assurance,

misunderstands the relations between the Dame and him, suspects

disloyalty, and changes from friendliness to cold aloofness. This, by

vexing the lady, brings disaster upon Ralph, whose bold attempt, on the

suggestion of Merrygreek, to carry his love off by force is repulsed by

that Dame's Amazonian band of maid-servants with scuttles and brooms. In

this extraordinary conflict Ralph is horribly belaboured by the

malicious Matthew under pretence of blows aimed at Dame Custance. Act

V, however, brings Goodluck himself and explanations. That worthy man

finds his lady true, friendship is established all round, and Ralph and

Merrygreek join the happy couple in a closing feast.

This bald outline perhaps makes sufficiently clear the great advance in

plot structure. Within the play, however, are many other good things.

The character of Ralph Roister Doister, 'a vain-glorious, cowardly

blockhead', as the list of dramatis personae has it, is thoroughly well

done: his heavy love-sighs, his confident elation, his distrust, his

gullibility, his ups and downs and contradictions, are all in the best

comic vein. Only second in fullness of portraiture, and truer to Nature,

is Dame Custance, who--if we exclude Melibaea as not native to English

shores--may be said to bring into English secular drama honourable

womanhood. Her amused indifference at first, her sharp reproof of her

maids who have allowed themselves to act as Ralph's messengers, her

gathering vexation at Ralph's tiresome wooing, her genuine alarm when

she sees that his boastful words are accepted by the sea-captain as

truth--these are sentiments and emotions copied from a healthy and

worthy model. Matthew Merrygreek, an unmistakable 'Vice' ever at Ralph's

elbow, is of all Vices the shrewdest striker of laughter out of a block

of stupidity: it is from his ingenious brain that almost every absurd

scene is evolved for the ridiculing of Ralph. Thoroughly human, and

quite assertive, are the lower characters, the maid-servants and

men-servants, Madge Mumblecrust, Tibet Talkapace, Truepenny, Dobinet

Doughty and the rest. Need it be added that the battle in Act IV is pure

fooling? or that jolly songs enliven the scenes with their rousing

choruses (e.g. 'I mun be married a Sunday')? _Ralph Roister Doister_ is

an English comedy with English notions of the best way of amusing

English folk of the sixteenth century. With all its improvements it has

no suggestion of the alien about it, as has the classically-flavoured

_Thersites_ (also based, like Udall's play, on Plautus's _Miles

Gloriosus_), or _Calisto and Melibaea_ with its un-English names.

Perhaps that is why it had to wait fifteen years for a successor. Quite

possibly its spectators regarded it as merely a better Interlude than

usual, without recognizing the precise qualities which made it different

from _Johan Johan_.

Two quotations will be sufficient to illustrate the opposing characters.

(1)

_Merrygreek_ (_alone_). But now of Roister Doister somewhat to express,

That ye may esteem him after his worthiness,

In these twenty towns, and seek them throughout,

Is not the like stock whereon to graff a lout.

All the day long is he facing and craking[49]

Of his great acts in fighting and fray-making;

But when Roister Doister is put to his proof,

To keep the Queen's peace is more for his behoof.

If any woman smile, or cast on him an eye,

Up is he to the hard ears in love by and by:

And in all the hot haste must she be his wife,

Else farewell his good days, and farewell his life!

(2)

[TRISTRAM TRUSTY, _a good friend and counsellor to_ DAME CUSTANCE,

_is consulted by her on the matter of the sea-captain's_

(SURESBY'S) _misunderstanding of her attitude towards_ RALPH

ROISTER DOISTER.]

_T. Trusty._ Nay, weep not, woman, but tell me what your cause is.

As concerning my friend is anything amiss?

_C. Custance._ No, not on my part; but here was Sim. Suresby--

_T. Trusty._ He was with me, and told me so.

_C. Custance._ And he stood by

While Ralph Roister Doister, with help of Merrygreek,

For promise of marriage did unto me seek.

_T. Trusty._ And had ye made any promise before them twain?

_C. Custance._ No, I had rather be torn in pieces and slain.

No man hath my faith and troth but Gawin Goodluck,

And that before Suresby did I say, and there stuck;

But of certain letters there were such words spoken--

_T. Trusty._ He told me that too.

_C. Custance._ And of a ring and token,

That Suresby, I spied, did more than half suspect

That I my faith to Gawin Goodluck did reject.

_T. Trusty._ But was there no such matter, Dame Custance, indeed?

_C. Custance._ If ever my head thought it, God send me ill speed!

Wherefore I beseech you with me to be a witness

That in all my life I never intended thing less.

And what a brainsick fool Ralph Roister Doister is

Yourself knows well enough.

_T. Trusty._ Ye say full true, i-wis.

In 1566 was acted at Christ's College, Cambridge, 'A Ryght Pithy,

Pleasaunt, and merie Comedie, intytuled _Gammer Gurton's Needle_.' The

authorship is uncertain, recent investigation having exalted a certain

Stevenson into rivalry with the Bishop Still to whom former scholars

were content to assign it. Possibly as the result of a perusal of

Plautus, possibly under the influence of the last play--for in subject

matter it is even more perfectly English than _Ralph Roister

Doister_--this comedy is also built on a well-arranged plan, the plot

developing regularly through five acts with subsidiary scenes. Let us

glance through it.

Gammer Gurton and her goodman Hodge lose their one and only needle, an

article not easily renewed, nor easily done without, seeing that Hodge's

garments stand in need of instant repair. Gib, the cat, is strongly

suspected of having swallowed it. Into this confusion steps Diccon, a

bedlam beggar, whose quick eye promptly detects opportunities for

mischief. After scaring Hodge with offers of magic art, he goes to Dame

Chat, an honest but somewhat jealous neighbour, unaware of what has

happened, with a tale that Gammer Gurton accuses her of stealing her

best cock. To Gammer Gurton he announces that he has seen Dame Chat pick

up the needle and make off with it. Between the two dames ensues a

meeting, the nature of which may be guessed, the whole trouble lying in

the fact that neither thinks it necessary to name the article under

dispute. No wonder that discussion under the disadvantage of so great a

misunderstanding ends in violence. Doctor Rat, the curate, is now called

in; but again Diccon is equal to the occasion. Having warned Dame Chat

that Hodge, to balance the matter of the cock, is about to creep in

through a breach in the wall and kill her chickens, he persuades Doctor

Rat that if he will creep through this same opening he will see the

needle lying on Dame Chat's table. The consequences for the curate are

severe. Master Bailey's assistance is next requisitioned, and him friend

Diccon cannot overreach. The whole truth coming out, Diccon is required

to kneel and apologize. In doing so he gives Hodge a slap which elicits

from that worthy a yell of pain. But it is a wholesome pang, for it

finds the needle no further away than in the seat of Hodge's breeches.

If we compare this play with _Ralph Roister Doister_ three ideas will

occur: first, that we have made no advance; second, that, in giving the

preference to rough country folk, the author has deliberately abandoned

the higher standard of refinement in language and action set in Udall's

major scenes; third, that whereas the earlier work bases its comedy on

character, educing the amusing scenes from the clash of vanity,

constancy and mischief, the later play relies for its comic effects on

situations brought about by mischief alone. These are three rather heavy

counts against the younger rival. But in the other scale may be placed a

very fair claim to greater naturalness. Taking the scenes and characters

in turn, mischief-maker, churchman and all, there is none so open to the

charge of being impossible, and therefore farcical, as the battle

between the forces of Ralph and Dame Custance, or the incredibly

self-deceived Ralph himself. In accompanying Ralph through his

adventures we seem to be moving through a fantastic world in which Sir

Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio might feel at home; but with Dame Chat,

Gammer Gurton and Hodge we feel the solid earth beneath our feet and

around us the strong air which nourished the peasantry and yeomen of

Tudor England.

The first extract is a verse from this comedy's one and famous song; the

second is taken from Act I, Scene 4.

(1)

I cannot eat but little meat,

My stomach is not good;

But sure I think that I can drink

With him that wears a hood.

Though I go bare, take ye no care,

I am nothing a-cold;

I stuff my skin so full within

Of jolly good ale and old.

Back and side go bare, go bare,

Both foot and hand go cold:

But belly, God send thee good ale enough,

Whether it be new or old.

(2)

[HODGE _hears of the loss of the needle on his return home from the

fields._]

_Hodge._ Your nee'le lost? it is pity you should lack care and

endless sorrow.

Gog's death, how shall my breeches be sewed? Shall I go thus

to-morrow?

_Gammer._ Ah, Hodge, Hodge, if that ich could find my nee'le, by

the reed,

Ch'ould sew thy breeches, ich promise thee, with full good

double thread,

And set a patch on either knee should last this moneths twain.

Now God and good Saint Sithe, I pray to send it home again.

_Hodge._ Whereto served your hands and eyes, but this your nee'le

to keep?

What devil had you else to do? ye keep, ich wot, no sheep.

Cham[50] fain abroad to dig and delve, in water, mire and clay,

Sossing and possing in the dirt still from day to day.

A hundred things that be abroad cham set to see them well:

And four of you sit idle at home and cannot keep a nee'le!

_Gammer._ My nee'le, alas, ich lost it, Hodge, what time ich me up

hasted

To save milk set up for thee, which Gib our cat hath wasted.

_Hodge._ The devil he burst both Gib and Tib, with all the rest;

Cham always sure of the worst end, whoever have the best.

Where ha' you been fidging abroad, since you your nee'le lost?

_Gammer._ Within the house, and at the door, sitting by this same

post;

Where I was looking a long hour, before these folks came here.

But, wellaway! all was in vain; my nee'le is never the near.

_Hodge._ Set me a candle, let me seek, and grope wherever it be.

Gog's heart, ye be foolish (ich think), you know it not when you

it see.

_Gammer._ Come hither, Cock: what, Cock, I say!

_Cock._ How, Gammer?

_Gammer._ Go, hie thee soon, and grope behind the old brass pan,

Which thing when thou hast done,

There shalt thou find an old shoe, wherein, if thou look well,

Thou shalt find lying an inch of white tallow candle:

Light it, and bring it tite away.

_Cock._ That shall be done anon.

_Gammer._ Nay, tarry, Hodge, till thou hast light, and then we'll

seek each one.

_Ralph Roister Doister_ and _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ mark the end of the

Interlude stage and the commencement of Comedy proper. Leaving the

latter at this point for the present, we shall return in the next

chapter to study its fortunes at the hands of Lyly.

* * * * *

Morality Plays, though theoretically quite as suitable for tragic effect

as for comic, since the former only required that Mankind should

sometimes fail to reach heaven, seem nevertheless to have developed

mainly the lighter side, setting the hero right at the finish and in the

meantime discovering, to the relief of otherwise bored spectators, that

wickedness, in some unexplained way, was funny. As long as propriety

forbade that good should be overcome by evil it is hard to see how

tragedy could appear. Had Humankind, in _The Castell of Perseverance_,

been fought for in vain by the Virtues, or had Everyman found no

companion to go with him and intercede for him, there had been tragedy

indeed. But religious optimism was against any conclusion so

discouraging to repentance. The lingering Miracles, it is true, still

presented the sublimest of all tragedies in the Fall of Man and the

apparent triumph of the Pharisees over Jesus. Between them, however, and

the kind of drama that succeeded the Moralities, too great a gulf was

fixed. Contemporaries of those original spirits, Heywood and Udall,

could hardly revert for inspiration to the discredited performances of

villages and of a few provincial towns. Tragedy had to wait until there

was matured and made popular an Interlude from which the conflict of

Virtues and Vices, with the orthodox triumph of the former, had been

purged away, leaving to the author complete liberty alike in character

and action. When that came, Tragedy returned to the stage, a stranger

with strange stories to tell. Persia and Ancient Rome sent their tyrants

and their heroines to contest for public favour with home-born knaves

and fools. Nor were the newcomers above borrowing the services of those

same knaves and fools. The Vice was given a place, low clownish fellows

were admitted to relieve the harrowed feelings, and our old

acquaintance, Herod, was summoned from the Miracles to lend his aid.

