Cu^'-''
THE
INFLUENCE OF SENECA
ON
ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY
AN ESSAY
BY
JOHN W. CUNLIFFE, D.Lit., M.A.,
Late Berkeley Fellow of the Owens College, Manchester,
1 > ; >
'. ! ' 5 » ' ^
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1893
ANASTATIC REPRINT 1907.
G.E. STE CHERT & eg., NEW YORK.
H
PREFACE. ^^
U
/J
This investigation was suggested to me while
attending Dr. AVard's English Literature Lectures at
the Owens College in the Session 1885-6; and after
going through the degree courses on which I was then
engaged, I gave the suhject such attention as was at
my command. It would prohahly have heen a long
time before I arrived at results worthy, even in my own
oi^inion, of publication, but for my appointment to
a Bishop Berkeley Fellowship at the College, which has
enabled me to give undivided attention to the inquiry
for the last two years. I have to thank Dr. Ward for
help and encouragement in addition to the original
suggestion of the subject of investigation ; indeed, I
should have liked to dedicate this little work to him as
its " only begetter," but that I hesitate to connect his
name with faults which are all my owu. I am also
under obligations to Dr. Willdns, to Mr. Elton, Lecturer
in English Literature, and to other members of the staff
of the Owens College for their kiudly interest in my
work and ready response to any appeal on questions of
scholarship in connection with a subject which has
points of contact with many branches of ancient and
modern literature.
In giving the results of the investigation, I have
endeavoured to keep as closely as possible to the main
lines of an inquiry which offers unusual temptations to
258628
IV.
digression. I may, however, be permitted to state here,
very shortly, my opinion on some of the points I have
decHned to discuss in the essay. The identity of the
Rutlior of the tragedies with Seneca the philoso})her
seems to me sufficiently estahhshed ; but the Octavia
and the Hercules Oelacm are clearly not his, and there
is something to be said against the Thebais and the
Agamemnon. As to the Shakspercan controversies referred
to, I accept Miss Jane Lee's theory as to the authorship
of Parts II and III of Henry VI, and it seems to me
not unlikely that in Richard II L Shakspere made use of
a previous play. The arguments lately brought forward
by Idi'. Sarrazin in Anglia, coupled with the recently dis-
covered fact that Kyd's father was a scrivener, convince
me that Kyd is the tragedian attacked by Nash in the
Preface to Greene's Mcn/qihon, and therefore the author of
the old Hamlet upon which Shakspere founded his immortal
tragedy. Having given considerable attention to this
famous controversy, I was tempted to add another appen-
dix dealing with Nash's allusions and the developement
of the Hamlet tragedy, but in the end I deemed it wiser
not to wander so far from the path on which I had set
out.
It remains to be added that the essay was submitted
to the examiners for the Doctorate of Literature in the
University of London, and accepted by them as a sufficient
qualification for the degree.
JOHN W. CUNLIFPE.
January, 1893.
THE INFLUENCE OF SENECA ON
ELIZABETHAN^ TRAGEDY.
The influence of Seneca (or, to speak more correctly, of
the tragedies ascribed to bini) upon the Elizabethan
drama is so plainly marked that no competent historian
of our literature could fail to notice it. The translations
of Seneca and their connection with the beginnings of
the regular drama in England have been referred to by
Warton, by Collier, and by Dr. Ward ; and Mr. J. A.
Symonds has an admirable review of the whole subject.^
Indeed, the obligations of our early dramatists to Seneca
did not escape the attention of contemporary critics.
Writing "to the Gentlemen Students of both Universi-
ties" in the preface to Greene's Menaphon (pub. 1589),
Thomas Nash inveighs in his usual lively style against ^^"'"^^ ■^'««''-
*' the seruile imitation of vain-glorious tragoedians
who (mounted on the stage of arrogance) think to out-
braue better pens with the swelling bumbast of a bragging
blanke verse." After a violent outburst of contemptuous
1 I have used the term "Elizabethan" in its broad literary meaning
rather than in the strict historical sense. It seems to me more ex-
pressive, as well as more convenient, than the cumbrous " Elizabetho-
Jacobaean," or even the less objectionable term, "pre-Restoration." The
drama was one in spirit throughout the three reigns, and exhibits only
continuous stages of developement from the first plays of Lyly and
Marlowe to the last plays of Shirley.
2 Shakspere's Predecessors in the English Drama, Chapter VI.
' c ' • ' ' ' r' •
2 The Influence of Seneca
indignation, be threatens " to leaiie these to the mercie
of their mother tonf]jne, that feed on nought hut the
crummes that fal from the translators trencher;" hut he
soon resolves to " turne back to his first text ; and talke a
little in friendship with a few of our triuiall translators."
"It is," he says, "a common practise now a dales amongst
a sort of shifting companions, that ranne through euery
arte and thriue by none, to leaue the trade of Noxierint
whereto they were borne, and busie thcmsekies with the
indeuors of Art, that could scarcelie latinize their uecke-
verse if they should hauc neede ; yet English Seneca read
by candle light yeeldes manie good sentences, as Bloid
is a begger, and so foortli : and if you intreate him fairc
in a frostie morning, he v/ill affoord you whole Hamkt:^,
I should say handfulls of tragical speaches. But 6 griefe !
tenipiis edax reriim, what's that will last alwaies ? The sea
.exhfdedby droppes willin continuance be drie, and Seneca
I let blood line by line and page by page, at kngth must
Vneedes die to our stage " The whole passage is one of
great interest as a contemporary criticism of the dramatic
models of the time, but it is too long for full quotation .
/I must content myself with drawing attention to the
reference to the translation of Seneca, which is also
mentioned by Ascham in The Scholemaster (1570), by
Arthur Hall in the preface to his Homer (1581), by
William Webbe in his Discourse of English Poetric (1586),
'\and by Francis Meres in Falladis Tamia (1598). This
ti'anslation, which held a high place in the esteem of
contemporary critics, and, according to Nash, was laid
under heavy contribution by the dramatists, merits care-
on ^lizahethan Tragedij. 3
ful examination, becanse of its close and important
connection with the subject of this essay. X
The translation of ft en ecn/s ' ' Tenn e Tva gedies ' ' ^^' }f'',l'ff^''
appeared as a whole in 1581^ but all the pla3^s composing
the volume had been previously published, with the
exception of the fragmentary Thehais. The Troas_ had
been printed in 1559, the Thiit\<ites in 1^0^ the Hercules
Furcns in 1561, all from the pen of Jasper Hey Wood ;
the Oedipus was translated by Alexander Nevvle in 1560
-*■ *■ *.
and published in 1563; the Octavia was done by Thomas
Nuce in 1562 and printed in 1566, the 3Tec1ea and
Agamemnon by John Studley q3pearing in the same year;
the Hippolijius was licensed to Henry Denham in 1556-7,
and was doubtless printed, though no copy of this edition
is known ; the Thehais was added in 1581 by Thomas
Newton, the editor of the whole^ for the sake of compltte-
ness. ..
The translation seems to have been intended, at
least in part, for dramatic representation. Nevyle, in his
preface to the- Oeilipiis, says his translation was not at
first meant for publication, "but ouely to satisfy the
instant requests of a few my familiar frends, who thought
to haue put it to the very same vse, that Seneca himselfe
in his luuention pretended : Which was by the tragicall
and Pompous showe upon Stage, to admonish all
men . . . ." The translator of the Troas seems to have
had the same end in view, as may be gathered from the
last line of the chorus at the end of Act II : —
Aud now (good Ladies) heare wluit eliall be done.
4 The Ivfluence of Seneca.
Taken as a whole the translation is generally close,
but not always correct. Difficult passages are rendered
in a literal and often meaningless way, and sometimes
slurred over or omitted altogether. Occasionally the
translator expands a familiar reflection, or inserts a few
lines of his own. Jasper Heywood added a long soliloquy
to the Thijcstes, and made in the Troas a considerable
number of alterations, which he details in the preface to
that tragedy ; his additions are affected to some extent
by the tastes of his time, but are for the most part after
the style of the original, the third Chorus in Heywood's
Troas being borrowed from the third Chorus in Seneca's
Hippolytus. There is an interesting insertion in the
speech of Phaedra on folio 73 (And sith that I ) by
Stadley, who also altered the first Chorus in the Medea
out of all semblance of translation, and added to the
Agamemnon a long speech by Eurybates. Studley also
made omissions and additions of some interest in the
Hercules Oetaeus. In Nevyle's Oedipus the first Chorus is
considerably shortened, the second is left out altogether,
and the third and fourth bear little or no resemblance to
the original. Nevyle apologises for thus " adding and
subtracting at pleasure," and in the preface to the Troas
Heywood excuses himself on the ground that the author's
mind is " in many places verye harde and doubtfull, and
the worke much corrupt by the default of euil printed
Bookes." Doubtless everyone of the translators would
be able to make with truth the avowal of the editor,
Newton, " Yet this dare I saye, I haae deliuered myne
Authors meaning with as much perspicuity, as so meane
on EHzahethan Tragedy. 5
a Scholler, out of so meane a stoare, in so smal a time,
and vpon so short a warning was well able to performe;"
and when we take into consideration the state of the text
at that day, and the youth of some of the authors (Nevyle
was only 15), the translation seems a very creditable,
and even an admirable performance. There is every
evidence that it was highly esteemed and extensively
used ; but I have been unable to confirm Nash's taunt
that playwrights ignorant of Latin found in English
Seimca, not merely "manie good sentences," but "whole
Hamlets, I should say handfulls of tragical speaches." A
large and important chapter of Shaksperean controversy
centres in this reference by Nash in 1589 to an earlier The Ea,H«r
JIaintet.
Hamlet, which is also referred to in Lodge's Wits
miserie, and the Worlds madnessc, discoveHng the Devils
incarnat of this Age (1596). One of these devils is
described as " a foule lubber, who looks as pale as
the visard of the ghost, which cried so miserally at the
theater, like an oisterwife, Hamlet reuenge." We find
from Henslowe's Dia^-y that a Hamlet had been acted at
Newiogton on June 9th, 1594, and there is also a
reference by Tucca in Dekker's Satirornastix (1602). This
earlier Hamlet doubtless formed the foundation for
Shakspere's tragedy as we have it, but the text of 1603-4
offers no confirmation for Nash's sneers, and the German
Hamlet published by Mr. Cohn does not help us. Doubt-
less in the old Hamlet, if we had it, we should be able to
discover the "good sentences" and "tragical speaches"
borrowed by the author from English Seneca; and in
many other old plays now lost we might find evidence in
6 The Infiucnce of Seneca
support of Nash's criticisms. The learned dramatists
of the Tmis of Com-t and the popular playwrights of a later
date who borrowed from Seneca seem to have gone to the
Latin text, and their version is often more accurate, as
well as more elegant, than the rendering of the pro-
fessed translators. Of course the dramatists who used
Seneca's lines without acknowledgment would not be
likely to reveal their indebtedness to the English version,
if they could avoid it ; and there can be little doubt that
the translation would be extensively used in conjunction
with the original by those who had but " small Latin,"
and w^ere glad to take advantage of what help they could
get to puzzle out Seneca's aphoristic obscurities and
far-fetched allusions. The translation must also have
had considerable effect in spreading a general knowledge
of Seneca's form, style, and manner, the character of
his subjects, and the leading ideas of his philosophical
teaching^ as contained in the trac^edies.
^5l."fl'"' The trauslation of 1581 is further remarkable as the
only complete version of Seneca's tragedies in the
Eno-lish lanouao-e. Sir Edward Sherburne in 1701
published a translation of the Medea, the Hijjpolytus, and
the Twos, and odd plays were printed by other transla-
tors ; ^ but the issue of 1581 still remains the first and
only English translation of the ten tragedies./ For many
years past, Seneca has been treated, at any rate in England,
or Seneca.
1 In the Bodleian Library there is a translation fiom the Ihrcuhs
Oetaeus by Queen Elizabeth.
"iuropean
naseence.
on EUzahethan Tragedy, 7
with a contemptuous neglect contrasting strangely with
the high esteem in which he was once held. I suppose
no one nowadays would think of upholding the judgement
of Scaliger: " Senecam nullo Graecorum male tatemf
inferiorem existinio, cultu vero ac nitore, etiam Euripide
niaiorem." Few critics would pin their faith even to the
more moderate claim of Muretus : ''Est profecto poeta
ille praeclarior et uetusti sermonis diligentior quam quidam
inepte fastidiosi suspicantur." But altogether apart from
his intrinsic merits, Seneca held such a prominent place senega and the
European Jic-
in the Eevival of Learning in Europe, and exercised such
a great influence on the developement of the modern
drama, that the study of his tragedies is of the utmost
importance. When Alberto Mussato gave new life to the
European drama at the beginning of the fourteenth cen-
tury, though his subjects were taken from modern history,
his model, both in style and metro, was Seneca. At a
later date Italian tragedy, to use the words of Klein, ^
"indeed exchanged Mussato's Latin for the vulgar tongue;
but only td again force this too into the Senecan buskin."
"With every subsequent tragedy of the sixteenth cen-\
tury," Klein says later, " with every step we fall deeper
and deeper into the savagery of the tragedy of Seneca."^/
The influence of Seneca runs through Italian tragedy from
Mussato right down to Alfieri ; and, to again quote Klein,
through Seneca "Euripidean tragedy leavened the dra-
matic poetry of every cultured nation in Europe through
all the centuries, while Aeschylus and Sophocles fed the
worms in the libraries." As to the French drama, it will
1 Geechichte des Dramas, V. 236,
[y
8 The Inpwice of Seneca
/ be enough to give the statement of Mr. G-eorge Saints-
bury^ that Seneca took captive "the whole drama of
France, from Jodelle, through Garnier and Montchrestien
and even Hardy, through Corneille and Racine and
\Voltaire, leaving his traces even on Victor Hugo." The
"Primeras Tragedias Espanoles" of Geronymo Bermudez,
published at Madrid in 1577, bear traces of Seneca's in-
fluence; and the " Nueva Idea de la Tragedia Antigua"
of Gonzalez de Salas (Madrid, 1633) contains a transla-
tion of the Troas ; but the main current of the Spanish
drama seems to have been little 'Effected by classical in-
fluence. The German dramatist Gryphius took Seneca
as his model ; and as early as 1540-3 the Scotch scholar,
Buchanan, had written in Seneca's manner a Latin
tragedy, Jephthaes, which, after being acted by the stu-
dents of Bordeaux, was printed in 1554, and became
very popular. It is commended by Ascham in The
Scholemaster, and by R. Wilmott in his preface to the
revised edition of Tancred and Gismund (1592). Latin
imitations of Seneca, as well as the original plays,
were acted at the Universities."^
1 In a Preliminary Note to Vol. III. of Dr. Grosart's Complete
Wo7-ks of Samuel Daniel.
2 Knight mentions in a note on Hamlet that in Braun's Civifates
(1575) there is a Latin memoir prefixed to a map of Cambridge, record-
ing that the fables of Seneca were performed by the students "with
elegance, magnificence, dignity of action, and propriety of voice and
countenance." Gager's Mehager, a Latin tragedy in the form of Seneca
and described by the author as " Panuiculus Hippolyto Senecae Tra-
gaediae assutus," was acted at Christ Church, Oxford, before Lord
Leicester, Sir Philip Sidney, and others in 1581, according to Mr.
Pleay's Chronicle of the English Drama, I. 236. It was printed at
Oxford in 1592, and the author or publisher apparently fixes the date
of composition at 1591.
on Elizabethan Tragedtj,
Seneca influenced English tragedy through both >;5.f/riS
ItaUau and French hteratiire. GascoisQe's Jocasta
o
(1565) is an adaptation of the Pkoenissae of Euripides,
cast into the form of Seneca, and taken from Ludovico
Dolce, the Itahan translator of Seneca, Kyd, the author
of The Spanish Tragedy, translated Garnier's Cornelia,
a close copy of Seneca's style (pub. 1594) ; and
Garnier's Antonius was done into English by the Countess
of Pembroke in 1590 and printed in 1592. But \yq need
not' seek for the influence of Seneca on the English
drama through these indirect channels. The direc t
influence w«s of much greater extent and importance.
Seneca was held in no less esteem in Endand than on
O
the Continent. Without going back to Chaucer^ and
Lydgate, it is worthy of note that in the early days of
the English Renascence, in Skelton's Garlaiuh of \
Laurell (1523), "Senek full soberly with his tragedies" i
is given a place among the most famous classical writers;
and there is an interesting reference to the Octavia in
More's Utopia (1516). Ascham indeed in The Schole- ^^o^^m-
master says : '' Sophocles and Euripides far ouermatch
our Smeca in Lutin, namely in okovofXia et Decoro,
although Senacaes elocution and verse be verie commend-
i See R. Peiper Chaucer und seine Vorhilder im Alterthum in
Jahrhb. fiir Class. Fhilologie (18G8) p. 65. Even before Chaucer's time,
Nicholas Trevet or Trivet, an English Dominican friar, shared with
Alberto Mussato the honour of revivina the study of Seneca. A
specimen of his annotations on the tragedies is given in the preface to
the edition of his Annales published by the English Historical Society,
and the complete manuscript is in the British Museum. We might go
further back still and establish a connection between Seneca and the
Au^lo-Saxon, Aldhelm.
10 The Influence of Seiieca
able for his tyme ; " but the way in which he speaks of
'' our Seneca" seems to imply that the Roman dramatist
was far more familiar to his readers. Ascham, unlike most
of his contemporaries, was " averie good Grecian " — a debt
he owed to the teaching of Sir John Cheke, whose dictum
he quotes with approval that a good student should
'' dwell " in Cicero only of the'Latin writers ; the rest he
should " passe and iorney through." Ascham himself
boldly asserts the superiority of Greek authors to those of
all other nations, ancient or modern. "Cicero onelie
excepted, and one or two moe in Latin, they be -all
patched cloutes and ragges, in comparison of faire wouen
broade cloathes. And trewelie, if there be any good in
them, it is either lerned, borowed, or stolne, from some
one of those worthie wittes of Athens." But it would be
a mistake to suppose that this was au opinion generally
held ; we shall get much nearer to the ordinary standard
of scholarship and the popular view of classical literature
webhe. in William Webbe, a Cambridge graduate and literary
critic, connected with our early drama by an introductory
letter he supplied to the revised edition of Tancred arid
Gismund (1592). In his Discourse of English Poetrie
(1586), Webbe confesses that the poets he is best acquain-
ted with are " not all nor the moste part of the auncient
Grecians, of whom I know not how many there were, but
these of the Latinists, which are of the greatest fame
and most obuious among vs." He thinks Virgil at least
equal to Homer, and asks of the Roman poets generally
in Virgil's time, "Wherein were they not comparable
with the Greekes ?' In his review of the Latin poets he
on EUzahcthan Tragsdy.
11
makes mention of Seneca, " a most excellent wryter of
Tragedies ;" and in his list of translators he has a graceful
reference to '' the laudable Authors of Seneca m English."
Even Ascham, in another passage of The Scholemaster, gives
Seneca a place alongside of Euripides and Sophocles as
models of tragedy — an example followed by Puttenham in
hkArte of English Poesic (1589). To Sidney, to Meres, and //
to Shakspere^ himself, Seneca was the model of classical |
tragedy; and it was "the famous Corduban" that the/
ambitious tragedians of Hall's Satires (1597) strove to'
excel. There is every indication that the kno^Nledo'e ol Greek Tragedy
little known.
Greek tragedy was confined to a very small circle ; trans-
lations from the Greek dramatists were unknown in this
century, Gascoigne's Jocasta being, as has already been
remarked, an Italian adaptation. The §rst genuine transla-
tion of a Greek play was apparently the Electra of Christo-
pher Wase, printed at the Hague in 1649 ; and it was not
until more than a century later that there appeared the first
complete translation of a Greek tragic poet—Erancklin's
Sophocles (1759). All the evidence is in favour of- Dr.
Campbell's statement that "English students of the
drama contented themselves with Seneca."^ The trans-
lation of 1581 was ready to hand, and in 1623-4 Thomas
Farnabie published an edition of the original with notes,^
which must have been exceedingly useful. Seneca was a
\CP
c^
1 Sidney praises Gorhoduc as " clyming to the height of Seneca
his style," Shakspere is compared by Meres to Seneca, and Polonius
says of the players in Hamlet^ " Seneca cannot bo too heavy, nor
Plautus too light" for them.
2 A Guide to Greek Tragedy, p. 309.
3 Of this issue twenty editions were published. Munro.
1'2 The Influence oj Seneca
^"Mh^or"^ "i f^'^'o^i'it^ school author, and Professor T. S. Baynes has
come to the conckision that Shakspere read the tragedies
at Stratford Grammar School.^ The afternoon lessons
of tlie boys at Rotherham School in Shaksperc's
time were *' two days in Horace, and two days in
Seneca's Tragedies; both which they translated into
English." Hoole, one of the masters at Rotherham
School, setting forth a model curriculum iu his New
Discovery, published in 1659, but ^vritten 23 years before,
and well-known previous to publication, says, "As for
Lucan, Seneca's Tragedies, Martiall, and the rest of the
finest Latin poets, you may do well to give them a taste
of each, and show them how and wherein they may
imitated and imitate tlicm, and borrow something out of them." This
borrowed from. ' *^
" imitation " and "borrowing " was a lesson well learnt
by the dramatists, as I shall have occasion to show
hereafter. Enough has already been said to show the
esteem in which Seneca was held by the Elizabethans,
and if his connection with the drama be deemed to be as
yet insufficiently established, proof may easily be found
L in the Latin quotations from Seneca embodied in the
text of many Elizabethan tragedies.^ The fact of Seneca's
influence upon the English drama being thus proved,
we may proceed to examine the general character of this
influence before w^e inquire into its exact extent.
^ See What Shakes2)eai'e learnt at School in Fraeers Magazine
for November, 1879.
2 See Appendix I.
on EUzahethan Tragcdif, 13
lu any attempt to estimate the position of Seneca ^'^'Xl!*/*'"'''''
in the developement of the modern drama, ^\e nre met
at the outset by controversies which offer inviting fields
for discussion. Who vv-as the Seneca to whom the
trasjedies are ascribed ? How many of them are
genuinely his ? "Who wrote those that are wrongly
ascribed to him ? Were the tragedies intended for repre-
sentation on the stage, or are they to be regarded as mere
rhetorical exercises, meant only for private recitation ?
These are questions which have agitated the minds of
critics and scholars for nearlv three hundred years, but
it would be a mistake to pay attention to them when
treating Seneca from the point of view of the Elizabethan
drama. The authors of the translation of 1581 were
troubled by no critical doubts or difficulties ; they had
no idea that the very title of their volume, " Seneca his
Tennc Tragedies," was open to objection. In his dedica-
tory letter Newton unhesitatingly identifies the author of
the tragedies with Seneca the philosopher ; he is evi-
dently entirely ignorant of any suggestion that the Thehais
is simply a patchwork of two fragments ; and he and his
fellow translators are equally blind to the fact that the
Octavia for chronological reasons, and the Hercules Oetaevs
for critical reasons cannot be accepted as the work of
Seneca. Nevyle takes it for granted that the Oedijms was
originally intended for " tragicall and Pompous showe .
upon Stage," and the confidence with which Jasper Heyy
wood dubs Seneca "the flowre of all writers" is almost
amusing in view of the depth of disrepute to which the
tragedies have fallen since. I have thought it best in this
14 The Influence of Seneca
^%Hnt'o/'i^iw.' essay to take the tragedies as far as possible from the
Elizabethan point of view. From this point of view it is
correct to speak of the author of the tragedies simply
as Seneca, witliout any cumbrous quahfications ;
, and I shall call the tragedies by the names given
/ to them by the Elizabethans, tliough no doubt it
would, be more correct to treat the Thehais as made
up of a fragmentary Oedipm and a fragmentary
Phoenlsae. The text quoted is the Aldine of Avantius
(1517), which has been the foundation of most subsequent
editions. Peiper and Eichter say in their preface, " Si
universum spectamus, nullum librum uel manu scriptum
uel inpressum fatendum est tarn props ad genuinam re-
eensionis uolgaris condicionem accedere quam Aldinam."
As I was not in a position to see a copy of the Aldine
edition, I have restored the readings of Avantius in the
text of Peiper and Richter published in 1867, and the
figures refer to the numbering of the lines in that edition .
f "wwi^n, It would be easy to convict Seneca of many and very
serious shortcomings; it would not be difficult to prove
that by the side of obvious defects he possesses some ex-
cellences. Klein praises the scene between Andromache
and Ulysses in the Troas as unsm-passed even by Shakspere;
a.nd Dryden says of the same passage that it *' bears the
nearest resemblance of anything in the tragedies of the
ancients to the excellent scenes of passion in Shakespeare
or in Fletcher." Leaving aside all question of intrinsic
merit, this is the first quality I wish to claim for Seneca
071 EUzahethan Tragedy. 15
— that he is the most modern of the ancients ; in the /j^
words of KJein, he " stands nearer to Shakspeare and
Calderon than to Em-ipides." Even if Greek tragedy had
stood within as easy reach of the Elizabethans as Seneca,
it may be doubted whether they would have been
able to assimilate it ; its perfectness would .not make
it any easier to imitate, and it was as far removed
from modern ideas in spirit as in form. The whole of .-
Greek tragedy is thoroughly Athenian in spirit, its con-
ceptions are all of the aucient Greek world, and its form,
its very conventions were vitally affected by- the circum-
stances that had given it birth and assisted in its develope- y
ment. Seneca is nearer to the moderns in spirit than in V
time. In his case the local c onditions which moulded
Greek tragedy were absent. His stoicism, his personal
circumstances,_and the spirit ^o f~Eis time all^helpedno
mak^ him cos mopolitan. "The age of Nero" (I quote ^- <^'''""''^'*'"'"'''
from ray notes of a lecture by Dr. Ward) "may be re-
garded as the climax of a cosmopolitan tendency in litera-
ture, which began under the Ikpublic itself, and was no
longer satisfied with what appealed only to Roman senti-
ment. There was no national life at Rome in the time
of Nero, hardly a national literature, no national drama."
Seneca is peculiarly free from local restrictions, and t o
this we may^erEaps ascribe the fact that Elizabethan
tragedy, though thrilled thr ough and through with
patriotism, deafs w ith men and ideas of univer salinteiest.
