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THE
DRAMATIC AND POETICAL WORKS
OF
ROBERT GREENE & GEORGE PEELE
WITH
MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHORS AND NOTES
BY THE
HEV. ALEXANDER DYCE
LONDO\
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
\HW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE
1883
7)3 3
\ i
THE OLD DRAMATISTS AND THE OLD POETS.
THE OLD DRAMATISTS.
SHAKSPEARE. With Remarks on his Life and Writings by
Thomas Campbell ; and Portrait, Vignette, Illustrations, and
Index. In One Vol., 8vo, price zos. 6d. cloth.
WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND PAR-
QUHAR. With Biographical and Critical Notices by Leigh
Hunt : and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., 8vo, price
i6.y. cloth.
MASSINGER AND FORD. With an Introduction by Hart-
ley Coleridge; and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol.,
price 16s. cloth.
BEN JONSON. With a Memoir by William Gifford ; and
Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., 8vo, 16s. cloth.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. With Introduction by
George Darley; and Portrait and Vignettes. In Two Vols.,
8vo, price £1 12s. cloth.
JOHN WEBSTER. With Life and Notes by the Rev. Alex-
ander Dyce. In One Vol., 8vo, price 12s. cloth.
MARLOWE. With a Memoir and Notes by the Rev. Alexander
Dyce; and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., 8vo, price
12s. cloth.
GREENE AND PEELE'S DRAMATIC WORKS. Edited
by the Rev. Alexander Dyce. In One Vol., 8vo, price
16s. cloth.
THE OLD POETS.
SPENSER. With selected Notes, Life by the Rev. H. J. Todd,
M.A. ; Portrait Vignette, and Glossary Index. In One Vol.,
price 10s. 6d. cloth.
CHAUCER. With Notes and Glossary by Tyrwhitt ; and
Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., price 10.?. 6d. cloth.
DRYDEN. With Notes by the Revs. Joseph and John Warton ;
and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol., price io.r. 6d. cloth.
POPE. Including the Translations. With Notes and Life by Rev.
H. F. Cary, A.M. : and Portrait and Vignette. In One Vol.,
price 10.?. &d. cloth.
1
V
v>
NOTICE,
The Works of George Peele: now first collected. With some account of his writings,
and notes: By the Rev. Alexander Dyce, A.B., 2 vols., were published in 1828. A
"Second edition with additions" (the title-page slightly varied) appeared during the
next year ; and a third volume in 1839.
The Dramatic Works of Robert Greene, to ivhich are added his Poems. With some
account of the author, and Notes : By the Rev. Alexander Dyce, B.A., 2 vols., were
published in 1831.
To the latter collection was prefixed a Dedication which I now subjoin, because
I am unwilling that it should be forgotten ; —
'• To
SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART,
THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED,
AS A SLIGHT MARK OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENITTS,
AND RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER,
BY HIS OBEDIENT SERVANT,
ALEXANDER DYCE."
At that period I had the honour of occasionally corresponding with Sir Walter :
and in his Life by Lockhart (vol. vii. p. 272) is a letter addressed to me which shows
that he intended to make my editions of Greene, Webster, &c, the subject of an
article for the Quarterly Review; but his kind intentions were frustrated by the fatal
malady from which he vainly sought relief in a foreign land.
The present volume contains the whole of the above-mentioned editions of
Peele and Greene ; nor is it a mere reprint, important alterations, corrections, and
I additions having been made throughout. n
«\ ALEXANDER DYCE.
r
CONTENTS.
THE DRAMATIC AND POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT GREENE.
PAGE
SOME ACCOUNT OF ROBERT GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS .... 1
LIST OF GREENE'S PROSE-WORKS 76
ORLANDO FURIOSO . 85
A LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND 113
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY 149
SPECIMEN OF THE FAMOUS HISTORIE OF FRYER BACON 179
JAMES THE FOURTH 1S3
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON 221
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD 249
SPECIMEN OF THE HISTORY OF GEORGE-A-GREENE 269
BALLAD, THE JOLLY PINDER OF WAKEFIELD, WITH ROBIN HOOD, SCARLET,
AND JOHN 270
A MAIDENS DREAM 273
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 283
POEMS FROM MORANDO, THE TRITAMERON OF LOVE 285
MENAPHON 2S6
PERIMEDES, THE BLACKSMITH 292
PANDOSTO, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME 294
NEVER TOO LATE 294
THE MOURNING-GARMENT 304
THE FAREWELL TO FOLLY 309
THE GROATSWORTH OF WIT 310
CICERONIS AMOR, TULLY'S LOVE 311
PHILOMELA, THE LADY FITZ WATER'S NIGHTINGALE . .314
THE SECOND PART OF MAMILLTA 316
THE ORPHARION 316
PENELOPE'S WEB 317
ARBASTO 313
ALCIDA 318
GREENE'S VISION 320
ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS 320
vi CONTENTS.
THE WORKS OF GEORGE PEELE.
PA'
SOME ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS 323
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS 347
EDWARD THE FIRST 371
A WARNING-PIECE TO ENGLAND AGAINST PRTDE AND WICKEDNESS, &c. . 373
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR 417
THE OLD WIVES' TALE 441
DAVID AND BETHSABE 459
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES 487
DEVICE OF THE PAGEANT BORNE BEFORE WOLSTAN DIXIE . . . .535
DESCENSUS ASTR^EiE 539
A FAREWELL TO SIR JOHN NORRIS AND SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, &c. AND A
TALE OF TROY 545
AN ECLOGUE GRATULATORY, &c 559
POLYHYMNTA 565
SPEECHES TO QUEEN ELIZABETH AT THEOBALD'S 575
THE HONOUR OF THE GARTER 581
ANGLORUM FERINE, ENGLAND'S HOLIDAYS 591
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 599
LINES ADDRESSED TO THOMAS WATSON GDI
THE PRAISE OF CHASTITY 601
LOVE 603
CUPID'S ARROWS 603
CORIDON AND MELAMPUS' SONG 603
FRAGMENTS OF THE HUNTING OF CUPID FROM DRUMMOND'S MSS. . . 603
A MERRY BALLAD OF THE HAWTHORN-TREE 604
PEELE'S MERRY CONCEITED JESTS 607
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON GREENE 621
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON PEELE 623
ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA.
— » —
P. 228. In the line,
" Naples, I mean, that city of renowm,"
alter "renowm" to "renown."
Ibid. Dele note f.
P. ?,"S. " Longshanlc is afterwards repeatedly mentioned in the same Diary."
I on 'lit to have added, that the Appendix to the same Diary, p. 276, contains an inventory of tho apparel of
the Lord Admiral's Players, 1598, in which occurs " Ijongeshankes scute." p. '176.
P. 164. Qy. if in the lino,
" That, for their homage to her sovereign joyt," —
the word "joys" should he "eyes"?
THE
DRAMATIC AND POETICAL
WORKS OF ROBERT GREENE.
SOME ACCOUNT
OF
ROBERT GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
Robert Greene was a native of Norwich.* The date of his birth has not been
ascertained : in all probability it may be fixed about the year 1550.
* Greene, dedicating his Maiden's Dream, 1591, to Lady Elizabeth Hatton, declares that he is her
"ladyship's poor countryman," and signs himself "R. Greene, Nordovicensis.'''
In 1592 was printed a piece by Lodge, entitled Euphues Shadow, the Battaile of the Sences, &c. : it
was edited by Greene, who prefixed to it the following Address ;
" To the Right Honourable Robert Ratcliffe, Viscount Fitzwaters, Robert Greene wisheth increase of
honour and vertue.
"Ever desirous (right honorable) to shew my affectionate duty to your lordship, as well for the
generall report of your vertue vniuersally conceipted in the opinion of all men, as for the natiue place of
my birth, whereby I am bounde to affect your honourable father, and you for him aboue others, in
suspence of this dutifull desire, it fortuned that one M. Thomas Lodge, who nowe is gone to sea with
Mayster Candish, had bestowed some serious labour in penning of a booke called Euphues Shadowe ;
and by his last letters gaue straight charge, that I should not onely haue the care, for his sake of the
impression thereof, but also in his absence to bestowe it on some man of honor, whose worthye vertues
might bee a patronage to his worke : wherevpon taking aduice with my selfe, I thought none more fit
then your honour, seeing your lordships disposition was wholy giuen to the studie of good letters, to be a
Mecenas to the well-imployed laboures of the absent gentleman : may therefore your lordship fauourably
censure of my good meaning, in presenting your honour with this pamphlet, and courteouslye graunt
acceptance of his workes and my good will, his labour hath his end, and my desire in dutie rests
satisfied ; and so humbly praying for your lordships health and welfare, I take my leaue.
" Your honors humbly to commaund,
"Rob. Greene, Norfolciensis."
Euphues SJiadoic is not mentioned in any list of Lodge's works. [At least, it had not been
mentioned among them in 1831, when the present memoir originally appeared.] Why Mr. Collier
(Hist, of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 149, note) should suspect that it might have been written "by Greene
himself," I am at a loss to understand.
"I neede not make long discourse of my parentes, who for their grauitie and honest life is well
knowne and esteemed amongst their neighbors ; namely, in the cittie oi Norwitch, where I was bred and
borne." — The Repentance of Robert Greene, &c, 1592. sig. C.
B
2 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
He was educated at Cambridge, taking the degree of A. B. at St. John's College in
1578, and that of A. M. at Clarehall* in 1583: in July 1588 he was incorporated
at Oxford ; t and on the title-pages of some of his works he ostentatiously terms
himself " (ftriusque Academics in Artibus Magister."
During the time that elapsed between his taking the degree of A. B. and that of
A. M. Greene visited Italy, Spain, and other parts of the continent ; % and from the
The full title of the very rare piece last quoted will be found in the List of Greene's prose-works
appended to this essay. It opens with the following Address ;
"The Printer to the Gentlemen Readers.
' ' Gentlemen, I know you ar not vnacquainted with the death of Robert Greene, whose pen in his
life-time pleased you as well on the stage as in the stationers shops : aud. to speake truth, although his
loose life was odious to God and offensiue to men, yet forasmuch as at his last end he found it most
grieuous to himselfe (as appeareth by this his repentant discourse), I doubt not but he shall for the
same deserue fauour both of tiod and men. And considering, gentlemen, that Venus hath her charmes
to inchaunt, that fancie is a sorceresse bewitching the senses, and follie the onely enemie to all vertuous
actions ; and forasmuch as the purest glasse is the most brickie, the finest lawne the soonest staind, the
highest oake most subiect to the wind, and the quickest wit the more easily woone to folly ; I doubt not
but you will with regarde forget his follies, and, like to the bee, gather bony out of the good counsels of
him who was wise, learned, and polliticke, had not his lasciuious hfe withdrawen him from those studies
which had been far more profitable to him.
"For herein appeareth that he was a man giuen ouer to the lust of his owne heart, forsaking all
godlines, and one that daily delighted in all manner of wickednes. Since other therefore haue forerun
him in the like faults, and haue been forgiuen both of God and men, I trust hee shall bee the better
accepted, that, by the working of Gods holy spirit, returnes with such a resolued repentance, being a
thing acceptable both to God and men.
"To conclude, forasmuch as I found this discourse very passionate, and of woonderfull effect to
withdraw the wicked from their vngodly waies, I thought good to publish the same ; and the rather, for
that by his repentance they may as in a glasse see their owne follie, and thereby in time resolue, that it
is better to die repentant than to Hue dishonest.
"Yours, C. B.furbie.]"
The rest of the tract professes to proceed from the pen of Greene, with the exception of a few pages
headed " The manner of the death and last end of Robert Greene, Maister of Artes."
When I first read The Repentance I suspected it to be the forgery of some writer who had taken
advantage of the public curiosity concerning so notorious a person as Greene. But now I am strongly
inclined to believe that it is genuine. The translator of The French Academy, T. B., noticing English-
men of atheistical opinions, mentions "the testimonie which one of that crew gaue lately of himselfe,
when the heauy hand of God by sicknesse summoned him to giue an accompt of his dessolute life," and
then relates an anecdote of his impiety (not speaking of him, however, by name), — which anecdote is
nothing more than a quotation from The Repentance of Robert Greene. And Chettle, in the Address
"To the Gentlemen Readers," prefixed to Kind- Harts Drcame, says; "About three moneths since
died M. Robert Greene, leauing many papers in sundry bookesel/ers hands, among others his Groats-
worth of Wit," &c.
* "I find Rob. Greene, A. M., Clare Hall, 1583."— MS. note by Dr. Farmer.
The Dedication of the Second Part of Mamillia (which was not printed till after Greene's death)
is dated "From my Studie in Clarehall the vi.j. of Iulie" (the year not being added).
In Cole's MS. Collections relative to Cambridge (in the British Museum) I could find no mention oi
Greene.
t "1588, July—, Robert Green, M.A., of Cambridge, was also then incorporated."— Wood's Fasti
Oxon. Part First, p. 245, ed. Bliss.
$ "To be briefe, gen thin en, I haue seen the world and rounded it, though not with trauell, yet with
experience ; and I crie out. with Salomon, Omnia sub sole vanitas. I haue smyled with the Italian, and
ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
laxity of maimers prevalent in some of those countries he seems to have acquired a
taste for the dissolute habits in which he afterwards indulged.
It is stated that he entered the Church. In the Lansdowne Manuscripts, 982,
art 102, fol. 187, under the head of "Additions to Mr. Wood's Report of Mr.
Robert Green, an eminent poet, who died about 1592," is a reference to a document
in Rymer's Foedera, from which it appears that a "Robert Grene " was, in 1576,
one of the Queen's chaplains, and that he was presented by her Majesty to the
rectory of Walkington in the diocese of York.* According to Octavius Gilchrist,t
worn the vipers head in my hand, and yet stopt his venome ; I haue eaten Spanishe mirabolanes, and yet
am nothing the more metamorphosed ; Fraunce, Germaoie, Poland, Denmarke, I know them all, yet not
affected to any in the fourme of my life ; onelie I am English borne, and I haue English thoughts, not a
deuill incarnate because I am Italianate, but hating the pride of Italie, bemuse I knowe their peeuishnes:
yet in all these countreyes where I haue trauelled, I haue not seene more exeesse of vanitie then wee
Englishe men practise through vain glory." — A Notable Discovery of Coosnage, 1591, Sig. A 2.
"For being at the Vuiuersitie of Cambridge, I light amongst wags as lewd as my selfe, with
whome I consumed the flower of my youth ; who drew mee to trauell into Italy and Spaine, in which
places I sawe and practizde such villainie as is abhominable to declare. Thus by their counsaile I
sought to furnishe myselfe with coine, which I procured by cunning sleights from my father and my
friends ; and my mother pampered me so long, and secretly helped mee to the oyle of angels, that I grew
thereby prone to all mischiefe : so that beeing then conuersant with notable braggarts, boon companions,
and ordinary spend-thrifts, that practized sundry superficial! studies, I became as a sien grafted into
the same stocke, whereby I did absolutely participate of their nature and qualities. At my return into
England, I ruffeled out in ray silks, in the habit of malcontent, and seemed so discontent, that no place
would please me to abide in, nor no vocation cause mee to stay myselfe in : but after I had by degrees
proceeded Maister of Arts," &c. — The Repentance of Robert Greene. Sig. C.
* "Anno 1576. Regina, delectis Nobis in Christo, Decano et Capitulo Ecclesiae nostra? Cathedralis
et Metropoliticse Eboracensis, aut Vicario suo in Spiritualibus Generali et Officiali Principali, aut alii
cuicumque in hac parte Potestatem habenti, Salutem.
" Ad Rectoriam sive Ecclesiam Parochialem de Walkington Eboracen. Dioeces. per mortem Johannis
Newcome ultimi Incumbentis ibidem, jam vacantem et ad nostram Donationem et Prsesentationem pleno
jure spectantem, Dilectum nobis in Christo, Robertum Grene, ununi Capellanorum nostrorum Capelke
nostra? Regis, vobis Tenore Pnesentiura praesentamus, Mandantes et Requirentes quatenus eundem
Robertum Grene ad Rectoriam sive Ecclesiam Parochialem de Walkington pnedictam admittere, ipsumque
Rectorem ejusdem ac in et de eadem cum suis Juribus et Pertiiientiis universis instituere et investire,
cseteraque omnia et singula peragere facere et perimplere, qua? vestro in hac parte incumbunt Officio
Pastorali, velitis cum favore. In cujus rei, &c.
" Teste Regina apud Gorhambury tricesimo primo die Augusti.
"Per breve de Privato Sigillo."
Rymer's Foedera, torn. xv. p. 765.
See a sketch of Greene's life by Sir N. H. Nicolas, in his reprint of Davison's Poetical Rhapsody.
+ Examination of Pen Jonsorts Enmity towards Skakesjieare, p. 22, where no authority is cited
for the statement.
The following passage of Never too Late, even if it be allowed that Greene meant Francesco for a pic-
ture of himself, must not be adduced to show that he had ever been in orders : his "hauing tasted of the
sweet fruits of theology " is to be referred merely to the divinity which (as well as philosophy) Francesco,
" who had been nursed up at the Universities," had acquired during his academical career : —
" Hast thou read Aristotle, and findest thou not in his philosophic this sentence set downe ? Omne
animal irvationale ad sui similem diligendum natura dirigitur. And wilt thou that art a creature
indued with reason as thou art, excelling them in wisedome, exceede them in vanities ? Hast thou turnd
ouer the liberall sciences as a scholler, and amongst them all hast not found this general principle, that
vnitie is the essence of amitie, and yet wilt thou make a diuision in the greatest simpathie of all loues ?
Nay, Francesco, art thou a Christian, and hast tasted of the sweet fruites of theologie, and hast not read
b 2
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
our author was presented, 19th June, 1-384, to the vicarage of Tollesbary in Essex,
which he resigned the next year. And a copy of The Pinner of Wakefield exists,
on the title-page of which are the following notes, in hand-writing of about the
time when the play was printed ;
"Written by a minuter who acted the piner's pt in it himselfe.
Teste W. Shakespeare.
Ed. Juby saith it was made by Ro. Greene."
Of The Pinner of Wakefield, of these MS. Notes, and of Greene's acting, more will be
said hereafter.
From the title-page of his Planetomachia, 1585, where he is styled "Student in
Phisicke," we may gather that, at one period of his life, he had intended to pursue
the medical profession.
That Greene has described some of his own adventures under those of Francesco
in his Never too Late, must be, I think, sufficiently evident to every one who has
perused it with attention : and that he intended Roberto, in his Groats-tvorth of Wit,
for a picture of himself, he has not left us to doubt ; " Heere, gentlemen, breake I
off Roberto's speech, whose life in most part agreeing with mine, found one selfe
punishment as 1 have done. Hereafter suppose me the said Roberto, and I will go
on with that he promised: Greene will send you now his Groats-worth of Witte," &c.
But, since in both narratives he has undoubtedly exaggerated the incidents and
heightened the colouring much beyond the truth, it is very difficult to determine
what portions of them are to be received as facts. These two pieces may be
regarded as among the best of Greene's pamphlets ; and the ample extracts which I
am about to make from them, will serve not only as illustrations of his life, but as
specimens of his style in prose.
The Palmer's story in Never too Late* opens thus : " In those dayes when
Palmerin reigned King of Great Britaine, famoused for his deedes of chiualrie, there
dwelled in the citie of Caerbranck a gentleman of an ancient house, called
Francesco ; a man whose parentage though it were worshipfull, yet it was not
indued with much wealth ; insomuch that his learning was better than his
reuenewes, and his wit more beneficiall than his substance. This Signor Francesco
desirous to bend the course of his compasse to some peaceable port, spread no more
cloath in the winde than might make easie saile, least hoysting vp too hastely aboue
this in Holy Writt, peod downe l>y that miracle of wisedome Salomon, that he which is wise should reiect
the strange woman, and not regard the sweetnesse of hir flattrie If then, Francesco,
theologie tells thee such axiomes, wilt thou striue against the streame ?"
Part First, p. 48. ed. 1590.
* I print from the edition of 1590 : see the full title in the List of Greene's prose-works appended to
this essay. I have not quoted here any of the verses with which Never too Late abounds, as they are all
in 'i present volume among our author's' Miscellaneous Poems.
ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 5
the maine yeard, some sodaine gust might make him founder in the deep. Though
he were yong, yet he was not rash with Icarus to soare into the skie, but to crie out
with olde Dedalus, Medium tenere tutissimum ; treading his shooe without anie slip.
He was so generally loued of the citizens, that the richest marchaut or grauesl
burghmaster would not refuse to graunt him his daughter in marriage, hoping more
of his msuiug fortunes than of his present substance. At last, casting his eye on a
gentlemans daughter that dwelt not far from Caerbranck, he fell in loue, and
prosecuted his sute with such affable courtesie as the maide, considering the rertue
and wit of the man, was content to set vp her rest with him, so that her fathers
consent might be at the knitting vp of the match. Francesco thinking himselfe
cocksure, as a man that hoped his credite in the citie might carrie away more than a
country gentlemans daughter, finding her father on a day at fit opportunitie, he
made the motion about the grant of his daughters marriage. The olde churle, that
listened with l>oth eares to such a question, did not in this in vtramuis aurem-
dormire ; but leaning on his elbow, made present aunswere, that hir dowrie required
a greater feoffment than his lands were able to affoord." The old gentleman, who.
was called Signer Fregoso, now goes home, and rates his daughter, whose name was
Isabel, for having thought of marrying a man who was unable to maintain her.
" And with that, he carried her in, and shut her vp in his owne chamber, not giuing
her leaue to depart but when his key gaue her license : yet at last she so cunningly
dissembled, that she gat thus farre libertie, not to bee close prisoner, but to walke
about the house ; yet enerie night hee shut vp her cloathes, that no nightly feare of
her escape might hinder his broken slumbers." Francesco is for some time unable
to gain access to his mistress, or to communicate with her in writing. At last a
poor woman, for a bribe, conveys a letter from him to Isabel, who, in her answer to
it, desires him to "be vpon Thursday next at night hard by the orchard vnder the
greatest oake, where expect my comming, and prouide for our safe passage ; for,
stood all the worlde on the one side, and thou on the other, Francesco should be my
guide to direct me whither hee pleased. Faile not, then, vnlesse thou bee false to
her that would haue life faile ere she falsifie faith to thee." On the appointed
Thursday, at midnight, Isabel "rose vp, and finding her apparell shut vp, she was
faine to goe without hose, onely in her smocke and her petticoate, with her fathers
hat and an olde cloake. Thus attired like Diana in her night-geere, she marcheth
downe softly, where she found Francesco readie with a priuate and familiar frend of
his to watch her comming forth ; who casting his eye aside, and seeing one in a hat
and a cloake, suspecting some treacherie, drew his sword." He, of course, soon
recognizes his mistress, and professes his devotion to her. " ' Sir,' quoth she, ' these
protestations are now bootlesse : and therefore to be briefe, thus ' (and witli that the
teares trickled downe the vermilion of her cheeks, and she blubbred out this
passion) ' Francesco, thou maist see by my attire the depth of my fancie, and
in these homely roabes maist thou noate the rechlesnesse of my fortunes, that for
6 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
thy loue have straind a note too high in loue. I offend nature as repugnant to
my father, whose displeasure I haue purchast to please thee ; I haue giuen a finall
farewell to my friends, to be thy familiar ; I haue lost all hope of preferment, to
confirme the simpathie of both our desires : ah Francesco, see I come thus poore in
apparell, to make thee rich in content. Now, if hereafter (oh, let me sigh at that,
least I be forced to repent too late), when thy eye is glutted with my beautie, and
thy hotte loue prooued soone colde, thou beginst to hate hir that thus loueth thee,
and prove as Demophon did to Phillis, or as Aeneas did to Dido ; what then may I
doo, reiected, but accurse mine owne folly, that hath brought mee to such hard
fortunes 1 Giue me leaue, Francesco, to feare what may fall ; for men are as
inconstant in performance as cunning in practises.' She could not fully discourse
what she was abotit to vtter ; but he broke off with this protestation. ' Ah Isabel,
although the windes of Lepanthos are euer inconstant, the chriseroll euer brittle, the
polype euer changeable, yet measure not my minde by others motions, nor the
depth of my affection by the fleeting of others fancies ; for as there is a topace that
will yeeld to euerie stamp, so there is an emerald that will yeeld to no impression.
The selfe same Troy, as it had an Aeneas that was fickle, so it had a Troylus that
was constant. Greece had a Piramus as it had a Demophon ; and though some
haue been ingrateful, yet accuse not al to be vnthaukful ; for when Francesco shall
let his eye slip from thy beautie, or his thoughts from thy qualities, or his heart
from thy vertues, or his whole selfe from euer honouring thee, then shal heauen
cease to haue starres, the earth trees, the world elements, and euerie thing reuersed
shall fall to their former chaos.' ' Why, then,' quoth Isabel, ' to horsebacke, for
feare the faith of two such louers be impeached by my fathers wakefull iealouzie.'
And with that (poore woman) halfe naked as she was, she mounted, and as fast as
horse woidd pace away they post towards a towne in the said countrey of Britaine
called Dunecastrum." Fregoso, rising early in the morning, is half distracted at
Isabel's escape. " Whereupon in a despayring furie he caused all his men and
his tenaunts to mount them, and to disperse themselues euerie one with hue and
crie for the recouerie of his daughter, he himself being horst, and riding the readie
way to Dunecastrum. Where he no sooner came, but fortune meaning to dally with
the olde doteard, and to present him a boane to gnaw on, brought it so to passe
that, as he came riding downe the towne, he met Francesco and his daughter
comming from the church ; which although it piercte him to the quicke. and
strainde euerie string of his heart to the highest noate of sorrow, yet he concealed
it till he tooke his inne ; and then stumbling as fast as he could to the
Mayors house of the towne, he reuealed vnto him the whole cause of his distresse,
requiring his fauour for the clapping vp of this vnruly gentleman ; and to
make the matter the more hainous, hee accused him of felonie, that he had not
onely, contrarie to the custome, bereft him of his daughter against his wil, but with
his daughter had taken away certaine plate. This euidence caused the Mayor
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 7
straight, garded with his officers, to march downe with Fregoso to the place where
Isabel and her Francesco were at breakfast, little thinking, poore soules, such a
sharp storme should follow so quiet a calme." Francesco is conveyed to prison, and
Isabel to the Mayor's house ; and Fregoso, " as a man carelesse what should become
of them in a straunge countrey," rides back to his home. After many days the
Mayor, perceiving that the charge of felony was groundless, procures the consent of
his brethren to set Francesco free. Taking Isabel with him, he goes to the gaol, and
tells his prisoner, that " he was content to set him at libertie, conditionally
Francesco should giue his hand to be answerable to what hereafter in that behalfe
might be obiected against him. These conditions accepted, Francesco was set at
libertie ; and he and Isabell, ioyntly together taking themselues to a little cottage,
began to be as Cyceronicall as they were amorous ; with their hands thrift coueting
to satisfie their hearts thirst, and to be as diligent in labours as they were
affectionate in loues : so that the parish wherein they liued so affected them for the
course of their life, that they were counted the very myrrours of a democraticall
methode ; for hee being a scholler, and nurst vp in the vniuersities, resolued rather
to Hue by his wit than any way to be pinched with want, thinking this olde sentence
to be true, that wishers and woulders were neuer good housholders ; therefore he
applied himselfe to teaching of a schoole, where by his industry he had not onelie
great fauour, but gote wealth to withstand fortune. Isabel, that she might seeme
no lesse profitable than her husband careful, fel to her needle, and with her worke
sought to preuent the iuiurie of necessitie. Thus they laboured to mainetaine their
loues, being as busie as bees, and as true as turtles, as desirous to satisfie the worlde
with their desert as to feede the humours of their owne desires. Liuing thus in a
league of vnited vertues, out of this mutuall concorde of confirmed perfection, they
had a soune answerable to their owne proportion ; which did increase their amitie, so
as the sight of their young infant was a double ratifying of their affection. Fortune
and loue thus ioyning in league to make these parties to forget the stormes that had
nipped the blossomes of their former j^eers, addicted to the content of their loues
this conclusion of blisse. After the tearme of hue yeares, Seigneur Fregoso hearing
by sundry reports the fame of their forwardnesse, howe Francesco coueted to be
most louing to his daughter, and she most dutifull to him, and both striue to
exceede one an other in loyalty, glad at this mutuall agreement, hee fell from the
fury of his former melancholic passions, and satisfied him sclfe with a contented
patience, that at last he directed letters to his sonne in lawe, that he should make
rcpayre to his house with his daughter. Which newes was no sooner come to the
eaivs of this married couple, but, prouiding for all things necessarie for the furniture
of their voyage, they posted as fast as they coulde towards Caerbrancke ; where
speedily arriuing at their fathers house, they found such friendly intertainement at
the olde mans hand, that they counted this smile of fortune able to counteruaile all
the contrarie stormes that the aduerse planets had inflicted vpon them." ....
8 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
" It so chanced that Francesco had necessarie businesse to dispatch
certaine his vi'gent affaires at the chiefe city of that iland, called Troynouant :
thither, with leaue of his father, and farewell to his wife, he* departed after they
were married seuen yeeres. Where after he was arriued, knowing that he should
make his abode there for the space of some nine weeks, he solde his horse, and hired
him a chamber, earnestlie endeuouring to make speedie dispatch of his affaires, that
he might the sooner enioy the sight of his desired Isabel ; for, did he see any woman
beautiful, he viewed her with a sigh, thinking howe farre his wife did surpasse her in
excellence ; were the modesty of any woman well noted by her qualities, it greened
him hee was not at home with his Isabel who did excell them all in vertues." .
" As thus his thoughts were diuided on his businesse and on his wife,
looking one day out at his chamber windowe hee espied a young gentlewoman which
looked out at a casement right opposite against his prospect, who fixed her eies vpon
him with such cunning and artificial! glaunces, as she shewed in them a chaste dis-
daine and yet a modest desire. Where, by the way, gentlemen, let me say this much,
that our curtizans of Troynouant are far superiour in artificiall allurement to them
of all the world ; for although they haue not the painting of Italie, nor the charms
of France, nor the iewelles of Spaine, yet they haue in their eies adamants that wil
drawe youth as the jet the strawe, or the sight of the panther the ermly : their
looks are like lures that will reclaime, and like Cyrces apparitions that can represent
in them all motions ; they containe modesty, mirth, chastity, wantonnes, and what
not ; and she that holdeth in her eie most ciuility, hath oft in hir heart most
dishonestie, being like the pyrit stone that is fier without and frost within." .
" This courtisan, seeing this countrey Francesco was no other but a meere
nouice, and that so newly that, to vse the old prouerb, he had scarce seene the lions,
she thought to intrap him and so arrest him with her amorous glances that shee
would wring him by the pursse : wherevpon euery day shee would out at hir
casement stand, and there discouer her beauties." .... Francesco " when his
leisure serued him, woulde, to make proofe of his constancie, interchange amorous
glaunces with this faire curtisan, whose name was Infida ; thinking his inward
affections were so surely grounded on the vertues of his Isabel that no exterior
proportion could effect any passion to the contrary : but at last he found by
experience, that the fairest blossomes are soonest nipt with frost, the best fruite
soonest touched with caterpillers, and the ripest wittes most apt to be ouerthrowen by
louc. Infida taught him with her lookes to learne this, that the eie of the basiliske
pierceth with preiudice ; that the iuice of celidonie is sweete, but it fretteth deadly ;
that Cyrces cuppes were too strong for all antidotes, and womens flatteries too
forceable to resist at voluntarie : for she so snared him in the fauours of her face
that his eie beganne to censure partially of her perfection, insomuch that he thought
* kei] Olded. "the."
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 9
her second to Isabel, if not superiour. Dallying thus with beautie as the flie in the
flame, Venus, willing to shewe how forceable her influence was, so tempted with
opporfcunitie, that as Francesco walked abroad to take the ayre, he met with Infida
gadding abroad with certaine hir companions, who like blazing starres shewed the
markes of inconstant minions; for she no sooner drew neere Francesco, but dying
her face with a Vermillion blush, and in a wanton eie hiding a fained modesty, slice
saluted him with a lowe courtesie. Seigneur Francesco that coulde well skill to
court all kinde of degrees, least he might then be thought to haue little manners,
returned not only her courtesies with his bonnet, but, taking Infida by the hand,
beganne thus. ' Faire mistresse, and if mine eie be not decerned in so bright an
obiect, mine ouerthwart neighbour, hauing often seene with delight, and coueted
with desire to be acquainted with your sweetc selfe ; I cannot now but gratulate
fortune with many thankes that hath offered such fit opportunitic to bring me to
your presence, hoping I shall finde you so friendly as to craue that wee may be more
familiar.' She that knewe howe to entertaine such a young nouice made him this
cunning replie. ' Indeede, sir, neighborhoode cranes charitie, and such affable
gentlemen as your selfe deserues rather to be entertained with courtesie than
reiected with disdaine. Therfore, sir, what priuate friendship mine honour or
honestie may affoord, you aboue all (that hitherto I haue knowne) shall commaund.'
' Then, mistres,' quoth hee, ' for that euery man counts it credite to haue a patronesse
of his fortunes, and I am a meere straunger in this citie, let mee finde such fauour
that all my actions may be shrowded vnder your excellence, and carrie the name of
your seruant, ready, for requitall of such gratious countenaxmce, to unsheath my
sworde in the defence of my patronesse for euer.' She that had her humour fitted
with this motion, answered thus, with a looke that had beene able to haue forced
Troylus to haue beene trothlesse to his Cressida. ' How kindly I take it, Seigneur
Francesco, for so I vnderstand your name, that you proffer your seruice to so meane
a mistresse ! the effectual fauours that shall to my poore abilitie gratifie your
curtesie, shall manifest how I accompt of such a friend. Therefore, from henceforth
Infida intertains Francesco for her seruant.' 'And I,' quoth he, 'accept of the
beauteous Infida as my mistresse.' Upon this they fell into other amorous prattle
which I leaue off, and walked abroad while * it was dinner time ; Francesco stil hauing
his eie vpon his new mistresse, whose beauties he thought, if they were equally
tempered with vertues, to exceede all that yet his eie had made suruey of. Doating
thus on this newe face with a new fancie, hee often wroong her by the hand, and
brake off his sentences, with such deepe sighes, that she perceiued by the weather-
cocke where the winde blewe ; returning such amorous passions as she seemed as
much intangled as he was enamoured. Well, thinking, now that she had bayted her
hooke, she woulde not cease while * she had fully caught the fish, she beganne thus to
10 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
lay the traine. When they were come neere to the city gates, she stayed on a
sodaine, and straining him hard by the hand, and glanncing a looke from her eies, as
if she would both shew fauour and craue affection, she began thus smilinglie to
assault him. ' Seruant, the lawyers say the assumpsit is neuer good where the partie
giues not somewhat in consideration ; that seruice is voide where it is not made fast
by some fee. Least, therefore, your eie should make your minde variable, as mens
thoughts follow their sights, and their lookes wauer at the excellence of new obiects,
and so I loose such a seruant ; to tie you to the stake with an earnest, you shall this
day be my guest at dinner. Then, if heereafter you forget your mistresse, I shal
appeale at the barre of loyaltie, and so condemne you of lightues.' Francesco, that
was tied by the eies, and had his hart on his halfpeny, could not deny her, but with
many thanks accepted of hir motion ; so, that agreed, they went all to Infidaes house
to dinner : where they had such cheere as could vpon the sodaine be prouided ;
Infida giuing him such friendly and familiar intertainement at his repast, as wel with
sweet prattle as with amorous glances, that he rested captiue within the laborinth of
hir flatteries." In a short time the arts of Infida have complete success: she
" so plied Francesco with her flattering fawnes that, as the yron follows the
adamant, the straw the jet, and the helitropion the beames of the sunne, so
his actions were directed after her eie, and what she saide stoode for a principle,
insomuch, that he was not onely readie in all submisse hmnours to please her
fancies, but willing for the least worde of offence to draw his weapon against the
stoutest champion in al Troynouant. Thus seated in her beauty, hee liued a long
while, forgetting his returne to Caerbrancke." ....
" Wel, his affaires were done, his horse solde, and no other businesse now rested to
hinder him from hying home, but his mistresse ; which was such a violent deteyner
of his person and thoughts, that there is no heaueu but Infidaes house ; where
although hee pleasantly entree! in with delight, yet cowardly he slipt away with
repentance. Well, leauing him to his new loues, at last to Isabell, who daily expected
the comming home of her best beloued Francesco, thinking euery houre a yeare till
she might see him in whome rested all her content. But when (poore soule) she
coulde neither feede her sight with his presence, nor her eares with his letters, she
beganne to lower, and grew so discontent that she fell into a feuer. Fortune, that
meant to trie hir patience, thought to prooue hir with these tragicall newes : it was
tolde her by certaine gentlemen her friends, who were her husbands priuate familiars,
that he meant to soiorne most part of the yeere in Troynouant ; one blunt fellowe,
amongest the rest, that was playne and wythout falshoode, tolde her the whole
cause of his residence, howe hee was in loue wyth a most beautifull gentlewoman
called Infida, and that so deepely that no pcrswasion might reuoke him from that
alluring curtizan. At this Isabell made no accompt, but tooke it as a friuolous tale,
and thought the woorseof such as buzzed such fantasticall follies into her eares : but
when the general] report of his misdemeanours were bruted abroad throughout all
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 11
Caerbrancke, then, with blushing cheekes, she hid her head, and greeuing at his
follies and her owne fortunes, smothered the flames of her sorrows with inward
conceit, but outwardly withstood such in satyricall tearmes as did inucigh against the
honestie of Francesco ; so that she wonne great commendations of all for her
loyaltie and constancie ; yet when she was gotten secret by hir selfe, hir heart full of
sorrowfull passions, and her eies full of teares, she beganne to meditate with her
selfe of the prime of her youth vowed to Francesco, how she forsooke father, friendes,
and countrey to bee paramour vnto her hearts paragon, the vowes hee made, when
he carried her away in the night, the solempne promises and protestations that were
vttered." She then writes the following letter. " ' Isabel to Francesco, health. If
Penelope longde for her Vlysses, thinke Isabel wisheth for her Francesco, as loyall to
thee as she was constant to the wily Greeke, and no lesse desirous to see thee in
Caerbranck than she to enioy his presence in Ithaca ; watering my cheekes with as
manie teares as she her face with plaints ; yet, my Francesco, hoping I haue no such
cause as she to increase hir cares ; for I haue such resolution in thy constancie, that
no Circes with all her inchantments, no Calipso with all her sorceries, no Syren with
all her melodies could peruert thee from thinking on thine Isabel ; I know,
Francesco, so deeply hath the faithful promise and loyall vowes made and inter-
changed betweene vs taken place in thy thoughtes, that no time how long soeuer, no
distance of place howsoeuer different, may alter that impression. But why do I
inferre this needlesse insinuation to him that no vanitie can alienate from vertue ?
let me, Francesco, perswade thee with other circumstances. First, my sweete, thinke
how thine Isabel lies alone, measuring the time with sighes, and thine absence with
passions ; counting the day dismall and the night full of sorrowes ; being euerie way
discontent, because shee is not content with her Francesco. The onely comfort that
I haue in thine absence is thy child, who lies on his mothers knee, and smiles as
wantonly as his father when he was a wooer. But when the boy sayes, ' Mam, where
is my dad 1 when will hee come home 1 ' then the calme of my content turneth to a
present storme of piercing sorrowe, that I am forced sometime to say, ' Unkinde
Francesco, that forgets his Isabell ! ' I hope, Francesco, it is thine affaires, not my
faults, that procureth this long delay j for if I knewe my follies did any way
offend thee, to rest thus long absent, I woulde punish myselfe both with outward
and inward penaunce. But, howsoeuer, I pray for thy health and thy speedie
returne ; and so, Francesco, farewell. Thine, more than her owne, Isabell.' " This
letter awakened some feeling of remorse in the breast of Francesco ; " but when he
went foorth of his chamber, and spied but his mistresse looking out of her windowe,
all this geare chaungde, and the case was altered : shee calde, and in hee must ; and
there in a iest scofft at his wiues letters, taking his Infida in his amies, and saying,
' I will not leaue this Troy for the chastest Penelope in the world.' " . . . .
" After these two louers had by the space of three yeares securely slumbrcd in the
sweetnesse of their pleasures, and, drunke with the surfet of content, thought no
12 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
other heaucn but their owne supposed happinesse ; as euerie storme hath his calme,
and the greatest spring-tide the deadest ebbe, so fared it with Francesco : for so long
went the pot to the water that at last it came broken home ; and so long put he his
hand into his pursse that at last the emptie bottome returned him a writt of Non
est inuentus ; for well might the Diuell dance there, for euer a crosse to keepe him
backe. Well, this luuer, fuller of passions than of pence, began (when hee entred
into the consideration of his owne estate) to mourne of the chyne, and to hang the
lippe as one that for want of sounding had stroke himselfe vppon the sands : yet he
couered his inward sorrowe with outward smiles, and like Janus presented his
mistresse with a merrie looke, when the other side of his visage was full of sorrowes.
But she, that was as good as a touchstone to trye metalls, could straight spie by the
laste where the shooe wringde him ; and seeing her Francesco was almost foundred,
thought to see if a skilfull farrier might mend him ; if not, like an vnthankefull
hackneyman, shee meant to tourne him into the bare leas, and set him as a tyrde
iade to picke a sallet. Uppon which determination, that shee might doo nothing
rashly, shee made enquirie into his estate, what linings he had, what landes to sell,
howe they were eyther tyed by statute or intailde 1 At last, thorough her secret and
subtill inquisition, she found that all his corne was on the floore, that his sheepe were
dipt, and the wooll solde ; to be short, that what he had by his wife coulde neither
be solde nor morgaged, and what he had of his owne was spent vppon her, that
nothing was lefte for him to liue vppon but his wits. This newes was such a cooling
card to this curtezan that the extreame heate of her loue was alreadie growen to bee
lukewarme : which Francesco might easely perceiue ; for at his arriuall his welcome
was more straimge, her lookes more coy, his fare more slender, her glaunces lesso
amorous ; and she seemed to bee Infida in proportion, but not in wonted passions.'
The simple Francesco attributes the change in the behaviour of his mistress "to
the distemperature of her bodie." Presently his hostess becomes clamorous for
money, his creditors threaten to arrest him, and his clothes wax thread-bare.
Whereupon one day, as he was sitting beside his fair courtesan, he said, " ' Knowe,
then, Infida, that Troynouant is a place of great expence ; like the serpent hidaspis,
that the more it suckes, the more it is athirst ; eating men aliue as the crocodile ;
and being a place of as daungerous allurement as the seate where the Syrens sit ami
chaunt their preiudiciall melodie. It is to young gentlemen like the Laborynth,
whereout Theseus could not get without a threed ; but here be such monstrous
Minotaures as first deuour the threed and then the person. The innes are like
hotehouses, which by little and little sweate a man into a consumption ; the hoste
he carries a pint of wine in the one hand to welcome, but a poniard in the other to
stab ; and the hostesse she hath smiles in her forhcad, and prouides good meate for
her guests, but the sauce is costly, for it far exceeds the catcs. If coyne want, then
either to Limbo, or els clap vp a commoditie (if so much credite be left), where he
shall finde such knots as he will neuer lie able without his vtter preiudice to vntie.
ACCOUNT OF R, GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 13
Brokers, I leaue them off, as too course ware to be mouthde with an honest mane
tongue. These Minotaures, faire Infida, haue so eaten mee vp in this Laborinth as,
to bee plaine with thee that art my second selfe, I want, and am so farre indebted to
the mercer and mine hostesse as either thou must stand my friend to disburse so
much money for me, or els I must depart from Troynouant, and so from thy sight,
which how precious it is to mee, I referre to thine owne conscience ; or for an
Vltimum vale take vp my lodging in the Counter, which I know, as it would he
vncouth to me, so it would bee greeuefull to thee ; and therefore now hangs my
welfare in thy wil. How loath I was to vtter vnto thee my want and sorrowe,
measure by my loue ; wdio wish rather death than thy discontent.' Infida could
scarce suffer him in so long a periode, and therefore, with her forehead full of
furrowes, shee made him this answere. ' And would you haue me, sir, buy an ounce
of pleasure with a tunne of mishappes, or reach after repentaunce with so hie a rate ?
haue I lent thee the blossoms of my youth, and delighted thee with the prime of my
yeares 1 hast thou had the spoile of my virginitie, and now wouldest thou haue the
sacke of my substaunce 1 when thou hast withered my person, aymest thou at my
wealth ? No, sir, no : knowe, that, for the loue of thee, I haue crackt my credite,
that neuer before was stained ; I cannot looke abroad without a blush, nor go with
my neighbours without a frump ; thou, and thy name is euer cast in my dish, my
foes laugh, and my friends sorrow to see my follies ; wherefore, seeing thou beginnest
to picke a quarrell, and hereafter, when thine owne base fortunes haue brought thee
to beggarie, w r ilt say that Infida cost thee so many crownes and was thine ouerthrowe,
auaunt, nouice, home to thine owne wife, who, poore gentlewoman, sits and wants
what thou consumest at tauerns. Thou hast had my despoyle, and I feare I beare in
my bellie the token of too much loue I ought thee. Yet content witli this
discredite, rather than to runne into further extremitie, get thee out of my doores,
for from hencefoorth thou shalt neuer be welcome to Infida.' And with that shee
flung vp, and went into her chamber. Francesco would haue made a replie, but shee
woulde not he are him, nor holde him any more chat." The discarded louer goes to
his lodging ; and " leaning his head on his hand, with teares in his eies, he beganne
to be thus extremely passionate." The greater part of his soliloquy is a tirade
against courtesans : its conclusion is ; " ' What nowe rests for thee, poore infortunate
man 1 Thou hast yet left a meanes to ende all these miseries, and that is this,
drawe thy rapier and so die, that with a manly resolution thou lmayest preuent thy
further misfortunes. Oh, although thou hast sinned, yet despaire not ; though thou
arte anathema, yet prone not an atheist ; the mercie of God is aboue all his workes,
and repentaunce is a pretious balme. Home to thy wife, to the wife of thy youth,
Francesco ; to Isabell, who with her patience will couer all thy follies : remember
this, man, Xunqv.am sera est ad bonos mores via.' Thus hee ended, and with verie
griefe fell in a slumber." On awaking, "hee arose vp and raunged about the citie,
despayring of his estate as a man pennylesse, and therefore impatient because lie
14 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
knewe not how to redresse his miseries : to relie vppon the helpe of a curtizan, he
sawe by experience was to hang hope in the ayre : to stand vpon the fauour of
friends, that was bootelesse ; for he had fewe in the citie, as being but a straunger
there, and such as he had were wonne with an apple, trencher-friends, and therefore
to bee left with the puffe of the least blast of adversities : to goe home to his wife,
to faire Isabel, that was as hard a censure as the sentence of death ; for shame of hia
follies made him ashamed to shewe his face to a woman of so high desarts. In this
perplexitie he passed ouer three or foure daies till his purse was cleane emptie, his
score great, and his hostesse would trust him for no more money, but threatned him,
if present payment were not made, to lay him in prison. This newes was hard to
Francesco, that knewe not how to auoyd the preiudice ; only his refuge was, to preuent
such a misfortune, to carrie his apparell to the brokers, and with great losse to make
money to pay for his diet : which once discharged, he walkt vp and downe as a man
forlorne, hauing neither coyne nor credite. Necessitie, that stingeth vnto the quick,
made him set his wits on the tenter, and to stretch his braines as high as ela, to see
how he could recouer pence to defray his charges, by any sinister meanes to salue his
sorrowes : the care of his parents and of his owne honor perswaded him from making
gaine by labour ; he had neuer been brought vp to any mechanicall course of life.
Thus euery way destitute of meanes to line, he sight* out this olde sayd sawe,
Miserrimum est fuisse beatum : yet at last, as extremities search very farre, he calde
to minde that he was a scholler, and that although in these daies arte wanted honor
and learning lackt his due, yet good letters were not brought to so lowe an ebbe but
that there might some profite arise by them to procure his maintenance. In this
humour he fell in amongst a companie of players, who perswaded him to trie his wit
in writing of comedies, tragedies, or pastorals, and if he could performe any thing
worth the stage, then they would largelie reward him for his paines. Francesco,
glad of this motion, seeing a meanes to mitigate the extremitie of his want, thought
it no dishonor to make gaine of his wit or to get profite by his pen : and therefore,
getting him home to his chamber, writ a comedie ; which so generally pleased all the
audience that happie were those actors in short time that could get any of his
woi-kes, he grewe so exquisite in that facultie. By this meanes his want was releeued,
his credit in his hosts house recouered, his apparell in gi'eater brauerie then it was,
and his purse well lined with crownes." Infida, hearing of this change in his
fortunes, " thought to cast foorth her lure to reclaime him, though by her
vnkindnesse he was proued haggard ; for she thought that Francesco was such a
tame foole that he would be brought to strike at any stale. Decking her selfe,
* sight] i. e. sighed, — as our early writers frequently spell the word. So Spenser, The Faerie
Queene, B. vi. C. viii. st. 20 ;
" I was bclov'd of many a gentle knight,
And sude and sought with all the service dew ;
Full many a one for me deepe groan d and sigh't," &c.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 15
therefore, as gorgiously as she could, painting her face with the choyce of all her
drugges, she walkt abroade where slice thought Francesco vsed to take the ayre.
Loue and fortune, ioyning in league, so fallowed her that according to her desire she
met him. At which inconnter, I gesse, more for shame than loue, she blusht ; and
fild her countenaunce with such repentant remorse (yet hauing her lookes full of
amorous glaunces) that she seemed like Venus reconciling her sclfe to froward Mars.
The sight of Infida was pleasing in the eyes of Francesco, and almost as deadly as
the basilisk ; that had hee not had about him moly as Vlisses, he had heen
inchaunted by the charmes of that wylie Circes : but the abuse so stucke in his
stomack that she had profered him in his extremitie that he returned all her glaunces
with a frowne, and so parted." Infida makes another attempt to win back Francesco
to her love, by writing to him a soothing letter full of penitence ; but he is not to
be entrapped a second time, and returns an answer showing that he understands her
character and is proof against all her allurements. The courtesan, now, perceiving
" that wrought she neuer so subtillie, yet her traines were discouered, that her
painted luers could not make him stoop, so had he with reason refelled his former
follie ; when she pei'ceiued (I say) that all her sweet potions w r ere found to bee
poysons, though she couered them neuer so darkly, she fel not in dispaire with
ouermuch loue, but swore in her selfe to intend him some secrete preiudice, if euer it
lay in her by any meanes to pi-ocure it." Meantime " Isabel liuing thus pensiue in
that shee wanted the presence of her Francesco, yet for her patience and vertue grew
so famous that all Caerbranck talked of her perfections : her beautie was admired of
euerie eye, her qualities applauded in euerie mans eare, that she was esteemed for a
patterne of vertuous excellence throughout the whole citie. Amongst the rest that
censured of her curious fauours, there was one Signor Bernardo, a bourgomaster of
the citie ; who chauncing on a time to passe by the doore where Isabel soiourned,
seeing so sweete a saint, began to fall enamoured of so faire an obiect ; and although
he was olde, yet the fire of lust crept into his eyes and so inflamed his heart that
with a disordinate desire he began to affect her : but the renowme of her chastitie
was such that it almost quatted those sparkes that heated him on to such lawlesse
affection. But yet when he cable to minde that want was a great stumbling-blocke,
and sawe the neccssitie that Isabel was in by the absence of Francesco, he thought
gold w r ould bee a roadie meanes to gaine a womans good will, and therefore
dispayred not of obtaining his purpose." " Being the chiefe
bourgomaster in all the citie, he determined to make a priuie search for some
suspected person ; and being master of the watch himselfe, to goe vp into her
chamber, and there to discouer the depth of his desire ; so he thought to ioyne loue
and opportunitie in one union, and with his office and his age to wipe out all
suspition." One night, accordingly, he puts this plan into execution, gains
admittance into Isabel's chamber, and endeavours to overcome her chastity : his
fortune, he tells her, shall be at her command if she consent to his wishes ; but, if
16 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
not, he threatens to accuse her publicly of incontinence, and throw an indelible
stain upon her character. Isabel's virtue is not to be shaken : she spits in his face,
and bids him do his worst. Immediately she is hurried to prison. Bernardo then
assembles the other burgomasters in the town-hall, sends for Isabel, and producing a
youth of the city whom he had suborned as a false witness, says ; " ' This young man
here present for a certaine summe of money compounded to lie with Isabel, and for
pence had his pleasure on her ; she alluring him with such wylie amorettes of a
curtizan that in her companie he hath consumed all his substance. The young mans
friends seeing his follie, and that no perswasions could disswade him from affecting
her, made complaint vnto me : whereupon I examined him, and found him not onely
guiltie of the crime, but tractable to be reclaimed from his follie. Seeing, then,
citizens of Caerbranck, such a curtizan as this may vnder the colour of holines
shrowd much preiudice, and allure many of our youth to mischiefes, I thought it my
duety to bring her into open infamie, that she may be punished for her fault,
knowen for a harlot, and from hencefoorth Hue dispised and hated of all. For
proofe that shee hath liued long in this leawd kinde of life, this young man shall
here before you all make present deposition ' : and with that he reacht him a bible ;
whereon he swore that hee had long time conuerst dishonestly with Isabel, euer
since the departure of her husband. At which oath the people that were iurours in
the cause, beleeuing the protestation of Bernardo and the deposition of the youth,
presently found hir guiltie ; and then Bernardo and the rest of the burgomasters
gaue iudgement, that she should presently haue some open and seuere punishment,
and after be banished out of the town." She now prays aloud, calling for succour
on the deity who knows her innocence ; and almost immediately after, " hee which
had accused Isabel start vp as a man lunaticke, and cried out vnto the people, ' Thus
I haue sinned, men of Caerbranck, I bane sinned : the thought of my present
periurie is a hell to my conscience ; for I haue sworne falsly against the innocent,
and haue consented to condemne Isabel without cause ' : and with that hee discourst
at the barre how Signor Bernardo had suborned him against the gentlewoman, and
how in all his life before he neuer was in her companie." Isabel, of course, is set
free, while Bernardo is punished by a great fine, to be paid to her, and declared
incapable of ever bearing any office in the city. " This strange euent spread abroad
through all the countrcy, and as fame flies swift and far, so at last it came
to the eares of Francesco ; for he, sitting in Troynouant at an ordinarie amongst
other gentlemen, heard this fortune of Isabel reported at the table for straunge
ncwes by a gentleman of Caerbranck, who brought in Isabel for a myrrour
of chastitie, and added this more, that she was married to a gentleman of a
ripe witte, good parentage, and well skild in the liberall sciences, ' but,' quoth
he, 'an vnthrift, and one that hath not beene with his wife this sixe yeares.'
At this all thr table condemned him as passing vnkinde, that could wrong so
vertuous a wife with absence. He was silent and blusht, feeling the worme of his
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS 17
conscience to wring him, and that with such a sharpe sting, that assoone as he go1
into his chamber, he fell to meditate with himselfe of the great abuses he offered his
wife j the excellence of her exteriour perfection, her boautie, vertne, and other rare
ornaments of nature presented themselues into his thoughts ; that he began not
onely to be passing passionate, but deepely penitent, sorrowing as much at his
former follies as his hope was to ioy in his ensuing good fortunes." Soon after this,
talcing farewell of his friends in Troynovant, he sets out on his journey homewards.
" Within fiue daies bee arriued at Caerbrancke ; where, assoone as he was lighted, he
went to the house where his wife soiourned, and one of the maides espying
Francesco, yet knewe him for all his long absence, and ranne in and tolde it to
Isabel that her husband was at the doore. She being at worke in her chamber, sat
at this newes as one in an extasie, vntill Francesco came vp ; who at the first sight
of his wife, considering the excelloncie of her beautie, her vertues, chastitie, and
other perfections, and measuring her constancie with his disloyaltie, stoode as a man
metamorphosed : at last he began thus. ' Ah Isabel, what shal I say to thy
fortunes or my follies 1 what exoi'dium shall I vse to showe my penance, or discouer
my sorrowes, or expresse my present ioyes 1 For I tell thee I conceiue as great
pleasure to see thee well as griefe in that I haue wronged thee with my absence.
