Yet there is something beyond all this, which has a lasting value, and

appeals to the modern world as it appealed to Elizabethan England.

Through the smoke of 'frantic boast and foolish word' may be discerned

the fiery core of an idealized human grandeur. Breathing the

intoxicating air of the Renaissance, Marlowe conceives man equal to his

loftiest ideals, able to climb to the highest point of his thoughts.

Choosing imperial conquest as the most striking theme he bids the

shepherd aim at a throne, then bears him on the wings of unwavering

resolution straight to his goal. The creation of Tamburlaine is the

apotheosis of man on the earth. In such words as these does the

conqueror announce his equality with the gods:

The god of war resigns his room to me,

Meaning to make me general of the world:

Jove, viewing me in arms, looks pale and wan,

Fearing my power should pull him from his throne.

These are wild words, chosen from a passage of ridiculous bombast. But

the author, magnificent in his optimism, believed in the thought beneath

the imagery. The same idea in different guises proclaims itself aloud

throughout the play. Sometimes it chooses simple language, sometimes it

is clothed in expressions of noble dignity, most often it hurls itself

abroad in foaming rant. But everywhere the message is the same, that

man's power is equal to the achievement of the aspiration planted within

his breast, and that, to realize himself, he must follow it, with

undivided effort, until it is reached. Tamburlaine, contemplating the

possibility of kingship, says,

Why, then, Casane, shall we wish for aught

The world affords in greatest novelty,

And rest attemptless, faint, and destitute?

Methinks we should not.

Two scenes later, in the hour of triumph, he utters these fine lines,

which may be accepted as Marlowe's most deliberate statement of his

message:

Nature, that framed us of four elements

Warring within our breasts for regiment,[66]

Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:

Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend

The wondrous architecture of the world,

And measure every wandering planet's course,

Still climbing after knowledge infinite,

And always moving as the restless spheres,

Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest,

Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,

That perfect bliss and sole felicity,

The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

We have used the extreme superlative, but in reality a point just below

it should have been struck. For the dramatist, sending his imagination

beyond earth to heaven, reserves one peak unscalable in the ascent of

man towards the summit of his aspirations.

There is one potentate whom even Tamburlaine cannot overcome--Death.

Zenocrate dies, nor will 'cavalieros higher than the clouds', nor

cannon to 'batter the shining palace of the sun, and shiver all the

starry firmament', restore her. Tamburlaine himself must die, defiantly,

it may be, yielding nothing through cowardice, but as certainly as time

must pass and age must come. Techelles seeks to encourage him with the

hope that his illness will not last. But he brushes the deception aside

with scorn.

Not last, Techelles! no, for I shall die.

See where my slave, the ugly monster Death,

Shaking and quivering, pale and wan for fear,

Stands aiming at me with his murdering dart,

Who flies away at every glance I give,

And, when I look away, comes stealing on!--

Villain, away, and hie thee to the field!

I and mine army come to load thy back

With souls of thousand mangled carcasses.--

Look, where he goes! but see, he comes again

Because I stay!

When we consider _Doctor Faustus_ we shall see the same thought. In

electing to follow his desires to the uttermost Faustus reaps the reward

but also incurs the punishment of all who choose the upper road of

complete self-expression. He approaches the last gate, confident that

his strength will suffice to open it; he finds it locked and keyless. In

that hour of bitter disappointment that which is withheld seems more

desirable than the total of all that has preceded it.

The dramatic greatness of _Tamburlaine_ lies in the perfect harmony of

the central figure with the general purpose of the play. Marlowe sought

to present a world conqueror and he creates no less a man. Outwardly the

shepherd is formed in a mould of strength and grace; his countenance

might serve as a model for a bust of Achilles. Inwardly his mind is full

of towering ambition, supported by courage and inflexible resolution.

Those who meet him are profoundly impressed with a sense of his power.

Theridamas murmurs in awe to himself, 'His looks do menace heaven and

dare the gods.' Menaphon reports, 'His lofty brows in folds do figure

death.' Cosroe describes him as 'His fortune's master and the king of

men.' His own speeches and actions reveal no unsuspected flaw, no

unworthy weakness; rather they almost defeat their own purpose by their

exaggeration of his greatness. It would be possible to show by numerous

quotations how Marlowe has everywhere selected epithets and imagery of

magnitude to enhance the impressiveness of his hero in proportion to his

astounding achievements. We will be content with only one more. It

describes Tamburlaine's attitude towards those that resist him, and, by

its slow, measured intensification of colour to a terrible climax,

forces home resistlessly the suggestion of invincible power and

relentlessness.

The first day when he pitcheth down his tents,

White is their hue, and on his silver crest

A snowy feather spangled-white he bears,

To signify the mildness of his mind,

That, satiate with spoil, refuseth blood:

But, when Aurora mounts the second time,

As red as scarlet is his furniture;

Then must his kindled wrath be quenched with blood,

Not sparing any that can manage arms:

But, if these threats move not submission,

Black are his colours, black pavilion;

His spear, his shield, his horse, his armour, plumes

And jetty feathers menace death and hell;

Without respect of sex, degree or age,

He razeth all his foes with fire and sword.

Much has been said of Marlowe's poetry. His originality in the use of

blank verse has probably been over-estimated. Quite good blank verse had

been used in drama some years before his plays were written.

_Gorboduc_, the 1572 version of _Tancred and Gismunda_, and at least two

long speeches in _The Arraignment of Paris_ arise in one's mind as

containing very creditable examples of it. Moreover it would be wrong to

suppose that this earlier blank verse was always stilted and cut up into

end-stopt lines and unrhymed couplets. True, the overflow of one line

into another was not common, but neither is it so in _Tamburlaine_.

Marlowe accepts the end-stopt line almost as naturally as did his

predecessors. Overflow may be found in _Gorboduc_. The following passage

from _Tancred and Gismunda_ is worth quoting to show how far liberty in

this respect had been recognized by 1572.

[TANCRED _protests against any second marriage of his young widowed

daughter_, GISMUNDA.]

Sister, I say, ...

Forbear, and wade no farther in this speech.

Your words are wounds. I very well perceive

The purpose of this smooth oration:

This I suspected, when you first began

This fair discourse with us. Is this the end

Of all our hopes, that we have promised

Unto ourself by this her widowhood?

Would our dear daughter, would our only joy,

Would she forsake us? would she leave us now,

Before she hath clos'd up our dying eyes,

And with her tears bewail'd our funeral?

No other solace doth her father crave

But, whilst the fates maintain his dying life,

Her healthful presence gladsome to his soul,

Which rather than he willing would forego,

His heart desires the bitter taste of death.

If the reader will refer to the extract from Diana's speech he will see

how completely free Peele was from any inherited bondage of the couplet

measure. It is not easy to define exactly what Marlowe did give to blank

verse. His famous Prologue to the First Part of _Tamburlaine_ makes it

quite clear that the general public were indebted to him for the

introduction of blank verse upon their unpolished stage, it having

previously been heard only at court or at the universities. But while

this attempt on his part to displace the 'jigging veins of rhyming

mother-wits' by the mere roll and crash of his 'high astounding terms'

was a courageous step, it cannot be counted for originality in the

development of the verse itself. Two features of his verse, however, are

original and of his own creation. The first, its conversational ease and

freedom, will be found more perfectly developed in _Doctor Faustus_ and

the later tragedies. Tamburlaine and the other mighty kings, emperors

and captains have little skill in converse; when they speak they orate.

This is true of the speeches in the earlier plays. Peele's are long

monologues, and when Sackville's or Wilmot's characters discourse it is

in the fashion of a set debate. Faustus and Mephistophilis, on the other

hand, meet in real conversation, and it is in their question and answer

that the flexibility and naturalness of blank verse are shown to

advantage for the first time by Marlowe. The second feature is the

infusion of pure poetry into drama. Hitherto the opinion seems to have

held that dramatic verse must keep as close to prose as possible in

order to combine the grace of rhythm with the solid commonsense of

ordinary human speech. Nothing illustrates this more remarkably than a

comparison of Sackville's poetry in his Induction to the _Mirror for

Magistrates_ with his verse in _Gorboduc_. We have remarked before on

the tendency of all Senecan dramas to sententiousness and argument, than

which nothing could be less poetical. The poetry of _The Arraignment of

Paris_, again, is more lyrical than dramatic, harmonizing with the

general approximation of that play to the nature of a masque. Marlowe

was the first to demonstrate that imagination could riot madly in a

wealth of imagery, or soar far above the realms of logic and cold

philosophy to summon beautiful and terrible pictures out of the

cloud-land of fancy, without losing hold upon earth and the language of

mortals. He knew that the unspoken language of the impassioned heart is

charged with poetry, however the formality of utterance, the fear of

derision and the unreadiness of our vocabulary may freeze its expression

on our lips; and he trusted to the hearts of his hearers to understand

and appreciate the intense humanness of the feelings that forced

themselves to the surface in that form. Nor was he mistaken. His

'raptures' are more truly natural, more sympathetic and truthful

expressions of human emotion than the most stately and reasonable

declamations of those earlier writers who clung to what they believed to

be natural. Often quoted as it has been, Drayton's eulogy of Marlowe may

be quoted again--it merits a place in every discussion of Marlowe's

verse--as the finest appreciation of his poetry.

Next Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs,

Had in him those brave translunary things

That the first poets had; his raptures were

All air and fire, which made his verses clear;

For that fine madness still he did retain,

Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.

(_An Elegy: Of Poets and Poesie._)

From _Tamburlaine_ one could extract passages to illustrate Marlowe's

fondness for classical allusions, his use--Miltonic, if we may

anticipate the term--of the sonorous effect of names, his introduction

of sustained similes, his trick of repeating a sound at intervals (a

trick borrowed by Greene later), his habit of letting a speaker refer to

himself in the third person (Tamburlaine loves to boast the greatness of

Tamburlaine), and his occasional slovenliness, especially in the

insertion of a few lines of prose into the midst of his verse. All these

and others are minor features which the student will search out for

himself. Some of them, however, may be detected in the following excerpt

from the Second Part:

[TAMBURLAINE _is in his chariot drawn by captive kings._ TECHELLES

_has just urged that the armies should hasten to the siege of

Babylon._]

_Tamburlaine._ We will, Techelles.--Forward, then, ye jades!

Now crouch, ye kings of greatest Asia,

And tremble, when ye hear this scourge will come

That whips down cities and controlleth crowns,

Adding their wealth and treasure to my store.

The Euxine sea, north to Natolia;

The Terrene, west; the Caspian, north north-east;

And on the south, Sinus Arabicus;

Shall all be loaden with the martial spoils

We will convey with us to Persia.

Then shall my native city, Samarcanda,

And crystal waves of fresh Jaertis' stream,

The pride and beauty of her princely seat,

Be famous through the furthest continents;

For there my palace royal shall be placed,

Whose shining turrets shall dismay the heavens,

And cast the fame of Ilion's tower to hell:

Thorough the streets, with troops of conquered kings,

I'll ride in golden armour like the sun;

And in my helm a triple plume shall spring,

Spangled with diamonds, dancing in the air,

To note me emperor of the three-fold world;

Like to an almond tree y-mounted high

Upon the lofty and celestial mount

Of ever-green Selinus, quaintly decked

With blooms more white than Erycina's brows,

Whose tender blossoms tremble every one

At every little breath that thorough heaven is blown.

