Silence in all eares bent I playnty do espie:
But if your egre lookes doo longe suche toyes to see,
As heretofore in commycall wise, were wont abroade to bee:
Your lust is lost, and all the pleasures that you sought,
Is frustrate quite of toying Playes. A soden change is wrought.
For loe, our Authors Muse, that masked in delight,
Hath forst his Penne agaynst his kinde, no more suche sportes to write.
Muse he that lust, (right worshipfull) for chaunce hath made this change,
For that to some he seemed too muche, in yonge desires to range:
In whiche, right glad to please, seyng that he did offende,
Of all he humblie pardon craues: his Pen that shall amende:
And yet (worshipfull Audience,) thus much I dare aduouche.
In Commedies, the greatest Skyll is this, rightly to touche
All thynges to the quicke: and eke to frame eche person so,
That by his common talke, you may his nature rightly knowe:
A Royster ought not preache, that were to straunge to heare,
But as from vertue he doth swerue, so ought his woordes appeare:
The olde man is sober, the yonge man rashe, the Louer triumphyng in ioyes,
The Matron graue, the Harlot wilde and full of wanton toyes.
Whiche all in one course they [in] no wise doo agree:
So correspondent to their kinde their speeches ought to bee.
Which speeches well pronounste, with action liuely framed,
If this offende the lookers on, let _Horace_ then be blamed,
Which hath our Author taught at Schole, from whom he doth not swarue,
In all suche kinde of exercise decorum to obserue,
Thus much for his defence (he sayth) as Poetes earst haue donne,
Which heretofore in Commedies the selfe same rase did ronne:
But now for to be briefe, the matter to expresse,
Which here wee shall present: is this _Damon_ and _Pithias_,
A rare ensample of Friendship true, it is no Legend lie,
But a thinge once donne in deede as Hystories doo discrie,
Whiche doone of yore in longe time past, yet present shalbe here,
Euen as it were in dooynge now, so liuely it shall appeare:
Lo here in _Siracusae_ thauncient Towne, which once the Romaines wonne,
Here _Dionysius_ Pallace, within whose Courte this thing most strange was donne,
Which matter mixt with myrth and care, a iust name to applie,
As seemes most fit wee haue it termed, a Tragicall Commedie,
Wherein talkyng of Courtly toyes, wee doo protest this flat,
Wee talke of _Dionysius_ Courte, wee meane no Court but that,
And that wee doo so meane, who wysely calleth to minde.
The time, the place, the Authours here most plainely shall it finde,
Loe this I speake for our defence, lest of others wee should be shent:
But worthy Audience, wee you pray, take thinges as they be ment,
Whose vpright Judgement wee doo craue, with heedefull eare and eye,
To here the cause, and see theffect of this newe Tragicall Commedie.
x. 1566. LEWIS WAGER.
[From Prologue to _The Life and Repentance of Marie Magdalene_
(1566). cf. ch. xxiii.]
We and other persons haue exercised l. 10.
This comely and good facultie a long season,
Which of some haue bene spitefully despised;
Wherefore, I thinke, they can alleage no reason.
Where affect ruleth, there good iudgement is geason.
They neuer learned the verse of Horace doubtles,
Nec tua laudabis studia, aut aliena reprehendes....
I maruell why they should detract our facultie: l. 24.
We haue ridden and gone many sundry waies;
Yea, we haue vsed this feate at the vniuersitie;
Yet neither wise nor learned would it dispraise: ...
Doth not our facultie learnedly extoll vertue? l. 31.
Doth it not teache, God to be praised aboue al thing?
What facultie doth vice more earnestly subdue?
Doth it not teache true obedience to the kyng?
What godly sentences to the mynde doth it bryng!
I saie, there was neuer thyng inuented,
More worth for man’s solace to be frequented.
Hipocrites that wold not haue their fautes reueled
Imagine slaunder our facultie to let;
Faine wold they haue their wickednes still concealed;
Therfore maliciously against vs they be set;
O (say they) muche money they doe get.
Truely, I say, whether you geue halfpence or pence,
Your gayne shalbe double, before you depart hence....