Might sighes, Isabel, teares, plaints, or any such exteriour passions pourtray out my
inward repentance, I would shewe thee the anatomie of a most distressed man ; but
amongst many sorrowing thoughts there is such a confusion that superfluitie of
griefes stops the source of my discontent. To figure out my follies or the extremitie
of my fancies, were but to manifest the bad course of my life, and to rub the scarre
by setting out mine owne scathe ; and therefore let it suffice, I repent heartelie, I
sorrowe deeplie, and meane to amend and continue in the same constantlie.' At this
Francesco stoode and w r ept ; which Isabel seeing, concerned by his outward griefes
his secret passions, and therefore taking him about the necke, wetting his cheekes
with the teares that fell from her eyes, she made him this womanlie and wise
answere. ' What, Francesco, comest thou home ful of w r oes, or seekest thou at thy
returne to make me weepe 1 Hast thou been long absent, and now bringest thou me
a treatise of discontent ? I see thou art penitent, and therefore I like not to heare
what follies are past. It sufficeth for Isabel that hencefoorth thou wilt loue Isabel,
and vpon that condition, without any more wordes, welcome to Isabel.' With that
she smiled and wept, and in doing both together sealed vp all her contrarie passions
in a kisse." So end the adventures of Francesco and Isabel.
Let us now turn to the Groats-worth of Wit bought with a Mill ton of Repentance*
" In an iland bound with the ocean there was sometime a citie situated, made rich by
march andize, and populous by long space : the name is not mentioned in the
* I quote from the edition of 1617. — A reprint of the Groats-worth of Wit appeared in 1S13, from
the private press of my old friend Sir Egerton Brydges, to whose unceasing and disinterested labours in
the cause of our early literature the world has not yet done justice.
18 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
antiquary, or else worne out by times antiquitie ; what it was it greatly skils not ;
but therein thus it happened. An olde new-made gentleman herein dwelt, of no
small credite, exceeding wealth, and large conscience. Hee had gathered from many
to bestow vpon one ; for though hee had two sonnes, he esteemed but one, that
beeing, as himselfe, brought vp to bee golds bondman, was therefore helde heyre
apparent of his ill-gathered goods. The other was a scholler, and married to a
proper gentlewoman, and therefore least regarded ; for tis an olde sayde saw, ' To
learning and law theres no greater foe then they that nothing know.' Yet was not
the father altogether vnlettered, for hee had good experience in a Nouerint, and by
the vniuersall tearmes therein contained had driuen many gentlemen * to seeke
vnknowne countries : wise he was, for hee bare office in his parish, and sate as
formally in his foxe-furde gowne as if he had beene a very vpright-dealing burges :
hee was religious too, neuer without a booke at his belt, and a bolt in his mouth,
ready to shoote through his sinnefull neighbour." This old usurer, called Goi'inius,
" after many a goutie pang that had pincht his exterior partes, many a curse of the
people that mounted into heauens presence," is struck by a mortal disease. " ' At
this instant,' says he when on his death bed, ' (0 griefe to part with it !) I haue in
ready coyne threescore thousand pound, in plate and jewels xv thousand, in bonds
and specialities as much, in land nine hundred pound by yeare ; all which, Lucanio,
I bequeath to thee : onely I reserue for Roberto, thy well-read brother, an old groate
(being the stock I first began with), wherewith I wish him to buy a groats-worth of
wit ; for hee in my life hath reproued my manner of life, and therefore at my death
shall not be contaminated with corrupt gaine." Gorinius dies. Lucanio " was of
condition simple, shamefast, and flexible to any counsell ; which Roberto perceiuing,
and pondering how little was left to him, grew into an inward contempt of his
fathers vnequall legacy, and determinate resolution to worke Lucanio all possible
iniurie : hereupon thus conuerting the sweetnesse of his study to the sharpe thirst
of reuenge, he (as enuie is seldome idle) sought out fit companions to effect his
vnbrotherly resolution. Neyther in such a case is ill company farre to seeke, for the
sea hath scarce so many ieoperdies as populous cities haue deceyuing Syrens, whose
eyes are adamants, whose wordes are witchcrafts, whose dores leade downe to death.
With one of these female serpents Roberto consorts ; and they conclude what euer
they compassed, equally to share to their contents. This match made, Lucanio was
by his brother brought to the bush ; where hee had scarce pruned his wings but he
was fast limed, and Roberto had what he expected." Lucanio is lured to the house
of the fair courtesan, Lamilia, "which was in the suburbes of the citie, pleasantly
seated, and made more delectable by a pleasaunt garden wherein it was scituate."
He presents her with a diamond of great value, and is cheated out of his money at
dice. " Lamilia beeing the winner, prepared a banquet, which finished, Roberto
* gentlemen] Old ed. "gentlewomen."
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 19
aduised his brother to depart home, and to furnish himselfe with more crownes, least
hee were outcrackt with new commers, Lucanio, loath to be outcountenanst, followed
his adnise, desiring [him] to attend his returne, which he before had determined
vnrequested; for, as soone as his brothers backe was turned, Roberto begins to reckon
with Lamilia, to be a sharer as well in the money deceitfully wonne as in the diamond
so wilfully giuen. But shee, secundum mores meretricis, iested thus with the scholler.
' Why, Roberto, are you so well read, and yet shew yourselfe so shallowe-witted, to
deeme women so weake of conceit that they see not into mens demerites 1 Suppose
(to make you my stale to catch the woodcocke your brother) that, my tongue ouer-
running mine intent, I speake of liberall reward : but what I promised, there is the
point ; at least what I part with I wil bee well aduised. It may bee you will thus
reason : had not Roberto trained Lucanio unto Lamilias lure, Lucanio had not now
beene Lamilias prey ; therefore, sith by Roberto she possesseth her prize, Roberto
merites an equall part, Monstrous absurd, if so you reason : as well you may reason
thus : Lamilias dogge hath kilde her a deere ; therefore his mistris must make him
a pastie. No more, pennilesse poet : thou art beguilde in me; and yet I wonder
how thou couldest, thou hast beene so often beguilde. But it fareth with licentious
men as with the chased bore in the streame, who, being gi'eatly refreshed with
swimming, neuer feeleth any smart vntill he perish, recurelesly wounded with his
own weapons. Reasonlesse Roberto, that hauing but a brokers place, asked a lenders
reward ; faithles Roberto, that hast attempted to betray thy brother, irreligiously
foi*saking thy wife, deseruedly beene in thy fathers eye an abiect ; thinkest thou
Lamilia so loose, to consort with one so lewde ? No, hypocrite : the sweet gentleman
thy brother I will till death loue, and thee while I Hue loath. This share Lamilia
giues thee, other gettest thou none.' As Roberto would haue reply ed, Lucanio
approched : to whom Lamilia discourst the whole deceit of his brother, and neuer
rested intimating malitious arguments till Lucanio vtterly refused Roberto for his
brother and for euer forbad him of his house. And when he would haue yeelded
reasons and formed excuse, Lucanio's impatience (vrged by her importunat malice)
forbad all reasoning with them that were reasonlesse, and so, giuing him Jacke
Drums entertainement, shut him out of dores : whom we will follow, and leaue
Lucanio to the mercy of Lamilia. Roberto, in an extreme extasie, rent his hayre,
curst his destinie, blamed his trecherie, but most of all exclaimed against Lamilia,
and ill her against all enticing curtizans." " With this he
laid his head on his hand, and leant his elbow on the ground, sighing out sadly,
' Heu patior telis vulnera facta iueis ! '
On the other side of the hedge sate one that heard his sorrow ; who getting oner,
came towards him, and brake off his passion. When he approached, he saluted
Roberto in this sort. ' Gentleman,' quoth he, ' for so you seeme, I haue by chaunce
heard you discourse some part of your griefe, which appeareth to be more then you
c 2
20 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
will discouer or 1 can conceit. But if you vouchsafe such simple comfort as my
ability will yeeld, assure yoursclfe that I will endeuour to doe the best that eyther
may procure your profit or bring you pleasure ; the rather, for that I suppose you
are a scholler, and pittie it is men of learning should Hue in lacke.' Roberto wond-
ring to heare such good words, for that this yron age affoordes few that esteeme of
vertue, returned him thankefull gratulations, and, vrged by necessitie, vttered his
present griefe, beseeching his aduise how he might be imployed. 'Why, easily,'
quoth he, ' and greatly to your benefit ; for men of my profession get by schollers
their whole liuing.' ' What is your profession 1 ' sayde Roberto. ' Truly, sir,' sayde
he, ' I am a player.' ' A player ! ' quoth Roberto ; ' I tooke you rather for a gentle-
man of great liuing ; for if by outward habite men should be censured, I tell you,
you would bee taken for a substantiall man.' ' So am I where I dwell,' quoth the
player, ' reputed able at my proper cost to build a windmill. What though the world
once went hard with me, when I was fayne to carry my playing fardle a foot-backe ?
Tempora mukintur, I know you know the meaning of it better then I, but I thus
conster it, It is oilierwise noiv ; for my very share in playing apparrell will not bee
solde for two hundred pounds.' ' Truely,' sayde Roberto, ' it is strange that you
should so prosper in that vaine practise, for that it seemes to me your voyce is
nothing gracious.' ' Nay, then,' sayd the player, ' I mislike your iudgement : why, I am
as famous for Delphrygus and The King of Fairies as euer was any of my time ; Tlie
Tivelue Labours of Hercules haue I terribly thundered on the stage, and played three
scenes of the Diuell in The Higluvay to Heauen? ' Haue ye so % ' said Roberto ;
' then I pray you pardon me.' ' Nay, more,' quoth the player, ' I can serue to make
a pretty speech, for I was a country author, passing at a Morrall ; * for it was I that
pend The Morrall of Mans Wit, The Dialogue of Dines, and for seuen yeeres space was
absolute interpreter of the puppets. But now my almanacke is out of date :
The people make no estimation
Of Morals, teaching education.
Was not this prety for a plaine rime extempore 1 if ye will, yee shall haue more.'
' Nay, it is enough,' said Roberto ; ' but how mean you to vse me 1 ' ' Why, sir, in
making playes,' sayde the other ; 'for which you shall bee well paied, if you will take
the pains.' Roberto percciuing no remedie, thought it best to respect his present
necessitie, [and], to trye his witte, went with him willinglie : who lodged him at the
townee end in a house of retayle, where what happened our poet you shall hereafter
heare. There, by conuersing with bad company, hce grew a malo in peius, falling from
one vice to another; and so bailing found a veine to finger crownes, hee grew cranker
then Lucanio, who by this time began to droope, being thus dealt withall by Lamilia.
Shoe hauing bewitched him with her enticing wiles, caused him to consume in lesse
then two ycarcs that infinite treasure gathered by his father with so many a poore
Morrall] i. e. Moral -play.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 21
mans curse. His lands sokle, his icwels pawnde, his money wasted, hce was casseerde
by Lamilia that had coosened him of all. Then walked he, like one of D[nke]
Hnmfreycs squires, in a threed-bare cloake, his hose drawne out with his heeies, Ins
shoes* vnseamed lest his feete should sweate with heate : now (as witlcsse as he was)
he remembred his fathers wordes, his kindnes to his brother, his carelesnesse of him-
selfe. In this sorrow bee sate downe on Pennilesse Bench ; where when Opus and
Vsns tolde him, by the chimes in his stomacke, it was time to fall vnto meate, he
was faine with the camelion to feed vpon the ayre and make patience his repast.
While he was at his feast, Lamilia came flaunting by, garnished with the iewels
whereof shee beguiled him : which sisdit serued to close his stomacke after his cold
chcare. Roberto hearing of his brothers beggerie, albeit he had little remorse of his
miserable state, yet did bee seeke him out, to vse him as a property ; whereby
Lucanio was somewhat prouided for. But being of simple nature, he serued but for
a blocke to whet Robertoes wit on : which the poore foole perceiuing, he forsooke all
other hopes of life, and fell to be a notorious pandar, in which detested course he
continued till death. But Roberto now famoused for an arch-playmaking poet,
his purse, like the sea, sometime sweld, anon like the same sea fell to a low ebbe ;
yet seldome he wanted, his labours Avei-e so well esteemed. Many, this rule bee
kept, whateuer he fingered aforehand, was the certaine meanes to vnbinde a bargaine ;
and being asked why he so sleightly dealt with them that did Mm good, ' It becomes
me,' sayth he, ' to be contrarie to the world ; for commonly when vulgar men receiue
earnest, they doe performe ; when I am payd any thing afore hand, I breake my
promise.' He had shifte of lodgings, wdiere in euery place his hostesse writte
vp the wofull remembrance of him, his laundresse, and his boy; for they were euer
his inhoushold, besides retayners in sundrie other places. His company were
lightly the lewdest persons in the land, apt for pilferie, periurie, forgerie, or any
villanie. Of these he knew the caste to cogge at cardes, coosin at dice ; by these he
learned the legerdemaines of nips, foysts, conicatchers, crosbyters, lifts, high lawyers,
and all the rabble of that vncleane generation of vipers ; and pithilie could hee paint
out their whole courses of craft : so cunning he was in all crafts as nothing rested
in him almost but craftinesse. How often the gentlewoman his wife laboured vainely
to recall him, is lamentable to note : but as one giuen ouer to all lewdnes, he com-
municated her sorrowfull lines among his loose scids, that iested at her bootlesse
laments. If he could any way get credit on scores, hee would then brag his creditors
carried stones, comparing euery round circle to a groning 0, procured by a painfull
burthen. The shameful end of sundry his consorts, deseraedly punished for their
amisse, wrought no compunction in his heart ; of wdiich one, brother to a brothel!
he kept, was trust vnder a free, as round as a ball."
Here I must interrupt the narrative, and call the reader's attention to the
22 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS,
concluding part of the sentence last quoted, which has not been noticed by any of
Greene's biographers. The person who " was trust under a tree, as round as a ball"
undoubtedly means an infamous character named Ball* (commonly called Cutting
Ball) ; who, when Greene was " driven to extreme shifts," used to gather together a
band of ruffianly companions, to guard him from arrests ; and who eventually was
hanged at Tyburn. By the " brothell he kept " we are as certainly to understand
the said Ball's sister ; of whom we shall afterwards have a glimpse when the poet is
on his death-bed. The fruit of this amour was a son, baptized Fortunatus Greene, t
who died before his father had been quite a year in the grave.
Roberto, the tale goes on, was " nothing bettered, but rather hardned in wicked-
nes. At last was that place iustified, God warneth men by dreames and visions in
the night, and by knowne examples in the day : but if he returne not, he comes
vpon him with iudgement that shall be felt. For now when the number of deceites
caused Roberto bee hatefull almost to all men, his immeasurable drinking had made
him the perfect image of the dropsie, and the loathsom scourge of lust tyrannized in
his bones ; liuing in extreme pouerty, and hauing nothing to pay but chalk, which
now his host accepted not for currant, this miserable man lay comfortlessly lan-
guishing, hauing but one groat left (the iust proportion of his fathers legacie), which
looking on, he cryed, ' 0, now it is too late, too late to buy wit with thee ! and
therefore will I see if I can sell to carelesse youth what I negligently forgot
to buy.'
" Heere, gentlemen, breake I off Roberto's speech, whose life in most part agreeing
with mine, found one selfe punishment as I haue done. Hereafter suppose me the
said Roberto, and I will go on with that he promised : Greene will send you now his
Groatsworth of Witte, that neuer shewed a mites worth in his life ; and though no
man now be by to doe mee good, yet, ere I die, I will by my repentance indeuor to
do all men good."
* "His [GreeDe's] imploying of Ball (surnamed Cuttinge Ball), till he was intercepted at Tiborne,
to leauy a crew of his trustiest companions to guarde him in daunger of arrestes ; his keping of the
foresaid Balls sister, a sorry ragged queane, of whom he had his base Bonne Infortunatus Greene." —
Gabriel Harvey's Fovre Letters, and ccrtabie Sonnets ; especially touching Robert Greene, &c. 1592,
p. 10.
Nash alludes to this blackguard : "And more (to plague you for your apostata conceipts), ballets
shalbee made of your base deaths, euen as there was of Catting Ball." — Haue with you to Saffron-
Waldcn, kc., 1596, Sig. i.
t "Gabriel Harvey, in his 'Four Letters and Certaine Sonnets,' 1592, names Greene's child
ironLeally /><foitunatus Greene, to which he was led by its real name, Fortunatus : when it was born we
know not, but it was buried in 1593 from Holywell Street, Shoreditch, and the following is the
registration of its interment at St, Leonard's : —
4 1593. Fortunatus Greene was huryed the same day.'
[i. e. 12 August.] The place from whence the body was brought, ' Halywell,' was added by the clerk in
the margin." Collier'* Memoirs of tfu Principal Actors in the Flays of Shakespeare, — Introd., p. xx.,
note.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 23
The author's striking Address to his brother poets, at the end of this tract, I
reserve for a later part of the present essay.
As the reader has now been made intimately acquainted with the Never too Late
and the Groats-worth of Wit, he is left to set down as auto-biographical whatever
portions of those pieces he may think proper.
There is no doubt that Greene became the husband * of an amiable woman, whom,
after she had borne him a child, he abandoned. His profligacy seems to have been
the cause of their separation : but that they had once been strongly attached to each
other is evident from the letter (hereafter to be given) which he wrote to her with
his dying hand, wherein he affectingly conjures her to perform his last request
"by the loue of our youth." It was, I apprehend, immediately after this rupture of
his domestic ties that he repaired to the metropolis, determined to rely solely on the
labours of his pen for the means of subsistence.t From the following (somewhat
confused) account of his career in The Repentance of Robert Greene, it would seem
that, even before his unfortunate marriage, he was well known as a dramatist and
a writer of " love-pamphlets " : —
" At my return into England [from travelling on the continent] I ruffeled out in
my silks, in the habit of malcontent, and seemed so discontent that no place would
please me to abide in, nor no vocation cause mee to stay myselfe in : but after I had
by degi'ees proceeded Maister of Arts, I left the vniuersitie and away to London ;
where (after I had continued some short time, and driuen my self out of credit with
sundry of my frends) I became an author of playes, and a penner of love-pamphlets,
so that I soone grew famous in that qualitie, that who for that ti'ade growne so
ordinary about London as Robin Greene ? Yong yet in yeares, though olde iu
wickednes, I began to resolue that there was nothing bad that was profitable :
wherevpon I grew so rooted in all mischiefe that I had as great a delight in
wickednesse as sundrie hath in godlinesse, and as much felicitie I tooke in villainy as
others had in honestie." Sig. G " Yet, let me confesse a trueth, that euen once,
and yet but once, I felt a feare and horrour in my conscience, and then the terrour
of Gods iudgementes did manifestly teach me that my life was bad, that by shine I
deserued damnation, and that such was the greatnes of my sinne that I deserued no
redemption. And this inward motion I receiued iu Saint Andrews Church iu the
cittie of Norwich, at a lecture or sermon then preached by a godly learned man,
* " The following, from the peculiar wording of the registration, as well as from the correspondence
of dates, l'eads like the entry of the marriage of the ill-governed Robert Greene at St. Bartholomew the
Less : —
' The xvjth day of Februarie, 1586, was maryed Wilde, otherwise Greene, unto Elizabeth
Taylor.'" Collier's Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare, — Iatrod., p. xxi.
t Wood's assertion that he used his pen for the support of his wife, I am unwillingly obliged
to regard as one of worthy Anthony's mistakes: "Other trifles he hath extant, which he wrote to
maintain his wife, and that high and loose course of living which poets generally follow." — Fasti Oxon,
Part I. p. 246. ed. Bliss.
24 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
whose doctrine and the maner of whose teaching I liked wonderfull well ; yea, in
my conscience, such was his singlenes of hart and zeale in his doctrine that hee
might haue conuerted the worst * monster of the world.
" Well, at that time, whosoeuer was worst, I knewe myselfe as bad as he ; for
being new-come from Italy (where I learned all the villainies vnder the heauens), I
was drownd in pride, whoredome was my daily exercise, and gluttony with
drunkennes was my onely delight.
" At this sermon the terrour of Gods iudgementes did manifestly teach me that
my exercises were damnable, and that I should bee wipte out of the booke of life, if
I did not speedily repent my loosenes of life, and reforme my misdemeanors.
" At this sermon the said learned man (who doubtles was the child of God) did
beate downe sinne in such pithie and perswasiue manner, that I began to call vnto
mind the daunger of my soule, and the preiudice that at length would befall mee for
those grosse sinnes which with greedines I daily committed : in so much as sighing
I said to myselfe, ' Lord haue mercie vpon mee, and send me grace to amend and
become a new man ! ' But this good motion lasted not long in mee ; for no sooner
had I met with my copesmates, but seeing me in such a solemne humour, they
demaunded the cause of my sadnes : to whom when I had discouered that I sorrowed
for my wickednesse of life, and that the preachers wordes had taken a deepe
impression in my conscience, they fell vpon me in ieasting manner, calling me
Puritane and Presizian, and wished I might haue a pulpit, with such other scoffing
tearmcs, that by their foolish perswasion the good and wholesome lesson I had
learned went quite out of my remembrance ; so that I fel againe with the dog to my
olde vomit, and put my wicked life in practise, and that so throughly as euer I
did before.
" Thus although God sent his holy spirit to call mee, and though I heard him, yet
I regarded it no longer than the present time, when sodainly forsaking it, I went
forward obstinately in my misse.t Neuerthelesse, soone after I married a gentleman's
daughter of good account, with whom I liued for a while : but forasmuch as she
would perswade me from my wilfull wickednes, after I had a child by her, I cast her
off, hauing spent vp the marriage-money which I obtained by her.
" Then left I her at six or seuen, who went into Lincolneshire, and I to London ;
where in short space I fell into favor with such as were of honorable and good
calling. But heere note, that though I knew how to get a friend, yet I had not the
gift or reason how to keepe a friend ; for hee that was my dearest friend, I would
bee sure so to bchaue my selfe towards him, that he shoulde euer after professe to
bee my vtter enemic, or else vowe ncuer after to come in my company.
"Thus my misdemeanors (too many to be recited) caused the most part of those
so much to despise me that in the end I became friendlcs, except it were in a fewe
* worst] Old ed. "most." t missc] i.e. amiss, — sin.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 25
alehouses, who commonly for my inordinate expences would make much of me, vntil
I were on the score, far more than cuer I meant to pay by twenty nobles thick.
After I had wholy betaken me to the penning of plaies (which was my continuall
exercise), I was so far from calling vpon God that I sildome thought on God, but
tookc such delight in swearing and blaspheming the name of God that none could
thinke otherwise of mee than that I was the child of perdition. These
vanities and other trifling pamphlets I penned of loue and vaine fantasies was
my chiefest stay of lining ; and for those my vaine discourses I was beloued of the
more vainer sort of people, who becing my continuall companions, came still to my
lodging, and there would continue quaffing, carowsing, and surfeting with me all the
day long." — Sig. C 2.
Greene chiefly claims our notice as a poet ; for though his prose-writings greatly
exceed in number his poetical works, yet the former are almost all interspersed with
verses, and are composed in that ornamental and figurative style which is akin to
poetry. The date of the earliest of his publications yet discovered is 1583.* At
that time the most distinguished poets alive in England were these. Thomas
Churchyard ; an indefatigable manufacturer of coarse-spun rhyme, who had been
plying his trade for many years, and who continued to ply it for many more. Barnaby
Googe ; whose Zodiake of Life (a translation from Palingenius) was greatly admired.
Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst ; whose Gorboduc (composed in conjunction with
Thomas Norton) is the earliest specimen in our language of a regular tragedy, and
whose very picturesque " Induction" in the Mirror for Magistrates still shines with a
lustre that throws the rest of that bulky chronicle into the shade. Arthur Golding ;
who rendered Ovid's 3fetamorphoses into spirited and flowing lines. Nicholas Breton ;
who persevered in employing his fertile pen till a late period in the succeeding reign;
a man of no ordinary genius, writing in his more inspired moments with tenderness
* The First part of Mamillia : see List of Greene's j rose-works at the end of this memoir.
"The earliest edition of it [The First Part of Mamillia] bears date in 1583 ; and by some verses
signed G. B., 'in praise of the author and his booke,' which are prefixed, it is clear that it was written,
if not published, before Greene left college ;
' Greene is the plant, Mamillia is the flowre,
Cambridge the plat where plant and flower growes.'
My friend, the Rev. A. Dyce, in his beautiful edition of Greene's WorJu, in two vols. 8vo., also gives the
date of 1583 to the publication of the first part of Greene's Mamillia. See vol. I. cviii. The second
part of Mamillia was undoubtedly first printed in 1593 ; and I apprehend that there may be a mistake
of a figure on the title of the first jmrt. Greene would hardly write the second part of the same story
nearly ten years after the appearance of the first part." Collier's Hist, of Enyl. Dram. Poet., iii. 148,
note.
Assuredly there is no "mistake" on the title-page of the First Part of Mamillia: the typography
and spelling of that tract evince it to be of as early a date as 1583. Assuredly, too, the Second Part of
Mamillia was written while Greene was resident at Cambridge (the Dedication being dated " From my
Studie in Clare hall"), though it was not printed till 1593, when the author was in his grave : and
we may conclude that it was one of those "many papers" which, as Chettle tells us (see before, p. 2,
note), Greene left "in sundry booksellers 1 hands."
26 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
and delicacy. George Whetstone ; whose Promos and Cassandra having afforded
hints to Shakespeare for Measure for Measure, will prevent his name from being
forgotten by posterity. Edmund Spenser; celebrated only as the author of Tlve
Shepherds Calendar. Sir Philip Sidney ; whose songs and sonnets were then
undoubtedly familiar to his countrymen, though they were not committed to the
press till after an heroic death had set the seal upon his glory. Sir Edward Dyer ; *
of whose productions none have descended to our times that seem to justify the
contemporary applause which he received. John Lyly ; who in all probability was
then well-known as a dramatist, though his dramas appear to have been intended
only for court-shows or private exhibitions, and though none of them were printed
before 1581: ; and who in 1579 had put forth his far-famed Euphues, which gave
a tone to the prose-works of Greene. Thomas Watson ; who had published a
collection of elaborate and scholar-like sonnets, entitled ~E.KaTofxna8ia, or The Passionate
Centurie of Love, and who wrote Latin verses with considerable skill and elegance :
and Richard Stanyhurst ; who went mad in English hexameters, seriously intending
his monstrous absurdities for a translation of the first four books of The JSneid.i
* To modern readers Dyer was known as a poet only by some short and scattered pieces till the
discovery, about twenty years ago, of a copy of his Sixe Idillia, translated from Theocritus, printed at
Oxford in 1588.
" Tell me, in good sooth, dotli it not too euidently appeare, that this English poet wanted but a good
patterne before his eyes, as it might be some delicate and choyce elegant poesie of good M. Sidneys or
M. Dyers (ouer very Castor and Pollux for such and many greater matters), when this trimme geere
was in hatching ?"
G. Harvey's Three proper and wittie familiar Letters, &c. 1580, p. 36.
" Hie quoque seu subeas Sydnsei, siue Dyeri
Scrinia, qua Musis area bina patet," &c.
A uthoris ad libelltim suum Protrepticon,
Watson's Passionate Centurie of Love, n. d. [1581, or 2.]
"Come, diuine poets, and sweet oratours, the siluer streaming fountaines of flowingest witt and
shiningest art ; come Chawcer and Spencer, More and Cheeke, Ascham and Astely, Sidney and Dier." —
<J. Harvey's Pierces Supererogation, &c, 1593, p. 173.
" Spencer and Shakespeare did in art excell,
Sir Edward Dyer, Greene, Nash, Daniel, " &c.
Praise of Hetnpseed, — Taylor's Works, p. 72, ed. 1630.
t As Stanyhurst's strange volume is now lying before me, and as very few of my readers can ever
have seen it, I subjoin a short specimen of its style from the Second Book of The j£neid — ("Primus ibi
aute omncs magna comitante caterva," &c. v. 40) — ;
" First then among oothers, with no smal coompanie garded,
Laocoon storming from princelie castel is hastning,
And a far of beloing, 'What fond phantastical harebraine
Madnes hath enchaunted your wits, you townsmen vnhappie ?
W( 'tie you, blind hodipecks, thee Greekish nauie returned ?
Or that their presents want craft ? Is subtil Vlisses
So soone forgotten ? My lief for an haulfpennie, Troians,
Either heere ar couching soom troups of Greekish asemblie,
Or to crush our buhvarcks this woorck is forged, al houses
Fur to prie surmounting thee towne : soom practis or oother
Heere lurcks of coonning : trust not this trcacherus ensigne :
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 27
The following writers, some of whom started about the same time with him on
the race for fame, were added to the catalogue of English poets during Greene's years
of authorship. Christopher Marlowe ; whose dramas in delineation of character and
bursts of passion were immeasurably superior to any that had been before presented
on our stage, and whose fine ear enabled him to give his fervid lines a modulation
unknown to earlier writers. George Peele ; * who may be regarded as the next most
distinguished play-wright of his day, and who attempted various sorts of poetry
with success. William Warner; the tediousness of whose long and homely Albion's
England is relieved by passages of sweet simplicity. Abraham Frauncc ; + who
cultivated the unmanageable English hexameter. Thomas Nash ; % more noted
And for a ful reckning, I like not barrel or herring ;
Thee Greeks bestowing their presents Greekish I feare mee.'
Thus said, he stout rested, with his chaapt staffe speedily running,
Strong the steed he chargeth, thee planck ribs manfully riuing.
Then the iade, hit, shiuered, thee vauts haulf shrillie rebounded
With clush clash buzzing, with droomming clattered humming."
The First Fovre Bookes of Virgils jEneis, &c. 1583, p. 22.
[ Since this memoir first appeared, Stanyhurst's Virgil has been reprinted.]
Justly did Nash characterize the English hexameter as "that drunken staggering kinde of verse
■which is all vp hill and downe hill, like the way betwixt Stamford and Beechfeeld, and goes like a horse
plunging through the myre in the deep of winter, now soust vp to the saddle, and straight aloft on his
tiptoes." — Uaue with you to Saffron- Walden, &c, 1596. Sig. A 3.
* There are eleven lines of blank-verse by Peele, prefixed to Watson's EKaro/xTraeia, &c, n. d., which
was published in 1581 or early in 1582 ; but we must not on account of so trifling an effusion set him
down as a writer anterior to Greene.
t Fraunce is sometimes ridiculous enough. Appended to the Second Part of his Countesse of
Pcmbrvkes Iuyrhurch, 1591, is a translation into English hexameters of part of the First Book of the
jEthiopica of Heliodorus ; and the words v H5tj 5e tjAiov irpbs ovv/J-as Iovtos (Cap. vii.) he chooses to
render thus ;
" Now had fyery Phlegon his dayes reuolution ended,
And his snoring snowt with salt waues all to bee washed." Sig. M 3.
But here Fraunce was thinking of Du Bartas, who commences the Third Book of his Judith with ;
" Du penible Phlegon la narine ronflante
Souffloit sur les Indois la clarte rougissante
Qui reconduit le jour," &c., —
a passage which is translated as follows (see England's Parnassus, 1600, p. 330, and Sylvester's Du
Bartas, p. 364, ed. 1641) by Thomas Hudson ;
" The snoring snout of restlesse Phlegon blew
Hot on the Indes, which did the day renew
With scarlet skie," &c.
(Perhaps I need hardly add tliat Du Bartas recollected Virgil, J3n. xii. 114 ;
" cum primum alto 6c gurgite tollunt
Solis equi, lucemque elatis naribus efflaiit.")
t I have not hesitated to include Nash in this list, believing that, as his livelihood depended on his
pen, he must have produced about this time several plays which have not come down to us, and
which, perhaps, were never given to the press (his satirical play called The Isle of Dogs, which he
produced in 1597, was certainly never printed). In 1587 he wrote the address "To the Gentlemen
Students of both Universities," prefixed to our author's Menaphon ; and it is extremely unlikely that he
should not have tried his powers as a dramatist till after Greene's death in 1592. (We now know that
28 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
as a prose-satirist, and as the merciless antagonist of Gabriel Harvey. Thomas
Lodge, the coadjutor of our author in the Looking-Glass for London; whose lyric
pieces are sometimes highly graceful ; whose tale of Rosalynde furnished to Shake-
speare the materials of As you like it ; and whose Fig for Momus (published after
Greene's death) entitles him to no mean rank as a satirical poet. Thomas Kyd ;
who in his SpcmisJo Tragedy has scenes of such power as to redeem the absurdities
for which it was long the mark of ridicule. Sir Walter Raleigh ; * whose verses
were in high repute, though probably little valued by that illustrious man himself.
Hemy Constable; a sonneteer of considerable elegance. Michael Drayton and
Samuel Dauiel, both afterwards so celebrated ; who, when Greene had neai'ly run
his race, were beginning to court the notice of the public : and, far greater than
all, William Shakespeare ; t who was then giving new life to the dramas of his
predecessors by the touches of his magic pen. It may be right to add, that
while Greene flourished as an author, Spenser (who has been already mentioned as
precediug him) embodied in vei-se a portion of his divine vision. %
Four of the writers just mentioned, — Marlowe, Peele, Nash, § and Lodge, |j — were
Nash did not write Dido in conjunction with Marlowe, but that lie completed it after Marlowe's decease
in 1593 ; see my Account of Marlowe and his Writings, p. xxxv, ed. 1858.)
* He is praised, and quoted, by Puttenham in The Arte of English Poesie, 1589.
t Shakespeare's earliest works for the stage were undoubtedly rifacimenti of the plays of his prede-
cessors ; and Greene, as we shall afterwards see, alludes, with a feeling of bitterness, to those successful
attempts of the great dramatist. None of Shakespeare's Poems were in priut during Greene's life-time.
X The three first Books of The Faerie Queene were first printed in 1590, but they doubtless had
been handed about in MS. several years before : Abraham Fraunce, in his Arcadian Rhetoricke, 1588,
quotes the Fourth Canto of the Second Book ; and in The Second Part of Marlowe's Tamburlaine, which
appears to have been acted somewhat earlier than 1587, we find a splendid simile borrowed from the
thirty-second stanza of the Seventh Canto of the First Book.
§ Wood calls Nash Greene's "contemporary in Cambridge" (Fasti. O.xon. Part 1st. p. 246, ed.
Bliss) : he was of St. John's College, and took his Bachelor's Degree in 1585. After Greene's death
Nash seems to have been a good deal annoyed at his intimacy with him being so much dwelt on by
Gabriel Harvey.
|| That Greene was the friend to whom Lodge entrusted the publication of his Euphues Shadow,
has been shown at p. I., where the Address to Viscount Fitz waters, which the former prefixed to it, has
been given : another Address, immediately preceding the same tract, may be exhibited here ;
" To the Gentlemen Readers, Health.
" Gentlemen, after many of mine owne labours that you haue courteouslie accepted, I present you with
Euphwcs Shadowc, in the behalfe of my absent friend M. Thomas Lodge, who at his departure to sea
vpon a long voyage, was willing, as a generall farewell to all courteous gentlemen, to leaue this his worke
to the view ; which if you grace with your fauours, eyther as his affected meaning or the worthe of the
worke requires, not onely I for him shall rest yours, but what laboures his sea studies affords, shall be,
I dare promise, offered to your sight, to gratifie your courtesies, and his pen, as himselfe, cuery waye
yours for euer. Farewell.
Yours to command,
Rob. Greene."
Before our author's Spanish Masquerado, 1589, is the following Sonnet ;
" Le doux babil de ma lire d'iuoire
Serra ton front d'un laurier verdisant ;
Donl a boil limit ie te voy Louissant,
Moil doux ami, eternisant ta gjoire.
ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WHITINGS. 29
the chief friends and associates of our author. Lodge has never been taxed with
debauchery : but Greene and the former three appear to have rushed eagerly into
the dissipations of London, encouraging each other in their course of folly. The
money which they quickly earned by the labour of their ever-ready pens, they seem
as quickly to have squandered; being lovers of good eating and drinking;* fre-
quenters of ordinaries and taverns, to which the youths of fashion then resorted
daily.t Marlowe has been accused of atheism ; nor has Greene escaped the same
charge ; j while on the other hand it has been urged, that their accusers, being
chiefly puritans who regarded the theatre as an abomination, were not unlikely to
Ton nom, mon Greene, aninie par mes vers,
Abaisse l'ceil de gens seditieux ;
Tu de mortel es conipagnon de dieux :
N'est ce point grand loyer dans l'uniuers ?
Ignoti nulla cupido.
Thomas Lodge."
* "A good fellowe hee [Greene] was ; and would bane drunke with thee [Gabriel Harvey] for more
angels then the lord thou libeldst on [Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford] gaue thee in Christ's College."
"In a night and a day would he haue yarkt rp a pamphlet as well as in seauen yeare ;
and glad was that printer that might bee so blest to pay him deare for the very dregs of his wit.
"Hee made no account of winning credite by his workes, as thou dost, that dost no good workes,
but thinkes to bee famosed by a strong faith of thine owne worthines ; his only care was to haue a spel
in his purse to coniure vp a good cuppe of wine with at all times." Nash's Strange Newes, &c.
1592. E 4.
Greene used to be called familiarly Robin;
" Our moderne poets to that passe are driuen,
Those names are curtal'd which they first had giuen ;
And, as we wisht to haue their memories drown'd,
We scarcely can afford them halfe their sound.
Greene, who had in both Academies ta'ne
Degree of Master, yet could neuer gaine
To be call'd more than Robin : who, had he
Profest ought saue the Muse, seru'd, and been free
After a seuen yeares prentiseship, might haue
With credit too, gone Robert to his graue."
Hey wood's Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, 1635, p. 206.
"With Robin Greene it passes Kindharts capacity to deale." — Chettle's Kind-Harts Dreame, n. d.
[1592] Sig. G 4.
Dekker in A Knights Conjuring, kc, 1607, introduces our author and his friends together in the
Elysian fields; "whil'st Marlow, Greene, and Peele had got vnder the shades of a large vyne, laughing to
see Nash (that was but newly come to their colledge) still haunted with the sharpe and satyricall spirit
that followed him heere vpon earth," &c. Sig. K 4. For the entire passage, see my Account of Peele
and his Writings in the present volume.
t Vide, in Dekker's Guls Home Boolce, 1609, "Chap. V. How a yong gallant should behaue
himselfe in an ordinary," p. 22, and "Chap. viii. How a gallant should behaue himselfe in a tauerne,"
p. 30. He was to dine at an ordinary during the forenoon, then go to the play, and, after it, sup at
a tavern.
+ See the " Note" of Marlowe's "damnable opinions" by a person named Barne, printed, from an
Harleian MS., in Ritson's Observations on Wartorfs Hist, of E. P., p. 40, and in Appendix i. to my
ed. of Marlowe's Works ; Beard's Theatre of God's Judgments ; Vaughan's Golden Grove ; The French
Academy, &c, &c. I subjoin from The Repentance of Robert Greene the passage cited by T. B. the
translator of The French Academy, — see note in page 2 of this essay; and it is but fair to mention that
30 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
magnify without scruple the offences and indiscretions of dramatic writers. But the
words of Greene to Marlowe in the Address to his brother poets at the end of the
Groats-worth of Wit (which will be afterwards quoted), — even if we understand those
words in a modified sense, — to say nothing of the whole tenor of The Repentance of
Robert Greene, are an unquestionable proof that both Marlowe and Greene were
more than careless about religion ; and in Marlowe's case there is additional evidence
which strongly teuds to show that his tenets were as impious as his morals were
depraved.*
No more than five dramas,t the undoubted works of Greene, have come down to
Mr. Collier, without having ever seen The Repentance of Robert Greene, expressed his conviction, in the
Poetical Decameron, that our author was the person to whom T. B. alluded :
"Comraing one day into Aldersgate street to a welwillers house of mine, hee with other of his friendes
perswaded mee to leaue my bad course of life, which at length would bring mee to vtter destruction :
wherevpon I scoffingly made them this answer ; ' Tush, what better is he that dies in his bed than he
that endes his life at Tyburne ? all owe God a death : if I may haue my desire while I liue, I am
satisfied ; let me shift after death as I may. ' My friends hearing these words, greatly greeued at my
gracelesse resolution, made this reply ; ' If you feare not death in this world, nor the paines of the body
in this life, yet doubt the second death, and the losse of your soule, which without hearty repentance
must rest in hell-fire for euer and euer.' ' Hell !' quoth I ; ' what talke you of hell to me ? I know
if I once come there, I shal haue the company of better men than myselfe ; I shal also meete with some
madde knaues in that place, and so long as I shall not sit there alone, my care is the lesse. But you
are mad folks,' quoth I ; ' for if I feared the Iudges of the bench no more than I dread the iudgements of
God, I would before I slept diue into one carles bagges or other, and make merrie with the shelles I
found in them so long as they would last.' And though some in this company were fryers of mine owne
fraternitie to whom I spake the wordes, yet were they so amazed at my prophane speeches that they
wisht themselues foorth of my company." Sig. B 2.
* In my Account of Marlowe and his Writings, p. xxxiii., ed. 1S58, I have the following remarks :
" How far the poet's [Marlowe's] freethinking was really carried, I do not pretend to determine. I
certainly feel that probability is outraged in several of the statements of Bame, who appears to have had
a quarrel with Marlowe, and who, it must not be forgotten, was afterwards hanged at Tyburn ; and I
can readily believe that the Puritans would not stick at misrepresentation in speaking of a man whose
writings had so greatly contributed to exalt the stage : but when I see that the author of The Rcturne
from Pernassus, whom no one will suspect of fanaticism, has painted the character of Marlowe in the
darkest colours, while at the same time he bestows a high encomium on his genius ; and, above all,
when I remember that, before either Bame or the Puritans had come forward as his accusers, the dying
Greene had borne unequivocal testimony against him to the very same effect, — it is not easy for me to
resist the conviction that Marlowe's impiety was more confirmed and daring than Warton and others
have been willing to allow."
t The extreme scarcity of Greene's plays (as also of his pamphlets) is to be attributed, among other
causes, to the fire of London in 1666 : see Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 395, and Pepys's Memoirs, vol.
i. pp. 462, 464 (which passages I have cited in my Account of Peek and his Writings).
In The Shakespeare Society's Papers, vol. i, p. 83, is an essay entitled Early ranty of the works of
Rohert Greene ; the writer of which adduces the following passage from the Introduction to Rowlands' s
f Tis merrie when Gossips meete, ed. 1602, as " a proof of the scarcity of some of Greene's works even as
early as 1602 " :
" Gentleman. Can'st helpe me to all Greene's Bookes in one volume ? But I will haue them euery
one, not any wanting.
Prentice. Sir, I haue most part of them, but I lack Conn y- catching, and some halfe dozen more :
but I thinke I could procure them. There be in the Towne, I am sure, can fit you."
Now, thongfa it is likely enough that some of Greene's works may have been scarce in 1602, the
passage just quoted is no proof that they were so : the reply of the Prentice is merely a piece of face-
tiounuesH ; and I cannot but wonder that the essay-writer should not have perceived the joke intended.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 31
posterity. But it is plain that during the series of years when he was a regular
writer for the stage he must have produced a much greater number of plays : in all
probability many of them were never published, and perhaps of some which were
really printed not a single copy has escaped destruction.
I shall now notice his dramatic pieces one by one : none of them were given to
the press till after his death ; and it is impossible to determine when they were
written or originally performed.
The History of Orlando Furioso, 1594 and 1599. It is thus mentioned in Hens-
lowe's Diary, under the year 1591-2, as having been acted by the Lord Strange's men ;
d >' »
" Rd at orlando, the 21 of febreary xvj» vj
That this play was printed from a very imperfect manuscript there could be no
doubt, even before Mr. Collier had discovered the curious paper which he describes
as follows (and which I, of course, have used for the present edition). " The
evidence to establish that the character of the hero of the piece was performed by
Alleyn, may be looked upon as decisive. Among the MSS. at Dulwich College is a
large portion of the original part of Orlando, as transcribed by the copyist of the
theatre for the actor. It is in three pieces, one much longer than the others, all
imperfect, being more or less injured by worms and time. Here and there certain
blanks have been supplied in a different hand-writing, and that hand-writing is
Alleyn' s. We may conclude, therefore, that this is the very copy from which he
learnt his part ; and that the scribe, not being able in some places to read the
author's manuscript, had left small spaces, which Alleyn filled up, either by his own
suggestion, from the MS., or after inquiry of Greene. It contains no more than was
to be delivered by the actor of the character of Orlando, with the cues (as they were
then, and are still, technically called) regularly marked, exactly in the same manner
as is done at the present day by transcribers in our theatres."t — Mr. Collier thinks
that Greene's Orlando Furioso may be alluded to in the following passage of Peele's
Farewell to Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake, 1589 ;
" Bid theatres, and proud tragedians,
Bid Mahomet, Scipio, and mighty Tamhurlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest,
Adieu."
Perhaps so : but Charlemagne is not a character in Greene's Orlando Furioso ; nor,
indeed, do I recollect any old play in which he makes his appearance. — In The
Defence of Coney-catchhuj, 1592, Greene is accused of selling it twice : "Master R. G.,
would it not make you blush — if you sold Orlando Furioso to the queenes players for
twenty nobles, and when they were in the country, sold the same play to Lord
Admiral's men, for as much more 1 Was not this plain coney-catching, M. G. ? " — If
* P. 21, ed. Shake. Soc. t Memoirs of Edward Alleyn, &c, p. 7.
32 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
the reader is acquainted with Ariosto and the romance-poets of Italy, he will be
startled to find that in this drama Angelica is made the daughter of Marsilius.
A Looking-Glass for London and England, 1594, 1598, 1602, and 1 G 17, is the
joint-pi-oduction of Lodge and Greene. That it was several times played by the Lord
Strange's men, is recorded in Henslowe's Diary, where the earliest mention of it is, —
"Rd at the hokinglasse, the 8 of marche 1591[-2] .... vij 8 ." *
As it partakes of the nature of the ancient English Mysteries, one is surprised to find
the following opinion expressed by Lodge in his Wits Miserie, and the Worlds Mad-
nesse, Discovering the Deuils Incarnat of this Age, 1596 ; " Againe in stage plaies to
make use of hystoricall scripture, I hold it with the legists odious, and, as the councill
of Trent did, Sess. § 4. Fin., I condemne it." Sig. F 4. Jonah and the Whale, who
figure conspicuously in the Looking-Glass, were personages once very familiar to the
populace of the metropolis : no puppet-show (or motion, as it used to be termed,)
was so attractive to the citizens as that of Nineveh.\
The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1594, 1599, 1630, and
1655. Several notices of the acting of this play are found in Henslowe's Diary, the
earliest under the year 1591-2, when it was performed by the Lord Strange's men, —
"Rd at fryer bacone, the 19 of febrary, satterdaye . . . xvij 8 iij d ." $
We learn from the same authority that subsequently it was revived for the court
with a new prologue and epilogue by Middleton ;
"Lent unto Thomas Downton, the 14 of deserabr 1602, to paye unto Mr. Mydeltou )
for a prologe and epeloge for the plage of Bacon fur the corte, the some of ) ' °
Our old dramatists hardly ever invented the stories of their pieces ; and in this, the
most pleasing of his plays, Greene has closely followed the well-known prose-tract,
* P. 23, ed. Shake. Soc.
t " Wife. . . . But of all the sights that ever were in London, since I was married, methinkg
the little child, &c. was the prettiest ; that and the hermaphrodite.
Citizen. Nay, by your leave, Nell, Ninevie was better.
Wife. Ninevie ? Oh, that was the story of Joan and the wall, was it not, George ?
Citizen. Yes, lamb."
Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, act. iii.
" They say, there's a new motion of the city of Nineveh, with Jonas and the whale, to be seen at
Fleet-bridge." — Ben Jonson's Every man out of his humour, act ii. sc. 1.
" the motions that I Lanthorn Leatherhead haue given light to, in my time, since my master Pod
died ! Jerusalem was a stately thing, and so was Nineveh, and the city of Norwich," &c.
Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, act. V. sc. I.
"I wonder that, amongst all your objects, you presented us not with Platoes Idea, or the sight of
Niniue, Babylon, Loudon, or Borne Stur-bridge-faire monsters." — Lingua, ed. 1617, Rig. F.
" I pray yee what showc will be heere to night ? I haue seen the Baboues already, the Cittie of new
Niniuie, and Julius Caesar acted by the mammets."
Euerie Woman in her Humor, 1609, Sig. II.
" Here are more maskers t>>o, I think : Ibis masking is a heav'nly entertainment for the widow,
who ne'er saw any shew yet but the puppet-play o' Nineve."
Cowley's Cutter of Colcman-street, act v. sc. 11.
t P. 20, ed. Shake. Soc. § P. 228, ed. Shake. Soc.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 33
entitled The famous History of Friar Bacon. The character of Margaret, the fair
maid of Fressingfield is not, however, borrowed from the prose-pamphlet.
The Scottish History of James the Fourth, 1598.* From what source our author
derived the materials of this strange fiction, I have not been able to discover ; nor
could Mr. David Laing of Edinburgh, who is so profoundly versed in the ancient
literature of his country, poiut out to me any Scottish chronicle or tract which might
have afforded hints to the poet for its composition.
The Comical History of Alphonsus, King of Arragon, 1599. t We learn from the
speech of Venus at the close of this play that the author intended to have written a
Second Part.
Besides the five dramas just enumerated, it has been thought right to include in
the present collection George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield, 1599, in consequence
of the following M. S. notes having been found on the title-page of a copy of that
piece which was formerly in the possession of Mr. Rhodes ;
" Written by a minister who acted the piners pt in it himselfe.
Teste W. Shakespeare."
" Ed. Juby % saith it was made by Ro. Greene."
•
These two memoranda are by different persons, and in handwriting of about the
time when the play was printed. Statements which render it highly probable that
Greene was " a minister " have been before adduced : see p. 3. In The Pinner of
Wakefield, George-a-Greene compells Sir Nicholas Mannering to eat the seals of the
Earl of Kendal's commission ; and Nash informs us that Greene once forced an
apparitor to undergo a similar humiliation : "Had hee liu'd, Gabriel, and thou shouldst
[have] so vnarteficially and odiously libeld against him as thou hast done, he would
haue made thee an example of ignominy to all ages that are to come, and driuen
thee to eate thy owne booke butterd, as I sawe him make an apparriter once in a
tauern eate his citation, waxe and all, very handsomly serud twixt two dishes."
Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. C 3. The incident in the drama bearing so strong a
resemblance to an adventure in the life of Greene would strengthen the probability
of its having been written by him, were it not that in the old prose History of
George-a-Greene, on which the play is undoubtedly founded, § the valiant Pinner
obliges Mannering to swallow the seals. ||
* According to some authorities, it was reprinted in 1599.
+ An edition of 1597 is mentioned by some bibliographers.
+ Juby was an actor, and wrote a play called Sampson in conjunction with Samuel Rowley.
§ Ritson, after observing that the drama of George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield, "has been
erroneously ascribed to Heywood the epigrammatist, and is reprinted, with other trash, in the late
edition of Dodsley's Old Plays," says that it " (at least that part of it which we have any concern with)
is founded on the ballad of Robin Hood and the pinder of Wakefield, which it directly quotes, and is i»
fact a most despicable performance ;" and a little after he tells us "The [prose] History of George a
|| In The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle, (by Munday, Drayton, Wilson, and Hathway), 1 600,
the Sumner is in like manner made to gulp down his citation.
D
34 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
In Henslowe's Diary is a list of plays acted by the Earl of Sussex's men, which
contains four notices of this drama, the earliest of them being, —
"Rd s.t gorge a gren, the 29 of desenibr 1593 iij u x 3 ." *
Among the old M. S. dramas, which the detestable carelessness of John War-
burton allowed to perish, was the Hist, of Jobe by Rob. Green.
The opinion that Greene was concerned in the two " histories " entitled The First
Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c, and
The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c, is founded on a passage of his
Address to his brother play-wrights in the Groatsworth of Wit, and will be afterwards
noticed when that Address is laid before the reader.
Edward Phillips, in his (strangely incorrect) Theatrum Poetarum, 1675, informs
us, that Greene was the author of Fair Emm, 1631, and that he was associated with
Lodge in composing The Laws of Nature, Lady Alimony, 1 659, TJie Contention bettveene
Liberalise and Prodigalitie, 1602, and Luminalia, 1627. — It is not impossible that
Greene might have written Fair Emm. By Tlie Laws of Nature we must understand
one of Bale's Miracle-plays entitled The Three Laws of Nature, Moses, and Christ, &c.
Lady Alimony is in a style so different from Greene's that no portion of it could have
proceeded from his pen. The Contention bettveene Liberalitie and Prodigalitie is
probably, as Mr. Collier remarks, " an older piece revived and altered " ; and Greene
" may have had some concern in it prior to 1592."t Luminalia was not produced
till long after his death.
If, as a dramatist, Greene fails to exhibit character with force and discrimination,
if he has much both of the fustian and the meanness which are found more or less
in all the plays of the period, and if his blank-verse is so monotonous as to pall upon
the ear ; it must be allowed, on the other hand, that he not unfrequently writes with
elegance and spirit, and that in some scenes he makes a near approach to simplicity
and nature, t
Greene, pindar of the town of Wakefield, 4to, no date, is a modern production, chiefly founded on the old
play just mentioned, of neither authority nor merit" Robin Hood, yol. 1. p. xxix. The ballad in
question I have subjoined to the play ; and the reader will see how slight a foundation the former
affoided for the latter. That the prose-history was taken from the play I cannot believe: it was the
almost constant custom of our old dramatists to borrow their plots and characters from popular story-
books, and I have no doubt that the author of the play of George-a-Greene was indebted for its
materials to the prose-tale on the same subject, which (though perhaps somewhat modernized) will be
found in Mr. Thoras's Early Prose Romances, vol. ii. The following piece was sold by auction a few
years ago [i.e. a few years before 1831] : The Pinder of Wakefield, being the History of George a
Greene, the lusty Pinder of the north, briefly showing his manhood, and his brave merriment amongst
his boon companions : fall of pretty histories, songs, catches, jests, and riddles, 4to. b. 1. 1632.
* P. 31, ed. Shake. Soc.
t Hut. of Engl. Dram. Poet. i. 319, ii. 352.
X "He wast of singuler pleasaunce, tin- verye supporter, and, to no mans disgrace bee this intended,
the only comedian of a vulgar writer in this country."
Chettle's Kind-Harts Dreame, n.d. [1592.] Sig. B. 3.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 35
Prefixed to our author's Perimedes the Blaeke-smith, 1588, is an Address to the
Gentlemen Readers, part of which is as follows : " I keepe my old course, to palter
vp something in prose, vsing mine old poesie still, Omne tulit punctum, although
latelye two gentlemen poets made two mad men of Rome beate it out of their paper
bucklers, and had it in derision, for that I could not make my verses iet vpon the
stage in tragicall buskins, euerie worde filling the mouth like the faburden of Bo-Bell,
daring God out of heauen with that Atheist Tamburlan, or blaspheming with the
mad preest of the sonne : but let me rather openly pocket vp the asse at Diogenes
hand, then wantonlye set out such impious instances of intollerable poetrie, such mad
and scoffing poets, that haue prophetical] spirits as bred of Merlins race. If there be
anye in England that set the end of scollarisme in an English blanck- verse, I thinke
either it is the humor of a nouice that tickles them w r ith selfe-loue, or to[o] much
frequenting the hot-house (to vse the Germaine prouerbe) hath swet out all the
greatest part of their wits, which w r asts gradatim, as the Italians say poco d, ])oco. If
I speake darkely, gentlemen, and offend with this digression, I craue pardon, in that
I but answere in print what they haue offered on the stage." An obscure passage,
from which it is difficult to gather anything except that Greene is highly indignant
at his alleged incapacity of writing blank-verse, and alludes rather contemptuously to
Marlowe's celebrated tragedy of Tamburlaine, — perhaps, also, to some other piece by
the same author in which " the priest of the sun " was a character. — If Greene bore
any ill-will to Marlowe in 1588, it would certainly seem to have passed away long
before the latter was on his death-bed.