Yet even so--and probably because it was so--Tragedy was ill at ease.

She had called in low comedy and rant to please the foolish, only to

find herself infected and degraded by their company. Moreover, the

bustle of incident, the abrupt changes from grave to gay and to grave

again, jangled her sad majestic harmonies with shrill interrupting

discords. It had not been so in Greece. It had not been so even in

Italy, where Roman Seneca, fearing the least decline to a lower plane of

dignity and impressiveness, had disciplined tragedy by an imposition of

artificial but not unskilful restraints. In place of the strong

unbroken sweep of a resistless current, which characterized the

evolution of an Aeschylean drama, he had insisted on an orderly division

of a plot into acts and scenes, as though one should break up the sheer

plunge of a single waterfall into a well-balanced group of cascades. Yet

he was wise in his generation, securing by this means a carefully

proportioned development which, in the absence of that genius which

inspired the Greek dramatists, might otherwise have been lost. Once

strong and free in the plays of Aeschylus and his compeers, hampered and

constantly under guidance but still dignified and noble in the Senecan

drama, Tragedy now found herself debased and almost caricatured in the

English Interlude stage. Fortunately the danger was seen in time.

English writers, face to face with self-conscious tragedy, realized that

here at least was more than unaided native art could compass. Despairing

of success if they persisted in the old methods, they fell back

awkwardly upon classical imitation and, by assiduous study tempered by a

wise criticism, achieved success.

Only two plays with any claim to the designation of tragedies have

survived to us from the Interludes, neither of them of much interest.

_Cambyses_ (1561), by Thomas Preston, has all the qualities of an

imperfect Interlude. There are the base fellows and the clowns, Huff,

Ruff, Snuff, Hob and Lob; the abstractions, Diligence, Shame, Common's

Complaint, Small Hability, and the like; the Vice, Ambidexter, who

enters 'with an old capcase on his head, an old pail about his hips for

harness, a scummer and a potlid by his side, and a rake on his

shoulder'; and the same scuffling and horseplay when the comic element

is uppermost. Incident follows incident as rapidly and with as trifling

motives as before. In the course of a short play we see Cambyses, king

of Persia, set off for his conquests in Egypt; return; execute

Sisamnes, his unjust deputy; prove a far worse ruler himself; shoot

through the heart the young son of Praxaspes, to prove to that too-frank

counsellor that he is not as drunk as was supposed; murder his own

brother, Smirdis, on the lying report of Ambidexter; marry, contrary to

the law of the Church and her own wish, a lovely lady, his cousin, and

then have her executed for reproaching him with the death of his

brother; and finally die, accidentally pierced by his own sword when

mounting a horse. All these horrors, except the death of the lady, take

place on the stage. Thus we have such stage-directions as, 'Smite him in

the neck with a sword to signify his death', 'Flay him with a false

skin', 'A little bladder of vinegar pricked', 'Enter the King without a

gown, a sword thrust up into his side, bleeding.' Of real tragedy there

is little, the hustle of crime upon crime obliterating the impression

which any one singly might produce. Yet even in this crude orgy of

bloodshed the melancholy voice of unaffected pathos can be heard

mourning the loss of dear ones. It speaks in the farewells of Sisamnes

and his son Otian, and of Praxaspes (the honest minister) and his little

boy; throughout the whole incident of the gentle lady whose fate melts

even the Vice to tears; and in the outburst of a mother's grief over her

child's corpse. We quote the last.

O blissful babe, O joy of womb, heart's comfort and delight,

For counsel given unto the king, is this thy just requite?

O heavy day and doleful time, these mourning tunes to make!

With blubb'red eyes into my arms from earth I will thee take,

And wrap thee in my apron white: but O my heavy heart!

The spiteful pangs that it sustains would make it in two to part,

The death of this my son to see: O heavy mother now,

That from thy sweet and sug'red joy to sorrow so shouldst bow!

What grief in womb did I retain before I did thee see;

Yet at the last, when smart was gone, what joy wert thou to me!

How tender was I of thy food, for to preserve thy state!

How stilled I thy tender heart at times early and late!

With velvet paps I gave thee suck, with issue from my breast,

And danced thee upon my knee to bring thee unto rest.

Is this the joy of thee I reap? O king of tiger's brood,

O tiger's whelp, hadst thou the heart to see this child's heart-blood?

Nature enforceth me, alas, in this wise to deplore,

To wring my hands, O wel-away, that I should see this hour.

Thy mother yet will kiss thy lips, silk-soft and pleasant white,

With wringing hands lamenting for to see thee in this plight.

My lording dear, let us go home, our mourning to augment.

The second play, _Appius and Virginia_ (1563), by R.B. (not further

identified), is, in some respects, weaker; though, by avoiding the

crowded plot which spoilt _Cambyses_, it attains more nearly to tragedy.

The low characters, Mansipulus and Mansipula, the Vice (Haphazard), and

the abstractions, Conscience, Comfort and their brethren, reappear with

as little success. But the singleness of the theme helps towards that

elevation of the main figures and intensifying of the catastrophe which

tragic emotion demands. Unfortunately, from the start the author seems

to have been obsessed with the notion that the familiar rant of Herod

was peculiarly suited to his subject. In such a notion there lay, of

course, the half-truth that lofty thoughts and impassioned speech are

more befitting the sombre muse than the foolish chatter of clowns. But,

except where his own deliberately introduced mirth-makers are speaking,

he will have nothing but pompous rhetoric from the lips of his

characters. His prologue begins his speech with the sounding line:

Who doth desire the trump of fame to sound unto the skies--

Virginius's wife makes her début upon the stage with this encouraging

remark to her companion:

The pert and prickly prime of youth ought chastisement to have,

But thou, dear daughter, needest not, thyself doth show thee grave.

To which Virginia most becomingly answers:

Refell your mind of mournful plaints, dear mother, rest your mind.

After this every one feels that the wicked judge, Appius, has done no

more than his duty when he exclaims, at his entrance:

The furrowed face of fortune's force my pinching pain doth move.

Virginius slays his daughter on the stage and serves her head up in a

charger before Appius, who promptly bursts into a cataclysm of C's ('O

curst and cruel cankered churl, O carl unnatural'); but there is not a

suggestion of the pathos noticed in _Cambyses_. Instead there is in one

place a sort of frantic agitation, which the author doubtless thought

was the pure voice of tragic sorrow. It is in the terrible moment when,

after the heroic strain of the sacrifice is over, Virginius realizes the

meaning of what he has done. Presumably wild with grief, he raves in

language so startlingly akin to the ludicrous despairs of Pyramus and

Thisbe that the modern reader, acquainted with the latter, is almost

jarred into laughter.

O cruel hands, O bloody knife, O man, what hast thou done?

Thy daughter dear and only heir her vital end hath won.

Come, fatal blade, make like despatch: come, Atropos: come, aid!

Strike home, thou careless arm, with speed; of death be not afraid.

Of such eloquence we might truly say with Theseus, 'This passion, and

the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.'

In 1562 Tragedy, as we have said, took refuge in an imitation of the

Senecan stage: translations of Seneca's tragedies had begun to appear in

1559. _The Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex_, or _Gorboduc_, as it was

originally and is now most commonly named, marks a new departure for

English drama. To understand this we ought perhaps to say something

about the essential features of a Greek tragedy (Seneca's own model),

and make a note of any special Senecan additions. What strikes one most

in reading a play of Aeschylus is the prominence given to a composite

and almost colourless character known as the Chorus (for though it

consists of a body of persons, it speaks, for the most part, as one),

the absence of any effective action from the stage, the limited number

of actors, and the tendency of any speaker to expand his remarks into a

set speech of considerable length. This tendency, especially noticeable

in the Chorus, whose speeches commonly take the form of chants,

encouraged the faculty of generalizing philosophically, so that one is

constantly treated to general reflections expressive rather of broad

wisdom and piety than of feelings directly and dramatically aroused;

much also is made of retrospection and relation, whether the topic is

ancient history, the events of a recent voyage, or a barely completed

crime. The sage backward glance of the Chorus is quick to discover in

present ruin a punishment for past crime; so that the plot becomes in a

manner a picture of the resistless laws of moral justice. Speeches, a

moralizing Chorus, actions not performed but reported in detail, a sense

of divine retribution for sin, these are perhaps the qualities which,

apart from the poetry itself, we recall most readily as typical of a

Greek tragedy. These Seneca modified by the introduction of acts and

scenes, a subordination of the Chorus, and an exaggerated predilection

for long sententious speeches; he also added a new stage character known

as the Ghost. Seneca's elevation, to the dogmatic position of laws, of

the unities of Time, Place and Action, rules by no means invariable

among his older and greater masters, has been the subject of much

debate, but, on the whole, the verdict has been hostile. According to

these unities, the time represented in the play should not greatly

exceed the time occupied in acting it, the scene of the action should

not vary, and the plot should be concerned only with one event. This

last law was generally accepted, by Elizabethans, in Tragedy at least.

The other two, though much insisted on by English theorists, such as Sir

Philip Sidney, met with so much neglect in practice that we need devote

no space to the discussion of them.

Having thus hastily summarized the larger superficial characteristics of

classical drama, we may return to _Gorboduc_ and inquire which of these

were adopted in it and with what modifications. We find it divided into

five acts and nine scenes. A Chorus, though it takes no other part,

sings its moralizing lyrics at the end of each act except the last.

Speeches of inordinate length are made--three consecutive speeches in

Act I, Scene 2, occupy two hundred and sixty lines--the subject-matter

being commonly argumentative. Only through the reports of messengers and

eye-witnesses do we learn of the cold-blooded murder and many violent

deaths that take place. Everywhere hurried action and unreasoning

instinct give place to deliberation and debate. Between this play and

its predecessors no change can be more sweeping or more abrupt. In an

instant, as it were, we pass from the unpolished _Cambyses_, savage and

reeking with blood, to the equally violent events of _Gorboduc_, cold

beneath a formal restraint which, regulating their setting in the

general framework, robs them of more than half their force. Had this

severe discipline of the emotions been accepted as for ever binding upon

the tragic stage Elizabethan drama would have been forgotten. The truth

is that the germ of dissension was sown in _Gorboduc_ itself. Conscious

that the banishment of action from the stage, while natural enough in

Greece, must meet with an overwhelming resistance from the popular

custom in England, the authors, Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton,

invented a compromise. Before each act they provided a symbolical Dumb

Show which, by its external position, infringed no classical law, yet

satisfied the demand of an English audience for real deeds and

melodramatic spectacles. It was an ingenious idea, the effect of which

was to keep intact the close link between stage and action until the

native genius should be strong enough to cast aside its swaddling

clothes and follow its own bent without hurt. As illustrating this

innovation--the reader will not have forgotten that both Dumb Show and

Chorus are to be found in _Pericles_--we may quote the directions for

the Dumb Show before the second act.

First, the music of cornets began to play, during which came in

upon the stage a king accompanied with a number of his nobility and

gentlemen. And after he had placed himself in a chair of estate

prepared for him, there came and kneeled before him a grave and

aged gentleman, and offered up unto him a cup of wine in a glass,

which the king refused. After him comes a brave and lusty young

gentleman, and presents the king with a cup of gold filled with

poison, which the king accepted, and drinking the same, immediately

fell down dead upon the stage, and so was carried thence away by

his lords and gentlemen, and then the music ceased. Hereby was

signified, that as glass by nature holdeth no poison, but is clear

and may easily be seen through, ne boweth by any art; so a faithful

counsellor holdeth no treason, but is plain and open, ne yieldeth

to any indiscreet affection, but giveth wholesome counsel, which

the ill advised prince refuseth. The delightful gold filled with

poison betokeneth flattery, which under fair seeming of pleasant

words beareth deadly poison, which destroyeth the prince that

receiveth it. As befel in the two brethren, Ferrex and Porrex, who,

refusing the wholesome advice of grave counsellors, credited these

young parasites, and brought to themselves death and destruction

thereby.