We desire no man in this poynt to be offended, l. 80.
In that vertues with vice we shall here introduce;
For in men and women they haue depended:
And therfore figuratiuely to speake, it is the vse.
I trust that all wise men will accept our excuse.
Of the Preface for this season here I make an ende;
In godly myrth to spend the tyme we doe intende.
xi. 1569. ANON.
[T. Warton, _History of Poetry_, iii (1781) 288 (ed. Hazlitt,
iv. 217), ascribes to this year a ‘Puritanical pamphlet without
name’, _The Children of the Chapel stript and whipt_, which he
says was ‘among Bishop Tanner’s books at Oxford’. It is not,
however, now traceable in the Bodleian. Warton’s extracts are
quoted in ch. xii, s.v. Chapel.]
xii. 1569. HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.
[From _Henry Cornelius Agrippa, of the Vanitie and uncertaintie
of Artes and Sciences_, Englished by Ja[mes] San[ford] Gent.
(1569), a translation of _De incertitudine et vanitate
scientiarium et artium atque excellentia Verbi Dei declamatio_
(1530), written in 1526 (_Opera_, ii. 1).]
‘Cap. 4. Of Poetrie’ condemns it as lying. ‘Cap. 20. Of the Science
of stage Plaiers.’ After defining the player’s art and citing the
discussion between Cicero and Roscius recorded by Macrobius (cf.
no. xliii and ch. xi) and the banishment of players by the City of
Marseilles (cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 7), Agrippa concludes, ‘And
therefore to exercise this Arte, is not onely a dishonest and wicked
occupation, but also to behold it, and therein to delite is a shameful
thinge, bicause that the delite of a wanton minde is an offence. And
to conclude, there was in times paste no name more infamous then stage
players, and moreouer, al they that had plaide an Enterlude in the
Theater, were by the lawes depriued from all honour.’ Plays are briefly
referred to in ‘Cap. 59. Of Holy daies’ and ‘Cap. 63. Of the whoorishe
Arte’.
xiii. 1574. GEOFFREY FENTON.
[From _A Forme of Christian Pollicie gathered out of French_
(1574). No single source has been traced and the treatise is
probably a compilation.]
Book iii, ch. 7. ‘Players ... corrupt good moralities by wanton shewes
and playes: they ought not to be suffred to prophane the Sabboth
day in such sportes, and much lesse to lose time on the dayes of
trauayle. All dissolute playes ought to be forbidden: All comicall and
tragicall showes of schollers in morall doctrines, and declamations
in causes made to reprooue and accuse vice and extoll vertue are very
profitable.’ _The 7 Chapter_ expands the foregoing.... ‘Great then
is the errour of the magistrate to geue sufferance to these players,
whether they bee minstrels, or enterludours who on a scaffold, babling
vaine newes to the sclander of the world, put there in scoffing the
vertues of honest men.... There often times are blowen abroade the
publike and secreete vices of men, sometimes shrowded under honourable
personage, withe infinite other offences.... How often is the maiestie
of God offended in those twoo or three howres that those playes endure,
both by wicked wordes, and blasphemye, impudent jestures, doubtful
sclaunders, unchaste songes, and also by corruption of the willes of
the players and the assistauntes. Let no man obiect heare that by these
publike plaies, many forbeare to doo euill, for feare to bee publikely
reprehended ... for it may be aunswered first, that in such disguised
plaiers geuen over to all sortes of dissolucion, is not found a wil to
do good, seeing they care for nothing lesse than vertue: secondlye that
is not the meane to correct sinne.... Heare I reprooue not the plaies
of scollers ... Ch. 6. I wish that in place of daunses at mariage, the
time were supplied with some comical or historical show of the auncient
manages of Abraham and Sara, of Isaac and Rebecca, and of the two
Tobies and theyr wiues, matters honest and tending much to edify the
assistauntes.’
xiv. 1575. GEORGE GASCOIGNE.
[Prologue to _The Glasse of Governement_ (cf. ch. xxiii).]