In England's Parnassus, 1 600, are several quotations from our author's dramatic
works.
There is good reason to believe that Greene not only composed for the stage, but
also occasionally appeared on it as an actor. " I was suddainely certified," says
Gabriel Harvey, " that the king of the paper stage (so the gentleman tearmed
Greene) had played his last part, and was gone to Tarleton."* Fovre Letters and
"The best poets for comedy among the Greeks are these, Menander, Aristophanes, &c, and among
the Latines, Plautus, &c. ; so the best for comedy amongst vs bee, Edward Earle of Oxforde, Doctor
Gager of Oxforde, Maister Rowley once a rare scholler of learned Pembrooke Hall in Cambridge, Maister
Edwardes one of her Maiesties Chappell, eloquent and wittie John Lilly, Lodge, Gascoyne, Greene,
Shakespeare, Thomas Nash, Thomas Heywood, Anthony Mundye our best plotter, Chapman, Porter,
Wilson, Hathway, and Henry Chettle."
Meres's Palladia Tamia, With Treasvry, 1598, fol. 283.
* From the following lines in a volume of great rarity it seems that Tarlton was celebrated for hit
tragic as well as his comic acting :
"Rich. Tarltono, comcedorum principi. Epit.
Cujus (viator) sit sepulchruni hoc scire vie,
Inscriptiouem non habens ?
Asta gradumque siste paulisper tuum :
Incognitum nomen scies.
rrinceps comcedorum tulit quos Anglia*
Tellus in hoc busto cubat.
D 2
36 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
Certaine Sonnets, &c. 1592, p. 9 : a little after he speaks of "his piperly extem-
porizing and Tarletonizing ; " and in one place expressly calls him " a player," p. 25.
See, too, the MS. notes already cited (p. 33) from a copy of The Pinner of Wakefield.
— His friends, Marlowe and Peele, it has been ascertained, had trod the boards.
The various verses which are scattered through his prose-tracts constitute, as
far as we know, the whole of Greene's non-dramatic poetry, with the exception of
A Maiden's Dream. Upon the death of the Right Honourable Sir Christopher Hatton,
Knight, late Lord Chancellor of England, 1591 ; which was reprinted in Tlie Shakes-
peare Society s Papers, 1845, vol. ii. p. 127, by the possessor of the only copy yet
discovered, who not unjustly describes it as "a favourable specimen, both of the
fancy and of the facility of the writer."*
Of Greene's numerotis prose-tracts, most of which are interspersed with verses, a
list will be found at the end of this essay. Their popularity is sufficiently testified
by the repeated editions through which many of them passed. On their first
appearance, doubtless, they were perused with avidity by the courtly gallants and
fair ones of the metropolis, and by the youthful students of our universities;
and, long after Greene was in his grave, they were sold on ballad-mongers'
stalls and hawked about the country by chapmen, forming the favourite reading
of the vulgar.t In some of them he exhibits no mean invention, and no
Quo mortuo, spretse silent comedise
Tragediteque turbidse.
Scense decus desiderant mutre suum,
Risusque abest Sardonins.
Hie Roscius Britannicus sepultus est,
Quo notior nemo fuit.
Abi, viator : sin te adhuc nomen latet,
Edicet hoc qui vis puer."
Joannis Stradlingi Epigrammatum Libri Quatuor, Londini, 1607, duod., p. 13.
* But where was his judgment when, a little before, he called Greene "Shakespeare's most
distinguished contemporary and rival " ?
t The Myrrour of Modestie is dedicated to the Countess of Derby, Planetomachia to the Earl of
Leicester, Euphues his censure to Philautus to the Earl of Essex, Morando to the Earl of Arundel,
Menaphon to Lady Hales, Tallies Loue to Lord Strange, the Mourning Garment to the Earl of
Cumberland, Alcida to Sir Charles Blount, Arbasto to Lady Mary Talbot, Philomela to Lady
Fitzwaters, Penelope's Web to the Countess of Cumberland and the Countess of Warwick, The Card of
Fancy to the Earl of Oxford, &c. &c. : the dedication of A Quip for an Upstart Courtier is addressed
to the Right Worshipful Thomas Barnaby Esquire, and is signed " Your duetifull adopted sonne Robert
Greene."
" Euen Guieciardines silucr historie, and Ariostos golden cantoes, grow out of request: and the
Countesse of Pembrookes Arcadia is not greene inough for queasie stomackes, but they must haue
Greenes Arcadia ; and, I belleeue, most eagerlie longed for Greenes Faerie Queeue." G. Harvey's Fovre
Lctta-s, and certaine Sonnets, &c, 1592, p. 26.
Ben Jonson, in Every man out of his humour, insinuates that Greene was beginning to go out of fashion ;
" East. She does observe as pure a phrase, and use as choice figures in her ordinary conferences, as
any be in the Arcadia.
Car. Or rather in Greene's works, whence she may steal .vibh more security." Act. ii. sc. 1.
But certainly for many years after this play was produced, (in 1599,) Greene continued to be very
popular.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS "WRITINGS. 37
slight skill in the conduct of the fable \ but I cannot take upon me to determine
how much he borrowed from the obscurer writers of France and Italy. His fancy
was exuberant, and supplied him with an endless variety of images ; his facility of
diction was very great ; and though he does not display any depth of thought, he
abounds in just and pleasing reflexions. He frequently delights us with passages of
real pathos and genuine beauty ; again, he is devoted to conceits and alliteration, or
becomes insufferably tedious and diffuse. His love of eimilies drawn from the
imaginary properties of herbs, stones,* «fec. he caught from Lyly ; and contemporary
panegyrists imagined that they were bestowing the highest encomium on Greene
when they ranked him with the fantastical author of Uuphues.f Of the verses
scattered through these tracts the merit is very unequal ; some of them have a
tenderness, a pastoral simplicity, and a lyric flow, which are truly fascinating, while
some scarcely rise above mediocrity, and some fall considerably below it. J
England's Helicon, 1600, and Davison's Poetical Rhajisody, 1002, are enriched
with some of Greene's verses, selected from his prose-tracts. §
Sir Thomas OverVmry, in his Characters, describing a Chambermaid, tells us "She reads Greene's
works ouer and ouer."
Greene, says Anthony Wood, " was author of several things which were pleasing to men and women
of his time. They made much sport, and were valued among scholars, but since they have been mostly
sold on ballad-mongers' stalls." Fasti Oxon. Tart. 1st, p. 245. ed. Bliss.
* "Nash, the ape of Greene, Greene the ape of Euphues, Euphues the ape of Enuie, the three
famous niammets of the presse." — G. Harvey's Pierces Supererogation, &c, 1593, Sig. S 4.
"Did I," exclaims Nash, indignant at being accused of imitating Greene, " euer write of cony-
catching ? stufft my stile with hearbs and stones ? or apprentisd myselfe to running of the letter ? If
not, how then doo I imitate him ? " — Haue with you to Saffron- Wald en, &.C., 1596, Sig. V. 3.
"If any man bee of a dainty and curious eare," says the author of Martine Mar-sixtus, 1592,
undoubtedly alluding to Greene, " I shall desire him to repay re to those authors ; euery man hath not a
perle-mint, a fish-mint, nor a bird-mint in his braine, all are not licensed to create new stones, new
fowles, new serpents, to coyne new creatures," &c. — Preface.
f " Marot et De-Mornay pour le langage Francois ;
Pour L'Espaignol Gueuare, Boccace pour le Toscan ;
Et le gentil Sleidan refait l'Allemand ;
Greene et Lylli tous deux raffineurs de l'Anglois."
Sonnet by I. Eliote, prefixed to Greene's Perimedes, 1588.
" Multis post annis, conjungens carmina prosis,
Floruit Ascamus, Chekus, Gascoynus, et alter
Tullius Anglorum nunc vivens Lillius, ilium
Consequitur Grenus, pricclarus vterque poeta."
Anon. Verses prefixed to Greene's Alcida, 1617.
" Of all the flowers a Lillie once I lou'd,
Whose labouring beautie brancht itselfe abroade ;
But now old age his glorie hath remoud,
And Greener obiectes are my eyes aboade."
Verses by Henry Vpchear, prefixed to Greene's Menaphon, 1587.
J " As Italy had Dante, Boccace, Petrarch, Tassu, Celiano, and Ariosto ; so England had Matthew
Roydon, Thomas Atchelow, Thomas Watson, Thomas Kid, Robert Greene, and George Peele."— Meres' s
Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasrry, 1598, fol. 282.
§ The former contains five pieces from Menaphon and two from Never too Late ; the latter, one
from the Orpharion.
38 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
In the Biographic/, Dramatica and in other publications it is positively stated
that Greene occasionally prostituted his talents for the amusement of the rakes of
the day, and that some of his pieces were polluted by gross obscenity. I am much
deceived if this be not one of those falsehoods which creep into literary history, and
are transferred from book to book, through the ignorance and carelessness of
biographers and editors ; few of the persons perhaps who made the assertion having
ever read one quarter of his works. It originated, I presume, partly in a
misconception of the author's meaning, when he speaks with regret of the lighter
productions of his pen ; and partly in the misrepresentations of puritanic writers.
Greene, in an Address to George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, before his Mourning
Garment, 1590, says ; " Having myself ouer-weaned with them of Nineuie in
publishing sundry wanton pamphlets, and setting forth axiomes of amorous
philosophy, tandem aliquando taught with a feeling of my palpable follies, and
hearing with the eares of my heart Jonas crying, ' Except thou repent,' as I haue
changed the inward affects of my minde, so I haue turned my wanton workes to
effectuall labours . . I hope your lordship will be glad, with
Augustus Csesar, to read the reformation of a second Ouid ; pardon, my lord,
inferiour by a thousand degrees to him in wit or learning, but I feare halfe as fond
in publishing amorous fancies." * All, I believe, that we are to gather from these
expressions is, that he had written pieces, which, being on the subject of love, were
light and trivial, — that (as one of his panegyrists, Roger Portington, tells him, in
verses prefixed to the First Part of Mamillia, 1583,) he had
" paynted out Dan Cupids craft,
And set at large the doubtf ull chance of fancies drafte."
" I promised, gentlemen," says Greene in an Address to the Gentleman Readers
before Philomela, &c, 1592, "both in my Mourning Garment, and Farewell to Follie,
neuer to busie my selfe about any wanton pamphlets agaiue, nor to haue my brayne
counted so addle as to set out any matter that were amorous : but yet am I come,
contrary to vow and promise, once agaiue to the presse with a labour of loue, which I
hatched long agoe, though now brought forth to light :" and let it be observed, that
Philomela (which is inscribed to Lady Fitzwaters) is a moral tale of great beauty. —
The author of a pamphlet called Martine Mar-sixtw. A second replie against the
defensory and apology of Sixtus the fifth, &c. 1592, has the following passages in his
preface, which were undoubtedly pointed at Greene : "What publishing of friuolous
* In Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, Ac, are these words ; "Only I must needes say to him
that some of his trade will print lewd bookes and bawdy pamphlets, but auri sacra fames quid non?"
I remember perfectly to have seen an edition of this tract with the date 1592 (during which year it
seems to have been several times printed), wherein, after the words "bawdy pamphlets," was inserted,
between brackets, " by R. G." : but in the edition of 1592, in the King's Library, the passage stands
as just given.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 39
and scurrilous prognostications, as if Will Sommers were againe reuiued ! what
counterfeiting and cogging of prodigious and fabulous monsters, as if they labored to
exceede the poet in his Metamorphosis ! what lasciuious, vnhonest, and amorous
discourses, such as Augustus in a heathen common-wealth could neuer tolerate ! and
yet they shame not to subscribe, 'By a graduate in Cambridge, in Artibus
Magister'; as if men should iudge of the fruites of art by the ragges and parings of
wit, and endite the vniuersities as not onely accessary to their vanitie but nurses of
bawdry : we would the world should know, that howsoeuer those places haue power
to create a Master of Artes, yet the art of loue is none of the seauen
thus affecting to bee famous, they become notorious, that it may
be saide of them as of the Sophisters at Athens, dura volunt haberi celebriter docti,
innotescunt insigniter asinini, and when with shame they see their folly, they are faine
to put ©n a mourning garment, and crie, Farewell."* But is not this merely the
language of some canting individual, who held in utter loathing any writer whose
pen had been employed on tales of love 1 — In that very curious poetical tract,
Greene's Funeralh by R. B.t, Gent., 1594, the purity of his amorous pieces is
particularly dwelt upon ;
' ' He, he is dead, that wrote of your delights ;
That wrote of ladies and of parramours - T
Of budding beautie, and hir branehed leaues,
Of sweet content in royall nuptialls.
His gadding Muse, although it ran of loue,
Yet did bee sweetly morralize his songs ;
Ne euer gaue the looser cause to laugh,
Ne men of iudgement, for to be offended." — Sig. B.
* An allusion to Greene's Mourning Garment and Farewell to Folly.
+ Eitson supposed that K. B. meant Richard Barnfield ; but it is scarcely possible that he could
have been the author of so mean a composition. — Greene's Funeralh contains the following
' ' Catalogue of certaine of
his Bookes.
Camilla for the first and second part ;
The Card of Fancie, and his Tullies lone ;
His Nunquam sera, and his Nightingale ;
His Spanish Masquerado, and his Change ;
His Menaphon, and Metamorphosis ;
His Orpharion, and the Denmarke King ;
His Censure, and his Loues Tritameron ;
His Disputation, and The Death of him
That makes all England shed so many teares ;
And many more that I haue neuer seene,
May witnes well vnto the world — his wit
Had he so well as well ax>plied it."
Sig. C 2.
In the 8th and 9th lines there is an allusion to Greene's poem on the death of Sir Christopher
Hatton, A Maiden's Dream (already mentioned, p. 36).
40 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
In The Repentance of Robert Greene his love-pamphlets are noticed in no stronger
terms of reprobation than " These vanities and other trifling pamphlets I penned of
loue and vaine fantasies was my chiefest stay of liuing; and for those my vaine
discourses I was beloued of the more vainer sort of people," &c. Sig. C 3. Nor
must it be forgotten that Greene was in the habit of inscribing his productions to
high-born personages, both male and female : and would the notorious author
of grossly licentious tracts have presumed to aspire to the patronage of such illus-
trious names as are to be found in note t p. 36 ]
Pandosto. The triumph of Time, foe, 1588 (with the running-title, The Historie
of Dorastus and Fawnia), is perhaps the most memorable of the prose-works of Greene,
because on it our great dramatist founded his Winter s Tale. To those who may
read the novel for the first time, having a previous acquaintance with the play
of Shakespeare, — and to what reader is it altogether unknown 1 — the former will
appear cold and uninteresting on a recollection of the marvellous truth and reality
of the latter. But Pandosto is far from a contemptible production : if portions of it
are disfigured by bad taste and coarseness of feeling, there are also portions composed
in a very pleasing and affecting manner. The story, there is every reason to believe,
was the invention of Greene : how far Shakespeare has deviated from it I proceed
to show. * " In the countrey of Bohemia there rayned a king called Pandosto,
whose fortunate successe in warres against his foes, and bountifull curtesie towardes
his friendes in peace, made him to be greatly feared and loued of all men. This
Pandosto had to wife a ladie called Bellaria, by birth royall, learned by education,
faire by nature, by vertues famous ; so that it was hard to iudge whether her
beautie, fortune, or vertue, wanne the greatest commendations. These two, lincked
together in perfect loue, led their Hues with such fortunate content that their
subiects greatly reioyced to see their quiet disposition. They had not beene
married long, but fortune (willing to increase their happines) lent them a Sonne, so
adorned with the gifts of nature as the perfection of the childe greatly augmented
the loue of the parentes and the ioy of their commons." ....*" Fortune
enuious of such happy successe, willing to shewe some signe of her inconstancie,
turned her wheele, and darkned their bright sun of prosperitie with the mistie
cloudes of mishap and misery. For it so happened that Egistus king of Sycilia, who
in his youth had bene brought vp with Pandosto, desirous to shewe that neither
tracte of time nor distance of place could diminish their former friendship, prouided
a nauie of ships and sayled into Bohemia, to visite his old friend and companion :
who, hearing of his arriuall, went himsclfe in person and his wife Bellaria,
accompanied with a great traine of lords and ladies, to meete Egistus ; and espying
him, alighted from his Ik use, embraced him very louingly, protesting that nothing
* I quote from the edition of 1588. (Since the first appearance of the present memoir, Pandosto has
been reprinted complete in Collier's Shakespeare 8 Library.)
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 41
in the world could haue happened more acceptable to him then his comming, wishing
his wife to welcome his olde friend and acquaintance : who (to shewe how she liked
him whom her husband loued) intertayned him with such familiar curtesie as Egistus
perceiued himselfe to bee verie well welcome. After they had thus saluted and
embraced eche other, they mounted againe on horsbackc, and rode toward the citie,
deuising and recounting howe being children they had passed their youth in friendely
pastimes : where, by the meanes of the citizens, Egistus was receyued with triumphs
and shewes, in such sort that he maruelled how on so small a warning they coulde
make such preparation. Passing the streetes thus with such rare sightes, they rode
on to the pallace : where Pandosto entertained Egistus and his Sycilians with such
banqueting and sumptuous cheare, so royally as they all had cause to commend his
princely liberality ; yea. the verie basest slaue that was knowne to come from
Sycilia was vsed with such curtesie that Egistus might easily perceiue how both hee
and his were honored for his friendes sake. Bellaria (who in her time was the
flower of curtesie), willing to shew how vnfaynedly shee looued her husband by his
friends intertainemeut, vsed him likewise so familiarly that her couutenance
bewraied how her minde was affected towardes him ; oftentimes comming herselfe
into his bed-chamber to see that nothing should be amis to mislike him. This
honest familiarity increased dayly more and more betwixt them ; for Bellaria, noting
in Egistus a princely and bountifull minde, adorned with sundrie and excellent
qualities, and Egistus, finding in her a vertuous and curteous disposition, there grew
such a secret vniting of their affections, that the one could not well be without the
company of the other ; insomuch that when Pandosto was busied with such vrgent
affaires that hee could not bee present with his friend Egistus, Bellaria would walke
with him into the garden, where they two in priuat and pleasant deuises would
passe away the time to both their contents. This custome still continuing betwixt
them, a certaine melancholy passion entring the minde of Pandosto draue him into
sundry and doubtfull thoughts. First, he called to minde the beauty of his wife
Bellaria, the comelines and brauerie of his friend Egistus, thinking that loue was
aboue all lawes, and therefore to be staied with no law ; that it was hard to put
fire and flaxe together without burning ; that their open pleasures might breede his
secrete displeasures. He considered with himselfe that Egistus was a man and must
needes loue ; that his wife was a woman and therefore subiect vnto loue ; and that
where fancy forced, friendship was of no force. These and such like doubtfull
thoughtes, a long time smoothering in his stomacke, beganne at last to kindle in his
minde a secret mistrust, which, increased by suspition, grewe at last to a flaming
iealousie that so tormented him as he could take no rest. He then began to
measure all then- actions, and to misconstrue of their too priuate familiaritie, bulging
that it was not for honest affection, but for disordinate fancy ; so that hee began to
watch them more narrowely, to see if hee collide gette any true or certaine proofe to
continue his doubtfull suspition. "While thus he noted their lookes and gestures,
42 ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
and suspected their thoughtes and meaninges, they two, seely soules, who doubted
nothing of this his treacherous intent, frequented daily eache others cornpanie : which
draue him into such a franticke passion, that he beganne to beare a secret hate to
Egistus and a lowring countenaunce to Bellaria ; who marueiling at such vnaccus-
tomed frowns, began to cast beeyond the moone, and to enter into a thousand
sundrie thoughtes, which way she should offend her husband ; but finding in herselfe
a cleare conscience, ceassed to muse, vntil such time as she might find fit
opportunitie to demaund the cause of his dumps. In the meane time Pandostoes
minde was so farre charged with iealousy that he did no longer doubt, but was
assured (as he thought), that his friend Egistus had entered a wrong pointe in his
tables, and so had played him false play : whereupon, desirous to reuenge so great
an iniury, he thought best to dissemble the grudge with a faire and friendly
countenance, and so vnder the shape of a friend to shew him the tricke of a foe.
Deuising with himself a long time how he might best put away Egistus without
suspition of treacherous murder, hee concluded at last to poyson him." Pandosto
endeavours to accomplish his purpose by means of Franion his cup-bearer, offering
him at last either preferment or death according as he should consent or refuse to
become the instrument of his vengeance. Franion promises to despatch Egistus ;
but soon after informs that monarch of his danger, and flies with him from Bohemia.
Pandosto now "commaundes that his wife should be earned straight to prison vntil
they heard further of his pleasure. The guarde, vnwilling to lay their hands on *
such a vertuous princesse, and yet fearing the kings fury, went very sorrowfull to
fulfill their charge. Comming to the queenes lodging, they found her playing with
her yong sonne Garinter ; vnto whom with teares doing the message, Bellaria,
astonished at such a hard censure, and finding her cleere conscience a sure aduocate
to pleade in her cause, went to the prison most willingly ; where with sighes and
teares shee past away the time till she might come to her triall." Pandosto next
" caused a generall proclamation to be made through all his realme, that the queene
and Egistus had, by the helpe of Franion, not onely committed most incestuous
adultery, but also had conspired the kings death ; wherevpon the traitor Franion
was fled away with Egistus, and Bellaria was most iustly imprisoned." Presently
Bellaria finds herself pregnant, and laments her fate with bitter complaints. " The
jaylor, pitying those her heauie passions, thinking that if the king knew she were
with cbilde, lie would somewhat appease his fury and release her from prison, went
in al hast and certified Pandosto what the effect of Bellarias complaint was : who no
ner heard the jaylor say she was with childe, but as one possessed with a
phrenzie, he rose vp in a rage, swearing that shee, and the basterd brat she was
[quick] withall, should die, if the gods themselues said no ; thinking that surely by
computation of time, that Egistus and not he was the father to the childe. This
* on] Old ed. " one."
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 43
suspitious thought galled afresh his* halfe-healed sore, in so much as he could take
no rest vntill he might mittigate his choller with a iust reuenge ; which happened
presently after. For Bellaria was brought to bed of a faire and beautifull daughter :
which no sooner Pandosto hearde but he determined that both Bellaria and the
young infant should be burnt with fire. His nobles, hearing of the kings cruell
sentence, sought by perswasions to diuert him from his bloodie determination, laying
before his face the innocencie of the childe, and vertuous disposition of his wife, how
she had continually loued and honoured him so tenderly that without due proofe he
could not, nor ought not, to appeach her of that crime. And if she had faulted, yet
it were more honourable to pardon with mercy then to punish with extremity, and
more kingly to be commended of pitty than accused of rigour ; and as for the childe,
if he should punish it for the mothers offence, it were to striue against nature
and iustice ; and that Yiinatural actions doe more offend the gods then men ; how
causelesse cruelty nor innocent blood neuer scapes without reuenge. These and such
like reasons could not appease his rage, but he rested resolute in this, that Bellaria
being an adultresse, the childe was a bastard, and he would not suffer that such an
infamous brat should call him father. Yet at last (seeing his noblemen were
importunate vpon him) he was content to spare the childes life, and yet to put it to
a worse death. For he found out this deuise, that seeing (as he thought) it came by
fortune, so he would commit it to the charge of fortune, and therefore caused a
little cock-boat to be prouided, wherein he meant to put the babe, and then send it
to the mercies of the seas and the destenies. From this his peeres in no wise could
perswade him, but that he sent presently two of his guard to fetch the childe : who
being come to the prison, and with weeping teares recounting then maisters message,
Bellaria no sooner heard the rigorious resolution of her mercilesse husband but she
fell downe in a swound, so that all thought she had bin dead : yet at last being
come to her selfe, shee cryed and screeched out in this wise. ' Alas, sweete
infortunate babe, scarce borne, before enuied by fortune ! would the day of thy
birth had beene the temie of thy life '. then shouldest thou haue made an ende to
« care, and preuented thy fathers rigour. Thy faults cannot yet deserue such hatefull
reuenge ; thy dayes are too short for so sharpe a doome ; but thy vntimely death
must pay thy mothers debts, and her guiltlesse crime must bee thy gastly curse.
And shalt thou, sweete babe, be committed to fortune, when thou ail already spited
by fortune ? Shall the seas be thy harbour, and the hard boate thy cradle ? Shall
thy tender mouth, in steede of sweete kisses, be nipped with bitter stormes ? Shalt
thou haue the whistling windes for thy lullabie, and the salt sea fome insteede of
sweete niilke ? Alas, what destinies would assigne such hard hap ? What father
would be so cruell ] Or what gods will not reuenge such rigor ? Let me kisse thy
lippes, sweete infant, and wet thy tender cheekes with my teares, and put this
* Aw] Olded. "this."
44 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
chayne about thy little necke, that, if fortune saue thee, it may helpe to succour
thee. Thus,* since thou must goe to surge in the gastfull seas, with a sorrowful!
kisse I bid thee farewell, and I pray the gods thou maist fare well.' Such and so
great was her griefe, that, her vitall spirits being suppressed with sorrow, she fell
ao-aine downe into a trance, hauing her sences so sotted with care, that after shee was
reuiued, yet shee lost her memorie, and lay for a great time without mouing, as one
in a trance. The guard left her in this perplexitie, and carried the child to the
king ; who, quite deuoide of pity, commanded that without delay it should bee put
in the boat, hauing neither saile nor rudderf to guid it, and so to bee carried into the
midst of the sea, and there left to the wind and waue as the destinies please to
appoint. The very ship-men, seeing the sweete countenance of the yong babe, began
to accuse the king of rigor, and to pity the childs hard fortune : but feare
constrayned them to that which their nature did abhorre ; so that they placed it in
one of the ends of the boat, and with a few greene bows made a homely cabben to
shroud it as they could from wind and weather. Hauing thus trimmed the boat,
they tied it to a ship, and so haled it into the mayne sea, and then cut in sunder the
coarde : which they had no sooner done, but there arose a mighty tempest, which
tossed the little boate so vehemently in the waues that the ship-men thought it
coulde not continue longe without sincking; yea, the storme grewe so great, that with
much labour and perill they got to the shoare." Bellaria being brought into open
court for her trial, " fell downe vpon her knees, and desired the king that for the
loue he bare to his young sonne Garinter, whome she brought into the world, that
hee woulde graunt her a request ; which was this, that it would please his maiestie
to send sixe of his noblemen whome he best trusted to the Isle of Delphos, there to
enquire of the Oracle of Apollo whether she had committed adultery with Egistus,
or conspired to poyson him with Franion ; and if the god Apollo, who by his deuine
essence knew al secrets, gaue answere that she was guiltie, she were content to suffer
any torment, were it neuer so terrible. The request was so reasonable that
Pandosto could not for shame deny it, vnlesse he woulde bee counted of all his
subiects more wilfull then wise : he therefore agreed that with as much speede as
might be there should be certaine embassadores dispatched to the lie of Delphos ;
and in the meane season he commanded that his wife should be kept in close prison.
Bellaria hauing obtained this graunt, was now more careful! for her little babe that
floated on the seas then sorrowfull for her owne mishap; for of that she doubted ; of
her selfe shee was assured, knowing if Apollo should giue oracle according to the
thoughts of the hart, yet the sentence should goe one her side, such was the
clearenes of her minde in this case. But Pandosto (whose suspitious head still
remained in one song) chose out six of his nobility whom hee knew were scarse
indifferent men in the quecnes behalfc, and prouiding all things fit for their iourney
* TJius] Old ed. "This." + rudder] Old ed. "other."
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 45
sent them to Delphos. They willing to fulfill the kinges commaund, and desirous to
see the situation and custome of the iland, dispatched then* affaires with as much
speede as might be, and embarked themselues to this voyage ; which (the wind and
weather seruing fit for their purpose) was soone ended. For within three weekes
they arriued at Delphos : where they were no sooner set on lande but with great
deuotion they went to the Temple of Apollo, and there offring sacrifice to the god
and giftes to the priest, as the custome was, they humbly craued an aunswere of
their demaund. They had not long kneeled at the altar, but Apollo with a loude
voice saide, ' Bohemians, what you finde behinde the alter take, and depart.' They
forthwith obeying the oracle, founde a scroule of parchment wherein was written
these words in letters of golde ;
THE ORACLE.
Suspition is no proof e ; iealousie is an vnequall iudge : Bellaria is chast ; Egistus blamclesse; Franion
a true subiect ; Pandosfo treacherous ; his babe an innocent; and the king shal Hue without an
heire, if that which is lost be not founde.
As soone as they had taken out this scroule, the priest of the god commaunded
them that they should not presume to read it before they came in the presence of
Fandosto, vnlesse they would incurre the displeasure of Apollo." On their return to
Bohemia, Bellaria being brought again into the judgment-hall before the assembled
lords and commons, speaks thus; " 'If the deuine powers bee priuy to humane actions
(as no doubt they are), I hope my patience shall make fortune blushe, and my
vnspotted life shall staine spightfull* discredit. For although lying report hath sought
to appeach mine honor, and suspition hath intended to soyle my credit with infamie,
yet where vertue keepeth the forte, report and suspition may assayle, but neuer sack.
How I haue led my life before Egistus comming, I appeale, Pandosto, to the gods
and to thy conscience. What hath passed betwixt him and me, the gods onely know,
and I hope will presently reueale. That I loued Egistus, I cannot denie ; that I
honored him, I shame not to confesse : to the one I was forced by his vertues ; to
the other for his dignities. But as touching lasciuious lust, I say Egistus is honest,
and hope myselfe to be found without spot : for Franion, I can neither accuse him
nor excuse him, for I was not priuie to his departure : and that this is true which I
haue heere rehearsed, I referre myselfe to the deuine oracle.' Bellaria had no sooner
saj'd, but the king commaunded that one of his dukes should reade the contentes
of the scroule ; which after the commons had heard, they gaue a great shout,
reioysing and clapping their hands that the queene was cleare of that false acciisation.
But the king, wdiose conscience was a witnesse against him of his witlesse furie and
false-suspected iealousie, was so ashamed of his rashe folly that he intreated his
nobles to perswade Bellaria to forgiue and forget these iniuries ; promising not onely
* spightfull] Old ed. " spightfully."
46 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
to shew himselfe a loyall and louing husband, but also to reconcile himselfe to
Egistus and Franion ; reuealing then before them all the cause of their secrete
flighte, and how treacherously hee thought to haue practised his death, if the good
minde of his cupbearer had not preuented his purpose. As thus he was relating the
whole matter, there was worde brought him that his young sonne Garinter was
sodainly dead : which newes so soone as Bellaria heard, surcharged before with
extreame ioy and now suppressed with heauie sorrowe, her vitall spirites were so
stopped that she fell downe presently dead, and could be neuer reuiued. This
sodaine sight so appalled the kinges sences that he sanck from his seate in a sound,
so as he was fayne to be carried by his nobles to his pallace, where hee lay by the
space of three dayes without speache. His commons were, as men in dispaire, so
diuersly distressed ; there was nothing but mourning and lamentation to be heard
throughout al Bohemia ; their young prince dead, their vertuous queene bereaued
of her life, and their king and soueraigne in great hazard : this tragicall discourse of
fortune so daunted them as they went like shadowes, not men ; yet somewhat to
comfort their heauie hearts, they heard that Pandosto was come to himselfe and had
recouered his speache : who as in a fury brayed out these bitter speaches. ' miser-
able Pandosto, what surer witnesse then conscience 1 what thoughts more sower then
suspitiou ? what plague more bad then iealousie 1 Unnaturall actions offend the gods
more than men ; and causelesse crueltie neuer scapes without reuenge. I haue
committed such a bloudy fact, as repent I may, but recall I cannot. Ah, iealousie !
a hell to the minde, and a horror to the conscience, suppressing reason, and inciting
rage : a worse passion then phrensie, a greater plague than madnesse. Are the gods
Lust ? then let them reuenge such brutishe crueltie : my innocent babe I haue
drowned in the seas ; my louing wife I haue slaine with slaunderous suspition ; my
trustie friend I haue sought to betray ; and yet the gods are slacke to plague such
offences. Ah, vniust Apollo ! Pandosto is the man that hath committed the faulte :
why should Garinter, seely childe, abide the paine 1 Well, sith the gods meane to
prolong my dayes to increase my dolour, I will offer my guiltie bloud a sacrifice to
those sackles* soules whose liues are lost by my rigorous folly.' And with that he
reached at a rapier to haue murdered himselfe : but his peeres being present stayed
him from such a bloudy acte, perswading him to think that the commonwealth con-
sisted on his safetie, and that those sheepe could not but pei-ish that wanted a
sheepheard ; wishing that, if hee would not hue for himselfe, yet he shovdd haue
care of his snbiects, and to put such fancies out of his minde, sith in sores past help
salues doc not heale but hurt, and in thinges past cure care is a corrasiue. With
these and such like pcrswasions the kinge was oucrcome, and began somewhat to
quiet his minde ; so that assoone as hee could goe abroad, hee caused his wife to bee
embalmed and wrapt in lead with her young sonne Garinter ; erecting a rich and
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
famous sepulchre, wherein hee intombed them both, making such solemne obsequies
at her funeral as al Bohemia might pcrceine he did greatly repent him of his fore-
passed fully ; causing this epitaph to be ingrauen on her tombe in letters of golde;
THE EPITAPH.
Here lyes entombde Bellaria /aire,
Falsly accused to be vnchaste ;
Cleared by A polios sacred doome,
Yet slaine by iealousie at last.
What ere thou be that passest by,
Cursse him that causde this qucene to die.
This epitaph being ingrauen, Pandosto would once a day repaire to the tombe, and
there with watry plaintes bewaile his misfortune ; coueting no other companion but
sorrowe, nor no other harmonie but repentance. But leauing him to his dolorous
passions, at last let vs come to shewe the tragicall discourse of the young infant.
Who, beeing tossed with winde and waue, floated two whole daies without succour,
readie at euery puffe to bee drowned in the sea ; till at last the tempest ceassed, and
the little boate was driuen with the tyde into the coast of Sycilia, where, sticking
vppon the sandes, it rested. Fortune minding to be wanton (willing to shewe that
as she hath wrinckles on her browes, so shee hath dimples in her cheekes), thought,
after so many sower lookes, to lend a fayned smile, and, after a puffing storme, to
bring a pretty calme : shee began thus to dally. It fortuned a poore mercenary
sheepheard that dwelled in Sycilia, who got his lining by other mens flockes, missed
one of his sheepe, and thinking it had strayed into the couert that was hard by,
sought very diligently to find that which he could not see, fearing either that the
wolues or eagles had vndone him (for hee was so poore as a sheepe was halfe his
substaunce), wandered downe toward the sea-cliffes, to see if perchaunce the sheepe
was browsing on the sea-iuy, whereon they greatly doe feede. But not finding her
there, as he was ready to returne to his flocke, hee heard a childe crie ; but knowing
there was no house nere, he thought he had mistaken the sound, and that it was the
bleatyng of his sheepe. Wherefore looking more narrowely, as he cast his eye to
the sea, he spyed a little boate, from whence, as he attentiuely listened, he might
heare the cry to come. Standing a good while in a maze, at last he went to the
shoare, and wading to the boate, as he looked in, he saw the little babe lying al
alone, ready to die for hunger and colde, wrapped in a mantle of scarlet, richely
imbrodered with golde, and hauing a chayne about the necke. The sheepeheard,
who before had neuer seene so faire a babe nor so riche iewels, thought assuredly
that it was some little god, and began with great deuocion to knock on his breast.
The babe, who wrythed with the head to seeke for the pap, began againe to cry
afresh : whereby the poore man knew that it was a childe, which by some sinister
meanes was driuen thither by distresse of weather ; maruailing how such a seely
48 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
infant, which by the mantle and the chayne could not be but borne of noble
parentage, should be so hardly crossed with deadly mishap. The poore sheepheard,
perplexed thus with diuers thoughts, tooke pitty of the childe, and determined with
himselfe to carry it to the king, that there it might be brought vp according to the
worthinesse of birth ; for his ability coulde not afforde to foster it, though his good
minde was willing to further it. Taking therefore the chylde in his armes, as he
foidded the mantle together, the better to defend it from colde, there fell downe at
his foote a very faire and riche purse, wherein he founde a great summe of golde :
which sight so reuiued the shepheards spirits, as he was greatly rauished with ioy ?
and daunted with feare ; ioyfull to see such a summe in his power, and feareful, if it
should be knowne, that it might breede his further daunger. Necessitie wisht him at
the least to retaine the golde, though he would not keepe the childe : the simplicity
of his conscience feared* him from such deceiptfull briberie.t Thus was the poore
manne perplexed with a doubtfull dilemma, vntill at last the couetousnesse of the
coyne ouercame him ; for what will not the greedy desire of golde cause a man to
doe 1 so that he was resolued in himselfe to foster the child, and with the summe
to relieue his want. Resting thus resolute in this point, he left seeking of his
sheepe, and as couertly and secretly as he coulde, went by a by-way to his house,
least any of his neighbours should perceaue his carriage." The shepherd, who is
called Porrus, and his wife, having no children of their own, rear the babe as their
daughter, giving her the name of Fawnia. With the money which he had found in
the purse Porrus having bought the lease of a pretty farm and a small flock of
sheep, "grewe in short time to bee a man of some wealth and credite." When
Fawnia " came to the age of sixteene yeeres, shee so increased with exquisite
perfection both of body and minde, as her natural disposition did bewray that she
was borne of some high parentage ; but the people thinking she was daughter to the
shephard Porrus, rested only amazed at hir beauty and wit : yea, she won such
fauour and commendations in euery mans eye, as her beautie was not onely praysed
in the countrey, but also spoken of in the court ; yet such was her submisse
modestie, that although her praise daily increased, her mind was no whit puffed vp
with pride, but humbled her selfe as became a country mayde and the daughter of a
poore sheepheard. Euery day she went forth with her sheepe to the field, keeping
them with such care and diligence as al men thought she was verie painfull,
defending her face from the heat of the sunne with no other vale but with a garland
made of bowes and flowers ; which attire became her so gallantly as shee seemed to
bee the goddesse Flora her selfe for beauty." Dorastus, the only son of Egistus and
aged about twenty, (who has just offended his father by showing decided dislike to
the proposal that he should marry the King of Denmark's daughter,) becomes
violently enamoured of the lovely shepherdess : she returns his passion, and consents
* fcireil] Mr. Collier {Shakespeare 1 3 Library) prints "scared," — rightly perhaps.
t briberie] i. e. theft.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 49
to be his wife. " Hailing thus plight their troath each to other, seeing they could
not haue the full fruition of their loue in Sycilia, for that Egistus consent woulde
neuer bee graunted to so meane a match, Dorastus determined assone as time and
oportunitie would giue them leaue, to prouide a great masse of money, and many
rich and costly iewels for the easier cariage, and then to transporte theinselues and
then- treasure into Italy, where they should leade a contented life, vntil such time
as either he could be reconciled to his father, or els by succession come to the king-
dome." Soon after this, the neighbours of Porrus inform him of the meetings of
the louers, fearing that the prince meant to lure Fawnia to folly. The old shepherd,
greatly distressed at the intelligence, and dreading the anger of the king, resolves to
go to his majesty, give him an account of his having found Fawnia in the little
boat, and show him the chain and jewels that accompanied her : " ' by this meanes,' "
says he to his wife, " ' I hope the king will take Fawnia into his seruice, and we,
whatsoeuer chaunceth, shal be blamelesse.' This deuice pleased the good wife very
will, so that they determined, assoone as they might know the king at leisure, to
make him prime to this case. In the meane time Dorastus was not slacke in his
affaires, but applyed his matters with such diligence that he prouided all thinges fitte
for their iourney. Treasure and iewels he had gotten great store, thincking there
was no better friend then money in a strange countrey ; rich attire he had prouided
for Fawnia ; and because he could not bring the matter to passe without the helpe
and aduice of some one, he made an old seruant of his, called Capnio, who had
seraed him from his child-hood, prime to his affaires ; who, seeing no perswasions
could preuaile to diuert him from his setled determination, gaue his consent, and
dealt so secretly in the cause that within short space hee had gotten a ship ready for
theyr passage. The mariners, seeing a fit gale of winde for their purpose, wished
Capnio to make no delayes, least, if they pretermitted this good weather, they might
stay long ere they had such a fayre winde. Capnio, fearing that his negligence
should hinder the iourney, in the night time conueyed the trunckes full of treasure
into the shippe, and by secrette meanes let Fawnia vnderstand that the next morning
they meant to depart. She vpon this newes slept verie little that night, but gotte
vp very early, and wente to her sheepe, looking euery minute when she should see
Dorastus ; who taried not long, for feare delay might breede daunger, but came as
fast as he could gallop, and without any great circumstance tooke Fawnia vp behinde
him, and rode to the hauen where the shippe lay, which was not three quarters of a
mile distant from that place. He no sooner came there but the marriners were
readie with their cock-boate to set them aboard ; where, being coucht together in a
cabben, they past away the time in recounting their old loues til their man Capnio
should come. Porrus, who had heard that this morning the king would go abroad
to take the ayre, called in haste to his wife to bring him his holyday hose and his
best iacket, that he might goe like an honest substantiall man to tell his tale. His
wife, a good cleanly wenche, brought him all things fitte, and spnngd him vp very
50 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
handsomlie, giuing him the chaine * and iewels in a little boxe, which Poirus for tbe
more safety put in his bosom. Hauing thus all his trinkets in a readines, taking his
stafFe in his hand, he bad his wife kisse him for good lucke, and so hee went towards
the pallace. But as he was going, fortune (who meant to showe him a little false
play) preuented his purpose in this wise. He met by chaunce in his way Capnio,
who trudging as fast as he could with a little coffer vnder his arme to the ship, and
spying Porrus, whome he knewe to be Fawnias father, going towardes the pallace,
being a wylie fellow, began to doubt the worst, and therefore crost him the way,
and askt him whither he was going so earely this morning. Porrus (who knew by
his face that he was one of the court) meaning simply, told him that the kings son
Dorastus dealt hardly with him ; for he had but one daughter who was a little
beautifull, and that his neighboures told him the young prince had allured her to
folly : he went therefore now to complaine to the king how greatly he was abused.
Capnio (who straight way smelt the whole matter) began to soth him in his talke,
and said that Dorastus dealt not like a prince to spoyle any poore manes daughter in
that sort : he therefore would doe the best for him he could, because he knew he was
an honest man. ' But,' quoth Capnio, ' you lose your labour in going to the pallace,
for the king meanes this day to take the aire of the sea, and to goe aboord of a shippe
that lies in the hauen : I am going before, you see, to prouide all things in a redinesse ;
and if you wil follow my counsaile, turne back with me to the hauen, where I will
set you in such a fitte place as you may speake to the king at your pleasure.'
Porrus, giuing credit to Capnios smooth tale, gane him a thousand thanks for his
friendly aduise, and went with him to the hauen, making all the way his complaintes
of Dorastus, yet concealing secretlie the chaine and the iewels. Assone as they
were come to the sea-side, the marriners, seeing Capnio, came a-land with their
cock-boote ; who still dissembling the matter, demaunded of Porrus if he would go
see the ship ] who, vnwilling and fearing the worst because he was not well acquainted
with Capnio, made his excuse that he could not brooke the sea, therefore woidd not
trouble him. Capnio, seeing that by faire meanes hee could not get him aboord,
commaunded the mariners that by violence they should carrie him into the shippe ;
who like sturdy knaues hoisted the poore shepheard on their backes, and bearing
him to the boate, lanched from the land. Porrus, seeing himselfe so cunningly
betraied, durst not crie out, for hee sawe it would not preuaile ; but began to intreate
Capnio and the mariners to be good to him, and to pittie his estate ; hee was but a
poore man that liued by his labour : they, laughing to see the shepheard so afraide,
made as much haste as they could and sette him aboorde. Porrus was no sooner in
the shippe but he saw Dorastus walking with Fawnia ; yet he scarse knew her,
for she had attired her selfe in riche apparell, which so increased her beauty that shee
resembled rather an angell then a mortall creature. Dorastus and Fawnia were halfe
• chaine] Old ed. "chaines."
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 51
astonished to see the olde shepherd, maruailing greatly what wind had brought him
thither, til Capnio told them al the whole disco urse ; how Porrus was going to
make his complaint to the king, if by pollicie he had not preuented him ; and there-
fore now, sith he was aboord, for the auoiding of further danger, it were best to carrie
him into Italy. Dorastus praised greatly his mans deuise, and allowed of his
counsaile : but Fawnia (who stil feared Porrus as her father) began to blush for
shame, that by her meanes he should either incur[r]e daunger or displeasure. The
old shephard, hearing this hard sentence, that he should on such a sodaine be caried
from his wife, his country, and kinsfolke, into a forraine lande amongst straungers,
began with bitter teares to make his complaint, and on his knees to intreate Dorastus,
that pardoning his vnaduised folly, he would giue him leaue to goe home ; swearing
that hee would keepe all thinges as secret as they could wish. But these protes-
tations could not preuaile, although Fawnia intreated Dorastus very earnestly ; but
the mariners, hoisting their maine sailes, waied ankers, and hailed into the deepe."
Egistus, greatly alarmed at the disappearance of the prince, learns at last from a
fisherman in what company he had set sail ; and is so grieved at " his sonnes reck-
lesse follie " that he falls into a very dangerous quartan fever. " But his sonne
Dorastus little regarded either father, countrie, or kingdome, in respect of his lady
Fawnia ; for fortune smyling on this young nouice, lent him so lucky a gale of winde
for the space of a day and a night, that the maryners lay and slept vpon the hatches :
but on the next morning, about the breake of the day, the aire began to ouercast, the
winds to rise, the seas to swel, yea, presently there arose such a fearfull tempest as
the ship was in danger to be swallowed vp with euery sea, the maine mast with the
violence of the wind was thrown ouer-boord, the sayles were torne, the tacklings
rent * in sunder, the storme raging still so furiously that poore Fawnia was almost
dead for feare, but that she was greatly comforted with the presence of Dorastus.
The tempest continued three dayes, al which time the mariners euerie minute looked
for death, and the aire was so darkned with cloudes that the maister could not tell
by his compasse in what coast they were. But vpon the fourth day, about ten of
the clocke, the wind began to cease, the sea to wax oalme, and the sky to be cleare,
and the mariners descryed the coast of Bohemia, shooting of their ordnance for ioy
that they had escaped such a fearefull tempest. Dorastus, hearing that they were
arriued at some harbom-, sweetly kissed Fawnia, and bad her be of good cheare :
when they tolde him that the port belonged vnto the cheife cittie of Bohemia where
Pandosto kept his court, Dorastus began to be sad, knowing that his father hated no
man so much as Pandosto, and that the king himself had sought secretly to betray
Egistus : this considered, he was halfe afraide to goe on land, but that Capnio
counselled him to chaunge his name and his countrey, vntil such time as they could
get some other barke to transport them into Italy. Dorastus liking this deuise,
• rent] Old ed. "went."
i 2
52 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
made his case priuy to the marriners, rewarding them bountifully for their paines,
and charging them to saye that he was a gentleman of Trapolonia called Meleagrus.
The shipmen, willing to shew what friendship they could to Dorastus, promised to bo
as secret as they could or hee might wish ; and vppon this they landed in a little
village a mile distant from the citie : where, after they had rested a day, thinking to
make prouision for their mariage, the fame of Fawnias beauty was spread through-
out all the citie, so that it came to the eares of Pandosto ; who then being about
the age of fifty, had notwithstanding yong and freshe affections, so that he desired
greatly to see Fawnia ; and to bring this matter the better to passe, hearing they
had but one man, and how they rested at a very homely house, he caused them to
be apprehended as spies, and sent a dozen of his garde to take them ; who being
come to their lodging, tolde them the kings message. Dorastus no whit dismayed,
accompanied with Fawnia and Capnio, went to the court (for they left Porrus to
keepe the stuffe) ; who being admitted to the kings presence, Dorastus and Fawnia
with humble obeysance saluted his maiestie." Pandosto is amazed at the loveliness
of Fawnia ; and when Dorastus has told him a tale devised for the occasion, he
angrily declares, " till I heare more of her parentage and of thy calling, I wil stay
you both here in Bohemia." The young prince answers the king with much bold-
ness, and is committed to prison, while " the rest of the shipmen " are thrown into a
dungeon ; but Fawnia is treated with great courtesy. The king now endeavours to
overcome the chastity of the beautiful stranger, but his various allurements are
vain ; and he swears at last that, if she does not yield to his wishes, he will have
recourse to violence. Meantime Egistus learns from some Bohemian merchants that
his son is imprisoned by Pandosto, and sends ambassadors to that monarch with a
request " that Capnio, Fawnia, and Porrus, might be murthered and put to death,
and that his sonne Dorastus might be sent home in safetie. Pandosto hauing atten-
tiuely and with great meruaile heard their embassage, willing to reconcile himselfe
to Egistus, and to shew him how greatlie he esteemed his fauour,* although loue
and fancy forbad him to hurt Fawnia, yet in despight of loue hee determined to
execute Egistus will without mercy ; and therefore he presently sent for Dorastus
out of prison ; who meruailing at this vnlooked for curtesie, found, at his comming
to the kings presence, that which he least doubted of, his fathers embassadours ;
who no sooner sawe him, but with great reuerence they honored him ; and Pandosto
embracing Dorastus, set him by him very louingly in a chaire of estate. Dorastus,
ashamed that his follie was bewraicd, sate a long time as one in a muse, til Pandosto
told him the summe of his fathers embassage ; which he had no sooner heard, but
he was toucht at the quicke for the cruell sentence that was pronounced against
Fawnia. But neither could his sorrow nor perswasions preuaile ; for Pandosto
commaunded that Fawnia, Porrus, and Capnio, should bee brought to his presence :
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 63
who were no sooner come but Pandosto, hauing his former lone turned to a disdainful
hate, began to rage against Fawnia in these tearmes. ' Thou disdainfull vassal, thou
currish kite, assigned by the destinies to base fortune, and yet with an aspiring minde
gazing after honor, how durst thou presume, being a beggar, to match with a prince 1
by thy alluring lookes to inchant the sonne of a king to leaue his owne countrie to
fulfill thy disordinate lusts 1 despightfull minde ! a proud heart in a beggar is
not vnlike to a great fire in a smal cottage, which warmeth not the house, but burnetii
it : assure thyselfe thou shalt die. And thou, old doating foole, whose follie hath
bene such as to suffer thy daughter to reach aboue thy fortune, looke for no
other meede but the like punishment. But, Capnio, thou which hast betrayed the
king, and hast consented to the vnlawfull lust of thy lord and maister, I know not
how iustly I may plague thee : death is too easie a punishment for thy falsehood, and
to liue, if not in extreame miserie, were not to shew thee equitie. I therefore
award that thou shalt haue thine eyes put out, and continually, while * thou diest,
grinde in a mil like a brute beast.' The feare of death brought a sorrowfull silence
vpon Fawnia and Capnio : but Porrus, seeing no hope of life," confesses that Fawnia
is not his daughter, tells how he found her in the little boat, and shows the chain
and jewels that accompanied her. " Pandosto would scarce suffer him to tell out
his tale but that he enquired the time of the yeere, the manner of the boate, and
other circumstaunces ; which when he found agreeing to his count, he sodainelie leapt
from his seate, and kissed Fawnia, wetting her tender cheeks with his teares, and
crying, ' My daughter Fawnia ! Ah sweete Fawnia ! I am thy father, Fawnia.' This
sodaine passion of the king draue them all into a maze, especially Fawnia and
Dorastus. But when the king had breathed himselfe a while in this newe ioy, hee
rehearsed beefore the embassadours the whole matter, how hee hadde entreated his
wife Bellaria for iealousie, and that this was the childe whome hee [had] sent to floate
in the seas. Fawnia was not more ioyfull that she had found such a father then
Dorastus was glad he should get such a wife. The embassadors reioyced that their
yong prince had made such a choice, that those kingdomes, which thimigh enmitie had
long time bin disseuered, should now through perpetual amitie be vnited and recon-
ciled. The citizens and subiects of Bohemia (hearing that the king had found againe
his daughter which was supposed dead, ioyfull that there was an heire aparant to
his kingdome) made bonfh*es and showes throughout the cittie. The courtiers and
knights appointed iusts and turneis, to signifie their willing mindes in gratifying the
kings hap. Eighteene daies being past in these princely sports, Pandosto, willing
to recompence old Porrus, of a shepheard made him a knight : which done, prouiding
a sufficient nauie to receiue him and his retinue, accompanied with Dorastus, Fawnia,
and the Sicilian embassadours, he sailed tow r ards Sicilia, where he was most, princelie
entertained by Egistus ; who hearing this comicall euent, reioyced greatly at his
54 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
Bonnes good happe, and without delay (to the perpetuall ioy of the two yong
louers) celebrated the marriage : which was so sooner ended but Pandosto, calling
to mind how first he betraied his friend Egistus, how his iealousie was the cause of
Bellarias death, that contrarie to the law of nature hee had lusted after his owne
daughter, — moued with these desperate thoughts, he fell in a melancholie fit, and,
to close vp the comedie with a tragicall stratageme, hee slewe himselfe : whose death
being many daies bewailed of Fawnia, Dorastus, and his deere friend Egistus,
Dorastus, taking his leaue of his father, went with his wife and the dead corps into
Bohemia ; where, after it was * sumptuouslie intoombed, Dorastus ended his daies in
contented quiet." The reader will perceive that the characters of Antigonus,
Paulina, Autolycus, and the Young Shepherd, in the Winters Tale, are the creations
of Shakespeare.
Greene, during his chequered life, having sometimes " kept villanous company,"
turned to account his intimate acquaintance with the sharpers and rogues of the metro-
polis by publishing several pamphlets wherein he laid open all the mysteries of their
arts.t Prefixed to the first of these pieces, A Notable Dkcouery of Coosnage, 1591, is an
Address " To the Yong Gentlemen, Marchants, Apprentises, Fanners, and plain
Countrymen," which begins thus : " Diogenes, gentlemen, from a counterfait coiner
of money, became a currant corrector of manners, as absolute in the one as dissolute
in the other : time refineth mens affects, and then- humors grow different by the
distinction of age. Poor Ouid, that amorously writ in his youth the art of loue,
complained in his exile amongst the Getes of his wanton follies ; and Socrates age
was vertuous, thogh his prime was licentious. So, gentlemen, my younger yeeres
had vncertaine thoughtes, but now my ripe daies cals on to repentant deedes, and I
sorrow as much to see others wilful as I delighted once to be wanton. The odde
mad-caps I haue beene mate too, not as a companion, but as a spie to haue an insight
into their knaueries, that seeing their traines I might eschew their snares ;
those mad fellow es I learned at last to loath by their owne gracelesse villenies ; and
what I saw in them to their confusion, I can forwarne in others to my countreies
commodity. None could decipher tyranisme better then Aristippus, not that his
nature was cruell, but that he was nourtured with Dionisius : the simple swaine that
cuts the lapidaries stones can distinguish a ruby from a diamond onely by his
labour : though I haue not practised their deceits, yet conuersing by fortune and
talking vppon purpose with such copes-mates, hath geuen mee light into their
conceiptes, and I can decipher their qualities, though I vtterly mislike of their
* it was] Old ed. "they were."
t "But I tliauke Ood that hee put it in my head to lay open the most horrible coosenages of the
common Conny-catchers, Cooseners, and Crosse-biters, which I haue indifferently handled in those my
seuerall discourses already imprinted. And my trust is, that those discourses will doe great good, and
boe very beueficiall to the common- wealth of England. "—The Repentance of Robert Greene, 1592.