But it is time to set forth the plot in more detail. The importance of

_Gorboduc_ as an example of English 'classical' tragedy prompts us to

follow it through, scene by scene.

_Act I, Scene 1._--Queen Videna discovers to her favourite and elder

son, Ferrex, the king's intention, grievous in her eyes, of dividing his

kingdom equally between his two sons. _Scene 2._--King Gorboduc submits

his plan to the consideration of his three counsellors, whose wise and

lengthy reasonings he listens to but elects to disregard.

_Act II, Scene 1._--The division having been carried out, Ferrex, in his

part of the kingdom, is prompted by evil counsel to suspect aggressive

rivalry from his brother, and decides to collect forces for his own

defence. _Scene 2._--Ferrex's misguided precautions having been

maliciously represented to Porrex as directed against his power, that

prince resolves upon an immediate invasion of his brother's realm.

_Act III._--The news of these counter-moves and of the imminent

probability of bloodshed is reported to the king. To restore the courage

of the despairing Gorboduc is now the labour of his counsellors, but the

later announcement of the death of Ferrex casts him lower than before.

At this point the Chorus, recalling the murder of a cousin in an earlier

generation of the royal race, points, in true Aeschylean fashion, to the

hatred of an unsated revenge behind this latest blow:

Thus fatal plagues pursue the guilty race,

Whose murderous hand, imbru'd with guiltless blood,

Asks vengeance still before the heaven's face,

With endless mischiefs on the cursed brood.

_Act IV, Scene 1._--Videna alone, in words of passionate vehemence,

laments that she has lived so long to see the death of Ferrex, renounces

his brother as no child of hers, and concludes with a threat of

vengeance. _Scene 2._--Bowed down with remorse, Porrex makes his defence

before the king, pleading the latter's own act, in dividing the kingdom,

as the initial cause of the ensuing disaster. Before he has been long

gone from his father's presence, Marcella, a lady-in-waiting, rushes

into the room, in wild disorder and grief, to report his murder at his

mother's hand. In anguished words she tells how, stabbed by Videna in

his sleep, he started up and, spying the queen by his side, called to

her for help, not crediting that she, his mother, could be his

murderess. Again, in tones of solemn warning, the Chorus reminds the

audience that

Blood asketh blood, and death must death requite:

Jove, by his just and everlasting doom,

Justly hath ever so requited it.

_Act V, Scene 1._--This warning is proved true by a report of the death

of the king and queen at the hands of their subjects in revolt against

the blood-stained House. Certain of the nobles, gathered together,

resolve upon an alliance for the purpose of restoring a strong

government. The Duke of Albany, however, thinks to snatch power to

himself from this opportunity. _Scene 2._--Report is made of the

suppression of the rebellion, but this news is immediately followed by a

report of Albany's attempted usurpation of the throne. Coalition for his

defeat is agreed upon, and the play ends with the mournful soliloquy of

that aged counsellor who first opposed the division of the throne and

now sees, as the consequence of that fatal act, his country, torn to

pieces by civil strife, left an easy prize for an ambitious conqueror.

Hereto it comes when kings will not consent

To grave advice, but follow wilful will.

This is the end, when in fond princes' hearts

Flattery prevails, and sage rede[51] hath no place:

These are the plagues, when murder is the mean

To make new heirs unto the royal crown....

And this doth grow, when lo, unto the prince,

Whom death or sudden hap of life bereaves,

No certain heir remains, such certain heir,

As not all only is the rightful heir,

But to the realm is so made known to be;

And troth thereby vested in subjects' hearts,

To owe faith there where right is known to rest.

This last quotation, interesting in itself as containing a

recommendation to Queen Elizabeth to marry, or at least name her

successor, will also serve as a specimen of the new verse, Blank Verse,

which here, for the first time, finds its way into English drama.

Meeting with small favour from writers skilful in the stringing together

of rhymes, it suffered comparative neglect for some years until Marlowe

taught its capacities to his own and future ages. With Sackville's stiff

lines before us we shall be better able to appreciate the later

playwright's genius. But we shall also be reminded that the credit of

introducing blank verse must lie with the older man.

The chief question of all remains to be asked. Does _Gorboduc_, with all

its borrowed devices, _and because of them_, rise to a higher level of

tragedy than _Cambyses_ and _Appius and Virginia_? To answer this

question we must examine the effect of those devices, and understand

what is precisely meant by the term tragedy. Let it be first understood

that the arrangement of acts and scenes is comparatively unimportant in

this connexion, though most helpful in giving clearness to the action.

Marlowe's _Doctor Faustus_ (in the earlier edition) dispenses with it;

so does Milton's _Samson Agonistes_; and we have just seen that the

great Greek dramatists knew nothing of it. What is important is the

exclusion of that comic element which, in some form or another, had

hitherto found a place in almost every English play; the removal of all

action from the stage--for the Dumb Shows stand apart from the play--;

and the substitution of stately speeches for natural conversation and

dialogue. Of all three the purpose is the same, namely, to impress the

audience with a sense of greater dignity and awe than would be imparted

by a more familiar style. The long speeches give importance to the

decisions, and compel a belief that momentous events are about to

happen or have happened. In harmony with this effect is the absence of

all comic relief--although Shakespeare was to prove later that this has

a useful place in tragedy. A smile, a jest would be sacrilege in the

prevailing gloom. Two effects alone are aimed at; an impression of

loftiness in the theme, and a profound melancholy. Not warm gushing

tears. Those are the outcome of a personal sorrow, small and ignoble

beside an abstract grief at 'the falls of princes', 'the tumbling down

of crowns', 'the ruin of proud realms'. What does the reader or

spectator know of Ferrex that he should mingle his cries with Videna's

lamentations? The account of Porrex appealing, with childlike faith in

his mother, to the very woman who has murdered him, may, for the moment,

bring tears to the eyes. But it is an accidental touch. The tragedy lies

not there but in the great fact that with him dies the last heir to the

throne, the last hope of avoiding the miseries of a disputed succession;

and that in her revengeful fury the queen, as a woman, has committed the

blackest of all crimes, a mother's slaughter of her child. We are not

asked to weep but to gasp at the horror of it. It is in order to protect

the loftier, broader aspects of the catastrophe from the influence of

the particular that action is excluded. This cautions us against

confusing tragedy and pathos. To perceive the difference is to recognize

that English Tragedy really begins with _Gorboduc_. Until its advent the

stress laid on the pathetic partially obscured the tragic. This may be

seen at once in the Miracles, though a little thought will reveal the

intensely tragic nature of the complete Miracle Play. In _Cambyses_ we

find the same obscuration: there is tragedy in the sudden ending of

those young lives, but the pathos of the mother's anguish and the sweet

girl's pleadings prevent us from thinking of it. _Appius and Virginia_

maintains a much truer tragic detachment, the effect being heightened by

its opening picture of virtuous happiness destined to abrupt and

tyrannous ruin. But it expresses itself so ill, shatters our hearing so

unmercifully with its alliterative mouthing, and hurls us down so

steeply with its low comedy, that we refuse to give its characters the

grandeur or excellence claimed for them by the author. _Gorboduc_ alone

presents tragedy unspoiled by extraneous additions. In its triple

catastrophe of princes, crown and realm we perceive the awful figure of

the Tragic Muse and shrink back in reverent fear of what more may lie

hid from us in the folds of her black robe. Darker, much darker and more

terrible things have come since from that gloomy spirit. What has been

written here should not be misinterpreted as an exaggerated appreciation

of _Gorboduc_. We wish only to insist that this play did give to English

drama for the first time (if we exclude translations) an example,

however weak in execution, of pure tragedy; and was able to do so

largely, if not entirely, by reason of its reversion to classical

principles and devices.

We have insisted on the difference between Tragedy and Pathos, and

criticized the weakening effect of the latter upon the former. To escape

the penalty that awaits general criticism we may add here that Tragedy

is never greater than when her handmaid is ready to do her _modest_

service. Sophocles puts into the mouth of Oedipus, at the moment of his

departure into blind and desolate exile, tender injunctions regarding

the care of his young daughters:

But my poor maidens, hapless and forlorn,

Who never had a meal apart from mine,

But ever shared my table, yea, for them

Take heedful care; and grant me, though but once,

Yea, I beseech thee, with these hands to feel,

Thou noble heart! the forms I love so well,

And weep with them our common misery.

Oh, if my arms were round them, I might seem

To have them as of old when I could see.[52]

Shakespeare, too, knew well how to kindle the soft radiance which,

fading again, makes the ensuing darkness darker still. Ophelia, the

sleeping Duncan, Cordelia rise to our minds. Nor need we quote the

famous words of Webster's Ferdinand. It is enough that the greatest

scene in _Gorboduc_ is precisely that scene where pathos softens by a

momentary dimness of vision our horror at a mother's crime.

_The Misfortunes of Arthur_ (1587), by Thomas Hughes, though twenty-five

years later, may be placed next to _Gorboduc_ in our discussion of the

rise of tragedy. It will serve as an illustration of the kind of tragedy

that was being evolved from Senecan models by plodding uninspired

Englishmen before Marlowe flung his flaming torch amongst them. To

understand the story a slight introduction is necessary. Igerna, the

wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, was loved by King Uther, who foully

slew her husband and so won her for himself. As a result of this union

were born Arthur and Anne, who, in their youth, perpetuated the

inherited taint of sin by becoming the parents of a boy, Mordred.

Afterwards Arthur married Guenevera, and some years later went to France

on a long campaign of conquest. In his absence Mordred gained the love

of Guenevera. The play begins with the contemplated return of Arthur,

glorious from victory, the object being to concentrate attention upon

the swift fall from glory and power to ruin and death. Guenevera, having

learnt to hate her husband, debates in her mind his death or hers,

finally deciding, however, to become a nun. Her interview with Mordred

ends in his resolving to resist Arthur's landing. Unsuccessful in this

attempt, and defeated in battle, he spurns all thought of submission,

challenging his father to a second conflict, in Cornwall. Arthur,

feeling that his sins have found him out, would gladly make peace; but,

stung by Mordred's defiance, he follows him into Cornwall. There both

armies are destroyed and Mordred is slain, though in his death he

mortally wounds his father. After the battle his body is brought before

Arthur, in whom the sight awakens yet more fiercely the pangs of

remorse. The play closes immediately before Arthur's own mysterious

departure.

Here is all the material for a great tragedy. The point for beginning

the story is well chosen, though in obvious imitation of _Agamemnon_.

Attention is concentrated on the catastrophe, no alien element being

admitted to detract from the melancholy effect. It is sought to

intensify the gloom by recourse to Seneca's stage Ghost; thus, the

departed spirit of the wronged Gorlois opens the play with horrid

imprecations of evil upon the house of Uther, and, at the close, exults

in the fullness of his revenge. From his mouth, as well as from the lips

of Arthur, and again from the Chorus (which closes the acts, as in

_Gorboduc_) we learn the great purpose beneath this overwhelming ruin of

a king and kingdom--to show that the day and the hour do come, however

long deferred, when

Wrong hath his wreak, and guilt his guerdon bears.