Then in my coach, like Saturn's royal son

Mounted his shining chariot gilt with fire

And drawn with princely eagles through the path

Paved with bright crystal and enchased with stars,

When all the gods stand gazing at his pomp,

So will I ride through Samarcanda-streets,

Until my soul, dissevered from this flesh,

Shall mount the milk-white way and meet him there.

To Babylon, my lords, to Babylon!

_The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus_ sets forth the well-known story

of the man who sold his soul to the devil in return for complete

gratification of his desires during his life on earth. Something of its

fame is due to its association, through its main plot, with Goethe's

masterpiece; something may be attributed to the fascination of its

theme; something must be granted to the terrible force of one or two

scenes. It is hard to believe that its own artistic and dramatic

qualities could have secured unaided the reputation which it appears to

possess among some critics. More even than _Tamburlaine_, this play

hangs upon one central figure. There is no Bajazeth, no Soldan, no

Orcanes, no Zenocrate to help to bear the weight of impressiveness. The

low characters, who are intended to be humorous, drag the plot down

instead of buoying it up. Other figures are hardly more than dummies,

unable to excite the smallest interest. Mephistophilis deserves our

notice, but his is a shadowy outline removed from humanity. One figure

alone stands forth to hold and justify our attention; and he proves

himself unfit for the task. Those who insist on tracing one guiding

principle in all Marlowe's plays have declared that Faustus is the

personification of 'thirst for knowledge' or of 'intellectual _virtù_',

just as Tamburlaine personifies, for them, the 'thirst for power' or

'physical _virtù_'. Surely, if this is so, Marlowe has failed absolutely

in his presentment of the character; in which case the play may be

condemned out of hand, seeing that the character of Faustus is its all

in all. But the more we study Marlowe's other principal figures, the

more convinced we become of his absorption in them while they are in the

making. With Tamburlaine he himself grows terrible and glorious; the

spirit of pride and conquest colours every phrase, speech and

description, so that, as we have pointed out, the character of

Tamburlaine is masterfully consistent and attuned to the purpose of the

play. It is better, then, to examine the character of Faustus, as

revealed in his desires, requests, and prominent actions, and thence

educe the purpose of the play, than, by deciding upon this purpose, to

discover that the central figure is in continual discord with it.

Faustus is introduced to us by the Chorus at the commencement of the

play as a scholar of repute, 'glutted now with learning's golden gifts,'

and about to turn aside to the study of necromancy. Accordingly he

appears in his study rejecting logic as no end in itself, law as

servile, medicine because he has exhausted its possible limits, divinity

because it tells him that the reward of sin is death. Upon sin his mind

is set all the time, so that the reminder from Jerome's Bible annoys

him. He flings the book aside because it warns him of what he affects to

disbelieve and would be glad to forget. Magic wins him by its unknown

possibilities 'of profit and delight, of power, of honour, and

omnipotence'.

Lest we should suppose that his choice has anything heroic in it, that

he is deliberately accepting a terrible debt of eternal torment in

exchange for what necromancy can give, we are informed that he has no

belief in hell or future pain, that to him men's souls are trifles. Deep

down in his conscience he has a fear of 'damnation', which only makes

itself felt, however, in unexalted moments. Such thoughts are set aside

as 'mere old wives' tales' in the triumphant hour of his signing the

contract.

With curiosity and longing, then, he enters unshudderingly into a

bargain that will give him what he seeks. We can readily discover, from

his own lips, what that is. He exults over the prospect of having

spirits to do his bidding:

I'll have them fly to India for gold,

Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,

And search all corners of the new-found world

For pleasant fruits and princely delicates;

I'll have them read me strange philosophy,

And tell the secrets of all foreign kings.

Many other things his fancy pictures. But we observe that philosophy

stands below wealth and feasting in his wishes. He dismisses

Mephistophilis back to Lucifer with this report of himself:

Say, he surrenders up to him his soul,

So he will spare him four and twenty years,

Letting him live in all voluptuousness.

For a moment his enthusiastic outlook upon limitless capacity wakens in

him a desire for military glory: he would be 'great emperor of the

world', he would 'pass the ocean with a band of men'. But from what we

know of his subsequent career he never attempted to win such renown. No;

in his heart he confesses,

The god thou servest is thine own appetite.

Mephistophilis, with a profound and melancholy insight into the reality

of things, sees hell in every place where heaven is not. Faustus, on the

other hand, with flippant superficiality laughs at the idea. An

intellectual, a moral hell is to him incomprehensible.

Nay, an this be hell, I'll willingly be damned:

What! sleeping, eating, walking, and disputing!

But, leaving this, let me have a wife,

The fairest maid in Germany;

For I am wanton and lascivious,

And cannot live without a wife.

Sometimes conscience forces him to listen to its fearful whispers, and

then suicide offers its dreadful means as a silencer of their disturbing

warnings. Why does he not accept the relief of rope or dagger?

--Long ere this I should have done the deed,

Had not sweet pleasure conquered deep despair.

Have not I made blind Homer sing to me

Of Alexander's love and Oenon's death?

And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes

With ravishing sound of his melodious harp,

Made music with my Mephistophilis?

Why should I die, then, or basely despair?

I am resolved; Faustus shall not repent.

The mood of fear and regret passes. He plunges back to the gratification

of his senses.

Whilst I am here on earth let me be cloyed

With all things that delight the heart of man:

My four-and-twenty years of liberty

I'll spend in pleasure and in dalliance.

The end is drawing near. Appetite is becoming sated: rarer and rarer

delicacies are needed to satisfy his craving. Repentance!--that is

thrust aside, postponed to a later hour.

One thing, good servant, let me crave of thee,

To glut the longing of my heart's desire--

That I may have unto my paramour

That heavenly Helen which I saw of late,

Whose sweet embraces may extinguish clean

Those thoughts that do dissuade me from my vow.

When at last the hour to fulfil his part of the contract arrives, he

confesses in bitterness of spirit, 'for the vain pleasure of

four-and-twenty years hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity.'

This man is not one consumed with a thirst of knowledge. Once he asks

Mephistophilis a few questions on astrology; at another time he evinces

some curiosity concerning Lucifer and Hell, idle curiosity because he

regards it all as foolishness. We are _told_ of a journey through the

heavens and of voyages about the world, but we _see_ him exercising

his supernatural gifts in the most puerile and useless fashion.

It is impossible, therefore, to regard his ambition as a lust for

knowledge in the usual meaning of that term, differentiating it from

sensual experience. If Faustus is to be labelled according to his

dominant trait, then let us describe him as the embodiment of

sense-gratification. He is a sensualist from the moment that he takes up

the book of magic and ponders over what it may bring him. A degraded

form of him has been sketched in the Syriac scholar of a modern work of

fiction, who cherished, side by side with a world-wide reputation

for learning, a bestial appetite for profligacy. The message of

_Tamburlaine_ holds as true in the pursuit of pleasure as in that of

conquest. Faustus denies that there is a limit to pleasure, and the

horror of his career grows darker as his mounting desires bear him

further and further on, far beyond the reach of less eager minds, to

the impassable point whence he may only see the heaven beyond. That

point is the hell which once he laughed at as an old wives' tale.

The weakness of _Doctor Faustus_ appears exactly where _Tamburlaine_ is

strongest. In spite of his prodigious boasting and his callous

indifference to suffering, Tamburlaine appeals to us most powerfully as

the right titanic figure for a world-conqueror; his soul is ever above

his body, looking beyond the victory of to-day to the greater conquests

of the future: there is nothing sordid or commonplace about him.

Unfortunately, though it is given to few of us to be conquerors, it is

possible for all of us to gratify our senses if we will. Tamburlaine

gathers golden fruit, Faustus plucks berries from the same bush as

ourselves: only, he must have them from the topmost boughs. The

following passage has probably never been surpassed in its magic

idealization of that which is essentially base and carnal:

[_Enter_ HELEN, _passing over the stage between two_ CUPIDS.]

_Faustus._ Was this the face that launched a thousand ships

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?--

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--[_Kisses her._]

Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!--

Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.

Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,

And all is dross that is not Helena.

I will be Paris, and for love of thee,

Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sacked;

And I will combat with weak Menelaus,

And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;

Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,

And then return to Helen for a kiss.

O, thou art fairer than the evening air

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;

Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter

When he appeared to hapless Semele;

More lovely than the monarch of the sky

In wanton Arethusa's azured arms;

And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

Poetry such as this has power to blind us for a moment to the underlying

meaning: Faustus enjoys a temporary transfiguration. But Marlowe's muse

flags in the effort to sublimate dross. Such a character as Faustus is

unfitted to support tragedy. His creator inspires him with his own

Bohemian joy in mere pleasure, his own thirst for fresh sensations, his

own vehement disregard of restraint--a disregard which brought Marlowe

to a tragic and unworthy end. But, as if in mockery, he degrades him

with unmanly, ignoble qualities that excite our derision. His mind is

pleased with toys that would amuse a child: at the conclusion of an

almost incredibly trivial Show of the Seven Deadly Sins he exclaims, 'O,

how this sight doth delight my soul!' His practical jokes are unworthy

of a court jester. The congealing of his blood agitates his

superstitious mind far more than the terrible frankness of

Mephistophilis. Miserably mean-spirited, he seeks to propitiate the

wrath of the fiend by invoking his torments upon an old man whose

disinterested appeal momentarily quickened his conscience into revolt.

Finally, when we recall the words with which Tamburlaine faced death,

what contempt, despite the frightful anguish of the scene, is aroused by

Faustus's screams of terror at the approach of Lucifer to claim him as

his own! Instinctively we think of Byron's Manfred and his scorn of hell

and its furies. It is his cowardice that spoils the effect of the

backward glances and twinges of conscience, the intention of which has

been rightly praised by so many. Marlowe probably wished to represent

the strife of good and evil in a man's soul. Under other circumstances

it is fair to suppose that he would have achieved success, and so have

anticipated Goethe. But his Faustus moves on too low a level. Of a moral

sense, independent of the dread of punishment, he knows nothing. Four

times his Good Angel suggests to him a return to the right path; once an

Old Man warns him; twice Mephistophilis says that which might fairly

have bid him pause; twice, at least, his own conscience advises

repentance. Yet only on two occasions is there any real revolt, and then

only because his cowardice has been enlisted on the side of

righteousness by the sudden thought of the devils that will tear him in

pieces or of the hell that 'claims his right, and with a roaring voice

says, "Faustus, come".' In proof of this we see his hesitation scared

away by the greater terrors of a present devil, a Lucifer clothed in

horror, or a threatening Mephistophilis. In his vacillations we see, not

the noble conflict of good and evil impulses, but an ignoble tug-of-war

between timidity and appetite.

If Faustus himself falls short of success as a tragic character, if his

aspirations are too mean, his qualities too contemptible to win our

sympathy save at rare moments of transcendent poetry, what shall be said

of the setting provided for the story of his career? Once more we are

offered the stale devices of the Moralities, the Good and Bad Angels,

the Devil, the Old Man (formerly known as Sage Counsel), the Seven

Deadly Sins, Heaven, Hell, and the carefully-pointed moral at the end.