What man hath minde to heare a worthie Jest,
Or seekes to feede his eye with vayne delight:
That man is much unmeete to be a guest,
At such a feaste as I prepare this night.
Who list laye out some pence in such a Marte,
Bellsavage fayre were fittest for his purse,
I lyst not so to misbestowe mine arte,
I have best wares, what neede I then shewe woorse?
An Enterlude may make you laugh your fill,
_Italian_ toyes are full of pleasaunt sporte:
Playne speache to use, if wanton be your wyll,
You may be gone, wyde open standes the porte.
But if you can contented be to heare,
In true discourse howe hygh the vertuous clyme,
Howe low they fall which lyve withouten feare
Of God or man, and much mispende theyr tyme:
What ryght rewardes a trustie servaunt earnes,
What subtile snares these Sycophantes can use,
Howe soone the wise such crooked guyles discernes,
Then stay a whyle: gyve eare unto my Muse.
A Comedie, I meane for to present,
No _Terence_ phrase: his tyme and myne are twaine:
The verse that pleasde a _Romaine_ rashe intent,
Myght well offend the godly Preachers vayne.
Deformed shewes were then esteemed muche,
Reformed speeche doth now become us best,
Mens wordes muste weye and tryed be by touche
Of Gods owne worde, wherein the truth doth rest.
Content you then (my Lordes) with good intent,
Grave Citizens, you people greate and small,
To see your selves in Glasse of Governement:
Beholde rashe youth, which daungerously doth fall
On craggy rockes of sorrowes nothing softe,
When sober wittes by Vertue clymes alofte.
xv. 1577. THOMAS WHITE.
[From _A Sermon preached at Pawles Crosse on Sunday the thirde
of November 1577 in the time of the Plague_. By T. W. This was
printed, according to the colophon, by F. Coldocke on 10 Feb.
1578. There are two copies in the B.M., but one has been bound
in error with the title-page of an earlier sermon of 9 Dec.
1576, by the same author. T. W. was probably Thomas White, vicar
of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, and later founder of Sion College
and of White’s Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. The
sermon is sometimes claimed for Thomas Wilcox; but he was in
ecclesiastical disgrace in 1577 and unlikely to have access to
Paul’s Cross.]
P. 46. ‘Looke but vppon the common playes in London, and see the
multitude that flocketh to them and followeth them: beholde the
sumptuous Theatre houses, a continuall monument of Londons prodigalitie
and folly. But I vnderstande they are nowe forbidden bycause of the
plague. I like the pollicye well if it holde still, for a disease is
but bodged or patched vp that is not cured in the cause, and the cause
of plagues is sinne, if you looke to it well: and the cause of sinne
are playes: therefore the cause of plagues are playes.... Shall I
reckon vp the monstrous birds that brede in this nest? without doubt I
am ashamed, and I should surely offende your chast eares: but the olde
world is matched, and Sodome ouercome, for more horrible enormities
and swelling sins are set out by those stages, than euery man thinks
for, or some would beleeue, if I shold paint them out in their colours:
without doubt you can scantly name me a sinne, that by that sincke is
not set a gogge: theft and whoredome; pride and prodigality; villanie
and blasphemie; these three couples of helhoundes neuer cease barking
there, and bite manye, so as they are vncurable euer after, so that
many a man hath the leuder wife, and many a wife the shreuder husband
by it: and it can not otherwise be, but that whiche robbeth flatlye the
Lord of all his honor, and is directly against the whole first table of
his law, should make no bones of breache of the second also, which is
toward our neighbour only. Wherefore if thou be a father, thou losest
thy child: if thou be a maister, thou losest thy seruaunt; and thou be
what thou canst be, thou losest thy selfe that hauntest those scholes
of vice, dennes of theeues, and Theatres of all leudnesse: and if it be
not suppressed in time, it will make such a Tragedie, that London may
well mourne whyle it is London, for it is no playing time.’
xvi. 1577. JOHN NORTHBROOKE.
[From _A Treatise wherein Dicing, Dauncing, Vaine playes, or
Enterluds, with other idle pastimes, &c., commonly used on the
Sabboth day, are reproued by the Authoritie of the word of God
and auntient writers_. N.D. H. Bynneman for George Byshop.