Sig. C 3.
ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 55
practises." It was not without many threats of vengeance from this blackguard
crew that our author persevered in describing their various villanies.
About the beginning of August, 1592, Greene having partaken too largely of
pickled herrings and Rhenish wine, at an entertainment where Nash was a principal
guest, was, in consequence, seized by an illness which terminated in death.* The
* My chief authority for the account of Greene's last illness and death is the tract entitled Fowe
Letters, and certaine Sonnets ; especially touching Robert Greene, &c. 1592, by Gabriel Harvey, whose
enmity towards our author, and the cause of it, will be afterwards pai-ticularly noticed Though this
person has lowered himself in the eyes of posterity by his malignant attack on the memory of Greene,
the fact of his having been the friend of Spenser is alone sufficient to prove the respectability of hii
character ; and since he tells us that his information concerning Greene's miserable end was derived
from the hostess who kindly acted as nurse to the dying poet, I see no reason for questioning the truth
of his statements. The small portion of Nash's Strange Ncwcs, Of the intercepting of certain Letters,
&e. 1592, which is occupied by remarks on Harvey's attack on Greene, is weak and unsatisfactory : it
must be observed, too, that Nash had not seen Greene for a month before his death, and was anxious
to disclaim any great intimacy having existed between them.
"My next businesse was to enquire after the famous author ; who was reported to lye dangerously
sicke in a shoemakers house neere Dow-gate ; not of the plague or the pockes, as a gentleman saide,
but of a surfett of pickle herringe and Rennish wine," &c. — G. Harvey's Fovre Letters, &c. 1592, p. 5.
"His keping of the foresaid Balls sister, a sorry ragged queane, of whome hee had his base sonne,
Infortunatus Greene," &c. — Id. p. 10. See p. 22 of this memoir.
" Truely I haue beene ashamed to heare some ascertayned reportes of hys most woefull and
rascall estate ; how the wretched fellow, or shall I say the prince of beggars, laid all to gage for some
few shillinges; and was attended by lice ; and would pittifully beg a penny-pott of Malmesie ; and could
not gett any of his old acquaintance to comfort or visite him in his extremity but Mistris Appleby and
the mother of Infortunatus. Alas, euen his fellow- writer, a proper yong man if aduised in time, that
was a prineipall guest at that fatall banquet of pickle-herring (I spare his name, and in some respectes
wish him well), came neuer more at him ; but either would not, or happily could not, perforate the duty
of an affectionate and faithfull frend. The poore cordwainers wife was bis onely nurse, and the mother
of Infortunatus hys sole companion, but when Mistresse Appleby came, as much to expostulate iniuries
with her as to visite him." — Id. p. 10.
" His hostisse Isam, with teares in her eies and sighes from a deeper fountaine (for she loued him
derely), tould me of his lamentable begging of a penny-pott of Malmesy ; and, sir reuerence, how lowsy
he and the mother of Infortunatus were (I would her surgeon found her no worse then lowsy !) ; and
how he was faine, poore soule, to borrow her husbandes shirte, whiles his owne was a washing ; and how
his dublet and hose and sword were sold for three shillinges ; and beside the charges of his winding
sheete, which was foure shillinges, and the charges of hys buriall yesterday in the New-churchyard neere
Bedlam, which was six shillinges and foure pence, how deeply hee was indebted to her poore husbande,
as appeered by hys owne bonde of tenne poundes ; which the good woman kindly shewed me, and
beseeched me to read the writting beneath, which was a letter to his abandoned wife in the behalfe of
his gentle host, not so short as persuasible in the beginning and pittifull in the ending." — Id. p. 11.
" Greene surfeted not of pickeld hearing, but of an exceeding feare of his [Harvey's] familiar
epistles." — Nash's Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. D 4.
" For the lowsie circumstance of his pouerty before his death, and sending that miserable writte to
his wife, it cannot be but thou lyest, learned Gabriell.
" I, and one of my fellowes Will. Monox (hast thou neuer heard of him and his great dagger?), were in
company with him, a month before he died, at that fatall banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled hearing
(if thou wilt needs haue it so) ; and then the inuentorie of his apparrell came to more than three
shillings (though thou saist the contrarie). I know a broker, in a spruce leather ierkin, with a great
number of golde rings on his fingers, and a bunch of keies at his girdle, shall giue you thirty shillings
for the doublet alone, if you can helpe him to it. Harke in your eare ; hee had a very faire cloako with
sleeues, of a graue goose-turd greene ; it would serue you as fine as may bee : no more words ; if you bee
wise, play the good husband and listen after it ; you may buy it ten shillings better cheape than it cost
56 ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
wretched man lay sick at the house of a poor shoemaker near Dowgate, reduced to a
state of squalid poverty. The compassionate kindness of his host and hostess
furnished him, as far as their means allowed, with all the necessaries which his con-
dition required ; and in the latter, who, according to Harvey, had no ordinary regard
and admiration for her lodger, he found an anxious and attentive nurse. He appears
to have been deserted by his former gay associates : even Nash, his companion at the
him. By S. Siluer, it is good to bee circumspect in casting for the worlde ; theres a great many ropes
go to ten shillings. If you want a greasy paire of silk stockings also to shew yourselfe in at the court,
they are there to be had too amongst his moueables." — Id. Sig. E 4.
" Neither was I Greenes companion any more than for a carowse or two." — Id. Sig. H.
"A thousande there bee that baue more reason to speake in his behalfe than I, who, since I first
knew him about town, haue beene two yeares together and not seene him." — Id. Sig. L. 4.
" The manner of the death and last end of Robert Greene, Maister of Artes.
" After that he had pend the former discourse (then lying sore sicke of a surfet which hee had taken
with drinking), hee continued most patient and penitent ; yea, he did with teares forsake the world,
renounced swearing, and desired forgiuenes of God and the worlde for all his offences : so that during
all the time of his sicknesse (which was about a moneths space) hee was neuer heard to sweare, raue, or
blaspheme the name of God, as he was accustomed to do before that time ; which greatly comforted his
welwillers, to see how mightily the grace of God did worke in him.
" He confessed himselfe that he was neuer heart-sicke, but said that al his paine was in his belly.
And although he continually scowred, yet still his belly sweld, and neuer left swelling vpward, vntiil it
sweld him at the hart and in his face.
"During the whole time of his sicknes, he continually called vpon God, and recited these sentences
following ;
' Lord, forgiue me my manifold offences !
Lord, haue inercie vpon me !
Lord, forgiue me my secret sinnes,
and in thy mercie, Lord, pardon them all !
Thy mercie, Lord, is aboue thy works!'
And with such like godly sentences hee passed the time, euen till he gaue vp the ghost.
" And this is to bee noted, that his sicknesse did not so greatly weaken him but that he walked to
his chaire and backe againe the night before he departed ; and then (being feeble) laying him downe on
his bed, about nine of the clocke at night, a friend of his tolde him that his wife had sent him commend-
ations and that shee was in good health : whereat hee greatly reioiced, confessed that he had mightily
wronged her, and wished that hee might see her before he departed. Wherevpon (feeling his time was
but short) hee tooke pen and inke, and wrote her a letter to this effeot :
" Sweet wife, as euer there was any good will or friendship betweene thee and mee, see this bearer (my
host) satisfied of his debt : I owe him tenne pound ; and but for him I had perished in the streetes.
Forget and forgiue my wronges done vnto thee ; and Almighty God haue mercie on my soule ! Farewell
till we meet in heauen ; for on earth thou shalt neuer see me more. This 2. of September. 1592.
Written by thy dying husband,
Robert Greene."
The Repentance of Robert Greene, &c. 1592, Sig. D 2.
In my text I have given Greene's letter to his wife as it is found in Harvey's pamphlet. The
following passage concerning her occurs in the tract last quoted : " But, oh my deare wife, whose company
and sight I haue refrained these sixe yeares, I aske God and thee forgiueness for so greatly wronging
thee, of whome I seldome or neuer thought vntiil now : pardon moo (I pray thee) wheresoeuer thou art,
and God forgiue mee all my offences!" — Sig. C 4.
"As Archesilaus Prytawous," says Meres, "perished by wine at a drunken feast, as Hermippus
testifieth in Diogenes ; so Robert Greene died of a surfet taken at pickeld herrings and Rhenish wine, as
witnesseth Thomas Nash, who was at the fatall banquet." — Palladia Tamia, Wits Treasury, 159S,
foL 28G.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 57
" fatal banquet," kept aloof. " Of his old acquaintance," however, two females
" visited him in his extremity : " the one was the mother of his illegitimate son,
Fortunatus Greene (see p. 22 of this memoir) ; the other was a Mistress Appleby.
In this humble dwelling, oppressed by disease and poverty and self-reproach, he
languished for about a month's space. Shortly before his death, having given a
bond to his host for ten pounds which he owed him, he wrote beneath it the following
letter to his forsaken wife, whom he had not seen during the last six years :
" Doll, I charge thee, by the loue of our youth and by my soules rest, that thou
wilte see this man paide ; for if hee and his wife had not succoured me, I had died in
the streetes. Robert Greene."
He expired on the 3d of September, 1592. There have been too many of the
Muses' sons whose vices have conducted them to shame and sorrow, but none,
perhaps, who have sunk to deeper degradation and misery than the subject of this
memoir.
From a passage in Harvey it appears that Greene's hostess crowned his dead
body with a garland of bays,* and that he had requested that this honour might be
* " When I begin to conflict with ghostes, then looke for my confutation of his fine quippe or quaint
dispute, whome his sweete hostisse, for a tender farewell, crowned with a garlande of bayes ; to shew
that a tenth Muse honoured him more being deade then all the nine honoured him aliue. I know not
whether Skelton, Elderton, or some like flourishing pcet were so enterred : it was his owne request and
his nurses devotion ; and happily some of his fauourites may imitate the example. One that wished him
a better lodging then in a poore iourneymans house, and a better graue then in that churchyard in
Bedlam, hath perfourmed a little peece of a greater duety to a laureat poet ;
' Here lies the man whom Mistresse Isam crown'd with bayes ;
Shee, shee, that ioyde to heare her nightingales sweete layes.'
Which another no sooner read, but he immediatly subscribed, as speaking to the ignorant passenger ;
' Heere Bedlam is ; and heere a poet garish,
Gaily bedeck' d, like forehorse of the parish.' "
G. Harvey's Fovre Letters, &c. p. 12.
"By this blessed cuppe of sacke which I now holde in my hand, and drinke to the health of all
Christen soules in, thou art a puissant epitapher.
" Yea ? thy Muses foot of the twelues, old Long Meg of Westminster ? Then I trowe thou wilt stride
ouer Greenes graue, and not stumble : if you doe, wee shall come to your taking vp.
Letter.
1 Here lies the man whom Mistris Isam cround with bays ;
She, she, that ioyd to heare her nightingales sweete lays.'
Comment,
1 Here, Mistris Isam, Gabriel floutes thy bays :
Scratch out his eyes that printeth thy dispraise.'
" She, she will scratch, and, like a scritching night-owle, come and make a dismal noise vnder thy
chamber windowe for deriding her so dunstically. A bigge fat lusty wench it is, that hath an arme
like an Amazon, and will bang thee abhominationly, if euer shee catch thee in her quarters. It is not
your poet garish and your forehorse of the parish that shall redeeme you from her fingers, but shee will
make actuall proofe of you, according as you desire of God in the vnder following lines." — Nash's
Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. F.
68 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
paid to his remains ; a ceremony contrasting ludicrously and mournfully with the
circumstances of his death !
He was buried in the New Churchyard near Bedlam on the 4th of September *
Of his personal appearance we are enabled to form some idea. Chettle thus
describes him : " With him was the fifth, a man of indifferent yeares, of face amible,
of body well proportioned, his attire after the habite of a scholler-like gentleman,
onely his haire was somewhat long, whome I supposed to be Robert Greene, Maister
of Artes." — Kind-Harts Dreame,&c. n. d. [1592], Sig. B 3. Harvey notices "hisfonde
disguisinge of a Master of Arte with ruffianly haire."t — Fovre Letters and Gertaine
Sonnets, &c. 1592, Sig. B 2. And Nash informs us that " a iolly long red peake like
the spire of a steeple hee cherisht continually without cutting, whereat a man might
hang a iewell, it was so sharpe and pendant." — Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. E 4.
He left two sons, — one by his wife (see his letter to her, p. 62), and one by the
sister of " Cutting Ball." The name and fate of the former are alike unknown : the
latter (as already mentioned, p. 22) was baptized Fortunatus, and died in August 1593.
Soon after Greene's decease, his Groatsworth of Wit bought with a million of
Repentance, &c, was given to the public by Henry Chettle ; and that it is a genuine
production admits of no doubt, j Large portions of this interesting piece, as illus-
* See the quotation from Harvey (p. 55, note) where mention is made of " hys buriall yesterday ;"
Harvey's letter is dated Sept. 5th.
" Thomam Fullerum et Richardum Bakerum, historicos, et Robert um Greene, poetam, paupertate
prope enectos fuisse accepimus," says Menckenius, enumerating various literary men of England who
have come to unfortunate ends, in his Preface to Analecta de Calamitate Litteratorum, 1707 ; which
Preface is addressed " Ad virum illustrissimum atque excellentissimum, Dominum Joannem Robinson,
Magna? Britannire Regina? ad Regem Sueciae Legatum hoc tempore Extraordinariuui et Plenipotentiariuin."
t Harvey taunts Nash with wearing the same unseemly superfluity ;
" Methinkes the raunging eyes vnder that long haire (which some would call ruffianly haire) should
scarsely yet be bathed in the heauenly teares of Christ, or washed in the diuine teares of penitence."
— A New Letter of Notable Contents, &c, 1593. Sig. G 4.
There is an allusion in this sentence to a work by Nash entitled Christ'' s Teares ouer Jerusalem,
1593.
+ Chettle (a fertile dramatic writer, though very few of his plays have been printed) in the
Address to the Gentlemen Readers, prefixed to his Kind-Harts Dreame. Conteining Jiue Apparitions,
with their Inuectiues against abuses raigning. Deliuered by seuerall Ghosts vnto him to be publisht,
after Piers Penilesse Post had refused the carriage, n. d. [1592], says ;
"I had onely in the copy this share; it [the Groatsworth of Wit] was il written, as sometime
Greenes hand was none of the best ; licensd it must be, ere it could bee printed, which could neuer
be if might not be read : to be briefe, I writ it ouer, and, as neare as I could, followed the copy, onely
in that letter [ — to his brother poets — ] I put something out, but in the whole booke not a worde
in ; for I protest it was all Greenes, not mine, nor Maister Nashes, as some vniustly haue affirmed."
Nash was very angry at the report of its being written by him : "Other newes I am aduertised of,
that a scald triuiall lying pamphlet, cald Greens Groats-worth of Wit, is giuen out to be of my doing.
God neuer haue care of my soule, but vtterly renounce me, if the least word or Billable in it proceeded
from my pen, or if I were any way priuie to the writing or printing of it." — Epistle from the Author
to the Printer, before Pierce Pcnnilesse hi* Supplication to the Diuell (I quote from ed. 1595).
Mr. Collier (Life of Shakespeare, p. exxxi.) has expressed "some doubts of the authenticity of the
Groatsworth of Wit as a work by Greene." But (as I have observed in my Account of Marlowe
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 69
trative of our author's life, have been before cited (see p. 17, sqq.) : and I now
extract the very striking and impressive Address to his brother play-wrights, with
which it concludes :
* " To those Gentlemen his quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits in
making playes, R. G. wisheth a better exercise, and wisedome to preuent his
extremities.
"If wofull experience may mooue you, gentlemen, to beware, or vnheard-of
wretchednes intreat you to take heed, I doubt not but you will look backe with
sorrow on your time past, and endeuour with repentance to spend that which is to
come. Wonder not (for with thee will I first beginne), thou famous gracer
of tragedians, t that Green, who hath said with thee, like the foole in his heart,
' There is no God,' should now giue glorie vnto his greatnesse ; for penetrating
is his power, his hand lyes heauy vpon me, he hath spoken vnto me with a
voyce of thunder, and I haue felt J he is a God that can punish enemies. Why
should thy excellent wit, his gift, be so blinded that thou shouldest giue no glory to
the giuer 1 Is it pestilent Machiuilian policie that thou hast studied 1 peevish§
follie ! what are his rules but meere confused mockeries, able to extirpate in small
time the generation of mankinde 1 for if sic volo, sic iubeo, holde in those that are able
to commaund, and if it be lawfull fas et nefas, to doo any thing that is beneficiall,
onely tyrants should possesse the earth, and they, striuing to exceed in tirauny,
should ech to other be a slaughterman, till, the mightyest out-liuing all, one stroke
were left for Death, that in one age mans life shoidd end. The broacher|| of this
dyabolicall atheisme is dead, and in his life had neuer the felicitie he aymed at, but,
as he beganne in craft, liued in feare, and ended in dispaire. Qiutm inscrutabilia sunt
Dei indicia ! This murderer of many brethren had his conscience seared like Cayne ;
this betrayer of him that gaue his life for him inherited the portion of Judas; this
apostata perished as ill as Julian : and wilt thou, my friend, be his disciple? Looke
vnto mee, by him perswaded to that libertie, and thou shalt finde it an infernall
bondage. I know the least of my demerits merit this miserable death ; but wdfull
striuing against knowne truth exceedeth all the terrors of my soule. Deferre not,
with mee, till this last point of extremitie ; for little knowest thou how in the end
thou shalt be visited.
and his Writings, p. xxx, note, ed. 1858) I cannot think these doubts well-founded. The Address
to the play-wrights has an earnestness which is scarcely consistent with forgery ; and Chettle, though
an indigent, appears to have been a respectable man. Besides, the Groats-worth of Wit, from beginning
to end, closely resembles in style the other prose-works of Greene.
* I quote from the edition of 1617. + i. e. Christopher Marlowe.
t felt] Old ed. "left." § peevish] Old ed. "punish."
II broacher] Old ed. "Brother." "Probably Francis Kett, A.M. of Wimondham in Norfolk,
who was bred at Bennet College in Cambridge, and was chosen fellow 1573. In February 1589 he was
burnt at Norwich for holding detestable opinions against Christ." — MS. Note by Malone.
(JO ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
" With thee I ioyne young Juueuall,* that byting satyrist, that lastlyt with mee
together writ a comedie. Sweet boy, might I aduise thee, be aduised, and get not
many enemies by bitter words : inueigh against vaine men, for thou canst doo it, no
man better, no man so well ; thou hast a libertie to reprooue all and name none ;
for one being spoken to, all are offended, — none beeing blamed, no man is iniuried.
Stop shallow water still running, it will rage ; tread on a worme, and it will turne ;
then blame not schollers who are vexed with sharpe and bitter lines, if they reprooue
thy too much liberty of reproofe.
" And thouj no lesse deseruing then the other two, in some things rarer, in
nothing inferiour, driuen, as myselfe, to extreame shifts, a little haue I to say to
thee ; and, were it not an idolatrous oath, I would sweare by sweet S. George, thou
art vnworthy better hap, sith thou dependest on so meane a stay. Base-minded
men all three of you, if by my misery yee bee not warned ; for vnto none of you,
like me, sought those burs to cleaue ; those puppits, I meane, that speake from our
mouths, those anticks garnisht in our colours. Is it not strange that I to whome
they all haue bin beholding, is it not like that you to whom they all haue
bin beholding, shall, were yee in that case that I am now, be both of
them at once forsaken 1 Yes, trust them not ; for there is an vpstart crow §
* i.e. Thomas Lodge. His Fig for Momus, printed in 1595, shows his talent as a "byting
satyrist." The "comedie " here alluded to is A Looking-glass for London and England.
" Dr. Farmer is of opinion that the second person addressed by Greene is not Lodge, but Nashe, who
is often called Juvenal by the writers of that time ; but that he was not meant, is decisively proved by
the extract from Chettle's pamphlet [see p. 58, note, of this memoir] ; for he [Chettle] never would
have laboured to vindicate Nashe from being the writer of the Groatsworth of Wit, if any part of it had
been professedly addressed to him. Besides, Lodge had written a play in conjunction with Greene,
called A Looking-glass for London and England, and was author of some satirical pieces ; but we do
not know that Nashe and Greene had ever written in conjunction." — Malone's Life of Shakespeare,
p. 307, ed. 1821.
t lastly] Qy. "lately"?
X i. e. George Peele.
§ By the "crow beautified with our feathers" and " the onely Shake-scene in a countrey," it is
evident that Greene alludes to Shakespeare, who, beyond all doubt, began to cater for the stage by
altering the works of other dramatists: — "our feathers" must mean certain plays which had been
written, either separately or conjointly, by Greene, Marlowe, Lodge, or Peele. — It is well known that
The Second and Third Parts of Shakespeare's Henry Vlth are founded on two old "histories" entitled
The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c, and The
True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c ; and that in The True Tragedie, and also in The Third
Part of Ilenry Vlth, act i. sc. 4, occurs the line,
" tiger's heart, wrapt in a woman's hide," —
which Greene here parodies, — "with his Tygres heart wrapt in a players hyde." Hence it has been
concluded that Greene, or some of the friends whom he now addresses, had a share in the com-
position of The First Part of the Contention, &c, and of The True Tragedie, &c. : and my own
conviction is, that both pieces were mainly (if, indeed, not wholly) by Marlowe, who, alone of the
dramatists in question, could have thrown into those two plays the vigour which is so remarkable in
several scenes. (See more on this subject in my Account of Marlowe and his WritingSj pp. xlviii — ix,
cd. 1858.) — A vast number of early English dramas, once acted with success, but never printed, has
ACCOUNT OF R GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 01
beautified with our feathers, that, with his Tygres heart wrapt in a players hyde,
supposes hee is as well able to bombast out a blanke-verse as the best of you ; and,
beeing an absolute Iohannes-fac-totum, is in his owne conceyt the onely Shake-scene
in a countrey. Oh, that I might intreat your rare wittes to bee imployed in more
profitable courses, and let these apes imitate your past excellence, and neuer more
acquaynte them with your admyred inuentions ! I knowe the best husband of you
all will neuer prooue an usurer, and the kindest of them all will neuer prooue a kinde
nurse : yet, whilst you may, seeke you better maisters ; for it is pitty men of such
rare wits should bee subiect to the pleasures of such rude groomes.
" In this I might insert two more that both haue writte against these buckram
gentlemen : but let their owne worke seme to witnesse against theyr owne wicked-
nesse, if they perseuer to maintaine any more such peasants. For other new
commers, I leaue them to the mercie of these painted monsters, who, I doubt not,
will di-iue the best-minded to despise them : for the rest, it skills not though they
make a ieast at them.
" But now returne I again to you three, knowing my miserie is to you no newes ;
and let me heartilie intreate you to be warned by my harmes. Delight not, as I
haue done, in irreligious oaths, for from the blasphemers house a curse shall not
depart. Despise drunkennes, which wasteth the wit, and maketh * men all equall
vnto beasts. Flie lust, as the deathsman of the soule, and defile not the temple of
entirely perished : nor is it improbable that there may have been among them some rifacimenti by
Shakespeare of plays in which Greene and his friends were largely concerned.
In Greene's Funeralls, by R. B., 1594, (see before, p.39) are the following lines, which seem to
have been suggested by the passage in the Address which we are now considering ;
" Greene is the pleasing obiect of an eie :
Greene pleasde the eies of all that lookt vppon him.
Greene is the ground of euerie painters die :
Greene gaue the ground to all that wrote vpon him.
Nay, more, the men that so eclipsl his fame,
Purloynde his plumes : can they deny the same ? " — Sig. C.
It has been already shown by a quotation from the preface to Kind-harts Dreame (see p. 58,
note) that Chettle was the editor of the Groats-Worth of Wit, which, as Greene's hand-writing was bad,
he had copied out for the press, his only deviation from the original MS. being the omission of some-
thing in this Address. From the same preface it appears that "one or two" of the persons pointed at
in the Address were offended by the allusions to them, and suspected that they were the forgeries of
Greene's editor. There can be no doubt that in the following passage Chettle is speaking of Marlowe
and Shakespeare. "With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them
[Marlowe] I care not if I neuer be : the other [Shakespeare], whome at that time I did not so much
spare as since I wish I had, for that as I haue moderated the heate of liuing writers, and might haue
vsde my owne discretion (especially in such a case) the author beeing dead, that I did not, I am as
sory as if the oiiginall fault had beene my fault, because my selfe have seene his demeanor no lesse ciuill
than he exclent in the qualitie he professes ; besides, diuers of worship haue reported his vprigbtnes of
dealing which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writting that aprooues his art. For the
first, whose learning I reuerence, and, at the perusing of Greenes booke, stroke out what then in
conscience I thought he in some displeasure writ, or, had it beene true yet to publish it was intolerable,
him I would wish to vse me no worse than I deserue."
* maketh] Old ed. "making."
62 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
the Holy Ghost. Abhorre those epicures whose loose life hath made religion loath-
some to your eares ; and when they sooth you with tearms of mastership, remember
Robert Greene, whome they haue often so flattered, perishes now for want of comfort.
Remember, gentlemen, your Hues are like so many light* tapers, that are with care
deliuered to all of you to maintaine : these with wind-puft wrath may be ex-
tinguished, witht drunkennesse putj out, with§ negligence let fall ; for mans time of
itselfe is not so short but it is more shortened by sinne. The fire of my life j | is now
at the last snuffe, and the want of wherewith to sustaine it, there is no substance for
life to feed on. Trust not, then, I beseech yee, left to such weake stayes ; for they
are as changeable in minde as in many attires. Well, my hand is tyred, and I am
forst to leaue where I would beginne ; for a whole booke cannot contain their
wrongs, IT which I am forst to knit vp in some few lines of wordes.
" Desirous that you should liue, though himselfe be dying,
Robert Greene."
Such was Greene's impressive exhortation to his companions, of whom, Lodge
excepted, a melancholy tale is to be told : Marlowe was stabbed in a fray, and Peele
died in poverty, the victim (it is said) of his vices.
To the Groats- Worth of Wit is appended, —
" A Letter written to his wife, found with this booke after his death.
" The remembrance of many wrongs offered thee, and thy vnreprooued vertues,
adde greater sorrow to my miserable state then I can vtter or thou conceiue.
Neyther is it lessened by consideration of thy absence (though shame would let mee
hardly behold thy face), but exceedingly aggrauated for that I cannot (as I ought) to
thy owne selfe reconcile myselfe, that thou mightest witnesse my inward woe at this
instant, that haue made thee a wofull wife for so long a time. But equal heauen
hath denied that comfort, giuing, at my last neede, like succour as I haue sought all
my life : being in this extremitie as voyde of helpe as thou hast beene of hope.
Reason would that, after so long waste, I should not send thee a childe to bring thee
greater charge : but consider hee is the fruite of thy wombe, in whose face regard not
the fathers so nmch as thy owne perfections. Hee is yet Greene, and may grow
strait, if he be carefully tended : otherwise apt enough (I feare me) to follow his
fathers folly. That I haue offended thee highly, I know ; that thou canst forgette
• li//ht] i.e. lit, — lighted.
t with] Old ed. " which."
% put] Old ed. "puts."
§ with] Old ed. "which."
|| life) Old ed. "ligbt." Some words seem to have dropt out from this sentence.
TI their wrotiyi] i e. the wrongs done by them. So in Shakespeare's Tempest, act v. sc. 1 ;
"Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick," &c.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 63
my iniuries, I hardly beleeue : yet perswade I my selfe, if thou saw my wretched
estate, thou couldest not but lament it ; nay, certainely I know thou wouldest. All
my wrongs muster themselues about me ; euery euill at once plagues me. For my
contempt of God I am contemned of men ; for my swearing and forswearing no man
will beleeue me ; for my gluttony I suffer hunger ; for my drunkennes, thirst ; for
my adulterie, vlcerous sores. Thus God hath cast mee downe, that I might bee
humbled, and punished me for example of others sinne ; and although he suffers me
in this world to perish without succour, yet trust I in the world to come to find
mercy, by the merits of my Sauiour, to whom I commend thee and commit my soule.
Thy repentant husband
for his disloyaltie,
Robert Greene."
Greene had been but a short time in his grave, when the pen of Gabriel Harvey
endeavoured to blacken his memory in a work, the fierce malignity of which has
thrown an indelible stain upon the character of its author. Let us particularly
inquire what excited the overboiling rage of this personage against our poet.
Gabriel Harvey, Doctor of Laws, though now only remembered in literary history
as the friend of Spenser and the antagonist of Nash, was a writer of considerable
celebrity during his day. He was a profound scholar, and no inelegant composer of
verses : some of his productions evince great learning and research ; and though it is
impossible to admire his hobbling English hexameters (of which he pompously
proclaimed himself the inventor *), we cannot read his lines prefixed to Tlie Faerie
* " If I neuer deserue anye better remembraunce, let mee rather be epitaphed The Inuentour of
the English Hexameter, whome learned M. Stanihurst imitated in his Virgill, and excellent Sir Phillip
Sidney disdained not to follow in his Arcadia and elsewhere, then be chronicled The Greene Maister of
the Blacke Arte, or The Founder of Vgly Oathes, or The Father of Misbegotten Infortunatus, or The
Scriuener of Crosbiters, or, as one of his owne sectaries termed him, The Patriarch of Shifters."
G. Haryey's Fovre Letters, &c. 1592. p. 19.
" Imagin me to come into a goodly Kentishe garden of your old lords, or some other nol le man, and
spying a florishing bay tree there, to demaunde extempore, as followeth : think vppon Petrarches
' Arbor vittoriosa, triomfale,
Onor d'imperadori e di poete ; '
and perhappes it will aduaunce the wynges of your imagination a degree higher ; at the least, if any
thing can be added to the loftinesse of his conceite whom gentle Mistresse Rosalinde once reported to haue
all the intelligences at commaundement, and an other time christend her Segnior Pegaso :
'Encomium Lauri.
'What might I call this tree ? a laurell ? bonny laurell !
Needes to thy bowes will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto.
Who, but thou, the renowne of prince and princely poeta ?
Th' one for crowne, for garland th' other thanketh Apollo.
Thrice happy Daphne, that turned was to the bay tree,
Whom such seruauntes serue as challenge seruiee of all men.
Who chiefe lorde and king of kings but th' emperour only ?
And poet of right stampe«ouerawith th' emperour himselfe.
64 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
Queene without acknowledging their beauty. He had a tolerable share of vanity : he
plumed himself on his intimacy with the great ; and courting notoriety by the
richness and peculiarity of his attire, he affected the Venetian costume after his
return from Italy. Moving in the world's eye as the friend and associate of some of
his most distinguished contemporaries, he was weak enough to be extremely anxious
to conceal one vexatious fact ; namely, that his father, though a man of good family,
had been a rope-maker at Saffron-Walden. He had two brothers, Richard a divine,
and John a physician : with them he became a dabbler in astrology, and a prognos-
ticator of earthquakes ; but the course of events not agreeing with their predictions,
they had to undergo much bitter ridicule. In evil hour did Richai-d Harvey in one
of his publications speak slightingly and insultingly of the fraternity of poets to
which Greene belonged. Our author determined not to allow this impertinence to
pass unpunished ; and having reason to believe that Gabriel's " hand was in it," he
resolved to take vengeance on the Harveys at one fell swoop* Accordingly in his
Who but knowes Aretyne ? was lie not halfe prince to the princes ?
And many a one there Hues as nobly minded at all poyntes.
Now farewell, bay tree, very queene and goddesse of all trees,
Kitchest perle to the crowne, and fayrest floure to the garland.
Faine wod I craue, might I so presume, some farther acquaintaunce :
that I might ! but I may not : woe to my destinie therefore !
Trust me, not one more loyall seruaunt longes to thy personage.
But what sayes Daphne ? Non omni dorinio : worse lucke :
Yet farewell, farewell, the reward of those that I honour :
Glory to garden ! glory to Muses ! glory to vertue ! '
Partim Ioui et Palladi,
Partim Apollini et Musis."
G. Harvey's Three proper and wittie familiar Letters, &c. 1580. p. 3£.
Nash thus alludes to, and parodies, the precious effusion last quoted ; " Tyll Greene awakte him
out of his selfe-admiring contemplation, hee had nothing to doe, but walke vnder the ewe tree at Trinitie
hall, and say ;
' What may I call this tree ? an ewe tree ? bonny ewe tree !
Needes to thy boughs will [I] bow this knee, and vaile my bonneto.'
" Or make verses of weathercocks on the top of steeples, as he did once of the weathercocke of
Alhallows in Cambridge ;
' thou weathercocke that stands on the top of the Church of Alhallows,
Come thy waies down, if thou darst for thy crowne, and take the wall o' vs.' *
" heathenish and pagan hexamiters ! Come thy waies down from thy doctourship, and learne thy
Primer of Poetry ouer again ; for certainly thy pen is in state of a reprobate with all men of
iudgement and reckoning." Strange Neives, &c. 1592, Sig. D 2.
Peele too ridicules the Encomium, Lauri in his Old Wives Tale by putting a line of it into the
mouth of HuanebaDgo.
* "Somewhat I am priuie to the cause of Greenes inueighing against the three brothers. Thy hot-
spirited brother Richard (a notable ruffian with his pen) hauing first tooke vpon him in his blundring
Persiual to play the Iacke of both sides twixt Martin and vs, and snarled priuily at Pap-hatchet,
Pasquill, and others, that opposde themselues against the open slaunder of that mightie platformer of
atheisme, presently after dribbed forth another fooles bolt, a booke I shoulde say, which he christened
The Lambe of God Not mee alone did hee reuile and dare to the combat, but
glickt at Pap-hatchet once more, and mistermed all our other poets and writers about London ' piperly
" o' w] Oldod. "on vs."
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 66
Quip for an Upstart Courtier, or A quaint dispute between Veluet-BreecJies and Cloth-
Breeches, &c.,* published but a few weeks before his death, he inserted a stinging
sarcasm of seven or eight lines against the whole generation of the rope-maker. This
tract having been reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany (vol. v.) does not now demand
a particular description : the reader, however, who may turn to it, will look in vain for
any thing which can be considered as at all pointed against the family of Harveys,
except the following passage, t " The Rope-maker replied, that honestly iourneying
by the way he acquainted himselfe with the Collier, and for no other cause pretended,
'Honest with the diuell!' quoth the Collier : ' howe can he be honest, whose mother
I gesse was a witch ? for I haue heard them say that witches say their praiers
backward, and so doth the Rope-maker yearne his lining by going backward, and
the knaues cheefe liuing is by making fatall instruments, as halters and ropes, which
make-plaies and make-bates.' Hence Greene, beeing chiefe agent for the companie (for bee writ more
than foure other, how well I will not say, but Sat cilo, si sat bene), tooke occasion to canuaze him a
little in his Cloth-breeches and Veluet-breeches ; and because by some probable collections hee gest the
elder brothers hand was in it, he coupled them both in one yoake, and, to fulfill the prouerbe Tria sunt
omnia, thrust in the third brother who made a perfect parriall of pamphleters. About some seauen or
eight lines it was which hath piuckt on an iuuectiue of so many leaues." — Nash's Strange Newes x &c.
1592, Sig. C 2, 3.
"Mast. Lilly neuer procured Greene or mee to write against him [Gabriel Haruey], but it was his
own first seeking and beginning in The Lamb of God, where he and his brother (that loues dauncing so
well) scumnierd out betwixt them an Epistle to the Readers against all poets and writers, and M. Lilly
and me by name he beruffianizd and berascald, compar'd to Martin, and termd vs piperly make-plaies
and make-bates, yet bad vs holde our peace and not be so hardie as to answere him, for if we did, he
would make a bloudie day in Poules Church-yard, and splinter our pens til they stradled again, as wide
as a paire of compasses." — Nash's Haue with you to Saffron-walden, 1596, Sig. V 2.
* Greeue has silently borrowed the whole substance of his Quip from a poem by Francis Thynn,
entitled The Debate betweenc Pride and Lowlines, &c. ; which in 1841 was reprinted for the Shake.
Soc. under the editorship of Mr. Collier, who observes ; " But one copy of ' The Debate betwecne Pride
and Lowlines ' is known, and that is preserved at Iiridgewater House . . . . it is very possible
that it was never published for sale : the copy in question \\ as, doubtless, presented to the then head of
the family ; and it has been handed down, through the Earls and Dukes of Bridgewater, to its present
possessor, Lord Francis Egerton. Greene had, perhaps, lighted accidentally upon a copy of • The
Debate,' and as many years had elapsed between the printing of it, and the period v, r hen he wished to
avail himself of its contents, he might imagine that he could do so without much fear of detection. The
initials F. T. only are upon the title-page of ' The Debate,' and it is doubtful if Greene, even in that
day, knew who was the writer of it. That the offence Greene had committed, in this respect, was not
discovered at the time, we have this evidence : — Greene and Gabriel Harvey were bitter enemies : the
latter brought all sorts of charges against the former for calling him the son of a rope maker, in the
' Quip for an Upstart Courtier ' ; and, if Harvey (a man extremely well versed in contemporary
literature) had been aware of the fact that Greene's ' Quip' had been purloined from 'The Debate,' he
would not have failed to make abundant use of the fact against his adversary. Harvey's silence renders
it still more likely that 'The Debate' was never published," &c. Introduction, p. vi. Thynn's poem
has no date : but Mr. Collier has distinctly shown that it must have been in print more than twenty
years before Greene's Quip appeared.
t Well might the editor of the Harleian Miscellany, 1810, exclaim in a note on this passage; "It
seems not a little extraordinary that in this general sarcasm on professions and trades, the character of
the rope-maker, which is one of those most leniently drawn, should have been conceived to point so
spitefully and villainously at Gabriel Harvey's father," &c. — Vol. v. p. 410.
"How is he [Gabriel's father] abused? Instead of his name, hee is called by the craft hee gets his
liuing with." Nash's Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. D.
F
06 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
diners desperate men hang themselues with.' " Sig. D 3, ed. 1592. The truth is (and
I cannot but wonder that the fact should have escaped the notice of those biographers
and critics who have written concerning Greene and Harvey) that the lines which so
mortally offended Gabriel were suppressed by our author : it should seem that the
obnoxious page was cancelled ; and perhaps not a single uncastrated copy of the Quip
has descended to our times. I at first imagined that the attack on the three coxcombs
had only been handed about in MS., but I have now no doubt that it formed part of
the original edition of the tract : Christopher Bird expressly mentions " the publica-
tion of that vile pamphlet ;" see his letter in the note below, where the different
motives that Harvey and Nash have assigned to Greene for the suppression of the
passage will also be found.* In the " three brothers' legend " their various foibles
were no doubt most provokingly touched on. To it Nash alludes thus; " It was not
for nothing, brother Richard, that Greene told you you kist your parishioners wiues
with holy kisses," &c. Strange Newes, &c. 1592, Sig. C 4. ; again, " Tubalcan, alias
Tuball, first founder of Farriers Hall, heere is a great complaint made, that vtriusque
academioB Robertus Greene hath mockt thee, because hee saide that, as thou wert the
first inuenter of musicke, so Gabriell Howliglasse was the first inuenter of English
hexameter verses." Id. Sig. G 2. ; and again ; " One of the tln-ee {whom the Quip
* Christopher Bird writes thus from Walden, 29th August, 1592, to Emanuel Demetrius in
London ;
"In steed of other nouels [i. e. news] I sende you my opinion, in a plaine but true sonnet, vpon the
famous new worke intituled A Quippe for an vpstart Corn-tier, or, forsooth, A quaint Dispute betweene
Veluet-breeches and Cloth-breeches • as fantasticall and fond a dialogue as I haue seene, and, for some
particulars, one of the most licentious and intolerable inucctiues that euer I read. Wherein the leawd
fellow and impudent rayler, in an odious and desperate moode, without any other cause or reason,
amongst sondry other persons notoriously deffamed, most spitefully and villanously abuseth an auncient
neighbour of mine, one M. Haruey, a right honest man of good reckoninge, and one that aboue twenty
yeres since bare the chiefest office in Walden with good credite ; and bath mainetained foure sonnes in
Cambridge and else where with great charges, all sufficiently able to aunsweare for themselues, and three
(in spite of some few Greenes) vniuersally well reputed in both vniuersities and through the whole
realme. Whereof one, returning sicke from Norwich to Linne, in luly last, was past sence of any such
malicious iniury, before the publication of that vile pamphlet." — Fovre Letters and certaine Sonnets,
1592, p. 3.
In the same work Gabriel Harvey says ;
"In his extreamest want he [Greene] offered ten or, rather then faile, twenty shillinges to the
printer (a huge som with him at that instant) to leaue out the matter of the three brothers ; with
confession of his great feare to be called Coram for those forged imputations." — p. 5.
To which Nash replies ;
" Haud facile credo, I am sure the printer, beeing of that honestie that I take him for, will not
amrrae it.
" Marry, this I must say : there was a learned doctour of phisicke (to whom Greene in his sickenesse
sent for counsaile) that, hauing read ouer the booke of Veluet-breeches and Cloth-breeches, and laughing
mernlie at the three brothers legend, wild [i. e. wished, desired] Green in any case either to mittigate it
or leaue it out ; not for any extraordinarie account hee made of the fraternitie of fooles, but for one of
them was proceeded in the same facultie of phisicke bee profest, and wi'llinglie hee would haue none of
that excellent calling ill spoken off. This was the cause of the altring of it, the feare of his phisitions
displeasure, not any feare else."
Strange Newes, &c. ed. 1592, Sig. D 4.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 07
entitles tlic Physition)," &c. Id. Sig. D. Greene having died soon after he had shot
this shaft of ridicule at the Harveys, Gabriel, disappointed in his hopes of punishing
by a legal process the calumniator of himself and family, meanly spit his venom on
the poet's grave. That his Fovre Letters, and certaine Sonnets* <fec 1592, contain
a,n authentic account of the last hours of Greene, I have already expressed my
conviction : it was derived, Harvey tells us, from the woman who attended as
nurse on the dying man ; and I cannot believe that he whom Spenser thought
worthy of his friendship, and honoured with a noble sonnet,t would ever have
stooped to falsehood. Let it not be supposed, however, that the virulence of
Harvey does not fill me with disgust : every one possessed of the slightest sensibility
must be shocked at his attempt to deface the monument of the dead. % Several
passages from the Fovre Letters, &c., have been cited in the course of this essay,
see p. 55 (note), p. 57 (note), p. 63 (note), p. 66 (note) ; and an ampler specimen of
them is now subjoined :
" Whiles I was thus, or to like effecte, resoluing with myselfe, and discoursing
with some speciall frendes, not onely writing vnto you, I was suddainely certified that
the king of the paper stage (so the gentleman tearmed Greene) had played his last
part, and was gone to Tarleton : whereof, I protest, I was nothing glad, as was
expected, but vnfainedly sory ; aswell because I could haue wished he had taken his
leaue with a more charitable farewell, as also because I was depriued of that remedy
* Fovre Letters, and certaine Sonnets : Especially touching Robert Greene, and other parties, by
him abused : But incidently of diners 'excellent persons, and some matters of note. To all courteous
mindes, that will voutchsafe the reading. London Imprinted by John Wolfe, 1592. 4to.
t " To the right worshipfull, my singular good frend, M. Gabriell Haruey, Doctor of the Lawes.
Haruey, the[e] happy aboue happiest men
I read, that, sitting like a looker-on
Of this worldes stage, doest note with critique pen
The shaipe dislikes of each condition ;
And as one carelesse of suspition,
Ne fawnest for the fauour of the great,
Ne fearest foolish reprehension
Of faulty men, which daunger to thee threat ;
But freely doest, of what thee list, entreat,
Like a great lord of peerelesse liberty,
Lifting the good vp to high honours seat,
And the euill damning euermore to dy :
For life and death is in thy doomefull writing ;
So thy renowme Hues euer by endighting.
Dublin, this xviii of July, 158fi.
Your deuoted frend during life,
Edmund Spencer."
G. Harvey's Fovre Letters, &c. 1592, p. 75.
+ "As Achilles tortured the deade bodie of Hector, and as Antonius and his wife Fulvia tormented
the liuelesse corps of Cicero, so Gabriell Harvey hath shewed the same inhumanitie to Greene that lies
full low in his graue."
Meres's Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, 1598, fol. 286.
f 2
68 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
in law that I enteuded against him, in the behalfe of my father, whose honest
reputation I was in many dueties to tender. Yet to some conceited witt, that could
take delight to discouer knaueries, or were a fitte person to augment the history of
conny-catchers, Lord, what a pregnant occasion were here presented to display
leaud vanity in his liuely coullours, and to decipher the very misteries of that base arte!
Petty cooseners are not woorth the naming : he, they say, was the monarch of
crosbiters, and the very emperour of shifters. I was altogether vnacquainted with the
man, and neuer once saluted him by name : but who in London hath not heard of
his dissolute and licentious liuing ; his fonde disguisinge of a Master of Arte with
ruffianly haire, vnseemely apparell, and more vnseemelye company ; his vaineglorious
and Thrasonicall brauinge ; his piperly extemporizing and Tarletonizing ; his apishe
counterfeiting of euery ridiculous and absurd toy ; his fine coosening of iuglers, and
finer iugling with cooseners ; hys villainous cogging and foisting ; his monstrous
swearinge and horrible forswearing ; his impious profaning of sacred textes ; his
other scandalous and blasphemous rauinge ; his riotous and outragious surfeitinge ;
his coutinuall shifting of lodginges ; his plausible musteringe and banquettinge of
roysterly acquaintaunce at his first comminge ; his beggarly departing in euery
hostisses debt; his infamous resorting to the Banckeside, Shorditch, Southwarke, and
other filthy hauntes ; his obscure lurkinge in basest comers ; his pawning of his
sword, cloake, and what not, when money came short ; his impudent pamphletting,
phantasticall interluding, and desperate libelling, when other coosening shiftes failed ;
Ills imployinge of Ball (surnamed Cuttinge Ball), till he was intercepted at Tiborne,
to leauy a crew of his trustiest companions to guarde him in daunger of arrestes ;
his keping of the foresaid Balls sister, a sorry ragged queane, of whome hee had his
base sonne Infortunatus Greene ; his forsaking of his owne wife, too honest for such a
husband ; — particulars are infinite ; — his contemning of superiours, deriding of other
[othesT], and defying of all good order 1 Compare base fellowes and noble men together,
and what in a manner wanted he of the ruffianly and variable nature of Catiline or
Antony, but the honourable fortunes of Catiline and Antony 1 ? They that haue
seene much more then I haue heard (for so I am credibly infourmed) can relate
straunge and almost incredible comedies of his monstrous disposition : wherewith I
am not to infect the aire or defile this paper." — p. 9.
" How he departed, his ghostly mother Isam can truliest, and will fauourabliest,
report : how he liued, London remembreth. Oh, what a liuelie picture of vanity !
hut, oh, what a deadlie image of miscrie ! and, oh, what a terrible caueat for such
and such ! I am not to extenuate or preiudice his wit, which could not any way be
great, though som way not the least of our vulgar writers, and mani-waies very
vngracious : but who oner esteemed him either wise, or learned, or honest, or any
way credible ? how many gentlemen and other say of him, ' Let the paltry fellow go.
Lord, what a lewde companion was hee ! what an egregious makeshift ! Where
should conny-catchers haue gotten such a secretarie 1 How shal cosenage do for a
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 69
now register, or phantasticallitye for a new autor V They wronge him much with their
epitaphes and other solemne deuises, that entitle him not at the least, The Second
Toy of London, The Stale of Poules, The Ape of Euphues, The Vice of the Stage,
The Mocker of the Simple World, The Flowter of his Friendes, The Foe of Himselfe,
and so foorth. What durst not hee vtter with his tongue, or diuulge with his penne,
or countenance with his face 1 Or whome cared hee for, but a carelesse crewe of his
own associates 1 Peruse his famous bookes : and, in steede of Omne tulit punctum,
qui miscuit vtile dulci (that, forsooth, was his professed poesie), loe, a wilde head, ful of
mad braine and a thousand crochets, a scholler, a discourser, a courtier, a ruffian, a
gamester, a louer, a souldier, a trauailer, a merchaunt, a broker, an artificer, a
botcher, a petti-fogger, a player, a coosener, a rayler, a beggar, an omnigatherum, a
gay nothing ; a stoarehouse of bald and baggage stuffe, vnwoorth the aunswering or
reading ; a triuiall and triobular autor for knaues and fooles ; an image of idlenes ;
an epitome of fantasticalitie ; a mirrour of vanitie ; Vanitas vamtatum, et omnia
vanitas. Alasse, that anie shoidde say, as I haue heard diuers affirme, ' His witte
was nothing but a minte of knauerie; himselfe a deuiserof iugling feates; a forger of
couetous practises ; an inuentour of monstruous oathes ; a derider of all religions ; a
contemner of God and man ; a desperate Lucianist ; an abhominable Aretinist ; an
arch-atheist ; and he arch-deserued to be well hanged seauen yeares agoe.' " — Id.
p. 24.
Gabriel supposes his dead brother John Harvey * to address Greene in the
following powerful
"SONNET.
"John Harueys Welcome to Robert Greene.
Come, fellow Greene, come to tby gaping graue ;
Bidd vanity and foolery farewell :
Thou ouer-long hast plaid the madbrain'd knaue,
And ouer-lowd hast rung the bawdy bell.
Vermine to vermine must repaire at last ;
No fitter house for busy folke to dwell :
Thy conny-catchiug pageants are past ;
Some other must those arrant stories tell.
These hungry wormes thinke long for their repast :
Come on : I pardon thy offence to me ;
It was thy liuing : be not so aghast ;
A foole and [a] phisition may agree :
And for my brothers, neuer vex thyselfe ;
They are not to disease a buried elfe." — hi. p. 71.
To this torrent of abuse Nash replied somewhat weakly in that comparatively
small portion of his Strange Newes,\ &c, 1592, which is devoted to the subject of
* See the latter part of the quotation from Christopher Bird's letter, note, p. 66.
+ Strange Newes, Of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Conuny of Verses, an they were going
Priuilie to victuall the Low Countries. Unda impetlitur unda. By Tho. N<tslte Gentleman..
Printed 1592, 4to. I believe this piece was never reprinted, but was again put forth with a new title-
1
70 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
Greene. He seems to have felt that little could be said in defence of the character of
his companion, and is evidently anxious to show that no particular intimacy had existed
between them. Most of what relates to Greene in the Strange Newes, dec, has been
page as The Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse, or Strange Newes, Of the intercepting certaine Letters,
&c. 1593.
Chettle imagines the dead poet to write the following letter to Nash.
"Robert Gh'eene to Pierce Pennilesse.
"Pierce, if thy carrier had beene as kinde to me as I expected, I could haue dispatched long since
my letters to thee : but it is here as in the world, donuin a dundo deriuatur ; where there is nothing to
giue, there is nothing to be got. But hauing now found meanes to send to thee, I will certifie thee a
little of my disquiet after death, of which I thinke thou either hast not heard or wilt not conceiue.
" Hauing with humble penitence besought pardon for my infinite sinnes, and paid the due to death,
euen in my graue was I scarse layde, when Enuie (no fit companion for Art) spit out her poyson, to
disturbe my rest. Aduersus mortuos helium suscipere, inhumanum est : there is no glory gained by
breaking a deade mans skull. Pascitur in viuis liuor, post fata quiescit : yet it appeares contrary in
some, that inueighing against my workes, my pouertie, my life, my death, my burial, haue omitted
nothing that may seeme malitious. For my bookes, of what kind soeuer, I refer their commendation or
dispraise to those that haue read them : onely for my last labours, affirming, my intent was to reproue
vice, and lay open such villanies as had beene very necessary to be made knowne, whereof my Blacke
Booke, if euer it see light, can sufficiently witnesse.
' ' But for my pouertie, mee thinkes wisedome would haue brideled that inuectiue ; for cuiuis potest
accidere, quod cuiquam potest. The beginning of my dispraisers is knowne ; of their end they are not
sure. For my life, it was to none of them at any time hurtful ; for my death, it was repentant ; my
buriall like a Christians.
Alas that men so hastily should run,
To write their own dispraise as they haue done !
"For my reuenge, it suffices, that euery halfe-eyd humanitian may account it, instar belluarum
immanissimarum sauire in cadauer. For the iniurie offred thee, I know I need not bring oyle to thy
fire. And albeit I would disswade thee from more inuectiues against such thy aduersaries (for peace is
nowe all my plea), yet I know thou wilt returne answere, that since thou receiuedst the first wrong,
thou wilt not endure the last.
"My quiet ghost (vnquietly disturbed) had once intended thus to haue exclaimd ;
' Pierce, more witlesse than pennilesse, more idle than thine aduersaries ill imployde, what foolish
innocence hath made thee (infant like) resistlesse to beare whateuer iniurie enuie can impose ?
4 Once thou commendedst immediate conceit, and gauest no great praise to excellent works of tsvelue
yeres labour : now, in the blooming of thy hopes, thou sufferest slaunder to nippe them ere they can
bud : thereby approuing thy selfe to be of all other most slacke, beeing in thine owne cause so remisse.
' Colour can there be none found to shadowe thy fainting ; but the longer thou deferst, the more
greefe thou bringst to thy frends, and giuest the greater head to thy enemies.
' What canst thou tell if (as my selfe) thou shalt bee with death preuented ? and then how can it be
but thou diest disgrae'd, seeing thou hast made no reply to their twofold edition of inuectiues ?
• It may bee thou thinkst they will deale well with thee in death, and so thy shame in tollerating
them will be short: forge not to thyself one such conceit, but make me thy president, and remember
this olde adage, Leonem mortuum mordent catuli.
' Awake, secure boy, reuenge thy wrongs ; remember mine : thy aduersaries began the abuse, they
continue it : if thou suffer it, let thy life be short in silence and obscuritie, and thy death hastie, hated,
and miserable.'
" All this had I intended to write ; but now I wil not giue way to wrath, but returne it vnto the
earth from whence I tooke it ; for with happie soules it hath no harbour.
Robert Greene."
Kind-Harts Dreame, &c., n.d., &c. [1592] Sig. E.
The " Bhickc Booke" mentioned in this letter was afterwards published under the title of The
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 71
already given, — see p. 29 (note), p. 33, p. 55 (note), p. 56 (note), p. 57 (note),
p 58, p. 64 (two notes), p. 65 (note), p. G6 (text and note) : a few passages still remain
to be quoted : —
" Why should art answer for the infirmities of manors ? Hee had his faultes, and
thou thy follyes.
" Debt and deadly sinne who is not subiect to 1 With any notorious crime I neuer
knew him tainted." — Sig. E 4.
" What Greene was, let some other answere for him as much as I haue done ; I had
no tuition ouer him ; he might haue writ another Galataeo of manners, for his
manners euerie time I came in his companie ; I saw no such base shifting or
abhominable villanie by him. Something there was which I haue heard, not seene,
that hee had not that regarde to his credite in which [which it] had beene requisite
he should."— Sig. L 4.
In one of his later works Nash observes ;
" What truly might be spoken of Greene I publisht, neither discommending him,
nor too much flattering him (for I was nothing bound to him) ; whereas it maye be
alleadgd against Gabriel, as it was against Paulus Iouius, Quae verissime scribere fotu.it
noluit, & quae voluit non potuit; Those things which hee might haue related truely hee
would not, and those which he would hee could not for want of good intelligence.
How he hath handled Greene and Marloe since their deaths, those that read his
bookes may iudge." — Haue with you to Saffron-Walden, &c, 1596, Sig. V 3.