As before, all action is rigorously excluded from the stage, to be

reported, at great length and with tremendous striving after vividness

and effect, by one who was present. Dumb Shows before each act continue

the attempt to balance matters spectacularly. Clearly the only hope of

dramatic advance for disciples of the Senecan school lay in improved

dialogue. This was possible in four directions, namely, in more stirring

topics, in more personal feeling, in shorter speeches, and in a change

in the style of language and verse. Unfortunately for Thomas Hughes, it

is just here that he fails, and fails lamentably. What is more, he fails

because of his methods. The dominant desire of the English 'classical'

school was to be impressive. Hence the adoption by Hughes of a ghostly

introduction and conclusion. His conversations, therefore, must reflect

the same idea. He saw, indeed, that long speeches, except at rare

intervals, were tedious, and reduced his to reasonable proportions, even

making extensive use--as, we shall see, the author of _Damon and

Pythias_ did before him--of the Greek device of stichomythia. He was

most anxious, also, to provide stirring topics for his characters to

speak on, the queen's uncertainty between crime and religion in the

second scene being a notable example. But of necessity the distance of

time and space imposed by his methods between an event and the reporting

of it gives a measure of detachment to its discussion. In the matter of

personal feeling, too, he was hampered by this same unavoidable

detachment, and by the need of being impressive; for he and his friends

seem to have been convinced that the wider and less particular the

subject the greater would be the hearer's awe. We need only compare

Arthur's speech over Mordred's body with the lamentation of the mother

in _Cambyses_ to perceive how the new methods compel the king to hasten

from the thought of the 'hapless boy' to a consideration of their joint

fate as 'a mirror to the world'. Because, in _Cambyses_, we know so

little more of the boy and his mother than her grief, his murder fails

as tragedy; but had Arthur indulged a little in such grief as her's, how

much more moving would have been the tragedy of _The Misfortunes of

Arthur_! But this was not the way of the Senecan school. Everywhere we

find the same preference, as in _Gorboduc_, for broad argument and

easily detachable expressions of philosophic wisdom. What shall be said

of the style of language and verse? This much in praise, that Blank

Verse is retained. But--and the thoughtful reader will discern that the

same fatal influence is at work here as elsewhere--Hughes relapses,

deliberately, into the artificial speech of _Appius and Virginia_.

Alliteration charms him with its too artful aid. Nowhere has R.B. such

rant as falls from the pen of Hughes. In the last battle between Arthur

and Mordred 'boist'rous bangs with thumping thwacks fall thick', while

the younger leader rages over the field 'all fury-like, frounc'd up with

frantic frets'. Guenevera revives her declining wrath with this

invocation of supernatural aid:

Come, spiteful fiends, come, heaps of furies fell,

Not one by one, but all at once! my breast

Raves not enough: it likes me to be fill'd

With greater monsters yet. My heart doth throb,

My liver boils: somewhat my mind portends,

Uncertain what; but whatsoever, it's huge.

A fairer example, however, of Hughes's style may be taken from Cador's

speech urging Arthur to adopt severe measures against Mordred (_Act III,

Scene 1_):

No worse a vice than lenity in kings;

Remiss indulgence soon undoes a realm.

He teacheth how to sin that winks at sins,

And bids offend that suffereth an offence.

The only hope of leave increaseth crimes,

And he that pardoneth one, embold'neth all

To break the laws. Each patience fostereth wrong.

But vice severely punish'd faints at foot,

And creeps no further off than where it falls.

One sour example will prevent more vice

Than all the best persuasions in the world.

Rough rigour looks out right, and still prevails:

Smooth mildness looks too many ways to thrive.

Wherefore, since Mordred's crimes have wrong'd the laws

In so extreme a sort, as is too strange,

Let right and justice rule with rigour's aid,

And work his wrack at length, although too late;

That damning laws, so damned by the laws,

He may receive his deep deserved doom.

So let it fare with all that dare the like:

Let sword, let fire, let torments be their end.

Severity upholds both realm and rule.

One feature remains to be spoken of, a feature which redeems the play

from an otherwise deserved obscurity. We refer to the author's creation

of characters fit for tragedy. Sackville's royalties are dull folk,

great only by rank. Arthur and Mordred are men of a grander breed, men

worthy to rise to heights and win the attention of the world by their

fall. Nor does the author forget the artistic strength achieved by

contrast. Arthur is depicted as a veteran warrior, contented with his

conquests, and anxious to establish peace within his kingdom. He is

remorseful, too, for past sins, and is ready to make amends by yielding

up to Mordred the coveted throne--until that prince's insolence makes

compromise impossible. Mordred, on the other hand, stands before us as

the young, ambitious, dauntless aspirant to power, scorning cautious

fears, flinging back every overture for peace, reaching forward to the

goal of his hate even across the confines of life. At the risk of

quoting too much we append (with the omission of two interruptions)

Mordred's speech in favour of resisting his father:

He falleth well, that falling fells his foe.

Small manhood were to turn my back to chance.

I bear no breast so unprepar'd for harms.

Even that I hold the kingliest point of all,

To brook afflictions well: and by how much

The more his state and tottering empire sags,

To fix so much the faster foot on ground.

No fear but doth forejudge, and many fall

Into their fate, whiles they do fear their fate.

Where courage quails, the fear exceeds the harm:

Yea, worse than war itself is fear of war.

From the brief list of other tragedies preserved from this period of

development, and including such plays as _Tancred and Gismunda_ (1568)

and Whetstone's _Promos and Cassandra_ (printed 1578)--the latter

chiefly interesting on account of the criticism of contemporary drama

contained in its Dedication--we select _Damon and Pythias_ (before 1567)

by Richard Edwards as an example of native tragedy influenced but not

subjugated by classical models. To be exact, it is a tragi-comedy, but

it is very improbable that the method of presentment would have been

different had it ended tragically; therefore it will suit our purpose.

Of importance is the date, some three or four years later than

_Gorboduc_ and seventy years earlier than _The Misfortunes of Arthur_.

When we call to mind the form finally adopted for tragedy by

Shakespeare, we shall find this play an illuminating beacon, lighting

the first steps along the right path. The author was well acquainted

with classical drama, as may be seen in his use of stichomythia, amongst

other things, and possibly in his preference for a Grecian story. He

probably knew _Gorboduc_ quite well, and learned much from its faults.

Backed by this knowledge he selected, adapted, and rejected methods at

discretion, and stood finally and definitely by the fundamental

principles of the native English drama, placing all his action on the

stage and fearlessly admitting light humorous elements to relieve the

strain of too insistent emotion or suspense. That in one place he went

too far in this direction cannot be denied: the episode of the shaving

of Grim the Collier is a bad error of judgment, founded on a right

motive but horribly mismanaged. That mistake, however, is so glaring

that it must have been obvious to all succeeding writers; it could not

seriously affect their judgment of the methods employed in the rest of

the play. It is these methods that we must understand.

First, to sketch the plot. Damon and Pythias with their servant Stephano

arrive in Syracuse in the reign of the tyrant, Dionysius. There Damon is

arrested on the denunciation of the informer Carisophus, and is

sentenced to death as a spy. Reprieve for six months is allowed him on

the pledge of Pythias's life as bail, and at the last minute he returns,

just in time to save the life of his devoted and willing friend. Such

signal proofs of the sincerity of their affection win for both of them

not only life but royal favour, the king turning from his evil ways to

follow their counsel. A character of importance not mentioned here is

Aristippus, 'a pleasant gentleman' and a successful courtier, whose

friendship with Carisophus, an alliance hollow, suspicious, and most

unloving on one side at least, forms an admirable foil for the true

friendship of Damon and Pythias.

There is no division into acts and scenes, but the omission amounts to

little more than the absence of those words from the printed copy, since

the plot is most carefully arranged--witness the gradual introduction of

the characters and preparation for the arrest of Damon--and the stage

is frequently cleared. In fact it is perfectly easy to insert the

customary labels of acts and scenes at these latter points, in the

manner employed, for example, in the 1616 edition of Marlowe's

_Faustus_. There are no Dumb Shows, there is no Chorus, there is no

Ghost. But our old friend the Vice is there--without his Devil; the

clown too, and Herod; and we note with interest the modifications which

were considered necessary before they could figure creditably on the

tragic stage. Herod needed small alteration: the plot demands a tyrant

of ferocious injustice, who can 'fall in dump and foam like a boar' at a

moment's notice, or Damon cannot be judged worthy of death for his

offence. The clown, whose sins, when he committed any, were always

rather the product of evil influence than of original sin, is ennobled

to the standing of an honest faithful slave, simple in his notions,

shrewd to save his own skin, overjoyed at being made a freed man, and

withal one who keeps good time by his stomach; in a word, Stephano. The

Vice (of whom Will and Jack are lighter adaptations), the source of all

mischief, the Newfangle of _Like Will to Like_ and the Diccon of _Gammer

Gurton's Needle_, is Carisophus, the disappointed courtier, who

endeavours to creep back to favour by double-dealing with Aristippus and

by practising the base treachery of a common informer, and who finally

is kicked out of court and off the stage by Eubulus, the good

counsellor. These adaptations, then, of the stock Interlude characters,

are merely a continuation of the changes initiated by Heywood and others

of his day and amplified in the first regular comedies; they owe nothing

to classical influence. But the same feeling after naturalness which

makes Stephano and Carisophus such well-defined realities influences for

good the portraits of the other characters. Aristippus is a thoroughly

well drawn likeness of the easy-going, gracefully selfish, polished

courtier; and Damon and Pythias weary us only by reason of the weight of

virtue thrust upon them by the original story, and not to be avoided,

therefore, if the plot was to hold. Even the verse reflects the healthy

desire to avoid artificiality. We shall not attempt to praise it: the

roughness in the flow of lines constantly and quite irregularly varying

in length can find little to defend it and many sensitive critics to

denounce it. But there is hardly any doubt that this unevenness was due,

not to a false ear for metre, but to a deliberate attempt to get rid of

the unnatural formalism of correct rhymed verse. Rhyme is retained; but

blank verse had only recently appeared and was still in ill favour.

Edwards's device was another experiment in the same direction. Needless

to say, alliteration is not called in to reinforce weak sentiments.

Possibly attributable to classical influence is the adoption of the

serious, half-philosophical tone noticed in _Gorboduc_ and _The

Misfortunes of Arthur_. This quality the author judged to be a

harmonious element in tragedy, and judged aright, though, as was natural

at so early a stage, he tended to exaggerate it. Shakespeare's greatest

tragedies abound in passages of deep reflexion upon life, death, and the

problems of right and wrong. We may choose to place the origin of this

grave spirit in the 'classics', but it may be pointed out, with reason,

that the persistent traditions of the Moralities, the pious moralizings

retained in such Interludes as _Like Will to Like_, may just as easily

have passed over naturally into Edwards's work along with the Vice. In

support of this other source may be cited the absence from this play of

the long speeches which went hand in hand with the learned reasoning and

soliloquies of Sackville and Norton. Quite undeniably of classical

influence, however, is the refinement and restraint noticeable

throughout the play. These we welcome. They prune the tree of native

drama without hacking off its stoutest limbs. Under their control

tragedy steps upon the stage in an English dress to prove herself worthy

of her Roman sister and ultimately capable of far greater achievements.

To select details in proof of the success of _Damon and Pythias_ as a

pioneer in tragedy is made difficult by the fact that it ends happily.

But attention may be called to the very praiseworthy treatment of the

comic characters--notably Stephano and the gruff but kind-hearted

hangman, Gronno--and to the humanity which vitalizes the major

personages, Carisophus in particular; to the dignity also, maintained

throughout the play (the Collier episode alone excepted), and to the

admirably dramatic suspense secured just before Damon's return. The

following extract is drawn from Pythias's farewell speech at that time,

delivered on the scaffold in accordance with the best English customs:

But why do I stay any longer, seeing that one man's death

May suffice, O king, to pacify thy wrath?

O thou minister of justice, do thine office by and by,

Let not thy hand tremble, for I tremble not to die.

Stephano, the right pattern of true fidelity,

Commend me to thy master, my sweet Damon, and of him crave liberty

When I am dead, in my name; for thy trusty services

Hath well deserved a gift far better than this.

O my Damon, farewell now for ever, a true friend, to me most dear;

Whiles life doth last, my mouth shall still talk of thee,

And when I am dead, my simple ghost, true witness of amity,

Shall hover about the place, wheresoever thou be.