SnaFspere glorified some of his plays with a^^impassioned
spirit of healthy patriotism, but of his masterpieces it is pe-
culiarly true that they are "not of an age, but for all time,"^;
-|5>A^ "^t-
16 The Tnfliience of Seneca
s. inu-ospectiof., j^^ aiiotlier way Seneca stands nearer to the modern
drama than to Greek tragedy. "Ancient tra<]fecly"
says Dr. Campbell ^ " is stamped with a degree of
objectivity and outwardness which, on the whole, differ-
entiates its creations from those of the modern drama,
steeped as this so often is with the introspectiveness or
self-reflectiveness that pervades the modern world."
We note the beginning of the change in Euripides ; but
in Seneca it is very plainly marked. T he scene is no
longer in the open air, but within doors. The plots of
Atreus and their bloody execution, the guilty suit of
Phaedra, and the machinations of Deianira and Medea
could not take place before a temple or in the courtyard
of a palace. Seneca's arrangement of the plot in all
these cases ii^plies sec resy ^ nd concealment ; and
introspecti/eness follows as_a_mat[er_of course upon his
mode of treatment^ Sir Walter Scott says in his preface
to Dryden's Oedipus t " Though devoid of dramatic effect,
of fancy, and of genius, the Oedipus of Seneca displays
the masculine eloquence and high moral sentiment of
its author; and if it does not interest us in the sjene of
fiction, it often compels us to turn our thoughts inward,
and to study our own hearts." The remark is equally
true of the other plays. In the Thyestes Atreus j sjntro-
duc ed bro oding_Q ve^-' his own supineness in ni it_s^king
_reyenge,; and when Thyestes enters, he is lost in reflec-
tion on the subject of his own doubts and fears. Oedipus
and Jocasta in the Thebais are the subjects of the same
morbid self-analysis. The thoughts of Phaedra in love,
1 A Guide to Greek Tragedy, p. 38,
•4..-
on FAizahetlmn Tragedy.
17
of Medea in hatred, of Deianira in jealousy revolve round
one centre — themselves. In the Agamemnon Ciytemnestra
shows the same tendency to soliloquy and self-examina-
tion, her first words heing
quid segnis anime tuta consilia expetis ?
quid fluctuaris ?
We sh all find no thing in Greek tragedy so near as this
*_to the scruples of Macbeth and the self-analysis of^
Hamlet.
/
V
Seneca's introspectiveuess is chiefly due to the -i. sensatwna:
character of his themes and his mode of dealinf; with
them.) The^ sensationalism wdnch Aristotle and Aristo-
phanes remark in Euripides is, still more marked in
Seneca. His subjects are indeed taken from Greek
tragedy, but they are the most sensational he could
choose — the horrid banquet of Thyestes, the murder of
Agamemnon by his faithless wife and her paramour, the
guilty love of Phaedra, the execution of Astyanax and
Polyxena, the revenge of Medea, the slaughter of Megara
and her children, the fatal jealousy of Deianira, the
incest and parricide of Oedipus Cand the unnatural strife
of his sons.) In the Octavla, the only tragedy whose
subject is not taken from Greek mythology, the theme is
still of lust and blood. Perhaps the example of Seneca
was hardly needed to direct Elizabethan tragedy into the
same channel. Those were stirring and licentious times,
and the nation which kept Spain anl the Inquisition at
bay abroad had memories at home of the lustfulness of
/
f
ikfi j^'<"i
/- 18 The Influence of Seneca
Henry, the cruelty of Mary, and tlie intrigues of Elizabeth.
The moral atmosphere of the court did not improve in
the following reign, and it was no wonder that English
dramatists continued to treat of lawless love and
prodigious crimes ; by this time the example of Seneca
had been re-inforced by the influence of the Italian and
the Spanish drama, in which the same leaven had been
at work.
5, Rhetoncji, Scncca goes to no trouble to make his sensational
themes dramatically effective by clever construction of
plot and careful developement of character. He contents
himself with amplifying tlie horror of the tragic situa-
tions till they become disgusting, and exaggerating the
expression of passion till it becomes ridiculous. In
Hercules Furens 1291-1301 we have an example of the
style to which Nick Bottom gave the immortal title of
<' Ercles' vein '' ';—
arma nisi deiitur mihi,
aut omne Pindi thracis excidam nemus
Bacchique lucos et Cithaeronis iuga
mecum cremabo. tota cum domibus suis
domiiiisque tecta, cum deis terapla omnibus
thebana supra corpus excipiam meura
atque urbe uersa condar et si fortibus
leue pondus umeiis mocnia inmissa excident
septemque opertus non satis portis premar, •
onus omne media parte qua muudus sedet
dirimitque superos in meum uertam caput.
1 In Lingua, a play acted at one of the Universities in the reign
of Elizabeth, Tactus "cannot be otherwise persuaded but he is
Hercules Furens," a,nd beats Appetitus,Avho sets himself to " outswa;»ger
him,"
on Mlzahcthan Tragedy. 1^
This rhetorical exaggercation is hest known to us in
the school of English tragedy headed by Tamhudaine ;
br.t wc shall fin(^ that in the later Elizabethans it is not
absent. \ Shakspere uses it not infrequently, but always
in a white heat of passion that goes far towards making
hyperbole pardonable. There is a notable example in
the grave scene in Hamlet fV. 1 ad Jin.) ; and Muuro^
compares Thijestes 289-292 :—
regna nunc sperat mea.
hac spe minanti fulmen occurret Tovi,
hac spe subibit gurgitis tumidi minas
dubiumque libycae Syrtis intrabit fretum,
with the words of Hotspur in 1 Henry IV, I. 3 : — •
By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-facod moon,
Or dive mto the bottom of the deep
We have other examples in the speech of Juliet^
IV. 1 :—
0, bid mo leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower
and in The Merchant of Venice, IV. 1 ; —
You may as well go stand upon the beach.
And bid the main flood bate his usual height
Seneca was much given to these exaggerated comj2ari-_
sons^ See Hercules Farens 376-382 ; Thyestes 476 482 )
Hippo! jilifi 57 (j-5Sl; Octavia 227-231; Hercules Oetaeus
338-341 and 1586-1590.
F -I.. . ■ ■ . ■'■■ ■ — ■' ■ - - . 1 ■
1 Journal of Philology, VI. 77.
20 The Infiience of Senecd
c. Descriptive, Witliout legiilar dramatic developement by action
and character, the tragedies of Seneca are filled up with
elaborate descriptions, sententious dialogues, and reflec-
^^^^ tive diatribes. Of Seneca's descriptive passages little
need be said ; they are the forerunners of similar efforts
by the Elizabethan dramatists, who excel- Seneca as much
in descriptive power as they show moderation in the use
of it ; particular resemblances whl be pointed out here-
after. So far as space goes, narrative plays a great part
in Seneca's tragedies ; but much of it is mere padding ;
7. Refi'xtive. far morc characteristic of Seneca are the reflective pas-
sages, and the dialogue, which is highly finished in form
and often heavily weiglited with philosophic thought.
stichomythia. Stichomythia i^ very common in Seneca's tragedies, and
sometimes every line is a moral maxim or a commonplace
of philosophy. English playwrights very soon began to
imitate Seneca's briUiant performances in this respect,
and it is interesting to mark the steps of their progress.
// Gorhoduc (1561) yielda us no example, but we have
already an attempt, though not a very successful one, in
Damon and Fythias (printed in 1571, and probably acted
and pubHshed a few years before; it was licensed in 1567)
e.g. Hazlitt's Dodsley, IV. p. 56 : —
Dion. Take heed for [your] life : wordly men break promise in
many things.
PiTn. Though wordly men do so, it never haps amongst friends.
Dion. What callest thou friends? are they not men, is not
this true ?
Pith. Men they be, but such men as love one another only for
virtue.
Dion. For what virtue dost thou love this spy, this Damon ?
Pith. For that virtue which yet to you is unknown.
on Elizabethan Tragedih 21
/
The Misfortunes of Arthur (1587-8) and the revised
version of Tancred and Gismiind (pub. 1592) show a con-
siderable advance, both in quahty and quantity, many of
the Hnes being borrowed directly from Seneca. In The
Spanish Tragedy we have fairly finished stichomythia with /
greater originality. Marlowe's dialogue is not particu- /
laiiy striking, but Peele's Edtvard I gives us a remark-
able example. Mr. Bullen's edition, Scene XXL: —
LoNGSH. Why what remains for Baliol now to give ?
Baliol. Allegiance, as becomes a royal king.
LoNGSH. What league of faith where league is broken once 1
Baliol. The greater hope in them that once have fall'n.
LoNGSH. But foolish are those monarchs that do yield
A conquered realm upon submissive vows.
Shakspere has many such passages,^ of which it
will be enough to quote one, and that a short one. 21ie
Merchant of Venice, IV. 1 : —
. Bass. This no answer, thou unfeeling man,
To excuse the current of thy cruelty.
Shy. I am not bound to please thee with my answer.
Bass. Do all men kill the things they do not love ?
Shy. Hates any man the thing he would not kill ?
Bass. Every offence is not a hate at first.
Shy. What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice ?
Seneca is not content with elaborating brilliant dia-
logue in alternate lines ; he balances half, third, and
quarter lines. Thus in the Medea, 168-173 :—
1 See Ricliard III, passim, especially IV. 4 ; 1 Henri/ VI,
TV. 5 ; and 3 Ilennj VI, III. 2.
ii
The Infiuence of Seneca
NvTR. rex est timendus.
Med. rex raeus fuerat pater.
NvTR. non naetuls arma ?
Med, sint licet terra edita.
NvTii. moriere.
Med. cupio.
NvTR. profuge.
Med, paenituit fugae.
Medea f ugiam 1
NvTR. mater es,
Med. cui slin uides.
NvTR. profugere dubitas 1
Med. f ugiam, at ulciscar prius.
NvTR. uindex sequctur.
Med. forsan inueniam moras.
1/
y
Seneea'* Phil{
sophy.
Hiiglies makes obvious efforts to imitate this trick of
style in The Misfortunes of Arthur. (See Hazlitt's Dodsley,
ly. 268, 277, 283, 284, 286, 303.) We have less elabo-
rate but more successful attempts in Tancred and Gismund
(Hazlitt's Dodsley, VII. 70, 73, 88, 92,) In the_o£ening
scenes o f Hamlet Shakspere has used a like brevity w ith.
B, very differeiiLeffect. The appearance of artificiality is
-' removed by occasional irregularity, which has the sem-
blance of carelessness, but is really the outcome of the
highest art ; and to the majesty of verse, is added the
naturalness of ordinary conversation.
/ Seneca's reflective passages are by no means con-
fined to dialogue. Long speeches give him opportunity
for ^rhetorical expansion, and the Chorus occasionally
developes a philosophic theme. For the most part the
on EUzahethan Tragedy. 23
subjects of reflection are familiar commonplaces' — the
cares of empire, the fickleness of fortune, the uncertainty
of popular favour, the cruelty of war, the falsehood of
fame, the impetuosity of youth, the modesty of maiden-
hood, the evil consequences of luxury, the fatal gift of
beauty, the dangers of high j)laces and the safety of
humility, the joys of a country life and the advantages of
poverty. Similar reflections are frequent in tlie Eliza-
bethan dramatists, and I shall point out many instances
in which Seneca's form of expression is reproduced with
more or less exactness./ Shakspere deals freely in this
small coin of' philosophy, but he generally issues it new ^pf^oi-isms,
from his own mint. Aline in Cymheline, IV. 3 : — ■
Some falls are means the happier to arise
suggests a comparison with Troas 8§6-7 : — ■
hie forsitan te casus excelso magis
solio reponet.
But this may be merely a coincidence ; and the same
remark applies to most Shaksperean parallels with Seneca,
as we shall see later on. So in Julius Caesar, I. 3 : — ■
Nop stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentivie to the strength of spirit ;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
.^ Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
mehais 151-3 :—
ubique mors est. optume hoc cauit deus.
eripere uitain nemo non homini potest,
3,t nemo mortem ; mille ad hJ^nc aditus patent.
. 24 The Influence of Seneca
We have an unacknowledged translation in The Misfor-
tunes of ArtJiur, I, 3 : — -
Each-where is death ! the fates have well ordain'd,
That each man may bereave himself of life,
But none of death : death is so sure a doom,
A thousand ways do guide us to our graves.
Marston also keeps closer to Seneca's form. 1 Anto-
nio and MeUida, III. 2 : —
Each man take[sj hence life, but no man death :
He's a good fellow, and keeps open house :
A thousand thousand ways lead to his gate,
To his wide-mouthed porch, when niggard life
Hath but one little, little wicket through.
Beaumont and Fletcher tell us that to death " a
thousand doors are open." Massinger says in The Buke
of Milan, I. 3 :—
There are so many ways to let out life.
and Shirley, in Love's Cruelt]), V. 1: —
A thousand ways there are to let out life.
It is curious how some of Seneca's aphorisms do duty
again and again in the Elizabethan drama with but slight
changes of form. Seneca had written in the Agamemnon: —
per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter.
This is translated by Studley : —
The safest path to mischiefe is by mischiefe open still.
on Elizabethan Tragedy, 25
Thomas Hughes has it in Tlic Misfortunes of Arthur,
1.4:—
The safest passage is from bad to worse.
Marston in The Malcontent, V. 2 : —
Black deed only through black deed saff^ly flies.
Shakspere in Macbeth, III. 2 : — J^
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill /
Jonson in Catiline, I. 2 : —
The ills that I have done cannot be safe
But by attempting greater.
AVebster in The IT hite Devil, II. 1 :—
Small mischiefs are by greater made secure.
Lastly, in Massinger's Duke of Milan, 11. 1 Francisco
says
All my plots . ^,
Turn back upon myself ; but I am in,
And must go on : and, since I have put off
From the shore of innocence, guilt be now my pilot !
Revenge first wrouglit me ; murder's his twin brother :
One deadly sin, then, help to cure another!
In addition to a large stock of brilliant common-
places, there is in the tragedies a considerable body of
thought which is part of Seneca's philosophic faith.
The leading doctrine is that of fatalism — not the fatalism FataUm.
of Aeschylus, which is one with the will of the gods, and
makes for righteousness,^ but the absolute, hopeless __J
1 See Supplices (Paley) 1031-4 and Prometheus 526-7, ; also an
article on " Aeschylus as a Religious Teacher" in the Contemj)orary
Review for 1866, by Mr. (now Bishop) Brooke Foss Westcott, re-
published in his v^Jcent Essays in the History of Religio'as Thought in
the West,
■A/>.YV^ ^ \
26
The Influence of Seneca
/
fatalism of tbe Stoic school, which includes the gods
themselves iu its universal swa}'.
omnia certo tramite uadunt
primusque dies dedit extremum.
noa ilia deo uertisse licet
quae nexa suis currunt causis. (Oedijms 1008-1011.)
/T ^^s Nisard points out/ the Jatalism of Greek tragedy
Is religious ; that of Seneca is philosophic. In spite of
his frequent use of the traditional mythology, Seneca_is^
hned to be sceptical. On returning to his native lan(
Thyestes addresses his ancestral gods with the doubts
ful addition, '' si sunt tamen di." In spite of the ghosts
in the Troas, the Chorus treat existence after death as an
open question, and finally come to the conclusi'm
Taenara et aspero
regnum sub domino limen et obsidens
custos non facili Cerberus ostio
rumores uacui uerbaque inania
et par sollicito fabula somnio. (413-17.)
Even where Seneca accepts the traditional mythology,
he attributes to the gods that envy of human pre-eminence
which Aeschylus disowned.^ Seneca has no faith in the
righteous government of the world. The Chorus in the
Hippolytus sing .
res humanas ordine nullo
fortuna regit, spargitque manu
munera caeca, peiora fouens.
uincit sanctos dira libido,
fraus sublimi regnat in aula. (986-90.)
1 In Etudes sur l»s Poetes Latins de la Decadence.
"' Cf. Hippolytus 1132-1152 with Aeschylus Agamemnon 727-737.
>.
on Etizahethan Tragedy.
27
/ Mr. Swinburne, in an tarticle on Webster in the
''Siiutecnth Centmi/ for June, 1886, says, "Aeschylus is
above all things the poet of righteousness. * But in any
"wis^e, I say unto thee, revere thou the altar of righteous-
ness : ' this is the crowning admonition of his doctrine,
as its crowning prospect is the reconciliation or atone-
ment of the principle of retribution with the principle of
redemption, of the powers of the mystery of darkness /
with the CO -eternal forces of the spirit of wisdom, of
the lord of inspiration and of light. The doctrine of
Shakespeare, where it is not vaguer, is darker in ils
implication of injustice, in its acceptance of accident,
than the impression of the doctrine of Aeschylus. Fate,
irreversible and inscrutable, is the only force of which
we feel the impact, of which we trace the sign, in the
upshot of OtheUo or King Lear. The last step into the
darkness remained to be taken by ' the most tragic ' of
all English poets. With Shakespeare — and assuredly
not with Aeschylus — righteousness itself seems subject
and subordinate to the masterdom of fate : but fate itself,
in the tragic wor'd of Webster, seems merely the servant
or the synonym of chance." Seneca's fatalism is not
peculiar to Webster, though l^e perhaps carried it farther!
than any of his contemporaries. Fatalism of a more or
less pronounced character runs through Elizabethan
tragedy from the very beginning. When Heywood added
to the Troas (pub. 1559) a Chorus of his own composition,
though moulded on Seneca's style, this was one of the
doctrines he chose for presentation. FoUo 101 : — ^
They sit aboue, that holde our life in line,
Aud what we suffer dowue they fling from hie,
y
u^.'
/
X
29 The Influence of Seneca
No carke, no care, that euer may vntwine
The thrids, that wouen are aboue the skie.
We have tlie same note struck in Gorhuduc and The
Misfortunes of Arthur, the latter simply translating the
lines from the Oedipus quoted ahove : —
All things are rul'd in constant course : no fate
^ But is foreset : the first day leads the last.
In Tancred and Gismitnd ^ve have : —
His doom of death was dated by Jjis stars,
And who is he that may withstand his fate ?
As to Shakspere and the later Elizabethans,
abundant evidence will be given hereafter.
siokim. With Seneca's fatalism is closely connected his
Stoical indifference to the accidents of life. Thyestes
615-18:—
nemo confidat nimium secundis,
nemo desperet meliora lapsis :
miscet haec illis prohibetque Clotho
stare fortunam, rotat omne fatum.
In its full extent Seneca's Stoicism went further than
this, and taught absolute independence of circumstances.
This is effectively expressed by Medea, when, hopeless
and friendless in a hostile land, she defies despair, ex-
claiming, "Medea superest"
fortuna opes auferre non animum potest.
on Elizahethan Tragedy. 29
Ampliitryon expresses the same idea in Hercules
Fiirens 468 : —
quemcumque fortem uideris, miserum neges.
A full exposition of Stoical teaching on this point is
given hy the Chorus in the Thijestes (344-403), from which
I will quote one short extract —
rex est qui metuet nihil
rex est qui cupiet nihil,
mens regnuru bona possidet
hoc regnum sibi quisque dax-.^
Along with this indifference to the accidents of Hie c<mt«^«^t/or
comes contempt for the final accident of death, as we note
in the same Chorus : —
rex est qui posuit metus
et diri mala pectoris,
• •• •4* •••
qui tuto positus loco
infra se uidet omnia
occurritque suo libens
fato nee queritur toori.
The spirit of the last lines is breathed by all Seneca's
characters ; all show the same inyincible resolution in
face of death. Phaedra, Deianira, and Jocasta fall by
their own hands ; Astyanax and Polyxena meet death not ^^/^^X<X^
only bravely, but eagerly ; Octavia, Cassandra, Electra,
and Antigone show the same masculine constancy ; death
1 This is Peiper and Richter's reading, their arrangement of the
lines being preferable to that of the Aldine text.
/
30 The Injiuence of Seneca
is the refuge desired by Oedipus and Hercules in shame,
by Theseus and Thyestes in calamity ; even Jason and
Aegisthus, in all else cowards confessed, show a readiness
for death equal to that of the bravest and best. We find
^.^^his contempt for death again and again in the Eliza-
bethan drama, and in the villains as well as in the heroes.
We find it, too, often associated, as in Seneca, wifli
fatalism. Thus Young Mortimer in Marlowe's Edward II,
Y. 6, when sentence of death is pronounced upon him for
treason, adultery, and murder, says : —
Base Fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel
Tiiere 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 1 —
Farewell, fair queen ; weep not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world, and, as a traveller,
Goes to discover countries yet unknown.
Shakspere's villains— Eichard III, Macbeth, and
Gloster's bastard son — die with desperate fortitude, and
lago receives his condemnation in sullen silence. The
Stoical fortitude of the heroines of Elizabethan tragedy
is equally remarkable. For the present let one instance
suffice. The Winters Tide, III. 2 :—
Leon. Look for no less than death.
Her. Sir, spare your threats :
The bug which you would fright me with I seek.
W To me can life be no commodity.
Compare Troas 583-6 : —
071 Elizabethan Tragedy. 81
Andb. tuta est perire quae potest debet cupit.
Vl. magnifica uerba mors prope adniota excutit.
Andr. si uis Vlixe cogere Andromacham metu,
uitam minare : nam mori uotum est mihi.
Seneca's women are on a level with his men in cour- '^««««'«'^'""<»
age, in strength of will and mental power, whether in
arguing or planning, in initiation or in execution. But
perhaps it would be going too far to claim for Seneca
that he helped to bring about the different position
held by woman in the Eomantic drama to that she
occupied in Greek tragedy ; the advance is not merely
a literary phenomenon ; it is a change in the spirit
and customs of the age. The same is to be said of
Klein's remark that upon the Phaedra Seneca may
ground a claim to have created the modern tragedy i'^»'-f'-"ofdy.
of love, though the suggestion is not without plausibility.
Nisard says that the love of Phaedra is sensual love, that -^^^
of a prostitute ; to which it may be replied that no
presentation of Phaedra's guilty passion would make it ""^
pure or even worthy of sympathy. Euripides overcame
the difficulty by representing her passion as a divine
visitation beyond her own control ; Seneca makes little
of this, and reduces love to its merely human elements.
Here, again, Seneca comes nearer to the moderns, by
disregarding that very element of fate, which in another
way brings him into close connection with them. Though
he propounds philosophic fatalism in Chorus and dialogue,
Seneca makes little of it in his delineation of character.
His personages may utter fatalistic apothegms, and be at
times the victims of circumstances ; but in moral action
^
32
The Influence of Seneca
CoHtcietise'
tragedy.
they give every evidence of free will. . The repentance of
Thyestes, the remorse of Hercules and of Deianira, the
hesitation of Medea, the uncertainty of Clytemnestra, the
anxiety of Poppaea, and the increased moral sensitiveness
of Agamemnon — all point to what Klein descrihes as
"die Uehergangsstellung der romischen Tragodie zwischen
der Schicksalidee der Griechen imd der Gewissenstragik
des von der christhchen Bussstimmung angeregten nnd
von Shakspeare ahgeschlossenen Siihnespiels." But all
these are ingenious theories supported by very slight evi-
dence ; we must return to the solid ground of fact.
External form.
Five Acts.
\ I
\
w
The Chorus.
The most obvious way in which Seneca affected the
modern drama was in external form. From Seneca the
European drama in general, and English tragedy in
particular, received the five acts which have become the
ruleL_ofLjthe^iodern stage. In the Greek drama the
number of erreia-oSia was variable ; the division into five
acts was apparently established by Varro, and is noted
by Horace in the Ars Poetica as a rule to be strictly
observed ; ^ but it was the example of Seneca that
governed the practice of the modern stage. Seneca's
division into five acts separated by choruses is exactly-
reproduced ia our earliest tragedies— in Gorbodue, in TJie
Misfortunes of Arthur, and in Tancred and Gismund. The
usage of Seneca with respect to the Chorus is retained
in Gascoigne's Jocasta, in Kyd's Cornelia, in the Countess
1 See Prof. Wilkins' note (line 189), and 0, Ribbeck Eomische
Tragodie, p. 642.
on EUzahethan Tragedy.
33
Chorus.
of Pembroke's Antony, in Daniel's Cleopatra and Phihtas,
in JonBon's Catilw, in Lord Brooke's Alaham and
Mustapha,, and in Stirling's Monarchicke Tragedies ; but it
was ajdevice f oreign to the dramatic genius of th e English
people, and did not long keep i^s place on the populgur
stage in its original form and purpose. In The Spamsh
Tragedy Andrea and Revenge
sit down to see the mystery
And serve for Chorus in this Tragedy.
In Soliman am.d Perseda the same office is performed
by Love, Fortune, and Death. There are three choruses
in Faiisliis, two (three acts) in Peele's Daiyid and Beihsahe^
one in Homeo and Juliet, Shakspere's Uise of fhe Chorus shakspere's
in Henry V is very different fto the manner of Seneca;
whose choruses could be cutout without any injury to
the plot, and in some cases might even be transferred
from one tragedy to another without any loss of appro-
priateness. Indeed the choruses of Seneca have often no
more relation to the conduct of the plot than the lyrics with
which the Eliztbethans adorned their plays. . In Henry V
the Chorus becomes a necessary part of the action, and
at the same time gives the dramatist the opportunity of
calling upon the spectators to eke out the historic and
scenic illusion by the aid of imagination : —
Think, when we talk of horses, that you gee them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth ;
For 'tis yoar thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there ; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass : for the which supply.
Admit me Chorus to this history.
I
S4 The Liflucnce of Seneea
This Shaksperean usage is a notable advance on
classical authority, and was peculiar to the Elizabethan
stage. The Chorus was used in this way at a later date
by Fletcher and Massinger in The Prophetess; and Thomas
Heywood by this meaus eked out the imperfect action of
Jf you know not me, you know no Bodie, or TJie Tro^dles of
Queen FAizahith} Ea^nulph Higden in Middleton's Mayor
of Queenhorough, and Gower in Pericles are also much less
satisfactory figures than the Chorus in Henry V with its
Boul-stirring patriotism and magnificent verse; and while we
cannot but be thankful for a form of art of which we have
immortal examples like the chorusas of Henry V, on the
whole wo can hardly regret that the Chorus took the path
^%TFheChorm i^^^i'l^^d out for it by the developement of the drama, and
disappeared from the modern stage. Seneca's use of the
Chorus was a plain forewarning of its ultimate fate. In
the early plays of Aeschylus supreme importance is
attached to the Chorus, which was the kernel from which
the drama had sprung. In Sophocles the Chorus has
become subordinate to the dialogue. In Euripides its
connection with the action is often slight ; in Seneca thisi
connection disappears altogether ; the Chorus is already
on ils way to exclusion from the play and final disuf.e.