It is not the part of Greene's biographer to notice the other matters in dispute
between Harvey and Nash, whose contest could be stopped only by an order from,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, that all their "bookes be taken wheresoever they
may be found, and that none of the said bookes be ever printed hereafter." Nash
must undoubtedly be regarded as the victor : he outdid his opponent in vehemency
of invective ; while he tortured him with a caustic irony and a coarse wit, which
some writers may have equalled but which none have surpassed. I shall conclude
this essay with a few extracts from the piece last quoted, Haue with you to Saffron-
Blache Bookes Messenger. Laying open the Life and Death of Ned Browne, &c. : see the List of
Greene's prose- pieces.
In the course of the present memoir the tract called Greene's Fuvralls by R. B., 1594, has been
twice cited (see p. 39, and p. 61, note,). "R. B.", observes Mr. Collier, "was a most devoted admirer of
Greene, as the following lines will show : —
' For judgement Jove, for learning deepe he still Apollo seemde ;
For floent tongue, for eloquence, men Mercury him deemde ;
For curtesie suppose him Guy, or Guyons somewhat le?se.
His life and manners, though I would, I cannot halfe expresse :
Nor mouth, nor mind, nor Muse can halfe declare
His life, his love, his laude, so excellent they were.'
It seems strange that R. B. should touch upon Greene's 'life and manners,' if he deserved the
character for vice and profligacy which his enemy, Gabriel Harvey, gave of him, after Greene was dead
aud could not reply." Hist, of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 147, note.
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
Walden* &c, 1596, his best work, and of great rarity ; and, I imagine, they will be
perused with satisfaction by the reader, who may have felt indignant at Harvey's
spiteful attack on the memory of Greene :
" Mascula virorum, Saint Mildred and Saint Agapite ! more Letters yet from the
Doctor 1 nay, then we shall be sure to haue a whole Grauesend barge full of newes,
and heare soundly of all matters on both eares. Out vppon it, heere's a packet of
epistling as bigge as a packe of woollen cloth or a stack of salt-fish ! ' Carrier, didst
thou bring it by wayne or on horse-backe 1 ' 'By wayne, sir ; and it hath crackt me
three axeltrees, wherefore I hope you will consider me the more.' ' Heauie newes,
heauie newes ! take them againe, I will neuer open them.' ' Ah,' quoth he, deepe
sighing, ' to mee I wot they are the heauiest, whose cart hath cryde creake vnder
them fortie times euerie furlong : wherefore, if you bee a good man, rather make
mud-walls with them, mend high wayes, or damme vp quagmires with them, than
thus they shuld endammage mee to my eternall vndooing.' I, hearing the fellow
so forlorne and out of comfort with his luggage, gaue him his Charons naulum or
ferry-three-half-pence, and so dismist him to go to the place from whence he came,
and play at Lodum. But when I came to vnrip and vnbumbast this Gargantuan
bag-pudding, and found nothing in it but dogs-tripes, swines liuers, oxe galls, and
sheepes gutts, I was in a bitterer chafe than anie cooke at a long sermon when his
meate burnes. Doo the philosophers, said I to myselfe, hold that letters are no
burden and the lightest and easiest houshold stuffe a man can remooue 1 He be
sworne vpon Anthonie Gueuaras Golden Epistles if they will, there's not so much toyle
in remoouing the siedge from a towne as in taking an inuentorie suruay of anie one
of them. Letters doo you terme them 1 they may be Letters Patents well enough
for their tediousnes ; for no lecture at Surgeons Hall vppon an anatomie may
compare with them in longitude. Why, they are longer than the Statutes of
clothing or the Charter of London." — Sig. F. " 0, tis an vnconscionable vast
gorbellied volume, bigger bulkt than a Dutch hoy, and farre more boystrous and
cumbersome than a payre of Swissers omnipotent galeaze breeches
But one epistle thereof to John Wolfe the printer I tooke and weighed in an
ironmongers scales, and it counterpoyseth a cade of herring and three Holland
cheeses. You may beleeue me if you will, I was faine to lift my chamber-doore off
the hindges, oncly to let it in, it was so fulsome a fat bonarobe t and terrible
rounceuall.J Once I thought to haue cald in a cooper that went by and cald for
* Haue vnth you to Sajfron-vjalden. Or, Gabriell Hartleys Hunt is vp. Containing a full
Answerc to the eldest sonne of the Halter-maker. Or, Nashe his Confutation of the sinfull Doctor.
Tlie Mott or Posie, instead of Omne tulit punctum: Paris fiducia nunquam. As much to say, as I
sayd J would spcake with him. Printed at London by John Danler. 1596. 4to.
t bonarobe] i.e. courtezan.
X rounceuall] In Coles's Diet. I find, —
" A rounsie,
A rounsie, "1
A rotmewal, J J
ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 73
worke, and bid him hoope it about like the tree at Grays- Inne gate, for feare it
should burst, it was so beastly ; but then I remembred mee the boyes had whoopt it
sufficiently about the streetes, and so I let it alone for that instant. Credibly it was
once rumord about the court, that the Guard meant to trie masteries with it before
the Queene, and, in stead of throwing the sledge or the hammer, to hurle it foorth at
the amies ende for a wager. I, I, euerie one maye hammer vpon it as they please,
but if they will hit the nayle on the head pat as they should, to nothing so aptly can
they compare it as Africke, which, being an vnbounded stretcht out continent,
equiualent in greatnes with most quarters of the earth, yet neuertheles is (for the
most part) ouer-spred with barraine sands ; so this his Babilonian towre or tome of
confutation, swelling in dimension and magnitude aboue all the prodigious commen-
taries and familiar epistles that euer he wrote, is notwithstanding more drie,
barraine, and sandie in substance than them all. Peruse but the ballet In Sandon
soyle as late befell, and you will be more soundly edified by sixe parts." — Sig. F 2.
Gabriel's mother, when she was with child of him, had certain strange dreams,
" which wel she hoped were but idle swimming fancies of no consequence ; till being
aduisde by a cunning man (her frend, that was verie farre in her books), one time
shee slept in a sheepes skinne all night, to the intent to dreauie true ; another time
vnder a lawrell tree ; a third time on the bare ground starke naked ; and last on a
dead mans tomb or graue-stone in the church in a hot summers afternoone ; when
no barrel better herring, she sped euen as she did before. For first shee dreamed
her wombe was turned to such another hollow vessell, full of disquiet fiends, as
Salomons brazen bowle, wherein were shut so manie thousands of diuels ; which,
deepe hidden vnder ground, long after the Babilonians, digging for mettais,
chaunced to light vpon, and mistaking it for treasure, brake it ope verie greedily ;
when, as out of Pandoras boxe of maladyes, which Epimetheus opened, all manner of
euills flewe into the world, so all manner of deuills then broke loose amongst humane
kinde. Therein her drowsie diuination not much deceiu'd her ; for neuer wer
Empedocles deuils so tost from the aire into the sea, and from the sea to the earth,
and from the earth to the aire againe, exhaled by the sunne, or driu'n vp by windes
and tempests, as his discontented pouertie (more disquiet than the Irish seas) hath
driu'n him from one profession to another." — Sig. K. " The second dreame his
mother had, was that shee was deliuerd of a caliuer or hand-gun, which in the
discharging burst. I pray God (with all my heart) that this caliuer or caualier of
poetrie, this hand-gun or elder-gun that shoots nothing but pellets of chewd paper,
in the discharging burst not. A third time in her sleep she apprehended and
imagined that out of her belly there grew a rare garden-bed, ouer-run with
garish weedes innumerable, which had onely one slip in it of herb of grace,
not budding at the toppe neither, but like the floure narcissus, hauing
flowres onely at the roote ; whereby she augur'd and coniectur'd, how euer hee
made some shew of grace in his youth, when he came to the top or heighth of his
I
74 ACCOUNT OF R. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS.
best proofe he would bee found a barrain stalk without frute. At the same time,
ouer and aboue, shee thought that, in stead of a boye, which she desired, she was
deliuerd and brought to bed of one of these kistrell birds called a wind-sucker." —
Skr. K 2. " In the verie moment of his birth, there was a calfe borne in the same
towne with a dubble tongue, and hauing eares farre longer than anie asse, and his
feete turned backward like certaine people of the Tartars, that neuertheles are reason-
able swift. In the houre of his birth there was a most darksome eclipse, as though
hel and heauen about a consultation of an eternall league had met together." — Ibid.
In a ludicrous " Letter of Harueys tutor to his father, as touching his manners
and behauiour," we are told ; " Secondly, he is beyond all reason or Gods forbod
distractedly enamourd of his own beautie, spending a whole forenoone euerie day in
spunging and licking himselfe by the glasse ; and vseth euerie night after supper
to walke on the market-hill to shew himselfe, holding his gown vp to his middle,
that the wenches may see what a fine leg and a dainty foote he hath in pumpes
and pantofles ; and if they giue him neuer so little an amorous regard, he presently
boords them with a set speach of the first gathering together of societies and the
distinction of amor and amicitia out of Tullies Offices ; which if it work no effect
and they laugh at, he will rather take a raison of the sunne and weare it at his eare
for a fauor, than it should bee said hee would goe away emptie. Thirdly, he is verie
seditious and mutinous in conuersation, picking quarrells with euerie man that will
not magnifie and applaud him, libelling most execrably and inhumanely on Iacke of
the Falcon, for that he would not lend him a messe of mustard to his red herrings :
yea, for a lesser matter than that, on the colledge dog he libeld, onely because he
proudly bare vp his taile as hee past by him. And fourthly and lastly, he vseth
often to be drunk with the sirrupe or broth of stewd prunes, and eateth more bread,
vnder pretence of swearing by it, than would seme a whole band in the Low Coun-
ti-ies." — Sig. L. Now for a picture of Gabriel at a later period of his life. " That
word complexion is dropt foorth in good time ; for to describe to you his complexion
and composition, entred I into this tale by the way, or tale I found in my way
riding vp to London. It is of an adust swarth chollericke dye, like restie bacon or a
dride scate-fish ; so leane and so meagre that you wold thinke (like the Turks) he
obseru'd 4. Lents in a yere, or take him for the gentlemans man in The Courtier, who
was so thin-cheekd and gaunt and staru'd, that, as he was blowing the fire with his
mouth, the smoke tooke him vp like a light strawe, and carried him to the top or
funnel] of the chimney, wher he had flowne out God knowes whether if there had
not bin crosse barres oucr-whart that stayde him; his skin riddled and crumpled like
a peice of burnt parchment ; and more channels and creases he hath in his face
than there be fairie circles on Salsburie Plaine, and wrinckles and frets of old age
than characters on Christs Scpulchcr in Mount Caluarie, on which euerie one that
comes scrapes his name and sets his marke, to shewe that hee hath been there : so
that whosoeutT shall behold him
ACCOUNT OF II. GREENE AND HIS WRITINGS. 75
Esse putet Bovece triste furentis opus,
will swearo on a booke I haue brought him lowe and shrowdly broken him : which
more to confinne, look on his head, and you shall finde a gray haire for euerie line I
haue writ against him ; and you shall haue all his beard white, too, by that time hee
hath read ouer this booke. For his stature, he is such another pretie Iacke a Lent
as boyes throw at in the streete, and lookes, in his blacke sute of veluet, like one of
these ieatdroppes which diuers weare at their eai'es in stead of a iewell. A smudge
peice of a handsome fellow it hath beene in his dayes ; but now he is olde and past
his best, and fit for nothing but to be a noblemans porter, or a Knight of Windsor ;
cares haue so crazed him, and disgraces to the verie bones consumed him, amongst
which hys missing of the Vniuersitie Oratorship, wherein Doctor Perne besteaded
him, wrought not the lightliest with him : and if none of them were, his course of
life is such as would make anie man looke ill on it ; for he wil endure more hardnes
than a camell, who in the burning sands will hue foure dayes without water, and
feeds on nothing but thistles and wormewood and such lyke ; no more doth he
feed on anie thing, when he is at Saffron-Walden, but trotters, sheepes porknells, and
butterd rootes ; and other-while in an hexameter meditation, or when hee is inuenting
a new part of TulJy, or hatching such another paradoxe as that of Nicholaus
Copernicus was, who held that the sun remains immoueable in the center of the
world and that the earth is moou'd about the sunne, he would be so rapt that hee
would remaine three dayes and neither eate nor drinke, and within doores he will
keepe seauen yeare together, and come not abroad so much as to church. The like
for seauen and thirtie weekes space together he did, while he lay at Wolfes, coppying
against mee, neuer stirring out of dores or being churched all that while, but like
those in the West Country, that, after the Paulin hath cald them or they haue seene
a spirit, keep themselues darke 24. howres ; so after I had plaid the spirit in banting
him in my 4. Letters Confuted, he could by no means endure the light, nor durst
venter himself abroad in the open aire for many months after, for feare he should be
fresh blasted by all mens scorne and derision." — Sig. 4.
Nash was dead in 1601.* Harvey is supposed to have lived till 1G30.
LIST OF GREENE'S PROSE-WORKS.
[In the following list I give the fall title of the earliest edition of each piece which I have
happened to meet with, adding the dates of all the other editions known to exist]
Mamillia. A Mirrour or looking glasse for the Ladies of Englande. Wlierein is deciphered, howe
Gentlemen vnder the perfect substaunce of pure loue, are oft inueigled with the skadowe of lewde lust :
and their ftrme faith, brought a sleepe by fading fancie : vntil wit ioyned with wisedome, doth awake it
by the helpe of reason. By Robert Greene Graduate in Cambridge. Imprinted at London for Thomas
Woodcocke. 1583. Uo.
Mr. Collier very hastily supposes that the date on the title-page of this tract is a " mistake" for
" 1593" : see the preceding niernoir, p. 25, note.
The Myrrovr of Modestie, wherein appeareth as in a perfect Glasse howe the Lorde deliuereth the
innocent from all imminent perils, and plagueth the bloudthirstie hypocrites uith deserued punishments.
Shewing that the graie heades of dooting adulterers shall not go with peace into the graue, neither shall
the righteous be forsaken in the daie of trouble. By R. G. Maister of Artes. Imprinted at London by
Roger Warde, dwelling at the signe of the Talbot neere vnto Holbume Conduit. 1584. 12mo.
Morando The Tritameron of Loue. Wherein certaine pleasaunt conceites, vttered by diners woorthy
personages, are perfectly dyscoursed, and three doubtful! questyons of Loue, most pitheley and pleasauntly
discussed: Shewing to the wyse howe to vse Loue, and to the fondc, howe to eschew Lust : and yeelding to^
all both pleasure and profit. By Robert Greene, Maister of Artes in Cambridge. At London Printed
for Edwarde White, and are to be solde at his Shoppe, at the little North doore of S. Paules Church, at
the signe of the Gunne. 1584. 4to.
Reprinted 1587, a Second Part being then added to it, with the following title-page, —
The Second Part of the Tritameron of Loue. Wherein is set forth a dclightfull discouerie of Fortune
and Friendship, newly adioyned. By Robert Greene, Maister of Artes in Cambridge. London Printed
by Iohn Wolfe for Edward White, and are to be sold at his shop, at the title North doore of Paules, at the
signe of the Gunne. 1587. ito.
Gwydonivs. The Carde of Fancie. Wlierein the Folly of those Carpet Knights is decyphered, which
guyding their course by the compasse of Cupid, either dash their ship against most daungerous Rocks, or
eh attaine the, hauen with paine and perill. Wherein also is described in the person of Gwydonius a
cruell Combat betweene Nature and necessitie. By Robert Greene, Master of Arte, in Cambridge. At
London Imprinted for William Ponsonby. 1584. 4 to.
Appended to it is The Debate betweene Follie and Loue, translated out of French by Robert Greene
Master of A rtes.
Reprinted 1587, 1593, 1608.
LIST OF GREENE'S PROSE WORKS.
Planetomachia : or the first parte of the gencrall opposition of the seuen Planets : wherein is Astrono-
mically described their essence, nature, and influence: diuersly discouering in their plcasaunt and
Tragicall histories, the inward affections of the mindes, and painting them out in such perfect Colours, as
youth may perceiut what fond fancies their flourishing yeares doe foster : and age clerely see what doling
desires their withered heares doe affoorde. Conteyning also a brief e Apologie of the sacred and misticall
Science of Astronomie : By Robert Greene, Master of Arts and student in Phisicke. 1585. Imprinted at
London for Thomas Cadman, dwelling at the great North doore of S. Paules, at the signe of the Byble.
1585. 4 to.
Translation of a funeral sermon by Pope Gregory XIII. 1585.
This piece I have never seen.
Menaphon. Camillas alarum to slumbering Euphues, in his melancholic Cell at Silexedra. Wherein
are deciphered the variable effects of Fortune, the wonders of Loue, the triumphes of inconstant Time.
Displaying in sundrie conceipted passions (figured i)i a continuate Historie) the Trophees that Vertue
carrieth triumphant, maugre the wrath of Enuie, or the resolution of Fortune. A worke worthie the
youngest ear es for pleasure, or the grauest censures for principles. Robertus Greene in Artibus magister.
Oinne tulit punctum. London Printed by T. 0. for Sampson Clarke, and are to be sold behinde the
Royall Exchange. 1589. 4 to.
First printed 1587: reprinted 1599, 1605, 1610, 1616, 1634, and in Archaica, vol. i.
Euphues his censure to Philautus, wherein is presented a philosophieall combat betweene Hector and
Achylles, discouering in foure discourses, interlaced with diuerse deligfitfull Tragedies, the vertues neces-
sary to be incident in euery gentleman : had in question at the siege of Troy bctirixt sondry Grecian and
Troian Lords : especially debated to discouer the perfection of a Soiddier. Containing mirth to purge
melancholy, holsome precepts to profit maners, neither vnsauerie to youth for delight, nor offensiue to age
fur scurilitie. Ea habentur optima quce & Iucunda, honesta, & utilia. Robertus Greene, In artibus
magister. London. Printed by Ihon Wolfe for Edward White, and are to bee sold at his shop), at the
litle North doore of Paules, at the signe of the Gunne. 1587- 4to.
Reprinted 1634.
Perimedes the Blacke-Smith, A golden methode, how to rse the minde in pleasant and profitable
exercise: Wherein is contained speciall principles fit for the highest to imitate, and the meanest to put in
practise, hoie best to spend the wearie winters nights, or the longest summers Euenings, in honest and
delightfull recreation : Wherein we may learne to auoide idlenesse and wanton scwrrilitie, ichich diuers
appoint as the end of their pastimes. Heerein are interlaced three merrie and necessarie discourses fit for
our time: \vith certaine pleasant Histories and tragicall tales, which may breed delight to all, and offence
to none. Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit vtile dulci. London Pi'inted by John Wolfe, for Edward
]Vhite. 1588. 4to.
Pandosto. The Triumph of Time. Wherein is discouered by a pleasant Historie, that although by
the meanes of sinister fortune Truth may be concealed, yet by Time in spight of fortune it is most
manifestly reuealcd. Pleasant for age to auoyde drowsie thoughtes, profitable for youth to eschue other
wanton pastimes, and bringing to both a desired content. Temporis filia Veritas. By Robert Greene
Maister of Aries in Cambridge. Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit vtile dulci. Imprinted at London by
Thomas Oririn for Thomas Cadman, dwelling at the Signe of the Bible, neere vnto the North doore of
Paules. 1588. 4to.
The running title is The Hystorie of Dorastus and Fawnia, which was transferred to the title-page
of most of the subsequent editions. Reprinted 1607, 1609, 1614, 1629, 1632, 1636, 1655, 1664,
1675, 1694, 1703, 1723, 1735.
78 LIST OF GREENE'S PROSE WORKS.
Mr. Collier suspects that there was an earlier edition of Pandosto than any yet discovered : see
his Introd. to that novel, p. ii., — Shakespeare's Library.
The Spanish Masquerado. Wherein under a pleasant deuise, is discouered effectuallie, in certaine
breefe sentences and Mottos, the pride and insolencie of the Spanish estate : with the disgrace conceiued
by their losse, and the dismaied confusion of their troubled thoughtes. Whereunto by the Author, for the
better vnderstanding of his deuice, is added a breefe glosse. By Robert Greene, in Artibus Magister,
Twelve Articles of the state of Spaine.
The Cardinals sollicite all.
The King grauntes all.
The Nobles confirme all.
The Pope determines all.
The Cleargie disposeth all.
The Duke of Medina hopes for all.
Alonso receiues all.
The Indians minister all.
The Sou'diours eat all.
The people paie all.
The Monkes and Friers consum all.
And the deuill at length wil cary away all.
Printed at London by Roger Ward, for Tliomas Cadman. 1589. 4to.
Ciceronis Amor. Tullies Loue. Wherein is discoursed the prime of Ciceroes youth, setting out in
liuely portratures, how young Gentlemen that aime at honour, should leuell the end of their affections,
holding the loue of countrie and friends in more esteeme then those f aiding blossomes of beauty , that onely
feede the curious suruey of the eye. A worke full of pleasure as following Ciceroes vaine, who was as
conceipted in his youth, as graue in his age, profitable, as containing precepts worthy so famous an
orator. Robert Greene in Artibus magister. Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit vtile dulci. At London.
Printed by Robert Robinson, for John Busbie. 1597. 4to.
First printed 1589 : reprinted 1592, 1601, 1609, 1611, 1615, 1616, 1628, 1639.
The Royall Exchange. Contayning sundry Aphoiisms of Philosophic, and golden Principles of
morrall and naturall Qiuidruplicities. Under pleasant and effectuall Sentences, discouering such
strange definitions, divissions, and distinctions of Vertue and Vice, as may please the grauest Citizens or
youngest Courtiers. First written in Italian, and dedicated to the Signorie of Venice, now translated
into English, and offered to the Citie of London. Robert Greene in Artibus Magister. 1590. 4to.
Of this piece, which I have never seen, I give the title from Beloe's Anecdotes of Lit. vol. ii.
p. 171. A writer in The Shakespeare Society's Papers, vol. ii. p. 128, states that " it is a mere prose
translation from the Italian."
Greenes Neuer too late. Or, a Powder of Experience : sent to all youthfull Gentlemen; to roote out
the infectious follies, that ouer-rcaching conceits foster in the spring time of their youth. Decyphering in
a true English historic, those particular vanities, that with their frostie vapours nip the blossoms of euery
ripe braine, from atteineng to his intended, perfection. As pleasant, as profitable, being a right pumice
stone, apt t<> rare out idlenr.i.ic with delight, mill follie vifh admonition. Rob. Greene in artibus
Magister. Omne tulit punctum. London Printed by Thomas Orwin for N. L. and John Busbie. 1590.
Francescos Fortunes: Or the second part of Greenes Neuer too late. Wherein is discoursed the fall of
Lone, the bitter fruit es e,f hollies pin/sure, and the repentant sorrows of a reformed man. Sero, sed
serio. Robertus Greene m Artibus Magister. Imprinted at London for N. L. and John Busbie. 1590.
4to.
Reprinted 1600, 1607, 1616, 1631, 3nd n. d.
LIST OF GREENE'S PROSE WORKS. 79
Greenes Mourning Garment : given him by Repentance at the Funerals of Love ; which he presents
for a favour to all young Gentlemen, that wish to wcane themselues from wanton desires. Both Pleasant
and Profitable. By R. Greene. Utriusque Academic in Artibus Magister. Sero sed serio. London,
Printed by George Purslowc, dwelling at the East end of Chritts Church. 1016. 4 to.
First printed 1590.
Greenes fareicell to Folly. Sent to Covrtiers and Schollers, as a president to warne them from the
vainc delights, that drawes youth on to repentance. Sero sed serio. Robert Greene, Vtriusque Academias
in Artibus magister. Imprinted at London by Thomas Scarlet for T. Gubbin and T. Newman. 1591.
4to.
Reprinted 1617.
A Notable Discouery of Coosnage. Now daily practised by sundry lewd persons, called Connie-
catchers, and Crosse-biters. Plainely laying open those pernitious sleights that hath brought many
ignorant men to confusion. Written for the general benefit of all Gentlemen, Citizens, Aprentises,
Countrey Farmers and yeomen, that may hap to fall into the company of such coosening companions.
With a delight full discourse of the coosnage of Colliers. Nascimur pro patria. By R. Greene, Maister
of Arts. London Printed by John Wolfe for T. N. and are to be sold ouer against the great South doore
of Paules. 1591. 4to.
Reprinted 1592.
The Second and last part of Conny-catching. With new additions containing many merry tales of
all lawes worth the reading, because they are ivorthy to be remembred. Discoursing strange cunning in
Coosnage, which if you reade without laughing, He giue you my cap for a Noble. Mallem non esse quam
non prodesse patriae. R. G.London. Printed by John Wolfe for William Wright. 1592. 4to.
First printed 1591, and (as a bookseller's catalogue informs me) with a title-page very different
from that of ed. 1592.
The Third and last part of Connycatching. With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taling. The
like coosonages and Villanies neuer before discouered. By R. G. Printed by T. Scarlet for C. Burby
and are to be solde at his shop under S. Mildreds Church in the Poultrie. 1592. 4to.
A Disputation Behceene a Hee Conny-catcher, and a Shee Conny-catcher, whether a Theafe or a
Whnore is most hurt full in Cousonage, to the Common-wealth. Discouering the Secret Villanies of
alluring Strumpets. With the Conuersion of an English Courtizen, reformed this present yeare, 1592.
Read, laugh, and learne. Nascimur pro patria. R. G. Imprinted at London, by A. I. for T. G. and
are to be solde at the West endc of Paules. 1592. 4to.
A Qrip for an Vpsfart Courtier: Or, A quaint dispute behceen Veluet-brecches and Cloth-breeches.
Wherein is plainely set downe the disorders in all Estates and 7'rades. London Imprinted by Iohn
Wolfe, and are to bee sold at his shop at Poules chayne, 1592. 4to.
Reprinted 1606, 1615, 1620, 1625, 1635, and in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. t.
Philomela, The Lady Fitzicaters Nightingale. By Robert Greene, Vtriusque Academia in Artibus
Magister. Sero sed serio. London, Imprinted by George Pursloice. 1615. 4to.
First printed 1592 : reprinted 1631, n. d., and in Archaica, vol. i.
The Blache Bookes Messenger. Laying open the Life and Death of Ned Browne one of the most
notable Cutpurses, Crosbiters, and Conny catchers, that euer liued in England. Heerein hee tell verie
, =_
80 LtST OF GREENES PROSE WORKS.
pleasantly in his owne person such strange prancks and monstrous villanies by him and his Consortes
performed, as the like was yet neuer heard of in any of the former bookes of Conny-catching. Read and
be warnd, Laugh as you like, Iudge as you find. Nascimur pro Patria. By R. G. Printed at London
by Lohn Danter, for Thomas Nelson dwelling in Siluer streete, neere to the signe of the Red Crosse.
1592. 4to.
Greenes Groatsuvrth of Witte : bovght with a million of Repentance : Describing the Folly of Youth,
the falshood of Makeshift Flatterers, the miserie of the negligent, and mischief es of deceyuing Curtezans.
Published at his dying request, and, newly corrected, and of many errors purged. Felicem, fuisse
infaustum. London , Printed by Barnard Alsop,for Henry Bell, and are to be sold at his shop without
Bishopsgate. 1617. 4 to.
First printed 1592 : reprinted 1596, 1600, 1616, 1620, 1621, 1629, 1637, n. d., and at the Lee
Priory Press 1813.
The Repentance of Robert Greene Maister of Aries. Wherein by himself e is laid open his loose life,
with the manner of his death. At London, Printed for Cuthbert Barbie, and are to be sold at the middle
shop in the Poultry, vnder Saint Mildreds Church. 1592. 4to.
Concerning this tract see the preceding memoir, p. 2, note.
Greenes Vision: Written at the instant of his death. Conteyning a penitent passion for the folly of
his Pen. sero sed serio. Imprinted at London for Tliomas Newman, and are to be sould at his shop in
Fleetestreete, in Saint Dunstons Churchyard, n. d. 4to.
My acquaintance with Greenes Vision is confined to the description of it and the extracts from
it in Mr. Collier's Introd. to our author's Pandosto, — Shakespeare's Library, and in his Farther Parti'
culars regarding Shakespeare and his Works, p. 35. Though, as Mr. Collier remarks, Greene '' could
have had nothing to do with the title-page," this tract would seem to be a enuine production, and
was most probably printed towards the close of the year 1592.
Mamillia. The second part of the triumph of Pallas : wherein with perpetual fame the constancie of
Gentlewomen is canonised, and the vniust blasphemies of womens supposed ficklenesse (breathed out by
diuerse iniurious persons) by manifest examples clearely infringed. By Robert Greene Maister of Arts,
in Cambridge. London Printed by Th. C. for William Ponsonbie. 1593. 4to.
The First Part of Mamillia, 1583, heads the present list.
Greenes Ncwes both from LTeauen and Hell, prohibited, the first for writing of Bookes, and banished
out of the. last for displaying of Connycatchers. Commended to the Presse by B. R. [Barnaby Rich ?].
Printed Anno Domini 1593. 4to.
This piece I have never seen.
Greenes Orpharion. Wherein is discovered a musicall Concorde of pleasant Histories, many sweet
mo'xles graced with such harmonius discords, as agreeing in a delightfull closse, they sound both pleasure
and profit to the eare. Hecrein also as in a LHateheron, the branches of Vertue, ascending and descend-
ing by degrees : are cor ni ted in the glorious praise of a omen-kind. With diuers Tragicall and Comicall
Histories presented by Orpheus and Avion, heeing us full of profit as of pleasure. Omne tulit punctum,
qui miscuit rtile dnlci. Robcrtus Greene, in Ariibus Magistcr. At London, Printed for Edward White
dwelling ai (he little North doore oj S. Panics Church : at the signc of the Gun. 1599. 4to.
There munt have been an earlier edition of the Orpharion; see the Quotation from Greene's
Funeralls, 1594, in p. 39, note, of the precediug memoir.
LIST OF GREENE'S PROSE WORKS. 81
Penelopes Web. Where, in [Wherein] a Christall Mirror of feminine perfection represents to the
view (if cuery one those vertices and graces, which more curiously beautifies the mind of women, then
eyther sumptuous Appardl, or Icwils of inestimable value : the one buying fame with honour, the other
breeding a hinde of delight, but with repentance. In three seucrall discourses also are three spcciaU
vertues, necessary to be incident in eucry vcrtuous woman, pithely discussed: namely Obedience, Chas-
tity, and Sylence : Interlaced with three seucrall and Comieull Histories. By Robert Greene Master of
Artcs in Cambridge. Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit vtile dulci. London, Printed for Iohn Hodgets,
and are to be soldo at his s/wp at the Flowerdcluce in Fleelestreete, necre to Fetter Lane end. 1601. 4to.
Tlneues Falling out, True-men come by their Goods ; or, the Belman wanted a Clapper. A Peale of
new Villanies rung out : The sound being Musicall to all Gentlemen, Lawyers, Farmers, and all sorts of
people that come vp to the Tear me : Shewing that the Villanies of lewd Women, excell those of men. By
Robert Greene. Goe not by mee, but Buy mee ; and get by mee. Imprinted at London for Henry Bell,
and are to be sold at his shop without Bishopsgate. 1G17. 4to.
First printed 1615 : reprinted 1637, and in the Ilarlcian Miscellany, vol. viii.
Tfic Historic of Arbasto King of Denmarlce. Describing the Anatomy of Fortune, in his hue to faire
Doralicia. Wherein Gentlemen may find pleasant conceits to purge melancholy , and pjerfect counsell to
prcuent misfortune. By Robert Greene Master of Art. Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit vtile dulci.
Whereunto is added a lonely Poem of Pyramus and Thisbe. London, Printed for Fra : Williams, and
are to bee sold at the signe of the Globe ouer against the Exchange in Comehill. 1626. 4to.
Bibliographers mention an edition dated 1617: but there must have been a much earlier one;
see the quotatiou from Greene's Funeralls, 1594, in p. 39, note, of the preceding memoir.
The " louely Poem of Pyramus and Thisbe " is not the production of Greene, but of Dunstan
Gale : I have seen more than one copy of Arbasto to which it was not appended, though the title-
page announced that it was.
Alcida Greenes Metamorphosis, Wherein is discovered a pleasant transformation of bodies into
sundrie shapes, shewing that as vertues bcautifte the mind, so vanities giue greater staines than the perfec-
tion of any quality can rase out: the Discourse confirmed with diuerse merry and delight full Histories ;
full ofgraue Principles to content Age, and sawsed with pleasant parties, and witty answeres, to satisfie
youth : profitable for both, and not offensiue to any. By R. G. Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit vtile
dulci. London, Printed by George Purslowe. 1617. 4to.
There must have been a much earlier edition of this tract ; see the cmotation from Greene's
Funeralls, 1594, in p. 39, note, of the preceding memoir.
The following tracts have been ascribed to Greene, and, with the exception of the first, incon-
siderately.
Exhortation and fruitful Admonition to vertuous Parentes, and modest Mairones, to the bringing up
of their Children in godly education and household discipline. By R. G. Printed for Nich. Lin ye,
15S4, 8vo.
The title of this piece is cited, from "Andrew Maunsell's Catalogue, 1595," by Mr. Collier, Hist,
of Engl. Dram. Poet. hi. 149, note.
The Groundworke of Conny-catching ; the manner of their Pollers- French, and the meanex to "under-
stand the same, nith the cunning slights of the Counterfeit Cranke. Therein are handled the practises of
the Visiter, the fetches of the Shifter ami Rufflar, the deceits of their Doxes, the deuisea of Priggers, the
names of the base loytering Loscls, a)id the meancs of euery Blackc- Art -man's shifts, with the reproofe of
82 LIST OF GREENE'S PROSE WORKS.
all their diuellish practises. Done by a Justice of Peace of great authorise, who hath had the examining
of diners of them. Printed at London by John Danter for William Barley, and are to be sold at his
shop at the vpper end of Gratious strecte, ouer against Leaden-hall. 1592. 4to.
Little more than a reprint of Harman's Caveat for Common Cursitors.
Greenes Funeralls. By R. B. Gent. Printed at London by Iohn Danter, and are to be sold at his
House in Hosier-lane nere Holboume-Conduit. 1594. 4to.
See p. 39, note, of the preceding memoir. (Since I published my first edition of Greene's Works,
Mr. Collier has expressed his opinion that this tract " is certainly unworthy of Barnefield's pen."
Hist, of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 147, note.)
Greene in conceipt. New raised from his graue to write the Tragique Historic of f aire Valeria of
London. Wherein is Truly Discouered the rare and lamentable issue of a Husbands dotage, a wiues
leudnesse and childrens disobedience. Receiuied and reported by I. D. [Iohn Dickenson] Veritas non
qucerit angulos, umbra gaudet. Printed at London by Richard Bradocke for William Iones, dwelling
at the signe of the Gunne neare Holborne conduit. 1598. 4to.
Greenes Ghost Havnting Conic-catchers. Wherein is set downe,
The Arte of Humouring.
The Arte of carrying Stones.
Will. St. Lift.
la. Post. Law.
Ned. Bro. Catch, and
Blacke Robins Kindnesse.
With the conceits of Doctoi' Pinch-backe a notable Makeshift. Ten times more pleasant then any thing
yet published of this matter. Non ad imitandum, sed ad eidtandum. London, Printed for R. Jackson,
and I. North, and are to be sold in Fleetstreele a little aboue the Conduit. 1602. 4to.
Keprinted 1606, 1626.
The Epistle to this piece is signed with the initials of the author, S. R. [Samuel Rowlands?]
ilihil Mumchance, His Discouerie of the Art of Cheating in false Dyce play, and other vnlawfull
games: With a Discourse of the Figging Craft : And also of diuers new deuises of Cosenages practised
commonly at Fayers and Markets : With many deceitfull practises vsed by bad and lewd Women. Neuer
before Published.
The names of false Dyce.
1. A bale of bard sincke Dewces.
2. A bale of flat sincke Dewces.
3. A bale of flat sice Aces.
4. A bale of bard sice Aces.
5. A bale of bard Cater Treas.
6. A bale of flat Cater Treas.
7. A bale of Fullams of the best making.
8. A bale of light Grauiers.
9. A bale of Langrets contrary to the vantage.
10. A bale of Gordes with as many high men as low men for Passage.
11. A bale of Demies.
12. A bale of long Dyce for euen and odde.
13. A bale of Ilristds.
14. A bale of direct contraries.
Printed at London by John Danter : and arc to bee sold by William Iones dwelling at the signe of the
Gunne, neere Ilolburnc Com/nit. a. d. 4to.
LIST OF GREENE'S PROSE WORKS. 83
A Poets Vision and a Princes Glorie. 1603. 4to.
Written by Greene, the actor.
A Paire of Trrtle Doves: or, the Tragicall History of Bellora and Fidclio. Seconded with the
Tragicall end of Agamio, wherein (besides other matters pleasing to the Reader) by way of dispute
betieeene a Knight and a Lady, is described this ncuer before debated question, To wit : Whether man to
woman, or woman to man offer the greatest temptations and allurements vnto vnbridled lust, and conse-
quently whether man or woman in that vnlaufull act, be the greater offender. A historie pleasant,
delightfull and witty, fit of all to be perused for their better instruction, but especiall of youth to be
regarded, to bridle their follies. Printed for Francis Burton, and are to be sold at his shop in Faults-
church-yard, at t/ie signe of the Flo wer-de- Luce and Crowne. 1606. 4to.
Attributed to Greene merely on account of the resemblance it bears to his writingi.
The Art of Jugling or Legerdemain, by S. R. 1612. 4to.
Questions concerning Conic-hood and the nature oj the Conic, u. d. 4to.
a 5
The Hittorie of Orlando Furioso, one of the tadue Pieres of France. As it vat plaid before the Queenct Maiestie.
London, Printed by John Danter for Cuthbert Burble, and are to be sold at his shop nere the Royall Exchange. 1594. 4to.
The HUtorit of Orlando Fvrioso, one of the Twelve Peeres of France. As it was playd before the Queenes Maiestie.
Imprinted at London by Simon Stafford, for Cuthbert Surby : And are to be told at his shop neere the Royall Exchange.
1599. 4to.
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
Marsilius, Emperor of Africa
SOLDAN OF EGYPT.
Rodomont, King of Cuba.
Mandricard, King of Mexico.
Braxdimart, King of the Isles.
Sacripant.
Orlando.
Ogier.
Nam us.
Oliver.
Turpin.
Duke of Aquitain.
Rossllion.
Medor.
Orgalio, page to Orlando.
Sacripant's man.
Tom.
Ralph.
Fiddler.
Several of the Twelve Peers of France, whose names
are not given. Clowns, Attendants, &c.
Angelica, daughter to Marsilius.
Melissa, an enchantress.
Satyrs.
THE HISTORY OF ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Enter Marsilius and Angelica ; the Solpan, Bodomont,
Mandricard, Brandimart, Orlando, Sacripant
and his Man, with others.
Mars. Victorious princes, summon'd to appear
Within the continent of Africa ;
From seven-fold Nilus to Taprobany,
Where fair Apollo darting forth his light
Plays on the seas ;
From Gades' islands, where stout Hercules
Emblaz'd his trophies on two posts of brass,
To Tanais, whose swift-declining floods*
Environ rich Europa to the north ;
All fetch'd
From out your courts by beauty to this coast,
To seek and sue for fair Angelica ;
Sith none but one must have this happy prize,
At which you all have levell'd long your
thoughts,
Set each man forth his passions how be can,
And let her censure t make the happiest man.
Sold. The fairest flower that glories Africa,
Whose beauty Phoebus dares not dash with
showers,
Over whose climate never hung a cloud,
But smiling Titan lights the horizon, —
Egypt is mine, and there I hold my state,
Seated in Cairo J and in Babylon.
From thence the matchless § beauty of Angelica,
Whose hue['s] as bright as are those silver doves
That wanton Venus mann'th || upon her fist,
* floods] Qy. "flood " 1 But afterwards (p. 90. first col.)
we have the " streams " of the Danube,
t censure] i. e. judgment.
J Cairo] The 4tos. "Cairye."
§ matchless] Qy. dele this word? But the text is
wretchedly corrupt throughout.
|| mann'th] So the 4tos. ("manth"; to show that the
word, for the sake of the m* tre, was to be pronounced
as one syllable). To man is a term of falconry, and means
to make tractable : so Shakespeare ;
" Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come, and know her keeper's call."
The Taming of the Shreic, act iv. sc. 1.
Forc'd me to cross and cut th' Atlantic seas,
To oversearch the fearful ocean,
Where I arriv'd t' eternize with my lance
The matchless beauty of fair * Angelica ;
Nor tilt, nor tourney, but my spear and shield
Resounding on their crests and sturdy helms,
Topt high with plumes, like Mars his burgonet,
Enchasing on their curats f with my blade,
That none so fair as fair Angelica.
But leaviug these such glories as they be,
I love, my lord ; let that suffice for me.
Rod. Cuba my seat, a region so enrich'd
With favours sparkling from the smiling heavens,
As those that seek for traffic to my coast
Account it J like that wealthy Paradise
From whence floweth Gihon and swift Euphrates § :
The earth within her bowels hath euwrapt,
As in the massy storehouse of the world,
Millions of gold, as bright as was the shower
That wanton Jove 6ent down to Danae.
Marching from thence to manage arms abroad,
I pass'd the triple-parted regiment ||
That froward Saturn gave unto his sons,
Erecting statues 1 of my chivalry,
Such and so brave as never Hercules
Vow'd for the love of lovely Iole.
But leaving these such glories as they be,
I love, my lord ; let that suffice for me.
Mand. And I, my lord, am Mandricard of
Mexico,
Whose climate['s] fairer than Iberia's,**
* fair] The same line occurs presently in the first
speech of Orlando, but without this epithet, which
seems to be an interpolation.
f curats] i. e. cuirasses.
X Account it] The 4tos. "Accounted."
§ Euphratrs] Our early poets generally chose to make
the second syllable of this word short.
|| regiment] i. e. domini n.
It statues] The 4to. of 1590 " Statutes. "
** Iberia's] The 4tos. "Tyberius."
90
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Seated beyond the sea of Tripoly,
And richer than the plot Hesperides,*
Or that same isle wherein Ulyssea' love
Lull'd in her lap the young Telegonus ; f
That did but Venus tread a dainty step,:}:
So would she like the land of Mexico,
As, Paphos and brave Cyprus set aside,
With me sweet lovely Venus would abide.
From thence, mounted upon a Spanish bark,
Such as transported Jason to the fleece,
Come from the south, I furrow'd Neptune's seas,
Northeast as far § as is the frozen Rhene;
Leaving fair Voya, cross'd up Danuby,
As high as Saba, whose enhancing streams
Cut 'twixt the Tartars and the Russians :
There did I act as many brave attempts,
As did Pirithous for his Proserpine.
But leaving these such glories as they be,
I love, my lord ; let that suffice for me.
Brand. Thebordering islands, seated here in ken,
Whose shores are sprinkled with rich orient pearl,
More bright of hue than were the margarites
That Csesar found in wealthy Albion ; ||
The sands of Tagus all of burnish'd gold
Made Thetis never prouder on the clifts If
* the plot Hesperides] Most of our old writers, strangely
enough, use Hesperides as the name of a place. So
Shakespeare ;
" Still climbing trees iu the Hesperides."
Love's Labour's Lost, act iv. sc. 3.
Aud Greene again in another play ;
" Whereon the fearful dragon held his seat
That watch'd the garden call'd Hesperides."
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay.
Nay, even the very learned and very pedantic Gabriel
Harvey has ; " the watchfull and dreadful dragon,
which kept the goodly golden apples, in the Occideutall
Islands of the Ocean, called Hesperides, one of the re-
nowned prizes of d.oity Hercules, was a West Indian
asse, &c," — Pierce's Sttpererogotion, &c, 1593, p. 167.
t Telegonus] The 4tos. "Tel. gone."
t That did but Verms tread a dainty step] This line —
before which something has certainly dropt out— appears
to be corrupted.
§ Northeast as far, die] These four lines, with slight
variations, occur towards tho end of Pecle's Old Wives
Tale;
" For thy sweet sake I have cross'd the frozen, Rhine ;
Leaving fair Po, I sail'd up Danuby,
As far as Saba, whose enhancing streams
Cut twixl the Tartars and the Russians."
Whether Peclo borrowed from Greene, or vice versd, it is
impossible to ascertain.
|| More bright of hue than were the margarites
That Caesar found in wealthy Albion] So our author
in one of his prose-tracts; "Amongst many curious
pcarlcs I found out one orient rnargorito richer then
those which Ca?sar brought from tho westerns shores of
Europe." — Ciceronis Amor, etc-., Sig. E 2. ed. 1611.— This
speech is mutilated.
% clifts] i. c. cliffs.
That overpeer the bright and goldeu shore,
Than do the rubbish of my country seas :
And what I dare, let say the Portingale,
And Spaniard tell, who, mann'd with mighty
fleets,
Came to subdue my islauds to their king,
Filling our seas with stately argosies,
Calvars and magars, hulks of burden great ;
Which Brandimart rebated * from his coast,
And sent them home ballass'd with little wealth.
But leaving these such glories as they be,
I love, my lord ; let that suffice for me.
Orl. Lords of the south, and princes of esteem,
Viceroys unto the state of Africa,
I am no king, yet am I princely born,
Descended from the royal house of France,
And nephew to the mighty Charlemagne,
Surnam'd Orlando, the County Palatine.
Swift fame hath t sounded to our western seas
The matchless beauty of Angelica,
Fairer than was the nymph of Mercury,
Who, when bright Phoebus mounteth up his coach,
And tracts Aurora in her silver steps,
And sprinkles + from the folding of her lap
White lilies, roses, and sweet violets.
Yet thus believe me, princes of the south,
Although my country's love, dearer than pearl
Or mines of gold, might well have kept me back;
The sweet conversing with my king and friends,
Left all for love, might well have kept me back
The seas by Neptune hoised to the heavens,
Whose dangerous flaws § might well have kept
me back ;
The savage Moors and Anthropophagi, ||
Whose lands I pass'd, might well have kept me
back;
* rebated'] Mr. Collier (Hist, of the Engl. Stage, <fec.
p. 32, — Shakespeare, vol i., ed. 185S) thinks that " it is as
clear as i^ay that here ' rebated ' ought to be ' rebutted,' "
and that the same alteration is required in a subsequent
part of the play (p. 101, first col.), —
" Th'S is the city of great Babylon,
Where proud Darius was rebated from."
But Mr. Collier is greatly mistaken : — the old copies are
right in both passages. Greene uses rebate in the sense
of beat back- (which is its proper sense, — Fr. rtbattre). So
again in the first s|ieech of the next play we find, —
" Great Jewry's God, that foil'd stout Benhadab,
Could not rebate the strength that Rasni bruught,"&C.
t hath] The4tos. "that"
J And sprinkles, &c] In England's Parnassus, 1000,
p. 415, this passage is quoed with the variation, "And
sprinkling," cvc. I have no doubt that a line which im-
mediately preceded the present one has dropped out. A
critic in The Retrospective lUvicio, hi. 111., silently prints
" Doth sprinkle."
§ flaws] i.e. blasts.
|| Anthropophagi] The 4tos. " Authropagei."
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
91
The doul>t of entertainment in the court
When I arriv'd, might well have kept me back ;
But so the fame of fair Angelica
Stamp'd in my thoughts the figure of her love,
As neither country, king, or seas, or cannibals,*
Could by despairing keep Orlando back.
I list not boast in acts of chivalry,
(An humour never fitting with my mind,)
But come there forth the proudest champion
That hath suspicion in the Palatine,
And with my trusty sword Durandell,t
Single, I'll register upon his helm
What I dare do for fair Angelica.
But leaving these such glories as they be,
I love, my lord ;
Angelica herself shall speak for me.
Mars. Daughter, thou hear'st what love hath
here alleg'd,
How all these kings, by beauty summou'd here,
Put in their pleas, for hope of diadem,
Of noble deeds, of wealth, and chivalry,
All hoping to possess Angelica.
Si th father's will may hap to aim amiss,
(For parents' thoughts in love oft step awry,)
Choose thou the man who best contenteth thee,
And he shall wear the Afric crown next me.
For trust me, daughter, like of whom thou please,
Thou satisfied, my thoughts shall be at ease.
Any. Kings of the south, viceroys of Africa,
Sith father's will hangs on his daughter's choice,
And I, as erst Princess Andromache
Seated amidst the crew of Priam's sons,
Have liberty to choose where best I love ;
Must freely say, for fancy hath no fraud,
That far unworthy is Angelica
Of such as deign to grace her with their loves;
The Soldan with his seat in Babylon,
The Prince of Cuba, and of Mexico,
Whose wealthy crowns might win a woman's will,
Young Brandimart, master of all the i-^les
Where Neptune planted hath his treasury ;
The worst of these men of so high import
As may command a greater dame than I.
But fortune, or some deep-inspiring fate,
Venus, or else the bastard brat of Mars,
Whose bow commands the motions of the mind,
Hath sent proud love to enter such a plea
As nonsuits all your princely evidence,
And flat commands that, maugre majesty,
I choose Orlando, County Palatine.
* kinn, or neas, or cannibals] Qy. "king, seas, cannibals'"!
f And with my trusty tword Dnrondell] In this line
" sword " is a dissyllable ; see Walker's Shakespeare's
Versification, &c, p. 32.
Rod. How likes Marsillus of his daughter's
choice ?
Mars. As fits Marsilius of his daughter's spouse.
Rod. Highly thou wrong'st us, King of Africa,
To brave thy neighbour princes with disgrace,
To tie thine honour to thy daughter's thoughts,
Whose choice is like that Greekish giglot's love,
That left her lord, Prince Menelaus,
And with a swain made scape away to Troy.
What is Orlando but a straggling mate,
Banish'd for some offence by Charlemagne,
Skipp'd from his country as Anchises' son,
And means, as he did to the Carthage QueeD,
To pay her ruth and raid for her love 1
Orl. Injurious Cuba, ill it fits thy gree *
To wrong a stranger with discourtesy.
Were't not the sacred presence of Angelica
Prevails with me, as Venus' smiles with Mars,
To set a supersedeas of my wrath,
Soon should I teach thee what it were to brave.
Mund. And, Frenchman, were't not 'gainst the
law of arms,
In place of parley for to draw a sword,
Untaught companion, I would learn you know
What duty 'longs to such a prince as he.
Orl. Then as did Hector 'fore Achilles' tent,
Trotting his courser softly on the plains,
Proudly dar'd forth the stoutest youth of Greece;
So who stands highest in his own conceit,
And thinks his courage can perform the most,
Let him but throw his gauntlet on the ground,
And I will pawn my honour to his gage,
He shall ere night be met and combated.
Mars. Shame you not, princes, at this bad
agree,
To wrong a stranger with discourtesy]
Believe me, lords, my daughter hath made choice,
And, maugre him that thinks him most aggriev'd,
She shall enjoy the County Palatine.
Brand. But would these princes follow my
advice,
And enter arms as did the Greeks 'gainst Troy,
Nor he, nor thou shouldst have Angelica.
Rod. Let him be thought a dastard to his death,
That will not sell the travails he hath past
Dearer than for a woman's fooleries :
What says the mighty Mandricard?
Mand. I vow to hie me home to Mexico,
To troop myself with such a crew of men
As shall so fill the downs of Africa,
Like to the plaius of watery Thessaly,
Whenas an eastern gale, whistling aloft,
* gree] i. e. degree
82
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Hath * overspread the ground with grasshoppers.
Then see, Marsilius, if the Palatine
Can keep his love from falling to our lota,
Or thou canst keep thy country free from spoil.
Mars. Why, think you, lords, with haughty
menaces
To dare me out within my palace-gates ?
Or hope you to make conquest by constraint
Of that which never could be got by love ?
Pass from my court, make haste out of my land,
Stay not within the bounds Marsilius holds ;
Lest, little brooking these unfitting braves,
My choler overslip the law of arms,
And I inflict revenge on such abuse.
Rod- I'll beard and brave thee in thy proper
town,
And here ensconce myself despite of thee,
And hold thee play till Mandricard return. —
What says the mighty Soldan of Egypt ?
Sold. That when Prince Menelaus with all t his
mates
Had ten years held their siege in Asia,
Folding their wraths in cinders of fair Troy,
Yet, for their arms grew by conceit of love,
Their trophies were but conquest of a girl :
Then trust me, lords, I'll never manage arms
For women's loves that are so quickly lost.
Brand. Tush, my lords, why stand you upon
terms ?
Let 's to our sconce, — and you, my lord, to
Mexico.
Orl. Ay, sirs, ensconce ye how you can,
See what we dare, and thereon set your rest.
[Exeunt all except Sacripant and his Man.
Sac. [aside."] Boast not too much, Marsilius, in
thyself,
Nor of contentment in Angelica;
For Sacripaut must have Angelica,
And with her Sacripant must have the crown :
By hook or crook I must and will have both.
Ah sweet Revenge, incense their angry minds,
Till, all these princes weltering in their bloods,
The crown do fall to County Sacripant !
Sweet are the thoughts that smother from
conceit :
For when I come and set mc down to rest,
My chair presents a throne of majesty ;
And when I set my bonnet on my head,
Mcthinks I fit my forehead for a crown ;
And when I take my truncheon in my fist,
A sceptre then comes tumbling in my thoughts ;
My dreams are princely, all of diadems.
» Hath} The 4tos. " Had."
\ ail] An addition by the transcriber, I presume.
Honour, — methiuks the title is too base :
Mighty, glorious, and excellent, — ay, these,
My glorious * genius, sound within my mouth ;
These please the ear, and with a sweet applause
Make me in terms coequal with the gods.
Then these,t Sacripant, and none but these ;
And % these, or else make hazard of thy life.
Let it suffice, I will conceal the rest. —
Sirrah.
Man. My lord ?
Sac. [Aside.] My lord ! How basely was tins
slave brought up,
That knows no titles fit for dignity, '
To grace his master with hyperboles !
My lord ! why, the basest baron of fair Africa
Deserves as much : yet County Sacripant
Must he a swain salute with name of lord. —
Sirrah, what thinks the Emperor of my colours,
Because in field I wear both blue and red at
once 1 §
Man. They deem, my lord, your honour lives
at peace,
As' one that's neuter in these mutinies,
And covets to rest equal friend || to both ;
Neither envious to Prince Mandricard,
Nor wishing ill unto Marsilius,
That you may safely pass where'er you please,
With friendly salutations from them both.
Sac. Ay, so they guess, but level far awry ;
For if they knew the secrets of my thoughts,
Mine emblem sorteth to another sense.
I wear not these as one resolv'd to peace,
But blue and red as enemy to both ;
Blue, as hating King Marsilius,
And red, as in revenge to Mandricard ;
Foe unto both, friend only to myself,
And to the crow ? n, for that's the golden mark
Which makes my thoughts dream on a diadem.
See'st not thoull all men presage I shall be king]
Marsilius sends to me for peace ; Mandricard
Puts off his cap, ten mile off : two things more,
And then I cannot miss the crown.
Mnn. 0, what be those, my good lord ?
Sac. First must
I get the love of fair Angelica.
Now am I full of amorous conceits,
Not that I doubt to have what I desire,
* glorious] A wrong epithet, — repeated by mistake
from the preceding line.
+ Then these] Qy. " Tlien win then " 1
I And] Qy. "Ay"?
§ at once] An interpolation T
|| friend] The 4to. of 1594 " friends.'
•I not thou] The 4to. of 1599 " thou not. "— Qy." S-t'tt
not all nu n presage," &c. ?
ORLANDO FURTOSO.
93
But how I might best with mine honour woo :
Write, or entreat, — fie, that fitteth not ;
Send by ambassadors, — no, that's too base ;
Flatly command, — ay, that's for Sacripaut :
Say thou art Sacripant, and art in love,
And who
In Africa * dare say the county nay ?
Angelica,
Fairer than Chloris when in all her pride
Bright Maia's son entrapp'd her in the net
Wherewith Vulcan entangled the god of war !
Man. Your honour is so far in contemplation
of Angelica as you have forgot the second [thing]
in attaining to the crown.
Sac. That's to be done by poison,
Prowess,t or any means of treachery,
To put to death the traitorous Orlando. —
But who is this comes here ? Stand close.