Even the Senecan Chorus has been forced into service to tell us of

Faustus's early manhood and of the marvellous journeys taken in the

intervals. There are no acts, but that is not a great matter; they were

added later in the edition of 1616. What does matter very much is the

introduction of stupid scenes of low comedy into which Faustus is

dragged to play a common conjuror's part and which almost succeed in

shattering the impression of tragic intensity left by the few scenes

where poetry triumphs over facts. Here again, however, our criticism of

the author is softened by the knowledge that Dekker and Rowley made

undefined additions to the play, and may therefore be responsible for

the crudities of its humour. Nevertheless, even with this allowance,

Marlowe must be blamed for the utter incongruity of so many scenes with

high tragedy. The harmony which rules the construction of _Tamburlaine_,

giving it a lofty coherence and consistency, is lamentably absent from

_Doctor Faustus_.

_Doctor Faustus_ is not a great play. Yet it will never be forgotten.

Though mismanaged, it has the elements of a tremendous tragedy. In

discerning the suitability of the Teutonic legend for this purpose

Marlowe showed a far truer understanding of what tragedy should be, of

the superior terrors of moral over material downfall, than he displayed

in his more successful later tragedy.

Most of the poetry is of a less fiery kind, it flares less, than the

poetry of _Tamburlaine_. There is also more use of prose. But at least

two purple passages exist to give immortality to Faustus's passion and

despair. The first has already been quoted at length. The second is the

even more famous soliloquy, the terror-stricken outcry rather, of

Faustus in his last hour of life. With frightful realism it confirms the

fiend's scornful prophecy of a scene of 'desperate lunacy', when his

labouring brain will beget 'a world of idle fantasies to overreach the

devil, but all in vain'.

Marlowe's adaptation of blank verse to natural conversation has been

spoken of as one of his contributions to the art of dramatic poetry.

The following passage illustrates this:

[_The compact has just been signed._]

_Meph._ Speak, Faustus; do you deliver this as your deed?

_Faustus._ Ay, take it, and the devil give thee good of it!

_Meph._ So, now, Faustus, ask me what thou wilt.

_Faustus._ First I will question with thee about hell.

Tell me, where is the place that men call hell?

_Meph._ Under the heavens.

_Faustus._ Ay, so are all things else; but whereabouts?

_Meph._ Within the bowels of these elements,

Where we are tortured and remain for ever.

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed

In one self-place; but where we are is hell,

And where hell is, there must we ever be:

And, to be short, when all the world dissolves,

And every creature shall be purified,

All places shall be hell that are not heaven.

_Faustus._ I think hell's a fable.

_Meph._ Ay, think so still, till experience change thy mind.

_Faustus._ Why, dost thou think that Faustus shall be damned?

_Meph._ Ay, of necessity, for here's the scroll

In which thou hast given thy soul to Lucifer.

_Faustus._ Ay, and body too; and what of that?

Thinkest thou that Faustus is so fond to imagine

That, after this life, there is any pain?

No, these are trifles and mere old wives' tales.

_Meph._ But I am an instance to prove the contrary,

For I tell thee I am damned and now in hell.

_Faustus._ Nay, an this be hell, I'll willingly be damned.

_The Jew of Malta_ repeats the fundamental failure of _Doctor Faustus_,

but partially redeems it by avoiding its errors of construction. In this

play the dramatist has recovered his sense of harmony: he places his

central figure in circumstances that befit him, and maintains a

consistent balance between the strength of his character and the nature

of his deeds. The Jew does nothing that really jars on our conception of

him as a great villain. Nor in the minor scenes is there anything to

disturb the general impression of darkness. The gentleness of Abigail,

whose love and obedience alone draw her into the net of crime, only

makes her surroundings appear more cruel; while the introduction of the

Governor, the Grand Seignior's son, and a Vice-Admiral of Spain raises

the level of wickedness to something like dignified rank. Nevertheless,

the fact remains that the play is fundamentally unsound. True tragedy

should present more than a great change between the first and last

scenes; the change should be lamentable. We should feel that a much

better ending might, and would, have come but for the circumstance that

forms the crisis, or for other circumstances at the beginning of the

play. If we consider such tragic careers as those of Hamlet, Lear,

Macbeth and Othello we recognize that each might have come to a

different conclusion if it had not been for the blight of a father's

death or a single act of folly, of ambition or jealousy. These men all

excite our sympathy, especially Hamlet, whose tragedy is due not at all

to himself but to the overshadowing of another's crime. Macbeth and

Othello are each introduced as men of the noblest qualities, with one

flaw which events have not yet revealed. But Barabas the Jew is

deliberately painted as vile. We learn from his own lips of previous

villany atrocious enough in itself, without any of his subsequent

crimes, to justify his horrible fate. Moreover, he does not actually

lose his wealth. If that were all swept away we could understand

resentment boiling up into savage hate. But the truth is, he is so

little hurt financially that soon after the confiscation of his goods

he is able to say:

In spite of these swine-eating Christians ...

Am I become as wealthy as I was.

They hoped my daughter would ha' been a nun;

But she's at home, and I have bought a house

As great and fair as is the governor's.

Hence his action against the governor's son, Lodowick, is inexcusably

vindictive, quite apart from the vile share in it which he forces upon

his daughter. The nunnery crime, again, is monstrous in its gross

injustice to Abigail's constancy and in its Herodian comprehensiveness.

After this his other murders and intrigues seem more justified. The two

friars, his servant Ithamore and the rest can well be spared by any

exit; his betrayal of the town is not unreasonable, considering the

treatment meted out to him within it; and his proposed second treachery

is based on sound policy.--We may observe, in passing, that the

self-righteous governor takes no steps to prevent, by a timely warning,

the massacre of the enemy's soldiers, availing himself of the atrocity,

instead, to secure a victory for his side.--Consequently, when the final

doom does fall upon Barabas, we have begun to be vaguely doubtful

whether it is altogether deserved. Yet we feel that it is impossible to

let him live. Thus the conclusion, however horrible spectacularly,

neither excites pity for the Jew nor entirely satisfies justice. Barabas

is victimized by the governor at the beginning of the play; it seems

hardly fair that the two men should occupy the same relative positions

at the end. It may be urged that the early scenes do present Barabas as

meriting our pity, that our compassion does go out to him in his

oppression. But the sympathy that is won at first is falsely won by the

prominence given to his distress when he _fears_ all is lost: touched

by the pain caused by the governor's injustice, we almost overlook the

recovery effected by the Jew's cunning.

If we look for passages of tragic intensity we find a splendid hope

weakening to dreary disappointment. The whole of the first act and the

opening scene of the second act ring true to tragedy. Nothing could be

better planned than the swift transition from the golden harvesting of

wealth to its confiscation by the state. The contrast, too, between the

dignified resistance of Barabas and the weak surrender of his companions

artistically emphasizes the former's splendid isolation. For the brief

scene in which the Jew, haunting the vicinity of the nunnery like

'ghosts that glide by night about the place where treasure hath been

hid', regains his bags of gold and precious jewels, no praise can be too

high. After that, however, the ennobling mantle of human sorrow and pain

falls away; the crimes that follow are hideous in their

nakedness--murders or massacres, nothing more. Not the least attempt is

made to enlist our sympathy for any one of the murdered, except Abigail.

If we are asked, then, to define the true nature of the play, we shall

call it not a tragedy proper, in the sense in which _Macbeth_ is a

tragedy, but rather a narrative play presenting the criminal career of a

villain acting under provocation. As has been well pointed out by Mr.

Baker in his _Development of Shakespeare_, there is a difference between

'the tragic' and 'tragedy'. We might describe _The Jew of Malta_ as a

tragic narrative play.

In characterization Marlowe has made a distinct advance. With the

creation of Barabas he brings upon the stage a person of many commanding

qualities. The Jew is great in his own terrible way. He is far-seeing,

bold, subtle, relentless. He loves his daughter much, his gold

immeasurably. Tempests of emotion shake his frame when restraint is

thrown aside. But at need he can be calm and conciliatory in the face of

intense annoyance and blustering threats. In the hour of death he is own

brother to defiant Tamburlaine. The points of resemblance between him

and Shylock may be searched out by any curious student: the reality of

the likeness, scoffed at by a few whose admiration for Shakespeare is

inclined to prejudice their judgment, has been effectively demonstrated

by Professor Ward.[67] It would be an interesting exercise to pursue

Professor Ward's hint at the insincerity of the Jew's recital to

Ithamore of his early crimes. We might work back to an initial

conception of Barabas as an upright merchant, and so discover a real

tragedy in the moral downfall which results from the governor's

injustice. Such a point of view is attractive, and would raise the

character of the play considerably. But it has many obstacles in its

way, not the least being the Machiavellian prologue and the difficulty

of believing that any dramatist of the sixteenth century would wish, or

dare, to present to an English audience the picture of an honest,

ill-treated Jew. The confiscation which we regard as an injustice was

probably viewed in that day as an eminently sound and Christian act of

political economy.

Leaving Abigail and Ithamore to the liking or loathing of readers of the

play, we hasten to conclude this discussion with examples of Marlowe's

verse. His poetry is once more the refining element, beautifying the

ugly, ennobling the mean, a vein of gold in the quartz. Having grown

more generous since the days of _Doctor Faustus_, the poet scatters gems

with lavish hand throughout the play. Rhymes begin to appear, as though

he scorned to seem dependent upon blank verse alone. Extensive as is

the choice, it is impossible, in fairness to those readers who have not

the play, to omit entirely the often-quoted opening scene of the second

act. After it, however, we quote a passage which, almost more than the

other, illustrates the purifying influence of the author's imagination:

the fact that it is partly in rhyme gives it an additional interest.

(1)

[BARABAS _wanders in the streets about his old home where his

treasure lies concealed._]

_Barabas._ Thus, like the sad-presaging raven, that tolls

The sick man's passport in her hollow beak,

And in the shadow of the silent night

Doth shake contagion from her sable wings,

Vexed and tormented runs poor Barabas

With fatal curses towards these Christians.

The incertain pleasures of swift-footed time

Have ta'en their flight, and left me in despair;

And of my former riches rests no more

But bare remembrance; like a soldier's scar,

That has no further comfort for his maim....

Now I remember those old women's words,

Who in my wealth would tell me winter's tales,

And speak of spirits and ghosts that glide by night

About the place where treasure hath been hid:

And now methinks that I am one of those;

For, whilst I live, here lives my soul's sole hope,

And, when I die, here shall my spirit walk.

(2)

[BELLAMIRA, _a courtesan, and_ ITHAMORE, _a cut-throat slave from

Thrace, are together._]

_Bell._ Now, gentle Ithamore, lie in my lap.--

Where are my maids? provide a cunning banquet;

Send to the merchant, bid him bring me silks;

Shall Ithamore, my love, go in such rags?

_Ithamore._ And bid the jeweller come hither too.

_Bell._ I have no husband; sweet, I'll marry thee.

_Ithamore._ Content: but we will leave this paltry land,

And sail from hence to Greece, to lovely Greece;--

I'll be thy Jason, thou my golden fleece;--

Where painted carpets o'er the meads are hurled,

And Bacchus' vineyards overspread the world;

Where woods and forests go in goodly green;--

I'll be Adonis, thou shalt be Love's Queen;--

The meads, the orchards, and the primrose-lanes,

Instead of sedge and reed, bear sugar-canes:

Thou in those groves, by Dis above,

Shalt live with me and be my love.

_Bell._ Whither will I not go with gentle Ithamore?