^the^Romn"^ Agathou had lut roduccd independent eix^oXiixa into
stage. Greek tragedy ; but the important step was taken when
the Chorus was excluded from the orchestra in the Roman
1 The Chorus is first found in the edition of 1632 ; it is not in the
editions of 1605-6,
oil EUzahi'than Tragcchj. 85
\
\
theatre, and given a place on the stage. "When this
■change was once effected, the jiresence of the Chorus was
no longer necessary to the conduct of the action. An
examination of the fragments of early Roman tragedy
shows that the Chorus sometimes stayed on the stage
throughout the action, sometimes went on and off accord-
ing to the exigencies of the plot.^ Seneca's Chonis senecx-^choms.
seems to have heen invariably absent during the progress ~
^ofjhe action. He completely set at defiance tlie admoni-
tion of Horace : —
actoris partis chorus officiumque uirile
dcfcndat, neu quid medios iutercinat actus
quod nOn proposito conducat et liaereat apte.
The wording of Hercules Fiircns 831,
dcnsa sed laeto uenit
clamore turba frontibus laurum gerens
magnique mevitas Herculis laudes cauit,
shows that the Chorus only came on the stage to fill the
pauses between the acts ; and it took no other part in
the pluy. Even where, as in the Tlu/estes, the Chorus is
one of the interlocutors, immediately after it is assumed
to be ignorant of the dialogue that has just taken place ;
and to make the passage at all reasonable, wo must
suppose that where the Chorus takes part in the action,
its office is performed by the Coryphaeus alone, and that
the other members of the Chorus are not present. Thus
it comes about that, in answer to the questions of the
1 See article by Otto Jahn in llermes II., p. 226.
86 The Influence of Seneca
Chorus (or the Coryi^haeus) the Messenger describes the
murder of the children of Thyestes, and expresses his
horror at the deed, ending his speech with the words : —
uerterit cursus licet
sibi ipse Titan obuium ducens iter
tenebrisque facinus obruat tetrum nouis
nox missa ab ottu tempore alieno grauis :
tamen uidendum est, tota patefient mala.
But immediately after the Chorus want to know the
reason of the darkness, and come to the conchision that
it must be the end of tlie world. Another suggestion to
overcome this difficulty is the division of the Chorus ;
and still another explanation of Seneca's apparent care-
lessness on this point is to be found in the theory that
the tragedies were not intended to be acted, but to be
read. But, seeing that Seneca, in the plays now regarded
as genuine, has taken the trouble to observe the rule
of the three actors, it seems rash to assume that he
committed such a glaring absurdity in the management
of the Chorus. However that may be, it is clear that the
Chorus was not supposed to be on the stage during the
progress of the action. This is proved by Hippolytus
G07-9 :—
Phae. commodes paulum precor
secretus aures. si quis est abeat comes.
Hipp, en locus ab omni liber arbitrio uacat.
even though 832-6 might lead us to an opposite conclu-
sion, for this is one of the few passages in Seneca which
seem to presume that the Chorus has some knowledge of
on Elwabethan Tragedy. 37
the course of the action. But it would be ridiculous to
suppose that Phaedra preferred her shameful suit before
the faces of a band of Athenian citizens, and that they
afterwards allowed Hippolytns to be falsely accused in
their presence when they could give direct evidence of his
innocence. Medea cannot have unfolded her deep-laid
scheme of vengeance in the ears of an unfriendly band of
Corinthians, and Atreus could not- have revealed the trap
he was laying for his brother to the Chorus which sang
immediately after : —
tandem regia nobilis
antiqui genus Inachi,
frati'um conposuit minas.
A similar conclusion may be drawn from Troas
369-379 ; in the Agamemnon, the Hercides Oetaeus, and
the Octavia there are two choruses, and the same argu-
ment holds good.
The absence of the Chorus during the progress of me " umue,-
the action lessened Seneca's hold on the so-called
*' unities " of time and place, which w'ere not arbitrary 1
rules of the Greek drama, but natural consequences of \
the continuous presence of the Chorus. It used to be the i
fashion to base the unities on the authority of the
Greek tragic poets and of Aristotle, but more recent
criticism has discovered that the unities of time and place
are by no means regularly observed in Greek tragedy,
38 The InJIiKnice of Senecct
and Seneca has been made responsible for the cumbrous
system of artificiaHties which was foisted upon the French
I classical drama. Asa matter of fact, Seneca has no more
^'espect for the unities than the Greeks. Aeschylus was
apparently ignorant of any necessity for continuity of
action ; and the observance of Sophocles and Euripides
is not without exceptions. Seneca makes some effort to
conform to the precept of Aristotle, but he is not bound
by any hard and fast line. As Lessing has shown,^ no
of lime reasonable assumption will bring the action of the
Thyestes within the limits of a single day ; and the Thchais
has a change of scene, even apart from its fragmentary
composition. The action of the Octet oia extends over at
least three days. In line 604 Nero says
quin deefcinausus proximam thalamis diem?
On the day after the marriage Poppaea recounts a
V dream she has had during the past night, an insurrection
caused by the divorce of Octavia is crushed, and Octavia
and pince. scut into cxile. The action of the Tlcmdes Octcmis begins in
Oechalia, then changes to Trachis, and ends on Mount
Oeta ; and there are journeys to and from Oechalia and
Trachis, which must have taken several days. Probably
the most obvious offences against the unities of time and
place are to be found in the plays wrongly ascribed to
Seneca ; but I have already pointed out that, for the
Elizabethans, this distinction did not exist. The first
1 Thcatralischo Bibliothek, Erstes Stuck (Lachmann) S. 321 3.
on EUzahdhan Tragedij.
89
English tragedy, Gorhoduc, begins, as in Seneca,^ by mark-
ing the fact that the action opens at daybreak : —
The silent night that bringes the quiet pawse,
From painef ull trauailes of the wearie daie,
Prolonges my carefull thoughtes, and maljes me blame
The slowe Aurore that so, for loue or shame,
Doth longe delaye to shewe her blushing face ;
And nowe the daie renewes my griefull plainte.
These h'nes are quite in Seneca's style, and might
almost be a patchwork from the openings of the Octavia
and the Oedipus. But, as in the Hercules Oetacus, no
attempt is made to bring the action within the limits of
a single day ; armies are raised, and considerable
jonrneys made in the course of the tragedy. The miracle
plays had accustomed English audiences to absence of
continuity, changes of scene, and a large number of
actors, features which were exceptional or altogether
lacking in aQcient tragedy. The Elizabetlians were
probably not aware that Seneca observed the rule of three Three Actort.
actors, for only a careful examination has revealed the
fact that the genuine plays of Seneca are arranged for
three actors, the pseudo-Senecan for four.
Another maxim of the Ars Poet lea,
ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet,
Seneca flagrantly violated. Medea kills both her children
on the stage, and as she flies through the* air in a winged
Sta<;e De:cncie».
1 See Hercules Fur-ens 123-138 ; Thyestes 120-1 ; Oedipus 1-5 ;
Agamemnon 53-6, Octavia 1-6,
40 The Lhfluence of Seneca
car flings the bodies down at their father's feet. Phaedra
and Jocasta stab themselves coram jjo'pido. In the Thycstes
the precept of Horace is, from the necessities of the case,
observed in the letter, but the Messenger's account of the
sacrifice is drawn out in such sickening detail that the
repellent effect is but slightly decreased ; the same may
be said of the death of Hippolytus. Commentators have
generally assumed that Megara and her children are slain
in view of the spectators, but Lessing and Pierrot contend
that this is a mistake. Lessing's interpretation of the
scene runs thus :*' Hercules draws his bow and pierces
one of his children with the arrow ; the second, who
clasps his father's knees with his little hands and begs
for mercy in a piteous voice, is seized in that powerful
grasp, swung round in the air, and dashed to pieces on
the ground. While Hercules is pursuing the third, who
flies for refuge to his mother, the latter is caught sight
of, and taken for Juno. Hercules slays first his, child,
and then his wife. — AH this, the reader will say, must make
a very horrible and bloody speci,ac]e. But in this place,
by the help of the Roman stage, which was constructed on
a very different plan to ours, the poet ha3 introduced
a very fine scene. As Hercules pursues his children and
his wife, and from time to time goes out of sight of the
spectators, all the murders take place behind the scenes,
where they can only be seen by the other characters on
the stage, above all by Amphitryon, who each moment
describes all he sees, and thus informs the spectators of
it in as lively a fashion as if they had seen it themselves."
Heinsius is of opinion that the murders took place in view
on EUzahethan Tragcchj. 41
of the spectators, and suggests that in this tragedy Nero
Sfitisfied his lust for blood in the same way as in the case
of the Icarus who was dashed to pieces on the stage and
bespattered the tyrant with his gore. The text seems to
bear out the view of Lessincf and Pierrot, but we mav be
sure that the Elizabethans were unaware of this ingenious
explanation, which is by no means obvious to a critical
reader, much less to the unlearned.
The early Elizabethans show much diversity in their ■^SilL'''^
observance of stasie decencies. la Gorboduc and The
Misfortunes of Arthur the deaths are reported by a Mes-
senger ; but in contemporary tragedies intended for the
pjpular stage there is no such reserve. In Kin/) Camhuses
(c. 1561) Execution smites Sisamnes in the neck with a
sword " to signify his death," and " flays him with a
false skin " upon the command of the King, "Pull his
skill over his ears." Cruelty and Murder enter "with 7^
bloody hands " to slay Smirdis, and after they have ^^
Stabbed him, " a little bladder of viuegar is pricked " to
represent his blood. In Afipius and Virginia (pr. 1575,
acted 1563) we have the stage direction, " Here tie a
handkercher about her eyes, and then strike off her head;"
but there is no suggestion as to the means whereby this
feat was accomplished without injury to the actor of the
part ; afterwards Virginius brings in Virginia's head — a
precedent in stage effect which had illustrious followers.
Appivs and Virginia and Cainhijr.es are both closely con-
nected with the moralities, and it is probable that the
/f
42
The Influence of Seneca
I
The M trade
Plays.
I
\
practice of the miracle plays had considerable influence
uprn the Enghsh stage in this respect.^ In the York,
Chester, Coventry, and Towneley Mystery Plays the
murder of Abel and the Crucifixion take place on the
stage ; in the Digby Mysteries the children of Bethlehem
are slain on the stage, and Herod dies there. Though
the authors of our first regular tragedies did not imitate
the directness of the miracle plays in the action proper,
they did not hesitate to represent deeds of violence and
TheDuwh-siwiv murder on the stage in dumb-show. In Gorhoduc and The
\ Misforiitnes of Arthur the dumb-show is allegorical ; bu
in Tancred and Oismund it is sometimes realistic enougl
Guiscard's death was represented thus: — "After Guiscard
had Idndly taken leave of them all, a strangling- cord
was fastened about his neck, and he haled forth
by them. Renuchio bewaileth it, and then, enter-
ing in, bringeth forth a standing cup of gold,
with a bloody heart reeking hot in it, and then saith,
ut sequfitur." The speech that follows is moulded on
that of the Messenger in the Thyestes. Gismunda dies
A Kotexvo7ihy on thc stage, but in this point there is a marked difference
Change. . _ .
between the manuscript of 1568 and the revised edition
of 1591. In the first version Gismunda is disposed of
very quietly, the stage direction being merely "Gismonda
\/
I
1 To the influence of the miracle plays we should perhaps also
ascribe the mixture of comedy and tragedy which is found in Ca/tyihyses
and Appius and Virginia, and which afterwards became a distinctive
mark of the romantic drama. Seneca has not the slightest hint of
comedy, not even such an approach to it as the Watchman in the
Agamemnon of Aeschylus and the Antigone of Sophocles, or the
humours of Hercules in the Alcestis of Euripides.
OH EUzahethan Tragedy. . 4B
dieth " ; her father then makes a speech foreshadowing
his own death, and goes off the stage ; the epilogue in-
forms us parenthetically that he " now himself hath
slain." In the revised edition Gismunda's death scene
is considerably enlarged, and Tancred puts out his eyes I
and kills himself on the stage. The change is a remark- ''
able one, and is probably to be ascribed to the horrors of
The Spanish Traged'y and the authority of Marlowe, which
made it the rule of the English stage to follow the practice
_of' Seneca. Sometimes the murders are presented on the
stage, sometimes they are reported by the^Messenger, a TheHesscnge
figure^appearing with decreasing importance in Greek,
Eoman, and English tragedy. Shakespere represents all
kinds of horrors coram, populo ; but he does not disdain
the use of the traditional machinery, and sometimes his
Messengers remind us of those of Seneca. Compare, for
instance, Romeo and Juliet, Y.l :—
O, pardon me for biinging these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.
with Hippolytus 1000-1 :—
o sors acerba et dura famulatus grauis,
cu)- me ad nefandos nuntium casus uocas ?
And Machcth, IV. 3 :— ^f^^^-^^
Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.
with Troas 533-5:—.
durae minister sortis hoc primum peto,
Ut ore quamis uerba dicantur raeo
. non esse credas nostra,
44 The Influence of Seneca
^'iacterf^^Y ^^^ additioii to tlie Messenger, Seneca bestowed upon
I English tragedy other stock characters — the confidential
Nurse, full of counsel and consolation ; her male counter-
l^art, the faithful Servant ; and the cruel Tyrant, with
his ambitious schemes and maxims of rule. But the
most important inheritance of English tragedy in this
The Ghost. X^espect was the Ghost. As Mr. J. A. Symonds says in
Shakspere's Predecessors, " the Ghost, imported from
Seneca into English tragedy, had a long and brilliant
career." Much could be added to what Mr. Symonds
has said on this point, but nothing could be said better.
Attention may, however, be called to the important part
i'.v«o.r7/j<!5«i)fir- played in Seneca's tragedies by supernatural agencies of
natural. n i • t t ^ • i pi
all kinds, in the mam, the use oi the supernatural was
a tradition received by Seneca from the Greeks ; but be
considerably enlarged the inheritance before he handed
it on to English tragedy. If all the dramas of Aeschylus
were extant, we might find that the author of the
Psychagogoi equalled or surpass Seneca in this respect ;
but there is an appearance of probability in the suggestion
of Dr. Campbell that in the Eumentdes Aeschylus carried the
staging of the supernatural too far for the temper of his age.
Sophocles and Euripides rely less than Aechylus upon
the use of the supernatural, and it was left for Seneca
to develope the impressive effects of supernatural
appearances and devices, and bequeath them to the
modern stage. It is seldom the gods of the upper air
whom he brings on the scene ; the atmosphere he loves
to breathe is that of the world below. In the Hercides
Furens we have a full description of all the horrors of
on HUzahcthan Tragedy. 45
Tartarus, and again and again in other plays the same
picture is drawn on a smaller canvas. Lethe, Cocytus,
Styx, Acheron, and Phlegethon are Seneca's best-loved
streams ; Tantalus, Ixion, and Sisyphus his favourite
characters. The Ghost of Tantalus, drive n jby^a Fury,
opens the Thyestes ; the Ghost of Thyestes the Agamem-
non', in the Octavia the Ghost of Agrippina appears. Laius
is called up from the shades in the Oedipus ; the Ghosts
of Achilles and Hector are seen in visions in the Troas;
and we have another ghostly dr6am--that ofPoppaea — in
the Octavia. Oedipus is terrified in the Thehais by the vision
of the murdered Laius, and Octavia's dreams are haunted
by the Ghost of Brittanicu?. Atreus and Medea invoke the
Furies to jaid them in their revenge ; and when Medea is
relenting, she is spurred on by the appearance of her
murdered brother's spirit. It would take too long to
examine the vaiious ways in which these suggestions of
Seneca were w^orked out by ihe Elizabethan dramatists ;
a well-read student could easily call to mind a score of
parallels, I will only stay to draw attention to two less
obvious comparisons. Juliet is inspired with strength to
take the sleeping-potion by a like vision to that which
appeared to Medea in her moment of weakness : —
0, look ! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier's point : stay, Tybalt, stay !
Romeo, I come ! this do I drink to thee.^ '
^ As to the form of the vision see also Octavia 123-7.
46 The Infiience of Seneca
With the invocations of Medea and Atreus compare
tliat of Lady Macbeth : —
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it !i
Besides ghosts and the Furies here invoked, two
other supernatural defaces used in Macbeth had been
previously employed by Seneca — witchcraft and oracles.
The latter we have in the OeiUpus and the Hercides Oetaeiis ;
the former in the Hercules Oetaeiis and the Medea. Klein
remarks that the ingredients contained in Medea's
'' Hexenkessel " vie in strange variety with the hotchpotch
that Macbeth 's witches throw into their caldron; and a
passage in The Tempest, V. 1 (Unes 41-60) may be com-
pared with Hercules Octaeus 4:67 -i(j6 SindMedea 755-772.
^SSr*"""^ When we remember that sensational horrors presented
on the stage, the Ghost, and the Chorus are among the
most striking features of Seneca, it seems not a little re-
markable that these very points should be selected by a con-
temporary critic as the most noteworthy characteristics of
Elizabethan tragedy. In the Induction to A Warning for
1 So 27ij/e8t€ii 249-254 ; 3{edea 13-17 and 973-4,
on ElizabetJian Tragedy. 47
Faire Women (1599) we liave the following description of
contemporary tragedy : —
How some damnxl tyrant to obtain a crown
Stabs, hangs, impoisons, smothers, cutteth throats :
And then a Chorus, too, comes howling in
And tells us of the wonting of a cat :
Then, too, a filthy whining ghost,
Lapt in some foul sheet, or a leather pilch,
Comes screaming like a pig half stick 'd,
And cries, Vindicta I — Revenge, Revenge I
With that a little rosin flasheth forth,
Like smoke out of a tobacco pipe, or a boy's squib.
Then comes in two or three [more] like to drovers.
With tailors' bodkins, stabbing one another —
The Warning fm- Faire Women, although it professess
to be only a " true and home-born tragedy," is not
altogether free from the faults criticised in the Induction.
At the opening of Act 11, Tragedy enters " with a bowl of
blood in her hand," and speaks the following lines : —
This deadly banquet is prepar'd at hand,
Where Ebon tapers are brought up from hell
To lead black Murther to this damned deed.
The ugly Screech-owl and the night-Raven,
With flaggy wings, and hideous croaking noise,
Do beat the casements of this fatal house.
Whilst I do bring my dreadful furies forth
To spread the table to this bloody feast.
The height of sensational horror is finally reached
in an execution on the stage.
Gorhoiuc
48 The Influence of Seneca
The authors of Gorhoduc, the first EngUsh tragedy,
as has been ah'eady pointed out, were guilty of no such
offence against the decencies of the stage ; and the
connection of Gorhoduc with Seneca as to external form
and the observance of the unities has also been noticed.^
Though we miss Seneca's brilhant dialogue, the resem-
blance in style is clear throughout. The long speeches
and " grave sententious precepts " are unmistakeably in
Seneca's manner,^ and sometimes Seneca seems to be
also responsible for the thought expressed. In Act II. 1
we have : —
Knowe ye that lust of kingdomes hath no la we ;
The Goddes do beare and well allowe in kinges
The thinges that they ^bhorre in rascall routes.
When kinges on sclender quarrels ron to warres,
And than in cruell and vnkindely wise,
Coramaunde theftes, rapes, murder of innocentes,
To spoile of townes & reignes of mightie realmes,
Thinke you such princes do suppose them selues
Subiect to lawes of kinde and feare of Gods.
Murders and violent theftes in priuate men
Are heynous crymes and full of foule reproche,
Yet none offence, but decked with glorious name
Of noble conquestes in the handes of kinges, ^
1 See pp. 32, 39, 41.
2 Gorhoduc is praised by Sidney in the Apologie/or Foeirie " as it
is full of stately speeches, and well sounding Phrases, clyming to the
height of Seneca his stile." Sidney's entire criticism of Gorhoduc is
interesting, but it is too long for quotation.
3 The' last four lines are differently arranged in the various
editions, but this seems to be the right order. It is the reading of the
2nd edition (the first authorised edition), which is generally the best,
on Elizahdhan Tragedy. 49
This passage appears to be an expansion of Aijamem-
non 265 and 270-3 :—
lex alia solio est alia priuato toro.
igmota tibi sunt iura regnorum haud noua.
nobis maligni iudices aequi sibi
id esse regni maximum pignus putant,
si quicquid aliis non licet, solis licet.
Compare also V. 1 :—
So giddie are the common peoples mindes,
So glad of change, more wauerynge than the sea,
with the " fliictuque magis mobile uulgus " oi Hercules,
Fwms 171 ; ai^d in the same scene,
And though they shuld match me with power of men,
Yet doubtf ull is the chaunce of battailes ioyned,
with Thebais 627-9 :—
licet omne tecum Graeciae robur trahas
licet arraa longe miles ac late explicet
for tuna belli semper ancipiti in loco est.
It would perhaps be going too far to connect the lines
in Act I. 2 : —
— Shall bridle so their force of youthfull heates,
And so restreine the rage of insolence,
Whiche most assailes the yonge and noble minds
with Troas 259 :—
iuuenile uitium est regere non posse impetum.
50 The Influence of Seneca
But it is at any rate an instance of tlie dignified
expression of commonplace thought, which is one of
Seneca's chief characteristics. In Gorhoduc, as in Seneca,
we have moralisings on the impetuosity of youth, the
danger of pride, the fixity of fate, the fickleness of fortune,
the certainty of death. The mythological allusions in
the tragedy are to the infernal company of which Seneca
is so fond — Tantalus, Ixion, and the snake-clad furies.
The Chorus at the end of Act III is entirely in Seneca's
style, and to the same source may be ascribed the rhetor-
ical exaggeration of the speech of Videna which follows.
We have also Seneca's over- elaboration and formal pre-
ciseness, of which an example may be noted in the
psdantic division of the " sortes " of the rebels in the
the speech of Eubulus, V. 2}
^Giiid"*^ In the Epistle Dedicatory to Tancred and Gismund
(acted by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple in 1568)
Wilham Wcbbe says, " The tragedy was by them most
pithily framed, and no less curiously acted in view of her
Majesty, by whom it was then as princely accepted, as
of the whole honourable audience notably applauded :
yea, and of all men generally desired, as a w^ork either
in stateliness of show, depth of conceit, or true ornaments
of poetical art, inferior to none of the best in that kind :
no, were the Eoman Seneca the censurer." He therefore
commends it •' to most men's appetites, who upon onr
» iC '■■ — — — — ' — —
1 Cf. Troas 1088-1097,
on EUzuhetlian Tragedy. 61
experience we know liighly to esteem such lofty measures
of sententiously composed tragedies." We have here,
again, therefore, a tragedy composed in Seneca's style,
and built on his model. The dialogue especially reminds
US of Seneca by its occasional brilliance, and throughout
we have echoes of his thoughts or mode of expression.
Kenuchio's part in Act V. 1 is evidently modelled on
that of the Messenger in the Thyestes. Compare the
following : —
Eenuchio, is this Balerne I see 1
Doth here King Tancred hold the awful crown ?
Is this the place where civil people be 1
Or do the savage Scythians here abound ?
quaenum ista regio est? Argos et Sparte inpios
sortita fratres et maris gemini premens
fauces Corinthos, an feris Hister f ugam
praebens Alanis, an sub aeterna niue
Hyrcana tellus, an uagi passim Scythae ?
(Thyestes Q27-S\).
Then follows in each case a long and elaborate des-
cription of the scene and the horrible details of tbe crime.
Compare especially : —
Cho. damned deed !
Ren, What, deem you this to be
All the sad news that I have to unf-old ?
Is here, think you, end of the cruelty
That I have seen I
Cho. Could any heavier woe
Be wrought to him, than do destroy him so 1
62 Th^ Influence of Seneca
Ren. What, think you this outrage did end so well ?
The horror of the fact, the greatest grief,
The massacre, the terror is to tell.
Cho. Alack ! what could be more? they threw percase
The dead body to be devour'd and torn
Of the wild beasts.
Rek. Would God it had been cast a savage prey
To beasts and birds.
Cho. o saeuum seel us.
NvN. exhorruistis 1 hactcnus non stat ncfas,
plus est.
Cho. an ultra maius aut atrocius
natura recipit 1
NvN. sceleris hunc finem putas?
gradus est.
Cho. quid ultra pot uit? obiecit feris
Icuiianda forsan. corpora atque igne arcuit.
NvN. utinam arcuisset. ne tegat functos humus,
ne soluat ignis, auibus epulandos licet
ferisque triste pabulum saeuis trahat.
{Thyestes 743-751).
/
The Misfortunes / The subJect of Thc Misfortunes of Arthur, as of
Gorhod'uc, is taken from early British history or legend ;
but the treatment is entirely after Seneca's manner.
Hughes has borrowed not lines merely (these he has
borrowed wholesale), but scenes and entire speeches.