[They retire.
Enter Orgalio.
Org. I am sent on embassage to the right
mighty and magnificent, alias, the right proud
and pontifical, the County Sacripant ; for Marsi-
lius and Orlando, knowing him to be as full of
prowess as policy, and fearing lest in leaning to
the other faction he might greatly prejudice
them, they seek first to hold the candle before
the devil, and knowing him to be a Thrasonical
mad-cap, they have sent me a Gnathonical com-
panion, to give him lettuce fit for his lips. Now,
sir, knowing his astronomical humours, as one
that gazeth so high at the stars as he never
looketh on the pavement in the streets — but,
whist ! lupus est in fabula.
Sac. [coming forward.] Sirrah, thou that rumi-
natest to thyself a catalogue of privy conspiracies,
what art thou ?
Org. God save your majesty !
Sac. [aside] My majesty ! — Come hither, my
well-nutrimented knave : whom takest thou me
to be?
Org. The mighty Mandricard of Mexico.
Sac. [aside] I hold these salutatious as omi-
nous ; for saluting me by that which I am not,
he presageth what I shall be ; for so did the
Lacedaemonians by Agathocles, who of a base
potter wore the kingly diadem.- — But why deeinest
thou me to be the mighty Mandricard of Mexico ?
Org. Marry, sir, — —
Sac. Stay there: wert thou never in France?
Org. Yes, if it please your majesty.
» Africa] The-lfco. of]594 "Afric."
t Prowess] Cannot be right. Qy. "Poniard
Sac. So it seems, for there they salute their
king by the name of Sir, Monsieur: — but forward.
Org. Such sparks of peerless majesty
From those looks flame, like lightning from the
east,
As either Mandricard, or else some greater
prince,—
Sac. [aside.] Methinks these salutations make
my thoughts
To be heroical. —
But say, to whom art thou sent?
Org. To the County Sacripant.
Sac. Why, I am he.
Org. It pleaseth your majesty to jest.
Sac. Whate'er I seem, I tell thee I am he.
Org. Then may it please your honour, the
Emperor Marsilius, together with his daughter
Angelica and Orlando, entreateth your excellency
to dine with them.
Sac. Is Angelica there ?
Org. There, my good lord.
Sac. Sirrah.
Man. My lord ?
Sac. Villain, Angelica sends for me : see that
Thou entertain that happy messenger,
And bring him in with thee. [Exeunt.
Enter Orlando, the Duke of Aquitain, and the County
Rossilion, with Soldiers.
Orl. Princes of France, the sparkling light of
fame,
Whose glory's brighter than the burnish'd gates
From whence Latona's lordly son doth march,
When, mounted on his coach tiusell'd with
flames,
He triumphs in the beauty of the heavens ;
This is the place where Kodomont lies hid :
Here lies he, like the thief of Thessaly,
Which scuds abroad and searcheth for his prey,
And, being gotten, straight he gallops home,
As one that dares not break a spear in field.
But trust me, princes, I have girt his fort,
And I will sack it, or on this castle-wall
I'll write my resolution with my blood : —
Therefore, drum, sound a parle.
[A parte is sounded, and a Soldier comes upon the walls.
Sol. Who is * that troubleth our sleeps ?
Orl. Why, sluggard, seest thou not Lycaon's
sou,
The hardy plough-swain unto mighty Jove,
Hath trae'd his silver furrows in the heavens,
Aud, turning home his over-watched team,
* is] The4to. of 1599 "is't.
94
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Gives leave unto Apollo's chariot ?
I tell thee, sluggard, sleep is far unfit
For such as still have hammering in their heads
But only hope of honour and revenge :
These call'd me forth to rouse thy master up.
Tell him from me, false coward as he is,
That Orlando, the County Palatine,
Is come this morning, with a band of French,
To play him hunt's-up with a point of war : *
I'll be his minstrel with my drum and fife ;
Bid him come forth, and dance it if he dare,
Let fortune throw her favours where she list.
Sol. Frenchman, between half-sleeping and
awake,
Although the misty veil strain'd over Cynthia
Hinders my sight from noting all thy crew,
Yet, for I know thee and thy straggling grooms
Can in conceit build castles in the sky,
But in your actions like the stammering Greek
Which breathes his courage bootless in the air,
I wish thee well, Orlando, get thee gone,
Say that a sentinel did suffer thee ;
For if the round or court-of-guard should hear
Thou or thy men were braying at the walls,
Charles' wealth, the wealth of all his western
mines,
Found in the mountains of Transalpine France,
Might not pay ransom to the king for thee.
Orl. Brave sentinel, if nature hath t enchas'd
A sympathy of courage to thy tale,
And, like the champion of Andromache,
Thou, or thy master, dare come out the gates,
Maugre the watch, the round, or court-of-guard,
I will attend to abide the coward here.
If not, but still the craven sleeps secure,
Pitching his guard within a trench of stones,
Tell him his walls shall serve him for no proof,
But as the son of Saturn in his wrath
Pash'd + all the mountains at Typhceus' head,
And topsy-turvy turn'd the bottom up,
* a point of war] This expression — which is by uo
means uncommon— occurs in the opening scene of ano-
ther play in the present volume, — Peele's Edward the
First i
" Matrevers, thou
Sound proudly here a perfect point of war
In honour of thy sovereign's safe return."
Yet Mr. Collier's MS. Corrector altera "and a point of
war" to " and report of war" in Shakespeare's Sec.
Part of Ihnry tlie Fourth, act iv. SC. 1.; and Mr. Collier,
in his recent note ad. I., gravely tells us that the
Corrector has done " probably rightly " !
t hath] Thc4to. of 1599 "had."
} Pash'd] i.e. hurled (to posh is, properly, to dash in
pieces). Something has dropped out at the end of this
Kentenee.
So shall the castle of proud Rodomont. —
And so, brave lords of France, let's to the fight.
[Exeunt.
Alarums: Rodomont and Br andim art fly. Enter
Orlando with Bodomont's coat.
Orl. The fox is scap'd, but here's his case :
I miss'd him near ; 'twas time for him to trudge.
Enter the Duke of Aquitain.
How now, my lord of Aquitain !
A q. My lord,
The court-of-guard is put unto the sword,
And all the watch that thought themselves so
sure,
So that not one within the castle breathes.
Orl. Come, then,
Let's post amain to find out Rodomont,
And then in triumph march unto Marsilius.
[Exeunt.
Enter Medor and Angelica.
Ang. I marvel, Medor, what my father means
To enter league with County Sacripant?
Me. Madam, the king your father's wise enough;
He knows the county, like to Cassius,
Sits sadly dumping, aiming Caesar's death,
Yet crying " Ave" to his majesty.
But, madam, mark a while, and you shall see
Your father shake him off from secrecy.*
Ang. So much I guess; for when he will'd I
should
Give entertainment to the doting earl,
His speech was ended with a frowning smile.
Me. Madam, see where he comes : I will be gone.
[Exit.
Enter Sacripant and his Man.
Sac. How fares my fair Angelica ?
Ang. Well, that my lord so friendly is in league,
As honour wills him, with Marsilius.
Sac. Angelica, shall I have a word or two with
thee?
Ang. What pleaseth my lord for to command.
Sac. Then know, my love, I cannot paint my
grief,
Nor tell a tale of Venus and her son,
Reporting such a catalogue of toys :
It fits not Sacripant to be effeminate.
Only give leave, my fair Angelica,
To say, the county is in love with thee.
A ng. Pardon, my lord ; my loves are over-past :
So firmly is + Orlando printed in my thoughts,
As lovo hath left no place for any else.
Sac. Why, over-weening damsel, see'st thou not
* him off from secrecy] Qy. " him from society "?
t So firmly is] Qy. "So firm's"?
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
95
Thy lawless love unto tins straggling mate
Hath fill'd our Afric regions full of blood 1
And wilt thou still pers<5ver in thy love?
Tush, leave the Palatine, and go with me.
Ang. Brave county, know, where sacred love
unites,
The knot of gordian at the shrine of Jove
Was never half so hard or intricate
As be the bands which lovely Venus ties.
Sweet is my love ; and, for I love, my lord,
Seek not unless, as Alexander did,
To cut the plough-swain's traces with thy sword,
Or slice the slender fillets of my life :
Or * else, my lord, Orlando must be mine.
Sac. Stand I on love 1 stoop I to Venus' lure,
That never yet did fear the god of war ]
Shall men report that County Sacripant
Held lovers' pains for pining passions ?
Shall such a siren offer me more wrong
Than they did to the prince of Ithaca ?
No;
As he t his ears, so, county, stop thine eye.
Go to your needle, lady, and your clouts ;
Go to such milksops as are fit for love :
I will employ my busy brains for war.
Ang. Let not, my lord,! denial breed offence :
Love doth allow her favours but to one,
Nor can there sit within the sacred shrine
Of Venus more than one installed heart.
Orlando is the gentleman I love,
And more than he may not § enjoy my love.
Sac. Damsel,be gone : fancy || hath taken leave;
Where I took hurt, there have I heal'd myself,
As those that with Achilles' lance were wounded,
Fetch'd help at self-same pointed spear. IT
Beauty gan brave, and beauty hath repulse ;
And, beauty, get ye gone ** to your Orlando.
[Exit Angelica.
Man. My lord, hath love amatedft him whose
thoughts
Have ever been heroical and brave ?
Stand you in dumps, like to the Myrmidon
Trapt in the tresses of Polyxena,
Who, mid the glory of his chivalry,
Sat daunted with a maid of Asia?
Sac. Think'st thou my thoughts are lunacies of
love?
* Or] Qy. " For"? but the whole speech is corrupted.
+ Tie] Omitted in the 4to. of 1599.
J lord] The4tos. "Lords."
§ may not] The 4to. of 1599 "can not."
II fane;/] i. e. love.
II pointed spear] Qy. " deadly-pointed spear "?
** gone] The 4to. of 1599 "homo."
ft amatcd] i.e. daunted, dismayed.
No, they are brands fired in Pluto's forge,
Where sits Tisiphone tempering in flames
Those torches that do set on fire revenge.
I lov'd the dame ; but brav'd by her repul.se,
Hate calls me on to quittance all my ills ;
Which first must come by offering prejudice
Unto Orlando her beloved love.
Man. 0, how may that be brought to pass, my
lord ?
Sac. Thus.
Thou see'st that Medor and Angelica
Are still so secret in their private walk.3,
A3 that they trace the shady lawnds,*
And thickest-shadow'd groves,
Which well may breed suspicion of some love.
Now, than the French no nation under heaven
Is sooner touch'd with stings of jealousy.
Man. And what of that, my lord ?
Sac. Hard by, for solace, in a secret grove,
The county once a-day fails not to walk :
There solemnly he ruminates his love.
Upon those shrubs that compass-in the spring,
And on those trees that border-in those walks,
I'll slily have engraven on every bark
The names of Medor and Angelica.
Hard by, I'll have some roundelays hung up,
Wherein shall be some posies of their loves,
Fraughted so full of fiery passions
As that the county shall perceive by proof
Medor hath won his fair Angelica.
Man. Is this all, my lord ?
Sac. No;
For thou like to a shepherd shalt be cloth'd,
With staff and bottle, like some country-swain
That tends his flocks feeding upon these downs.
There see thou buzz into the county's ears
That thou hast often seen within these woods
Base Medor sporting with Angelica ;
And when he hears a shepherd's simple tale,
He will not think 'tis feign'd.
Then either a madding mood will end his love,
Or worse betide him through fond jealousy.
Man. Excellent, my lord : see how I will play
the shepherd.
Sac. And mark thou how I willf play the
carver :
Therefore be gone, and make thee ready straight.
[Exit his Man : Sacripant cari'es the names and
hangs up the roundelays on the trees, and then
goes out ; and his Man re-enters like a shepherd.
* lau-nds] An old form of lau-ns: — "this youthful
Lord of the lawnds." — Nash's Pierce Pcnnilesse, &c, big.
F 4, ed. 1595. — A corrupted passage.
t icill] Omitted in the 4to. of 1594.
943
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Man. Thus all alone, and like a shepherd's
swain,
As Paris, when CEaone lov'd hira well,
Forgat * he was the son of Priarnus,
All clad in grey, sat piping on a reed ;
So I transformed to this country shape,
Haunting t these groves to work my master's will,
To plague the Palatine with jealousy,
And to conceit him with some deep extreme. —
Here comes the man unto his wouted walk.
Enter Orlando and Orgalio.
Orl. Orgalio, go see a sentinel be plac'd.
And bid the soldiers keep a court-of-guard.
So to hold watch till secret here alone
I meditate upon the thoughts of love.
Ofj. I will, my lord. [Exit.
Orl. Fair queen of love, thou mistress of
delight,
Thou gladsome lamp that wait'st on Phcebe's
train,
Spreading thy kindness through the jarring orbs,
That in their union praise thy lasting powers ;
Thou that hast stay'd the fiery Phlegon's course,
And mad' st the coachman of the glorious wain
To droop, in view of Daphne's excellence ;
Fair pride of morn, sweet * beauty of the even,
Look on Orlando languishing in love.
Sweet solitary groves, whereas § the Nymphs
With pleasance laugh to see the Satyrs play,
Witness Orlando's faith unto his love.
Tread she these lawnds,;i kind Flora, boast thy
pride.^I
Seek she for shade,** spread, cedars, for her sake.
Fair Flora, ft make her couch amidst thy flowers.
Sweet crystal springs,
Wash ye with roses when she longs to drink.
Ah, thought, my heaven ! ah, heaven, that know3
my thought !
Smile, joy in her that my content hath wrought.
* Forgot] The 4to. of 1500 "Forgot."
t Haunting] Qy. " Haunt in "I or is the passage muti-
lated ?
J sweet] MS. Alleyn (in which the three first words
of this line ;ire wanting) "faire."
Concerning that MS., which commences with the
[•resent speech, see the Account of Urtexe and hit
H'ritiioj.t, p. 31.
§ whereas] MS. Alleyn "wheare."
9 ! note *, p. 'Jo, soc. col. .
« liora, boast thy pride] .V :i "sweet
tora, had thy Boron
- MB AUeyn.— The Uos. "shades."
H fair flora, &.;.] MS. Alleyn;
le tiara, make her couch fair tristaHl .«, ri»g>i :
Kn.'hc jvu her Roses, yf the loDg to drink."
Man, andt ] The heaven of love is but a
pleasant hell,
Where none but foolish-wise imprison'd dwell.
Orl. Orlando, what contrarious thoughts be
these,*
That flock with doubtful motions f in thy mind?
Heaven smiles, aud J trees do boast their sum-
mer 5 piide.
What ! Venus writes her \[ triumphs here beside.
Man. [aside.] Yet when thine eye hath seen,
thy heart shall rue
The tragic chance that shortly shall ensue.
Orl. ireads.] "Angelica ;" — ah, sweet and hea-
venly *~ name.
Life to my life, and essence to my joy !
But, 8oft !
This gordian knot together co unites
A Medor partner in her peerless love.
Unkind, and will she bend her thoughts to
change ?
Her name, her writing ! Foolish ** and unkind !
No name of hers, unless the brooks relent
To hear her name, and Rhodanus vouchsafe
To raise his moisten'd locks from out the reed.-,
And flow with calm alongst his turning bounds :
No name of hers, unless the Zephyr ft blow
Her dignities alongst Ardenia woods, JJ
Where all the world for wonders do await.
And yet her name ! for why § § Angelica ;
But, mis'd with Medor, not !;l| Angelica.
Only by me was lov'd Angelica,
Only for me must live Angelica.
I find her drift : perhaps the modest pledge
Of my content hath with a secret smile ■"•"
And sweet disguise restraiu'd her fancy thus,
Figuring *** Orlando under Medor's name ;
Fine drift, fair nymph ! Orlando hopes no less.
[Spies the roundelayt.
Yet more ! are Muses masking in these trees,
* be these] MS. Alleyn "are those."
t motions] MS. AUeyn "motion."
♦ Heaven tmiles, a,«l] MS. Alleyn "heavens smile,
thes."
§ summer] So MS. Alleyn. — The 4tos. "summers."
|| What.' Venus writes her] MS. Alleyn " Fenus hath
grave u hir."
' taxtxbf] MS. Alleyn "blessed."
•• Fooli.,h) Bo MS. A.leyn.— The 4t.s. n Ah foolish."
tt tUZe r h.jr\ SuMS. AUeyn.— The+tos. "Zephyrua."
\\ alongst Ardenia icoods, kc] MS Alleyn ;
"along the desert icoodtt
of Arden, icher the world for wonders waightes.'
Jj for why] i. e. becau-e.
•; KB AUeyn "thennoi."
HI] a secret male] MS. AUeyn "a privy thought.
•*• / ; -. - MS Alleyn "shadowing."'
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
97
Framing * their ditties in conceited lines,
Making a goddess, in despite of me,
That have no other t but Angelica ?
Man. [aside.] Poor hapless man, these thoughts
contain thy hell !
Orl. [reacts.]
" Angelica is lady of his heart,
Angelica is substance of his joy,
Angelica is medicine of his smart,
Angelica hath hcaUd his annoy."
Ah, false Angelica ! — What, have we more?
[Reads.
" Let groves, let rocks, let woods, let watery springs,
The cedar, cypress, laurel, and the pine,
Joy in the notes of love that Medor sings
Of those sweet looks, Angelica, of thine.
Then, Medor, in Angelica take delight,
Early, at morn, at noon, at even, and night."
What, dares Medor £ court my Venus?
What may Orlando deem !
^Etna, forsake the bounds of Sicily,
For now § in me thy restless flames appear.
Refua'd, contemn' d, disdain'd ! what worse than
these 1 —
Orgalio !
Re-enter Orgalio.
Org. My lord ! ||
Orl. Boy.^I view these trees carved with true-
love knots,
The inscription " Medor and Angelica ;"
And read these verses hung up of their loves :
Now tell me, boy, what dost thou think ?
* Framing] MS. Alleyn " forming."
t other] MS. Alleyn "goddess."
I and 7iight."
What, dares Medor, 4c] A mutilated passage;
which in MS. Alleyn stands thus, — incomplete :
" sorowes dwell.
dare Medor court my Venus ? can hir eyes
bayte any iookcs but suche as must admyre ?
* * * what may Orlando deevie ? "
§ For now] MS. Alleyn "for why."
II what icorse than these t
Orgalio !
Re-enter Orgalio.
Org. My lord »] MS. Alleyn ;
" what not, then thus.
* * * * angry brest.
Argalio. — — ■ my Lord."
% Roy, 4c] MS. Alleyn gives this speech thus ;
" come hetber, Arga'.io : vilayne, behold these lynes ;
see all these trees carved with true love knottes,
wherin are figurd Medor and Angelica,
what thinkst thou of it "
Org. By my troth, my lord, I think Angelica is
a woman.
Orl. And what of that • ?
Org. Therefore unconstant, mutable, having
their loves hanging in their eyelids ; that as they
are got with a look, so they are lost again with a
wink. But here's a shepherd ; it may be he can
tell us news.
Orl. What messenger hath Ate sent abroad
With idle looks to listen my laments ) f —
Sirrah, who wronged happy nature so,
To spoil these trees with this Angelica ? —
Yet in her name, Orlando, they are blest.
Man. I am a shepherd-swain, thou wandering
knight,
That watch my flocks, not one that follow love.
Orl. As follow love ! dar'st J thou dispraise
my heaven,
Or once disgrace or § prejudice her name ?
Is not Angelica the queen of love,
Deck'd with the compound wreath of Adon's
flowers ?
She is. Then speak, thou peasant, what is he
That dares attempt to court || my queen of love,
Or I shall ^1 send thy soul to Charon's charge.
Man. Brave knight, since fear of death en-
forceth still
In greater minds submission and relent,
Know that this Medor, whose unhappy name
Is mixed with the fair Angelica's,
Is even that Medor that enjoys her love.
Yon cave bears witness of their kind content ;
Yon meadows talk the actions of their joy;
Our shepherds in their songs of solace sing,
" Angelica doth none ** but Medor love."
Orl. Angelica doth none but Medor love !
Shall Medor, then, possess Orlando's love ?
Dainty and gladsome beams ft of my delight,
* of that] MS. Alleyn "then."
f laments] MS. Alleyn "lament."
J dar'st] So MS. Alleyn.— The 4tos. "why darst."
§ Or once disgrace or] MS. Alleyn ' ' offer disgrace, and. "
|| That dares attempt to court] MS. Alleyn ''that dara
attempt, or court."
% shall] MS. Alleyn "will."
** " Angelica doth none. Sic.] MS. Alleyn ;
"Nought but Angelica and Medors
Orl. Nought but Angelica and Medors love ! "
ft Dainty and glad-ome beams, 4c] The itcs. have ;
" Daintie andjflhdsovu beames of my del gkt,
Delicious bowers, why smiles your heauen for those
That wandring make you proue Orlandos foes ? "
MS. Alleyn has :
" danty and gUid^omebames of my delight,
why feast y air gleames on others lustfull thoughtes !
delicious brcwes, why smde your heaven fur those,
that woundring you prove poor Orlando* foes f "
!>8
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Delicious browa, why smile your heavens for
those
That, wouuding you, prove poor Orlando's
foes I
Lend me your plaints, you sweet Arcadian
nymphs,
That wont to sing * your new-departed + loves ;
Thou weeping flood, leave Orpheus' wail for
me;
And,i Titafti's nieces, gather all in one
Those fluent springs of your lamenting tears,
And let them stream along § my faintfull
looks.
Man. [aside.] Now is the fire, late smother' d
in suspect,
Kiudled, and burns within his angry breast :
Now have I done the will of Saei ipant||
Orl. Fcemineum servile genus, crudele, superbum :
Discourteous women, nature's fairest ill,
The woe of man, that first-created curse,
Base female sex, sprung from black Ate's loins,
Proud, disdainful, cruel, and unjust,
Whose words are shaded *ff with enchanting
wiles,
Worse than Medusa mateth ** all our minds ;
And in their hearts sits shameless treachery,
Turning a truthless vile circumference.
0, could my fury paint their furies forth !
For hell's no hell, compared to their hearts,
Too simple devils to conceal their arts ;
Born to be plagues unto the thoughts of men,
Brought for eternal pestilence to the world.
femminile ingegno, de tutti mali sede,
Come ti volgi e muti facilmente,
Contrario oggetto propria de lafede/
infelice, o miser chi ti crede !
Importune, supcrbe, dispettose.
Prime d"amor, difede, e di eoneiglio,
Temerarie, era deli, iuique, ingrate,
* sing] So MS. Alleyn.— The 4tos. "waile" (which
word occurs in the next line).
t -new -departed] MS. Alloyn "late departed."
X And] MS. Alleyn "provide."
§ stream along] So MS. Alleyn. — The 4tos. "flow
alungst " (but we have just had the words " flood " and
" fluent")
|| Sacripant, &c] After the word "Sacripant," some-
thing is wanting in MS. Alleyn : it then gives,
"Argalio, seek me out Medor, seek out that same,
that dare inchase him with Angelica "
it then marks a speech in reply to Orlando as having
ended with the word " he " ; after which, it is again
imperfect down to "Ofemmhiilt ingegno," &c.
If are shaded] Qy. " o'er-shad< d " ? But the passage is
mutilated.
"* mateth] \. e. confoundeth.
Per pest ilenzia eterna al mondo nate* —
Villain, what art thou that followest me ? +
Org. Alas, my lord, I am your servant, Orgalio.
Orl. No, villain, thou art Medor ;
That rann'st away with [my] Augelica.
Org. No, by my troth, my lord, I am Orgalio ;
Ask all these people else.
Orl. Art thou Orgalio? tell me where Medor is.
Org. My lord, look where he sits.
Orl. What, sits he here, and braves me too]
Man. No, truly, sir, I am not he.
Orl. Yes, villain. [Draws him in by the leg.
Org. Help, help, my Lord of Aquitaiu !
Enter the Duke of Aquitain and Soldiers.
0, my Lord of Aquitain, the Count Orlando is
run mad, and taking of a shepherd by the heels,
rends him as one would tear a lark ! See where
he comes, with a leg on his neck.
Re-enter Orlando with a leg.
Orl. Villain, provide me straight a lion's skin,
Thou see'st I now am mighty Hercules ;
Look where'a my massy club upon my neck.
I must to hell,
To seek for Medor and Angelica,
Or else I die.
You that are the rest, get you quickly away ;
Provide ye horses all of burnish'd gold,
Saddles of cork, because I'll have them light ;
For Charlemagne the great is up in arms,
* The first four of these lines are from the 117th
stanza of the xxvn. Canto of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso,
the other four from the 121st stanza of the same canto.
Greene has substituted "de tutti mali sede," for the
"eglidicea" of the original. "Importune, superbe,"
&c, is scarcely intelligible, if the word " donue " be
omitted, which occurs at the beginning of the stanza
from which it is taken For this note I am indebted to
the kindness of Signor Panizzi.
t Villain, what art thou thai followest me?] Thus in MS.
Alleyn ;
"vilayne, Argalio, where medor? medor is, medor a
knave ; what, lyes he here,
and braves me to my face? by heaven, He tear
[dragges him in]
him pecemeale in dispight of these.
[enters with a mans legg]
villayns, provide me straight a lions skynne.
on his neck.
for I, thou seest, am mighty Hercules.
see whers my massy clvbb upon my neck.
J must to hell to fight with Cerberus,
And find out Medor ther, you vilaynes, or He dye.
shall I doe?
ah, ah, ah, Sirha, Argalio !
lie weare the speare framd out of * * *
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
99
And Arthur with a crew of Britons comes
To seek for Medor and Angelica.
[So he beateth them all in before him, except
Orqalio.
Enter Marsilius.
Org. Ah, my lord, Orlando ■
Mars. Orlando! what of Orlando!
Org. He, my lord, runs madding through the
woods,
Like mad Orestes in his greatest rage.
Step but aside into the bordering grove,
There shall you see engraven on every tree
The lawless love of Medor and Angelica.
0, see, my lord, not any shrub but bears
The cursed stamp that wrought the county's rage.
If thou be'st mighty King Marsilius,
For whom the county would adventure life,
Revenge it on the false Angelica.
Mars. Trust me, Orgalio, Theseus in his rage
Did never more revenge his wrong'd Hippolytus
Than I will on the false Angelica.
Go to my court, and drag me Medor forth ;
Tear from his breast the daring villain's heart.
Next take that base and damn'd adulteress, —
I scorn to title her with daughter's name, —
Put her in rags, and, like some shepherdess,
Exile her from my kingdom presently.
Delay not, good Orgalio, see it done.
[Exit Orgalio.
Enter a Soldier, with Mandricard disguised.
How now, my friend ! what fellow hast thou there?
Sol. He says, my lord,
That he is servant unto Mandricard.
Mars. To Mandricard !
It fits me not to sway * the diadem,
Or rule the wealthy realms of Barbary,
To stain my thoughts with any cowardice.
Thy master brav'd + me to my teeth,
He back'd the Prince of Cuba for my foe ;
For which nor he nor his shall scape my hands.
No, soldier, think me resolute as he.
Mand. It grieves me much that princes disagree,
Sith black repentance followeth afterward :
But leaving that, pardon me, gracious lord.
Mart. For thouentreat'st, and newly art arriv'd,
And yet thy sword is not imbru'd in blood,
Upon conditions, I will pardon thee,
That thou shalt never tell thy master, Mandricard,
Nor any fellow-soldier of the camp,
That King Marsilius licens'd thee depart :
<fcc?
to sway, &c] Qy. "who sway," &c, and "And rule,"
t brav'd] Qy. "proudly" or "boldly brav'd" !
He shall not think I am so much his friend,
That he or one of his shall scape my hand.
Mand. I swear, my lord, and vow to keep my
word.
Mars. Then take my banderol of red ;
Mine, and none but mine, shall honour thee,
And safe conduct thee to Port Carthagene.
Mand. But say, my lord, if Mandricard were
here,
What favour should he find, or life or death ?
Mars. I tell thee, friend, it fits not for a king
To prize his wrath before his courtesy.
Were Mandricard, the King of Mexico,
In prison here, and crav'd but liberty,
So little hate hangs in Marsilius' breast,
As one entreaty should quite raze it out.
But this concerns not thee, therefore, farewell.
Mand. Thanks, and good fortune fall to such
a king
As covets to be counted courteous.
[Exit Marsilius.
Blush, Mandricard ;
The honour of thy foe disgraceth thee ;
Thou wrongest him that wisheth thee but well;
Thou bringest store of men from Mexico
To battle him that scorns to injure thee,
Pawning his colours for thy warrantize.
Back to thy ships, and hie thee to thy home ;
Budge not a foot to aid Prince Rodomont ;
But friendly gratulate these favours found,
And meditate on naught but to be friends.
[Exeunt.
Enter Orlando attired like a madman.
OH. Woods, trees,* leaves ; leaves, trees, woods ;
* Orl. Woods, trees, &c] This nonsense is much fuller
in MS. Alleyn ;
" Orlando.
Solus.
Woodes, trees, leaves, leaves, trees, woodes ; tria sequuntur
tria, ergo optimus vir non est optimus magistratus. a
peny for a pott of beer and sixe pence for a peeo
of beife? wounds! what am I the worse? o minerva !
salve ; god morrow ; how doe you to day ? sweet goddesst,
now I see thou lovest thy ulisses. lovely Minerva, tell
thy ulisses, will Jove send Mercury to Calipso to lett m«
goef
Here he harkens.] will he? why then he is a good fellow;
nay more, he is a gentleman, every haire of the head of
him. tell him I have bread aud beife for him : lett him
put his arme into my bag thus deep, yf he will eate.
goddesse, he shall have it. thre blew beans [def. in
MS.] a blewe bladder, rattle bladder [dof. in MS. ] Lan-
torne and candle light; child [def. in MS.] children, a
god when '■ —
He walketh up and doiene] but soft you, minerva, whats
a clock ? [def. in MS J hye tree.
He singes.] I am Orlando [def. in MS 1 so bragg. [def.
in MS. | who * * Jupiters brayno when you were
100
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
tria se.quun.tar tria. — Ho, Minerva ! salve, good
morrow ; bow do you to-day ? Tell me, sweet
goddess, will Jove send Mercury to Calypso, to
let me go ? will he? why, then, he's a gentleman,
every hair o' the head on him. — But, ho, Orgalio 1
where art thou, boy ?
Elite)- Orgalio.
Org. Here, my lord : did you call me ?
Orl. No, nor name thee.
Org. Then God be with you.
[Proffers to go in.
Orl. Nay, prithee, good Orgalio, stay : canst
thou not tell me what to say 1 ?
Org. No, by my troth.
Orl. 0, this it is ; Angelica is dead.
Org. Why, then, she shall be buried.
Orl. But my Angelica is dead.
Org. Why, it may be so.
Orl. But she's dead and buried.
Org. Ay, I think so.
Orl. Nothing but " I think so," and " It may
be so " ! [Beats him.
Org. What do you mean, my lord ?
Orl. Why, shall I tell you * that my love is
dead,
And can ye not weep for her?
Org. Yes, yes, my lord, I will.
Orl. Well, do so, then. Orgalio.
Org. My lord ?
Orl. Angelica is dead. [Orgalio cries.] Ah, poor
slave ! so, cry no more now.
Org. Nay, I have quickly done.
Orl. Orgalio.
Org. My lord ?
Orl. Medor's Angelica is dead.
[Orgalio cries, and Orlando beats him
again.
He whistles for him.] begotten. Argalio, Argalio !
farewell, good Minerva ; have me recommended to vnl-
oan, and tell him I would fayne see him dance a galyard.
my lord.
I pray the, tell me one thing : dost thou not know
wherfore I cald the * * *
neither.
Why knowest thou not? nay nothing, thou mayst bo
gone, stay, stay, villayue, I tell thee, Angelica is dead,
nay she is in deed.
lord.
but my Angelica is dead.
my lord.
Ha beats] and canst thou not weepe
Lord.
Why then begin, but first lett me geve
[def. In MS.]
A begins to weepe] your watchword, Argalio.
Argal in, stay.
» * # # # # » » w
' ym] The IM> ol 1599 "thee."
Org. Why do you beat me, my lord ?
Orl. Why, slave, wilt thou weep for Medor's
Angelica ? thou must laugh for her.
Org. Laugh ! yes, I'll laugh all day, an you will.
Orl. Orgalio.
Org. My lord ?
Orl. Medor's Angelica i3 dead.
Org. Ha, ha, ha, ha !
Orl. So, 'tis well now.
Org. Nay, this is easier than the other was.
Orl. Now away !
Seek the herb moly ; for I must to hell,
To seek for Medor and Angelica.
Org. I know not the herb moly, i' faith.
Orl. Come, I'll lead ye to it by the ears.
Org. 'Tis here, my lord, 'tis here.
Orl. 'Tis indeed.
Now to Charon, bid him dress his boat,
For he had never such a passenger.
Org. Shall I tell him * your name ?
Orl. No, then he will be afraid, and not be at
home. [Exit Orgalio.
Enter Tom and Ralph.
Tom. Sirrah Ralph, an thou'lt go with me, I'll
let thee see the bravest madman that ever thou
sawest.
Ralph. Sirrah Tom, I believe it was he that
was at our town o' Sunday : I'll tell thee what he
did, sirrah. He came to our house, when all
our folks were gone to church, and there was
nobody at home but I, and I was turuiug of the
spit, and he comes in, and bade me fetch him
some drink. Now, I went and fetched him some;
and ere I came again, by my troth, he ran away
with the roast meat, spit and all, and so we had
nothing but porridge to dinner.
Tom. By my troth, that was brave : but,
sirrah, he did so course the boys, last Sunday ;
and if ye call him madman, he'll run after you,
and tickle your ribs so with hie flap of leather
that he hath, as it passeth.t
[TJiey spy Orlando.
Ralph. 0, Tom, look where he is ! call him
madman.
Tom. Madman, madman.
Ralph. Madman, madman.
Orl. What say'st thou, villain ? %
[Beats them,.
So, now you shall bo both my soldiers.
* him] Omitted in the 4to. ofU)99.
f passeth] i.e. surpasseth, is extraordinary.
} What say'st thou, villain ?] Surely we may suspoct
that Greene wrote, " What say ye, villains?"
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
101
Tom. Your soldiers ! we shall have a inad
captain, then.
Oil. You must fight against Medor.
Ralph. Yes, let me alone with him for a bloody
nose.
Orl. Come, then, and I will give you weapons
straight. [Exemt.
Enter Angelica, like a poor woman.
Ang. Thus causeless banish'd from thy *
native home,
Here sit, Angelica, and rest a while,
For to bewail the fortunes -f- of thy love.
Enter Rodomont and Brandimart, with Soldiers.
Rod. This way she went, and far she cannot be.
Brand. See where she is, my lord : speak as if
You + knew her not.
Rod. Fair shepherdess, for so thy sitting seems,
Or nymph, for less thy beauty cannot be,
What, feed you sheep upon these downs 1
Ang. Daughter I am unto a bordering swain,
That tend my flocks within these shady groves.
Rod. Fond girl, thou liest; thou art Angelica.
Brand. Ay, thou art she that wrong'd the
Palatine.
Ang. For I am known, albeit I am disguis'd,
Yet dare I turn the lie iuto thy throat,
Sith thou report'st I wrong'd the Palatine.
Brand. Nay, then, thou shalt be us'd accord-
ing §
To thy deserts. — Come, bring her to our tents.
Rod. But stay, what drum is this ? ||
Enter Orlando with a drum ; Orgalio ; and Tom,
Ralph, and other Clowns, as Soldiers, with spits and
dripping-pans.
Brand. Now see,
Angelica, the fruits of all your love.
Orl. Soldiers,
This is the city of great Babylon,
Where proud Darius was rebated H from :
Play but the men, and I will lay my head,
We'll sack and raze it ere tbe sun be set.
Tom.** Yea, and scratch it too. — March fair,
fellow frying-pan.
Orl. Orgalio, knowest thou the cause of my
laughter ?
» thy] The 4to. of 1599 "my."
t fortunes] The 4to. of 1599 "fortune."
t You] The 4to. of 1599 "ye." In the preceding line
" lord " seems to be used as a disylUble : see note *,
p. 104, first eol.
§ according} Qy. " accordingly "?
|| Rod. Bat stay, what drum, is this ?] Omitted in the
4to of 1599.
\ nbated] See note *, p. 90, sec. col.
»" Tom] The4tos. "Clowue."
Org. No, by my troth, nor no wise man else.
Orl. Why, sirrah, to think that if the enemy
were flod ere we come, we'll * not leave one of
our own soldiers alive, for we two will kill tbem
with our fists.
Ralph. Fob, come, let's go home again : he'll
set probatum est upon my head-piece anon.
Orl. No, no, thou shalt not be hurt, — nor thee.
Back, soldiers; look where the enemy is.
Tom. Captain, they have a woman amongst
them.
Orl. And what of that?
Tom. Why, strike you down the men, and then
let me alone to thrust in the woman.
Orl. No, I am chalh-nged the single fight. —
Sirrah, is't you challenge me tbe combat )
Brand. Frantic companion, lunatic and wood,t
Get thee hence, or else I vow by heaven,
Thy madness shall not privilege thy life.
Orl. I tell thee, villain, Medor wrong'd me so,
Sith thou art come his champion to the field,
I'll learn thee know I am the Palatine.
Alarum: they fight; Orlando kills Brandimart ; and all
the rest fly, except Angelica and Orgalio.
Org. Look, my lord, here's one killed.
Orl. Who killed him ?
Org. You, my lord, I think.
Orl. I ! no, no, I see who killed him.
[Goes to Angelica, and knows her not.
Come hither, gentle sir,+ whose prowess hath
performed such an act : think not the courteous
Palatine will hinder that thine honour bath
achieved. — Orgalio, fetch me a sword, that
presently this squire may be dubbed a knight.
Ang. [aside.] Thanks, gentle fortune, that
sends me such good hap,
Rather to die by him I love so dear,
Than live and see my lord thus lunatic.
Org. [giving a sword.] Here, my lord.
Orl. If thou be'st come of Lancelot's worthy
line,
Welcome thou art.
Kneel down, sir knight ; rise up, sir knight ;
Here, take this sword, and hie thee to the fight.
[Exit Angelica with the sword.
Now tell me, Orgalio, what dost thou tbink ?
will not this knight prove a valiant squire ?
Org. He cannot choose, being of your making.
OH. But where's Angelica now ?
Org. Faith, I cannot tell.
* well] The 4to. of 1599 "we will."
t wood] i.e. mad.
} Come hither, gentle sir. *o 1 Blank-verse corrupted.
102
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Orl. Villain, find her out,
Or else the torments that Ixion feels,
The rolling stone, the tubs of the Belides * —
Villain, wilt thou not t find her out 1
0»g. Alas, my lord, I know not where she is.
Orl. Run to Charlemagne, spare for no cost ;
Tell bim, Orlando sent J for Angelica.
» the tubs of the Belides, <fec] Here we have a wrong
quantity,— Belides.— MS. Alleyn (which wants a good
deal immediately before this line) has ;
" That the belydes. youle letch me hir, sir.
spare no cost, run me to Charlemagne,
and say Orlando sent for Angelica, away, villayne !
— — your humor.
Oh, oh ! as though that Sagitar in all his pride
could take faire Leila from stout Jupiter ;
and yet, forsooth, Mtdor durst enterprise
to reave Orlando of Angelica.
syrha, you that are the messenger to Joue,
you that can sweep it through, the milke white pa.the
that leades unto the synode howse of Mars,
fetch me my helme, tempred of azure Steele,
my shcild, forged by the ciclopps for Aiichises sonne,
and see yf I dare combat for Angelica.
heaven and hell, godes and devylls ! whers Argalio?
Angelica.
Ah my dear Angelica !
syrha, fetch me the harping starr from heaven,
Lyra, the pleasant mynstrell of the spheares,
that I may dance a galyard with Angelica.
ride me to Pan ; bidd all his waternimphes
come with ther bagpypes and ther tamberius.
for a woeman.
howe fares my sweet Angelica ?
for his honesty.
art thou not fay re Angelica,
with browes as faire as faire Ibythea,
That darks Canopus with her silver hewe ?
art Angelica.
Why are not these those ruddy coulered cheekes,
Wrier botli the lillye and the blushing rose
syttes equall suted with a natyve redd.
a ballad.
Are not, my sweet, thes eyes, these sparkling lam pes,
Wherout proud Plabvj fiasheth fourth his lights?
with an othe.
but tell me, false Angelica,
slrumpett, worse then the whorish love of Mars,
traytresse, surpassing trothlese Cresida,
that so inchast his name within that grove,
wheres medor? say me lor truth wher medor is.
yf Jupiter hath shutt him with young Ganymede,
by heaven, He fetch him from the helesof Jove.
inconstant, laso, injurious and untrue !
such 8trumpctts shall not scape away with life.
god be with you.
[def. in MS.] wher are my souldiours? whers all
the campe, the captayns, leutenantes, sargeantes,
[def. in M.S. ] of the band, corporalles and [l]ancpresades,
gentlemen and mercenaries? seest thou not, medor
standee braving me at the gates of Home?
to much wages.
follow mo ! I may [must] goe scok my captaynes out,
that Medor may not have Angolica.
Exit. ] "
t not] Omitted in the 4to. of 1594.
t sent] The 4to. of 1590 "sends."
Org. Faith, I'll fetch you such an Angelica as
you never saw before. [Exit.
Orl. As though that Sagittarius in his pride
Could take brave Leda from stout Jupiter 1
And yet, forsooth, Medor, base Medor durst
Attempt to reave Orlando of his love.
Sirrah, you that are the messenger of Jove,
You that can sweep it through the milk-white
path
That leads unto the senate-house of Mars,
Fetch me my shield temper'd of purest steel,
My helm
Forg'd by the Cyclops for Anchises' son,
And see if I dare combat* for Angelica.
Re-enter Orgalio, with Tom t dressed like Angelica.
Org. Come away, and take heed you laugh not.
Tom. No, I warrant you ; but I think I had
best go back and 6have my beard.
Org. Tush, that will not be seen.
Tom. Well, you will give me the half-crown ye
promised me ?
Org. Doubt not of that, man.
Tom. Sirrah, didst not see me serve the fellow
a fine trick, when we came over the market-
place ?
Org. Why, how J was that ?
Tom. Why, he comes to me and said, " Gentle-
woman, wilt please you take§ a pint or a quart?"
" No gentlewoman," said I, " but your friend and
Dority."|i
Org. Excellent !— Come, see where my lord is.
— My lord, here is Angelica.
Orl. Mass, thou say'st true, 'tis she indeed. —
How fares
The fair Angelica?
Tom. Well, I thank you heartily.
Orl. Why, art thou not that sameU Angelica,
With brows** as bright as fair Erythea
That darks Canopus t+ with her silver hue ?
Tom Yes, forsooth.
Orl. Are not these the beauteous cheeks
Wherein the lilies and the native rose
Sit equal-suited with a blushing red?
Tom. He makes a garden-plot in my face.
* dare combat] So MS. Alleyn (as already shown).— The
4tos. " dare not combat."
+ Tom | The 4tos. " the Clowne."
} how] The 4to. of 1599 " what."
§ take] The 4to. of 1599 " to lake."
|| Durdy] i.e. Dorothy.
f same] The 4to. of 1599 "faire."
*» With brows] So MS. Alleyn (as already shown).— The
4tos. " Whoso hiew."
tt darks Canopus] i.e. makes Canopus look dark.
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
103
Orl. Are not, my dear, those the * radiant eyes
Whereout proud Phoebus flasheth out his beams?
Tom. Yes, yes, with squibs and crackers bravely.
Orl. You are Angelica ?
Tom. Yes, marry, am I.
OH. Where's your sweetheart Medor ?
Tom. Orgalio, give me eighteen-pence, and let
me go.
Orl. Speak, strumpet, speak.
Tom. Marry, sir, he is drinking a pint or a quart.
Orl. Why, strumpet, worse than Mars his
trothless love,
Falser than faithless Cressida ! strumpet, 'thou
shalt not scape.
Tom. Come, come, you + do not use me like a
gentlewoman : an if I be not for you, I am for
another.
Orl. Are you ? that will I try.
[Beats him out, and exit, followed by Orgalio.
Enter the Twelve Peers of France, with drum and
trumpets.
Ogier. Brave peers of France, sith we have
pass'd the bounds,
Whereby the wrangling billows seek for straits
To war with Tellus and her fruitful mines ;
Sith we have furrow'd through those^ wandering
tides
Of Tyrrhene seas, and made our galleys dance
Upon the Hyperborean billows' crests,
That brave with streams the watery Occident ;
And found the rich and wealthy Indian clime
Sought-to by greedy minds for hurtful gold ;
Now let us seek to venge the lamp of Franco
That lately was eclipsed in Angelica ;
Now let us seek Orlando forth, our peer,
Though from his former wits lately estrang'd,
Yet famous in our favours as before ;
And, sith by chance we all encounter'd be,
Let's seek revenge on her that wrought his wrong.
Namus. But being thus arriv'd in place
unknown,
Who shall direct our course unto the court
Where brave Marsilius keeps his royal state ?
Ogier. Lo, here, two Indian palmers hard at
hand,
Who can perhaps resolve our hidden doubts.
Enter Marsilius and Mandricard like Palmers.
Palmers, God speed.
* the] Added by Walker, Shakespeare's Versification,
&c, p. 151.
t you] The4to. of 1599 "yee. '
t those] The4to. of 1599 "these."
Mars. Lordings, we greet you well-
Ogier. Where lies Marsilius' court, friend,
canst thou tell ?
Mars. His court's his camp, the prince is now
in arms.
Turpin. In arms !
What's he that dares annoy so great a king ?
Mand. Such as both love and fury do confound :
Fierce Sacripant, incens'd with strange desires,
Wars on Marsilius, and, Rodomont being dead,
Hath levied all his men, and traitordike
Assails his lord and loving sovereign :
And Mandricard, who late hath been in arms
To prosecute revenge against Marsilius,
Is now through favours past become his friend.
Thus stands the state of matchless India.
Ogier. Palmer, I like thy brave and brief
discourse ;
And, couldst thou bring us to the prince's camp,
We would acknowledge friendship at thy hands.
Mars. Ye stranger lords, why seek ye out
Marsilius?
Oliver. In hope that he, whose empire is so large,
Wdl make both mind and monarchy agree.
Mars. Whence are you, lords, and what request
you here ?
Namus. A question over-haughty for thy weed,
Fit for the king himself for to propound.
Mand. O, sir, know that under simple weeds
The gods have mask'd : then deem not with
disdain
To answer to this palmer's question,
Whose coat includes perhaps as great as-youus.
Ogier. Haughty their words,, their persons full
of state ;
Though habit be but mean, their minds excelL —
Well, palmers, know
That princes are in India arriv'd,
Yea, even those western princely peers of Franee
That through the world adventures undertake,
To find Orlando late incens'd with rage.
Then, palmers, sith you know our styles and
state,
Advise us where your king Marsilius is.
Mars. Lording* of France, here is Marsilius,
That bids you welcome into India,
And will in person bring you to his camp.
Ogier. Marsilius ! and thus disguis'd !
Mars. Even Maivilius and thus disguis'd.
But what request these princes at my hand ?
Turpin. We sue for law and justice at thy hand :
We seek Angelica thy daughter out,
That wanton maid, that hath eclips'd the joy
Of royal France, and made Orlando mad.
104
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Mars. My daughter, lords ! why, she is exil'd;*
And her griev'd father is content to lose
The pleasance of his age, to countenance law.
Oliver. Not only exile shall await Angelica,
But death and bitter death shall follow her.
Then yield us right, Marsilius, or our swords
Shall make thee fear to wrong the peers of France.
Mars. Words cannot daunt me, princes, be
assur'd ;
But law and justice shall o'er-rule in this,
And I will bury father's name and love.
The hapless maid, banish'd from out my land,
Wanders about in woods aud ways unknown :
Her, if ye find, with fury persecute ;
I now disdain the name to be her father.
Lords of France, what would you more of me ?
Ojier. Marsilius, we commend thy princely
mind,
And will report thy justice through the world. —
Come, peers of France, let's seek Angelica,
Left for a spoil to our revenging thoughts.
[Exeunt.
Enter Orlando like a poet, and Oroalto.
Oil. Orgalio,t
Is not my love like those purple-colour'd swans
That gallop by the coach of Cynthia?
Org. Yes, marry, is she, my lord.
Orl. Is not her face silver'd like that milk-
white + shape
• My daughter, lords.' why, she is exil'd] Here "lords"
is a disyllable : see Walker's Shakespeare's Versification,
&c, p. 32. So again in the next speech of Marsilius ;
" Lords of France, what would you more of me ? "
t Orgaho] Omitted in the 4to. of 1599.— MS. Alleyn;
" Sirha, is she not like those purple coulered sicannes,
that gnllopp by the coache of Cinthya ?
her fare silvired like to the milku-hite shape
that Jove came dauncing in to Semele T
tell me, Argalio, what sayes Charlemagne?
his nephew Orlando, palantyne of fraunce,
is poet laureat for geometry.
Orlando.
in the w [def. in MS.]
base mynded tr.iytors ! yf you dare but say
Thetis is fayrer tlien Angelica,
lie place a peal of rysing livers in your throates
[def. in MS. | Virgill, Lucian [Lucan], Ovide, Ennius,
Sirha, were not theso poottes? yes, my lord.
Then Jovo, trotting upon proud Eolus,
■hall Dot eayncsay, but maugre all his houltes]
lie try witli vulcanu cracking of a launce,
Tf any of the godes mislikes my rondelayea,
Argalio, these be tho loekes Apollo turnd to bowes,
when crimson daphne r»n away for lovo.
love ! whats love, vilaync, but tho bastard of Mars,
tho poyson of penns, and yet thou sccst I wear
badges of a poet laureat tho world.
Clyme up the cloud™ to Galaxsy straight,
And tell Apollo." Ac.
t milk-white] Tho 4to. of 1509 "white railke."
That Jove came dancing in to Semele \*
Org. It is, my lord.
Orl. Then go thy ways, and climb up to the
clouds,
And tell Apollo that Orlando sits
Making of verses for Angelica.
If he deny f to send me down the shirt
Which Deiauira sent to Hercules,
To make me brave + upon my wedding-day,
Tell him
I'll pass the Alps, and up to Meroe,§
(I know he knows that watery lakish hill,)
Aud pull the harp out of the minstrel's hands, ||
And pawn it unto lovely Proserpine,
That she may fetch the fair Angelica.
Org. But, my lord, Apollo is asleep, and will
not hear me.
Orl. Then tell him, he is a sleepy knave : but,
sirrah, let nobody If trouble me, for I must lie
down a while, and talk with the stars.
[Lies down and sleeps.
* That Jove came dancing in to Semele] So MS. Alleyn
(as already shown).— The 4tos. "When Jove came dauncing
downe to Semele."
t If he deny] So MS. Alleyn.— The 4tos. " And if he doe
deny."
X brave] i.e. fine.
§ I'll pass (he Alps, and up to Meroe] MS. Al'eyn " lie
up the Atpes awl post to Meroe."
|| the minstrel's hands] Is this an allusion to the statue
of Memnon?
f noboily] The 4to. of 1599 "woman."— In MS. Alleyn,
after the line which ends the preceding speech of
Orlando ("That she may fetch me fay re Angelica") we
find ;
" vilayne, will he not send me it ?
no auswerr.
So, Orlando must become a poet.
No, the palatyne is sent champion unto the warrs.
take the Laurell, Latonas bastard sonne:
I will to flora, sirha, downe upon the ground,
for I must talke in secrett to the stan-es.
doth lye.
when Jove rent all the welkin with a crake.
fye. fye ! tis a false verse. penylesse.
how, fellow, wher is the Artick bear, late baighted
from his pool ? scurvy poetry I a litell to long.
by force.
Oh, my sweet Angelica, braver then Juuo was.
but, vilayne, she converst with Medor.
I give.
drownd be Canopus child in those arcadyau twins.
is not that sweet, Argalio?
confesse it.
6tabb the old whore, and send her soulc to tho divell.
Lende me the nett that vu'.can trapt for Mars.
[def. in MS. J felows, vilaynes, whats there adoe
tho court is cald, an nere a Senatur.
Argalio, gevo mo the chayre ; I will be judg
my selfe souldioures.
So. sirs, what sayos Cassius ? why stabbd he Ctesar
in the sona to howse ?
1 his f u rye.
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
3 05
Enter a Fiddler.
Org. What, old acquaintance ! well met.
Fid. Ho, you would have me play Angelica
again, would ye not ?
Org. No, but I can tell thee where thou mayst
earn two or three shillings this morning, even
with the turning of a hand.
Fid. Two or three shillings ! tush, thou wot*
cozen me, thou : but an thou canst tell where I
may earn a groat, I'll give thee sixpence for thy
pains.
Org. Then play a fit of mirth to my lord.
Fid. Why, he is mad still, is he not ?
Org. No, no : come, play.
Fid. At which side doth he use to give his
reward ?
Org. Why, of any side.
Fid. Doth he not use to throw the chamber-
pot sometimes? 'T would grieve ma he should
wet my fiddle-strings.
Org. Tush, I warrant thee.
[Fiddler plays and sings any odd toy, and
Orlando wakes.
Orl. Who is this ? Shan Cuttelero ! Heartily
welcome, Shan Cuttelero.
Fid. No, sir, you should have said " Shan the
Fidideldero."
Orl. What, hast thou brought me myf sword?
[Takes away his fiddle.
Fid. A sword ! no, no, sir,J that's my fiddle.
Orl. But dost thou think the temper to be good ?
And will it hold
When thus and thus we Medor do assail ?
{Strikes and beats him with the fiddle.
Fid. Lord, sir, you'll break my living ! — You
told me your master was not mad.
Oi-l. Tell me, why § hast thou marr'd my sword ?
The pummel's well, the blade is curtal short :
Villain, why hast thou made it so ?
[Breaks the fiddle about his head.
Fid. Lord, sir, will you answer this ? [Exit.
Why speakes not, vilayne, thou peasaunt !
Yf thou beest a wandring knight, say who
hath crackt a Launce with the ? to him.
what sayest? Is it for the armour of
Achilles thou doest strive? yf be Ajax
shall trott away to troy, geve me thy
hand ulisses, it is thine. Armorer.
And you, fair virgin, what say you ?
Argalio, make her confesse all
Orlando.
have relet."
* wot] The 4to. of 1599 " wolt."
t my] The 4to. of 1599 "a": but compare Orlando's
second speech after this.
X no, no, sir] The 4to. of 1599 " Ho, sir."
§ why] The4to. of 1599 "what."
Eater Melissa with a glass of wine.
Orl. Orgalio, who is this?
Org. Faith, my lord, some old witch, I think.
Mel. O, that my lord would but conceit my tale !
Then would I speak and hope to find redress.
Orl. Fair Polyxena,* the pride of llion,
Fear not Achilles' over-madding boy ;
Pyrrhus shall not, &c.t
Souns, Orgalio, why sufferest thou this old trot to
come so nigh me ?
Org. Gome, come, stand by, your breath stinks.
Orl. What ! be all the Trojans fled ?
Theu give me some drink.
Mel. Here, Palatine, drink ;
Aud ever be thou better for this draught .
Orl. What's here ?
The paltry bottle that Darius quaff'd ?
[//e drinks, and she charms him with her wand,
and he lies down to sleep.
Else would 1+ set my mouth to Tigris' streams,
And drink up overflowing Euphrates.§
My || eyes are heavy, and I needs must sleep.
Melissa strikes with her wand, and the Satyrs enter with
music, and play round about him ; which done, they
stay : he awakes and speaks.
What shows^l are these,
That fill mine eyes with view of such regard
As heaven admires to see my slumbering dreams !
* Orl. Fair Polyxena, &c ] MS. Alleyn ;
" [def in MS.] tlie Howes [flower] of Ilium.
