_To the perfect gentleman, Sir Robert Townesend._
If the greatest faults may crave
Pardon, where contrition is,
Noble Sir, I needs must have
A long one for a long amiss.
If you ask me how is this,
Upon my faith I’ll tell you frankly;
You love above my means to thank ye.
Yet according to my talent,
As sour fortune loves to use me,
A poor Shepherd I have sent
In home-spun gray, for to excuse me:
And may all my hopes refuse me
But, when better comes ashore,
You shall have better, never more;
’Till when, like our desperate debtors,
Or our three-piled sweet “protesters,”
I must please you in bare letters;
And so pay my debts, like jesters.
Yet I oft have seen good feasters,
Only for to please the pallet,
Leave great meat, and chuse a sallet.
_Apologetical Preface, following these:_
_To the Reader._
If you be not reasonably assured of your knowledge in this kind of Poem,
lay down the Book; or read this, which I would wish had been the
Prologue. It is a Pastoral Tragic-Comedy; which the people seeing when
it was played, having ever had a singular gift in defining, concluded to
be a play of Country hired Shepherds, in gray cloaks, with cur-tailed
dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, sometimes killing one
another; and, missing Whitsun Ales, cream, wassail, and Morris dances,
began to be angry. In their error I would not have you fall, lest you
incur their censure.[459] Understand, therefore, a Pastoral to be--a
Representation of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, with their Actions and
Passions, which must be such as agree with their natures; at least, not
exceeding former fictions and vulgar traditions. They are not to be
adorn’d with any art, but such improper ones as nature is said to
bestow, as Singing and Poetry; or such as experience may teach them, as
the virtues of herbs and fountains; the ordinary course of the sun,
moon, and stars; and such like. But you are ever to remember Shepherds
to be such, as all the ancient poets (and modern of understanding) have
received them; that is, the Owners of Flocks, and not Hirelings.--A
Tragic-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in
respect it wants deaths (which is enough to make it no Tragedy); yet
brings some near to it (which is enough to make it no Comedy): which
must be a Representation of Familiar People, with such kind of trouble
as no life can be without; so that a God is as lawful in this, as in a
Tragedy; and mean People, as in a Comedy.--Thus much I hope will serve
to justify my Poem, and make you understand it; to teach you more for
nothing, I do not know that I am in conscience bound.