The first act is little more than a mosaic of extracts
from Seneca, pieced together with lines of Hughes's own
invention, cast in the style of his model. Gorlois is a
ghost after Seneca's own heart, and quotes a number of
on EUzahethan Tragedy, 53
lines from the opening speech of the Ghost of Tantahis
in the Thyestcs. The influence of the same play is
strongly marked in the following scenes, hut the model
chiefly followed is now rather the Agamemnon, Guenevra
being moulded on Clytemnestra, and Mordred on
Aegisthus. Other plays of Seneca are also laid under
contribution, and Guenevra borrows sentiments from
almost all Seneca's guilty heroes and heroines. Fronia
in Scene ii, and Conan in Scene iv repeat the lines of
the Nurse in the Agamemnon, Ilippohjtus, Medea, and
Hercules OetaeuB, and the Servant in the Thyestes ; and
Conan also plays the part of Seneca in the Octavia. The
speech of the Nuntius, which opens Act II, might be
suggested by the Agamemnon, though in Seneca a storm
is described, and here it is a battle. The dialogue
between Mordred and Conan in Scene ii on kingly
rights and duties is borrowed partly from that between
Seneca and Nero in the Octavia, partly from that between
Agamemnon and Pyrrhus in the Troas, with a few lines
fiom the Thyestes, the Hippohjtus, and the Thehais. In
Scene iii there are considerable extracts from the Hercules
Fureris, Oedipus, Thyestes, Thehais, and Hippolytus. In
Scene iv Hughes breaks away at last from his model,
but not entirely, and the Chorus which follows is
altogether in Seneca's vein. Arthur's speeches in
III. 1 are considerably indebted to the reflections
of Agamemnon in Troas 267-283, and it is not
until Scene iii that the author trusts entirely to his
own powers. Arthur's speech is full of pathos and force,
and the speeches that follow are also vigorous, though
54 The InJJumce of Seneca
suffering from Seneca's fault of rhetorical exaggeration.
The last scene lias a few excerpts from Seneca, and so
lias the Chorus, but the latter is in the main origiual.
The rest of the play contains a number of borrowed lines,
but nothing like the proportion of the first two acts. The
best idea of the extent of the author's indebtedness to
Seneca will be gained from Appendix II, where it is set
ojit at length.
cictimeai Tra- ^\^q abovc traofcdles were all performed betore
^'""^' restricted audiences, though they w^re afterwards given
to the world through the printing-press. Gorhoduc formed
part of the Christm-as Festivities of the Gentlemen of the
Inner Temple in 1561, and was acted by them on Janu-
ary 18th before the Queen at Whitehall ; a piratical issue
appeared in 1565, and an authorised edition in 1571.
Tancml and Gisimind was acted before the Queen at the
Inner Temple in 1568, and printed in 1591. The Mis-
fortunes of Arthur was " presented to her Majestie by
the Gentlemen of Grayes Inne, at her Highnesse Court
in Greenewich, the twenty eighth day of Februarie in
the thirtieth yeare of her Majesties most happy
Raigne ;" it was printed in the same year (1587-8).
These three plays, together with Gascoigne's Jocastcij
are the earliest known examples of classical tragedy
ill the English language. As such, they have an
interest of their own ; but they are chiefly of im-
portance because of the influence they exercised upon
plays intended for the popular stage. Later examples
on Elizabethan Tragedy. 65
of classical tragedy did not exercise this influence,
and may be dealt with very briefly. Mr. Symonds has
shown^ that the example of Seneca moulded the Alaham
and Mustapha of Fnlke Greville, Lord Brooke, printed in
1633, but Tvritten much earlier. It would be easy to
enlarge on the indebtedness of these tragedies to Seneca;
but they may be dismissed with the remark of Mr.
Symonds that " they had no influence over the develope-
ment of the English drama, and must be regarded in the
light of ponderous literary studies." This is also true of
the four Blonarchic'ke Tragedies of William Alexander, Earl
of Stirling (printed 1603-5). In tho plays of both these
noblemen we have long passages of meditation varied by
philosophic choruses and dialogues of stichomythia.
Seneca's influence is also paramount in the Cleopatra
(1594) and Fhilotas (1605) of Samuel Daniel — works of
much greater literary value than the preceding, for Daniel
has, to use the words of Mr. Saintsbury,^ an " almost
unsurpassed faculty of ethical verse;" But Cleopatra
and Fhilotas •' stand practically alone "^ in the English
drama as studies after the manner of the French
school of Seneca, and though interesting as a literary
curiosity, they are of no great importance either on the
ground of their intrinsic literary merits, or the influence
they exercised.
1 Shakspere's Predecessors, p. 222.
2 la a Preliminary Note on the Position of Daniel's Tragedies in
English Literature, in Vol. III. of Grosart's Edition of Daniel.
3 Kyd's Cornelia (as Mr. Saintsbury points out) and the Countess
of Pembroke's Antony were merely translations.
56 The Influence of Seneca
^^^ajj."^"^*"" The iiicain stream of English tragedy was flowing in
quite other channels. Seneca's influence was felt, but
the chief motive was to please a popular audience, which
made complete submission to Seneca's authority imposs-
ible. The combination of the two impulses was difficult,
and at first the connection between the classical and the
popular drama was very slight. The '• lamentable tragedy"
carnbi/sai. of Cambyses,^ probably contemporary with Gorboduc, shews
few marks of classical influence; it is " mixed full of^
pleasant mirth," and has much in common with the
moralities ; but there is a curious prologue appealing
to the authority of Agathon and Seneca : —
The sage and witty Seneca
His words thereto did frame ;
The honest exercise of kings
Men will ensue. the same.
But contrary-wise, if that a king
Abuse his kingly seat,
His ignomy and bitter shame
In fine shall be more great.
The reference seems to be to Thyestes 213-7 : —
rex uelit honesta : nemo non eadcm uolet.
ubi non est pudor,
nee cura iuris, sanctitas pietas fides .
instabile regnum est.
^ One cannot say positively that Camhysss was written for the
popular stage; but in spite of the fact that the author, Thomas Preston,
was a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and acted at the University
• before Queen Elizabeth, I am inclined to believe that, like Appius
and Virginia, it was performed on the " scaffold" of the miracle plays ;
on the title page there is no mention of its being acted on any special
occasion, as in the case of the early tragedies mentioned above.
on EUzahetlum Tragedij.
67
Damon and Pithias (pr. 1571) also contains much that is ^'PXa* ""'^
aUen to Seneca; it is a "tragical comedy" and the humours
of Grim the CoUier are neither tragic nor classical ; but in
the serious part of the drama there is an attempt — not a
verv successful one — to imitate the manner of Seneca.
The scene between Dionysius and Eubulus is pretty
closely modelled on that between Nero and Seneca in the
Octal- la, e.g. : —
Dio\. A mild prince the people despiseth.
EuB. A cruel king the people hateth.
Dion. Let them hate mo, so they fear me.
EuB. That is not the way to live in safety^
Dion. My sword and my power shall purchase my quietness.
EuB. That is sooner procured by mercy and gentleness.
Dion. Dionysius ought to be feared.
EuB. Better for him to be well beloved.
Nero, calcat iacentem uuljjus.
Sen. inuisum opprimit.
Nero, ferrum tuetur principem.
Sen. melius fides.
Nero, decet timeri Caesarem.
Sen. at plus diligi.
(Ociavia 467-9.)
And again : —
Dion. Fortune maketh all things subject to my power. '
EuB. Believe her not, she is a light goddess ; she can
laugh and low'r.
Nero, fortuna nostra cuncta permittit mihi. ,
Sen. crede obsequenti parcius. leuis est dea.
(Ocfavia 463-4.)
58 The Influence of Seneca
''rmSr^ T/i^ Simnish Tragedy (pr. 1599, acted probably about
1588) is important from its popularity and its typical
•character. Some of the points of contact with Seneca
have been noticed already ; we have also quotations and
jiranslations from Seneca of no great moment/ The
chief significance of the play lies in its developement of the
bloody horrors detailed by the Ghost at the end of the
^action : —
Ay, now my hopes have end in their effects,
When blood and sorrow finish my desires :
Horatio murder'd in his father's bower ;
Vild Serberine by Pedringano slain;
False Pod ringano hang'd by quaint device ;
Fair Isabella by herself misdone ;
Prince Balthazar by Bell'-Imperi-a stabb'd ;
The Duke of Castile and his ,\vicked son
Both done to death by old Hieronimo.
My Bell'-Imperia fall'n, as Dido fell :
And good Hieronimo slain by himself.
But, in spite of all this bloodshed, the distinctive
features of Seneca's mode of treatment are wanting.
MARLOWE. It was Marlowe's^ self-appointed task to win the
popular ear
From jigging veins of rhyming mother wits,
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay
to the '* high astounding terms " of the stately classical
drama. In making the change — one of tremendous
1 See Appendix I.
on EUzahaihan Tragedy ^ 59
importance for the English drama — he would naturally
select those features of classical tragedy which would
appeal most readily to popular favour. Seneca's bombast
and violence the multitude could understand ; but they
would not submit to his philosophical disquisitions.
Accordingly we find in Marlowe few of the sage
reflections with which Seneca adorned his plays ;
but we have all Seneca's horror of incident and ex-
aggeration of expression. What Ulrici says of
Marlowe accurately describes Seneca's tragic style :
" In his hand, the forcible becomes the forced,
the uncommon the unnatural, whereas the grand and
sublime degenerate into the grotesque and monstrous.
the tragic element almost invariably degenerates
into the horrible ; with him the essence of tragedy does
not consist in the fall of the truly noble, great and lovely,
as occasioned by their own weakness, one-sideness and
want of freedom, but in the annihilating conflict of the
primary elements of human nature, the blind struggle
between the most vehement/ emotions and passions."^
Ulrici may be deemed a prejudiced critic ; but Mr. J. A.
Symonds will assuredly not be accused of any lack of
appreciation. He says of Tamhurlaine : " Blood flows in
rivers. Shrieks and groans and curses mingle with
heaven-defying menaces and ranting vaunts. The
action is one tissue of violence and horror." Mr.
Symonds modifies this unfavourable judgement with the
remark that "Marlowe has succeeded in saving his hero,
1 Shakspeare's Drmnatic Art, translated by L. Dora Schmitjs
(1876), I. 152.
60 The Injliience of Seneca
amid all Lis ' limes,' from caricature, by the inbreathed
spirituality with which he sustains liis madness at
its height ; " and what is true to some extent of Marlowe's
bombast is still more true of his use of the horrible.
Where Seneca would be simply disgusting, Marlowe
reaches the topmost height of tragic power ; in Edward II,
V. 5, for instance, as Dr. Ward remarks, "the unutterable
horror of the situation is depicted without our sense of
the loathsome being aroused." Marlowe, indeed,
was immeasureably superior to Seneca, both as a poet
and a dramatist, and in his hands the very crudities and
faults of the tragic model of his age were transformed by
the transcendant power of genius till they often become
sublime and beautiful. Even where, as in the bombast
of Tamhiirlaine, the defect is only hidden, not removed,
by the genuine poetic spirit inbreathed into the whole,
the error was of such a character as rather to commend
itself than otherwise to the audience of that day, with its
lust for violence and horror ; and Seneca may fairly claim
some portion of the fame which Tamhiuiaine has won as
" a dramatic poem which intoxicated the audience of the
London play-houses with indescribable delight, and which
inaugurated a new epoch"^ in the history of the English
drama.
PEELS. Dr. Ward observes that Peele's Battle of Alcazar
" naturally suggests a comparison with Tamhwiaine, which
it resembles in the extravagance of expression — indeed
Shakspere's Predecessors, p. 628.
on Elizahethan Tragedij, 61
the rant— with which it abounds ; " and it is perhaps
rather to the influence of Marlowe than of Seneca that
we should ascribe the resemblances to the style of the
Roman tragedies to be found in Peele. It should be
noted, however, that in the prologue to The Arraignment
of Far is (pr. 1684), we have already a specimen of that
grandiloquent blank verse with which Tamhiuiaine (pr.
1590, acted before 1587) caught the popular ear : —
Condemned soul, Ate, from lowest hell,
And deadly rivers of th' infernal Jove,
Where bloodless ghosts in pains of endless date
Fill ruthless ears with never-ceasing cries,
Behold, I come.
Peele is excessively fond of the infernal machinery
which Seneca so often brought into play, and in The
Battle of Alcazar he uses it again and again, without any
regard to its appropiateness. Take for instance the last
speech of the Moor : —
Mount me I will :
But may I never pass the river, till I be
Reveng d upon thy soul, accursed Abdelmelec !
If not on earth, yet when we meet in hell,
Before grim Minos, Rhadamauth, and Aeacus,
The combat will I crave upon thy ghost.
And drag thee thorough the loathsome pools
Of Lethes, Styx, and fiery Phlegethon.
In this play Peele carried Marlowe's bombast beyond
incoherence into positive nonsense, as in Act I. 2: —
62 The Injluerwe of Seneca
The Moor. Away, and let me hear no more of this.
"Why, boy,
Are we successors to the great Abdallas
Descended from th' Arabian Muly Xarif,
And shall we be afraid of Bassas and of bugs,
Raivhead and Bloodyhone 1 ^
Peele has Seneca's gruesomeness without Marlowe's
delicacy of treatment. In David and Bethsahc Joab thus
dehvers himself as to the dead Absalom: —
Night-ravens and owls shall ring his fatal knell,
And sit exclaiming on his damned soul ;
There shall they heap their preys of carrion,
Till all his grave be clad with stinking bones,
That it may loathe the sense of every man.
Peele 's imitation of Seneca's dialogue has been
already noted. ^
GREENE. Greene^ imitated Marlowe's bombastic style, not
very successfully, in Alphonsus, King of Arragou ; but
violence and extravagance of diction were alien to the
spirit of his muse, for of all the predecessors of Shakspere
he had the lightest touch and the freshest fancy, bringing
out with ease and naturalness the humour and pathos
that lie in simple folk and ordinary situations. What he
1 In this and the preceding quotation I have adopted the reading
of Mr. A. H. Bullen's edition.
2 See p. 21.
3 Greene took the title and the text of his prose tract, Never too
Late, from Agamemnon 244 : — ■
Nam sera nunquam est ad bonos mores uia.
on Elizaheth-an Tragedy. 63
did borrow of Seneca was not to his advantage. The
unseasonable employment of Latin mythology, which
Mr. Symonds notes as Greene's main stylistic defect,
should probably be laid to the joint account of Seneca
and Ovid ; Hercules especially is introduced with painful
frequency. The same fault is to be vseen in The First
Part of the Tragicall Raigne of King Selimus fpr. 1594), ^'^sseiimus.
which Dr. Grosart includes in his edition of Greene's
Works. If this play is rightly ascribed to Greene, it has
an interest apart from its intrinsic merits. It bears too
plainly the stamp of Tamburlaine not to have been written
after that epoch-making drama, but the frequency of
rhymed lines and other marks of style would fix it as one
of Greene's earlier plays. It contains some of the curious
similes after Lyly's manner which form one of the most
striking characteristics of Greene's earlier prose style, and
are also to be found, though to a very much less extent, in
his tragedies.^ In Sdimus we have the " subtill "Crocodile,
the Phoenix, the Echinaeis, the " craftie " Polypus, the
Ibis, the Basilisk, and the Cockatrice. All these curious
creatures are to be found in Greene's prose works or
tragedies, the Echinaeis being identified by Grosart with
the Echinus of Alphonsus. If we may take it as estab-
lished that this is an early play of Greene's, we have the
interesting fact that Seneca exerted considerable influence
upon his style in the early part of his career. An exami-
nation of Selimus sho^vs that the author was greatly
influenced by Seneca. The play opens wdth reflections
1 e. ff. Alphonsus (Grosart) Vol. xiii., p. 343, lines 308-19 ; p. 355
11. 618-20.
64 The Influence of Seneca
on the cares and uncertainty of empire quite in the style
of the Eoman dramatist and philosopher. The descrip-
tion of the golden age may be paralleled by Hippohjtus
533-557 ; and the sceptical reasoning that follows by
Troas 380-417. Then we have Sisyphus, Ixion, and
"the cave of damned ghoasts" with which Seneca has
made us familiar, and later on we are confronted by " all
the damued monsters of black hell." Seneca's dialogue
is successfully imitated, and sometimes not only the
style, but the matter also is borrowed : —
Aga. Do you not feare the people's aduerse fame ?
Acq. It is the greatest glorio of a king
When, though his subjects hate his wicked deeds,
Yet are they forst to beare them all with praise.
Aga. Whom feare constraines to praise their princes deeds,
That feare, eternall hatred in them feeds.
Ago. He knowes not how to sway the kingly mace,
That loues to be great in his peoples grace :
The surest ground for kings to build vpon,
Is to be fear'd and curst of eueiy one.
What, though the world of nations me hate '?
Hate is peculiar to a princes state.
Aga. Where ther's no shame, no care of holy law,
No faith, no iustice, no integritie,
That state is full of mutabilitie.
Ago. Bare faith, pure vertue, poore integritie,
Are ornaments fit for a priuate man ;
Beseemes a prince for to do all he can.
Compare with this Thijestes 204-218 : —
Sat. fama te populi nihil
aduersa terret ?
on Elizabethan Tragedy, 65
Atr. maximum hoc regni bonum ost,
quod facta domini cogitur populus sui
quam ferre tam laudare.
Sat. quos cogit metus
laudare, eosdem reddit inimicos motus.
at qui fauoris gloriam ueri petit,
animo magis quam uoce laudari uolet. *
Atr. laus uera et humili saepe contingit uiro,
non nisi potenti falsa, quod nolunt, uelint.
Sat. rex uelit honesta : rxemo non eadem uolet.
Ate. vbicuraque tantum honesta dominanti licent,
precario regnatur.
Sat. ubi non e^t pudor,
nee eura iuris, sanctitaa pietas fides :
instabile regnum est.
Atr. sanctitas pietas fides
priuata bona sunt, qua iuuat reges eant.
Lines 1165-8 (p. 239) may be compared with Her-
cules Oetaeus 143-6, and 1354-5 (p. 246) with Hercules
Furens 517. The praises of a country Hfo on p. 270 may
have been suggested by Hercxdes Furens 160-4. Some of
the situations may also have been suggested by Seneca,
but this is more doubt fuL The young Mahomet, hke
Astyanax in the Troas, is cast down from an " ayrie
toure," but with this additional horror, that a '* groue of
steele-head speares " is prepared for his reception. In
spite of this refinement of cruelty, the youth meets death
with no less hardihood than the son of Hector : —
Thou shalt not fear me, Acomat, with death,
Kor will I beg my pardon at thy hands.
But as thou giu'st me such a monstrous death,
So do I freely leaue to thee my curse.
66 The Influence of Seneca
The princess Solyma is equally brave ; slie prays to
be slain before her husband Mustaffa, that she may not
see his death ; Amphitryon in the Hercules Fwens asks a
like boon from Lycus with respect to Megara and her
children.
SHAKSPBRE. Shakspere uudoubtedly fell under the influence
both of the rhetorical drama of which Marlowe was the
fatherland master, and of the " tragedy of blood " which
is perhaps better represented by Kyd's Spanish Tragedy ;
but whether SLakspere was directly indebted to Seneca
. is a question as difficult as it is interesting. As English
tragedy advance s , there grows up an accumulation of
Seneca influence within the English drama in addition
to the original source, and it becomes increasingly difficult
to distinguish between the direct and the indirect in-
fluence of Seneca. In no case is the difficulty greater
than in that of Shakspere. Of Marlowe, Jonson, Chap-
man, Marston, and Massinger we can say with certainty
that they read Seneca, and reproduced their reading in
their tragedies ; of Middleton and Heywood we can say
with almost equal certainty that they give no sign of
direct indebtedness to Seneca, and that they probably
came only under the indirect influence through the imita-
tions of theii* predecessors and contemporaries. In the
case of Shakspere we cannot be absolutely certain
either way. Professor Baynes thinks that it is probable
that Shakspere read Seneca at school ; and even if he
did not, we may be sure that at some period of his
on EUzahethan Tragedy. 67
career be would turn to the generally accepted model
of classical tragedy, either in the original or in the
translation. The decision must, however, rest upon the
internal evidence contained in the plays themselves, and
while I look upon this as pointing very plainly to an ^
almost certain conclusion, it can hardly be said to amount j
to absolute proof. A number of instances have be'^n
already quoted in which Shakspere might have been
influenced by the example of Seneca ; and others will be
given ; but it cannot be said that in any one case the
resemblance is absolutely convincing. The evidence
must be taken in its ciunulative force, and tbat must be
my excuse if I have quoted some parallels that are not
very obvious. Another scrap of evidence is to be found
in Shakspere's mythology. It might seem absurd to Mythology.
attach any importance to the fact that Hercules, Seneca's
favourite hero, is mentioned by Shakspere about fifty
times ; but it is at any rate not without significance when
an obscure character such as Lichas is referred to at the
same timo, as in The, Merchant of Venice, TI. 1 and Antony
and Cleopatra, IV. 12. The latter passage is perhaps
worth quoting : — ■
The shirt of Nossus is upon me : Teach me,
Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage :
Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' the moon ;
And with those hands, that grasp'd the heaviest club,
Subdue my worthiest self.
At first sight it seems more than likely that this is
from Seneca ; but it might also come from Ovid,
68 The Influence of Seneca
Whether Shalispere used the translation of 1581 is
a further problem, depending on the solution of the first
A passage in King John, III. 4 : —
A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand
Must be as boisterously maintain'd as gain'd ;
And he that stands upon a slippery place
Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up.
is not unlike Hercules Furens 345-9 : —
rapta sed trepida manu
sceptra optinentur. omnis in ferro est salus.
quod ciuibus tenere te inuitis scias,
strictus tuetur ensis. alieno in loco
haut stabile regnum est.
If the reader decides that the resemblance is so close
as to imply direct connection, the conclusion may be drawn
that Shakspere usedthe original, and not the translation,
which gives quite a different rendering of the text : —
— but got with fearful hand
My sceptors are obtaynd : in sword doth all my safety stand.
What thee thou wotst agaynst the will of cytesyns to get,
The bright drawne sword must it defend : in forrayne countrey set
No stable kingdome is.
The Shaksperean "maintain " is more correct than
tlie professed translation ; Pierrot shows that optinentur =:
retinentiir, seruantur. The Shaksperean version of trepida
manu is more doubtful, but it is supported by some
authorities. Pierrot quotes a paraphrase which runs,
on Etizahethan Tragedy,
69
((
Qui genus iactat suum, aliena, laudat ; at qui sceptrum
rapuit, ei laborandum et uigilaiidum est, ut ui partum ui
retineat."
The problem of Shaksperc's relation to Seneca is
further complicated by questions of authorship. If we
could accept Tihis Amlronicus as written wholly
by Shakspere, all difficulty would be at an end,
for the Latin quotations from Seneca^ set every
doubt at rest. Even without this direct testimony,
the internal evidence is sufficiently striking. The subject
and stylo of the tragedy are thoroughly Senecan. It is
made up of
murders, rapes, and massacres,
Acts of black night, abominable deeds,
Complots of mischief, treason, villanics. (V. 1)
Andronicut.
/
No detail of physical horror is spared ; from begin-
ning to end the stage reeks with blood, and the characters
vie with one another in barbarity. Even the gentle
Lavinia helps to prepare the Thyestean banquet; and
Titus and his sons are no less eager for revenge, and no
less cruel in its execution, than Tamora and Aaron. The
style exaggerates even these heaped-up horrors, and the
passions are often strained to artificiality. The descrip-
tions of rural life and scenery, which relieve the sanguinary
picture to some extent, are not strange to Seneca. The
1 See Appendix I.
70 The Injluence of Seneca
hunting scene (II. 2) might be suggested by the opening^
of the Hippohjtusj and the hnes in II. 3 : —
The birds chant melody on every bush ;
The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun ;
The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind,
may be compared with Hippohjtus 51b'-8: — •
hie aues querulae freriiunt
ramique uentis lene percussi tremunt
ueteresque fagi.
The description of the '' barren detested vale," the
scene of the murder of Bassianus and the rape of Lavinia,
reminds us of the place where Atreus sacrificed his
nephews. Thyestes 650-5 : —
arcana in imo regia recessu patet,
alta uetustum ualle conpescens nemus,
penetrale regni, nulla qua laetos solet
praebere ramos arbos aut ferro coli,
sed taxus et cupressus et nigra ilice
obscura nutat silua.
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercorae with moss and baleful mistletoe :
Here never shines the sun ; here nothing breeds,
Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.
For the last touch in this dark picture see Hercules
Furens 690-2 :—
palus inertis foeda Cocyti iacet.
hie uultur illic luctifer bubo gemit
omenque tristis resonat infaustae strigis.
on Elizahethan Tragedy. 71
They told me, here, at dead time of the night,
A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,
Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,
Would make such fearful and confused cries,
As any mortal body heaving it
Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly.
So Thijestes G68-673 :—
hie nocte tota gemere fcralis deos
fama est, catenis lucus excussis sonat
ululantque manes, quicquid audire est metus,
illic uidetur : errat antiquis uetus
emissa bustis turba et insultant loco
maiora notis monstra.
Among minor dramatic devices used by Seneca we
may note Lavinia's plea for death, and Quintus and
Martius's presentiment of coming destruction (II. 3),
Seneca's reflective tendency is strongly marked in this
play, and we have a number of " brief sententious pre-
cepts" like those with which Seneca adorned his
gruesome themes. Tamora's plep, (I. 1) : —
Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods ?
Draw near them then in being merciful :
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
may be compared with the considerations urged by
Agamemnon on a like occasion, when Pyrrhus sought
to appease his father's ghost by the sacrifice of Polyxena.
Compare also the passage (I. 1) ; —
i-
72 The Influence of Seneca
In peace and honour rest you here, my sons ;
Rome's readiest champions, repose you here in rest,
Secure from wordly chances and mishaps !
Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells.
Here grow no damned drugs ; ^ here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep :
In peace and honour rest you here, my sons !
with the Chorus m the Troas 151-6, 166-8 :—
FELIX PRIAMUS dicitc cunctae.
liber manes uadit ad imos
nee feret umquam
uincta Graium ceruice iugum.
non ille duos uidit Atridas
nee fallacem cernit Vlixem.
nunc elysii nemoris tutus
errat in umbris
interque pias felix animas
Hcctora quaerit. felix priamus.