This is doubtless the ‘booke wherein Dycinge, dauncinge, vaine
playenge and Interludes, with other idle pastimes, &c., comonlie
used on the Saboth daie are reproved’, entered for Bishop in S.
R. on 2 Dec. 1577 (Arber, ii. 321). A second edition was printed
in 1579. Northbrooke was a Gloucester minister. The book was
edited by J. P. Collier (1843, _Sh. Soc._).]
[Summary and Extracts.] The treatise is ‘made dialogue-wise’ between
Youth and Age. _Epistles_ to Sir John Yong and to The Christian
and Faithful Reader, dated respectively from Bristol and Henbury. _A
Treatise against Idlenes, Idle Pastimes, and Playes._ The greater
part deals generally with ‘ydle playes and vaine pastimes’ and their
relation to the Christian life. P. 82. Youth asks Age his opinion
of ‘playes and players, which are commonly vsed and much frequented
in most places in these dayes, especiallye here in this noble and
honourable citie of London’. Age condemns ‘stage playes and enterludes’
as ‘not tollerable, nor sufferable in any common weale, especially
where the Gospell is preached; for it is right prodigalitie, which
is opposite to liberalitie’. Considers ‘the giftes, buildings, and
maintenance of such places for players a spectacle and schoole for
all wickednesse and vice to be learned in’, and particularly applies
this to ‘those places also, whiche are made vppe and builded for such
playes and enterludes, as the Theatre and Curtaine is, and other such
lyke places.... Satan hath not a more speedie way, and fitter schoole
to work and teach his desire, to bring men and women into his snare
of concupiscence and filthie lustes of wicked whoredome, than those
places, and playes, and theatres are; and therefore necessarie that
those places, and players, shoulde be forbidden, and dissolued, and put
downe by authoritie, as the brothell houses and stewes are’. Quotes the
Fathers on the offences to chastity at theatres. P. 92. Condemns the
playing of ‘histories out of the scriptures. By the long suffering and
permitting of these vaine plays, it hath stricken such a blinde zeale
into the heartes of the people, that they shame not to say, and affirme
openly, that playes are as good as sermons, and that they learne as
much or more at a playe, than they do at God’s worde preached.... Many
can tarie at a vayne playe two or three houres, when as they will not
abide scarce one houre at a sermon.... I speake (alas! with griefe
and sorowe of heart) against those people that are so fleshlye ledde,
to see what rewarde there is giuen to such crocodiles, whiche deuoure
the pure chastitie bothe of single and maried persons, men and women,
when as in their playes you shall learne all things that appertayne to
craft, mischiefe, deceytes, and filthinesse, &c. If you will learne
howe to bee false and deceyue your husbandes, or husbandes their wyues,
howe to playe the harlottes, to obtayne one’s loue, howe to rauishe,
howe to beguyle, howe to betraye, to flatter, lye, sweare, forsweare,
how to allure to whoredome, howe to murther, howe to poyson, howe to
disobey and rebell against princes, to consume treasures prodigally,
to mooue to lustes, to ransacke and spoyle cities and townes, to
bee ydle, to blaspheme, to sing filthie songs of loue, to speake
filthily, to be prowde, howe to mocke, scoffe, and deryde any nation
... shall not you learne, then, at such enterludes howe to practise
them?... Therefore, great reason it is that women (especiallye) shoulde
absent themselues from such playes.’ Notes the _infamia_ of
_histriones_, which he translates ‘enterlude players’, and refers
to the statute of 1572. Expounds the heathen origin of plays. P. 101.
Youth admits ‘that they ought to be ouerthrowne and put downe.... Yet
I see little sayd, and lesse done vnto them; great resort there is
daily vnto them, and thereout sucke they no small aduantage’. P. 102.