_The Massacre at Paris_ is a poor play and therefore need not detain us

long. Its only interest is in its attempt to represent quite recent

events (1572-89). As a history play it manages to reproduce the French

atmosphere of distrust, rivalry, intrigue and indiscriminate massacre,

but at the expense of unity. The hurried succession of scenes leads us

blindly to an unexpected conclusion: from first almost to last no

indication is given that the consummation aimed at is the ascent of

Navarre to the throne of France. Rarely has the merely chronological

principle been adhered to with so little meaning. Navarre, whose

marriage opens the play and whose triumph closes it, might be expected

to figure largely as the upholder of Protestantism in opposition to

Guise; instead he is relegated to quite a subordinate part. Anjou,

again, the later opponent of Guise, makes a very belated bid for our

favour after displaying a brutality equal to his rival's in the

massacre. The author is careful to paint Catherine in truly inky

blackness. But the only character which we are likely to remember is the

Duke of Guise. Yet his portrait is of inferior workmanship. The murders

by which he tries to reach the throne are too treacherous to be ranked

in the grander scale of crime. Even the vastness of his organized

massacre is belittled for us by the stage presentment of individual

assassination in which Guise himself plays a butcher's part. Greatness

is more often attributed to outward aloofness and inactivity than to

busy participation in the execution of a plot. Moreover, it was a

tactical error to give prominence to the personal quarrel between Guise

and Mugeroun, for it dissipates upon a private matter the force which,

devoted to an exalted ambition, might have been impressive. However,

there are one or two touches which give a cold grandeur to this

character and seem half to anticipate the Mortimer of the next play. The

following lines are taken from the second scene of the first act--there

are only three acts altogether:

_Guise._ Now Guise begins those deep-engendered thoughts

To burst abroad, those never-dying flames

Which cannot be extinguished but by blood.

Oft have I levelled, and at last have learned

That peril is the chiefest way to happiness,

And resolution honour's fairest aim.

What glory is there in a common good,

That hangs for every peasant to achieve?

That like I best, that flies beyond my reach.

Set me to scale the high Pyramides,

And thereon set the diadem of France;

I'll either rend it with my nails to naught,

Or mount the top with my aspiring wings,

Although my downfall be the deepest hell....

Give me a look, that, when I bend the brows,

Pale death may walk in furrows of my face;

A hand that with a grasp may gripe the world;

An ear to hear what my detractors say;

A royal seat, a sceptre, and a crown;

That those which do behold them may become

As men that stand and gaze against the sun.

_Edward the Second_ is undoubtedly Marlowe's masterpiece. It marks the

elevation of the Chronicle History Play to its highest possibilities,

and is, at the same time, a deeply moving tragedy. One wonders how Peele

could write the medley of incongruous and ill-connected scenes which we

know under the abbreviated title of _Edward the First_ after having once

seen his rival's 'history' acted. For the strength of Marlowe's play

lies in its concentration upon the figure of the king and its skilful

omission of details not dramatically helpful. If there were any balance

of advantage in the choice of subject one must feel that it did not lie

with the earlier writer, who was undertaking the extremely difficult

task of presenting an inglorious monarch sympathetically without

allowing him to appear contemptible. We can imagine how magnificently he

could have set forth the masterful career of Edward I. His courage in

attempting a character less congenial to his natural temperament

deserved the success it achieved. The Tamburlaine element is not

withheld; the fierce baron, young Mortimer, inherits that conqueror's

ambitious nature, and fully maintains the great traditions of strength,

pride and defiance. But Mortimer is only the second figure in order of

importance. Upon the king Marlowe pours all the fruits of his experience

in dramatic work.

From the historical point of view the dramatist is signally successful

in making the men of the past live over again. His weak monarch is more

intensely human than any mightier, more kingly ruler would probably have

been in his hands. And the barons, in their haughtiness and easy

aptitude for revolt, are, to the life, the fierce men whose grandfathers

and fathers in turn fought against their sovereigns and whose

descendants fell in the fratricidal Wars of the Roses. Moreover the

chronicle of the reign is followed with reasonable accuracy, if we make

due allowance for dramatic requirements. It can hardly be said that the

author's representation of Edward is impartial: a kindly veil is drawn

over the lawlessness of his government and the disgrace brought upon

English arms by his military incapacity. But the political intrigue, the

friction between monarch and subjects, the helplessness of the king to

enforce his wishes, are all brought back vividly.

However, it is Marlowe's adaptation of a historical subject to a loftier

purpose than the mere renewal of the past which gives real greatness to

the play. Here at last his work attains to the full stature and noble

harmony of a tragedy, not on the highest level, it is true, but

dignified and moving. The catastrophe is physical, not moral, and thus

the play lacks the awful horror half-revealed in _Doctor Faustus_. But

whereas the latter, reaching after the greatest things, falls short of

success, _Edward the Second_, content with less, easily secures a first

place in the second rank.

By a neat device we are introduced, at the outset, to the king, his

favourite, and the fatal choice from which springs all the misery of the

reign. For the opening lines, spoken by Gaveston himself, are no less

than the royal message bidding him return to 'share the kingdom' with

his friend. From that point the first portion of the play easily

unfolds: it deals with the strife, the brief triumphs and the bitter

defeats which fill the eventful period of this ill-starred friendship.

The actual crisis falls within the third act: it is marked by the murder

of Gaveston and the resolution of the king at last to offer armed

resistance to the tyranny of the barons. The oath by which he seals his

decision is royally impressive.

[_Kneeling_] By earth, the common mother of us all,

By heaven, and all the moving orbs thereof,

By this right hand, and by my father's sword,

And all the honours 'longing to my crown,

I will have heads and lives for him as many

As I have manors, castles, towns and towers!

From that oath is born the catastrophe that immediately ensues. A

temporary victory, followed up by revengeful executions, is succeeded by

defeat, captivity, loss of the crown, and a fearful death.

King Edward is not portrayed as weak mentally or morally. Gaveston, in

the first scene, speaks of his master's effeminacy, and on more than one

occasion there are hints from the royal favourites that the king should

assert his majesty more vigorously. But over and over again Edward

breaks out into anger at the insolence of his subjects and only fails to

crush them through the impossibility of exacting obedience from those

about him. In Act I, Scene 4, it is Mortimer's order for the seizure of

Gaveston that is obeyed, not the king's command for Mortimer's arrest.

When the warrant for his minion's exile is submitted to him, the king

refuses point blank, in the face of threatening insistence. 'I will not

yield', he cries; 'curse me, depose me, do the worst you can.' He only

gives way at last before a threat of papal excommunication, the crushing

power of which had been made abundantly clear by its effect on King John

just a century before. Indeed we need not go further than the first

scene to find that Marlowe is resolved to put the right spirit of

wilfulness and angry determination in his fated monarch. There we find

this speech by him:

Well, Mortimer, I'll make thee rue these words;

Beseems it thee to contradict thy king?

Frownest thou thereat, aspiring Lancaster?

This sword shall plane the furrows of thy brows,

And hew these knees that now are grown so stiff.

I will have Gaveston; and you shall know

What danger 'tis to stand against your king.

And again, when the barons have withdrawn, he bursts out--

I cannot brook these haughty menaces;

Am I a king, and must be over-ruled!--

Brother, display my ensigns in the field:

I'll bandy with the barons and the earls,

And either die or live with Gaveston.

Nor is this pride of sovereignty lost even in defeat. We see it still as

strong, though forced by circumstances and coaxed to give way, in the

pathetic scene where he is compelled to surrender his crown to

Mortimer's delegate. Nevertheless the weakness that brings and justifies

his downfall is placed prominently before us from the first. King Edward

prefers his own pleasure before the unity of his kingdom and the

strength of his rule. There is even something a little ignoble in his

love for Gaveston, something unmanly and contemptible, if the reports of

such prejudiced persons as the queen and Mortimer are to be believed.

But the fault is not a criminal or unnatural one. One can sympathize

with a heart that yearns for the presence of a single friend in a world

of cold-blooded critics or harsh counsellors. The not unattractive

character of Gaveston, too, affectionate, gay, proud, quick-tempered,

brave--with faults also, of deceit, vanity and vindictiveness--preserves

the royal friendship from the sink of blind dotage upon an unworthy

creature. The tragedy follows, then, from the king's preferment of

private above public good, or, we may say, from the conflict between the

king's wishes as a man and his duty as a monarch. It is to Marlowe's

perception of this vital struggle underlying the hostility between King

Edward and his nobles that the play owes its greatness. We pity the

king, we can hate those who beat him down to the mire, because his fault

appeals to us in its personal aspect as almost a virtue; he is willing

to sacrifice so much to keep his friends. At the same time we perceive

the justice of his dethronement, for we recognize that the duty of a

king must take precedence over everything else. He has brought his

punishment upon himself. Yet, inasmuch as Mortimer, serviceable to the

state as an instrument, offends our sense of what is due from a subject

to his sovereign, we applaud the justice of his downfall; we, perhaps,

secretly rejoice that this bullying young baron is humbled beneath a

king's displeasure at last. As a final touch Marlowe rescues the

sovereignty of the throne from the taint of weakness by the little

prince's vigorous assertion of his authority at the end.

Queen Isabella presents certain difficulties. The king's treatment of

her reflects little credit upon him, although one can hardly demand the

same affection in a political as in a voluntary union. Apparently she

really loves the king until his continued coldness chills her feelings

and drives them to seek return in the more responsive heart of Mortimer.

After that she even sinks so low as to wish the king dead. Yet to the

end she cherishes a warm love for her son. Probably the author intended

that her degeneracy should be attributed to the baneful influence of

Mortimer and so strengthen the need for his death.

Mortimer, as the great antagonist, has a very strong character.

Imperious, fiery, he is the real leader of the barons. From the first it

is apparent that he is actuated by personal malice as much as by

righteous indignation on behalf of his misgoverned country. He confides

to his uncle that it is Gaveston's and the king's mocking jests at the

plainness of his train and attire which make him impatient. But the

unwisdom of the king serves him for a stalking-horse while secretly he

pursues the goal of his private ambition. In adversity he is uncrushed.

When he returns victorious he ruthlessly sweeps aside all likely

obstacles to his supremacy, the Spensers, Kent, and even the king being

hurried to their death. Then, just as he thinks to stand at the summit,

he falls--and falls grandly.

Base Fortune, now I see that in thy wheel

There is a point, to which when men aspire,

They tumble headlong down: that point I touched;

And seeing there was no place to mount up higher,

Why should I grieve at my declining fall?--

Farewell, fair queen: weep not for Mortimer,

That scorns the world, and, as a traveller,

Goes to discover countries yet unknown.

Marlowe wisely--for him--departs from the growing custom of diversifying

the hard facts of history with homely fiction of a more or less comic

nature. He declines to mingle clowns and courtiers. Variety is secured

by a slightly fuller delineation of the secondary characters than is

usual with him, with its consequent effect on the dialogue, and by

abrupt changes in the political situation. Two great scenes, King

Edward's abdication and his death, remain as memories with us long after

we have laid the book down; but while we are reading it there are many

others that touch the chords of indignation and sorrow. The verse

throughout is admirable: it has shaken itself free of rant and

extravagance; no longer are adjectives and nouns of splendour heaped

recklessly one upon another. Yet there is nothing prosy or commonplace.

The spirit of poetry and strength is everywhere.

Our last extract is from the famous abdication scene (Act V, Scene 1).