It is remarkable that the passages which challenge
comparison with Seneca are the very ones in which we
should be readiest to recognize the hand of Shakspere. >/
Henry vi Critical difficulties again confront us in the consider-
ation of the three parts of Hennj VI, and Richard III; but
the opinions of competent critics differ so widely that it
would be useless for me to enter into the discussion as to
the authorship of Henry VI, and the relation thereto of the
^ I adhere, as elsewhere, to the text of The Camhridye Shaken,
peare ; " grudges " seems to me the better reading.
and
on EUzahethcm Tragedy. 73
two parts of The Contention between, the two Famous Houses
of York and Lancaster. It would be equally unwise for me
to attempt to set at rest (he doubts recently raised by James
Russell LowelP as to the authorsliip of jR/c/iajY^ III ; Imohanim.
have nothing of importance to add to the evidence of
genninenesss, and what I have to say as to the connection
with Seneca would probably lead critics of different views
to different inferences. I am, however, concerned, not
with the conclusions that may be drawn, but with the fact
that Henry VI (especially Part iii) and Richard III have
much in common with Seneca. They are pervaded by
the ruthless spirit of violence and bloodshed, and abound
in the crude horrors of physical repulsiveness, such as
the bringing of Suffolk's mu tilated body on to the stage
(2 Henry VI, IV. 1), and the subsequent introduction of
Queen Margaret with the head in her hands (IV. 4). Iden
brings on the stage Cade's head {2 Henry VI, V. 1), and
Richard that of Somerset (3. 1. 1). All through The Third
Part of Henry VI, and Richard III, the slaughter is con-
tinuous, and accompanied by circumstances of great in-
hamanity, as witness the mock crowning of York before
his death, and the murders of Rutland and the young
Prince of Wales. The murder of the young princes in
Richard III is only narrated, and the executions in this
play generally take place off the stage, only Clarence
and Richard himself dying in sight of the audience ;
but the personages of the drama move in the same
atmosphere of blood, and Richard above all sustains
1 In an article in the Atlantic Monthly for December, 1891.
74 The Influence of Seneca
to the full his character of fiendish cruelty. He has the
vindictiveness, the intellectual force, the undaunted spirit,
the ruthless cruelty, the absolute lack of moral feeling of
Seneca's Medea, coupled with the haughtmess of Eteocles,
and the bloody hyj)ocrisy of Atreus ; as with Seneca's
heroic criminals, his passions know no hounds — he is not
human, but praeternatural. And what is true, in its
fullest sense, of the " cacodaemon," Eichard, is true in a
less degree of the minor characters. Queen Margaret
and Clifford vie with Richard himself in merciless cruelty.
Edward, then Earl of March, says in 3 Hcnnj VI, I. 2 :^
But for a kingdom any oath may be broken :
I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.
just as Polynices, under similar circumstances, says in
111 eh a is 664 : —
imperia pretio quolibet constant bene.
The same exaggeration of expression is to be noted
in the next scene, where Clifford savs to Rutland : — •
Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine
Were not revenge sufficient for me ;
No, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves,
And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,
It could not slake mine ire, nor case rny heart.
The sight of any of the house of York
Is as a fury to torment my soul ;
And till I root oat their accursed line
And leave not one alive, I live in hell.
Even the quiet Henry gives way to the prevailing
&n Elizabethan Tragedy. 75
excaggeration of tone when he falls iu love, and expresses
his passion with the ardour of a Phaedra. 1 Henry F7,
V. 5 :—
Your wondrous rare description, noble earl,
Of beauteous Margaret hath astonish'd rae :
Her virtues graced with external gifts
Dq breed love's settled passions in my heart :
And like as rigour of tempestuous gasts
Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide,
So am I driven by breath of her renown,
Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive
Where I may have fruition of her love.
'J his " wind and tifle" metaphor is a favourite cue
with hotli Seneca and Shakspere. In the two following
passages it is substantially the same. 3 Henry VI, II. 5 :
This battle fares like to the morning's war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind ;
Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind :
Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind ;
Now one the better, then another best ;
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror nor conquered.
fluctibus uariis agor,
ut, cum hinc profundum uentus hinc aestua rapit,
incerta dubitat unda cui cedat malo.
(^Agamemnon 139-141.)
76 The Injiuence of Seneca
In this case it seems worth while to subjoin Studley's
translation (pub. 1566) : —
As when here wynd, and their the streame when both their foi'ce
wil tiy,
From sandes alow doth hoyst and rears the seas with surges hye.
The waltring wane doth staggeryng stand not weting what to do,
But (houeryng) doubtes, whose furious force he best may yeld
him to.
Compare also 3 Hennj VI, II. 6 : —
As doth a sail, fiU'd with a fretting gust.
Command an ai-gosy to stem the waves.
with Hippolyt'us 186-9, and Tlujestes 438-9.
£ome of Seneca's leading ideas are repeatedly re-
produced in these plays. All the more important cha-
racters are tinged with Seneca's Stoical fatalism. His
" fatis agimur, cedite fatis" is exjoressed by King Edward
in 3 Henrij VI, IV. 3, with the metaphor just spoken of:
What fates impose, that men must needs abide ;
It boots not to resist both wind and tide.
So too Queen Margaret in 3 Hcnnj VI, Y. 4 : —
What cannot be avoided
'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.
and Richard, in the course of a dialogue containing many
examples of Senecan stichomythia (Richard III, IV. 4),
says with all the impressive conciseness of the Roman
dramatist and philosopher —
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.
on EUzahethan ^rageihj. 77
The cares and risks of high places and the benefits
of ohscurity are urged as frequently in these pLays as in
the tragedies of Seneca, and in much the same strain.
Queen Margaret's words in Richard III, I. 3 : —
They that stand high have many blasts to shake them.
may be compared with Hippohjtus 1136-1140, Agamemnon
57-9, and Oedipns 6-11. Henry resigns the crown, as he
says (3. IV. 6)—
that I may conquer fortune's spite
By living low, where fortune cannot hurt me.
Compare Hercules Furens 201-4, and Hercules Oetaeus
701-3. K much longer and more important passage —
too long for quotation — in 3 Henrij VI, II. 5, describing
the advantages of a shepherd's life over a king's, may be
compared with Hippohjtus 516-533, Thyestes 450-3, and
Hercules Oetaeus 647-661 ; and Henry's words on true
kingship (3. III. 1) remind us of Thyestes 388-390.
Another idea frequently put forward by Seneca and
by Shakspere is that of the presentiment of evil.^ We
have a fairly close parallel in Richard III, II. 3 : —
By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust
Ensuing dangers ; as, by proof, we sec
The waters swell before a boisterous storm.
^'H^^^U^
1 See Thyestes 417 490 and 946-973; Hercides Oetaeus 720-5.
We have the same idea in Romeo mid Juliet I. 4, ad fin. and III. 5 ;
and Richard II, II 2.
78 The Infiumce of Seneca
2,i\diThjestesmiA\~
mibtit luctus sigua futuri
mens ante sui presaga mali,
instat nautis fera temjDestas,
cum sine uento tranquilla tument.
To tliis may be added another commouplace of
morality which occurs more than once in each poet.
Richard III, IV. 2: —
Uncertain way of gain I But I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.
Agamemnon 116 : — -.
per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter.
Theodor Vatke ^ has suggested a comparison between
the wooing of Lady Anne by Gloucester and that of
Megara by Lycus. In the same way we might seek a
parallel for the conjuration of the Spirit in 2 Hennj IT,
I. 4 in the raising of the shade of Laius ; and in the
same passage from the Oedipus we might endeavour to
discover a suggestion of the appearance of the ghosts in
Clarence's dream. But how wide is the galf between
the mythical figures of Seneca and the living spirits of
Shakspere; instead ot Zethus and Amphion, Niobe and
Agave, we have tl^e ghosts of those whom Clarence had
wronged, among them
A shadow like an anscei, with bright hair
»^')
Dabbled in blood ; and he squeak'd out aloud,
Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare GesellsclMft, IV. p. 64.
mi Elizabethan Tragedy, 79
"Clarence is come ; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury :
Seize on hiui, Euiies, take him to your torments ! "
The difference is so great — it is the world-wide
difference between art and artifice — that any sHght
resemblance is quite overshadowed by our sense of the
immeasureable superiority of Shakspere's picture. With
more justice, perhaps, we might compare the lament of
the Duchess of York {Richard III, 11. 2) :—
Alas, I am the mother of these moans !
Their woes are parcell'd, mine are general.
She for an Edward weeps, and so do I
with that of Hecuba in Troas 1070-2 :—
quoscumque luctus fleueris, flebis meos.
sua quemque tantum, me omnium olades premit,
mihi cuncta pereunt, quisquis est Hecubae est miser.
(^ Hamlet marks the climax of the reflective tendency f«w.w.
] in Shakspere and in the English drama, though coupled,
as in Seneca, with a full complement
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts. (V. 2.) ^
Knight has observed that in the latter characteristic
Hamlet is connected with the school of Titus Andronicus ;
but whether this is due to an old Hamlet which was not
Shakspere's, or the earlier Hamlet which is referred to by
Nash was written by Shakspere at a time when he was
still under the influence of Senecan tragedy, is too large
a question to be discussed here. In its ultimate form
80 The Influence of Seneca
the play still contains some slight reminiscences of Seneca,
though we shall look in vain for the " whole handfulls "
of tragical speeches sneered at by Nash as borrowed from
the Enghsh translation. In Klein's opinion the appear-
ance of the Ghost of Laius ni the Oedipus forms *' no
unworthy study " for the famous scene '^ on the platform
before the castle ; " but of Shakspere's ghost-scene there
is nothing to be found in Seneca beyond the very baldest
suggestion. With greater justice Mr. H. A. J. Munro ^
says that
the dread of something after death.
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns
has not a little in common with Hercules Furens 8GS 870
and Hercules Oetaeiis 152d-15Sl: —
sera nos illo referat senectus.
nemo ad id sero uenit unde numquam,
cum semel ucnit, potuit reuerti.
die ad aeternos properare manes
Herculem et regnum canis inquieti
unde non unquam remeauit ullus.
Indeed the whole of Hamlet's famous soliloquy may
be said to arise out of the question in Troas 380-1 : —
verum est, an timidos fabula decipit,
umbras corporibus uiuere conditio.
1 Journal of Philology, VI. p. 70,
on EUzahethan Tragedij, 8l
Compare also IV. 3
Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.
with Aijanwniioii 153-5 : — ■
Clyt. et ferrum et ignis saepa maiicinae loco est.
NvTR. extrema primo nemo temptauit loco.
Clyt. capienda rebus in raalis praocep'i uia est.
We Lave Seneca's notion of presentiment and his
Stoical fatahsm in V. 2 : — ^" if it be now, 'tis not to come ;
if it be not to come, it will be now ; if it be not now, yet
it will come : the readiness is all ; since no man has aught , ^ 'j "^Z
of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes ? " „^ ^ y\M^<f^^
It is again the hand_of^ fatSj or rath^ the hand of
chance, that brings about the catastrophe, with its " acci-
dental judgements, casaal slaughters" and "purposes
mistook faU'n on the inventors' heads."
J As in Hamlet, the reflective element in Machdli arises MaAeh,
from no lack of desperate deeds. Fj-om the Murder
of Duncan, which is described with every detail of
horror, there is a continuous outpour of blood
until in the last scene the head of Macbeth is brought
on the stage. But in Macheth, as in Seneca, we have
a Jiorrible theme treated in such a way as to
gire frequent occasion for deep reflection. It should be
noted fLirth(^r that in Macheth Shakspere's reflective
82 The Influence of Seneca
tendency is displa3'ed more after the manner of Seneca
tlmn in Hamlet. Hamlet's fondness for reflection is part
— a yerj^ important part — of his cliaracter. In Macbeth
the reflections are uttered not hy one character alone,
but by almost all ; and not in long soliloquies, but in
brief, pregnant sentences, quite after Seneca's manner^
In some instances the ideas expressed bear considerable
similarity to those of Seneca. Thus I. 7 : —
We but teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught return
To plague the inventor : this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips,
quod quisque fecit, patitur. auctorem scelus
repetit suoque premitur exemplo nocens.
(Hercules Furens 739-740.)
IV. 3. : — Give sorrow words : the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.
curae leues loquuntur ingentes stupent.
(Hippolytiis 615.)
Y. 3 : — I have lived long enough : my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf,
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have.
cur animam in ista luce detineam amplius
morerque nihil est. cuncta iam amisi bona :
mentem anna famam coniugem gnatos manus
etiara furorem. (Hercules Furens 1265-8.)
on Elizahetkan Tnigedij. 83
Compare further the lines that follow
Caust thou not raiuister to a mind diseased
with the continuation of the passage in Hercules Furens : —
nemo polluto queat
animo mederi.^
IV. 2 : — Things at the worst will cease^ or else climb upward
To what they wer-e before
with Thchais 198-9 :—
cuius haud ultra mala
exire possunt in loco tuto est situs.
and Oedipus 855 : —
tuto mouetur quicqurd extremo in loco est.
II. 4 : — Thou see'st, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
Threaten his bloody stage : by the clock 'tis day
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp :
Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
Whon living light should kiss it 1
We have the same idea in Agamemnon 763-4 : — •
fugit lux alma et obscurat genas
nox alta et aether obditus tenebris latet.
and in the fourth Chorus of the TJnjestes.
Compare also the apostrophe to sleep in II. 2 with
1 The Doctor in Tivo Noble Kinsmen, IV. 3, says "I think she has
a perturbed minde, which I cannot minister to."
84 The hfliicnce of Seneca
Hercules Fiirens 1071-1081, and note the splendid develope-
nient of the eulogy of the rest of the grave, already
remarked in Titns Androniciis ; —
Duncan is in his grave ;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well ;
Treason has done his worst : nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
Then we have II. 1 : —
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand ?
quis eluet me Tanais ? aut quae barbaris
maeotis undis pontico incumbens mari ?
non ipse toto magnus oceano pater
tantum expiarit sceleris. (^Hi^^polytus 723-6).
quis Tanais aut quis Nilus aut quis persica
uiolentus unda Tigris aut Rhenus ferox
Tagusne hibera turbidus gaza Huens,
abluere dextram potei'it ? arctoum licet
Maeotis in me gelida transfundat mare
et tota Tethys per meas currat manus :
haerebit altum facihus. (Hercules Furens 1330-6.)
The last is a parallel which has attracted the attention
of many readers of Seneca and Shakspere^ and vv'as appar-
ently first placed on record hy Lessing in the Theatralische
Bihliothek (1754). It may be, too, that in this passage of
Seneca Shakspere found the suggestion of that blood-
011 J^lizahethan Tragedy, 85
stained little hand which forms so impressive a feature
ill the famous sleep-walking scene. ^
y^ King Lear is farther removed than Machetli from the King uar.
spirit of Senecan tragedy ; but, in addition to wholesale
slaughter and physical horrors such as the putting out of
Gloster's eyes, it contains some resemblances worth
noting. We have Seneca's hopeless fatalism, not only in
the catastrophe, but repeatedly brought forward in the
course of the play. Gloster in his blindness says
(IV. I) :-
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods ;
They kill us for their sport.
Kent in IV. 3 : —
It is the stars,
The stars above us, govern our conditions-.
1 The idea was pi'obably suggested to Seneca by Aeschylus Choe'pUoroe
63-5, which is so corrupt in the sole authoritative MS. now extant that
only the general drift of the passage can be determined. Plumptre's
translation runs : —
and water streams,
Though all in common course
Should flow to cleanse the guilt
Of murder that the sin-stained hand defiles.
Would yet flow all in vain
That guilt to purify.
Paley in a note says " there can be no doubt that water is
'meant, the usual purification in murder." See also Sophocles Ajax
654-6, and the Scholiast's Note thereon, stating that it was the custom
of the ancients to cleanse the pollution of murder by washing the
hands. Cf. Ovid Fasti II. 45-6 :—
Ah nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina caedis
Fluminea tolli posse putetis aqua.
86 The Influence of Seneca
and Edgar in V. 2 : —
Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming liither :
Ripeness is all.
7
Compare also III. 6 : —
When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
W^ho alone sutlers, suffers most i' the mind ;
Leaving free things, and happy shows, behmd :
But then the mind much suffering doth o'er-skip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
with Troas 1019-1035 ; and IV. 1 :—
To be worst,
The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear :
The lamentable change is from the best,
The worst returns to laughter.
with Thehais 198-9 and Oedq)as 855 ah'eady quoted/ Also
IV. 6:—
Better I were distract :
So should my thoughts be sover'd from my griefs ;
And woes, by wrong imaginations lose
The knowledge of themselves.
uel sit potius
mens uaesano concita motu.
solus te iam praestare potest
furor insonttem. proxima puris
sors est manibus nescire nefas. (Hercules Furens 1100-5.)
'" - - II ' — - ■■-—---— -- - - ■ ■ ■ . - - . . — ■-.-.■ . ■
1 See p. 83.
on 'Elizabethan Tragedy, 87
We tread again on doubtful ground in Edward III, ^'^"""''^ '^^
although this fine play has been ascribed to Shakspere by
very good authorities.^ In any case, the following com-
parision is interesting. Act IV.4 : —
To die is all as common as to live ;
The one in choice, the other holds in chaee :
For, from the instant we begin to live,
We do pursue and hunt the time to die :
First bud we, then we blow, and after seed ;
Then, presently, we fall ; and, as a shade
Follows the body, so we follow death.
If then we hunt for death, why do we fear it?
If we do fear it, why do we follow it ?
If we do fear, with fear we do but aid
The thing we fear to seize on us the sooner :
If we fear not, then no resolved proffer
Can overthrow the limit of our fate :
For, whether ripe or rotten, drop we shall,
As we do draw the lottery of our doom.
omnia certo tramite uadunt
primusque dies dedit extremum.
non ilia deo uertisse licet
quae nexa suis currunt causis.
it cuique ratus prece non ulla
mobilis ordo.
multis ipsum timuisse nocet.
multi ad fatum uenere suum
dum fata timent. (Oedipus 1008-1016.)
Compare also V. 1 : —
For what the sword cuts down, or fire hath spoiled,
Is held in reputation none of ours.
1 See Dr. Ward's History of Dramatic literature, I. 456.
88 The Inflimice of Seneca
with T/j('6r/w 559-5C2 :—
quin tuae causae nocel
ipsum hoc quod armis uertis infestis solum
segetesque adustas sternis et totos fugam
edis per agros : nemo sic uastat sua.
Ardenof In Anleii of Feversham, another pseiido-Shaksperean
tragedy, the following may be noted. Act ILL 5 : —
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 stuff d with discontent.
My golden time was when I had no gold ;
Though then I wanted, then I slept secure ;
My daily toil begat me night's repose,
My night's repose made daylight fresh to me :
But since I climb'd the top bough of the tree,
And sought to build my nest among the clouds,
E.xch gentle stirry gale doth shake my bed.
And makes me dread my downfall to the earth.
Compare Hippohjtus 1135-1140 : —
seruat placidos obscura quies
praebetque somnos casa securos.
admota aetheriis culmina sedibus
duros excipiunt notos
insani boreae minaij
imbriferumque corum.
Of other plays ascribed to Shakspere, Locriiu con-
tains many traces of Seneca, both in style and sentiment ;
but it is a play demanding no special attention, either on
account of its date (pr. 1595) or literary merits.
on Elizabethan Tragedy. 89
Ben Jonson is said by Theodor Vatke^ to have '^onson.
specially studied Seneca ; but no anthority is given for
the statement. A comparison between Jonson and Seneca
naturally suggests itself from the character of Jonson's
genius, and the comparison was made by his contempor-
aries, both m the commendatory verses prefixed to his
works, and in the elegies published after his death under
the title of Jonsoniiis Virbhis.'^ Seneca finds a place in
Jonson's famous lines " to the memory of my beloved
master, William Shakspeare," and his name is included
in Sir John Daw's miscellaneous list of classical poets
(E2)icoene^ II, 2); Jonson gives a number of references to
Seneca as notes to llic Masque of Queens, and in any case
he might be safely assumed to have had a close acquaint-
ance with Seneca, for Jonson was thoroughly versed in
classical liteiature, in which, at that period, Seneca held
a prominent place. I have been unable, however, to
find any statement by Jonson himself that he " specially
studied Senoca ; " indeed, to judge from the praises of
Sophocles and Euripides in the Discoveries, and the fact
that in the enumeration of Greek and Roman dramatists
in the lines to Shakspere the last place is given to " him
of Cordova dead" without any special mark of distinction,
Jonson was not eager to admit that he followed in the
ordinary track by -accepting as his model the Eoman
tragedies which were within easy reach even of those who
had "small Latin and less Greek." If this be so, Jonson
1 Jahrhuch der Deutsehen Shakespeare GesellscJiaft, Vol. IV. p. 64.
2 See Latin, lines " In Benjaniluum Jonsonum, poetam laureatum,
et dramaticorum sui seculi facile principem," and Owen F^lthain " To
the Memory of Immortal Ben,"
90 The Influence of Seneca
owed more to Seneca than he cared to acknowledge, for
it was upon Seneca, and not upon the Greek masters,
that Jonson modelled his tragic style. In the preface
to Sejanm he sums up " the offices of a tragic writer "
in the phrases *' truth of argument, dignity of persons,
gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of
sentence " — the characteristics, not of Greek tragedy, hut
of Seneca. He apologises, moreover, for " the want of a
proper chorus" — a want which he supplied in C'aYi7m^,
and also in the sketch of The Fall of Mortimer, which re-
mained a fragment at his death. Jonson employed the
Chorus not after the manner of the Greek, but of the Ro-
man stage, a chorus closing each of the five acts. It is evi-
dent, too, that in Jonson'sOaf/'Z/m', as in Seneca's tragedies,
the Chorus left the stage during the performance of the
play, and were supposed to be ignorant of the course of
the action, for at the end of Act IV the Chorus profess
to be in doubt ^s to Catiline's designs, which could not
have been the case if they had been present when the
conspiracy was formed, as would be required by the rules
of Greek tragedy. Whalley says in a note to Catiline:
"Jonson, I think, does not appear to any great advantage
in the choruses to this play. My friend Mr. Sympson
is also of the same opinion : he says, the sentiments in
them are not sufficiently great, nor his measures at all
imitative of the ancients; that variety of numbers which
runs through all the Greek tragic poets, seems never once
to have been his aim. But I imagine Seneca, not
Sophocles or Aeschylus, was what he copied after, and
'tis then uo wonder that he succeeded no better,"
on Elizabethan Tragedy. 91
Jonson owed to Seueca something more than the ex-
ternal form of his tragedies ; their style and spirit are
Koman, not Greek. In striving- to attain the." height of
elocution" at which he aimed, Jonson is sometimes guilty
of Seneca's rhetorical exaggeration of expression ; and to
this fault he occasionally adds Seneca's physical
crudities. The dismemherment of Sejanus is
described with a fulness of detail which can only
be compared with Seneca's account of the death of Hip-
poly tus ; and the speeches of Cethegus in Catiline offend
in both the ways mentioned, though in this case Jonson
justified himself to some extent by making exaggeration
and a lust for blood distinctive of the character. Be this
as it may, there is an echo of Seneca's style to be discerned
in passages like this :— .
It likes me bcttex", that you are not consul.
I would not go through open doors, but break 'em ',
Swim to my ends through blood ; or build a bridge
Of carcasses ; make on upon the heads
Of men, struck down like piles, to reach the lives
Of those remain and stand : then is't a prey,
When danger stc^s, and ruin makes the way. (III. 1).
In "fulness and frequency of sentence " Jouson
assuredly did not fail ; but he missed the perfect art of
Shakspere, who made his reflections arise naturally from
the situation or the cliaracter of the speaker. In Jouson,
as in Seneca, the " sentences " are introduced with only
too obvious design.. It should further be remarked that
Jonson's indebtedness to Seneca can be traced much
nidre clearly and convincingly than that of Shakspere.
92 The Injlueuce of Seneca
, When Shakspcre takes a thonglit suggested by Seneca, it
is crvstallized in the alembic of his wonder -workin^r
imagination, and comes out so changed in form as to bear
but sHght traces of its origin, so that we are often in
doubt whether the thought is not entirely Shakspere's
own, and the resemblance to Seneca merely accidental ;
when Jonson borrows, he takes Seneca's crude ore, and
rarely troubles to melt it down and recast it. The fol-
sejanus. lowing parallels from Sejanus may serve as examples : —
1.2 : — Wrath cover'd carries fate :
Revenge, is lost, if T profess my hate.
ira quae tegitur nooet,
professa perdunt odia uindictae locum. {Medea 153-4.)
II. 2 — Tliy follies now shall taste what kind of man
They have provoked, and this thy father's house
Crack in the flame of my incensed rage,
Whose fury shall admit no shame or mean. *»
Adultery! it is the lightest ill
I will commit. A race of a\ icked acts
Shall flow out of my anger, and o'ersprcad
The world's wide face, which no posterity
Shall e'er approve, nor yet keep silent : things
That for their cunning, close, and cruel mark,
Thy father would wish his.
certetur omni scelere et alterna uice
stringantur eases, nee sit irarum modus
pudorue.
••« *.. «•• •>• ••• »••
effusus omnis inriget terras cruoi-
supraque magnos gentium exultet duces
on Elizabethan Tragedy, 93
libido uicirix. inipia stupruni iu domo
leuissimum sit.
age iiiiime £ac quod nulla posteritas probet,
sed nulla taceat. ali({uo(l audenduin est nefas
atrox cruentum tale quod frater meus
suum psse malit. (Thyestes 25-7, 44-7, 192-5.)
The clialogue whicli follows reproduces more or less
closely the tyrant's maxims given by Seneca iu the
Thijcsks, the Thehais, and the Octavia, One example will
suffice: —
Whom hatred frights,
Let him not dream of sovereignty.
regnare non uult esse qui inuisus timet. (T/ubais 654.)
And again in the same scene (II. 2) : —
All modesty is fond ; and chiefly where
The subject is no less compeli'd to bear
f Than praise his sovereign's acts.
maximum hoc regni bonum est,
quod facta domini cogitur populus sui
quam ferre tam laudare. (Thyestes 205-7.)
IV. 5 :— How easily
Do wretched men believe, what they would have !
quod nimis miseri uolunt,
hoc facile credunt. (^Hercules Furens 317-8.)
In V. 1 Sejanus says : —
My roof receiACS me not ; 'tis air I tread ;
And, at each step, I feel my advanced head
Knock out a star in heaven.
94 The Influence of Senci^
So Atreus in TJnjestes 888-9 :—
aequalis astris gradior et cunctos super
altum superbo uertice attingens polum.
V. 10 : — For, whom the morning saw so great and high,
Thus low and little 'fore the even doth lie.
quern dies uidit ueniens superbum,
hunc dies uidit fugiens iacentem, (Thyestes 613 4.)