‘They vse to set vp their billes vpon postes certain dayes before, to
admonishe the people to make their resort vnto their theatres, that
they may thereby be the better furnished, and the people prepared to
fill their purses with their treasures.’ P. 102. Youth concludes: ‘I
maruaile the magistrates suffer them thus to continue, and to haue
houses builded for such exercises.... I maruaile much, sithe the rulers
are not onely negligent and slowe herein to doe, but the preachers are
as dumme to speake and saye in a pulpitte against it’; and Age: ‘I
doubt not but God will so moue the hearts of magistrates, and loose
the tongue of the preachers in such godly sort (by the good deuout
prayers of the faithfull) that both with the sworde and the worde such
vnfruitfull and barren trees shall be cut downe’. P. 103. Youth then
raises the question of scholastic plays. These Age admits. ‘I thinke
it is lawefull for a schoolmaster to practise his schollers to playe
comedies, obseruing these and the like cautions: first, that those
comedies which they shall play be not mixt with anye ribaudrie and
filthie termes and wordes (which corrupt good manners). Secondly, that
it be for learning and vtterance sake, in Latine, and very seldome
in Englishe. Thirdly, that they vse not to play commonly and often,
but verye rare and seldome. Fourthlye, that they be not pranked and
decked vp in gorgious and sumptious apparell in their play. Fiftly,
that it be not made a common exercise, publickly, for profit and gaine
of money, but for learning and exercise sake. And lastly, that their
comedies be not mixte with vaine and wanton toyes of loue. These being
obserued, I iudge it tollerable for schollers.’ _An Inuectiue against
Dice-Playing_ and _A Treatise against Dauncing_.
xvii. 1578. JOHN STOCKWOOD.
[From _A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse_ on 24 Aug. 1578. A
reprint is in Harrison, iv. 329. John Stockwood was Master of
Tonbridge Grammar School.]
P. 23. ‘Wyll not a fylthye playe, wyth the blast of a Trumpette, sooner
call thyther a thousande, than an houres tolling of a Bell, bring to
the Sermon a hundred? nay euen heere in the Citie, without it be at
this place, and some other certaine ordinarie audience, where shall
you finde a reasonable company? whereas, if you resorte to the Theatre,
the Curtayne, and other places of Playes in the Citie, you shall on the
Lords day haue these places, with many other that I can not recken, so
full, as possible they can throng.’ P. 50. ‘We notwithstanding on the
Lordes daye must haue Fayers kept, must haue Beare bayting, Bulbayting
(as if it wer a thing of necessity for the Beares of Paris garden to be
bayted on the Sunnedaye) must haue baudie Enterludes.’ P. 85. Calls on
the Mayor, Sheriffs and Aldermen as ‘publike magistrates’ to keep watch
against ‘flocking and thronging to baudie playes by thousandes’ on the
Lord’s Day, and notes ‘resorting to playes in the time of sermons a
thing too manifest’. P. 133. ‘There be not many places where y^e word
is preached besides the Lords day (I woulde to God there were) yet euen
that day the better parte of it is horriblie prophaned by diuellishe
inuentions, as with Lords of Misserule, Morice dauncers, May-games,
insomuch that in some places, they shame not in y^e time of diuine
seruice, to come and daunce aboute the Church, and without to haue
men naked dauncing in nettes, which is most filthie: for the heathen
that neuer hadde further knowledge, than the lighte of nature, haue
counted it shamefull for a Player to come on the stage without a slop,
and therefore amongest Christians I hope suche beastly brutishnesse
shal not be let escape vnpunished, for whiche ende I recite it, and
can tell, if I be called, where it was committed within these fewe
weekes. What should I speake of beastlye Playes, againste which out of
this place euery man crieth out? haue we not houses of purpose built
with great charges for the maintenance of them, and that without the
liberties, as who woulde say, there, let them saye what they will say,
we will play. I know not how I might with the godly learned especially
more discommende the gorgeous Playing place erected in the fieldes,
than to terme it, as they please to haue it called, a Theatre ... I
will not here enter this disputation, whether it be vtterly vnlawfull
to haue any playes, but will onelye ioine in this issue, whether in
a Christian common wealth they be tolerable on the Lords day.... If
playing in the Theatre or any other place in London, as there are by
sixe that I know to many, be any of the Lordes wayes (which I suppose
there is none so voide of knowledge in the world wil graunt) then not
only it may, but ought to be vsed, but if it be any of the wayes of
man, it is no work for y^e Lords Sabaoth, and therfore in no respecte
tollerable on that daye.’ P. 137. ‘For reckening with the leaste, the
gaine that is reaped of eighte ordinarie places in the Citie whiche I
knowe, by playing but once a weeke (whereas many times they play twice
and somtimes thrice) it amounteth to 2000 pounds by the yeare.’
xviii. 1578. JOHN FLORIO.