Fear not Achilles overmudding boy :
Pyrrhus shall not. Argalio, why sufferest
this olde trott to come so nere me.
away with thes rages !
fetch me the Robe that proud Apollo wears,
that 1 may Jett it in the capytoll.
Argalio, is Medor here? say whiche of
these is he. courage ! for why, the palatyne
of fraunce straight will make slaughter
of these daring foes. currunt.
are all the troyan* fledd ? then geve me
tome drynko, S' >me drink. my lord.
tls will / sett my mouth to Tigris streames,
and drink up overflowing Euphrates.
my lord.
This is the gesey shepherdes buttle, that Darius
guaft. so, so, so, oh so.
Inchaunt] "
f <bc] Sometimes means, in old dramas, any nonsense
the player chose to utter extempore.
J Else would I, &c. J Not only is the present s-.-Tie
mutilated aud corrupted, but this and the next lino :iro
shuffled out of their place : vide the preceding quot.iti >u
from MS. Alleyn.
§ Euphrates] See note §, p. S9, sec. col.
|| My] The 4 to. of 1599 " Mine."
H What shows, &c.J MS. Alleyn ;
" Wliat heavenly sightes of pleasaunce filles my eyes.
that feed the pride with view of such regard ?
[def. in MS] admyres to se the slombring dreamt."
106
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Skies are fulfill'd with lamps of lasting joy,
That boast the pride of haught Latona's son,
Who* lighteneth all the candles of the night.
Mnemosyne hatht kiss'd the kingly Jove,
And entertuin'd a feast within my brains,
Making her daughters^ solace on my brow.
Methinks, I feel how Cynthia tunes§ conceits
Of sad repent, and melloweth those desires
That frenzy scarce] | had ripen'd in my head.
Ate, I'll kiss thy restless cheek a while,
And suffer fruitless passion If bide control.
[Lies down again.
Mel. vos Silvani, Satyri, Faunique, deaque,
Nympkce Hamadryades, Dryades, Parcceque po-
tentes !
vos qui colitis lacusque locosque profundos,
Infernasque domus et nigra palatia Ditis !
Tuque Demogorgon, qui noctis fata gubernas,
Qui regis infernum solium, cozlumque, solamque !**
Exaudite preces, filiasque auferte micantes ;
In caput Orlandi celestes spargite lymphas,
Spargite. quis misere revocetur rapta perff umbras
Orlandi infelix anima.
[TJcen let music play before him, and so go forth.
Orl. What sights, what shapes, what strange-
conceited dreams,t+
More dreadful tbau appear'd to Hecuba
When fall of Troy was figur'd in her sleep ! §§
Juno, methought, sent down from heaven |||| by
Jove,
Came swiftly sweeping^ through thegloomy air;
And calling Iris,*** sent her straight abroad
* Who] So MS. Alleyn.— The 4tos. "He."
t hath] MS. Alleyn "had."
t daughters] i.e. the Muses. — So MS. Alleyn. — The
4tos. "daughter."
§ tunes] MS. Alleyn "tyms."
|| That frenzy scarce, &c] So MS. Alleyn, except that
it ends the line with " braynes " — The 4tos. "Which
phrensies scares," &c. I may notice that the odd expres-
sion in the next line, "restless cheek," is the reading of
MS. Alhyn as well as of the 4tos.
f fruitiest passion] So MS. Alleyn.— The 4tos. "vile
repent to."
** solium, ccelumgue, solumque] The 4tos. "solemque,
eolumque, coelumque." — Corrected by the Rev. J. Mit-
ford (Gent Mag. for March 1833, p. 216), who cites from
Prudentius, Peristeph. Hymn. x. 326, ' Codum, solumque,
vim marini gurgitis," &c.
H rapta per] The 4tos. "raptator," and in the next
line "Orlando."
tt Whattightt, what i -In ipes, what I range-conceited dreams]
So MS. Alleyn.— The 4tos, " Whatttghu, what shewes,
what fearefull shapes are these."
§§ sleep] MS. Alleyn "sleeps."
Illl sent down from heaven] MS. Alleyn "tent from the
heaven."
fH swiftly sweeping] MS. Alloyn "sweping swiftly."
**" And calling Irit, tic] So MS. Alleyn.— The 4tos.
have merely, —
To summon Fauns, the Satyrs, and the Nymphs,
The Dryades, and all the demigods,
To secret council ; [and, their] parie past,
She gave them vials full of heavenly dew.
With that,
Mounted upon* her parti-colour'd coach,
Being drawn with peacocks proudly through the
air,
She flewf with Iris to the sphere of Jove.
What fearful thoughts^ arise upon this show !
What desert grove is this! How thus disguis'd ?
Where is Orgalio ?
Org. Here, my lord.
Orl. Sirrah, how came I thus disguis'd,
Like mad Orestes, quaintly thus attir'd ?§
Org. Like mad Orestes ! nay, my lord, you may
boldly justify the comparison, for Orestes was
never so mad in his life as you were.
Orl. What, was I mad ? what Fury hath en-
chanted me ?
Mel. A Fury, sure,|| worse than Megsera was,
That reft her son from trusty Pylades.
Orl. Why, what art thou,
Some sibyl, or some goddess 1 freely speak.
Mel. Time not affords to tell each circumstance :
But thrice hath CynthiaU chang'd her hue,
Since thou, infected with a lunacy,
Hast gadded up and down these lawnds** and
groves,
Performing strange and ruthful stratagems,
All for the love of fair Angelica,
Whom thou with Medor didst suppose play'd false.
" And calling Fame, the Satyres, and the Nymphes,
She gaue them viols full of heaucnly dew."
* upon] So MS. Alleyn — The 4tos. "on."
t flew] MS. Alleyn "slipt."
t What fearful thoughts, &c] MS. Alleyn;
" what thought* arise upon this fearfull showe!
wher? in what woodes? what uncouth grove is this?
how thus disguysed ? where is Argalio t Argalio !
■ mad humores.
say me, sir boy, how cam I thus disguysed,
like mad Orestes quaintly thus attyred f
you are.
As I am ! villayne, termest me lunaticke ?
tell me what furye hath inchaunted me f
what art thou, some sibill, or some godes,
or what ? frely say on."
§ attir'd] So MS. Alleyn (as just shown).— The 4tos.
" disgui ed."
|| ture] Omitted in the 4to. of 1509.— This speech is
imperfect. Greene must have written something equi-
valent to, —
" A Fury, sure, worse than Megara was,
That sought to venge the blood of Clytemnestra,
And reft her son from trusty Pylades."
U Cynthia] An epithet to " Cynthia " has dropt out.
** lawnds] i e. lawns. — The 4tos. "lands." (Compare,
iu p. 95, sec. col., the mention of " lawnds and groves.")
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
107
But Sacripant had graven these roundelays,
To sting thee with infecting jealousy :
The swain that told thee of their oft converse,
Was servant unto County Sacripant :
And trust me, Orlando, Angelica,
Though true to thee, is banish' d from the court,
And Sacripant
This day bids battle to Marsilius.
The armies ready are to give assail ;
And on a hill that overpeers them both
Stand all the worthy matchless peers of France,
Who are in quest to seek Orlando out.
Muse not at this, for I have told thee true :
I am* she that cured thy disease.
Here take these weapons, given thee by the fates,
And hie thee, county, to the battle straight.
Orl. Thanks, sacred goddess, + for thy helping
hand.
Thither will I hie to be reveng'd. [Exeunt.
Alarums : enter Sacripant crowned, and, pursuing Marsi-
lius and Mandricard.
Sac. Viceroys, you are dead ;
For Sacripant, already crown 'd a king,
Heaves up his sword to have your diadems.
Mais. Traitor, not dead, norj any whit dis-
inay'd ;
For dear we prize the smallest drop of blood.
* lam] Qy. "And lam"?
t Orl. Thanks, sacred goddess, &c.~\ MS. Alleyn has the
following speech, which seems to belong to the close of
the present scene ;
" Orlando.
batt [def. in MS.]
Hath then the [def. in MS.] of Alcumenas child
lcdd fourth my thoughts, with far more egar rage
then wrastled in the brayne of Phillips sonne,
when mad with wyne he practised Clytus fall.
break from the cloudes, you burning brandes of Ire,
that styrr within the thunderers wrathfull fistes,
and fixe your hideous fyers on Sacrapant.
from out your fatall tresoryes of wrath,
you wastfull furyes, draw those eben bowles,
that bosted lukewarme bloud at Centaures ft ast,
to choak with bloud the thirsty Sacrapant,
thorough whom my Clymcne and hebe fell,
thorow whom my sprittes with fury wcr supprest.
my fancyes, post you unto Pindus topp :
ther midst the sacred troupes of nimphea inquire,
seek for my Venus nere Erycinne,
or in the vale of f def. in MS.] yf she sleep.
tell her Orlando [def. in MS.] second Mars,
hath robd the burning hill of Cicelye
of all the Ciclops treasurs ther bestowed,
to venge Mr wronges, and stoupe those haught con-
ceiptes,
that sought my Jelowsye and hir disgrace.
Ride, Nemesis, upon this angry steel
that thretneth those that hate Angelica,
who is the sonne of glory that consumes
Orlando, even the phenix of affect. [Exit."
X nor) The 4to. of 1594 "or."
Enter Orlando, with a scarf before his face.
Orl. Stay, princes,*
'Base not yourselves, to combat such a dog.
Mount on your coursers,+ follow those that fly,:}:
And let
Your conquering swords be tainted in their
bloods :
Pass ye for him ; he shall be combated.
[Exeunt Marsilius and Mandricard.
Sac. Why, what art thou that brav'st me thus?
Orl. I am, thou see'st, a mercenary soldier, §
Homely attir'd, but of soil haughty thoughts,
As naught can serve to quench th' aspiring flames, ^[
That burn** as do the fires of Sicily,
Unless I win that princely diadem,
That seems so ill upon thy coward's head.
Sac. Coward !
To arms, sir boy ! I will not brook these braves,
If Mars himself even from his fiery throne
Came arm'd with all his furnitures of war.
[Thtjfiyht.
villain ! thou hast slain a prince. tt
Orl. Then mayst thou think that Mars himself
came down.JJ
To vail §§ thy plumes and heave thee from thy
pomp.ll||
Prove whatUH thou art, I reck not of thy gree,***
But I will have the conquest of my sword,
Which is the glory of thy diadem.
* Orl. Stay, princes] MS. Alleyn ;
" slave as he.
Prynces, for shame ! unto your royall cam pes."
\ Mount on your coursers, &c] MS. Alleyn;
" folloio the chase, mount on your coursers t.trong ;
manage your spears, and Utt your slaughtering sicord<s
be taynted with the bloud of them that flee,
from him passe 3*e ; he shalbe combated."
t fy] The4to. of 1599 "flee."
§ Orl. I am, thou seest, a mercenary soldier] MS.
Alleyn ;
" wi thine.
I am, thou seest, a cuntry servile swayne.
|| Homely attir'd, but of so] So MS. Alleyn.— The 4tos.
" Homely, yet of such."
U flames] So MS. Alleyn.— The 4tos. "thoughts."
** burn] MS. Alleyn "scorch."
tt prince} MS. Alleyn "king."
Jt Then mayst thou think that Mars himself came down |
MS. Alleyn;
" Then mayst thou deme some second mars from heaven
is sent, as was Amphitrios foster sonne."
§§ vail] i.e. lower.
Illl thy pomp) MS. Alleyn "a crowne."
If'il Prove what] So MS. Alleyn.— The 4tos. "Provide
that."
*** gree] i.e. degree. — After this line, MS. Alleyn has ;
" as Lampethusas brother from his coach,
prauncing and visor open, went his course
and tombled from Apollo's chariott,
so shall thy fortunes and thy honor fall,
to prove it, He have the guerdon of my ticord
which is the glory of thy diculeme."
108
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Sac. These words bewray thou art no base-born
Moor,
But by descent sprung from some royal line :
Then freely tell me, what's thy name 1
Oil. Nay. first let me know thine.*
Sac. Then know that thou hast slain Prince
Sacripant.
Orl. Sacripant !
Then let me at thy dying day entreat,
By that same sphere wherein thy soul shall rest,
If Jove deuy not passage to thy ghost,
Thou tell me
\Vhether+ thou wrong'dst Angelica or no ?
Sac. 0, that's the sting that pricks my con-
science !
0, that's the hell my thoughts abhor to think !
I tell thee, knight, for thou dost seem no less,
That I engrav'd the roundelays on the trees,
And hung the schedules^ of poor Medor's love,
Intending so to breed debate§
Between Orlando and Angelica :
0, thus I wrong'd Orlando and Angelica !
Now tell me, what shall I call thy name!
Orl. Then dead is the fatal author of my ill.||
Base villain, vassal, unworthy ^[ of a crown,
Know that the man that struck the fatal** stroke,
Is Orlando, the County Palatine,ft
Whom fortune sent to quittance all my wrongs. Ji
Thou foil'd and slain, it now behoves me straight! §
To hie me faBt to massacre thy men :
And so, farewell, thou devil in shape of man.
[Exit.
Sac. Hath Demogorgon, ruler of the fates,
Set such a baleful period on my life
As none might end the days of Sacripant
But mighty Orlando, rival of my love ?
Now hold IHI the fatal murderers of men
The sharpen'd knife ready to cut my thread,
Ending the scene of all my tragedy :
* Nay, first let me know thine] MS. Alleyn "first
thine."
f Thou tell me
Whether] MS. Alleyn "then tell me, yf."
I schedules] The ttos. "sedulet."
§ debate] An epithet to " debate " is wanting.
|| Then dead is the fatal author of my 'II MS Alleyn ;
" Extinguish, proud tesyphone, those brandes :
fetch dark Alecto from black phlegeton,
or Lethe water t,<. appease those flames,
that wraihfull Nemesis bath sett on fire.
dead is the /•■tall author of my yll."
H Base, villain, vassal, unworthy] MS. Alleyn " vassall !
base vilayne ! worthlusso."
*• struck the fatal] MS. Alleyn "stabd the diamall."
ft County Palatine] MS. Alleyn " palatyne of fraunce."
}t my wrongs] MS. Alleyn "thy wrong."
5§ straight] MS. Alleyn "dogg."
IHI hold] The 4to. of 1594 " holdeth."
This day, this hour, this minute ends the days
Of him that liv'd worthy old Nestor's age.
Phoebus, put on* thy sable-suited wreath,
Cladi* all thy spheres in dark and mourning
weeds :
Parch'd be the earth, to drink up every spring :
Let corn and trees be blasted from above ;
Heaven turn to brass, and earth to wedge of steel;
The world to cinders. Mars, come thunderuig
down,
And never sheath thy swift-revenging sword,
Till, like the deluge in Deucalion's days,
The highest mountains swim in streams of blond.
Heaven, earth, men, beasts, and every living thing,
Consume and end with County Sacripant ! [Dies.
Enter Marsilius, Mandricard, and the Twelve Peers,
with Angelica.
Mars. Fought is the field, and Sacripant is
slain,
With such a massacre of all his men,
As Mars, descending in his purple robe,
Vows with Bellona in whole heaps of blood
To banquet all the demigods of war.
Mand. See, where he lies slaughter'd without
the camp,
And by a simple swain, a mercenary,
Who bravely took the combat to himself:
Might I but know the man that did the deed,
I would, my lord, eternize him with fame.
Ogier. Leaving the factious county to his death,
Command, my lord, his body be convey'd
Unto some place, as likes your highness best.
See, Marsilius, posting through Africa,
We have found this straggling girl, Angelica,
Who, for she wrong'd % her love Orlando,
Chiefest of the western peers, conversing
With so mean a man as Medor was,
We will have her puuish'd by the laws of France,
To end her burning lust § in flames of fire.
Mars. Beshrew you, lordings, but you do your
worst ;
Fire, || famine, and as cruel death
Ab fell to Nero's mother in his rage.
Aruj. Father, if I may dare to call thee so,
And lords of France, come from the western seas,
In quest to find mighty Orlando out,
Yet, ere I die, let me have leave to say,
* on] The4tos. "out."
\ Clad] Was not unfrequently used for clothe by our old
writers : see my note on Marlowe's Works, p. 270, ed.
1858.
J Who, for she wrong'd, &c] Another halting passage
§ lust] The 4to. of 1593 " louo "
II Fire, etc.] Qy. " Hers Iic/t," *<:. ?
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
109
Angelica held ever iu her thoughts
Most dear the love of County Palatine.
What wretch hath wrong'd us with suspect of
lust,*
I know not, I, nor can accuse t the man ;
But, by the heavens, whereto my soul shall fly, J
Angelica did never wrong Orlando.
I speak not this as one that cares to live,
For why § my thoughts are fully malcontent;
And I conjure you by your chivalry,
You quit Orlando's wrong upon Angelica.
Enter Orlando, with a scarf be/ore his face.
Oliver. Strumpet, fear not, for, by fair Maia's
son,
This day thy soul shall vanish up in fire,
As Semele, when Juno wil'd the trull
To entertain the glory of her love.
Orl. Frenchman, for so thy quaint array imports,
Be thou a peer, or be || thou Charlemagne,
Or hadst thou Hector's TI or Achilles' heart,
Or never-daunted thoughts of Hercules,
That did in courage far surpass them all,**
I tell thee, sir, thou liest in tt thy throat, —
The greatest brave Transalpine X+ France can
brook, —
In saying that sacred Angelica §§
Did offer wrong unto the Palatine.
I am a common mercenai-y soldier ; || ||
Yet, for I see my UH princess is abus'd
By new-come stragglers from a foreign *** coast,
I dare the proudest of these +TT western lords
To crack a blade in trial of her right.
Maud. Why, foolish-hardy, daring, simple
groom,
Follower of fond-conceited XXX Phaeton,
Kuow'st thou to whom thou speak'st ?
* lust] The 4tos. "lone."
t accuse] The 4to. of 1599 "excuse."
X fly] The 4to. of]599 "flee."
§ For why] i. e. Because.
|| Be ... . be] MS. Alleyn " beest .... beest."
1f Hector's] So MS. Alleyn (which has also "hartes").
— The4tos. "Hector."
** That did in courage far surpass them all] MS. Alleyn
"the infusd metemsichosis of them all."
tt in] MS. Alley., "within."
{{ Transalpine] MS. Alleyn "Cisalpine."
§| la saying that sacred Angelica] Walker (Shakespeare's
Versification, &c, p. 15) notices that here "sacred" is a
trisyllable; and his editor adds that "saying" is a
monosyllable.
IIH common mercenary soldier] MS. Alleyn " slavishe
Indian mercenary."
UH mii\ MS. Alleyn "the."
*"* a foreign] MS. Alleyn "auuncooth."
ttt thest | MS. Alleyn "the."
Jtt fond-rono ttedj i. e. silly-minded.
Mais. Brave soldier, for so much tby courage
says,
These men are princes dipt within the blood
Of kings most royal, seated in the west,
Unfit to accept a challenge at your hand :
Yet thanks that thou wouhlst in thy lord's defence
Fight for my daughter ; but her guilt is known.
Aug. Ay, rest thee, soldi< r, Angelica is false, —
False, for she hath no trial of her right :
Soldier, let me die for the 'miss * of all.
Wert thou as stout as was t proud Theseus,
In vain thy blade should offer my defence ;
For why X the.~e be the champions of the world,
Twelve Peers of France that never yet were foil'd.
Orl. How, madam, § the Twelve Peers of France !
Why, let them be twelve devils of hell,
What I have said, [thereto] I'll pawn my sword,
To seal it on the shield of him that dares,
Malgrado of his honour, combat me.
Oliver. Marry, sir, that dare I.
Orl. You're a welcome man, sir.
Turpin. Chastise the groom, Oliver, and learn
him know
We are not like the boys of Africa. ||
Orl. Hear you, sir ?
You that so peremptorily bade him fight,
Prepare your weapons, for your turn is next :
* 'miss] For amiss, i. e. fault.
t wa.i] The 4to. of 1594 "is."
J For why] i. e. Because.
§ How, Madam. &c.J MS. Alleyn :
" Twelve peres offraunce, twelve dinylles, whats that
what 1 have spoke, ther I pawne my sword
to scale it on the helme of him that dare,
Malgrado," &c.
|| boys of Africa, &c] MS. Alleyn;
" Lords of India.
Tou that so proudly bid him fight,
out with your blade, for why, your turne is next.
tis not this champion can discorage me.
Pugnant. M. victus]
You, sir, that braved your heraldry,
wher is the honor of the howse of fraunce ?
to doe.
faire princesse, what I may belonges to the :
w ttnes, I well have hanseled yet my sword,
now, sir, you that will chastyce when you meet,
bestirr you, french man, for He taske you hard.
Oliver victus]
Provide you, lordes ; determyne who is next :
pick out the stoutest champion of.you all.
they wer but striplinges : call you those the peers f
Hold, madam, and yf my life but last it out,
lie gard your person with the peires of fraunce.
by my side.
So, sir, you have made a godly oracion,
but use your sword better, lest 1 well
beswinge you.
Pugnant] —
by my faith, you have done pretily well ; but,
110
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Tis not one champion can * discourage me.
Come, are ye ready ?
[He fights first with one, and then with the other,
and overcomes them both.
So, stand aside : —
And, madam, if my fortune last it out,
I'll guard your person with Twelve Peers of
France.
Ogier. [aside,'] Ogier, how canst thou stand,
and see a slave
Disgrace the house of France? — Sirrah, prepare
you;
For angry Nemesis sits on my sword
To be reveng'd.
Orl. Well said, Frenchman ! you have made a
goodly oration : but you had best to use your
sword better, lest I beswinge you.
[They fight a, good while, and then breathe.
Ogier. Howe'er t disguis'd in base or Indian
shape,
Ogier can well discern thee by thy blows;
For either thou art Orlando or the devil.
Orl. [taking off his scarf.] Then, to assure you
that I am no devil,
Here's your friend and companion, Orlando.
Ogier. And none can be more glad than Ogier is,
That he hath found his cousin in his sense.
Oliver. Whenas I felt his blows upon my shield,
My teeth did chatter, and my thoughts conceiv'd,
Who might this be, if not the Palatine.
Turpin. So had I said, but that report did tell
My lord was troubled with a lunacy.
Orl. So was I, lordiugs ; + but give me leave
awhile,
Humbly as Mars did to his paramour,
So to submit to fair Angelica. —
Pardon thy lord, fair saint Angelica,
sirha freuch man, thiuek you to breath? come,
fall to this goer close : dispatch, for we must
have no parle.
0. v ictus] Orlando.
Ogier, sweet cuss, geve me thy hand, my lord,
and say thast found the county Palatyne."
* can] So MS. Allcyu (as shown above). — The 4tos.
"that cow."
\ I/owe'er] The 4tos. " Ilowsoc're."
I So was I, lordings" <fcc] MS. Allcyn ;
" So wot I, Lordes ; but geve me leave a while,
humbly as mars did to his paramour
when as his godhead wrongd hir with suspoct,
so to submitl to fa ire Angdica,
upon whose lovly Etofleat chcokes, mo semos,
the eristall of hir monic more clerly spredes,
then doth the dew upon Adonis flower,
faire nimphc, about whoso browos sittes floras pride,
Elisian bewty trappes about thy lookes,
pardon thy Lord, who, perst with Jelowsie,
darkned thy vertuOS with a great eculipsc.
pardon thy Lord,fairt ayrU," &c.
Whose love, stealing by steps into extremes,
Grew by suspect to causeless * lunacy.
Ang. no, my lord, but pardon my amiss ; t
For had not Orlando lov'd Angelica,
Ne'er had my lord fall'n into these extremes,
Which we will parley private to ourselves.
Ne'er was the queen of Cyprus half so glad J
As is Angelica to see her lord,
Her dear Orlando, settled in his sense.
Orl. Thanks, my sweet love. § —
But why stand || the Prince of Africa,
And Mandricard the King of Mexico,
So deep in dumps, when all rejoice beside 1 If
First know, my lord, I slaughter'd Sacripant,
I am the man that did the slave to death ;
Who frankly there did make confession,
That he engrav'd the roundelays on the trees,
And hung the schedules** of poor Medor'a love,
Intending by suspect to breed debate
Deeply 'twixt me and fair Angelica :
His hope had hap, but we had all the harm ;
And now revenge leaping from out the seat
Of him that may ft command stern Nemesis,
Hath pour'd those XX treasons justly on his head.
What saith my gracious lord to this?
* by suspect to causeless] The 4tos. "by suspition to a
causelesse" : MS. Alleyu " by suspition to cau-slesse."
f amiss] i. e. fault.
X Ne'er was the queen of Cyprus half so glad] Here a line,
which informed us why the queen of Cyprus (Venus)
"was glad," has been omitted by mistake.
§ my sweet love] MS Alleyu "sweet Angelica."
|| stand] Qy. " stand now," or " stand thus '">
If when all rejoice beside? &c] A speech addressed to
Orlando, which immediately followed these words, is
wanting. — MS. Alleyn ;
" when all rejoyse besides ?
Palatyne.
And that, my leig, durandall hath averd
agaynst my kinsmen and the peires of fraunce.
next know, my lord, 1 slaughtered Sacrapant.
I am the man that did the slave to death,
who falsely wrongd Angelica and me ;
for when I stabd the traytor to the hart,
and he lay breathing in his latest gaspe,
he frankly made confession at his death
That he," &c.
** schedules] MS. Alleyn "scedule."
It may] MS. Alleyn "can."
{J pour'd those] MS. Alleyn " heapd his."— After this
line the MS. goes on and ends as follows ;
" honor the.
Thankes, Angelica, for her.
but nowe, my Lordes of fraunce, frolick, myfr.-ndef,
and welcome to the courts of Africa.
courage, companyons, that have past the seas
furrowing the playnes of neptune with your keleg
to sceko your fiend the county Palatyne.
you thrc, my Lordes, I welcome with my sword,
the rest, brave gentlemen, my hart and hand.
what welth within the clime of Africa,
ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Ill
Mars. I stand amaz'd, deep over-drencli'd with
j°y»
To hear and see this unexpected end :
So well I rest content. — Ye * peers of France,
Sith it is prov'd Angelica is clear,
Her and my crown I freely will bestow
Upon Orlando, the County Palatine.
Oil. Thanks, my good lord. — And now, my
friends of France,
Frolic, be merry : we will hasten home,
So soon as King Marsilius will consent
To let his daughter wend with us to France.
Meanwhile we'll richly rig up all our fleet
More brave t than was that gallant Grecian keel
That brought away the Colchian fleece of gold :
what pleasure longst the costes of mexico,
Lordinges, commauud, I dare be bold so far
with Mandrycard aud prince Marsilius.
the pretious shrubbles, the * * of mirh,
the founts as riche as Eden did aford,
wbatso ever is faire and pleasing, Lordinges, use,
and welcome to the county Palatyne.
or none.
Thaukes, Affrike vicroye, for the Lordes of frauncs.
and, fellow mates, be merry, we will home
as sone as pleaseth King Marsilius
to letl his doughter passe with us tofraunce.
meane while wele richly rigg up all our fleet
more brave thtn wer the [def. in MS.] keles."
* Te] The 4to. of 1599 "You."
t brave\ i. e. splendid.
Our sails of sendal * spread into f the wind ;
Our ropes and tackliugs all of finest silk,
Fetch'd from the native looms of labouring worms,
The pride of Barbary, and the glorious wealth
That is transported by the western bounds ;
Our stems cut out of gleaming ivory ;
Our planks and sides fraui'd out of cypress- wood,
That bears the name of Uyparissus' change,
To burst the billows of the ocean-sea,
Where Phcobus dips his amber tresses oft,
And kisses Thetis in the day's decline ;
That Neptune proud shall call his Tritons forth
To cover all the ocean with a calm :
So rich shall be the rubbish of our barks,
Ta'en here for ballass to the ports of France,
That Charles himself shall wonder at the sight.
Thus, lordings, when our banquettings be done,
And Orlando espoused to Angelica,
We'll furrow through the moving ocean,
And cheerly frolic with great Charlemague.
[Exeunt omnes.
* sendal] "A kinde of Cipres stuffe or silke." Min-
sheu's Guide Into Tongues, 1617. " CENDALUM.C'endatum,
&c. Tela subserica, \el pannus sericus, Gallis et His-
panis, Cenilal: quibusdam quasi Setal, interposito, n. ex
seta, seu serico ; aliis ex Grteco trit^uv, amictus ex lino
JEgyptieiAO : aliis denique ex Arabico Cendali, folium deli-
caturn, subtile: vel lamina subtilior." Du Cange, Gloss.
f into] Here, as in numerous passages of our early
writers, " into " is equivalent to "unto.'
A Looking Qlasse for London and England. Made by Thomas Lodge Gentleman, and Robert Greene. In Artibus
Magister. London Printed by Thamas Creede, and are to be sold by William Barley, at his shop in Gratious streete.
1594. 4to. b. 1.
A Looking Glass*, for London and Englande. Made by Tlwmas Lodge Gentleman, and Robert Greene. In Arlibus
Magister. London Printed by Thomas Creede, and are to be solde by William Barley, at his shop in Gratious streets.
1598. 4to. b. 1.
This play was also printed in 1602 and 1617.
The edition of 1594 is by far the most correct.
DRAMATIS PERSONS*
Rasni, King of Nineveh.
Kino of Cilicia.
Kino of Crete.
Kino of Paphlaoonia.
Thrasybulus, a young gentleman, reduced to poverty.
Alcon, a poor man.
R*DACON, t | hissou8 _
CLESIPHON, J
Usurer.
Judge.
Lawyer.
Smith.
Adam, his man.
Clown.
First Ruffian.
Second Ruffian.
Governor of Joppa.
Master of a ship.
First Searcher.
Second Searcher.
A Man in devil's attire.
Magi, Merchants, Sailors, Lords, Attendants, Ao.
Remilia, sister to Rasni.
Alvida, wife to the King of Paphlaoonia.
Samia, wife to Alcon.
Smith's Wife.
Ladies.
An Angel.
An Evil Angel.
OSEAS.
Jonas.
* Occasionally throughout the 4tos. Rasni, Cilicia, Remilia, and Alvida, are printed Rosin, Cicilia, Remittal, and
Alvia.
t "In like manner," says Maloue (in his note about anagrams, — Shakespeare by Boswell, vol. ii p. "-'21 ), " in the
Looking Glasse for London and England, written by Thomas Lodgo and Robert Greene, the cruel ai.d brutal son
who treats his parents, Alcon and Samia, with neglect and contempt, and refuses them any succour in their utmost
need, is called Radagon, by metathesis, from a dragon." It had, perhaps, escaped Malone's notice that a very
unexceptionable personage, called Radagon, figures iu the Host's Tale, in Greene's Never Too Late, Fart Stcnnd,
A LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
Enter Rasni, with the Kings of Cilicia, Crf.te, and
Paphlagonia., from the overthrow of Jeroboam, King
of Jerusalem.
Rami. So pace ye on," triumphant warriors;
Make Venus' leman,* arm'd in all his pomp,
Bash at the brightness of your hardy looks,
For you the viceroys are,t the cavaliers,
That wait on Rasni's royal mightiness :
Boast, petty kings, and glory in your fates,
That stars have made your fortunes climb so high,
To give attend on Rasni's excellence.^
Am I not he that rules great Nineveh,
Rounded with Lycus' silver-flowing streams ?
Whose city large diametri contains,
Even three days' journey's length from wall to
wall ;
Two hundred gates carv'd out of burnish'd brass,
As glorious as the portal of the sun ;
And for to deck heaven's battlements with pride,
Sis hundred tower3 that topless touch the clouds.
This city is the footstool of your king ;
A hundred lords do honour at my feet ;
My sceptre straineth both the parallels :
And now t' enlarge the highness of my power,
I have made Judaea's monarch flee the field,
And beat proud Jeroboam from his holds,
Winning from Cades to Samaria.
Great Jewry's God, that foil'd stout Bonhadad,
Could not rebate § the strength that Rasni
brought ;
For be he God in heaven, yet, viceroys, know,
Rasni is god on earth, and none but he
K. of Oil. If lovely shape, feature by nature's
skill
Passing in beauty fair Endymion's,
That Luna wrapt within her snowy breasts,
* leman~\ i.e. lover.
t are] The 4tos. "and."
X excelbnce] The 4 to. ofloPS "exccllcncie."
§ rebate] See note *, p. 90. sec. col.
Or that sweet boy that wrought bright Venus'
bane,
Transform'd unto a purple hyacinth ;
If beauty nonpareil in excellence,
May make a king match with the gods in gree,*
Rasni is god on earth, and none but he.
K. of Crete. If martial looks, wrapt in a cloud
of wars,
More fierce thanMavorst lighten eth from his eyes,
Sparkling revenge and dire disparagement ;
If doughty deeds more haught J than any done,
Seal'd with the smile of fortune and of fate,
Matchless to manage lance and curtle-axe ;
If such high actions, grae'd with victories,
May make a king match with the gods in gree,
Rasni is god on earth, and none but he.
K. of Paph. If Pallas' wealth
Rasni. Viceroys, enough ; peace, § Paphlagon,
no more.
See where's my sister, fair Remilia,
Fairer than was the virgin Danae,
That waits on Venus with a golden show; ||
She that hath stoln the wealth of Rasni's looks,
And tied his thoughts withm her lovely locks,
She that is lov'd, and love unto your king,
See where she comes to gratulate my fame.
Enter Radagon, with Remilia, Alvida, and Ladies,
bringing a globe seated in a sit ip.
Remit. Victorious monarch, second unto Jove,
Mars upon earth, and Neptune on the seas,
* gree] i.e. degree.
| Movors] The 4tos. " Mars " : but compare, in a sub-
sequent scene, p. 123, sec. col.,
" Nymphs, eunuchs, sing, for Mavon draweth nigh," &c.
t haught] The 4tos. "haughtie": but compare, in the
preceding play, p 10t>, first col., "haught Latona's son."
§ peace] Not in the 4to. of 159S.
|] That waits on Venus with a golden show] "We should
read, I think, —
' Tha' Venn* wait [i. e. waited] on with a.golden shower.' "
Walker's Qrit. Exam, of the text of Shakespeare,
&C. , ii. 60.
118
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
Whose frown strows * all the ocean with a
calm,
Whose smile draws Flora to display her pride,
Whose eye holds wanton Veuus at a gaze,
Rasni, the regent of great Nineveh ;
For thou hast foil'd proud Jeroboam's force,
And, like the mustering + breath of yEolus
That overturns the pines of Lebanon,
Hast scatter'd Jewry and her upstart grooms,
Winning from Cades to Samaria ; —
Remilia greets thee with a kind salute,
And, for a present to thy mightiness,
Gives thee a globe folded within a ship,
As king on earth and lord of all the seas,
With such a welcome unto Nineveh
As may thy sister's humble love afford.
Rasni. Sister ! the title fits not thy degree ;
A higher state of honour shall be thiue.
The lovely trull that Mercury entrapp'd
Within the curious pleasure of his tomme,
And she that bash'd the sun god with her eyes,
Fair Semele, the choice of Venus' maids,
Were not so beauteous as Remilia.
Then, sweeting, sister shall not serve the turn,
But Rasni's wife, Lis leman, and his love :
Thou shalt, like Juno, wed thyself to Jove,
And fold me in the richess of thy fair ;%
Remilia shall be Rasni's paramour.
For why, § if I be Mars for warlike deeds,
And thou bright Venus for thy clear aspect,
Why should not from our loins issue a son
That might be lord of royal sovereignty,
Of twenty worlds, if twenty worlds might be 1
What say'st, Remilia, art thou Rasni's wife ]
Remit. My heart doth swell with favour of thy
thoughts ;
The love of Rasni maketh me as proud
As Juno when she wore heaven's diadem.
Thy sister born was for thy wife, my|| love :
Had I the riches nature locketh up
To deck her darling beauty when she smiles,
Rasni should prank him in the pride of all.
Rasni. Remilia's love is far more either^ priz'd
Than Jeroboam's or the world's subdue.
LordingB, I'll have my wedding** sumptuous,
Made glorious with the treasures of the world :
* ttrows] The 4tos. "«troyca."
\ iiiutte iin;i] Qy. "blustering"?
t fair] i. o. bounty.
§ /''or why] i. o. Because.
|| my] So the It... of 1002. Tho other Itos. "by."*
1j more either] M;iy be light: but qy. (according to tho
phraseology of tho time) " wore richer " ?
"* Utddinff] The 4tos. " weddings."
I'll fetch from Albia shelves of margarites,*
And strip the Indies of their diamonds,
And Tyre shall yield me tribute of her gold,
To make Remilia's wedding glorious.
I'll send for all the damosel queens that live
Within the reach of Rasni's government,
To wait as handmaids onf Remilia,
That her attendant train may pass the troop
That gloried Venus at her wedding-day.
K. of Crete. my lord, J not sister to thy love !
'Tis incest, and too foul a fact for kings ;
Nature allows no limits to such lust.
Radag. Presumptuous viceroy, dar'st thou
check thy lord,
Or twit him with the laws that nature loves ?
Is not great Rasni above nature's reach,
God upon earth, and all his will is law 1
K. of Crete. 0, natter not, for hateful is his
choice,
And sister's love will blemish all his worth.
Radag. Doth not the brightness of his majesty
Shadow his deeds from being counted faults 1
Rasni Well hast thou answer'd with him, Ra-
dagon ; §
I like thee for thy learned sophistry. —
But thou of Crete, that countercheck'st thy king,
Pack hencell in exile, give Radagon thy crown. —
Be thoull vicegerent of his royalty ;
And fail me not in what my thoughts may please,
For from a beggar have I brought thee up,
And grae'd thee with the honour of a crown. —
Ye quondam king, what, feed ye on delays?
K. of Crete. Better no king than viceroy under
him,
That hath no virtue to maintain his crown. [Exit.
Rasni. Remilia, what fair dames be those that
wait
Attendant on thy** matchless royalty?
Rcmil. 'Tis Alvida,ft the fair wife to the King
Of Paphlagonia. [lagon, a jewel,
Rasni. Trust me, she is fair. JJ — Thou'st, Paph-
To fold thee in so bright a sweeting's arms.
Radag. Like you her, my lord?
Rasni. What if I do, Radagon ?
* I'll fetch from Albia slulves of margarites] See note ||,
p. 90, first col.
t on] The 4to. of 1598 "to."
t my lord, &c] Qy.
" my lord, not thy sifter to thy love " ?
§ with him, Radagon] The 4tos. "within Radon."
|| Pack hence, &c. | The 4to. of 1594 ;
" Pack hence in exile, Radagon the crown."
II thou] The 4tos. "thee."
•* thy] Tho 4to. of 159S " my."
tt 'TitAlvida] Qy "This'fi e. This is] Alvida"
XX fair] Tho 4to. of 1598 "a/air."
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
119
Radag. Why, then she is yours, my lord ; for
marriage
Makes no exception, where Rasni doth command.
K. of Pajih. Ill dost thou counsel him to fancy
wives.
Radar/. Wife or not wife, whatso he likes is his.
Rami. Well answer'd, Radagon ; thou art for me :
Feed thou mine humour, and be still a king. —
Lords, go in triumph of my happy loves,
And, for to feast us after all our broils,
Frolic and revel it in Nineveh.
Whate'er* befitteth your conceited thoughts,
Or good or ill, love or not love, my boys,
In love, or what may satisfy your lust,
Act it, my lords, for no man dare say no.
Divisum imperiwtn cum Jove nunc tenco.f
[Exeunt.
Enter, brought in by an Angel, Oseas the Prophet, and let\
down over the stage in a throne.
Angel. Amaze not, man of God, if in the spirit
Thou'rt brought from Jewry unto Nineveh ;
So was Elias wrapt within a storm,
And set upon Mount Carmel by the Lord :
For thou hast preach'd long to the stubborn Jews,
Whose flinty hearts have felt no sweet remorse,
But lightly valuing all the threats of God,
Have still perseVer'd in their wickedness.
Lo, I have brought thee unto Nineveh,
The rich and royal city of the world,
Pamper'd in wealth, and overgrown with pride,
As Sodom and Gomorrah full of sin.
The Lord looks down and cannot see one good,
Not one that covets to obey his will ;
But wicked all from cradle to the crutch. §
Note, then, Oseas, all their grievous sins,
And see the wrath of God that pays revenge ;
And when the ripeness of their sin is full,
And thou hast written all their wicked through,
I'll cany thee to Jewry back again,
And scat thee in the great Jerusalem.
There shalt thou publish in her open streets,
That God sends down his hateful wrath for sin
On such as never heard his prophets speak:
Much more will he inflict a world of plagues
On such as hear the sweetness of his voice,
* Whate'er] The 4tos. "Whatsocuer." (Compare note t,
p. 110, first coL)
\ Divisum, &c] To this line, in the 4tos , is prefixed
"Smith" (that name having been written here on the
margin of the prompter's copy as a memorandum that
the performer of "the Smith's man, Adam" (see note t,
next col.) aud those who played his companions must
be in readiness to appear on the stage immediately after
the exit of the Angel.)
t let} The 4tos. of 1594, 1598, and 1617 "set."
§ crutch] The 4 to. of 1508 "church."
And yet obey not what his prophets speak.
Sit thee, Oseas, pondering in the spirit
The mightiness of these fond* people's sins.
Otcas. The will of the Lord be done !
[Exit Angel.
Enter Clown and a crew of Ruffians, to go to drink.
First Ruf. Come on, smith, thou shalt be one
of the crew, because thou knowest where the
best ale in the town is.
Adam.f Come on, in faith, my eolts : I have
left my master striking of a heat, and stole away,
because I would keep you company.
Clown. Why, what, shall we have this paltry
smith with us?
Adam. Paltry smith ! why, you incarnative
knave, what are you that you speak petty treason
against the smith's trade?
Cloim. Why, slave, I am a gentleman of Ni-
neveh.
Adam. A gentleman ! good sir, I remember
you well, and all your progenitors : your father
bare office in our town ; an honest man he was,
and in great discredit in the parish, for they
bestowed two squires' livings on him, the one
was on working-days, and then he kept the town
stage, and on holidays they made him the sexton's
man, for he whipped dogs out of the church.
Alas, sir, your father, — why, sir, methinks I see
the gentleman still : a proper youth he was, faith,
aged some forty aud ten ; + his beard rat's colour,
half black, half white ; his nose was in the
highest degree of noses, it was nose autem gloriji-
cani,§ so set with rubies that after his death it
should have been nailed up in Copper-smiths-hall
for a monument. Well, sir, I was beholdingl| to
your good father, for he was the first man that
ever instructed me in the mystery of a pot of ale.
Second Ruf. Well said, smith ; that crossed
him over the thumbs.
Clown. Villain, were it not that we go to be
merry, my rapier should presently quit II thy
opprobrious terms.
* fond] i. e. foolish.
t Adam] The 4to. of 1602, throughout the scene,
" Smith ; " so the other 4tos. in part of the scene, but in
part of it they do not appropriate his speeches to any
one. It is plain that the speaker is the Smith's Man,
Adam, by which name he is several times distinguished
in the later portion of the play.
t forty and ten] The 4tos " foure and ten."
§ nose autem ploriricam] So again in our author's Friar
Bacon and Friar Bungay we have the same play on
words; "' Yon talk of nos autem al/rrificart; but here's a
nose," &c. (Here " glorificam " may stand in the speech
of one who afterwards, p. 13S, says '' Nomi/nus patrus.")
fl beholding'] i.e. beholden.
*,\ qvi ] i. e. requite.
120
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
Adam. Peter, Peter, put up thy sword, I
prithee heartily, into thy scabbard ; hold in your
rapier ; for though I have not a long reacher, I
have a short hitter. — Nay, then, gentlemen, stay
me, for my choler begins to rise against him ; for
mark the words, " a» paltry smith " ! horrible
sentence ! thou hast in these words, I will stand
to it, libelled against all the sound horses, whole
horses, sore horses, coursers, curtals, jades, cuts,
hackneys, and mares : whereupon, my friend, in
their defence, I give thee this curse,— thout
shalt notj be worth a horse of thine own this
seven year.
Cloum. I prithee, smith, is your occupation so
excellent ?
A dam. " A paltry smith " ! why, I'll stand to
it, a smith is lord of the four elements ; for our
iron is made of the earth, our bellows blow out
air, our floor holds fire, and our forge water.
Nay, sir, we read in the Chronicles that there
was a god of our occupation.
Clown Ay, but he was a cuckold.
Adam. That was the reason, sir,§ he called
your father cousin. " Paltry smith " ! why, in
this one word thou hast defaced their worshipful
occupation.
Clown. As how ?
Adam. Marry, sir, I will stand to it, that a
smith in his kind is a physician, a surgeon, and a
barber. For let a horse take a cold, or be
troubled with the bots, and we straight give him
a potion or a purgation, in such physical manner
that he mends straight: if he have outward
diseases, as the spavin, || splent, ringbone, wind-
gall, or fashion, ^f or, Bir, a galled back, we let
him blood and clap a plaster to him, with a
pestilence, that mends him with a very vengeance :
now, if his mane grow out of order, and he have
any rebellious hairs, we straight to our shears
and trim him with what cut it please us, pick
his ears, and make him neat. Marry, indeed, sir,
we are slovens for one thing ; wc never use any
musk -balls to wash him with, and the reason is,
(sir, because he can woo without kissing.
Clmon. Well, sirrah, leave off these praises of a
emith, and bring us to the best ale in the town.
Adorn. Now, sir, I have a feat above all the
Finithrt in Nineveh ; for, sir, I am a philosopher
•a] The4to of 1508 "of a."
t lh<m\ Not in the 4to. of 1504.
t not\ Not in the 4to. of 1 .5**8.
« «,Y| Not ill the 4t/>. of 1604
||«/ww'n] The three Br»t4£n*. "*putoff. M
% /tuition) A corruption of the I'i. i\c\\ ftircin, — farcy.
that can dispute of the nature of ale; for mark
you, sir, a pot of ale consists of four parts, —
imprimis the ale, the toast, the ginger, and the
nutmeg.
Clown. Excellent !
Adam. The ale is a restorative, bread is a
binder, mark you, sir, two excellent points in
physic: the ginger, 0, ware of that ! the philoso-
phers have written of the nature of ginger, 'tis
expulsitive in two degrees ; you shall hear the
sentence of Galen ;
"It will make a man belch, cough, and fart,
And is a great comfort to the heart,"
a proper posy, I promise you : but now to the
noble virtue of the nutmeg ; it is, saith one
ballad, (I think an English Roman was the
author,) an underlayer to the brains, for when
the ale gives a buffet to the head, the nutmeg !
that keeps him for a* while in temper. Thus
you see the description of the virtue of a pot of
ale. Now, sir, to put my physical precepts in
practice, follow me : but afore I step any further —
Clown. What's the matter now ?
Adam. Why, seeing I have provided the ale,
who is the purveyor for the wenches ? for,
masters, take this of me, a cup of ale without a
wench, why, alas, 'tis like an egg without salt, or
a red-herring without mustard !
Clown. Lead us to the ale : we'll have wenches
enough, I warrant thee. {Exeunt.
Oaeat. Iniquity seeks out companions still,
And mortal men are armed to do ill.
London, look on, this matter nips thee near :
Leave off thy riot, pride, and sumptuous cheer;
Spend less at board, and spare not at the door,
But aid the infant, and relieve the poor ;
Else seeking mercy, being merciless,
Thou be adjudg'd to endless heaviness.
Enter the Usurer, Thrasvbclus, and Alcon. f
Usurer. Come on, I am every day troubled
with those needy companions : what news with
you ? what wind brings you hither ?
Thras. Sir, I hope, how far soever you make it
off, you remember, too well for me, that this is
the day wherein I should pay you money that I
took up of you alate in a commodity. X
* a] Not iu the 4to. of 1594.
t ThranybiUw, and Alcott] Throughout the two first
6'cues where tueafl personages appear, the4tos. designate
them "a Youmj Gentleman and a Poor Man."
I a commodity] i.e. goods, which the prodigal took as
a part of the sum ho wight, d to borrow from I lie usurer,
and whitli he wue to turn into cash in the best way ho
was able.
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
121
Ale. And, sir, sir-reverence of your manhood
and gentry, I have brought home such money as
you lent me.
Usurer. You, young gentleman, is my money
ready ?
Thras. Truly, sir, this time was so short, the
commodity so bad, and the promise of friends so
broken, that I could not provide it against the
day, wherefore I am come to entreat you to stand
my friend, and to favour me with a longer time,
and I will make you sufficient consideration.
Usurer. Is the wind in that door? If thou
hast my money, so it is : I will not defer a day,
an hour, a minute, but take the forfeit of the
bond.
Thras. I pray you, sir, consider that my loss
was great by the commodity I took up : you
know, sir, I borrowed of you forty pounds,
whereof I had ten pounds in money, and thirty
pounds in lute-strings,* which when I came to
sell again, I could get but five pounds for them,
so had I, sir, but fifteen pounds for my forty.
In consideration of this ill bargain, I pray you,
sir, give me a month longer.
Usurer. I answered thee afore, not a minute :
what have I to do how thy bargain proved ? I
have thy hand set to my book that thou receivedst
forty pounds of me in money.
Thras. Ay, sir, it was your device that, to
colour the statute, but your conscience knows
what I had.
Ale. Friend, thou speakest Hebrew to him
when thou talkest to him of conscience ; for he
hath as much conscience about the forfeit of an
obligation as my blind mare, God bless her, hath
over a manger of oats.
Thras. Then there is no favour, sir ?
Usurer. Come to-morrow to me, and see how I
will use thee.
Thras. No, covetous caterpillar, know that I
have made extreme shift rather than I would fall
into the hands of such a ravening panther : and
therefore here is thy money, and deliver me the
recognisance of my lands.
Usurer [aside]. What a spite is this, — hath
sped of his crowns ! if he had missed but one
half-hour, what a goodly farm had I gotten for
forty pounds ! well, 'tis my cursed fortune. 0,
* lutestrings] Compare Nash's Summer's last Will and
Testament, 1600 ; " I knowe one spent, in lesse then a yer. ,
eyght and fifty pounds in mustard, and an other that
ranue in det, in the space of fonre or fine yeere, abouo
fometeene thousand pound in lute-strings and gray
paper." Sig. B 4.
have I no shift to make him forfeit his recog-
nisance ?
Thras. Come, sir, will you despatch, and tell
your money ? [II strikes four o'clock.
Usurer [aside]. Stay, what is this o'clock ? four:
— let me see, — " to be paid between the hours of
three and four in the afternoon : " this goes right
for me. — You, sir, hear you not the clock, and
have you not a counterpane* of your obligation ?
The hour is past, it was to be paid between three
and four ; and now the clock hath strucken four :
I will receive none, I'll stand to the forfeit of the
recognisance.
Tfiras. Why, sir, I hope you do but jest ; why,
'tis but four, and will you for a minute take
forfeit of my bond 1 ? If it were so, sir, I was
here before four.
Usurer. Why didst thou not tender thy money,
then ? if I offer thee injury, take the law of me,
complain to the judge : I will receive no money.
Ale. Well, sir, I hope you will stand my good
master for my cow. I borrowed thirty shillings
on her, and for that I have paid you eighteen-
pence a week, and for her meat you have had
her milk, and I tell you, sir, she gives a pretty
sup : now, sir, here is your money.
Usurer. Hang, beggarly knave ! comest to me
for a cow? did I not bind her bought and sold
for a penny, and was not thy day to have paid
yesterday ? Thou gettest no cow at my hand.
Ale. No cow, sir ! alas, that word "no cow"
goes as cold to my heart as a draught of small
drink in a frosty morning ! "no cow," sir! why,
alas, alas, Master Usurer, what shall become of
me, my wife, and my poor child ?
Usurer. Thou gettest no cow of me, knave : I
cannot stand prating with you, I must be gone.
Ale. Nay, but hear you, Master Usurer : " no
cow " ! why, sir, here's your thirty shillings : I
have paid you eighteen-pence a week, and there-
fore there is reason I should have my cow.
Usurer. What pratest thou ? have I not
answered thee, thy day is broken ?
Ale. Why, sir, alas, my cow is a commonwealth
to me ! for first, sir, she allows me, my wife, and
son, for to banquet ourselves withal, butter,
cheese, whey, curds, cream, sod-milk, raw-milk,
sour-milk, sweet-milk, and butter-milk: besides,
sir, she saved me every year a penny in almanacs,
for she was as good to me as a prognostication ;
if she had but set up her tail, and have galloped
* counterpane] i. e. one part of a pair of deeds : we now
say counterpart.
122
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
about the mead, my little boy was able to say,
"0, father, there will be a storm"; her very
tail was a calendar to me : and now to lose my
cow ! alas, Master Usurer, take pity upon me !
Usurer. I have other matters to talk on : fare-
well, fellows.
Thras. Why, but, thou covetous churl, wilt
thou not receive thy money, and deliver me my
recognisance ?
Usurer. I'll deliver thee none ; if I have
wronged thee, seek thy mends at the law. [Exit.
Thras. And so I will, insatiable peasant
Ale. And, sir, rather than I will put up this
word "no cow," I will lay my wife's best gown
to pawn. I tell you, sir, when the slave uttered
this word " no cow," it struck to my heart, for
my wife shall never have one so fit for her turn
again ; for, indeed, sir, she is a woman that hath
her twiddling-strings broke.
Thras. What meanest thou by that, fellow 1
Ale. Marry, sir, sir-reverence of your manhood,
she breaks wind behind : and indeed, sir, when
she sat milking of her cow[s] and let a fart, my
other cows would start at the noise, and kick
down the milk, and away ; but this cow, sir, the
gentlest cow ! my wife might blow whilst * she
burst : and having such good conditions, shall the
Usurer come upon me with " no cow " ? Nay,
sir, before I pocket up this word "no cow," my
wife's gown goes to the lawyer : why, alas, sir,
'tis as ill a word to me as " no crown " to a king !
Thras. Well, fellow, go with me, and I'll help
thee to a lawyer.
Ale. Marry, and I will, sir. No cow! well,
the world goes hard. [Exeunt.
Oseas. Where hateful usury
Is counted husbandry ;
Where merciless men rob the poor,
And the needy are thrust out of door;
Where gain is held for conscience,
And men's pleasures are all on pence ;
Where young gentlemen forfeit their lands,
Through riot, into the usurer's hands;
Where poverty is despis'd, and pity banish'd,
And mercy indeed utterly vanish'd ;
Where men esteem more of money than of God ;
Let that land look to feel his wrathful rod :
For there is no sin more odious in his sight
Than where usury defrauds the poor of his right.
London, take heed, these sins abound in thee ;
The poor complain, the widows wronged be ;
The gentlemen by subtlety are spoil'd ;
* whilst] i. c. until.
The ploughmen lose the crop for which they
toil'd :
Sin reigns in thee, London, every hour ;
Repent, and tempt not thus the heavenly power.
Enter Remilia, with Alvida and a train of Ladies,
in all royalty.
Remil. Fair queen, yet handmaid* unto Rasni's
love,
Tell me, is not my state as+ glorious
As Juno's pomp, when tir'd with heaven's despoil,
Clad in her vestments spotted all with stars,
She cross'd the silver path unto her Jove 1
Is not Remilia far more beauteous,
Rich'di' with the pride of nature's excellence,§
Than Venus in the brightest of her shiue ?
My hairs surpass they not Apollo's locks ?
Are not my tresses curled with such art
As Love delights to hide him in their fair?||
Doth not mine eyell shine like the morning lamp
That tells Aurora when her love will come ?
Have I not stolu the beauty of the heavens,
And plac'd it on the feature of my face ]
Can any goddess make compare with me,
Or match her with the fair Remilia ?
Alvi. The beauties that proud Paris saw
from ** Troy,
Mustering in Ida for the golden ball, .
Were not so gorgeous as Remilia.
Remil. I have trick'd my trammels up with
richest balm,
And made my perfumes of the purest myrrh:
The precious drugs that ./Egypt's wealth affords,
The costly paintingsft fetch'd from curious Tyre,
Have mended in my face what nature miss'd.