It ^'ill be noticed above tliat the Thyestes is more,
frequently laid under contribution than any other play ;
from the same tragedy Jonson borrowed the openmg of
Catiline. Catiluu, in which the Ghost of Sylhx plays the same part
as the Ghost of Tantalus in the Thijestes; and when the
oath of conspiracy is taken, " the day goes back" and
murmurings are heard from unseen speakers, "as at
Atreus' feast." Further parallel passages are as under ;
I.l : — Behold, 1 come, sent from the Stygian sound,
As a dire vapoilr that had cleft the ground,
To ingender with the night and blast the day ;
Or like a pestilence that should display
Infection through the world.
mittor ut dirus uapor
telkire rupta uel grauem populis luem
sparsura postis. {Thyestes 87-9.)
Nor let thy thought find any vacant time
To hate an old, but still a fresher crime
Drown the remembrance ; let not mischief cease,'
But while it is in punishing, increase :
Conscience and care die in thee; and be free
Not heaven itself from tiiy impiety ;
on Elizahethan Tragedy. 95
Let night grow blacker with thy plots, and day,
At shewing but thy head forth, start away
From this half-sphere ; and leav^e Rome's blinded walls
To embrace lusts, hatreds, slaughters, funerals.
nee uacet cuiquam uetus
odisse crimen : semper oriatur nouum
nee unum in uno, dumque punitur scelus,
crescat.
••• «•• >■• tit ■•* ••• •••
f ratris et fas et fides
iusque omne pereat. non sit a uestris malis
immune caelum, cum micant stellae polo
seruantque flammae debitum mundo decun,
nox atra fiat, excidat caelo dies,
misce ponates odia caedes f unera
arccsse et imple scelere tantaleam domum.
(Thyestes 29-32, 47-52.)
III. 1 ; — Who would not fall with all the world about him 1
uitae est avidus quisquis nonuult
mundo secum pereunte mori. (Thyestes 886-7.)
III. 2 :— Is there a heaven and gods ? and can it be
They should so slowly hear, so slowly see !
Hath Jove no thunder?
magne regnator deum,
tarn lentus audis scelera ? tam lentus uides ?
ecquando sixeua f ulmen emittes nlanu
si nunc serenum est ? {Hijjpolytiis, 679-682.)
III. 2 : — He that is void of fear, may soon be just.
iustum esse facile est cui uficat pectus metu.
{pckivia 453.)
>/^~
96 The Influence of Seneca
III. 3 :— He shall die.
Shall, was too slowly said ; he's dying : that
Is yet too slow ; he's dead.
si noui Herculem,
Lycus Creonti debitas poenas dabit.
lentura est dabit : dat. hoc quoque est lentum : dedit,^
{Hercules Furens 655-7.)
CHAPMAN. Chapman, like Jonson, seems to have taken Senecan
tragedy as his model. In the dedicatory letter prefixed
to The Bevenge of Bussy D'Anihols, he says that ''material
instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue
and deflection from her contrary" are " the soul, limhs,
and limits of an authentical tragedy." He is excessively
rhetorical, sometimes to the extent of homhast ; lie
has also Seneca's fault of prolixity ; and he has
many elahorate similes such as Seneca occasionally
indulged in. Some of these characteristics are no douht
largely accounted for by Chapman's extensive reading in
other classical authors, and it must be confessed that his
indebtedness to Seneca cannot be clearly proved to any
great extent. There are a considerable number of passages
suggesting a comparison with Seneca ; but only the fol-
lowing seem to me sufficiently convincing to be worthy
of record : —
Bijrons Conspiracy III. 1 : — •
La B. You bid me speak what fear bids me conceal.
Byr. You have no cause to fear, and therefore speak.
1 These lines have been parodied by Moliere in a fanioi's passage
of L'Avare, TV, 7 ; — " Je me meurs, je suis mort, je suis enterr^."
on Elizaheihun Tragedy, 97
La B. You'll rather wish you had been ignorant,
Than be instructed in a thing so ill.
Byr. Ignorance is an idle salve for ill ;
And therefore do not urge rae to enforce
What I Avould freely know, for by the skill
Shown in thy aged hairs, I'll lay thy brain
Here scatter'd at my feet, and seek in that
What safely thou may'st utter with thy tongue
If thou deny it.
La B. Will you not allow me
To hold my peace ? What less can I desire 1
If not be pleased with my constrained speech.
Byr. Was ever man yet punished for expressing
What he was charged 1 Be free, and speak the worst.
It will bo found that all this is taken from Oedlpm
524-542, except the passage beginning " I'll lay thj
brain ," which is a piece of crude bombast worthy
of Seneca himself ; the same may be said of the speeches
of Byron which follow the above extract.
Byron's Conspiracy V. 1 : — -
D'auv. my lord,
This is too large a licence given you** fury ;
Give time to it ; what reason suddenly
Cannot extend, respite doth oft supply.
da tempus ac spatium tibi.
quod ratio nequit, saepe sanauit mora.
(^Agamemnon 130-1.)
Byron s Tragedy IV. 1 : —
Where medicines loathe, it irks men to be heaVd.
\ibi turpis est medicina, sanari piget. (Oedipus 530.)
98 The Influence of Seneca
Byron s Tragedy V. 1 : —
Why should I keep my soul in this dark light,
Whose black beams lighted me to lose myself ?
When I have lost my arms, my fame, my mind.
Friends, brother, hopes, fortunes, and even my fury.
cur animam in ista luce detinoam amplius
morerque nihil est. cuncta iam amisi bona :
mentem arma famani coniugem gnatos manus
etiam furorem. (^Hercules I\rens 12Q5-S.)
To the above evidence may be added Chapman's
liberal use of sanguinary horrors and ghosts (in Biissy
D'Amhois, The Bevenge of Bnssy D'Amhois, Alphonsus
Emperor of Germany, and Revenge for Honour), which must
be attributed, directly or indirectly, to the example of
Seneca,
VARSTox. Of all the Ehzabethan dramatists, Marston owed
the most to Seneca, and was the readiest to acknowledge
his indebtedness. He quotes Seneca, both in the
Latin^ and in translation, and from the prose works
as well as the tragedies. A quotation from the Thyestes
finds its way into the preface to The Faivn, and
in the same comedy we have a line from the Oedipus
The Maicmtent. (Mr. Bullen's cdition, II. p. 191). In The Malcontent,
which the author also calls a comedy, Bilioso, essaying
to give comfort to Pietro, says, " Marry, I remember one
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus Seneca — " and Pietro rephes,
3ee Appendix I,
on Wizahethan Tragedy. 99
" Out upon him ! he writ of temperance and fortitude,
yet lived like a Yoluptuous epicure, and died like an
effeminate coward ; " again, in Act V. 2, Mendoza says
Black deed only through black deed safely flies.
and Malevole retorts
Pooh ! 2^er scelera semper sc'cleribus tutum est iter.
the quotation being from Agamemnon 116. Notwith-
standing these sneers, we have other quotations from
Seneca in the same play, both in Latin and English.
He that can bear with must, he cannot die
in IV. 1 is a translation of Megara's vaunt in Hercules
Furens 431, " cogi qui potest, nescit mori." From the
same source is taken much of Maria's opposition to the
suit of Mendoza. Megara says in Hercules Furens
423-5 :—
grauent catenae corpus et longa fame
mors protrahatur lenta. non uincet fidem
uis ulia nostram. moriar Alcide tua.
So Maria in V. 2 :—
my dear'st Altof ront ! where'er thou breathe,
Let my soul sink into the shades beneath,
Before I stain thine honour ! 'tis thou has't,
And long as I can die, I will live chaste.
and again in V. 3 : — •
Do, urge all torments, all afflictions try ;
I'll die my loi-ds as long as I can die.
100 Tiir hiffiience of Seneca
In HerDuks Finrns 255-6: —
prosperum ac felix scelus
uirtus uocatur,
we have the original of V.2: —
Mischief that prospers, men do virtue call.
and the Hues that follow,
Who cannot bear with spite, he cannot rule.
• The chiefest secret for a man of state
Is, to live senseless of a strengthless hate,
come from TJiehais 654-6: —
regnare non uult esse qui inuisus timet,
simul ista mundi conditor posuit deus
odium atque regnum.
Antonio and Ifc is, however, in Marston's earlier tragedies, the two
Mdlida. ' .
■^2iYi^ oi Antonio and Mdlida^ that we find the influence
of Seneca most plainly manifested, as the following par-
allels will show.^ In Part I: —
I, 1 : — "Tis horselike not for man to know his force.
inertis est nescire quid liceat sibi. (Octavia 465.)
Mell. How covetous thou art of novelties !
Ross. Pish ! 'tis our nature to desire things
That are thought strangers to the common cut.
quisquis secundis rebus exultat nimis
fluitque luxu semper insolita appetit.^
{Hippolytus 209-210.)
1 One noteworthy passage has already been given. See p. 24.
2 A slight variation from the Aldine reading.
on EUzahethan Tragedy. 101
III. 1 : — Fortune my fortunes, not my mind, shall shake.
fortuna opes auferre non animum potest. (Medea 176.)
Alas, survey your fortunes, look what's left
Of all your forces, and your utmost hopes :
A weak old man, a page, and your poor self.
en intuere turba quae simus super :
famulus^ puer captiua. (Troas 516-7.)
No matter whither, but from whence we fall.
magis unde cadas quam quo refert. {Thyestes 929.)
IV. 1 : — Give me water, boy.
There is no poison in' t, I hope ; they say
That lurks in massy plate.
uenenum in auro bibitur. {Thyestes 453.)
And. Fortune fears valour, presseth cowardice.
Luc. Then valour gets applause, when it hath place,
And means to blaze it.
AxD. Kunquam potest non esse.
Med. fortuna fortes metuit, ignauos premit.
NvTR. tunc est probanda si locum uirtus habet.
Med. numquam potest non esse uirtuti locus. (J/eofea 159-161.)
Ill Part II the borrowing from Seneca is not quite
so frequent, but it is still considerable in amount. Mr.
BuUen detects " an Attic flavour " in a passage of
stichomythia in II. 1, and is momentarily reminded of
Creon's altercation with his son in the Antigone; as ft
1 The Aldine reading is tumulus>
102 The hijluence of Seneca
matter of fact, the dialogue is borrowed directly and
almost entirely from Seneca : —
Pier. 'Tis just that subjects act commands of kings.
Pand. Command then just and honourable things.
Nero iussisque nostris pareant.
Sen. iusta imjiera. (Octavia 471 )
Pier. Where only honest deeds to kings are free,
It is no empire, but a beggary.''
ubicumque tantum honesta dominanti'licent,
precario regnatur. [Thyestes 214-5.)
Pier. Tush, juiceless graybeard, 'tis immunity,
Proper to princes, that our state exacts ;
Our subjects not alone to bear, but jfraise our acts.
Pand. O, but that prince, that worthful praise aspires.
From hearts, and not from lips, applause desires.
Pier. Pish !
True praise the boon of common men doth ring,
False only girts the temple of a king.
Atr. maximum hoc regni bonum est,
quod facta domini cogitur populus sui ^
quam ferre tarn laudare.
Sat. at qui fauoiis gloriam ueri petit,
animo magis quam uoce laudari uolet.
Atr. laus uera et humili saepe contingit uiro,
non nisi potenti falsa. {Thyestes 205-7, and 209-212.)
Pandulfo's reply,
'Tis praise to do, not what we can, but should.
on Elizahethan Tragedy, 103
is from Odavia 466 :—
id facere laus est quod decet, non quod licet.
The act closes witli a quotation from the AgamemnoHy^
and the Thyestes is laid under contribution once more in
the next scene, which is thoroughly Senecan ia conception
and execution. When the Ghost of Andrea appears
again at the opening of A.ct V, he introduces himself
very appropriately by quoting two lines spoken by the
shade of Agrippina in the Octavia ; and the final scene is
taken from the Thyestes, not only in its main idea, but iii
the very words of the taunts addressed by Pandulfo to the
sinful father who has feasted on his own son, V. 2 : —
He weeps ; now do I glorify my hands ;
I had no vengeance, if I had no tears.
nunc meas laudo manus.
nunc parta uera est palnia. perdideram scelus
nisi sic dolores. ' (Thyestes 1100-2.)
Thy son ? true ; and which is my most joy,
I hope no bastard, but thy very blood,
Thy true-begotten, most legitimate
And loved issue— there's the comfort on't.
Thy, gnatos parenti.
Atr. . fateor et quod me iuuat,
certos. ; {Thyestes 1105-6.)
The rhetorical and reflective style as well as the crude
horrors of the two parts of Antonio and MelUda, must be
ascribed to the influence of Seneca. To Seneca's
account, too, we must set down what Mr. Bullen describes
104 The Influence of Seneca
as Marston's " besetting fault of straining his style a pf-g
too high ; of seeking to be impressive by the use of
exaggerated and unnatural imagery." The description of
a storm in Ths First Part oj Antonio and Mellida, I. 1,
which in Mr. BuUen's opinion exhibits this besetting
sin of Marston's " to perfection," is modelled on a
similar description in Seneca's Agamemnon. Compare
the opening in each case : —
The sea grew mad,
His bowels rumbling with wind-passion ;
Straight swarthy darkness popp'd out Phoebus' eye,
And blurr'd the jocund face of bright-cheek'd day ;
Whilst crudled fogs masked even darkness' brow :
Heaven bad's good night, and the rocks groan 'd
At the intestine uproar of the main.
exigua nubes sordido crescens globo
nitidum cadentis inquinat Phoebi iubar.
tractuque longo litus ac petrae geraunt.
agitata uentis unda uenturis tumet,
cum luna subito conditur, stellae cadunt,
in astra pontus tollitur, caelum perit.
nee una nox est : densa tenebras obruit
caligo et omni luce subducta fretum
caelumque miscet. (Agamemnon 483-4 and 489-495.)
and again
Straight chops a wave, and in in his sliftred paunch
Down falls our ship, and there he breaks his neck ;
Which in an instant up was belkt again.
illam dehiscens pontus in praeceps rapit
hauritque et alto redditam reuomit mare.
(Aoaynemnon 520-1.)
on Elizabethan Tragedy, 105
But Marston gained something besides unnatural
exaggeration from his study of Seneca. Mr. Bullen
gives unqualified praise tc the " dignified reflections
tvhich Marston puts into the niDiith of the discrowned
Andrugio in the noble speech beginning, * Why, man, I
never was a prince till now.' " This, too, was suggested
by Seneca, as will be seen on comparison with Thyestes
314-390.
It mav be doubted whether Marston ever broke
away from the influence of Seneca, though it is certainly
less marked in his later plays. Mr. Bullen remarks an
improvement in T]ie Muhontent, which followed next to
Antonio and Mellida. "The moralising," he says, "is
less tedious, and the satire more pungent than in the
earlier plays. There is less of declamation and more of
action. The atmosphere is not so stifling, and one can \
breallie with something of freedom. There are no ghosts
to shout ' Viudicia ! ' and lie boys to be butchered at /
midnight in damp cloisters; nobody has his •tongue cut A
out prior to being hacked to pieces."" While one may
atTmit the justice of these obs^rvatidns, it should not be
forgotten that TJie Malcontent is described by Marston
himself as a comedy. When he returns to tragedy in
^ophonisha — a tragedy which, he promises, " shall boldly
abide the most curious perusal "^ — he faUs back upon
Seneca's ghosts and witches, his blood-curdling descrip-
tions of crude horrors decked out with unnatural
J See the note To the Header prefixed tp the second qua rto of The Fawn^
106 The Ivfunice of Seneca
imagery, his rhetorical artificialities and reflective
commonplaces. Much less, however, is borrowed direct
from Seneca than in the earlier plays. The description
of the habits and abode of the witch Erichtho is
taken from Lucan — a writer allied to Seneca not only
by close ties of relationship, but by likeness of character,
for his genius is essentially philosophic and rhetoiical.
lu tbe reflective passages, too, of Soplionii^ha, Marston
borrowed far less from Seneca than in the earlier plays.
The dialogue between Asdrubal and Carthalon at the end
of Act II. 3 is quite in Seneca's style, but I have only
detected two ideas taken directly from Seneca : —
He that forbids not ofience, he does it.
qui non uetat peccare, cum possit, iubot. (Troas 300.)
and
He for whom mischief's done,
He does it.
cui prod est seel us,
is fecit. (Medea 503-4.)
The Insatiate Countess is, in Mr. Bullen's opinion, not
Marston's, or, at any rate, not all of it. One of the reasons
that incline him to this conclusion is the number of pas-
sages imitated from Shakspere, among which he includes
the following (V. 1) : —
What Tanais, Nilus, or what Tigris swift,
What Rhenus ferier than the cataract, —
Although Neptolis cold, the waves of all the Northern Sea,
Should flow for ever through these guilty hands,
Yet the sanguinolent stain would extant be !
on Miizabethan Tragedy. 107
Mr. BiiUen compares this with a well known passage
in Mucheth, ah'eady quoted in this essay.^ The original of
both passages is, I think, to be found in Hercules Fmxm
1330-6 :—
quis Tanais aut quis ISilus aut quis persica
uiolentus unda Tigris aut Rhenusferox
Tagusue hibara turbidus gaza fluons,
abluere dextram poterit ? arctouni licet
Maeotis in me gelid a transfundat mare
et tota Tethys per meas currat manus :
haerebit altum facinus.
From the closeness of the translation in The Insatiate
Countess, it is evident that the author borrowed from Seneca
direct ; and it seems to me that the reading " Neptolis,"
for \Yhich Mr. Bullen suggests the emendation " Neptune,"
might safely be altered to the " Maeotis " of the original.
Moreover, this passage, imitated not from Shakspere but
from Seneca, testifies in favour of Marston's authorship,
and not, as Mr. Bullen thicks, against it.
In the same school as Marston's Antonio \md Mellida chettle's
Jloffinan.
must be included Chettle's HoJ'nian ; or a Eevenge for a
Father, which was not printed till 1631, but (as we learn
from Henslowe's Diarij) was written in 1602. The tragedy
opens before a cave at the entrance of which there is " a
skeleton hanging on a tree in chains, with an iron crown
on its head." Amid thunder and lightning Hoffman
addresses his murdered father's skeleton, "which rattles
1 See p. 84. " '
108 The Ivfuencc af Seneca
from the mnd in its chains." Then appears the first
victim of Hoffman's revenge, Prince Otho, who is bound
to the rock and tortured to death (on the stage) with
the iron crown, which has been taken from the head of
the skeleton, and made red hot. Hoffman, having
stripped the flesh off the bones, hangs the skeleton in
chains, by the side of that of his father, upon the tree,
and speaks thus : —
Come, image of bare death, join side to side '
With my long-injur'd father's naked bones !
He was the prologue to a tragedy,
That, if my destinies deny me not,
Shall pass those of Thyestes, Tereus,
Jocasta, or Duke Jason's jealous wife.
The " dismal accidents and bloody deeds, poisonings
and treasons " which follow bid fair to fulfil the promise
that Seneca's gruesome themes shall be outdone. In
the end, Hoffman is bound to the rock, and tortured with
the iron crown, made red hot ; this alone prevents him
from adding rape to a succession of murders, and he dies
regretting that he has
j • slack t revenge
I Through fickle beauty and a woman's fraud.
There are occasional reflective passages .in Seneca's
stvle, and some reminiscences of his ideas, but they are
neither striking nor important. There is a close resem**
blance throughout to Seneca's mode of treating his bloody
themes, Act IV. 3 giving a noteworthy example of the
on Elizahethan Tragedij, 109
rhetorical and amplified horror which we have remarked
as one of Seneca's most striking characteristics. Take
for instance the passage : —
Thou wert as gootl, and better, (note my words)
Run unto the top of [some] dreadful scar
And thence fall headlong on the under rocks ;
Or set thy breast against a cannon fir'd,
When iron death flies thence on flaming wings ;
Or with thy shoulders, Atlas-like, attempt
To bear the ruins of a falling tower ;
Or swim the ocean, or run quick to hell,
(As dead assure thyself no better place)
Than once look frowning on this angel's face.
Seneca's fondness for these exaggerated comparisons
has been already noted. ^
Lust's Dominion (pr, 1657), a tragedy of similar Lust's Dominmu
character to the preceding, but of more inept workman-
ship, is only of importance on account of its supposed
identity with Dekker's Simnish Moor's Tragedy, acted in
January, 1599-1600. It contains bombast in abundance,
and sententious reflections in Seneca's, manner, some-
times with an echo of his ideas.
Webster and Tourneur further developed the wEBsxERand
^ TOURNEUR.
Tragedy of Blood (as Mr. Symonds calls it), which
by their time had been long familiar to English
^ See page 19.
110 The Infliionce of Sauca
audiences aud readers ; and the indirect influence of
Seneca acting through their predecessors in Enghsh
tragedy had probably more effect upon them than any
first-hand study of the Eoman dramatist, of which we
have little evidence. In The Revenger's Tragedij Tourneur
misquotes a single line from Seneca — the familiar
curae leues loquuntur ingentes stupent.^
The same thought is reproduced by Webster in The
White Devil, II. 1 : -
Uukindness, do thy office ; poor heart, break :
Those are the killing griefs which dare not speak.
but it seems likely that this was a reminiscence of
Shakspere, and was not taken directly from Seneca,
The same may be said of anotherMine in the same
scene : —
Small mischiefs are by greater made secure.
Another idea common to Shakspere and Seneca is
reproduced by Tourneur in The Revenger s Tragedy, V. 3: —
He that climbs highest has the greatest fall.
A passage in the same play II. 4 : —
It well becomes that judge to nod at crimes
That does commit greater himself, and lives.
may be compared with Agamemnon 268 : —
det ille ueniam facile cui uenia est opus.
^ See Appendix I.
on Elizabethan Tragedy, 111
Tonrneur has also effectively developed an idea
suggested in Hippohjtiis 679-682 : —
magne rcgnator deum
tarn lentus audis scelera 1 tara lentus uides ?
ccquando saoua fulmen emittes manu
si nunc serenum est 1
In The- Bevengers Tragedij, IV. 2 Yendice says : —
thou almighty patience ! 'tis my wonder
That such a fellow, impudent and wicked,
Should not be cloven as he stood ;
Or with a secret wind burst open !
Is there no thunder left ; or is't kept up
In stock for heavier vengeance ? [7'hnnder] there it goes !
The same device is employed once more in the last
scene.
More striking, however, than the resemblance of
isolated passages is the resemblance in theme and mode
of treatment. Webster and Tourneur, like Seneca,
choose themes of Inst, murder, incest, and unnatural \
crime; they employ the same devices of ghosts and the
"hastly relics of mortality ; their tragedies breathe the
same atmosphere of blood. By the side of these heaped
up horrors, which Webster depicted with unique dramatic
power and psychological insight, we have something of
Seneca's reflective tendency, and occasionally a likeness
in the thoughts expressed, as may be remarked in the
the passages quoted above. We have Seneca's fatalism
in The Duchess of Malji, V. 4:—
We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied
"Which way please them.
112 The Influence of Seneca
and Seneca's Stoicism in V. 3 of the same play: — •
Though in our miseries Fortune have a part,
Yet in our noble sufferings she hath none :
C ontempt of pain , that we may call our own.
Tourneur amplifies the same idea in The Atheist's
Tragedy, III. 3, in Charlemont's defiance of Sebastian and
bis father. To the same source we may ascribe the
Stoical calmness with which the characters of both
dramatists meet death. See, for instance, the last speech
of the Duchess of Malfi ; Vittoria Corrombona welcomes
death " as princes do some great ambassador ; " she
meets the weapon half-way, and sheds "not one base
tear." Flamineo, her villainous brother, ends his life
,with a laugh, and the reflection.
We cease to grieve, cease to be fortune's slaves,
Nay, cease to die, by dying.
Bosola, the villain of Thi Diioh''ss of Malfi, dies with
hardly less constancy. Charlemout and Castabella in
The Atheists Tragedij seek death with equal hardihood ;
and in The Revenger's Tragedg Vendice accepts death for
himself as calmly as he dealt it out to others, v
FORD, f^ Ford abounds in his own kind of tragic horrors, and
he is not altogether free from crude sensationalism; in
yTis Pitg She's a Whore, Giovanni enters with his
I sister's heart upon his dagger, and Ford's plays
generally treat of such " strong " themes as incest,
adultery, and murderous revenge. But the atmosphere
vv
on Elizabethan Tragedy, 11^
of his tragedies does not overpower us with the smell
of blood, as in the case of Webster and Tourneiir ; there
is often a fresher, purer air of quiet thought and natural
passion. Ford makes little use of the supernatural ; in
all probability Mother Sawyer and her familiars in The
Witch of Edmonton am the creations of Dekker, and the
only spirit to be set down to Ford's account is the quiet
and inoffensive ghost of Susan, which comes to the bed-
side of her husband and murderer, and stands there
without saying a word. Ford's genius was of too refined
a character to seek the strong and coarse effects which
were achieved by some of his contemporaries and
predecessors. Occasionally he is guilty of rhetorical
exaggeration, as in The Broken Heart, IV. 1 : —
In anger !
In anger let him part ; for could his breath,
Like whirlwinds, toss such servile slaves as lick
The dust his footsteps print iiito a vapour.
It durst not stir a hair of mine, it .should not ;
Id rend it up by the roots first.
And again m Love's Sacrifice, IV. 2 :—
I have a sword — 'tis here — should make my way
Through tire, through darkness, death, and hell, and all,
To hew your lust-engendered flesh to shreds,
Pound you to mortal", cut your throats, and mince
Your flesh to mites : I will, — start not,-— I will.
But extravagance is pardonable in the mouths of
characters like Ithocles and the Duke in their respective
situations.
114 The lujluence of Seneca
In Ford the reflective tendency is strongly marked,
but his manner is all his own. He had a marvellous gift
for expressing deep and yet simple thought, far removed
from Seneca's artificial and strained dialectic, which was
probably its far-back ancestor. Nothing could show the
contrast better than the comparison of Seneca's well-worn
maxim,
curae leues loquuntur ingentes stupent,
with the magnificent passage in which Ford enlarges on
the same idea. The Broke?!. Heart, V. 3 : —
0, my lords,
I but deceived your eyes with antic gesture,
When one news straight came huddling on another
Of death ! and death ! and death ! still I danced forward ;
But it struck home, and here, and in an instant.