Before this chapter closes a word remains to be said about the rise of

History Plays. Pre-eminently they are the outcome of a patriotism that

was growing stronger and stronger as each year increased the glory of

Queen Elizabeth's reign. Nothing in them is more noteworthy than the

pride in England, in England's kings, and in England's defiance and

conquest of her foes. Whether we read _The Famous Victories of Henry the

Fifth_ (acted before 1588) or _The Troublesome Reign of King John_

(printed 1591) we find the same joyous presentment of courageous

victory. Unfortunately for the author of the latter play, his royal

subject fell away sadly in his submission to the Pope; yet the writer

would not entirely concede the victory to Rome, and having made the very

most of his king's campaign in France and his defiant rejection of the

Papal demands, he attempts to redeem the situation, even in the dreadful

moment of John's kneeling supplication to Pandulph, by putting into the

former's mouth 'asides' expressing a heart completely at variance with

the formal penitence; in fact this scene might be understood as a clever

hoodwinking of the enemy to circumvent the Dauphin. With true artistic

and patriotic instinct the author creates the redoubtable Faulconbridge

to demonstrate that Englishmen were stout of heart and loyal to the

throne in its worst perils, whatever might be the temporary failings of

the king and a few nobles. In _The Famous Victories_ the earlier author

had for his central figure a type of character that will always appeal

to an English audience. Here we find in fullest expression that free

introduction of the comic by the side of the serious, and that love for

jovial intercourse between royalty and subjects which are so frequent in

our History Plays. The roistering of Prince Hal among his boon

companions in the tavern, his boxing of the Judge's ears, and his

consequent arrest; these hold the stage for the first six scenes (there

are no acts, in this play or in the other), and contain several touches

and incidents borrowed afterwards by Shakespeare for his _Falstaff_.

Indeed it is surprising to observe how extensively that great genius

appropriated the work of other men. While commonly refining the

language, he was not above borrowing thought as well as incident--even

for the famous lines by the Bastard, Faulconbridge, closing _King John_.

The form of the History Plays is a direct continuation of the methods of

the old Miracles, and does not differ in essentials from that found in

Shakespeare's 'Histories'. Such differences as do occur are due, as a

rule, to minor differences of arrangement and length. The author of _The

Troublesome Reign of King John_ extended his theme into two plays, and

so found room for much that had to be omitted in a single play;

Shakespeare, on the other hand, spread over three plays the royal

character--Henry V--which his predecessor comprehended in one. The

historical method had, however, a certain effect on the English drama.

It made extremely popular, by its patriotic subjects, a form which

disregarded the skilful evolution of a plot, contenting itself with a

succession of scenes, arranged merely in order of time, that should

carry a comprehensive story to its finish. We shall see this influence

operating disastrously in plays other than History, and must mark it as

a retrograde movement in the development of perfect drama. One extremely

valuable contribution of these History Plays was their insistence upon

absolute humanness in the characters. To present a Prince Hal, a King

John or a Faulconbridge, a Queen Elinor or a Constance, as mere

mouthpieces or merely royal persons would have been to court immediate

failure before an audience of Englishmen imbued with intense pride in

the life and vigour of their country, their countrymen, and their Queen.

Of the three following extracts from _The Troublesome Reign of King

John_ the first is a speech which might well have found a place in

Shakespeare's first scene, where Faulconbridge is questioned as to his

parentage, the inheritance depending on his answer; the second is from

one of John's dying speeches, full of remorse for his bad government,

and may be compared dramatically with the better known speeches, full

only of outcry against his bodily affliction; the third illustrates the

spirit of patriotic pride which glows in every scene.

[PHILIP (_the_ BASTARD), _fallen into a trance of thought, speaks

aside to himself._]

_Quo me rapit tempestas?_

What wind of honour blows this fury forth?

Or whence proceed these fumes of majesty?

Methinks I hear a hollow echo sound

That Philip is the son unto a king.

The whistling leaves upon the trembling trees

Whistle in consort I am Richard's son:

The bubbling murmur of the water's fall

Records _Philippus Regis Filius_:

Birds in their flight make music with their wings,

Filling the air with glory of my birth:

Birds, bubbles, leaves, and mountain's echo, all

Ring in mine ears that I am Richard's son.

Fond man! ah, whither art thou carried?

How are thy thoughts ywrapt in honour's heaven?

Forgetful what thou art, and whence thou camest.

Thy father's land cannot maintain these thoughts;

These thoughts are far unfitting Fauconbridge:

And well they may; for why, this mounting mind

Doth soar too high to stoop to Fauconbridge.

2.

[KING JOHN, _feeling the near approach of death, is filled with

remorse._]

Methinks I see a catalogue of sin

Wrote by a fiend in marble characters,

The least enough to lose my part in heaven.

Methinks the devil whispers in mine ears

And tells me 'tis in vain to hope for grace,

I must be damned for Arthur's sudden death.

I see, I see a thousand thousand men

Come to accuse me for my wrong on earth,

And there is none so merciful a God

That will forgive the number of my sins.

How have I liv'd but by another's loss?

What have I lov'd but wreck of other's weal?

When have I vow'd and not infring'd mine oath?

Where have I done a deed deserving well?

How, what, when and where have I bestow'd a day

That tended not to some notorious ill?

My life, replete with rage and tyranny,

Craves little pity for so strange a death;

Or who will say that John deceas'd too soon?

Who will not say he rather liv'd too long?

3.

[ARTHUR _warns the_ KING OF FRANCE _not to expect ready submission

from_ JOHN.]

I rather think the menace of the world

Sounds in his ears as threats of no esteem;

And sooner would he scorn Europa's power

Than lose the smallest title he enjoys;

For questionless he is an Englishman.

[Footnote 49: boasting.]

[Footnote 50: I am.]

[Footnote 51: counsel.]

[Footnote 52: _Oedipus Tyrannus_ (Lewis Campbell's translation).]

CHAPTER V

COMEDY: LYLY, GREENE, PEELE, NASH

The term 'University Wits' is the title given to a group of scholarly

young men who, from 1584 onwards, for about ten years, took up

play-writing as a serious profession, and by their abilities and genius

raised English drama to the rank of literature. Previous dramatists had

also been men of good education and fair wit; Sackville, to name but

one, was a man of great gifts and sound learning. But tradition has

restricted the name to seven men whom time, circumstances, mental

qualities and mutual acquaintanceship brought together as one group. The

majority stood to each other almost in the relation of friends; they

were rivals for public favour, were well acquainted with each other's

work, and were quick to follow one another along improved paths. Taking

up comedy at the stage of _Ralph Roister Doister_ and tragedy at that of

_The Misfortunes of Arthur_, they transformed and refined both, lifting

them to higher levels of humour and passion, gracing them with many

witty inventions, and, above all, pouring into the pallid arteries of

drama the rich vitalizing blood of a new poetry. The seven men were

Lyly, Greene, Peele, Nash, Lodge, Kyd and Marlowe--named not in

chronological sequence but in the order of their discussion in these

pages.

* * * * *

Perhaps no dramatist is more out of touch with modern taste than John

Lyly. The ordinary reader, taking up one of his plays by chance, will

probably set it down wearily after the perusal of barely one or two

acts. And yet Lyly excels any of his contemporaries in witty invention,

and is the creator of what has been called High Comedy. His importance,

therefore, in the history of the growth of the drama is considerable.

Nor is his fancy found to be so dull when approached in the right

spirit. True, it requires an effort to step back into the shoes of an

Elizabethan courtier. But the effort is worth making, since the mind, as

soon as it has realized what not to expect, is better able to appreciate

what is offered. The essential requirement is to remember that Lyly the

dramatist is the same man as Lyly the euphuist, and that his audience

was always a company of courtiers, with Queen Elizabeth in their midst,

infatuated with admiration for the new phraseology and mode of thought

known as Euphuism. If we consider the manner in which these lords and

ladies spent their time at court, filling idle hours with compliment,

love-making, veiled jibe and swift retort; if we read our _Euphues_

again, renewing our acquaintance with its absurdly elaborated and

stilted style, its tireless winding of sentences round a topic without

any advance in thought, its affectation of philosophy and classical

learning; if we remember that to speak euphuistically was a coveted and

studiously cultivated accomplishment, and that to pun, to utter caustic

jests, to let fall neat epigrams were the highest ambition of wit; if we

take this trouble to prepare ourselves for reading Lyly's plays, we may

still find them dull, but we shall at least understand why they took the

form they did, and shall be in a position to recognize the substantial

service rendered to Comedy by the author. Lyly's work was just the

application of the laws of euphuism to native comedy, and it wrought a

change curiously similar to the effect of Senecan principles upon native

tragedy, transferring the importance from the action to the words. It

may be remarked that this redistribution of the interest must always be

of great value in the early stage of any literature. The popular taste

for action and incident is sure to be gratified sooner or later; the

demand for elegant and appropriate diction, usually confined to the

cultured few, is more apt to be passed over. Euphuism never did the harm

to comedy which tragedy suffered at the hands of the late Elizabethans

who, in their pursuit of moving incident, lost themselves in a reckless

licence of language and verse. Action, therefore, fell into the

background. Refinement, elevation was aimed at. In the place of Hodge,

Dame Chat and their company, there now appeared gracious beings of

perfect manners and speech; and since things Greek and mythological had

become the fashion, Arcadian nymphs and swains, beauteous goddesses and

Athenian philosophers were judged the most fitting to stand before the

English court. In scene after scene fair ladies talk of love, reverend

sages display their readiness in solving knotty problems, lovers sigh

into the air long rhapsodies over the charms of their mistresses,

sharp-tongued (but rarely coarse) serving-boys lure fools into greater

folly or exchange amusing badinage at the expense of their absent

masters. The story does not advance much, but that is of small account

so long as the dialogue tickles ears taught to find delight in

well-spoken euphuism. It is like listening to a song in a language one

does not understand: provided that the harmony is beautiful one is not

distressed about the verbal message. Besides, there is some plot, slight

though it be, and its theme is love, chiefly of the languishing,

half-hopeless kind which was supposed to be cherished by every bachelor

courtier for the queen. There is, too, for those who can read it, an

allegory often concealed in the story of disappointed love or ambition

which moves round Cynthia or Diana or Sapho. Was there no lover who

aspired as Endymion aspired, no Spanish king meriting the fate of Mydas,

no man favoured as was Phao by Sapho? Even at this distance of time we

can amuse ourselves by guessing names, and so catch something of the

interest which, at the time of the play's appearance, would set eyebrows

arching with surprise, and send, at each daring reference or well-aimed

compliment, a nod of approving intelligence around the audience.

Lyly wrote eight comedies: _Campaspe_ (printed 1584), _Sapho and Phao_

(printed 1584), _Endymion_ (printed 1591), _Gallathea_ (printed 1592),

_Mydas_ (printed 1592), _Mother Bombie_ (printed 1594), _The Woman in

the Moon_ (printed 1597), _Love's Metamorphoses_ (printed 1601). All

these, with the exception of the seventh--which is in regular and

pleasing, though not vigorous, blank verse--were written in prose, as we

should expect from the founder of so famous a prose style; but as _The

Supposes_, a translation by Gascoigne of Ariosto's _I Suppositi_, had

previously appeared in prose, Lyly's claim as an innovator is weakened.

The fact, however, that Ariosto wrote a prose, as well as a poetic,

version of his play, and that Gascoigne made use of both in his

translation, gives to the latter's prose a borrowed quality, and leaves

Lyly fully entitled to whatever credit belongs to the earliest native

productions of this kind. He was the first to announce, by practice, the

theory that English comedy could find fuller expression in prose than in

verse, for, beginning with verse, he deliberately set it aside in favour

of prose, and, having proved the superiority of prose for this purpose,

persisted in it to the end. Of his eight plays, the more interesting

only will be dealt with here; the rest we leave to the curiosity of the

reader.

_Campaspe_, his first prose comedy, is perhaps the most perfect example

of the new euphuistic method at work. The plot is of the slightest.

Alexander the Great is in love with the beauty of Campaspe, a Theban

captive; but Apelles, the artist, who is ordered to paint her picture,

having also fallen in love with her, and won her love, Alexander in the

end graciously resigns his claim upon her. This is the plot, but it is

very little guide to the contents of the play, which is crowded with

characters. There are, in addition to the three leading persons, four

Warriors to discuss the condition of the army, seven Philosophers to

puzzle each other with disputation and metaphysical conundrums, three

Servants to deride their masters behind their backs, a General to act as

Alexander's confidant and counsellor, beside some nine others and a

company of citizens. One of the chief characters, Diogenes, stands quite

apart from the plot, his office being to provide an inexhaustible fund

of shrewd, biting retorts for such as dare to question him. He is even

elevated to the centre of a major episode in which the Athenian

populace, credulous of a report that he is about to fly, is deceived

into hearing a very sharp sermon as, on the wings of criticism, Diogenes

executes an oratorical flight over their many failings. The following

scene between him and a beggar reveals the nature of his wit.