_Leicester._ Call them again, my lord, and speak them fair;

For, if they go, the prince shall lose his right.

_K. Edward._ Call thou them back; I have no power to speak.

_Leicester._ My lord, the king is willing to resign.

_Bishop of Winchester._ If he be not, let him choose.

_K. Edward._ O, would I might! but heavens and earth conspire

To make me miserable. Here, receive my crown.

Receive it? no, these innocent hands of mine

Shall not be guilty of so foul a crime:

He of you all that most desires my blood,

And will be called the murderer of a king,

Take it. What, are you moved? pity you me?

Then send for unrelenting Mortimer,

And Isabel, whose eyes, being turned to steel,

Will sooner sparkle fire than shed a tear.

Yet stay; for, rather than I'll look on them,

Here, here! [_Gives the crown._]--Now, sweet God of heaven,

Make me despise this transitory pomp,

And sit for aye enthronised in heaven!

Come, death, and with thy fingers close my eyes,

Or, if I live, let me forget myself.

In the writing of _Dido, Queen of Carthage_ Nash had a share.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to say how much was his or to what

portion of the play his work belongs. The supposition that Nash finished

the play does not necessarily imply that he wrote the last part. It may

have been that Marlowe originally conceived of a three act play--like

_The Massacre at Paris_--and that Nash filled it out to five acts by the

addition of scenes here and there. The unusual shortness of the play

rather supports this theory. But it is best to let it stand uncertain.

At least this much is clear, that the genius of Marlowe is strongly

present both in the character of the queen and in the splendid passages

of poetry.

Again we have a well-constructed tragedy based on the loss of a dear

friend and ending in death. But here the friendship is elevated to the

passionate affection of a woman for her lover, and the conclusion moves

our pity with double force by its picture of suffering and by the fact

that the queen is the unhappy victim of a cruel fate. It is the old

story of love ending in desertion and a broken heart, only the faithless

lover would be true if the gods had not ordered otherwise; his regret at

parting is not the simulated grief of a hollow deceiver, but the sincere

emotion of a lover acting under compulsion. Constructively the play is

well balanced, although the incidents of the first two acts form,

perhaps, a rather too elaborate introduction to the main plot. Some

initial reference to the gods is necessary to set Aeneas's action in the

right light. The writer is inclined, however, to turn the occasion into

an opportunity for fine picture painting when he should be pressing

forward to the essential theme. The long story of the destruction of

Troy, also, has no proper place in this drama, inasmuch as Aeneas's

piety and prowess at that time are not even converted to use as an

incentive to Dido's love. Nevertheless it must be admitted that some of

the most charming passages are to be found in these first two acts. The

commencement of the third act at once sets the real business of the

tragedy in motion: by a delicate piece of deception Queen Dido is

persuaded to clasp young Cupid, instead of little Ascanius, to her

bosom--with fatal results. Before the act is over Dido and Aeneas have

plighted troth, romantically, in a cave where they are sheltering

together from a storm. With the fourth act comes the first warning of

impending shipwreck to their loves. Aeneas has a dream, and prepares to

sail for Italy. On this occasion, however, the queen is able to overcome

his doubts by bestowing upon him her crown and sceptre, thus providing

him with a kingdom powerful enough to content his ambitions. Yet the

gods are not to be satisfied so; Hermes himself is sent to command the

Trojan's instant departure for another shore. In vain now does Dido

plead. Aeneas departs, and there is nothing left for her in her anguish

but to fling herself upon the sacrificial fire raised on the pretence of

curing her love. A grim pretence, verily.

Besides the two principal characters there are Dido's sister Anna, and a

visiting king, Iarbas, several friends of Aeneas, Ascanius (as himself

and as impersonated by Cupid), and various gods and goddesses. None of

these are developed beyond a secondary pitch; but Ascanius (or Cupid) is

quite invaluable for the lightness and freedom which his presence

conveys to the atmosphere about him; while the unrequited loves of Anna

and Iarbas soften for us the severity of the blow that crushes the

Carthaginian queen. Aeneas himself is presented in a subdued light, his

soldier's heart being fairly divided between his mistress and empire.

Thus we have the figure of Dido set out in high relief. Marlowe was fond

of experiments in characterization, but he never diverged more

completely from the path marked out by his previous steps than when he

decided to give the first place in a tragedy to a woman. Hitherto his

women have not impressed us: Abigail is probably the best of a shadowy

group. Suddenly, in the Queen of Carthage, womankind towers up in

majesty, to hold our attention fixed in wonder and pity as she walks

with strong, unsuspecting tread the steep descent to death. She is

sister to Shakespeare's Cleopatra, yet with marked individual

differences. Her feelings startle us with their fierce heat and swift

transitions. The fire of love flames up abruptly, driving her speech

immediately into wild contradictions. She herself is amazed at the

change within her. Burning to tell Aeneas her secret, yet withheld by

womanly modesty, she endeavours to betray it indirectly by heaping

extravagant gifts upon him. She counts over the list of her former

suitors before him that he may see from the shrug of her shoulders that

her affections are not placed elsewhere. Like Portia to Bassanio before

he chooses the casket, she throws out hints, calls them back hastily,

half lets fall the word, then breaks off the sentence, laying bare her

heart to the most ordinary observer, yet despairing of his understanding

her. When at last, from the tempest of desire and uncertainty, she

passes into the harbour of his assured love, a rapture of content, such

as the divinest music brings, fills her soul. Then the shadows begin to

fall. At first the sincerity of Aeneas's love unites with her startled

and clinging constancy to dispel the gathering gloom. With splendid

gifts she dims the alluring brightness that draws him from her. A little

longer Jove holds his hand; Aeneas's promise is till death.

_Aeneas._ O Dido, patroness of all our lives,

When I leave thee, death be my punishment!

Swell, raging seas! frown, wayward Destinies!

Blow, winds! threaten, ye rocks and sandy shelves!

This is the harbour that Aeneas seeks:

Let's see what tempests can annoy me now.

_Dido._ Not all the world can take thee from mine arms.

But the second call is imperative. With constraining pathos Dido

implores him not to go. When that cannot melt his resolution the

resentment of thwarted love breaks out in passionate reproach. This

again changes to the wailing of sorrow as he turns and leaves her. Anna

is sent after him to beseech his stay.

_Dido._ Call him not wicked, sister: speak him fair,

And look upon him with a mermaid's eye....

Request him gently, Anna, to return:

I crave but this--he stay a tide or two,

That I may learn to bear it patiently;

If he depart thus suddenly, I die.

Run, Anna, run; stay not to answer me.

Anna returns alone. Frantic schemes of pursuit, dangerously near to

madness, at length crystallize into the last fatal resolve. The pile is

made ready. Her attendants are all dismissed. One by one the articles

left behind by Aeneas are devoted to the flames.

Here lie the sword that in the darksome cave

He drew, and swore by, to be true to me:

Thou shalt burn first; thy crime is worse than his.

Here lie the garment which I clothed him in

When first he came on shore: perish thou too.

These letters, lines, and perjured papers, all

Shall burn to cinders in this precious flame.

When all have been consumed she leaps into the fire and so perishes.

The character of the Queen of Carthage sufficiently demonstrates that

Marlowe could paint a faithful and impressive likeness of a woman when

he chose. Possibly his fiery spirit would have proved less sympathetic

to a gentler type. Yet there are touches in the slighter portraits of

Abigail and Queen Isabella which reveal flashes of true insight into the

tender emotions of a woman's heart. Had Marlowe died before writing

_Edward the Second_ we should have said that he was incapable of

portraying any type of man but the abnormal and Napoleonic. He showed

himself to be a daring and brilliantly successful voyager into untried

seas. In the face of what he has left behind him it would be a bold

critic indeed who named with confidence any aspect of tragedy as outside

the empire of his genius.

The verse of _Dido, Queen of Carthage_ shows no signs of retrogression

from the steady advance to a more natural and perfect style which we

have traced in the progress from _Tamburlaine_ to _Edward the Second_.

An exception to this improvement will be found in certain portions of

Aeneas's long speech in the second act, of which it is probably not

unjust to surmise that Nash was the author. There are in Dido's own

speeches elements of wild extravagance, but they are natural to the

intensity of her passion. Does not Shakespeare's Cleopatra rave in a

manner no less fervid and hyperbolic? and in Enobarbus's description of

her magnificence when she met Antony is there not a reminiscence of the

oriental splendour of Dido's proposed fleet?

We quote part of the farewell scene between Dido and Aeneas.

_Dido._ But yet Aeneas will not leave his love.

_Aeneas._ I am commanded by immortal Jove

To leave this town and pass to Italy:

And therefore must of force.

_Dido._ These words proceed not from Aeneas' heart.

_Aeneas._ Not from my heart, for I can hardly go;

And yet I may not stay. Dido, farewell.

_Dido._ Farewell! is this the 'mends for Dido's love?

Do Trojans use to quit their lovers thus?

Fare well may Dido, so Aeneas stay;

I die, if my Aeneas say farewell.

_Aeneas._ Then let me go, and never say farewell;

Let me go: farewell: I must from hence.

_Dido._ These words are poison to poor Dido's soul:

O, speak like my Aeneas, like my love!

Why look'st thou toward the sea? the time hath been

When Dido's beauty chained thine eyes to her.

Am I less fair than when thou saw'st me first?

O, then, Aeneas, 'tis for grief of thee!

Say thou wilt stay in Carthage with thy queen,

And Dido's beauty will return again.

Aeneas, say, how canst thou take thy leave?

Wilt thou kiss Dido? O, thy lips have sworn

To stay with Dido! Canst thou take her hand?

Thy hand and mine have plighted mutual faith.

Therefore, unkind Aeneas, must thou say,

'Then let me go, and never say farewell'?

_Aeneas._ O queen of Carthage, wert thou ugly-black,

Aeneas could not choose but hold thee dear!

Yet must he not gainsay the gods' behest.

_Dido._ The gods! what gods be those that seek my death?

Wherein have I offended Jupiter,

That he should take Aeneas from mine arms?

O, no! the gods weigh not what lovers do:

It is Aeneas calls Aeneas hence.

Summarizing, in one short paragraph, the advance in tragedy inaugurated

by Kyd and Marlowe, we record the progress made in characterization,

plot structure, and verse, and in the treatment of history. A play has

now become interesting for its delineation of character, not merely for

its events or 'story'. One or two figures monopolize the attention by

their lofty passions, their sufferings, and their fate. We look on at a

tremendous conflict waged between will and circumstance, between right

and wrong, or we watch the gradual decay of goodness by the action of a

poisonous thought introduced into the mind. The plot has undergone a

similar intensification. With resistless evolution it bears the chief

characters along to the fatal hour of decision or action, then drags

them down the descent which the wrong choice or the unwise deed suddenly

places at their feet. Our sympathies are drawn out, we take sides in the

cause, and demand that at least justice shall prevail at the end. There

is an art, too, in this evolution, a close interweaving of events, a

chain of cause and effect; a certain harmony and balance are maintained,

so that our feelings are neither jerked to extremes nor worn out by

strain. Even the history play has freed itself to some extent from the

leading strings of chronology, claiming the right to make the same

appeal to our common instincts as any other play. Verse has taken a

mighty bound from formalism to the free intoxicating air of poetry and

nature. Men and women no longer exchange dull speeches; they converse

with easy spontaneity and delight us by the beauty of their language. A

poet may be a dramatist at last without feeling that his imagination

must be held back like a restive horse lest the decorum of human speech

be violated.