Be such mere women, who with shrieks and outcries
Can vow a present end to all their sorrows,
Yet live to court new pleasures, and outlive them :
They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-strings ;
Let me die smiling.
Probably the points in which Ford drew nearest to
Seneca and in which he owes most to him (if indeed he
owes anything at all) are those previously remarked in
the case of his contemporaries. Ford, like Seneca, was
^ fatalist. Thus Orgilus in The Broken Heart, I. 3 : —
Ingenious Fate has leapt into mine arms,
Beyond the compass of my brain. Mortality
Creeps on the dung of earth, and cannot reach
The xiddles which are purposed by the gods,
on EUzabethan Tragcdij. 115
The same thought closes Act IV of Love's Satrifice,
and occurs again and again in the domestic tragedy of
The IVitch of Edmonton, the only part of that drama we
should ascribe to Ford. With this fatalism is allied the
idea of Stoical submission. Thus Ladv Katherine in
Ferkin Warbed, III. 2 :—
What our dcstiuiog
Have ruled out in their books we must not searoh,
But kneel to.
So, too, Ithocles in Tke Brolen Heart, lY. 1: — ■
Leave to the powers
Above us the effects of their decrees ;
My burthen lies within me : servile fears
Prevent no great effects.
To the influence of Seneca, direct or indirect, we
should probably ascribe the calmness with which Ford's
characters meet death. Perkin Warbeck closes his life
with the words.
Death? pish ! 'tis but a sound: a name of air
]he in nocent Susan in The Witch of Edmonton ; the
guilt y brother and sister in 'Tis Fity She's a Wiore ;
Ithocles, Orgilus, and Calantha in The Broken Hmrt :
Bianca, Fernando, and the Duke m Loves Sacrifce—aW
arealike in their contempt for death ; they rather seek
it than fear it.
116 The Ivfluence of Seneca
BEAU3toi\T Beaumont and FletchePv, in The Kniqhi of the Burnimj
and ■ ^ ■■ "J
FLETCHER. jVsf/^', made ftin of tLe pliilosopliical commonplaces,^ the
I bombast, and the supernatm'al horrors which dramatists
( like Marston borrowed from Seneca; but Beaumont and
I Fletcher are themselves not free from occasional exag-
geration of expression ;- ghosts or spirits appear in several
of the plays in which Fletcher had a hand,'^
and in one or two the tragic effect is of a some-
what gruesome character. Thus in The Triampli
'of Death (probably by Fletcher alone), amid the whole-
/ sale slaughter which closes the play, Gabriella tears out
I her husband's heart, and throws it at his uncle's feet ;
Uind in The Bloochj Brother (by Fletcher and Massinger),
;the heads of Gisbert and Hamond are brought on the
j stage after their execution. Still, it must be acknow-
ledged that Fletcher and his chief co-adjutors, Beaumont
and Massinger, owe little to Seneca. Their most impor-
tant debt was probably the Stoical fortitude with which
their characters are inspired in face of death. Fletcher
has sometimes been credited wdth weakness in this
respect ;* but, so far as I can see, it is little less remark-
able in the plays which Fletcher wrote alone than in
1 Ralph's reflection, (V. 2), " To a resolved mind his home is
everywhere," is evidently a parody of Antonio and Mellida, 2nd Part,
II. 1, "A wise man's home is wheresoe'er he is wise" — a maxim which
Marston borrowed from Seneca.
2 See Fhilaster, III. 1." Set hills on hills..." and IV. 4. "Place
me, some god, upon a pyramis ;" speeches of Arbaces in A King
and no King ; and Fletcher's A Wife for a Month, IV. 4.
3 In The Lover's Progress and The Proi^hetess, by Fletcher and
Massinger, and in Tlie Humorous Lieutenant and The Triumph of
Death, by Fletcher alone. ,
* See Mr. R. Boyle's note on Barnavelt,
071 Ellzahethni Tragcdij. 117
tliose written in conjunction with others. In Fletcher's
Valmtinian, IV, 4, Aecius says : —
We must all die,
All leave ourselves ; it matters not where, when,
Nor how, so we die well.
So too Young Archas in I. 4 of The Loyal Suhjai,
another play written hy Fletcher alone : —
'Tis but dying,
And, madam, we must do it ; the manner's alL
an^ his father in IV. 5 : —
I am the same, the same man, living, dying ;
The same mind to 'em both, T poize thus equal.
See also the deaths of Bonduca and her daughters
in Fletcher's tragedy, for, as in Seneca, the women are
no less brave than the men. We note this as well in the
work which Fletcher did in co-operation with Beaumont
as in the later tragedies in which he had the assistance
of Massinger. When Philaster (III. 1) says to the dis-
guised Euphrasia,
Oh, but thou dost not know
What 'tis to die.
she replies
Yes, I do know, my lord :
'Tis less than to be born ; a lasting sleep ;
A quiet resting from all jealousy,
A thing we all pursue ; I know, besides.
It is but giving over of a gan.e
That must be lost.
118 The Iiifiucnce of Senecd
and Ordella in Fletcher and Massinger's Thurrij and
Theodorct says,
'Tis of all sleeps the sweetest :
Children begin it to us, strong men seek it,
And kings from height of all their painted glories
Fall like spent exhalations to this centre :
And those are fools that fear it.
In The Double Marriage, another phiy by Fletcher
and Massinger, Juliana is as heroic in her contempt for
death as her husband, and Martia as unflinching as her
valiant father.
Eeflective passages in the plays passing under the
names of Beaumont and Fletcher are not numerous, and
though in some cases the thought expressed may be
interpreted as a reminiscence of Seneca, there are few
instances in which the resemblance is not just as likely
to be merely accidental. Thus, Philaster's exclamation
(III. 1. ad fin.)
Oh, where shall I
Go bathe this body ? Nature too unkind,
That made no medicine for a troubled mind !
may be compared ^utll Hercules Furens 1330-6, " Quis
Tanais " and 1268-9, " Nemo polluto queat animo
mederi ;" but it seems useless to multiply parallels of this
kind. The only example I have found of direct imitation
TheBio^dy is in the scene between Sophia and her two sons in The
Bloodij Brother (I. 1), which is largely borrowed from
Seneca, as the following extracts will show :— -
Broihrr.
on EUzahethan Tragedy. 119
Soph. And join your hands while they are itmoreat !
You have heat of blood, and youth apt to ambition,
To plead an easy pardon for what's past ;
But all the ills beyond this hour committed,
From gods or men must hope for no excuse.
dexteras matri date,
date dum piae sunt, error inuitos adhuc
fecit nocentes, omne fortunae fuit
peccantis in uos crimen : hoc primum nefas
inter scientes geritur. {l^kebais 450-4.)
and again
Why dost thou tremble,
And with a fearful eye, fix'd on thy brother,
Observ'st his ready sword, as bent against thee ?
I am thy armour, and will be pierc'd through
Ten thousand times, before I will give way
To any peril may arrive at thee ;
And therefore fear not.
quo uultus refers
acieque pauida f ratris .obseruas manum 1
adfusa totum corpus amplexu tegam
tuo cruori per meum fiet uia.
quid dubius haeres ? an times matris fidem ?
{Thehais 473-7.)
Soph, {returning the sivord)
Take it again, and stand upon your guard,
And, while your brother is, continue arm'd.
redde iam capulo manum,
adstringe galeam, laeua se clipeo ingerat,
dum frater est armatus, armatus mane. {Thehais 480-2.)
120 The Influence of Seneca
You doubt him ; he fears you ; I doubt and fear
Both, for [the] other's safety, not my own.
Know yet, my sons, when of necessity
You must deceive or be deceiv'd, 'tis better
To suffer treason than to act the traitor ;
And in a war like this, in which the glory
Is his that's overcome. Consider, then.
What 'tis for which you strive : is it the dukedom 1
Or the command of these so ready subjects 1
Desire of wealth 1 or whatsoever else
Fires your ambition ? 'tis still desperate madness.
To kill the people which you would be lords of :
With fire and sword to lay that country waste
Whose rule you seek for ; to consume the treasures,
Which are the sinews of your government,
In cherishing the factions that destroy it :
Far, far be this from you ! make it not question'd
Whether you can have interest in that dukedom
Whose ruin both contend for.
ille te ttt ilium times,
ego utrumque, sed pro utroque...
id gerere bellum cupitis in quo e^fc optimum
I'inci. uereris fratris infesti dolos ?
quotiens neces,se est fallereaut falli a suis,
patiare potius ipse quam facias seel us.
■ «■ ••• •■• •■• ••• .*■'
quis tenet mentem furor ?
petendo patriam perdis 1 ut fiat tua,
uis esse nullam ? quin tuae causae nocet
ipsum hoc quod annis uertis infestis solum
segetesque adustas sternis et totos fugam
edis per agros : nemo sic uastat sua.
quae corripi igne quae meti gladio iubes
aliena credis ? rex sit e nobis uter
manente regno quaerite. {Thehais 488-494, 557-565.)
on EUzahethan Tragedjj. 121
It should be noted that Mr. Ohphant, Mr. Boyle, massingeh,
and Mr. Bullen agree in ascribing the above passage to
Massinger, who is more nearl}^ allied to' Seneca than
Beaumont and Fletcher, his genius being, as Dr. Ward
remarks, " essentially rhetorical," He is not entirely
free from bombast,^ and in some of his plays he relies
for dramatic effect upon the physical horrors which
we have remarked as the chief characteristic of the
English school of Seneca. Nothing could be more
repulsive than the outrage done to the dead body of
Marcelia in The DuJce of Milan ; and the theme of
The Unnatural Combat is bloody and horrible enough.
The conclusion of the latter drama is brought about in a
manner worthy of the most devoted imitator of Seneca's
ghosts and crude horrors, the stage direction reading : —
"Enter the Ghost of young Malefort, naked from the
waist, full of wounds, leading in the Shadow of a Lady,
her face leprous." Soneca is mentioned two or three
times in different plays,"^ and I have noted one or two
parallels in addition to the extract from The Bloodij Brother
quoted above; but they are not very striking. The %
following passages express ideas derived from Seneca,
but by Massinger's time long familiar to the English
drama. The DuJce of Milan, I. 3 : —
The only blessing that
Heaven hath bestowed on us, more than on beasts,
^ e. g. Sforza in Tlie Duhe of Milan, V. 2 ; Slave in The Virgin
Martyr, IV. 1.
3 7'A<J Maid of Ho^iour, IV. 3; The Roman Actor, III. 2.
123 The Influence of Seneca
Is, that 'tis in our pleasure wheu to die.
Besides, were I now in another's power,
There are so many ways to let out life,
I would not live, for one short minute, his ;
I was born only yours, and I will die so.
The Bashful Lover, IV. 1 :—
HoRT. Virtue's but a word ;
Fortune rules all.
Mat. We are her tennis balls.
Massinger is not, however, a thoroagli-goiug fatalist
like Ford, Webster, and Tourneur. His general attitude
is more correctly represented by the concluding speech
of Lorenzo in the play just quoted : —
Fortune here hath shown
Her various power ; but virtue, in the end,
Is crown'd with laurel.
Another mark of the influence of Seneca is to be
found less clearly in Massinger than in some of his con-
temporaries—the steadfastness with which the characters
meet death. This is not so characteristic of Massinger
as of the Seneca school proper ; but instances of it are
not wanting. The converts in The Christian Martyr of
coui*se meet death with Christian fortitude ; and the
calmness of Antiochus in Believe as you List is nothing
more than we should expect from his royal character and
Stoical training. It is more to the point to note that
Francisco, the villain in The Duke of_Milan^_mee\s death
on EUzahctlian Tragedy,. 123
updannt ed ; and see also the beautiful song with which
Eudocia in The Emperor of the East, Y. 3 welcomes " the
long and quiet sleep of death."
Shirley, tlie hist of the ciant race, marks the ^^'^^^-s^*'
emancipation of English tragedy from the authority of
Seneca, except so far as regards the character of his
themes. The subjects of his tragedies are still themes of
lust and blood, and it would be hard to find a more
striking example of heaped-up horrors than the con-
clusion of The Traitor. Still, as Mr. Dyce remarks, " in ^
only one of his plays, St. Patrick for Ireland, is super-
natural agency employed ; and in not one of them does
a ghost make its appearance." Again, Seneca's phil-
sophy had little or no effect upon Shirley. He was not
a fatalist, and his characters are far from Stoical. His
most determined hero, Sciarrha, says, in The Traitor,
IV. 2 :—
Although I never fear VI to suffer, I
Am not so foolish to despise a life.
— a very different sentiment to the eagerness for death
represented by the followers of Seneca. The Cardinal,
again, ends his wicked life with the despairing cry :--
If you but waft me with a little prayer ;
My wings that flag might catch the wind ; but 'tis
In vain, the mist is risen, and there's none
To steer my wandering bark.
—a striking contrast to the fearlessness in face of death
124 The Injfucncc of Seneca
shown by the desperate villains of Webster, whose style
Shirley is thought to have imitated in The Cardinal.
condmion. With Shirley onr survey of the drama closes. We
might go further, and inquire into the influence Seneca
had, at first or second hand, upon Milton's conception of
tragedy ; we might attempt to estnuate Dryden's indebted-
ness to Seneca, and examine the imitations or adaptations
of Seneca by Crowne, Thomson, and Glover. The
influence of Seneca was paramount in English tragedy till
far into the eighteenth century. It is little more than a
hundred years since Greek literature began to exert a
broad and steady influence on our poetry. Professor J.
W. Hales observes in an article on " The Last Decade
of the Last Century " in the current^ number of the
Conteniporanj Bevleiv that '• the critics and authors of the
eighteenth century are for ever talking about the classics ;
but, if we observe their remarks, we shall find for
the most part that they mean the Latin classics — that
tliey have little or no real acqiiaintance with the Greek.
If we take a glance at the classical tragedies
that were in esteem, we find they belong to the
school of Seneca rather than that of Sophocles." But
it does not seem worth while to prove this by detailed
examination. The importance of Seneca's influence on
the drama is at an end, and it only remains for us to sum
up its abiding results, which we find chiefly in the stage
traditions which have come down to our own day.
September, 1892.
on Eiizahethan Traqedy, 125
Seneca's live acts are still with us, and we have a
curious survival from the classical drama in the operatic
chorus. Our conception of tragedy still leads us to
expect deeds of violence and blood, vividly presented in
highly wrought scenes, and weighted with well-expressed
thought. )Mr. Symonds seems to me to undervalue the
reflective element which the authoritvof Seneca induced in
Ehzabethan tragedy. He is inclined to lay it down as a
principle that " in proportion as a dramatist lends himself
to the compilation of ethical anthologies, in that very
measure he is an inferior master of his craft." Seeing
that an industrious compiler has found no less than 2,700
*• mottoes and aphorisms" in Shakspere, Mr. Symonds'
standard, if rigidly applied, would S3em to endanger the
fame of the greatest of the EHzabethans ; and such a
result is enough to call for a revision of the standard of
judgement. In his Guide to Greek Tragcdij, Dr. Campbell
has some admirable remarks showing that the element
of ethical reflection " enteis almost necessarily into
all tragedy ;" he says further that all great tragedy is at
once individual and universal. Seneca often loses sight
of the individual in the universal ; but the tendency of
the popular drama in England w^ould have been in the
opposite direction, and in correcting this tendency Seneca
seem to me to have done good service to the Elizabethan
drama, giving it permanent value, for the study as well
as for the stage. That Seneca misled English dramatists
into violence and exaggeration cannot be denied ; but
these are faults which have their favourable side. If
Ehzabethan tragedy is sometimes too sensational,
126 The Iiifiwnce of Senccu-
it ia very seldom dull; and if its diction is sometimes
extravagant, it is rarely inadequate to the needs of
Uie situation, however tremeudous the tragic crisis
may be. What English tragedy would have been
without the examj^le of Seneca, it is hard to imagine ;
its developement from the miracle plays and moralities
must have been exceedingly slow ; and if the impulse
had come from other European nations, it would only
have been the influence of Seneca at second hand, in the
case of France with exaggerated artificiality, in the case
of Italy with exaggerated horrors. Even the direct
imitation of Greek tragedy, in all the perfection ol
Sophocles, might not have been an unmixed blessing ;
but, after all, literary criticism is concerned, not with
what might have been, but with what was ; and that the
influence of Seneca was paramount in the origin and
developement of Elizabethan tragedy has been proved by
the testimony of contemporary critics, and by the still
more convincing evidence oX tiie tragedies themselves.
on Elizaheilian Tragedy. 127
APPENDIX I.
Latin Quotations from Seneca
in Elizabethan Tragedies.
Sm THOMAS MO BE.
XJbi turpis est medicina, sanari piget. (Oedipus 530.)
Humida vallis raros patitur fulminis ictus. [Hippolytus 1141-2.)
Curae leues loquuntur, ingeutes stupent. (Hlppolyhis 615.)
The last quotation also occurs in The Bctimi from
rarnassus, and in Tourneur's Revenger's Tragedg, majores
being inserted in the latter case instead of the correct
reading ingeutes,
THE TRUE TRAGEDY OF RICHARD III.
Quisquam regua gaudit, 6 fallex bonum.
[quisquamne regno gaudet 1 o fallax bonum. {Oedipus 6.)]
KYD'S SPANISH TRAGEDY.
Per scelus semper tutum est sceleribus iter.
[per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter. (Agamemnon 116.)]
Fata si miseros juvant, habes salutem ;
Fata si vitam negant, habes sepulchrum. (Troas 518-520.)
128 The Influence of Seneca
MARLOWE'S EDWARD II,
Quern dies vidit veniens superbum,
Hunc dies vidit fugieus jacentem. {TJiyestes 613-4.)
TITUS ANDRONICUS.
Sit fas aut nefas...
Per Styga, per manes vehor.
[et te per undas perque tartareos lacus
per Styga per amnes igneos amens sequar. (Illj^polt/tus 1188-9.)]
Magni Dominator poli,
Tam lentus audis scelera 1 tain lentus vides 1
[magne regnator deum,
tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus uidos ? (Hippoli/tus 679-80.)]
MARSTON'S ANTONIO AND MELLIDA.
Dimitto superos, summa votorura attigi. [Thyestes 891.)
Capienda rebus in mails praecep3 via est. {Agamemnon 155.)
Scelera non ulcisceris, nisi vin^is. (Thyestes 195-6.)
quisquis nova
Supplicia functis dirus umbrarum arbiter
Disponis, quisquis exeso jaces
Pavidus sub antro, quisquis venturi times
Montis ruinam, quisquis avidorum feros
Rictus leonum, et dira furiarum agmina
Implicitus horres, Antonii vocem excipe
Properantis ad vos.
[Thijestes 13-15 and 75-81 ruQ together, with Antonii put
instead of Tantcdi.]
on Elizabethan Tragedy^ 129
Venit in nostras manus
Tandem vindicta, venit et tota quidein. {ThjesUs 494-5.)
[Vincllcta tota = Thjestes.... totm in Seneca.]
Venit dies, tempusque, quo reddat suis
Animam squalentem sceleribus. {Octavia 641-2.)
[Venit = veniet, squalentem = Jiocentem.]
THE MALCOKTEXT.
Unde cadis, non quo, refert.
[magis unde cadas quam quo refert. {Thyestes 929.)]
Praemium incertum petit certum scelus. (77tebais 632-3.)
Per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est itev. {Agamemnon 110.)
THE FAWF.
Qui jiiuiis notus omnibus
Ignotus moritur sibi. {Thyestes 402-3.)
Fatis agimur, cedite fatis. (Oedipus 1001.)
c^^
^
130 Th Influence of Seneca
APPENDIX II.
Imitations of Seneca
IN
THE MISFORTUNES OF ARTHUB.
The pages refer to Vol. IV of Eazlitt's Dodsleij.
There are 37 h'nes in a full page, which will give the
reader some idea of the proportion of borrowed lines.
In some cases half or more than half the page is
borrowed.^ Besides the passages given, there are many
which seem to have been suggested by Seneca ; but I
have only thought those worthy of record in which the.
imitation is obvious.
Page 264. Let mischiefs know no mean, nor plagues an end !
Let th' offspring's sin exceed the former stock !
Let none have time to hate his former fault.
But still with fresh supply let punish'd crime
Increase, till time it make a complete sin.
nee sit irarum modus
pudorue : mentes caecus instiget furor,
rabies parentum duret et longum nefas
eat in nepotes. nee uacet cuiquam uetus
odisse crimen : semper oriatur nouum
nee unum in uno, dumque punitur scelus,
crescat. {Thyesies 26-32.)
On page 266 there ai'e not half a dozen original lines,
on EUzahethan Tragedy. 131
Page 264 Go to : some fact, which no age shall allow
(continued), -v-^ , ^
JS or yet conceal —
age anime fac quod nulla posteritas probet,
sed nulla taceat. {Thyestes 192-3.)
Page 265. Attempt some bloody, dreadful, irksome fact,
And such as Mordred would were rather his.
aliquod audendum est nefas
atrox cruentum tale quod frater meus
suum esse malit. {lltyesks 193-5.)
Page 206. Frame out some trap beyond all vulgar guile,
Beyond Medea's wiles : attempt some fact,
That any wight unwieldy of herself.
That any spouse unfaithful to her pheer.
Durst e'er attempt in most despair of weal.
Spare no revenge, b' it poison, knife, or fire !
tecum ipsa nunc euolue femineos dolos,
quod uUa coniunx perfida atque impos sui
amore caeco, quod nouercales manus
ausae, quod ardens impia uirgo face
phasiaca f ugiens regna thessalica trabe :
ferrum uenena. {Agamemnon 117-122.)
>>
The wrath that breatheth blood doth loathe to lurk,
cum spirat ira sanguinem nescit tegi. {Thyestea 504.)
I am disdain'd : so will I not be long.
That very hour that he shall first arrive,
Shall be the last that shall afford him life.
iam displicemus, capta praelata est mihi.
non praeferetur : qui dies thalami ultimus
nostri est futurus, hie erit uitae tuae.
{Herctdes Oetaeus 307-9.)
132 The Injfncncc of Seneca
Page 266 Thougli neither seas, nor lands, nor wars abroad
(cvntinncd). g^gg^^g^j f^^ thy foil, yet slialt thou find
Far worse at home — thy deep-displeased spouse.
Whate'er thou hast subdued in all thy stay
This hand shall now subdue.
gesseris caelum licet
totusque pacem dcbeat mundus tibi :
est aliquid hydra peius iratae dolor
nuptae. quis ignis tantus in caelum furit
ardentis Aetnae ? quicquid est uictum tibi
hie uincet animus. {Hercules Oetaeus 285-290.)
»
jj
What's this 1 my mind recoils and irks these threats :
Anger delays, my grief gins to assuage,
My fury faints, and sacred wedlock's faith
Presents itself. Why shunnst thou fearful wrath?
Add coals afresh : preserve me to this venge.
quid hoc 1 recedit animus et ponit minas,
iam cessit ira. quid miser langues dolor 1
perdis furorem, coniugis sanctae fidem
mihi reddis iterum. quid uetas flammas ali ?
quid frangis ignes 1 hunc mihi serua impel urn.
{Hercules Oetaeus 310-314.)
At least exile thyself to realms unknown,
And steal his wealth to help thy banish'd state ;
For flight is best, O base and heartless fear !
Theft? Exile ? Flight ? all these may fortune send
Unsought ; but thee beseems more high revenge.
uel mycenaea domo
coniuncta socio profuge furtiua rate,
quid timida loqueris f urta ct exilium et f ugas 1
sors ista fecit, te decet maius nefas.
{Agamemnon 122-5.)
on Ellzahethan Tragedy. 133
Page 266 Come, spiteful fiends, come, heaps of furies fell.
(continued).
Not one by one, but all at once 1 my breast
Page 267. Raves not enough : it likes me to be fill'd
With greater monsters yet.
dira furiarum coliors
discorsque Erinnys ueniat et geminas faces
Megaera quatiens. non satis magno meum
ardet furore pectus, impleri iuuat
maiore monstro. {Thyestes 250-254.)
J, My heart doth throb.
My liver boils : soniewh'at my mind portends,
Uncertain what ; but whatsoever, it's huge. .
nescio quid animus maius et solito amplius
supraque fines moris humani tumct
instatque pigris manibus. baud quid sit scio,
sed grande quiddam est. (Thyestes 267-270.)
„ Omit no plague, and none will be enough.
nullum rclinquam facinus et nullum est satis.
{Thyestes 256.)
„ Wrong cannot be reveng'd but by excess.
scelera non ulcisceris
nisi uincis. {Thyestes 195-6.)
,) Fron. Is there no mean in wrong ?
GuEN. Wrong claims a mean, when fix'st you offer wrong
The mean is vain when wrong is in revenge.
Thy. sceleris est aliquis modus.
Atr. sceleri modus debetur, itbi facias scelus,
non ubi rcponas. {Thyestes 1055'7»)
13'i The Ivjiucncc of Seneca
Page 267 Great harms cannot be hid : the grief is small,
(continued), mi. • i • t -l \£
J hat can receive advice, or rule itseli.
leuis est dolor qui capere consilium potest
et clepere sese, magna non latitant mala. (Medea 155-6,)
„ Hatred concealed doth often lap to hurt,
But once profess'd, it oft'ner fails revenge.
ira quae tegitur nocet,
professa perdunt odia uindictae locum, {Medea 1534.)
„ Unlawful love doth like, when lawful loathes,
inlicita amantur, excidit quicquid licet.
{Hercules Oetaeus 360.)
Page 268. Fron. How can you then attempt a fresh offence 1
GuEN. Who can appoint a stint to her offence ?
KvT, piget prioris et nouum crimen struis 1
Cly, res est profecto stulta nequitiae modus.
{xigameinnon 150-151.)
„ Whom Gods do press, they bend ; whom man annoys.
He breaks.
caelestis ira quos premit, miseros facit,
humana nullos. {Hercules Oetaeus 444-5.)
))
Your grief is more than his deserts.
Each fault requires an equal hate : be not severe,
Where crimes be light. As you have felt, so grieve.
maior admisso tuus
alumna dolor est : culpa par odium exigat.
cur saeua modice statuis ? ut passa es dole,
{Hercules Oetaeus 447-9.)
on EUzahthan Tragedy, 135
Page 269, Well, shame is not so quite cxil'd, but that
I can and will respect your sage advice.
non omnis animo cescit ingenuo pudor :
paremus altrix. {Hippolytus 255-6.)