_Alexander_ (_aside_). Behold Diogenes talking with one at his tub.

_Crysus._ One penny, Diogenes; I am a Cynic.

_Diogenes._ He made thee a beggar, that first gave thee anything.

_Crysus._ Why, if thou wilt give nothing, nobody will give thee.

_Diogenes._ I want nothing, till the springs dry and the earth

perish.

_Crysus._ I gather for the Gods.

_Diogenes._ And I care not for those Gods which want money.

_Crysus._ Thou art not a right Cynic that wilt give nothing.

_Diogenes._ Thou art not, that wilt beg anything.

_Crysus._ (_seeing Alexander_). Alexander, King Alexander, give a

poor Cynic a groat.

_Alexander._ It is not for a king to give a groat.

_Crysus._ Then give me a talent.

_Alexander._ It is not for a beggar to ask a talent. Away!

The charm of the play lies in the romance of Apelles' love for Campaspe,

and in the delicacy of his wooing. Here is pure Romantic Comedy, such as

Greene imitated and Shakespeare made delightful. Not at first will

Campaspe yield the gates of her heart, nor does the artist press the

attack with heated fervour. So gentle a besieger is he, that we perceive

the young couple drifting into love on the stream of destiny, almost

reluctant to betray their growing feelings through fear of the wrath of

Alexander. Apelles is already smitten but Campaspe is still 'fancy free'

when, in the artist's studio, she questions him about his pictures.

_Campaspe._ What counterfeit is this, Apelles?

_Apelles._ This is Venus, the Goddess of love.

_Campaspe._ What, be there also loving Goddesses?

_Apelles._ This is she that hath power to command the very

affections of the heart.

_Campaspe._ How is she hired? by prayer, by sacrifice, or bribes?

_Apelles._ By prayer, sacrifice, and bribes.

_Campaspe._ What prayer?

_Apelles._ Vows irrevocable.

_Campaspe._ What sacrifice?

_Apelles._ Hearts ever sighing, never dissembling.

_Campaspe._ What bribes?

_Apelles._ Roses and kisses. But were you never in love?

_Campaspe._ No, nor love in me.

_Apelles._ Then have you injured many.

_Campaspe._ How so?

_Apelles._ Because you have been loved of many.

_Campaspe._ Flattered perchance of some.

_Apelles._ It is not possible that a face so fair, and a wit so

sharp, both without comparison, should not be apt to love.

_Campaspe._ If you begin to tip your tongue with cunning, I pray

dip your pencil in colours; and fall to that you must do, not that

you would do.

Thus she sets him aside. Poor Apelles, alone, in a later scene laments

his fate in loving her whom Alexander desires, ending his mournful

soliloquy with a song, the most beautiful of all that Lyly has scattered

so lavishly through his plays.

Cupid and my Campaspe played

At cards for kisses; Cupid paid.

He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,

His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;

Loses them too; then, down he throws

The coral of his lip, the rose

Growing on 's cheek, (but none knows how)

With these the crystal of his brow,

And then the dimple of his chin:

All these did my Campaspe win.

At last he set her both his eyes;

She won, and Cupid blind did rise.

O love! has she done this to thee?

What shall (alas!) become of me?

But when the picture is nearly finished, when the sittings are almost

over and with them the intimacy of artist and model, then we discover

that the tender sighs of Apelles have sweetened the friendship of

Campaspe into love, and the secret of each soul is known to the other.

_Apelles._ I have now, Campaspe, almost made an end.

_Campaspe._ You told me, Apelles, you would never end.

_Apelles._ Never end my love, for it shall be eternal.

_Campaspe._ That is, neither to have beginning nor ending.

_Apelles._ You are disposed to mistake: I hope you do not mistrust.

_Campaspe._ What will you say if Alexander perceive your love?

_Apelles._ I will say it is no treason to love.

_Campaspe._ But how if he will not suffer thee to see my person?

_Apelles._ Then will I gaze continually on thy picture.

_Campaspe._ That will not feed thy heart.

_Apelles._ Yet shall it fill mine eye: besides, the sweet thoughts,

the sure hopes, thy protested faith, will cause me to embrace thy

shadow continually in mine arms, of the which by strong imagination

I will make a substance.

_Campaspe._ Well, I must be gone. But of this assure yourself, that

I had rather be in thy shop grinding colours than in Alexander's

court, following higher fortunes.

By a happy stroke of wit Alexander, guessing the truth of the matter,

makes Apelles confess indirectly and unconsciously what discretion would

enjoin him to keep concealed. Apelles and Alexander are talking together

when a servant rushes up, crying out that the former's studio is on

fire. 'Aye me!' exclaims the horrified artist; 'if the picture of

Campaspe be burnt I am undone!' Alexander smiles, for the servant's

alarm is false and pre-arranged, but the alarm of Apelles is too genuine

to have less than the one meaning.

For its own sake, as too choice an example of euphuistic prose to be

missed, we add an extract from the speech of Hephestion, Alexander's

friend and adviser, urging that king to shake off the fetters of love

that bind his arms from further conquest.

Beauty is like the blackberry, which seemeth red when it is not

ripe, resembling precious stones that are polished with honey,

which the smoother they look the sooner they break. It is thought

wonderful among the seamen that Mugill, of all fishes the swiftest,

is found in the belly of the Bret, of all the slowest: and shall it

not seem monstrous to wise men, that the heart of the greatest

conqueror of the world should be found in the hands of the weakest

creature of nature? of a woman? of a captive? Ermines have fair

skins but foul livers; sepulchres, fresh colours but rotten bones;

women, fair faces but false hearts. Remember, Alexander, thou hast

a camp to govern, not a chamber; fall not from the armour of Mars

to the arms of Venus, from the fiery assaults of war to the

maidenly skirmishes of love, from displaying the eagle in thine

ensign to set down the sparrow. I sigh, Alexander, that, where

fortune could not conquer, folly should overcome.

In _Endymion_ we find a much more complex plot, but less that is natural

and attractive. Historical tradition and the unchanging habits of lovers

give their sanction to most of the scenes in _Campaspe_. But _Endymion_

carries us into the realm of mythology, where all is unreal and where

the least heaviness in the pencil of fancy must convert things that

should appear golden into dull lead. Lyly's wit strives gallantly to

maintain the light tints, pressing fairies and moonbeams into his

service, and ransacking the stores of improbability in despair of

mingling the impossible and the possible effectively; but the gilt, if

not entirely lost, wears very thin in places.

Endymion is in love with Cynthia, the Moon, though aware that his

aspiration must remain for ever hopeless. Tellus, the Earth, herself

enamoured of Endymion, jealously resolves to punish his indifference to

her by deep melancholy. Accordingly she visits the witch, Dipsas, by

whose magic aid the youth, found resting on a bank of lunary, is

bewitched to sleep until old age. Not for this crime but for a minor

one, Tellus is sentenced by Cynthia to imprisonment under the care of

Corsites. Eumenides, the loyal friend of Endymion, seeks everywhere for

the means to awaken his comrade, until he finds a clue in the magic

fountain of Geron, husband to old Dipsas, but banished by her wicked

power. With this clue, which is interpreted as requiring the moon to

kiss the sleeper, Eumenides hastens to Cynthia. Meanwhile Tellus,

finding that her beauty has taken Corsites captive, and wishing to be

rid of his attentions, sets him, as a trial of his affection, the

impossible, though apparently easy, task of removing Endymion from the

bank of lunary. Corsites fails, and fairies send him to sleep, dancing

around him with a song and pinching his unresisting body black and blue.

A chance visit of Cynthia and her train fortunately arouses him, but

Endymion still sleeps his forty years of manhood away undisturbed. At

last Eumenides returns with his oracular clue and persuades Cynthia to

attempt the cure. Very graciously the queen kisses the pale forehead. At

once consciousness returns, and as a white-haired old man the once

handsome young courtier arises. He has two dreams to tell (shown in Dumb

Show in an earlier scene) but can offer no explanation of his

bewitchment. Then Bagoa, the servant of Dipsas, betrays the secret of

her mistress's crime. Dipsas and Tellus are summoned before Cynthia, who

now hears for the first time the story of Endymion's devotion to her.

The fact is pleasing. So far from visiting the presumption with

displeasure she bids him love on, not in any hope of marriage, since

that is impossible, but in the assurance of her special favour. With

that she smiles kindly upon him; like mists before the sunrise his white

hairs and wrinkles vanish, his pristine beauty being restored by her

genial condescension. Matters hasten to a close. Tellus is willing to

marry Corsites, Eumenides wins the consent of sharp-tongued Semele to be

his bride, Dipsas and Geron agree to reconciliation, and Bagoa, saved

from the blasting curse of her angry mistress, weds Sir Tophas, the

eccentric and ludicrous knight whose folly is thrust into the play

whenever there is a danger of the main plot becoming tedious.

Certainly one cannot complain of a want of incident here. Nor is there

any lack of that complex subordination of scene to scene, that building

of one event upon another which is the foundation of skilful

plot-structure. In this play Lyly justifies himself against those who

would conclude from others of his plays that he could not construct a

plot. Yet it is a disappointing comedy. Nor is the reason hard to

discover. The first dozen pages show that, apart from the caricatured

Sir Tophas and the inevitable Pages (or Servants), all the characters

speak in exactly the same way, in fact are the same persons in all but

condition. The well-managed contrast noticed in _Damon and Pythias_ has

no place in Lyly's arrangement of characters. Were the relation of

circumstance and individual hidden, no one would know from a given

speech whether Cynthia, Tellus, or Dipsas was speaking; nor would

Endymion, Eumenides and Geron be better distinguished. This, for

example, is from the lips of the old hag, Dipsas, as, spreading her

enchantments around her victim, she mutters over his head the curse of a

blasted life.

Thou that layest down with golden locks shalt not awake until they

be turned to silver hairs; and that chin, on which scarcely

appeareth soft down, shall be filled with bristles as hard as

broom: thou shalt sleep out thy youth and flowering time, and

become dry hay before thou knewest thyself green grass; and ready

by age to step into the grave when thou wakest, that was youthful

in the court when thou laidest thee down to sleep.

There is one scene in the main plot which invites special mention,

namely, that in which the fairies appear. This, their first entrance

into English drama, must have created a mild sensation amongst the

surprised and delighted spectators, as, in shimmering dress and gossamer

wings, these airy sprites danced around the astonished Corsites and sang

the lyrical decree of punishment for his intrusion upon their domain.

The incident is worth quoting in full, from the point where Corsites'

labours are suddenly interrupted.

[_Enter_ FAIRIES.]

_Corsites._ But what are these so fair fiends that cause my hairs

to stand upright, and spirits to fall down? Hags, out alas, Nymphs,

I crave pardon. Aye me, but what do I hear?

[_The_ FAIRIES _dance, and with a Song pinch him, and he falleth

asleep. They kiss_ ENDYMION _and depart._]

_Omnes._ Pinch him, pinch him, black and blue;

Saucy mortals must not view

What the Queen of Stars is doing,

Nor pry into our fairy wooing.

_1 Fairy._ Pinch him blue.

_2 Fairy._ And pinch him black.

_3 Fairy._ Let him not lack

Sharp nails to pinch him blue and red,

Till sleep has rock'd his addle head.

_4 Fairy._ For the trespass he hath done,

Spots o'er all his flesh shall run.