* * * * *

_Arden of Feversham_ (? 1590-2), by its persistent but almost certainly

mistaken association with Shakespeare's name, has received a wider fame

than some better plays. Into the question of its authorship, however, we

need not enter. Of itself it has qualities that call for reference in

this place. Its early date, also, brings it within the sphere of our

discussion of the growth of English drama.

Far more than any play of Kyd's, this drama, though it has no ghost and

slays but one man on the stage, merits the title of a Tragedy of Blood.

Murder is the theme, murder and adulterous love, and it is 'kill! kill!

kill!' all the time. From the pages of Holinshed the writer carefully

gathered up every horrible detail, every dreadful revelation concerning

a brutal crime which had horrified England forty years before; and

while the red and reeking abomination was still hot in his mind, sat

down to the awful task of re-enacting it. The victim was summoned from

his grave, the murderers from the gallows, the woman from the charred

stake at Canterbury, to glut the appetite of a shuddering audience. Too

revolting to be described in detail, the plot sets forth the story of

Alice Arden's illicit love for Mosbie, her determination to win liberty

by the murder of her husband, the many unsuccessful attempts to bring

about that end, and the final act which brought death upon them all.

The art of sensationalism in drama, as in anything else, is not a great

one; it is not to be measured by its effect upon the mind, for the

crudest appeal to our instinctive dread of death will often suffice to

hold our attention spellbound. It deals in uncertainty, darkness,

unsuspecting innocence, hair-breadth escapes, and an ever-impending but

still delayed ruin. None of these are wanting to this play; in this

respect the dramatist was fortunate in his subject. No less than seven

times the spectator--for the effect upon the reader is naturally much

less--feels his nerves tingle, his pulse beat faster, as he waits in

instant expectation of seeing murder committed. The realism of everyday

scenery, the street, the high road, the ferry, the inn, the breakfast

room, cry out with telling emphasis that it is fact, hard deadly fact,

which is being shown, not the idle invention of an overheated brain. But

while these features impress the action upon our memory, they do not

raise it to the level of great drama. For this the supreme requirement

is truth to human nature. It is not enough that the actors arrest our

attention by their appearance, their speeches and their deeds. Freaks

and lunatics might do that. They must be human as we are, moved by

impulses common, in some degree, to us all. Generally speaking,

abnormality is weakness. It needs to be strongly built upon a foundation

of natural qualities to achieve success. Especially is this so when the

surrounding conditions are such as belong to ordinary existence. The

application of this principle reveals the essential weakness of _Arden

of Feversham_. Carefully, almost minutely, the details of everyday life

are gathered together. The merchant sees to the unloading of his goods

at the quay, the boatman urges his ferry to and fro, the apprentice

takes down his shutters, the groom makes love to the serving-maid,

travellers meeting on the road halt for a chat and part with no more

serious word spoken than a hearty invitation to dine; on all sides life

is seen flowing in the ordinary current, with nothing worse than a piece

of malicious tittle-tattle to disturb the calmness of the surface. Into

this setting the author places as monstrous a group of villains as ever

walked the earth. Black Will and Shakbag belong to the darkest cesspool

of London iniquity. Clarke the Painter has no individuality beyond a

readiness to poison all and sundry for a reward. Michael would be a

murderer were he not a coward. Greene is a revengeful sleuth-hound,

tracking his victim down relentlessly from place to place. Arden is a

miser in business, and a weak, gullible fool at home, alternately raging

with jealous suspicion, and fawning with fatuous trustfulness upon the

man who is wronging him. Mosbie is a cold-blooded, underhand villain

whose pious resolutions and protestations of love could only deceive

those blinded by fate, and whose preference for crooked, left-handed

methods is in tune with his vile intention of murdering the woman who

loves him. Alice, the representative of womankind among these beast-men,

the wife, the passionately loving mistress, is an arch-deceiver, an

absolutely brazen liar and murderess, unblushing and tireless in

soliciting the affection of a man who hardly cares for her, desperately

enamoured. Alone in the group Franklin is endowed with the ordinary

human revulsion from folly and wickedness, but his character is sketched

too lightly to relieve the darkness. Such creatures may fascinate us by

their defiance of the laws that bind us. Alice, particularly, does so.

She possesses--as Michael does, to a less degree--at least a few natural

traits; her conscience is not quite dead, and her love is strong,

although even this is represented as a huge deformity, driving her to

the negation of that womanhood to which it should belong. Single scenes,

too, if seen or read in isolation from the main body of the play, have a

certain individual strength, giving us glimpses of the workings of a

human heart. But the play as a whole offers no inspiration, presents no

aspects of beauty, holds up no mirror to ourselves. One lesson it

teaches, that happiness cannot be won by crime. Alice and Mosbie are

never permitted to escape from the consequences of their sin, in the

form of anxiety, suspicion, remorse, fear, mutual recrimination, and

death. But, throughout, the dramatist's purpose is not art. He is the

apostle of realism, coarsened by a love of the horrible and unclean. The

power of his realism is undeniable. His two protagonists are line for

line portraits of the beings they are intended to represent. The

silhouettes of Black Will and Shakbag are almost as perfect. It is when

we compare _Arden of Feversham_ with _Macbeth_ that we realize how the

meanness of the action and the comparative absence of morality outweigh

any accuracy of detail, degrading the dramatist to the level of a mere

purveyor of excitement. The truth is, even the interest palls, for there

is no skill displayed in the evolution of the plot. The story is merely

unrolled in a series of murderous attempts which agitate us less and

less as they are repeated, until, at the end, we are in danger of not

caring whether Arden is killed or not.

Among the eccentricities of this anonymous author's misdirected ability

is the disregard of appropriateness in the allocation of speeches to the

various characters. He is a poet; we can hardly believe that his work

would otherwise have survived the acting of it. Yet, as has been

frequently pointed out, one of the most delicate passages in the play is

spoken by the detestable ruffian, Shakbag, while Mosbie and even Michael

soliloquize in language of poetic imagery. In his handling of blank

verse he has not travelled beyond the limits of end-stopt lines, and too

often he gives it the false balance of unrhymed couplets; nevertheless

much that is vigorous and impressive forces the rhythm into a firm and

brisk response. The art of conversation in verse has advanced to

complete mastery. These features will be seen in the following extracts.

(1)

[MOSBIE _regretfully compares his past and present states._]

Disturbed thoughts drives me from company

And dries my marrow with their watchfulness;

Continual trouble of my moody brain

Feebles my body by excess of drink,

And nips me as the bitter North-east wind

Doth check the tender blossoms in the spring.

Well fares the man, howe'er his cates do taste,

That tables not with foul suspicion;

And he but pines amongst his delicates,

Whose troubled mind is stuffed with discontent.

My golden time was when I had no gold;

Though then I wanted, yet I slept secure;

My daily toil begat me night's repose,

My night's repose made daylight fresh to me.

But since I climbed the top bough of the tree

And sought to build my nest among the clouds,

Each gentle starry gale doth shake my bed,

And makes me dread my downfall to the earth.

But whither doth contemplation carry me?

The way I seek to find, where pleasure dwells,

Is hedged behind me that I cannot back,

But needs must on, although to danger's gate.

Then, Arden, perish thou by that decree.

(2)

[_The last arrangements have been made for the murder and only_

ARDEN _is awaited._]

_Will._ Give me the key: which is the counting house?

_Alice._ Here would I stay and still encourage you,

But that I know how resolute you are.

_Shakbag._ Tush, you are too faint-hearted; we must do it.

_Alice._ But Mosbie will be there, whose very looks

Will add unwonted courage to my thought,

And make me the first that shall adventure on him.

_Will._ Tush, get you gone; 'tis we must do the deed.

When this door opens next, look for his death.

[_Exeunt_ WILL _and_ SHAKBAG.]

_Alice._ Ah, would he now were here that it might open!

I shall no more be closed in Arden's arms,

That like the snakes of black Tisiphone

Sting me with their embracings: Mosbie's arms

Shall compass me; and, were I made a star,

I would have none other spheres but those.

There is no nectar but in Mosbie's lips!

Had chaste Diana kissed him, she, like me,

Would grow love sick, and from her watery bower

Fling down Endymion and snatch him up:

Then blame not me that slay a silly man

Not half so lovely as Endymion.

[_Here enters_ MICHAEL.]

_Michael._ Mistress, my master is coming hard by.

_Alice._ Who comes with him?

_Michael._ Nobody but Mosbie.

_Alice._ That's well, Michael. Fetch in the tables,

And when thou has done, stand before the counting-house

door.

_Michael._ Why so?

_Alice._ Black Will is locked within to do the deed.

_Michael._ What? shall he die to-night?

_Alice._ Ay, Michael.

_Michael._ But shall not Susan know it?

_Alice._ Yes, for she'll be as secret as ourselves.

_Michael._ That's brave. I'll go fetch the tables.

_Alice._ But, Michael, hark to me a word or two:

When my husband is come in, lock the street door;

He shall be murdered or[68] the guests come in.

_Arden of Feversham_ is a play which cannot be passed over unnoticed in

any historical treatment of the drama. For it opened up a new and rich

field to writers of tragedies by its selection of characters from the

ordinary paths of life to reveal the passions of the human heart. Kyd

and Marlowe had sought for subjects in the little known world of kings'

courts or the still less familiar regions of immeasurable wealth and

power. This other writer found what he wanted in his neighbour's house.

His most direct disciples are the authors (uncertain) of _A Yorkshire

Tragedy_ and _A Warning for Fair Women_, but his influence may be traced

in the work of many well-known later dramatists. On the other hand the

play marks a retreat from the standard set by previous tragedies. In its

deliberate use of horror for horror's sake it fell away--dragging others

after it--from the conception of drama as a noble instrument in the

instruction and elevation of the people.

[Footnote 63: fetched.]

[Footnote 64: _History of English Poetry_, ii. p. 424.]

[Footnote 65: whipstock.]

[Footnote 66: rule.]

[Footnote 67: _English Dramatic Literature_, i, p. 188.]

[Footnote 68: before.]

APPENDIX

THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE

A word remains to be added with regard to the 'Stage' for which Lyly and

Marlowe wrote. When we took leave of the Miracle Plays we left them with

a movable 'pageant', open-air performances, and a large body of

carefully trained actors, who, however, normally followed a trade, only

turning aside to the task of rehearsing when the annual festival drew

near. The whole business of dramatic representation was in the hands of

public bodies--the Mayor and Corporation, if the town could boast of

such. Later years saw the appearance of the professional actor, by more

humble designation termed a strolling player. Many small companies--four

or five men and perhaps a couple of boys--came into existence, wandering

over England to win the pence and applause guaranteed by the immense

popularity of their entertainments. But the official eye learnt to look

upon them with suspicion, and it was not long before they fell under

condemnation as vagrants. In 1572 all but licensed companies were

brought within the scope of the vagrancy laws. Those exempt were the few

fortunate ones who had secured the patronage of a nobleman, and, greedy

of monopoly, had pressed, successfully, for this prohibitory decree

against their irregular rivals. From this date onwards we read only of

such companies as the Queen's Company, the Earl of Leicester's Company,

the Chamberlain's Company and the Admiral's Company. Yet while their

duties would primarily be concerned with the amusement of their

patrons, they found many occasions to offer their services elsewhere.