[From _First Fruites_ (1578), A_{1}, an Anglo-Italian phrase
book.]
Where shal we goe?
To a playe at the Bull, or els to some other place.
Doo Comedies like you wel?
Yea sir, on holy dayes.
They please me also wel, but the preachers wyll not allowe them.
Wherefore, knowe you it:
They say, they are not good.
And wherfore are they vsed?
Because euery man delites in them.
I beleeue there is much knauerie vsed at those Comedies: what thinke you?
So beleeue I also.
xix. 1578. GEORGE WHETSTONE.
[From _Epistle_ to William Fleetwood, dated 29 July 1578,
prefixed to _Promos and Cassandra_; cf. ch. xxiii.]
... I devided the whole history into two Commedies: for that, Decorum
used, it would not be convayde in one. The effects of both, are
good and bad: vertue intermyxt with vice, unlawful desyres (yf it
were possible) queancht with chaste denyals: al needefull action (I
thinke) for publike vewe. For by the rewarde of the good, the good
are encowraged in wel doinge: and with the scowrge of the lewde, the
lewde are feared from evil attempts: mainetayning this my oppinion
with Platoes auctority. ‘Nawghtinesse commes of the corruption of
nature, and not by readinge or hearinge the lives of the good or lewde
(for such publication is necessarye), but goodnesse (sayth he) is
beawtifyed by either action.’ And to these ends Menander Plautus and
Terence, themselves many yeares since intombed, (by their Commedies)
in honour live at this daye. The auncient Romanes heald these showes
of suche prise, that they not onely allowde the publike exercise of
them, but the grave Senators themselves countenaunced the Actors with
their presence: who from these trifles wonne morallyte, as the Bee
suckes the honny from weedes. But the advised devises of auncient
Poets, discredited with the tryfels of yonge, unadvised, and rashe
witted wryters, hath brought this commendable exercise in mislike.
For at this daye, the Italian is so lascivious in his commedies, that
honest hearers are greeved at his actions: the Frenchman and Spaniarde
folowes the Italians humor: the Germaine is too holye: for he presentes
on everye common Stage, what Preachers should pronounce in Pulpets.
The Englishman in this quallitie, is most vaine, indiscreete, and
out of order: he fyrst groundes his worke, on impossibilities: then
in three howers ronnes he throwe the worlde: marryes, gets Children,
makes Children men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder monsters, and
bringeth Gods from Heaven, and fetcheth Divels from Hel. And (that
which is worst) their ground is not so unperfect, as their working
indiscreete: not waying, so the people laugh, though they laugh them
(for theyr folleys) to scorne: Manye tymes (to make mirthe) they
make a Clowne companion with a Kinge: in theyr grave Counsels, they
allow the advise of fooles: yea they use one order of speach for all
persones: a grose _Indecorum_, for a Crowe wyll yll counterfet the
Nightingales sweete voice: even so, affected Speeche doth misbecome a
Clowne. For to work a Commedie kindly, grave olde men should instruct:
yonge men should showe the imperfections of youth: Strumpets should
be lascivious: Boyes unhappy: and Clownes should be disorderly:
entermingling all these actions, in suche sorte, as the grave matter
may instruct, and the pleasant delight: for without this chaunge,
the attention would be small, and the likinge, lesse. But leave I
this rehearsall, of the use, and abuse of Commedies: least that I
check that in others, which I cannot amend in my selfe. But this I am
assured, what actions so ever passeth in this History, either merry, or
morneful: grave or lascivious; the conclusion showes the confusion of
Vice, and cherishing of Vertue....
xx. 1579. T. F.