Kiss Endymion, kiss his eyes,

Then to our midnight heidegyes. [_Exeunt._]

An additional interest of allegorical meaning attaches to the story of

Endymion and Cynthia as told by Lyly, curious students tracing behind it

all the details of the _affaire_ between the Earl of Leicester and Queen

Elizabeth. To learn the extent to which the inquiry has been pursued we

may turn to Professor Ward's _English Dramatic Literature_ and read the

following: 'Mr. Halpin has examined at length the question of the secret

meaning of Lyly's comedy, and has come to the conclusion that it is a

dramatic representation of the disgrace brought upon Leicester

(Endymion) by his clandestine marriage with the Countess of Sheffield

(Tellus), pending his suit for the hand of his royal mistress (Cynthia).

Endymion's forty years' sleep upon the bank of lunary is his

imprisonment at Elizabeth's favourite Greenwich; the friendly

intervention of Eumenides is that of the Earl of Sussex; and the

solution of the difficulty in Tellus's marriage to Corsites is the

marriage of the Countess of Sheffield to Sir Edward Stafford. I need

pursue this solution no further, except to note that under the three

heads of "highly probable", "probable", and "not improbable", Mr. Halpin

has assigned originals to all the important characters of the piece. I

am inclined to think the attempt successful.'

More entertaining to the reader than either the devotion of Endymion or

the mischievous jealousy of Tellus is the character of Sir Tophas. His

position in the play is that of Diogenes in _Campaspe_, and we observe

the same tendency to eccentric speech and action. When we pursue the

comparison further, however, we discover a marked decline in wit in the

second creation. Lyly had a tradition of truth to help him in his

conception of the crusty philosopher. In his picture of the foolish,

boastful knight he followed the author of _Thersites_ in his

exaggerated caricature until the least semblance of truth to nature is

banished from the portrait. It is interesting to compare him with Ralph

Roister Doister. Nevertheless if we project Sir Tophas upon the stage,

and by our imagination dress him and make him strut and gesticulate

after such a fashion as the text seems to indicate, we shall probably

discover ourselves smiling over puns and remarks which, on casual

perusal, we might pronounce flavourless imbecilities. Indeed, for sheer

laughable absurdity on the stage, Sir Tophas would be hard to beat. The

following scene will also show the decent quality of wit which Lyly

bestowed upon his Pages--lineal descendants of the old Vice through

those younger sons, Will and Jack.[53]

[SIR TOPHAS _and his page_, EPITON, _have just met_ SAMIAS _and_

DARES.]

_Tophas._ What be you two?

_Samias._ I am Samias, page to Endymion.

_Dares._ And I Dares, page to Eumenides.

_Tophas._ Of what occupation are your masters?

_Dares._ Occupation, you clown! Why, they are honourable and

warriors.

_Tophas._ Then are they my prentices.

_Dares._ Thine! And why so?

_Tophas._ I was the first that ever devised war, and therefore by

Mars himself had given me for my arms a whole armoury; and thus I

go as you see, clothed with artillery; it is not silks (milksops),

nor tissues, nor the fine wool of Ceres, but iron, steel, swords,

flame, shot, terror, clamour, blood and ruin that rocks asleep my

thoughts, which never had any other cradle but cruelty. Let me see,

do you not bleed?

_Dares._ Why so?

_Tophas._ Commonly my words wound.

_Samias._ What then do your blows?

_Tophas._ Not only wound, but also confound.

_Samias._ How darest thou come so near thy master, Epi? Sir Tophas,

spare us.

_Tophas._ You shall live. You, Samias, because you are little; you,

Dares, because you are no bigger; and both of you, because you are

but two; for commonly I kill by the dozen, and have for every

particular adversary a peculiar weapon....

_Samias._ What is this? Call you it your sword?

_Tophas._ No, it is my scimitar; which I, by construction often

studying to be compendious, call my smiter.

_Dares._ What, are you also learned, sir?

_Tophas._ Learned? I am all Mars and Ars.

_Samias._ Nay, you are all mass and ass.

_Tophas._ Mock you me? You shall both suffer, yet with such weapons

as you shall make choice of the weapon wherewith you shall perish.

Am I all a mass or lump? Is there no proportion in me? Am I all

ass? Is there no wit in me? Epi, prepare them to the slaughter.

_Samias._ I pray, sir, hear us speak! We call you mass, which your

learning doth well understand is all man, for _Mas maris_ is a man.

Then _As_ (as you know) is a weight, and we for your virtues

account you a weight.

_Tophas._ The Latin hath saved your lives, the which a world of

silver could not have ransomed. I understand you, and pardon you.

_Dares._ Well, Sir Tophas, we bid you farewell, and at our next

meeting we will be ready to do you service.

A happy combination of the romance of _Campaspe_ with the mythology of

_Endymion_ is found in the graceful and charming comedy, _Gallathea_.

Its plot is really double, though happily blended, while yet a third and

independent thread of lower comedy is drawn through it. On the shores of

the Humber in Lincolnshire dwell two shepherds, Tyterus and Melebeus,

each the possessor of a beautiful daughter, by name Gallathea and

Phillida. Every year the god Neptune is accustomed to exact the

sacrifice of the fairest girl of the country to his pet monster, the

Agar (the Humber eagre), and this year each fond father dreads lest his

daughter will be chosen for the victim. To save them the girls are

disguised as boys. Strangers to each other, they meet and fall in love,

each believing the other to be what she appears, though many a doubt is

raised by replies which seem more befitting a maid than a youth. In a

neighbouring forest range Diana and her chaste nymphs, amongst whom

Cupid, out of pure mischief, lets fly his golden-headed arrows. At once

the nymphs feel strange emotions within them, which quicken into

uneasiness and longing at the sight of Gallathea and Phillida. But Diana

detects the change, guesses at the cause, and promptly makes capture of

Cupid. His wings clipped, his bow burnt, all his arrows broken, he is

beaten and set to a task. Meanwhile the day of sacrifice has arrived

and, in default of a better, a victim is found. But Neptune will have no

second-best: what promises to be a tragedy changes to joy on the god's

refusal to accept the proffered girl. However, the sacrifice is only

postponed. Moreover the delay has given rise to a stricter search, which

means increased peril for the disguised maidens. Fortunately

intervention arrives before discovery. Venus, having learnt of Cupid's

captivity, and not being powerful enough to effect his release unaided,

invokes the help of Neptune against Diana. Instead of the use of force,

however, a compact is arrived at; Cupid is released on condition that

Neptune remits his claim upon a yearly victim. Thus are Gallathea and

Phillida saved; but for a harder fate of hopeless love--for their

constancy is irrevocable--were it not that Venus interposes with a

promise that one of them shall be changed into a boy in reality. Happy

in this future they depart to prepare for marriage.--The thread of lower

comedy introduces the customary three merry lads, but deals mainly with

the fortunes of one of them, Raffe, who finds employment successively

with an alchemist and an astronomer, only to find their promises out of

all proportion to their performances. The wonderful prospects held out

before him, and his disillusionment, afford scope for much sarcastic wit

at the expense of quackery.

The pre-eminent feature of the play is the delicate handling of the

romantic plot. We see the same fine brush at work as limned the picture

of Apelles and Campaspe, while this time the artist has chosen a more

harmonious background of meadow and woodland and river, of shepherds and

forest nymphs. To Peele the priority in the use of pastoralism in drama

must doubtless be assigned; but the play of _Gallathea_ loses none of

its merit on that account. Coupled with a pretty ambiguity of sex, this

pastoral setting completes the model from which _As You Like It_ was yet

to be moulded. Probably Peele, in his _Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_,

preceded Lyly also in the introduction of sex-disguise, but his Neronis

stirs up no serious difficulties by her appearance as a shepherd boy and

a page, whereas in _Gallathea_ the disguise is the core of the plot. To

Lyly, therefore, may be given all the credit for the discovery of the

dramatic value of this simple device. With his return to the mutual

loves of ordinary human beings (for they are that, however extraordinary

the conditions) he happily restores to his characters the naturalness

which they enjoyed in the earlier play. The machinery of gods and

goddesses is perhaps to be regretted, though euphuistic drama could

hardly spare it; but if we boldly swallow it as inevitable, the motive

for the disguises at once becomes perfectly reasonable, while the whole

consequent behaviour of the girls is charged with most amusing and

delightful _naïveté_. Less natural, of course, is the story of Cupid's

mischief; yet mythology never gave to the stage a prettier piece of

love-moralizing than is found in the scene of Cupid at his penal task of

untying love-knots.--The very opening lines of the play announce the

presence of Nature with her sunshine and grass and good substantial

oaks.

_Tyterus._ The sun doth beat upon the plain fields; wherefore let

us sit down, Gallathea, under this fair oak, by whose broad leaves

being defended from the warm beams, we may enjoy the fresh air

which softly breathes from Humber floods.

_Gallathea._ Father, you have devised well; and whilst our flock

doth roam up and down this pleasant green, you shall recount to me,

if it please you, for what cause this tree was dedicated unto

Neptune, and why you have thus disguised me.

It is hard to do justice to such a play as this except by considerable

generosity in the matter of quotations. Accordingly we offer three

passages illustrative of the delicacy of our author's art.

(1)

[GALLATHEA _and_ PHILLIDA, _in disguise, meet for the first time._]

_Gallathea_ (_at the close of a soliloquy_). But whist! here cometh

a lad. I will learn of him how to behave myself.

_Phillida_ (_entering_). I neither like my gate nor my garments,

the one untoward, the other unfit, both unseemly. O Phillida! But

yonder stayeth one, and therefore say nothing. But O, Phillida!

_Gallathea._ I perceive that boys are in as great disliking of

themselves as maids; therefore, though I wear the apparel, I am

glad I am not the person.

_Phillida._ It is a pretty boy and a fair; he might well have been

a woman. But because he is not I am glad I am, for now, under the

colour of my coat, I shall decipher the follies of their kind.

_Gallathea._ I would salute him, but I fear I should make a curtsey

instead of a leg.

_Phillida._ If I durst trust my face as well as I do my habit I

would spend some time to make pastime, for say what they will of a

man's wit, it is no second thing to be a woman.

_Gallathea._ All the blood in my body would be in my face if he

should ask me (as the question among men is common), 'Are you a

maid?'

_Phillida._ Why stand I still? Boys should be bold. But here cometh

a brave train that will spill all our talk.

[_Enter_ DIANA, _&c._]

(2)

[GALLATHEA _and_ PHILLIDA _endeavour to sound the affection of each

other, but only succeed in raising disturbing doubts._]

_Phillida._ Suppose I were a virgin (I blush in supposing myself

one) and that under the habit of a boy were the person of a maid,

if I should utter my affection with sighs, manifest my sweet love

by my salt tears, and prove my loyalty unspotted and my griefs

intolerable, would not then that fair face pity this true heart?

_Gallathea._ Admit that I were as you would have me suppose that

you are, and that I should with entreaties, prayers, oaths, bribes,

and whatever can be invented in love, desire your favour,--would

you not yield?

_Phillida._ Tush! you come in with 'admit'!

_Gallathea._ And you with 'suppose'!

_Phillida_ (_aside_). What doubtful speeches be these? I fear me he

is as I am, a maiden.

_Gallathea_ (_aside_). What dread riseth in my mind? I fear the boy

to be as I am, a maiden.

_Phillida_ (_aside_). Tush! it cannot be: his voice shows the

contrary.

_Gallathea_ (_aside_). Yet I do not think it--for he would then

have blushed.

_Phillida._ Have you ever a sister?

_Gallathea._ If I had but one, my brother must needs have two; but,

I pray, have you ever a one?

_Phillida._ My father had but one daughter, and therefore I could

have no sister.

_Gallathea_ (_aside_). Aye me! he is as I am, for his speeches be

as mine are.

_Phillida_ (_aside_). What shall I do? Either he is subtle, or my

sex simple.... (_to Gallathea_) Come, let us into the grove and

make much one of another, that cannot tell what to think one of

another. [_Exeunt._]

(3)

[CUPID, _in captivity, is set to his task by four nymphs._]

_Telusa._ Come, sirrah! to your task! First you must undo all these

lovers' knots, because you tied them.

_Cupid._ If they be true love knots 'tis unpossible to unknit them;

if false, I never tied them.

_Eurota._ Make no excuse, but to it.