Travelling companies, therefore, still continued to carry into every

part of England the delights of play-acting. It is a pleasing conjecture

that the genius of the boy, Shakespeare, was first quickened by seeing a

performance in his native town.

We have said that a few men and one or two boys would suffice for a

company. The boys, of course, were to take the female parts, as

women-actors were not seen on the stage until some time after

Shakespeare's death, and only came into general favour after the

Restoration. Although some plays included a large number of characters,

the author was generally careful so to arrange their exits and entrances

that not more than four or five were required on the stage at one time.

Thus, in the list of dramatis personae for _Like Will to Like_ the

twelve characters are distributed amongst five actors: four actors are

shown to be sufficient for the eleven characters of _New Custom_; and

the thirty-eight characters of _Cambyses_ are grouped to fit eight

players.

When on tour a company began its stay in any town with a visit to the

mayor (or his equivalent), before whom a first performance was given.

His approval secured for the company a fee and the right of acting. Thus

the practice of public control over the Guild 'Miracles' was extended to

these independent performances in the form of a mayoral censorship. This

control, in London, was placed in the hands of the Court Master of the

Revels, who thereby became the State dramatic censor with power to

prohibit the performance of any play that offended his taste.

In addition to these companies of men there were, in and near London,

companies of boys carefully trained to act. At the public schools of

Eton and Westminster histrionics was included amongst the subjects

taught. The singing school at St. Paul's studied the art with equal

industry. Most famous of all, the choir boys of the royal chapel took

rank as expert performers. It was doubtless for Eton, Westminster,

Merchant Taylors' and other schools that such plays as _The Disobedient

Child_ and _The Marriage of Wit and Science_ were written. It was, we

may remember, the head-master of Eton who wrote _Ralph Roister Doister_.

Lyly's plays, acted at Court, were all performed either by 'the children

of Paul's' or 'Her Majesty's children'. This may partly account for the

great number and prominence of his female characters as compared with

those found in the comedies of Greene and Peele; it will also suggest a

reason for his liberal introduction of songs.

Court performances, however, were also given by young men of rank for

amusement or to honour the queen. _Gorboduc_ was presented before

Elizabeth by 'the gentlemen of the Inner Temple'. 'The Gentlemen of

Gray's Inn' performed _The Misfortunes of Arthur_ at the Court at

Greenwich; Francis Bacon was one of the actors. In the latter part of

the reign the queen's own 'company' consisted of the best London

professional actors, and these were summoned every Christmas to

entertain Her Majesty with the latest plays. At Oxford and Cambridge

many plays were staged, the preference for some time apparently lying

with classical representation in the original tongue.

On these Court and University performances large sums of money were

spent. It may be assumed therefore that considerable attention was paid

to the mounting and staging of a play. Possibly painted scenery and even

the luxury of a completely curtained-off stage were provided. Every

advantageous adjunct to the dramatist's art known in that day would be

at the service of Lyly. But it was otherwise with Marlowe and those who

wrote for the public stage. It is this last which we must consider.

In Exeter at least, and possibly in other towns, a playhouse was built

long before such a thing was known in the vicinity of London. We shall

probably be right, however, in judging the major portion of the country

by its metropolis and assuming that, until 1572 or thereabouts, actors

and audiences had to manage without buildings specially designed for

their purpose. Very probably the old 'pageants' (or 'pagonds') were

refurbished and brought to light when the need arose; and in this case

the actors would have the spectators in a circle around them. Inn-yards,

however--those of that day were constructed with galleries along three

sides--proved to be more convenient for the audience, inasmuch as the

galleries provided comfortable seats above the rabble for those who

cared to pay for them. The stage was then erected either in the midst or

at the fourth side, projecting out into the yard. In such surroundings

the popular Morality-Interludes and Interludes proper were performed.

In the midst of the wide popularity of the drama arose Puritanism, full

of condemnation. Keeping our attention upon London as the centre of

things, we see this new enemy waging a fierce battle with the supporters

of the stage. The latter included the Queen and her Privy Council; the

former found spokesmen in the mayor and City Fathers. Between Privy

Council and Corporation there could be no compromise, for the

Corporation insisted that within its jurisdiction dramatic performances

should be entirely suppressed. The yearly outbreaks of the plague, with

its weekly death-roll of thirty, forty, fifty, periodically compelled

the summer performances to cease, and lent themselves as a powerful

argument against packed gatherings of dirty and clean, infected and

uninfected, together. At last one of the leading companies, fearing that

time would bring victory to the Puritans and to themselves extinction,

decided to solve the difficulty by migration beyond the jurisdiction of

the mayor. Accordingly, about the year 1572, 'The Theatre' was built

outside the city boundary and occupied by Leicester's company. Not long

afterwards other companies followed suit, and 'The Curtains' and

'Newington Butts' were erected. After that many other theatres rose. In

1599 was built the famous Globe Theatre in which most of Shakespeare's

plays were represented. But the three earlier theatres (and perhaps 'The

Rose') were probably all that Marlowe ever knew.

What we know of the Elizabethan theatre is based on information

concerning the Globe, Fortune and Swan Theatres. From this a certain

clear conception--not agreed upon, however, in all points by

critics--may be deduced with regard to the earlier ones. They were round

or hexagonal in shape. The stage was placed with its back to the wall

and projected well into the centre. The spectators were gathered about

its three sides, the poor folk standing in the area and crushing right

up to it, the rich folk occupying seats in the galleries that formed the

horse-shoe round the area. A roof covered the galleries but not the rest

of the building--the first completely roofed theatre was probably not

built before 1596. Performances took place between two and five o'clock

in the afternoon. The title of the piece was posted outside; a flag

flying from a turret informed playgoers in the city that a performance

was about to take place, and the sound of a trumpet announced the

commencement of the play. An orchestra was in attendance, not so much to

enliven the intervals--for they were few and brief--as to lend its aid

to the effect of certain scenes, in exactly the same way as it is used

to-day.

Of the stage itself little can be said positively, nor are surmises

about the Swan or Globe stage necessarily applicable to its

predecessors. But the following description will serve as a fair

conjecture. It was divided into two parts, a front and back stage,

separated by a curtain. By this device the back scene could be prepared

while the front stage was occupied, or two scenes could be presented

together, as in _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, or a second scene could

be added to the main one, as occurs when Rasni, in _A Looking-Glass for

London and England_, 'draws the curtains' and reveals Remilia struck

with lightning. There was no curtain before the front stage. At the rear

of the back stage was a fixed structure like the outside of a house with

doors and an upper balcony. The doors led into the dressing rooms, and

through them, as through the curtain if the front stage only were in

use, the exits and entrances were made. The balcony was used in many

ways familiar to us in Shakespeare's works; when, in the Second Part of

_Tamburlaine_, the Governor of Babylon enters 'upon the walls' we

recognize that he is on the balcony. A roof extended over the whole or

part of the stage to protect the actors from rain; but it was also made

use of as a hiding-place from which angels or goddesses could descend.

In _Alphonsus, King of Arragon_ Venus's exit is managed thus: 'If you

can conveniently, let a chair come down from the top of the stage and

draw her up.' The stage floor was fitted with a trap-door; through it

Queen Elinor, in _Edward the First_, disappears and re-appears; through

it 'a flame of fire' appears and 'Radagon is swallowed', in _A

Looking-Glass for London and England_.

As far as can be gathered from records, there was no great attempt to

preserve, in the actor's dresses, the local colouring of the play.

Nevertheless various easy and obviously required concessions would be

made. Kings and queens would dress magnificently, mechanics and

serving-men humbly. In _Orlando Furioso_ we read that Orlando is to

enter 'attired as a madman' and that Marsilius and Mandricard are to

appear 'like Palmers'; in _Alphonsus, King of Arragon_ 'Calchas rises up

in a white surplice and a cardinal's mitre', and in _Edward the First_

Longshanks figures 'in Friar's weeds'. The list could be continued. It

is practically certain that there was no painted scenery, the absence of

which would greatly facilitate the expeditious passage from scene to

scene. Stage properties, however, were probably a valuable part of the

theatrical belongings. If we glance over the stage-directions in the

plays of Greene, Peele, Kyd and Marlowe, we come upon such visible

objects as a throne, a bower, a bed, a table, a tomb, a litter, a cage,

a chariot, a hearse, a tree; more elaborate would be Alphonsus's canopy

with a king's head at each of three corners, Bungay's dragon shooting

fire, Remilia's 'globe seated in a ship', the 'hand from out a cloud

with a burning sword' (_A Looking-Glass_), and the Brazen Head casting

out flakes of fire (_Alphonsus_).

Considering Marlowe's plays in the light of this information we shall be

obliged to admit that they stood a good chance of having very fair

justice done to them. The points in which the staging differed from our

modern methods were in favour of greater realism. Daylight is more

truthful than foot-lights are; and if there was any poverty in the

setting, so much the more was attention centred upon the actors, who are

declared, by the authors themselves, to have attained a high level of

excellence. Fame has not yet forgotten the names of Burbage and Alleyn.

INDEX

I. AUTHORS

Aeschylus, 97, 101-2.

Ariosto, 127.

B., R., 99, 113.

Bale, Bishop, 79, 80-1.

Chapman, George, 214.

Dekker, Thomas, 241.

Drayton, Michael, 231.

Edward VI, 79.

Edwards, Richard, 115, 203, 224.

Gascoigne, George, 127.

Geoffrey, Abbot, 22.

Greene, Robert, 124, 146-67, 169, 170, 172, 173, 179, 180, 193, 221,

224, 276.

Hardy, Thomas, 30.

Heywood, John, 61, 68, 81, 82-4, 117.

Heywood, Thomas, 211.

Hilarius, 15.

Hroswitha, 10.

Hughes, Thomas, 110-15, 216, 224.

Jonson, Ben, 71, 72, 161, 198, 207.

Kyd, Thomas, 124, 193, 194, 197-221, 225, 262, 263, 269, 276.

Lodge, Thomas, 124, 148, 193, 195-7.

Lyly, John, 124-46, 148, 157, 161, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172, 173, 193,

209, 224, 270, 272, 273.

Marlowe, Christopher, 61, 107, 117, 124, 148, 167, 180, 187, 188, 193,

194, 196, 209, 216, 218, 221-63, 269, 270, 273, 276.

Marston, John, 203, 214.

Massinger, Philip, 211.

Milton, John, 107, 185.

Nash, Thomas, 124, 188-92.

Norton, Thomas, 103-10, 118, 194.

Peele, George, 124, 140, 161, 167-88, 209, 221, 230, 250, 276.

Plautus, 90, 91.

Preston, Thomas, 97-9.

Rowley, 241.

Sackville, Thomas, 103-10, 114, 118, 124, 194, 216, 224, 230.

Seneca, 96, 101, 102, 193.

Shakespeare, William, 70, 110, 115, 121, 157, 173, 181, 193, 213, 222,

223, 246, 259, 261, 263, 271, 275.

Sidney, Sir Philip, 102.

Sophocles, 109.

Stevenson, 91-5.

Still, Bishop, 91-5, 224.

Terence, 10.

Tourneur, Cyril, 203, 214.

Udall, Nicholas, 88-91, 224.

Webster, John, 203, 214.

Whetstone, George, 115.

Wilmot, Robert, 230.

II. PLAYS

_Adam_, 16-18, 45.