The love, that for his rage will not be rul'd,
Must be restrain'd : fame shall receive no foil.
qui regi non uidt amor
uincatur. haud te fama maculari sinam.
{Ilippolytus 256-7.)
Her breast, not yet appeas'd from former rage,
Hath chang'd her wrath which, wanting means to work
Another's woe (for such is fury's wont),
Seeks out his own, and raves upon itself.
nOndum tumultu pectus attonitum caret
mutauit iras quodque habet proprium furor,
in se ipse saeuit. {^Hercules Furens 1226-8.)
Thereby the rather you deserve to live
For seeming worthy iji yourself to die.
dignam ob hoc uita reor
quod esse temet autumas dignam nece. {Hijypolytus 261-2.)
„ Death is decreed, what kind of death, I doubt :
Page 270. Whether to drown or stifle up this breath,
Or forcing blood to die with dint of knife.
decreta mors est ; quaeritur fati genus,
laqueone uitam finiam an forro incubem 1
(FRppoIytus 263-4.)
186 The Influence of Seneca
Page 270 All hope of prosperous liap is gone.. My fame,
(con mue ). ]\f y* f .^j j]^^ ^y gpouse — no goocl is left luilost !
cuncta jam amisi bona :
mcntem arma famam coniugem. (^Hercules Farens 1266-7.)
»
»
}?
»>
Myself am left : there's left hoth seas and lands,
And sword, and fire and chains, and choice of harms.
Medea superest, hie mare et terras uides
ferrumque et ignes et deos et fulmina. (Medea 166-7.)
Who now can heal
My maimed mind 1 It must be heal'd by death.
nemo polluto queat
animo mederi. morte sanandum est scelus.
(Hercules Furens 1268-9.)
Alone you may not die, with me you may.
perire sine me non potes, rnecum potes. (Thehais 66.)
They that will drive th' unwilling to their death,
Or frustrate death in those that fiiin would die,
OfFeiid alike.
qui cogit mori
nolentem in aequo est quique propei'antem itipedit.
{Thehais 98-99.)
Ang. But will my tears and mournings move you nought?
GuEN. Then is it best to die when friends do mourn.
Thes. lacrimae nonne te nostrae mouent ?
Phae. mors optima est perire lacrimant duin sui.
{Hippolytus 888-9.)
on EUzahethan Tragedy. 137
Page 270 Each-wliere is death ! the fates ha^e well ordam'd,
{coninue ). rpj^^^ Qa,Q\i man may bereave himself of life,
But none of death : death is so sure a doom,
A thousand ways do guide us to our graves.
ubique mors est. optume hoc cauit deus.
eripere uitam nemo non homini potest,
at nemo mortem : mille ad hanc aditus patent.
{Thelcm 151-3.)
„ Who then can ever come too late to that.
Whence, when he is come, he never can return?
Or what avails to hasten on our ends.
And Ions: for that which destinies have sworn !
nemo ad id sero uenit unde numquam,
cum semel uenit, potuit reuerti.
quid iuuat dirum properare fatum?
[Hercules Furens 869-871.)
Page 271. Death is an end of pain, no pain itself.
de fine poenae loqucris, ego poenam uolo. {Thytstes 246.)
)>
Is 't meet a plague for such excessive wrcng
Should be' so short ? Should one stroke answer all ?
\SoUloqiixzes\ And would'st thou die ? well, that contents
the laws :
What, then, for Arthur's ire? What for thy fame.
Which thou hast stain'd? What for thy stock thou
sham'st ?
Not death nor life can alone give a full
Revenge : join both in one — die and yet live.
Where pain may not be oft, let it be long.
Seek out some lingeiing death, whereby thy corpse
May neither touch the dead nor joy the quick,
pie, but no common death : pass nature's boui;ds,
188 The Influence of Seneca
itane ? tam magnis breues
poenas sceleribus soluis atque uno onmia
pensabis ictu ? moreris : hoc patri sat est.
quid deinde matri, quid male in lucem editis
gnatis, quid ipsi quae tuum magna luit
scelus ruina flebilis patriae dabis 1
Boluenda non est ilia quae leges ratas
natura in uno uertit Oedipode nouos
commenta partus, snpplicis cadem meis
nouetur. iterum uiuere atque iterum mori
liceat renasci semper, ut totiens noua
supplicia pendas. utere ingenio miser,
quod saepe fieri non potest fiat diu.
mors eligatur longa. quaeratur uia
qua nee sepultis mixtus et uiuis tamen
exemptus erres. morere sed citra patrem.
(Oedipus 957-972.)
Paf'e 271 The mind and not the chance doth make th' unchaste.
(continued X
mens inpudicam facere non casus solet. (IIi2-)2')olytus 74-3.)
Then is your fault from fate ; you rest excus'd.
None can be deemed faulty for her fate.
fati ista culpa est. nemo fit fato nocens. (Oedipus 1041.)
«
»
Impute mishaps to fates, to manners faults.
nam monstra fato, moribus scelera inputes.
(Hippolytus 149.)
A mighty error oft hath seem'd a sin.
saepe error ingens sceleris optinuit locum.
(Hercules Fur ens \1\.x>.^
Oh EUzahethan Tragedy. 139
Page 272, The hour, which erst I always feared most
The certain ruin of luy desperate state,
Is happened now ! why turn'st thou (mind) thy back ?
Why at the first assault dost thou recoil ?
Trust to 't, the angry heavens contrive some spite,
And dreadful doom t' augment thy cursed hap.
Oppose to each revenge thy guilty head,
quod tempus animo semper ac mente horrui,
adest profecto rebus extremum meis.
quid terga uertis anime 1 quid primo impetu
deponis arma 1 crede perniciem tibi
et dira saeuos fata moliri deos.
oppone cunctis uile suppliciis caput. (Agamemnon 227-232.)
Page 273. What shouldst thou fear, that see'st not what to hope?
qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil. {Medea 163.)
cui ultima est fortuna, quid dubium timet?
(Agamemnon 147.)
,, He safely stands, that stands beyond his harms.
cuius baud ultra mala
exire possunt in loco tuto est situs. (Thebais 198-9.)
a
Thine (death) is all that east and west can see ;
For thee we live, our coming is not long !
Spai'e us but whiles we may prepare our graveSi
Though thou wert slow, we hasten of ourselves,
The hour that gave did also take our lives.
tibi crescit omne,
et quod occasus uidet et quod ortus.
parce uenturis. tibi mors paramur,
9is licet segnis, properamus ipsi.
prima quae uitam dedit hora, carpit>
{Heresies Furens 8T4-8,}
140 The In thence of Seneca
Page 273 My fear is past, and wedlock love hath won.
Retire we thither yet, whence first we ought
Not to have stirr'd. Call back chaste faith again.
The way that leads to good is ne'er too late :
Who so repents is guiltless of his crimes.
amor iugalis uincit ac flectit retro,
remeomus illuc, unde non decuit prius
abire. sed nunc casta repetatur fides,
nam sera nuniquam est ad bonos mores uia.
quern paenitet pecasse, poenac est innocens.
(Agamemnon 240-244.)
Page 274. Nor love nor sovereignity can bear a peer.
nee regna socium ferre nee taedae sciunt.
(Agamemnon 260.)
„ Why dost thou still stir up my flames delay'd 1
His strays and errors must not move my mind :
A law for private men binds not the king.
What, that I ought not to condemn my liege,
Nor can, thus guilty to mine own offence !
Where both have done amiss, both will relent :
He will forgive that needs must be forgiven.
Aegisthe quid me rursus in praeceps rapis
iramque flammis iam residentem excitas ?
permisit aliquid uictor in captam sibi :
nee coniugem hoc respicere nee dominam decet.
lex alia solio est alia priuato toro.
quid quod seueras ferre me leges uiro
non patitur animus turpis admissi memor.
det ille ueniam facile cui uenia est opus.
(Agamemnon 261-8.)
on UliZiihctUan Tragcihj. 141
Page 274 A judge severe to us, mild to hijuself.
(continued).
nobis maligni iudices aequi sibi. (Agamemnon 271.)
His is the crime, whom crime stands most in stead.
cui prodest scehis,
is fecit. (Medea 503-4.)
Well should she seem most guiltless unto thee,
Whate er she be, that's guilty for thy sake.
,tibi innocens sit quisquis est pro te nocens. (Medea 506.)
Page 275. His ways be blind that maketh chance his guide.
caeca est temeritas quae petit casum ducem.
(Agamemnon 146.)
The safest passage is from bad to worse.
per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter.
(Agamemnon 116.)
»
«
»
He is a fool that puts a mean in crimes.
res est profecto stulta nequitiae modus. (Agamemnon\b\.)
So sword and fire will often sear the sore.
et ferrum et ignis saepe medicinae loco est.
(Agamemnon 163.)
Extremest cures must not be used first.
extrema primo nemo temptauit loco. (Agamemnon 154.)
142 The Infiuence of Seneca
Page 275 In desperate times the headlong way is best.
(cuntlaued).
capienda rebus in malis praeceps uia est.
(^Aganiemno)i 155.)
Page 27G. Mi.'schief is sometimes safe, but ne'er secure,
scelus ali(i[ua tutum, nulla securum tulit. (Hippoli/tus 169.)
Cox. The wrongful sceptre'.s held with trembling hand.
MoR. Whose rule wants right, his safety's in his sword.
rapta sed trepida manu
seeptra optinentur. omnis in ferro est salus.
[Hercules Furens 34&-6.)
1}
Con. The kingliest point is to aflect but right.
MoR. Weak is the sceptre's hold that seeks but right.
Sat. rex uelit honesta : nemo non eadem uolet.
Atk. ubicumque tantum honesta dominanti licent,
precario regnatur. [Thyestes 213-5.)
Page 277. Moil. 8he is both light and vain.
Cox. She noteth though.
MoR. She feareth states.
Cox. She carpeth, ne'ertheless.
MoR. She's soon suppress 'd.
Sex. leuis atque nana.
Nero. sit licet, multos notat.
Sex. excelsa metuit.
Nero. non minus carpit tamen.
Sex. facile opprimetur. (Ociavia 596-8.)
on EUzahetlian Tragedy^ 143
Page 282. Cox. Nought should be rashly vow'd against your sire.
MoR. Whose breast is free from rage may soon b' ad^dsed.
Con. The best redress from rage is to relent.
MoR. 'Tis better for a king to kill his foes.
Sex. in nihil propinquos temere constitui decet.
Nero, iustum esse facile est cui uacat pectus metu.
SiiN. magnum timoris remedium dementia est.
Nero, extinguere hostem maxima est uirtus ducis.
{Octavia 452-5.)
Page 283. Con. The subjects' force is great.
Mop Greater the king's.
NvTR. uis magna populi est.
Oct. principis maior tameu.
(Octavia 190.)
»
ji
The more you may, the more you ought to fear.
hoc plus uerere quod licet tantum tibi. (Octavia 462.)
MoR. He is a fool that feai'eth what he mav.
Con. Not what you may, but what you ought is just.
Nero, inertis est nescire quid liceat sibi.
Sex. id facere laus est quod decet, noa quod licet.
{Octavia 465-6.)
MoR. The laws do licence as the soveleign lists.
Cox. Least ought he list, whom laws do licence most.
Pyr. quodcumque libuit facere uictori, licet.
Agam. minimum decet libere cui multum licet.
{Troas 344-5.)
144 The Influence of Seneca
Page 283 Mor. The fates have heav'd and rais'd my force on high.
(coniinued). ^^^ rpj^^ gentler should you press those that are low.
quocjue te celsum altius
superi leuarunt, mitius lapsos preme. (Troas 704-5.)
Page 284. Mor. My will must go for right.
Con. If they assent.
Mor. My sword shall force assent.
Con. No, gods forbid !
Nkro. statuam ipse.
Sen. quae consensus efficiat rata.
Nero, despectus ensis faciet.
Sen. hoc absit nefas. (Oclavia 472-3.)
„ Whom fates constrain, let him forego his bliss ;
But he that needless yields unto his bane,
When he may shun, doth well deserve to lose
The good he cannot use.
quem fata cogunt hie quidem uiuat miser,
at si quis ultro se malis offert uolens
seque ipse torquet, perdere est dignus bona
quis nescit uti. {Hlppolytus 448-451.)
Page 285. Nor to destroy the realm you seek to rule.
Your father rear'd it up, you pluck it down.
You lose your country, whiles you win it thus :
To make it yours, you strive to make it none.
ne precor ferro erue
patriam ac penates neue, quas regere expetis
euerte Thebas. quis tenet mentem furor ?
petendo patriam perdis ? ut fiat tua,
uis esse nullam ? {Thehais 555-9.)
on Elizahefhan Trogedij. 145
Page 285 Must I to gain renown incur my plague,
"""" ^ Or hoping praise sustain an exile's life? ^
ut profugus errem semper ? ut patria arcear
opemque gentis hospes externae sequar ? (Tkebais ^8&-7,}
No. 'Tis my hap that Britain serves my turn ;
That fear of me doth make the subjects crouch ;
That what they grudge they do constrained yield.
munus deorum est ipsa quod seruit mihi
Roma let senatus quodque ab inuitis preces
huinilesque uoces exprimit nosiri nietus. (Octavut 504-6.)
Then is a kiniydom at a wished stav,
When whatsoever the sovereign wills or nills,
Men be compeU'd as well to praise as bear.
maximum hoc regui bonum est,
♦juod facta domini cogitur populus sui
quam ferre tam laudare. {Thijfsf''s 205-7.)
^ These lines have the following pasted over them : — -
The first art m a kingdom is to scorn
The envy of the realm.
ars prima regni est posse te inuidiam pati.
{^Hercules Fnrens 357.)
He cannot rule
That fears to bo envid. What can divorce
Envy from sovereignty 1
regnare non uult esse qui inuisus timet.
simul ista mundi conditcr poauit deus
odium atque regnum. (TJiebais 651-6.)
146 Tlie Influence of Seneca
Page 285. Con. But whoso seeks true praise and just renown,
Page 280. Would rather .seek their praising hearts t}ian tongues.
MoR, True praise may liappen to tlie basest groom ;
A forced praise to none but to a prince.
I wish that most, that subjects most repine.
Sat. at qui fauoris gloriam ueri petit,
animo magis quam uoce laudari uolet.
Arii. laus uera et humili saepe contingit uiro,
non nisi potenti falsa, quml nolunt, uelint.
{Thyestes 209-212.)
„ And better were an exile's life, than thus
Disloyally to wrong your sire and liege.
melius exiliiim e.st tibi
(juam reditus iste. [Thebais 617-8.)
„ But cease at length ; your speech molests me much.
My mind is fixM : give Mordred leave to do
What Conan neither can allow nor like.
desiste tandem iam grauis nimium mihi
instare. liceat f acere quod Seneca improbat.
(Oc^ma 600-601.)
Page 288. No danger can be thought both safe and oft.
nemo se tuto diu
periculis ofterre tarn crebris potest.
(^Hercules Furens 330-331.)
Whom chance hath often raissVI, chance hits at length.
quem saepe transit casus aliquando inuenit.
{Hercules Furens 332.)
on Elizahethan Tragedy. 147
Page 289. Tf conquerors ought
To seek for peace, tlie conquered must perforce.
pacem reduci uelle uictori expedit,
uicto necesse est. (Hercules Furenff 372-3.)
,, What cursed war.s (alas) were those, wherein
Eoth sou and sire should so oppose themselves!
Him whom you now, unhappy man, pursue,
If you should win, yourself would first bewail.
quale tu id bellum putas,
iu quo execrandum uictor adinittit uefas
si gaudet? hunc quern uincere infelix cupis
cum uiceris, lugebis. {Thebais 638-641.)
Page 290. Trust me, a huge and mighty kingdom 'tis
To bear the want of kingdom, realm, and crown,
immane regnum est posse sine regno pati. (Thyesies 470.)
Wherefore think on the doubtful state of wars.
Where war hath sway, he keeps no certain course :
Sometimes he lets the weaker to prevail,
Sometimes the stronger troops : hope, fear, and rage
With eyeless lot rules all uncertain good.
Most certain harms be his assured haps.
fortuna belli semper ancipiti in loco est.
quodci;mque Mars decernit : exaequat duos
licet inpares sint gladiu.s et spes et nietus
sors caeca uersafc. praemium incertum petit,
certum scelus. [Thebaic 629-633.)
„ CtAW. And fear you not so strange and uncouth wars ?
MoR. Ko, were they wars that grew from out the ground I
NvTR. non inetuis arma ?
Med. sint licet terra edita. {Medea 169.)
148 TJie Influence of Seneea
Page 290 He falleth well, that failing fells his foe.
(rvntiiumi).
felix iacet, quicumque, quos odit, premit.
[Hercules Oehieun 353.)
Page 2i>l. Small manhood were to turn niy back to chance.
haud est uirile terga fortunae dai'e. {Oedhputs 86.)
,, T bear no breast so unprepar'd for hai*ms.
non inparatum pectus aerumnis gero. {Ilippolytus 1003.)
„ Even that I hold the kingliest point of all,
To brook afflictions well : and by how much
The more his state and tottering empire sags.
To tix so much the faster foot on ground.
regium hoc ipsum reor
aduersa capere quoque sit dubius magis
status et cadentis imperi moles labat
hoc stare certo pressius fortem gradu. {Oedipus 82-85.)
„ No fear but doth forejudge, and many fall
Into their fate, whiles they do fear their fate.
inultis ipsum timuisse nocet.
multi ad fatum uenere suum,
dum fata timent. (Oedipits 1014-16.)
„ Yea, worse than war itself is fear of war.
peior est bello timer ipse belli. {7'hyestes 572.)
„ All things are rul'd in constant course : no fate
But is foreset : the first day leads the last.
omnia certo tramite uadunt
primusque dies dedit extremum. [Oedipiis 1008-9.)
on ^lizahetlum Tragechf» 149
Page 292. He either must destroy, or be destroy 'd ;
The mischief's in the midst ; catch he that can,
aut perdet, aut peribit. in medio est scelus
positum occupanti. [TJii/entefs 203-4.)
„ Like as the craggy rock
Resists the streams and flings the waltering waves
Aloof, so he rejects and scorns my words.
ut dura cautes undique intractabilis
resistit undis et lacessentes aquas
longe remittit, uerba sic spernit mea.
{Hipiyolytus 588-590.)
Page 295. A troubled head : my mind revolts to fear,
And bears my body back.
nunc contra in metus
reuoluor, animus haeret ac retro cupit
corpus rcferre. {Thyestas 418-420.)
Page 298. false and guileful life. crafty world !
Page 299. How cunningly convey'st thou fraud unseen I
Th' ambitious seemeth meek, the wanton chaste :
Disfi^uised vice for virtue vaunts itself.
^o>
o uita fallax. obditos sensus geris
animisque pulcram turbidis faciem induis.
pudor inpudentem celat audacem quies,
pietas nefandum. {Hijypolytus 926-9.)
No place is left for prosperous plight : mishaps
Have room and ways to run and walk at will.
prosperis rebus locus
ereptus oomis, dira qua ueniant habent. (2'roas 432-3.)
150 The Injivxnce of Serteca
Page 302. Death only frees the guiltless from annoys.
mors innocentem sola fortunae eripit. [Oedipus 955.)
„ Who so hath felt the force of greedy fates,
And 'dur'd the last decree of grisly death,
Shall never yield his captive arms to chains,
Nor drawn in triumph deck the victor's pomp.
quisquis sub pedibus fata, rapacia
et puppem posuit liminis ultimi,
non captiua dabit bracchia uinculis
nee pompae ueniet uobile ferculum.
{Hercules Oetaeun 107-110.)
,, My youth (1 gi-a.nt) and prime of budding years,
Putt\l lip with pride ajid fond desire of praise,
Poreweening nought what perils might en.sue,
'Adventured all and raught to will the reins :
But now this age requires a sager course,
And will, advis'd by harms, to wisdom yields.
Those swelling spirits, the self-same cause which first
Set them on gog, even fortune's favours quail'd.
fateor aliquando inpotens
regno ac superbus altius memet tuli,
sed fregit illos spiritus haec quae dare
potuisset alii causa fortunae fauor. (Troops 275-8. y
Page 303. 'Tis safest then to dare, when most you fear.
tutissimum est inferre cum timeas gradura,
{Hi'pfolytus 730.
„ Cador. Then may you rule.
Arthur. When I may die.
Cador. To rule is much.
Arthur. Small, if we covet nought.
on Elkahethan Tragedy. 151
Tant. pater, potes regnare.
Thy. cum possim mori.
Tant. summa est potestas.
Thy. nulla si cupias nihil.
{Thyestes 442-3.)
Page .304. Trust me, bad things have often glorious names.
mihi crede, falsis magna nomiiiibus placent.
( Thyestes 448.)
Page 305. Rome puffs us up, and makes us too — too fierce.
There, Britons, there we stand, whence Eome did fall.
Troia nos tumidos facit
nimium ac feroces? stamus hoc Danai loco
unde ilia cecidit. (Troas 273-5.)
„ Thou, Lucius, mak'st me proud, thou heav'st my mind ;
But what? Shall I esteem a crown ought else
Than as a gorgeous crest of easeless helm.
Or as some brittle mould of glorious pomp,
Or glittering glass which, while it shines, it breaks ?
All this a sudden chance may dash, and not
Perhaps with thirteen kings, or in nine years :
All may not find so slow and lingering fates.
tu me superbum Priame tu tumidum facis,
ego esse quicquam sceptra nisi uano putem
f ulgore tectum nomen et falso comam
uinclo decentem ? casus haec i-apiet breuis
nee mille forean ratibus aut annis decem.
non omnibus fortuna tarn lenta inminet.
{Troas 279-284.)
Page 311. A hopeless fear forbids a happy fate.
miserrimura est timere cum speres nihil. {Troas 434.)
152 The Influence of Seneca
Page 311 All truth, all trust, all blood, all bands be broke !
(continued),
fratris et fas (it fides
iu.sque omne pereat, [Thyestes 47-48.)
Page 312. For were it light, that ev'n by birth myself
Was bad, I made my sister bad : nay, were
That also light, I have begot as bad.
hoc leue est quod sum nocens,
feci nocentes. hoc quoque etiamnunc leuo est,
peperi nocentes. [Thehais 367-9.)
Page 313. Care upon care, and every day n new
Fresh rising tempest tires the tossed minds.
alia ex aliis cura fatigat
uexatque animos noua tempestas. [Agamemnon 62-6.;.)
„ Who strives to stand in pomp of princely port.
On giddy top and culm of slippery court.
Finds oft a heavy fate ; whiles too much known
To all he falls unknown unto himself.
stet quicumque uolet potens
aulae culmine lubrico :
illi mors grauis incubat,
qui notus nimis onmibus,
ignotus moritur sibi. {Thyesies 391-2, 401-3.)
„ My slender bark shall creep anenst the shore,
And shun the winds that sweep the waltering waves.
Proud fortune overslips the safest roads.
Page 314. And seeks amidst the surging seas those keels,
Whose lofty tops and tacklings touch the clouds,
on Elizahethan Tragedy. 153
striiigat tenuis litora puppis
nee magna meos aura phaselos
iubeat medium scindere pontum.
transit tutos fortuna sinus
medioque rates quaerit in alto
quarum feriunt suppara nubes.
{Hercules Oetcmis 698-703.)
Page 3 J 4: With endless cark in glorious courts and towns,
:o I ,; . . rj^j^^ ti-Qubled hopes and trembling fears do dwell.
turbine magno spes sollicitae
urbibus errant trepidique metus. (Hercules Furens 163-4.)
Page 315. Who forbiddeth not offence,
If well he may, is cause of such offence.
qui non uetat peccare, cum possit, iubet. {Troas 300.)
Page 317. Declare ! we joy to handle all our harms.
prose(iuere: gaudet aerumnas meus dolor
tractare totas. (Troas 1076-7.)
„ Small griefs can speak, the great astonish'd stand.
curae leues loquuntur ingentes stupent. [Hi^jpolytus 615.)
,, Gil. What greater sin could hap, than what be pass'd?
What mischiefs could be meant, more than were
wrought 1
NxiN. And think you there's to be an end to sins 1
Noj crime proceeds : those made but. one degree.
Chor. an ultra maius aut atrocius
natura recipit ?
Nvnt. sceleris hunc finem putay ?
gradus est. {Thyestes lib 7.)
154 2'he Infiuencc of Seneca
Page 325. He was the joy and hope, and hap, of all,
The realm's defence, the sole delay of fates ;
He was our wall and fort : twice thirteen years
His shoulders did the Briton state support.
columen patriae mora fatorum ^
tu praesidium Phrygibus fessis
tu murus eras umerisque tuis
stetit ilia decern fulta per annos. {Troas 128-131.)
Page 332. Where each man else hath felt his several fate,
I only pine, oppress'd with all their fates !
sua quemque tantum, me omnium clades premit.
{Troas 1071.)
Page 333. The hot-spurr'd youth, that forc'd the forward steeds,
Whiles needs he would his father's chariot guide,
Neglecting what his sire had said in charge :
The fires which first he flung about the poles,
Himself at last, most woful wretch, inflam'd.
ausus aeternos agitare currus
immemor metae iuuenis paternae
quos polo sparsit furiosus ignes
ipse recepit. {Medea 602-605.)
Page 334. We could not join our minds — our fates we join'd.
non licuit animos iungere, at certe licet
iunxisse fata. {Uippolytus 1192-3 )
,, They lov'd to live that, seeing all their realm
Thus topsy-turvy turn, would grudge to die.
uitae est auidus quisquis nou uult
muudo secum pereunte mori, {Thyestes 886-7.)
on Elizabethan Tragedy. 155
Page 339. Whoe'er received such favour from above,
That could assure one day unto himself l
nemo tam diuos habuit fauentes,
crastinum ut possit sibi polliceri. (Thyestes 619-620.)
„ Him whom the morning found both stout and strong,
The evening left all grovelling on the ground.
quern dies uidit ueniens superbum,
hunc dies uidit fugiens iacentem. {Thyestes 613-4.)
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