_Cupid._ Love knots are tied with eyes, and cannot be undone with

hands; made fast with thoughts, and cannot be unloosed with

fingers. Had Diana no task to set Cupid to but things impossible? I

will to it.

_Ramia._ Why, how now? you tie the knots faster.

_Cupid._ I cannot choose; it goeth against my mind to make them

loose.

_Eurota._ Let me see;--now 'tis unpossible to be undone.

_Cupid._ It is the true love knot of a woman's heart, therefore

cannot be undone.

_Ramia._ That falls in sunder of itself.

_Cupid._ It was made of a man's thought, which will never hang

together.

_Larissa._ You have undone that well.

_Cupid._ Aye, because it was never tied well.

_Telusa._ To the rest; for she will give you no rest. These two

knots are finely untied!

_Cupid._ It was because I never tied them. The one was knit by

Pluto, not Cupid, by money, not love; the other by force, not

faith, by appointment, not affection.

_Ramia._ Why do you lay that knot aside?

_Cupid._ For death.

_Telusa._ Why?

_Cupid._ Because the knot was knit by faith, and must only be

unknit of death.

The plot of _Mother Bombie_ must be briefly sketched because it is the

only one in which Lyly dispenses with the aid of classical tradition and

mythology and attempts a Comedy of Intrigue. As such it has a certain

historical interest.--The scene is Rochester, Kent. Memphio and Stellio,

the fathers respectively of son Accius and daughter Silena, separately

and craftily resolve to bring about by fraud the wedding of these two

young people, for the reason that each knows his child to be

weak-minded, and, believing his neighbour's child to be sound-witted and

of good heritage, perceives that only deceit can accomplish the union.

In this attempt to overreach each other they employ their servants,

Dromio and Riscio, as principal agents. Not far away live two young

people, Livia and Candius, whose mutual love is made unhappy by the

opposition of their fathers, Prisius and Sperantius, since these latter

covet rather their children's marriage with Accius and Silena. In

pursuit of this other object these two countrymen send their servants,

Lucio and Halfpenny, to spy out the land. By the ordinary chance of good

comradeship the four servants meet and make known to each other their

errands, when the opportunity of a mischievous entangling of the threads

at once becomes apparent. Disguises are used, with the result that the

loving couple, Livia and Candius, marry under the unconscious benisons

of their parents. The trick being discovered, there is general trouble,

especially at the exposure of the hitherto concealed imbecility of

Accius and Silena; but a certain woman, Vicina, now comes forward, with

her two children, Maestius and Serena, to explain that the imbeciles are

really her own offspring and that the son and daughter of Memphio and

Stellio are Maestius and Serena. The willing alliance of these two

brings the original plans to a happy conclusion. Mother Bombie herself

is a fortune-teller to whom recourse is had at various times by the

young folk, and whose oracular statements provide mysterious clues to

the final events.

As a consequence of the meaner nature of its characters this play is

less tainted with euphuism than the rest, while its dialogue is as

lively as ever, the four servants finding in their masters excellent

foils to practise their wit upon. Deception and cross purposes are

conducted with much skill to their conclusion, though the elaborate

balance of households rather oppresses one by its artificiality. As one

of the earliest Comedies of Intrigue, if not actually the first, it

presents possibilities in that direction which were eagerly developed by

later writers. Thus again we observe the originality of the author

preparing the way for his successors.

In summing up the contributions of Lyly to drama we naturally lay stress

upon three points, namely, his creation of lively prose dialogue, his

uplifting of comedy from the level of coarse humour and buffoonery to

the region of high comedy and wit, and his painting of pure romantic

love. We attach value, also, to his discovery of the dramatic

possibilities of sex disguises, to his introduction of fairies upon the

stage, to his persistence in the good fashion of interspersing songs

amongst the scenes, and to his use of pastoralism as a background for

romance. Nor may his efforts in Comedy of Intrigue be overlooked. On the

other hand, we lament as a grievous failing his inability to draw real

men and women, or indeed to differentiate his characters at all except

by gross caricature or the copying of traditional eccentricities. Sir

Tophas and Diogenes we remember as distinct personalities only for their

peculiar and very obvious traits: the rest of his characters either stay

in our memory solely through the charm of particular scenes in which

they take part, or fade from it altogether. As less regrettable faults,

because hardly avoidable if euphuism was to bring its benefits, may be

remembered the weakness of his plots (notably in _Campaspe_, _Sapho and

Phao_ and _Mydas_), the stilted, flowery talk that does duty for so many

conversations, and the unreality brought in the train of his

dearly-loved Greek mythology. Not unfittingly we may conclude our

criticism of his plays with his own description of his art, given in the

first prologue to _Sapho and Phao_.

Our intent was at this time to move inward delight, not outward

lightness, and to breed (if it might be) soft smiling, not loud

laughing; knowing it to the wise to be as great pleasure to hear

counsel mixed with wit, as to the foolish to have sport mingled

with rudeness. They were banished the theatre of Athens, and from

Rome hissed, that brought parasites on the stage with apish

actions, or fools with uncivil habits, or courtesans with immodest

words. We have endeavoured to be as far from unseemly speeches, to

make your ears glow, as we hope you will be free from unkind

reports, to make our cheeks blush.

* * * * *

Unlike Lyly, Robert Greene is the dramatizer of actions rather than

speeches. Primarily a writer of romances, he carries the same principle

with him to the stage, providing a throng of characters and an abundance

of incident, with rapid transition from place to place, regardless of

time and the technicalities of acts and scenes. The result is a

continuous flow of pictures, in subject darting about from one set of

characters to another lest any section of the narrative drag behind the

rest, hardly ever dull yet rarely impressive, bearing the complexity of

many issues to its appointed end in general content. This is

plot-structure in its elementary yet ambitious form: an abounding wealth

of material is condensed within the limits of a play, but its

arrangement reveals no attempt at a gradual and subtle evolution of

events to a climax. It succeeds in maintaining interest by its variety,

leaving the pleased spectator with the sense of having looked on at a

number of very entertaining scenes. Unfortunately the bustle of action

invites superficiality of treatment: the end is attained by the use of

bold splashes of colour rather than by accurate drawing. Spaniards,

Italians, Turks, Moors fill the stage like a pageant; in the best known

play, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, magicians perform wonders, country

squires kill each other for love, prince and fool exchange places,

simple folk go a-fairing, kings pay state visits, devils fly off with

people, all to hold the eye by their rapidly interchanging diversity;

but few of them pause to be painted in detail as individuals. Only the

women steal from the author's gift-box a few qualities not hackneyed by

other writers, and, decked in these, make rich return by bestowing upon

their master a reputation which no other part of his work could have won

for him.

Probably we have not all the plays that Greene wrote. Evidence points to

the loss of his earlier ones. Those preserved are (the order is

approximately that in which they were written)--_Alphonsus, King of

Arragon_, _A Looking-Glass for London and England_, _Orlando Furioso_,

_Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, _James the Fourth_, and

_George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield_. The authorship of the last

is not certain, and that of the second was shared with Lodge. With

regard to the dates it is hardly safe to be more definite than to allot

them to the period 1587-92. In all we see a preference for ready-made

stories. The writer rarely invents a plot, choosing instead to dramatize

the history, romance, epic or ballad of another. Where he does invent,

as in the love plot in _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, the result is

notable. Blank verse is his medium, but in all except the first prose is

freely used for the speech of the uncultured persons. Most of the verse

is quite good, modelled on the form of Marlowe's; it is commonly least

satisfactory where the imitation is most deliberate. The prose, adopted

from Lyly's 'servants' and 'pages', not from his courtly 'goddesses', is

clear and vigorous. Euphuism asserts itself occasionally in the verse,

and the affectation of scholarship, customary in that day, is

responsible for a superabundance of classical allusions in unexpected

places.

Since Greene was at first much under the influence of Marlowe it is

necessary to say something here of that dramatist's work. For a full

consideration of the essential qualities of Marlowe the reader must be

asked to wait. Perhaps he has already discovered them in the ordinary

course of his reading, for Marlowe is too widely known to need

introduction through any text-book. Briefly, _Tamburlaine_--the play

which made the greatest impression on the playwrights of its time--may

be described as a magniloquent account of the career of a

world-conqueror whose resistless triumph over kingdoms and potentates,

signalized by acts of monstrous insolence, provides excuse for outbursts

of extravagant vainglory. Such a description is intended to indicate the

traditional Marlowesque qualities: it is a very inadequate criticism of

the play as a whole. This kind of loud, richly coloured drama leapt

into instant popularity, and it was in direct imitation of it that

Greene wrote the first of the plays credited to him.

_Alphonsus, King of Arragon_, shares with _James the Fourth_ the

distinction of a division into five acts, and adheres throughout to

blank verse. Alphonsus, the conqueror, begins his career as an exiled

claimant to the throne of Arragon. Fighting as a common soldier, under

an agreement that he shall hold all he wins, he slays the Spanish

usurper in battle and at once demands the crown. On this being granted

him he as promptly turns upon the donor to claim from him feudal homage.

This, however, can only be insisted upon by force, and war ensues, with

complete overthrow of his enemies. Grandly bestowing upon his three

chief supporters all his present conquests, namely, the thrones of

Arragon, Naples and Milan, as too trifling for himself, Alphonsus

follows his opponents to their refuge at the court of Amurack, the great

Turk. Through a misleading oracle of Mahomet they rashly engage in

battle without their ally and are slain. With their heads impaled at the

corners of his canopy Alphonsus now confronts Amurack, just such another

bold and arrogant conqueror as himself. In the conflict that follows he

is temporarily put to flight by Amurack's daughter, Iphigena, and her

band of Amazons; but, smitten with sudden love, he turns to offer his

hand and heart on the battlefield. She spurns his overtures, and a very

ungallant hand-to-hand combat follows, in which he proves victor and

drives his lovely foe to flight in her turn. The conquest is complete,

and with all his enemies captives Alphonsus carries things with a high

hand, threatening to add Amurack's head to those on his canopy unless

that monarch consent to his marriage with Iphigena. Fortunately

Alphonsus's old father, who has gained entrance in a pilgrim's garb,

intervenes with parental remonstrance and by the exercise of a little

tact brings about both the marriage and general happiness.

A noticeable feature, which shows the closeness of the imitation, is the

absence of all intentionally humorous scenes, in spite of Greene's very

considerable natural aptitude for comic by-play. Everywhere the

influence of _Tamburlaine_ is markedly visible, in the subject, in

particular scenes, in such staging as the gruesome canopy, and above all

in the incessant bombast. Euphuism also is more pronounced than in his

other plays: Venus recites the prologues to the acts. All the male

characters are drawn on the same pattern, in differing degrees according

to their condition, and the two women, Iphigena and her mother, Fausta,

are without attractive qualities. Marlowe, as we know, rarely expended

any care on his female characters; Greene, however, proved capable in

his later, independent plays, of very different work. Utter disregard of

normal conceptions of time and distance produces occasional confusion in

the reader's mind as to his supposed imaginary whereabouts. From almost

every point of view, then, the play is a poor production. A redeeming

trait is the occasional vigour of the verse. For an illustrative passage

one may turn to the meeting of Alphonsus and Amurack:

_Amurack._ Why, proud Alphonsus, think'st thou Amurack,

Whose mighty force doth terrify the gods,

Can e'er be found to turn his heels and fly

Away for fear from such a boy as thou?

No, no! Although that Mars this mickle while

Hath fortified thy weak and feeble arm,

And Fortune oft hath view'd with friendly face

Thy armies marching victors from the field,

Yet at the presence of high Amurack

Fortune shall change, and Mars, that god of might,

Shall succour me, and leave Alphonsus quite.

_Alphonsus._ Pagan, I say, thou greatly art deceiv'd.

I clap up Fortune in a cage of gold,

To make her turn her wheel as I think best;

And as for Mars, whom you do say will change,

He moping sits behind the kitchen door,

Prest[54] at command of every scullion's mouth,

Who dares not stir, nor once to move a whit,

For fear Alphonsus then should stomach[55] it.