_Agamemnon_, 111.

_Alphonsus, King of Arragon_, 147, 149-51, 168, 180, 275, 276.

_Antonio's Revenge_, 203.

_Appius and Virginia_, 99-101, 107, 108-9, 113.

_Arden of Feversham_, 193, 214, 263-9.

_Arraignment of Paris, The_, 168, 169, 171, 173-6, 187, 224, 229, 231.

_As You Like It_, 140.

_Battle of Alcazar, The_, 170-1, 180-3.

_Cain and Abel_, 18, 25.

_Calisto and Melibaea_, 87, 90.

_Cambyses_, 97-9, 100, 103, 107, 108, 112, 113, 271.

_Campaspe_, 127, 128-32, 136, 146, 157.

_Castell of Perseverance_, 51, 53, 54, 57, 61, 66, 67, 95.

_Chester Miracle Play, The_, 23, 38.

_Christ's Passion_, 10.

_Comus_, 185.

_Cornelia_, 197, 199.

_Cornélie_, 218.

_Coventry Miracle Play, The_, 21, 23, 25-38, 42, 46, 47.

_Damon and Pythias_, 112, 115, 134, 193.

_Daniel_, 15.

_David and Bethsabe_, 170-3, 186-8.

_Devil is an Ass, The_, 71.

_Dido, Queen of Carthage_, 223, 256-62.

_Dido, The Tragedy of_, 188.

_Disciples of Emmaus, The_, 15.

_Disobedient Child, The_, 76-7, 272.

_Edward the First, The famous Chronicle History of_, 168, 169, 170, 171,

172, 173, 177-80, 250, 275, 276.

_Edward the Second_, 196, 223, 250-6, 261.

_Endymion_, 127, 132-8.

_Epiphany Plays_, 14, 15, 21.

_Euphues_, 125.

_Everyman_, 51, 55, 61.

_Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, The_, 120.

_Faustus, Doctor_, 61, 107, 117, 209, 215, 223, 227, 230, 233-42,

246, 251.

_Ferrex and Porrex, The Tragedy of_, 101-10, 111, 115, 118, 193, 209,

216, 229, 230.

_Four Elements, The_, 76.

_Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, 147, 148, 155-9, 165, 171, 189, 275.

_Gallathea_, 127, 138-44, 169, 176.

_Gammer Gurton's Needle_, 91-5, 172.

_George à Greene, The Pinner of Wakefield_, 147, 163.

_Gorboduc_, 101-10, 111, 115, 118, 193, 209, 216, 229, 230.

_Hamlet_, 213.

_Henry IV_, 181-3.

_Henry the Fifth, The Famous Victories of_, 120.

_Hick Scorner_, 61, 69, 70.

_James IV_, 147, 149, 159-63, 165, 190.

_Jeronimo_, 197, 199-204, 212, 215, 216.

_Jew of Malta, The_, 215, 223, 242-8.

_Johan Johan_, 84-6, 87, 90.

_John, The Troublesome Reign of King_, 120, 121, 122-3.

_King John_, 79.

_King Lear_, 212, 213.

_Lazarus_, 15.

_Like Will to Like_, 67-76, 118, 271.

_Locrine_, 198.

_Looking Glass for London and England, A_, 147, 151-3, 163, 195,

275, 276.

_Love's Metamorphoses_, 127.

_Macbeth_, 245, 266.

_Magi_, 15, 23, 25, 45.

_Marriage at Cana_, 9.

_Marriage of Wit and Science, The_, 77-8, 272.

_Massacre at Paris, The_, 223, 248-9, 256.

_Meretrice Babylonica, De_, 79.

_Merry Play between Johan Johan the Husband, Tyb his Wife, and Sir Jhon

the Priest, The_, 84-6, 87, 90.

_Midsummer-Night's Dream, A_, 45.

_Miles Gloriosus_, 90.

_Miracle of the Sacrament, The_, 49.

_Mirror for Magistrates, The_, 230.

_Misfortunes of Arthur, The_, 35, 110-15, 118, 124, 193, 194, 272.

_Mother Bombie_, 127, 144-5.

_Mydas_, 146.

_New Custom_, 74, 79, 80, 81, 271.

_Nice Wanton_, 76.

_Oedipus Tyrannus_, 109-10.

_Old Wives' Tale, The_, 168, 173, 183-6, 190.

_Orlando Furioso_, 147, 153-5, 276.

_Pammachius_, 79.

_Pardoner and the Friar, The_, 81-4.

_Pastores_, 14, 15, 22, 23.

_Peregrini_, 15.

_Pericles_, 103.

_Promus and Cassandra_, 115.

_Prophetae_, 15, 18.

_Prophets_, 15, 18.

_Quem Quaeritis_, 12, 13, 15, 22, 25.

_Quem Quaeritis in Praesepe, Pastores?_ 14.

_Ralph Roister Doister_, 89-91, 92, 95, 124, 172, 272.

_Resurrection_, 12, 13, 15, 22, 25.

_Romeo and Juliet_, 193.

_Saint Katharine_, 22.

_Saint Nicholas_, 15, 16, 22.

_Samson Agonistes_, 107.

_Sapho and Phao_, 127, 146.

_Second Part of Antonio and Mellida, The_, 203.

_Shepherds_, 14, 15, 22, 23.

_Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_, 140, 168, 170, 173, 176-7, 186.

_Soliman and Perseda_, 197, 198, 216, 218-21.

_Spanish Tragedy, The_, 35, 197, 198, 203, 205-18.

_Staple of News, The_, 72.

_Stella_, 15, 23, 25, 45.

_Summer's Last Will and Testament_, 188-92.

_Supposes, The_, 127.

_Suppositi, I_, 127.

_Tamburlaine_, 148, 150, 151, 154, 180, 218, 222, 223-8, 229, 230,

231-3, 237, 241, 261, 275.

_Taming of the Shrew, The_, 161.

_Tancred and Gismunda_, 115, 193, 194, 229.

_Thersites_, 90.

_Towneley Miracle Play_, 23, 39, 43.

_Tres Reges_, 15, 23, 25, 45.

_Trial of Christ, The_, 25, 35.

_Trial of Treasure, The_, 74.

_Troublesome Reign of King John, The_, 120-3.

_Twelfth Night_, 70, 86, 157.

_Wakefield Miracle Play, The_, 23, 39, 43.

_Warning to Fair Women, A_, 269.

_Wise Men Presenting Gifts to the Infant Saviour, The_, 9.

_Woman in the Moon, The_, 127.

_Wounds of Civil War, The_, 195.

_Yorkshire Tragedy, A_, 269.

III. PROMINENT CHARACTERS

Abraham, 27-9.

Adam, 17, 18, 19, 27, 34.

Adam in _A Looking Glass for London and England_, 151-3, 163, 184.

Aeneas, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262.

Alexander, 128, 129.

Alphonsus, 149, 150, 151, 168.

Andrea, 199-202, 204.

Angels, 13.

Angels, Good and Bad, 57, 61, 67, 240.

Apelles, 129, 130, 131, 140, 168.

Arden, Alice, 264, 265, 266, 268, 269.

Arran, Countess of, 159, 162, 163.

Arthur, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114.

Balthazar or Balthezar, 198, 199, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 211, 212.

Barabas, 222, 243, 247.

Barbarian in _St. Nicholas_, 15, 16.

Basilisco, 218, 219, 220-1.

Bellamira, 247, 248.

Bell'-Imperia, 199, 205, 206, 207, 211, 212.

Bombie, Mother, 145.

Cambyses, 97, 98, 99.

Campaspe, 129, 130, 131, 140.

Christ, 12, 13, 30, 33, 37.

Contemplation, 61, 64, 65, 66.

Corsites, 133, 134, 135.

Cupid, 143, 144, 257, 258.

Custance, Dame, 89, 90, 91, 93.

Cutpurse, Cuthbert, 68, 76.

Damon, 116, 117, 118, 119.

David, 186, 187, 188.

Death, 31, 197.

Delia, 183, 185.

Devil, The, 17, 18, 19, 70, 71, 73, 84, 85.

Diana, 173, 175, 176, 229.

Dido, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262.

Diogenes, 128, 129, 136, 146, 168.

Dipsas, 133, 134.

Dorothea, Queen, 159, 160, 161, 168, 171.

Edward II, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256.

Edward, Prince, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159.

Endymion, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136.

Erastus, 198.

Eve, 17, 18, 27.

Everyman, 55, 56, 58, 59, 66, 95.

Faulconbridge, 120, 121, 122.

Faustus, 209, 222, 230, 234-42.

Fellowship, 58, 59, 60.

Ferrex, 104, 105.

Freewill, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66.

Friar, 82, 83.

Gallathea, 141, 142, 143.

Genus, Humanum, 54, 55.

George, 163, 164, 165, 166.

Gloucester, 179.

Gorboduc, 104, 105.

Guise, 248, 249.

Gurton, Gammer, 92, 93, 94, 95.

Hance, 69, 70.

Hephestion, 131, 132.

Herod, 14, 20, 31, 35, 46, 117.

Hieronimo, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 217, 218.

Hodge, 92, 93, 94, 95, 126.

Humankind, 57, 67, 95.

Ida, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163.

Imagination, 62, 63, 65, 66, 71.

Isaac, 27, 28, 29, 36.

Isabella, 207, 208, 211, 216, 217.

Ithamore, 246, 247, 248.

Jeffate, 38.

Jeronimo, 199, 200, 203, 204, 205.

Jhon, Sir, 85.

Joan, 179-80.

Johan Johan, 84, 85.

Jonathas, 49, 50.

Joseph, 30, 31, 36.

Juno, 173, 175.

King John, 80, 81, 120, 123, 252.

Lacy, 155, 156, 158, 159, 168.

Lorenzo, 199, 200, 201, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212,

213, 214.

Magi, The, 14.

Mahamet, Muly, The Moor, 180, 181, 182-3.

Mak, 40, 41, 42, 51.

Margaret of Fressingfield, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 168.

Marius, 195, 196, 197.

Mary, 30, 31, 33, 36.

Mary Magdalene, 13.

Mephistophilis, 230, 233, 235, 236, 237, 239, 240, 242.

Michael, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269.

Modred, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115.

Mortimer, 249, 250, 252, 253, 254, 255.

Mosbie, 264, 265, 266, 267.

Newfangle, Nichol, 70, 72, 73, 74.

Nicholas, St., 15, 16.

Noah, 38.

Noah's Wife, 35, 38.

Oenone, 168, 174.

Orion, 191-2.

Orlando, 153, 154.

Pardoner, 82, 83, 84.

Paris, 168, 173, 174.

Perseda, 219-20.

Perseverance, 61, 64, 65, 66.

Perverse Doctrine, 79, 82.

Phillida, 141, 142, 143.

Pity, 61, 64, 66, 67.

Porrex, 104, 105.

Pythias, 116, 118, 119.

Ralph Roister Doister, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 137.

Scorner, Hick, 63, 64, 66.

Sem, 38.

Shepherds, 40, 41.

Simnel, Ralph, 157.

Soliman, 219, 220.

Summer, Will, 188, 189, 190.

Tamburlaine, 222, 226, 227, 232, 233, 234, 238, 239, 246.

Tophas, Sir, 134, 136, 137, 138, 146.

Vice, The, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 85, 89, 97, 99, 117, 177.

Virginius's Wife, 100.

Will, 77, 78.