Am I not the earth's wonder in my looks ?
Alvi. The wonder of the earth, and pride of
heaven.
Remil. Look, Alvida, a hair stands not amiss ;
For women's locks are trammels of conceit,
Which do entangle Love for all his wiles.
Alvi. Madam, unless you coy it trick and trim,
And play the civilJJ wanton ere you yield,
* handmaid] The 4tos. "handmaids."
t as] The4to. of 1598 "so."
J Rich'd] Thc4to. ofl59S "Rich."
§ excellence] The 4to. of 1598 "oxccllencie."
|| fair] i.e. beauty.
f eye] The 4to. of 1594 "eyne."
**from] Qy. " Tore"?
tt painting/] The 4to. of 1598 "painting."
JJ civil] i. c. grave, sober, — in which sense the word
was formerly often used. Compare a passage of our
.■mi licn-'s Never too late (already cited in the Account of
Gfreene and his Writings, p. 8), where he is speaking of the
Courtezans of Troy no van t (i. c. London); "their looks
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
123
Smiting disdain of pleasures with your tongue,
Patting your princely Rasni on the cheek
When he presumes to kiss without consent,
You mar the market : beauty naught avails :
You must be proud ; for pleasures hardly got
Are sweet if once attaiu'd.
Remil. Fair Alvida,
Thy counsel makes Remilia passing wise.
Suppose that thou wert Rasni's mightiness,
And I Remilia, priuce of excellence.
Alvi. I would be master then of love and thee.
Remil. " Of love and me ! proud and disdainful
king,
Dar'st thou presume to touch a deity,
Before she grace thee with a yielding smile ? "
Alri. " Tut, my Remilia, be not thou so coy ;
Say nay, and take it."*
Bemil. " Careless and unkind !
Talks Rasni to Remilia in such sort,
As if 1+ did enjoy a human form ]
Look on thy love, behold mine eyes divine,
And dar'st thou twit me with a woman's fault ?
Ah Rasni, thou art rash to judge of me :
I tell thee, Flora oft hath woo'd my lips
To lend a rose to beautify her spring ;
The sea-nymphs fetch their lilies from my cheeks :
Then thou unkind"! — and hereon would I weep.
Alvi. And here would Alvida resign her charge :
For were I but in thought th' Assyrian king,
I needs must quite thy tears with kisses sweet,
And crave a pardon with a friendly touch :
You know it, madam, though I teach it not,
The touch I mean, you smile whenas you think it.
Remil. How am I pleas'd to hear thy pretty
prate,
According to the humour of my mind !
Ah, nymphs, who fairer than Remilia]
The gentle winds have woo'd me with their sighs,
The frowning air hath clear'd when I did smile ;
And when I trae'd upon the tender* grass,
Love, that makes warm the centre of the earth,
Lift up his crest to kiss Remilia's foot ;
Juno still entertains her amorous Jove
With new delights, for fear he look on me ;
. . . .containe modesty, mirth, chastity, wantonness, and
what not; and she that holdeth in her eie most civility,
hath oft in hir heart most dishonestie," &c. Yet Mr.
Collier (note on Shakespeare, vol. v. p. 101, ed. 1858)
boldly asserts that "civil" in our text is a misprint for
"cruel."
* "Say nay, and take it."] A proverbial expression: so
in Shakespeare's Richard III. act iii. sc. 7 ;
"Play the maid's part,— still answer nay, and take it."
t /] The 4tos. of 1598 and 1617 "he."
\ tender} Not in the 4to. of 1598.
The phoenix' feathers are become my fan,
For I am beauty's phoenix in this world.
Shut close these curtains straight, and shadow me,
For fear Apollo spy me in his walks,
And scorn all eyes, to see Remilia's eyes.
Nymphs, eunuchs,* sing, for Mavors draweth
nigh ;
Hide me in closure, let him long to look :
For were a goddess fairer than am I,
I'll scale f the heavens to pull her from the place,
f Tliey draw the cudains, and Marie plays.
Alvi. Believe me, though she say that she is
fairest,
I think my penny silver by her leave.
Enter Rasni, with Radagon and Lords in pomp, who make
a ward about Rasni ; also the Magi in great pomp.
Rasni. Magi, for love of Rasni, by your + art,
By magic frame an arbour out of hand,
For fair Remilia to disport her in.
Meanwhile I will bethink me on further § pomp.
[Exit.
Tlie Magi with their rods beat the ground, and from under
the same rises a brave arbour: Rasni returns in
another suit, while the trumpets sound.
Rasni. Blest be ye, men|| of art, that grace me
thus,
And blessed be this day where Hymen hies
To join in union pride of heaven and earth !
[Lightning and thunder, wherewith Remilia is strucken.
What wondrous threatening noise is this I hear ?
What flashing lightnings trouble our delights ?
When I draw near Remilia's royal tent,
I waking dream of sorrow and U mishap.
Radag. Dread not, king, at ordinary chance ;
These are but common exhalations,
Drawn from the earth, in substance hot and dry,
Or moist and thick, or meteors combust,
Matters and causes incident to time,
* eunuchs] The 4tos. " Knanckes." — Compare the fol-
lowing lines ;
" And let the eunuchs play you all asleep."
p. 135, sec. col.
"Eunuchs, play hymns to praise his deity."
p. 136, first col
"Play, eunuchs, sing in honour of her name."
p. 137, first col.
t Til scale, &c] Our early writers frequently use 1 will,
thou wilt, &c, in passages where we might expect
/ would, thou wouldest, <fec. So Shakespeare ;
" If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,
Tliou'lt not believe thy deeds," &c.
Coriolanus, act i. sc. 9.
1 your] The 4to. of 159S "our."
§ further] The 4to. of 1598 "mirth, a." This line may
be restored to metre by a transposition, —
" Meanwhile on farther pomp I will bethink me."
|| mm] The three first 4tos. "man."
f[ and] The 4to. of 159S " or.
124
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
Enkindled* in the fiery region first.
Tut, be not now a Roman augurer :
Approach the tent, look on Remilia.
Rasni. Thou hast confirm'd my doubts, kind
Radagon. —
Now ope, ye folds, where queen of favour f sits,
Carrying a net within her curled locks,
Wherein the Graces are entangled ofc ;
Ope like th' imperial gates where Phcebus sits,
Whenas he means to woo his Clytia.
Nocturnal cares, ye blcmishers of bliss,
Cloud not mine eyes, whilst I behold her face. —
Remilia, my delight ! — she anawereth not.
[He draivs the curtains, and finds her strucken
black with, thunder.
How pale ! as if bereav'd in fatal meads,
The balmy breath hath left her bosom quite :
My Hesperus by cloudy death is blent J. —
Villains, away, fetch syrups of the Inde,
Fetch balsamo, the kind preserve of life,
Fetch wine of Greece, fetch oils, fetch herbs,
fetch all,
To fetch her life, or I will faint and die.
[They bring in all these, and offer ; naught prevails. §
Herbs, oils of Inde, alas, there naught prevails § !
Shut are the day-bright eyes that made me see,
Lock'd are the gems of joy in dens of death;
Yet triumph I on fate, and he on her :
Malicious mistress of inconstancy,
Damn'd be thy name, that hast|| obscur'd my
joy-
Kings, viceroys.l princes, rear a royal tomb
For my Remilia ; bear her from my sight,
Whilst I in tears weep for Remilia.
[They bear Remij.ia's body out.
Radag. What maketh Rasni moody! loss of
one?
As if no more were left so fair as she.
Rehold a dainty minion for the nonce,** —
Fair Alvida, the Paphlagonian queen :
Woo her, and leave this weeping for the dead.
Rami. What, woo my subject's wife that
honouruth me !
Radag. Tut, kings this meum, tuum should not
know :
Is she not fair ? is not her husband hence ?
* Enkindled] The 4to. of 1598 " In kindling."
t favour] i. o. beauty.
; hltnt\ i. o. destroyed, polluted, — from the verb blend,
which in its original sense means to mingle, confound.
— The4to. of 1.598 "bent"
§ prevails] i.e. avails.
|| haft] Thc4t<>. df 1698 "hath."
% viceroys] The 4to. of 1598 "viceroy."
*" nonce] i. o. occasion.
Hold, take her at the hands of Radagon ;
A pretty peat to drive your mourn away.
Rasni. She smiles on me, I see she is mine
own. —
Wilt thou be Rasni'a royal paramour?
Radag. She blushing yields consent. — Make
no dispute :
The king is sad, and must be gladded straight;
Let Paphlagonian king go mourn meanwhile.
[Thrusts Rasni and Alvida out ; and so they all exeunt.
Oseas. Pride bath his judgment : London, look
about ;
'Tis not enough in show to be devout.
A fury now from heaven to lands unknown
Hath made the prophet speak, not to his own.
Fly, wantons,* fly this pride and vain attire,
The seals to set your tender hearts on fire :
Be faithful in the promise you have past,
Else God will plague and punish at the last.
When lust is hid in shroud of wretched life,
When craft doth dwell in bed of married wife,
Mark butt the prophets, we that shortly shows,
After death expect for many woes.
Enter Alcon and Thrasyeulus, with the Lawyer.
Thras. I need not, sir, discourse unto you the
duty of lawyers in tendering the right cause of
their clients, nor the conscience you are tied unto
by higher command : therefore suffice, the Usurer
hath done me wrong; you know the case; and,
good sir, I have strained myself to give you your
fees.
Lawyer. Sir, if I should any way neglect so
manifest a truth, I were to be accused of open
perjury, for the case is evident.
Ale. And truly, sir, for my case, if you help
me not for my matter, why, sir, I and my wife
are quire undone; I want my mease X of milk
when I go to my work, and my boy his bread and
butter when he goes to school. Master Lawyer,
pity me, for surely, sir, I was fain to lay my
wife's best gown to pawn for your fees : when I
looked upon it, sir, and saw how handsomely it
was daubed with statute-lace, and what a fair
mockado§ cape it had, and then thought how
handsomely it became my wife, — truly, sir, my
heart is made of butter, it melts at the least per-
secution, — I fell on weeping; but when I thought
on the words the Usurer gave me, " no cow,"
then, sir, I would have stript herinto|| her smock,
* wantons] The 4to. of 159S "wanton."
t Mark bti>, &c.] Some corruption in this couplet.
} mease] An old form of " mess."
§ mockado] Or, as it was sometimes called, mock-velvet.
|| into] i.e. unto. Sec note f, p. Ill, sec. col.
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
125
but I would make him deliver my cow, ere I had
done : therefore, good Master Lawyer, stand my
friend.
Lawyer. Trust me, father, I will do for thee
as much as for myself.
Ale. Are you married, sir?
Lawyer. Ay, marry, am I, father.
Ale. Then good's benison light on you and
your good wife, and send her that she be never
troubled with my wife's disease.
Lawyer. Why, what's thy wife's disease ?
Ale. Truly, sir, she hath two open faults, and
one privy fault. Sir, the first is, she is too
eloquent for a poor man, and hath the words of
art, for she will call me rascal, rogue, runagate,
varlet, vagabond, slave, and knave : why, alas, sir,
and these be but holiday-terms, but if you heard
her working-day words, in faith, sir, they be
rattlers like thunder, sir ; for after the dew
follows a storm, for then am I sure either to be
well buffeted, my face scratched, or my head
broken : and therefore, good Master Lawyer, on
my knees I ask it, let me not go home again to
my wife with this word " no cow " ; for then she
will exercise her two faults upon me with all
extremity.
Lawyer. Fear not, man. But what is thy wife's
privy fault 1 ?
Ale. Truly, sir, that's a thing of nothing ; alas,
she, indeed, sir-reverence of your mastership, doth
use to break wind in her sleep. — 0, sir, here
comes the Judge, and the old caitif the Usurer.
Enter the Judge, attended, and the Usurer.
Usurer. Sir, here is forty angels for you, and if
at any time you want a hundred pound or two,
'tis ready at your command, or the feeding of
three or four fat bullocks : whereas these needy
elaves can reward with nothing but a cap and a
knee ; and therefore I pray you, sir, favour my
case.
Judge. Fear not, sir, I'll do what I can for you.
Usurer. What, Master Lawyer, what make you
here ? mine adversary for these clients ?
Lawyer. So it chanceth now, sir.
Usurer. I know you know the old proverb,
" He is not wise that is not wise for himself " : I
would not be disgraced in this action ; therefore
here is twenty angels ; say nothing in the matter,
or* what you say, say to no purpose, for the
Judge is my friend.
Lawyer. Let me alone, I'll fit your purpose.
Judge. Come, where are these fellows that are
•or] The4tos. "and."
the plantiffs? what can they say against this
honest citizen our neighbour, a man of good
report amongst all men 1
Ale. Truly, Master Judge, he is a man much
spoken of; marry, every man's cries are against
him, and especially we ; and therefore I think
we have brought our Lawyer to touch him with
as much law as will fetch his lands and my cow
with a pestilence.
Thras. Sir, I am the other plaintiff, and (his is
my counsellor : I beseech your honour be favour-
able to me in equity.
Judge. 0, Signor Mizaldo, what can you say in
this gentleman's behalf]
Lawyer. Faith, sir, as yet little good. — Sir, tell
you your own case to the Judge, for I have so
many matters in my head, that I have almost
forgotten it.
Thras. Is the wind in that door ] Why, then,
my lord, thus. I took up of this cursed Usurer,
for so I may well term him, a commodity of
forty pounds, whereof I received ten pound in
money, and thirty pound in lute-strings, whereof
Icould by great friendship make but five pounds :
for the assurance of this bad commodity I bound
him my land in recognisance ; I came at my day,
and tendered him his money, and he would not
take it : for the redress of my open wrong I
cravo but justice.
Judge. What say you to this, sir ]
Usurer. That first he had no lute-strings of
me ; for, look you, sir, I have his own hand to
my book for the receipt of forty pound.
Tliras. That was, sir, but a device of him to
colour the statute.
Judge. Well, he hath thine own hand, and we
can crave no more in law. — But now, sir, he says
his money was tendered at the day aird hour.
Usurer. This is manifest contrary, sir, and on
that I will depose ; for here is the obligation, " to
be paid between three and four in the afternoon,"
and the clock struck four before he offered it,
and the words be "between three and four,"
therefore to be tendered before four.
Thras. Sir, I was there before four, and he held
me with brabbling* till the clock struck, and
then for the breach of a minute he refused my
money, and keptf the recognisance of my land
for so small a trifle. — Good Signor Mizaldo,
speak what is law ; you have your fee, you have
heard what the case is, and therefore do me
* brabbling] i. e. quarrelling, squabbling.
t kept] The three first 4tos. " kcepe."
126
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
justice and right : I am a young gentleman, and
speak for my patrimouy.
Lawyer. Faith, sir, the case is altered ; you told
me it before in another manner : the law goes
quite against you, and therefore you must plead
to the Judge for favour.
Tliras. execrable bribery !
Ale. Faith, Sir Judge, I pray you let me be
the gentleman's counsellor, for I can say thus
much in his defence, that the Usurer's clock is
the swiftest clock in all the town : 'tis, sir, like a
woman's tongue, it goes ever half-an-hour before
the time ; for when we were gone from him,
other clocks in the town struck four.
Judge. Hold thy prating, fellow :— and you,
young gentleman, this is my ward : look better
another time both to your bargains and to the
payments ; for I must give flat sentence against
you, that, for default of tendering the money
between the hours, you have forfeited your
recognisance, and he to have the land.
Thras. inspeakable injustice !
Ale. monstrous, miserable, moth-eaten Judge !
Judge. Now you, fellow, what have you to say
for your matter ?
Ale. Master Lawyer, I laid my wife's gown to
pawn for your fees : I pray you, to this gear.*
Lawyer. Alas, poor man, thy matter is out of
my head, and therefore, I pray thee, tell it
thyself.
Ale. I hold my cap to a noble t that the
Usurer hath given him some gold, and he, chew-
ing it in his mouth, hath got the toothache that
he cannot speak.
Judge. Well, sirrah, I must be short, and
therefore say on.
Ale. Master Judge, I borrowed of this man
thirty shillings, for which I left him in pawn my
good cow ; the bargain was, he should have
eighteen-pence a week, and the cow's milk for
usury : now, sir, as soon as I had gotten the
money, I brought it him, and broke but a day,
and for that he refused his money, and keeps my
cow, sir.
Judf/e. Why, thou hast given sentence against
thyself, for in breaking thy day thou hast lost
thy cow.
Ale. Master Lawyer, now for my ten shillings.
" gear] i. e. business.
t / hold my cap to a noble] i. c. I bet my cap to a
noble (the gold coin so called). — Part of the title-page of
our author's Second and lost part of Omny -catching, &c,
runs thus — "which if you reade without laughing, Tie giue
you my cap for a noble " : sec p. 79 of the present vol.
Lawyer. Faith, poor man, thy case is so bad, I
shall but speak against thee.
Ale. 'Twere good, then, I should have my ten
shillings again.
Lawyer. Tis my fee, fellow, for coming:
wouldst thou have me come for nothing]
Ale. Why, then, am I like to go home, not
only with no cow, but no gown : this gear goes
hard.
Judge. Well, you have heard what favour I
can show you : I must do justice. — Come, Master
Mizaldo, — and you, sir, go home with me to
dinner.
Ale Why, but, Master Judge, no cow ! — and,
Master Lawyer, no gown !
Then must I clean ruu out of the town.
[Exeunt Judge, attended, Lawyer, and Usurer.
How cheer you, gentleman 1 you cry " no lands "
too ; the Judge hath made you a knight for a
gentleman, hath dubbed you Sir John Lack-land
Thras. miserable time, wherein gold is above
God!
A le. Fear not, man ; I have yet a fetch to get
thy lands and my cow again, for I have a son in
the court, that is either a king or a king's fellow,
and to him will I go and complain on the Judge
and the Usurer both.
'lhras. And I will go with thee, and entreat
him for my case.
Ale. But how shall I go home to my wife, when
I shall have nothing to say unto her but "no
cow " ? alas, sir, my wife's faults will fall upon
me !
Thras. Fear not ; let's go ; I'll quiet her, shalt
see. [Exeunt
Oscas. Fly, judges, fly corruption in your court ;
The judge of truth hath made your judgment
short.
Look so to judge, that at the latter day
Ye be not judg'd with those that wend astray.
Who passeth judgment for his private gain,
He well may judge he is adjudg'd to pain.
Enter Adam and the crew of Ruffians drunk.
Adam* Farewell, gentle tapster.— Masters, as
good ale as ever was tapt ; look to your feet, for
the ale is strong. — Well, farewell, gentle tapster.
First Ruf. [to Second Ruf.] Why, sirrah slave,
by heaven's maker, thiukest thou the wench
loves t thee best because she laughed on thee?
give me but such another word and I will throw
the pot at thy head.
* Adam] The 4tos. throughout the scene "Clown": but
see note t, p. 119, sec. col.
t loves] The 4to. of 1598 "loue."
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
127
Adam. Spill no drink, spill no drink, the ale is
good : I'll tell you what, ale is ale, and so I'll
commend me to you with hearty commendations.
— Farewell, gentle tapster.
Second Ruf. Why, wherefore, peasant, scornest
thou that the wench should love me ? look but
on her and I'll thrust my dagger in thy bosom,
First Ruf. Well, sirrah, well, thou'rt as thou'rt,
and so I'll take thee.
Second Ruf. Why, what am I ?
First Ruf. Why, what thou wilt ; a slave.
Second Ruf. Then take that, villain, and learn
how thou* use me another time.
[Stabs First Ruf.
First Ruf. 0, I am slain ! [Dies.
Second Ruf. That's all one to me, I care not :
now will I in to my wench, and call for a fresh pot.
[ExAt : and then, extunt all except Adam.
Adam. Nay, but hear ye, take me with ye, for
the ale is ale. — Cut a fresh toast, tapster, fill me
a pot ; here is money, I am no beggar, I'll follow
thee as long as the ale lasts. — A pestilence on the
blocks for me, for I might have had a fall : well,
if we shall have no ale, I'll sit me down : and so
farewell, gentle tapster.
[Here he falls over the dead man.
Enter Rasni, Alvida, the King of Cilicia, Lords, and
Attendants.
Rasni. What slaughter'd wretch lies bleediug
here his last,
So near the royal palace of the king?
Search out if any one be biding nigh,
That can discourse the manner of his death. —
Seat thee, fair Alvida, the fair of fairs ;
Let not the object t once offend thine eyes.
First Lord. Here's one sits here asleep, my lord.
Rasni. Wake him, and make inquiry of this
thing.
First Lord. Sirrah you ! hearest thou, fellow?
Adam. If you will fill a fresh pot, here's a
penny, or else farewell, gentle tapster.
First Lord. He is drunk, my lord.
Rasni. We'll sport with him, that Alvida may
laugh.
First Lord. Sirrah, thou fellow, thou must
come to the king.
Adam. I will not do a stroke of work to-day,
for the ale is good ale, and you can ask but a
penny for a pot, no more by the statute.
First Lord. Villain, here's the king ; thou must
come to him.
* thou] The 4to. of 1598 "to."
f the object] The three first 4tos. "the otrict."— Qy. "this
object"?
Adam. The king come to an ale-house ! —
Tapster, fill me three pots. — Where's the king ?
is this he ? — Give me your hand, sir : as good ale
as ever was tapt; you shall drink while* your
skin crack.
Rasni, But hearest thou, fellow, who killed this
man ?
Adam. I'll tell you, sir, — if you did taste of
the ale,— all Nineveh hath not such a cup of ale, it
flowers in the cup, sir; by my troth, I spent
eleven pence, beside three races of ginger —
Rasni. Answer me, knave, to my question, how
came this man slain?
Adam. Slain ! why, [the] ale is strong ale, 'tis
huffcapjt I warrant you, 'twill make a man
well.— Tapster, ho ! for the king a cup of ale
and a fresh toast ; here's two races more.
Alvi. Why, good fellow, the king talks not of
drink ; he would have thee tell him how this man
came dead.
Adam. Dead ! nay, I think I am alive yet, and
will drink a full pot ere night : but hear ye, if ye
be the wench that filled us drink, why, so, do
your office, and give us a fresh pot ; or if you be
the tapster's wife, why, so, wash the glass clean.
Alvi. He is so drunk, my lord, there is no
talking with him.
Adam.- Drunk ! nay, then, wench, I am not
drunk : thou'rt a shitten quean to call me drunk ;
I tell thee I am not drunk, I am a smith, I.J
First Lord. Sir, here comes one perhaps that
can tell.
Enter the Smith.
Smith- God save you, master.
Rasni. Smith, canst thou tell me how this man
came dead ?
Smith. May it please your highness, my man
here and a crew of them went to the ale-house,
and came out so drunk that one of them killed
another : and now, sir, I am fain to leave my
shop, and come to fetch him home.
Rasni, Some of you. carry away the dead
body : drunken men must have their fits ; and,
sirrah smith, hence with thy man.
Smith. Sirrah you, rise, come go with me.
Adam. If we shall have a pot of ale, let's have
it, here's money ; hold, tapster, take my purse.
Smith. Come, then, with me, the pot stands
full in the house.
* ichile] i. e. until.
t hvffcap] i. e. strong ale, so named because it inspirited
those who drank it to set their caps in a huffing manner.
{ /] Not in the 4to. of 1508.
128
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
Adam. I am for you, let's go, thou'rfc an houest
tapster : we'll drink six pots ere we part.
[Exeunt Smith, Adam ; and Attendants with the
dead body.
Rasni. Beauteous, more bright than beauty in
mine eyes,
Tell me, fair sweeting, want'st thou anything
Contaiu'd within the threefold circle of the
world,*
That may make Alvida live full content?
Alvi. Nothing, my lord ; for all my thoughts
are pleas'd
Whenas mine eye surfeits with Rasni's sight.
Bitter the King of Paphlagonia malcontent.
Rami. Look how thy husband haunts our
royal court,
How still his sight breeds melancholy storms.
Alvida, I am passing t passionate,
And vex'd with wrath and anger to the death !
Mars, when he held fair Venus on his knee,
And saw the limping smith come from his forge,
Had not more deeper furrows on J his brow
Than Rasni hath to see this Paphlagon.
Alvi. Content thee, sweet, I'll salve thy sorrow
straight ;
Rest but the ease of all thy thoughts on me,
And if I make not Ra3ni blithe again,
Then say that women's fancies have no shifts.
K. of Paph. Sham'st thou not, Rasni, though
thou be'st a king,
To shroud adultery in thy royal seat?
Art thou arch-ruler of great Nineveh,
Who shouldst excel in virtue as in state,
And wrong'st thy friend by keeping back his wife ?
Have I not battled in thy troops full oft,
'Gainst Egypt, Jewry, and proud Babylon,
Spending my blood to purchase thy renown,
And is the guerdon of my chivalry
Ended in this abusing of my wife ?
Restore her me, or I will from thy court,
And make discourso of thy adulterous deeds.
Rasni. Why, take her, Paphlagon, exclaim not,
man ;
For I do prize mine honour more than love. —
Fair Alviila, go with thy husband home.
Alvi. How dare I go, sham'd with so deep
misdeed ?
Revenge will broil within my husband's breast,
* Tell me, fair sweeting, want'st thou anything
Cvttt* <•''' » ''hin the threefold circle o/theworld, &c ] Qy.
" Tell me, fair tweeting, want'st thou aught contain'd
Within ll.i til nrfold circle oj the world ," <Sic. ?
t passing] The lfr>. of 1594 "passion."
J furrows on] The Ho. of 1598 " sorrowos in."
And when he hath me in the court at home,
Then Alvida shall feel revenge for all.
Rasni. What say'st thou, King of Paphlagon, to
this ?
Thou hear'st the doubt thy wife doth stand upon.
If she hath* done amiss, it is my fault ;
I prithee pardon and forget [it] all.
K. of Paph. If that I meant not, Rasni, to forgive,
And quite forget the follies that are past,
I would not vouchf her presence in my court ;
But she shall be my queen, my love, my life,
And Alvida unto her Paphlagon,
And lov'd, and more beloved than before.
Rasni. What say'st thou, Alvida, to this ?
Alvi. That, will he swear it to my lord the king,
And in a full carouse of Greekish wine
Drink down the malice of his deep revenge,
I will go home, and love him new again.
Rasni. What answers Paphlagon ? [will do.
K. of Paph. That what she hath requested I
Alvi. Go, damosel, [and] fetch me that sweet
wine
That stands within my J closet on the shelf;
Pour it into a standing-bowl of gold,
But, on thy life, taste not before the king :
Make haste. [Exit Female Attendant.
Why is great Rasni melancholy thus?
If promise be not kept, hate all for me.
[Wine brought in by Female Attendant.
Here is the wine, my lord : first make him swear.
K. of Paph. By Nineveh's great gods, and Nine-
veh's great king,
My thoughts shall never be to wrong my wife !
And thereon here's a full carouse to her. [Drinks.
Alvi. And thereon, Rasni, here's a kiss for thee ;
Now mayst thou freely fold thine Alvida.
K. of Paph. 0,1 am dead! obstruction's of my
breath !
The poison is of wondrous sharp effect.
Cursed be all adulterous queans, say I !
And cursing so, poor Paphlagon doth die. [Dies.
Alvi. Now, have I not salv'd the sorrows of
my lord ?
Have I not rid a rival of thy loves ?
What say'st thou, Rasni, to thy paramour ?
Rasni. That for this deed I'll deck my Alvida
In sendal,§ and in costly sussapine,
Border'd with pearl and India diamond ;
I'll cause great Mo\ perfume all his winds
With richest myrrh and curious ambergreece.
* hatli] The 4to. of 1598 "haue."
t vouch] The 4to. of 15<i8 " vouchsafe."
t my] The 4to. of 1598 "thy."
§ seadal] See note *, p. Ill, sec. col.
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
129
Come, lovely minion, paragon for fair,*
Come follow me, sweet goddess of mine eye,
And taste the pleasures Rasni will provide.
[ Exeunt.
Oseas. Where whoredom reigns, there murder
follows fast,
As falling leaves before the winter blast.
A wicked life, train'd up in endless crime,
Hath no regard t unto the latter time,
When lechers shall be punish'd for their lust,
When princes plagu'd because they are unjust.
Foresee in time, the warning-bell doth toll ;
Subdue the flesh by prayer to save the soul :
London, behold the cause of others' wrack,
And see* the sword of justice at thy back :
Defer not off, to-morrow is too late ;
By night he comes perhaps to judge thy state.
Enter Jonas.
Jonas. From forth the depth of my imprison'd
soul
Steal you, my sighs, [to] testify my pain ;
Convey on wings of mine immortal tone
My zealous prayers unto the starry throne.
Ah merciful and just, thou dreadful God !
Where is thine arm to lay revengeful strokes
Upon the heads of our rebellious race ]
Lo, Israel, once that flourish'd like the vine,
Is barren laid ; the beautiful increase
Is wholly blent, § and irreligious zeal
Encampeth there where virtue was enthron'd :
Alas, the while the widow wants relief,
The fatherless is wi'ong'd by naked need,
Devotion sleeps in cinders of contempt,
Hypocrisy infects the holy priest !
Ay me, for this ! woe me, for these misdeeds !
Alone I walk to think upon the world,
And sigh to see thy prophets so contemn' d,
Alas, contemn'd by cursed Israel !
Yet, Jonas, rest content, 'tis Israel's sin
That causeth this ; then muse no more thereon,
But pray amends, and mend thy own amiss.
An Angel appears to Jonas.
Anrjel. Amittai's son, I charge thee muse no
more :
I am hath power to pardon and correct ;
To thee pertains to do the Lord's command.
Go girt thy loins, and haste thee quickly henco ;
To Nineveh, that mighty city, wend,
And say this message from the Lord of hosts,
* fair'] i.e. beauty,
t regard] The 4to. of 1508 " reward."
t see] The 4to. of 1598 " set."
§ blent] See note }, p. 124, firat col.
Preach unto them these tidings from thy God ; —
" Behold, thy wickedness hath tempted me,
And pierced through thenine-fold orbs of hcaveu :
Repent, or else thy judgment is at hand."
[This said, the Angel vanishes.
Jonas. Prostrate I lie before the Lord of hosts,
With humble ears intending* his behest :
Ah, honour'd be Jehovah's great command !
Then Jonas must to Nineveh repair,
Commanded as the prophet of the Lord.
Great dangers on this journey dot await,
But dangers none where heavens direct theeoui'3e.
What should I deem ? I see, yea, sighing see,
How Israel sin[s], yet knows J the way of truth,
And thereby grows the bye-word of the world.
How, then, should God in judgment be so strict
'Gainst those who never heard or knew his power,
To threaten utter ruin of them all ?
Should I report this judgment of my God,
I should incite them more to follow sin,
And publish to the world my country's blame :
It may not be, my conscience tells me — no.
Ah Jonas, wilt thou prove rebellious, then ?
Consider, ere thou fall,§ what error is.
My mind misgives : to Joppa will I fly,||
And for a while to Tharsus U Bhape my course,
Until the Lord unfret his angry brows.
Enter certain Merchants of Tharsus, a Master, and som
Sailors.
Mas. Come on, brave merchants ; now the
wind doth serve,
And sweetly blows a gale at west-south-west,
Our yards across, our anchors on the pike,
What, shall we hence, and take this merry gale?
First Mer. Sailors, convey our budgets straight
aboard,
And we will recompense your pains at last :
If once in safety we may Tharsus see,
Master, we'll feast these merry mates and thee.
Mas. Meanwhile content yourselves with silly
cates ;
Our beds are boards, our feasts are full of mirth :
We use no pomp, we are the lords of sea ;
When princes sweat in care, we swink**of glee.
* intending] i.e. attending to.
t do] The4to. of 1598 "to."
t How Israel sin \s], yet knows, <fcc] Had it not beon for
the words "knows" and "grows," the old reading " sin
might have stood : — "they made peace with Israel, and
served them." ii Samuel, x. 19.
§ fall] The 4to. of 1594 "sail."
|| flu] The 4to. of 1598 "flee."
% Tharsus] Should, of course, be " Tarshish " : but
throughout the play the 4tos. have "Tharsus"; and so,
in all probability, the author chose to write the name.
** swinl] i. e. toil, labour.
130
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
Orion's shoulders and the Pointers serve
To be our loadstars in the lingering night;
The beauties of Arcturus we behold ;
And though the sailor is no bookman held,
He knows more art than ever bookmen read.
First Sai. By heavens, well said in honour of
our trade !
Let's see the proudest scholar steer * his course,
Or shift his tides, as silly sailors do ;
Then will we yield them praise, else never none.
First Mer. Well spoken, fellow, in thine own
behalf.
But let us henee ; wind tarries none, you wot,
And tide and time let slip is hardly got.
Mas. March to the haven, merchants ; I follow
you. [Exeunt Merchants.
Jonas, [aside.] Now doth occasion further my
desires ;
I find companions fit to aid my flight. —
Stay, sir, I pray, and hear a word or two.
Alas. Say on, good friend, but briefly, if you
please ;
My passengers by this time are aboard, [selves ?
Jonas. Whither pretend t you to embark your-
Mas. To Tharsus, sir, and hei'e in Joppa-haven
Our ship is prest,J and ready to depart.
Jonas. May I have passage for my money, then ?
Mas. What not for money ? pay ten silver-
lings,!
You are a welcome guest, if so you please.
Jonas [giving money]. Hold, take thine hire; I
follow thee, my friend.
Mas. Where is your budget ? let me bear it, sir.
Jonas. To one in peace, who sail[s] as I do now,||
Put trust in him who succoureth every want.
[Exeunt.
Oseas. When prophets, new-inspir'd, presume
to force
And tie the power of heaven to their copceits ;
When fear, promotion, pride, or simony,
Ambition, subtl'e craft, their thoughts disguise,
W oe to the flock whereas IT the shepherd's
foul ! **
For, lo, the Lord at unawares shall plague
The careless guide, because his flocks do stray.
* steer) The 4tos. "stir,"
t pretend | i. e. intend.
t pre.it] i. o. prepared.
§ .iiler,-liiii/'\ i.e. pieces of silver. Tlio word occurs in
Scripture, Isaiah vii. 53, and in The Jew of Malta, Mar-
lowe's Works, p. 145, ed. Dyce, 1858.
|| To one in peace, <fec. J After this lino something is
wanting, — a line at least, if not more.
U vherea.il i. e. whero.
«" foul} The 4to. of 1598 " fold."
The axe already to the tree is set :
Beware to tempt the Lord, ye men of art.
Miter Alcon, Thrasybulus, Samia, and Clesiphoh.
Cles. Mother, some meat, orelse I die for want !
Sam. Ah little boy, how glad thy mother would
Supply thy wants, but naked need denies !
Thy father's slender portion in this world
By usury and false deceit is lost :
No charity within this city bides ;
All for themselves, and none to help the poor.
Cles. Father, shall Clesiphon have no relief ?
Ale. Faith, my boy, I must be flat with thee,
we must feed upon proverbs now ; as " Necessity
hath no law," "A churl's feast is better than
none at all : " for other remedies have we none,
except thy brother Radagon help us.
Sam. Is this thy slender care to help our child ?
Hath nature arm'd thee to no more remorse ?*
Ah cruel man, unkind and pitiless ! —
Come, Clesiphon, my boy, I'll beg for thee.
Cles. 0, how my mother's mourning moveth me !
Ale. Nay, you shall pay me interest forgetting
the boy, wife, before you carry him hence : alas,
woman, what can Alcon do more ? I'll pluck
the belly out of my heart for thee, sweet Samia ;
be not so waspish.
Sam. Ah silly man, I know thy want is great,
And foolish I to+ crave where nothing is.
Haste, Alcon, haste, make haste unto our son ;
Who, since he is in favour of the king,
May help this hapless gentleman and us
For to regain our goods from tyrant's hands.
Thras. Have patience, Samia, wait your weal
from heaven :
The % gods have rais'd your son, I hope, for this,
To succour innocents in their distress.
Lo, where he comes from the imperial court ;
Go, let us prostrate us before his feet.
Ale. Nay, by my troth, I'll never ask my son
blessing ; che trow, cha § taught him bis lesson
to know his father.
Enter Radagon attended.\\
What, son Radagon ! i'faith, boy, how dost thee?
Fad. Villain, disturb me not ; I cannot stay.
* remorse] i. e compassion.
t foolish I to] The 4to. of 1598 " foolishly J do."
t The] The 4to. of 1594 "Tho."
§ che trow, cha) i. e. I trow, I have. — Why the author
gives us here a sudden touch of rustic dialect, it would
be difficult to say.
|| attended] The 4tos. "solus." But that Radagon does
not enter hero solus is shown by his presently saying
" Marshal, why whip you not,"' 6ic, and "Slaves, fetcn
out tortures," &c.
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
131
Ale. Tut, son, I'll help you of that disease
quickly, for I cau hold thee : ask thy mother,
knave, what cunning I have to ease a woman
when a qualm of kindness comes too near her
stomach ; let me but clasp mine arms about her
body, and say my prayers in her bosom, and she
shall be healed presently.
Radag. Traitor unto my princely majesty,
How dar'st thou lay thy hands upon a king ?
Sam. No traitor, Radagon, but true is he :
What, hath promotion bleared thus thine eye,
To scorn thy father when he visits thee ?
Alas, my sou, behold with ruthful eyes
Thy parents robb'd of all their worldly weal
By subtle means of usury and guile :
The judge's ears are deaf and shut up close ;
All mercy sleeps : then be thou in these plunges *
A patron to thy mother in t her pains :
Behold thy brother almost dead for food :
0, succour us, that first did succour thee !
Radag. What, succour me ! false callet, J hence,
avaunt !
Old dotard, pack ! move not my patience :
I know you not; kings never look so low.
Sam. You know us not ! Radagon, you know
That, knowing us, you know your parents then ;
Thou know'st this womb first brought thee forth
to light :
I know these paps did foster thee, my son.
Ale. And I know he hath had many a piece of
bread and cheese at my hands, as proud as he is ;
that know I.
Thras. I wait no hope of succour in this place,
Where children hold their fathers in disgrace.
Radag. Dare you enforce the furrows of revenge
Within the brows of royal Radagon ]
Villain, avaunt ! hence, beggars, with your
brats ! —
Marshal, why whip you § not these rogues away,
That thus disturb our royal majesty ?
Cles. Mother, I see it is a wondrous thing,
From base estate for to become a king ;
For why, || methink, my brother in these fits
Hath got a kingdom, but hath lost his wits.
Radag. Yet more contempt before my royalty ?
Slaves, fetch out tortures worse than Tityus'
plagues,
And tear their tongues from their blasphemous
heads.
* plunges] i. e. straits, distresses.
t in] The4to. of 1598 "to."
} caltet] i. e. drab.
§ you] The4to. of 1598 "ye you."
|| For why) i. e. Because.
Thras. I'll get me gone, though wo-begone with
grief:
No hope remains : — come, Alcon, let us wend.
Radag. 'Twere best you did, for fear you catch
your bane. [Exit Thhasybulus.
Sam. Nay, traitor, I will haunt thee to the
death :
Ungracious son, untoward, and perverse,
I'll fill the heavens with echoes of thy pride,
And ring in every ear thy small regard,
That dost despise thy parents in their wants ;
And breathing forth my soul before thy feet,
My curses still shall haunt thy hateful head,
And being dead, my ghost shall thee pursue.
Enter Rasni, attended on by his Magi * and Kings.
Rami. How now ! what mean these outcries in
our court,
Where naught should sound but harmonies of
heaven?
What maketh Radagon so passionate ?
Sam. Justice, king, justice against my son I
Rasni. Thy son ! what son ?
Sa7n. This cursed Radagon.
Radag. Dread monarch, this is but a lunacy,
Which grief and want hath brought the woman
to.—
What, doth this passion hold you every moon ?
Sam. politic in sin and wickedness,
Too impudent for to delude thy prince ! —
Rasni, this same womb first t brought him
forth :
This is his father, worn with care and age,
This is his brother, poor unhappy lad,
And I his mother, though contemn'd by him.
With tedious toil we got our little good,
And brought him up to school with mickle charge :
Lord, how we joy'd to see his towardness !
And to ourselves we oft in silence said,
This youth when we are old may succour ub.
But now preferr'd and lifted up by thee,
We quite destroy'd by cursed usury,
He 6Corneth me, his father, and this child.
Cles- He plays the serpent right, describ'd in
Esop's tale,
That sought the foster 's death, that lately gave
him life.
Ale. Nay, an please your majesty-ship, for
proof he was my child, search the parish-book :
the clerk will swear it, his godfathers and god-
* Magi\ The 4tos. "Soothsayers" (which undoubtedly
means the personages who in an earlier part of the play
have been designated " Magi" ; see p. 123, sjc. col.).
t first] Not in the 4to. of 1598.
K 2
132
LOOKING-GLASS FOE LONDON AND ENGLAND.
mothers can witness it : it cost me forty pence
in ale and cakes on the wives at his christening.
— Hence, proud king ! thou shalt never more
have my blessing.
Rasni. [taking Radagon apart.'] Say sooth in
secret, Kadagon,
Is this thy father ?
Radar/. Mighty king, he is ;
I blushing tell it to your majesty.
Rami. Why* dost thou, then, contemn him
and his friends ?
Radag. Because he is a base and abject swain,
My mother and her brat both beggarly,
Unmeet to be allied unto a king :
Should I, that look on Rasni's countenance,
And march amidst his royal equipage,
Embase myself to speak to such as they ?
'Twere impious so to impair the love
That mighty Rasni bears to Radagou.
I would your grace would quit them from your
sight,
That dare presume to look on Jove's compare.
Rasni. I like thy pride, I praise thy policy ;
Such should they be that wait upon my court :
Let me alone to answer, Radagon. —
Villains,+ seditious traitors, as you be,
That scandalize the honour of a king,
Depart my court, you stales of impudence,
Unless you would be parted from your limbs !
So base for to entitle fatherhood
To Rasni's friend, to Rasni's favourite.
Radag. Hence, begging scold ! hence, caitif
clogg'd with years !
On pain of death, revisit not the court.
Was I conceiv'd by such a scurvy trull,
Or brought to light by such a lump of dirt ?
Go, losel, trot it to the cart and spade !
Thou art unmeet to look upon a king,
Much less to be the father of a king.
Ale. You may see, wife, what a goodly piece
of work you have made : have I taught you
arsmetry, as additiori multiplicarum, the rule of
three, and all for the begetting of a boy, and to
be baninhed for my labour? O pitiful hearing ! —
Come, Cleaiphon, follow me.
Cles. Brother, beware : loft have heard it told,
That sons who do their fathers scorn shall beg
when they be old.
Radag. Hence, bastard boy, for fear you taste
the whip !
[Exeunt Alcon and Clksipiion.
Sam. all you heavens, and you eternal powers
* Why\ The 4to. ofl594 "Thy."
t Villains) The 4to. of 1698 " Villaino."
That sway the sword of justice in your hands,
(If mother's curses for* her son's contempt
May fill the balance of your fury full,)
Pour down the tempest of your direful plagues
Upon the head of cursed Radagon !
[A flame of fire appears from beneath, and
Kadagon is swallowed, t
So you are just : now triumph, Samia ! [Exit.
Rasni. What exorcising charm, or hateful hag,
Hath ravished the pride of my delight ?
What tortuous planets, or malevolent
Conspiring power, repining destiny,
Hath made the concave of the earth unclose,
And shut in ruptures lovely Radagon?
If I be lord commander of the clouds,
King of the earth, and sovereign of the seas,
What daring Saturn, from his fiery den,
Doth dart these furious flames amidst my court ?
I am not chief, there is more great than I :
What, greater than th' Assyrian Satrapos ?
It may not be, and yet I fear there is,
That hath bereft me of my Radagon.
First Magus. Monarch, and potentate of all
our provinces,
Muse not so much upon this accident,
Which is indeed nothing miraculous.
The hill of Sicily, dread sovereign,
Sometime on sudden doth evacuate
Whole flakes of fire, and spews out from belcrw
The smoky brands that Vulcan's bellows drive :
Whether by winds enclosed in the earth,
Or fracture of the earth by rivers' force,
Such chances as was this are often seen ;
Whole cities sunk, whole countries drowned quite.
Then muse not at the loss of Radagon,
But frolic with the dalliance of your love.
Let cloths of purple, set with studs of gold,
Embellished with all the pride of earth,
Be spread for Alvida to sit upon:
Then thou, like Mars courting the queen of love,
Mayst drive away this melancholy fit.
Rasni. The proof is good and philosophical ;
And more, thy counsel plausible and sweet. —
Come, lords, though Rasni wants his Radagon,
Earth will repay him many Radagons,
And Alvida with pleasant looks revive
The heart that droops for want of Radagon.
[ Exeunt.
Oseas. When disobedience reigneth in the child,
And princes' ears by flattery be beguiFd ;
When laws do pass by favour, not by truth ;
* for] The 4to. of 1598 " of."
t A flame, &c] Tho 4tos. " Upon this prater the de-
parteth, and a flame," &c.
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
133
"When falsehood swarnieth both in old and youth;
When gold is made a god to wrong the poor,
And charity exil'd from rich men's door;
When men by wit do labour to disprove
The plagues for sin sent down by God above ;
When * great men's ears are stopt to good advice,
And apt to hear those tales that feed their vice ;
Woe to the land ! for from the east shall rise
A Lamb of peace, the scourge of vanities,
The judge of truth, the patron of the just,
Who soon will lay presumption in the dust,
And give the humble poor their hearts' desire,
And doom the worldlings to eternal fire :
Repent all you that hear, for fear of plp-gues.
London, this and more doth swarm in thee !
Repent, repent, for whyt the Lord doth see :
With trembling pray, and mend what is amiss ;
The sword of justice drawn already is.
Enter Adam and the Smith's Wife.
Adam.t Why, but hear you, mistress : you
know a woman's eyes are like a pair of pattens,
fit to save shoe-leather in summer, and to keep
away the cold in winter ; so you may like your
husband with the one eye because you are mar-
ried, and me with the other because I am your
man. Alas, alas ! think, mistress, what a thing
love is: why, it is like to an ostry-faggot,§ that,
once set on-fire, is as hardly quenched as the
bird crocodile driven out of her nest.
S. Wife. Why, || Adam, cannot a woman wink
but she must sleep, and can she not love but she
must cry it out at the cross ] Know, Adam, I
love thee as myself, now that we are together in
secret.
Adam. Mistress, these words of yours are like
a fox-tail placed in a gentlewoman's fan, which,
as it is light, so it giveth life : 0, these words are
as sweet as a lily ! whereupon, offering a borachio
of kisses to your unseemly personage, I entertain
you upon further acquaintance.
S. Wife. Alas, my husband comes I
Adam. Strike up the drum,
And say no words but mum.
Enter the Smith.
Smith. Sirrah you, and you, huswife, well taken
* When] The4tos. "Where."
\ for why] i. e. because.
t Adam] The 4tos. throughout the scene " Clown " :
but see note t, P- 119, sec. col.
§ ostry -faggot] i. e. faggot in a hostry: "You cannot
be content to pinch with your small pots and your ostry-
faggots." Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1592,
Sig. E 3.
|| Why] The 4to. of 15W "Thy."
together ! I have long suspected you, and now I
am glad I have found you together.
Adam. Truly, sir, and I am glad that I may do
you any way pleasure, either in helping you or
my mistress.
Smith. Boy, hear, and, knave, you shall know
it straight, I will have you both before the magis-
trate, and there have you surely punished.
Adam. Why, then, master, you are jealous ?
Smith. Jealous, knave ! how can I be but
jealous, to see you ever so familiar together?
thou art not only content to drink away my
goods, but to abuse my wife.
Adam. Two good qualities, drunkenness and
lechery : but, master, are you jealous ?
Smith. Ay, knave, and thou shalt know it ere
I pass, for I will beswinge thee while this rope
will hold.
S. Wife. My good husband, abuse him not, for
he never proffered you any wrong.
Smith. Nay, whore, thy part shall not be behind.
Adam. Why, suppose, master, I have offended
you, is it* lawful for the master to beat the
servant for all offences 1
Smith. Ay, marry, is it, knave.
Adam. Then, master, will I prove by logic that
seeing all sins are to receive correetion, the
master is to be corrected of. the man. And,. sir,
I pray you, what greater sin is than jealousy 1 'tis
like a mad dog that for anger bites himself:
therefore that I may do my duty to you, good
master, and to make a white sont of you, I will
soj beswinge jealousy out of you as y.ou shall
love me the better while you live.
Smith. What, beat thy master, knave ]
Adam. What, beat thy man, knave ? and, ay,
master, and double beat you, because you are a
man of credit ; and therefore have at you the
fairest for§ forty pence ! [Beats the Smith.
Smith. Alas, wife, help, help ! my man kills me.
* is ii] The 4to. of 1598 "it is."
f white son] White is an epithet of endearment, com-
mon in our old writers : so Heywood and Broome in
their Late Lancashire Witches, 1634 ; " A merry song now,
mother, and thou shalt be my white girle." Sig. C 3. ; —
and Whiting in his Albino and Bellama, 1638 (some
copies of the poem have the date 1637);
" A votary, Albino cal'd by name ;
Not Fortune's white boy, yet of Abby-bloud. u p. 31.
In 1644 was printed a small 4to. traot entitled 77i«
Devill's WHITE Boyes, a mixture of malicious malignant!,
with their EviU Practises against the Kingdame and Parlia-
ment, with aboUomlesse sack-fall of Knavery, Popery, Prt-
lacy. Policy, Trechery, &c.
X so] Not in the 4 to., of 1508.
§/orJ The4to. of 1598 "of."
134
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
5. Wife. Nay, even as you have baked, so
brew : jealousy must be driven out by extremi-
ties.
Adam. And that will I do, mistress.
Smith. Hold thy hand, Adam ; and not only I
forgive and forget all, but I will give thee a good
farm to live on.
Adam. Be gone, peasant, out of the compass of
my further wrath, for I am a corrector of vice ;
and at night I will bring home my mistress.
Smith. Even when you please, good Adam.
Adam. When I please, — mark the* words, —
'tis a lease-parolt to have and to hold. Thou
shalt be mine for ever : and so let's go to the
ale-house. [Exeunt.
Oseas. Where servants against masters do rebel,
The commonweal may be accounted hell ;
For if the feet the head shall hold in scorn,
The city's state will fall and be forlorn.
This error, London, waiteth on thy state :
Servants, amend, and, masters, leave to hate ;
Let love abound, and virtue reign in all ;
So God will hold his hand, that threateueth thrall.
Enter the Merchants of Tharsw,X the Master of the Ship,
and some Sailors, wet from the sea; with them the
Governor of Joppa.
Gov. What strange encounters met you on the
sea,
That thus your bark is batter'd by the floods,
And you return thus sea-wreck'd as I see ?
First Mer. Most mighty Governor, the chance
is strange,
The tidings full of wonder and amaze,
Which, better than we, our Master can report.
Gov. Master, discourse us all the accident.
Mas. The fair Triones with their glimmering
light
Smil'd at the foot of clear Bootes' wain,§
And in the north, [| distinguishing the hours,
The loadstar of our course diapers' d his clear ;
When to the seas with blitheful western blasts
We sail'd amaiu, and let the bowling fly.
Scarce had we gone ten leagues from sight of land,
But, lo, an host of black and sable clouds
Gan to eclipse Lucina's silver face ;
And, with a hurling noise from forth the south,
• the] The 4to. of 1598 "thy."
t lease parol] "/... ise Parol, that is, Lease per Parol; a
Lease by Word of Mouth, to distinguish it from a Leaoe
in Writing." Cowel's Law Dirt. (sub. " Parol"), ed. 1727.
I Thursut] Boo note ||, p. 129, sec. col.
§ Bootes? wain] The Itos. " Rootes a raine."
|| north] The4tos. "wrath."
A gust of wind did rear* the billows up.
Then scantled we our sails with speedy hands,
And took our drablers from our bonnets straight,
And severed our bonnets from ourt courses :
Our topsails up, we truss our spritsails in ;
But vainly strive they that resist the heavens.
For, lo, the waves incense them more and more,
Mounting with hideous roarings from the depth ;
Our bark is batter'd by encountering storms,
And well-nigh stemm'd by breaking of the floods.
The steersman, pale and careful, holds his helm,
Wherein the trust of life and safety lay :
Till all at once (a mortal tale to tell)
Our sails were split by Bisa's + bitter blast,
Our rudder broke, and we bereft of hope.
There might you see, with pale and ghastly looks,
The dead in thought, and doleful merchants lift
Their eyes and hands unto their country's gods.
The goods we cast in bowels of the sea,
A sacrifice to 'suage proud Neptune's ire.
Only alone a man of Israel,
A passenger, did under hatches lie,
And slept secure, when we for succour pray'd :
Him I awoke, and said, "Why slumberest thou?
Arise, and pray, and call upon thy god ;
He will perhaps in pity look on us."
Then cast we lots to know by whose amisa
Our mischief came,§ according to the guise;
And, lo, the lot did unto Jonas fall,
The Israelite of whom I told you last.
Then question we his country and his name ;
Who answer'd us, " I am an Hebrew born,
Who fear the Lord of heaven who made the sea,
And fled from him, for which we all are plagu'd :
So, to assuage the fury of my God,
Take me and cast my carcass in the sea;
Then shall this stormy wind and billow cease."
The heavens they know, the Hebrew's god can tell,
How loath we were to execute his will :
But when no oars nor labour might suffice,
We heav'd the hapless Jonas overboard.
So ceas'd the storm, and calmed all the sea,
And we by strength of oars recover'd shore.
Gov. A wondrous chance of mighty conse-
quence !
* rear] The 4to. of 1598 "raise."
f our] Tho4to. of 1594 "the."
t Bisa's] The Rev. J. Mitford (Gent. Mag. for March
1833, p. 217) remarks that this word "had been used
long before in poetry. See Havclokthe Dane, ed. Maddon,
v. 724 ;
' That it no began a windc to rise
Out of the north, men calleth bise,' &c."
" Bite. A north wind." Cotgrave's Diet.
§ came] The 4tos. of 1594, 1598, and 1617 "come."
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
135
First Mer. Ah, konour'd be the god that
wrought the same !
For we have vow'd, that saw his wondrous works,
To cast away profaned paganism,
And count the Hebrew's god the only god :
To him this offering of the purest gold,
This myrrh and cassia, freely I do yield.
Second Mer. And on his altar's fume* these
Turkey cloths,
This gassampinef and gold, I'll sacrifice, [addict.
First Sai. To him my heart and thoughts I will
Then suffer us, most mighty Governor,
Within your temples to do sacrifice.
Gov. You men of Tharsus, follow me,
Who sacrifice unto the J God of heaven ;
And welcome, friends, to Joppa's Governor.
[Exeunt. A sacrifice.
Oseas. If warned once, the ethnics thus repent,
And at the first their error do lament,
What senseless beasts, devoured in their sin,
Are they whom long persuasions cannot win !
Beware, ye western cities, — where the word
Is daily preached, both at church and board,
Where majesty the gospel doth maintain,
Where preachers, for your good, themselves do
pain, —
To dally long and still protract the time ;
The Lord is just, and you but dust and slime :
Presume not far, delay not to amend ;
Who suffereth long, will punish in the end.
Cast thy account, London, in this case,
Then judge what cause thou hast to call for grace !
Jonas is cast out of the whale's belly upon the stage.
Jonas. Lord of the light, thou maker of the
world,
Behold, thy hands of mercy rear me up !
Lo, from the hideous bowels of this fish
Thou hast return'd me to the wished air !
Lo, here, apparent witness of thy power,
The proud leviathan that scours the seas,
And from his nostrils showers out stormy floods,
Whose back resists the tempest of the wind,
Whose presence makes the scaly troops to shake,
With humble stress § of his broad-open'd chaps,
Hath lent me harbour in the raging floods !
Thus, though my sin hath drawn me down to
death,
* /tt?)ie] The 4tos. "perfume. '
t gassampine] Does it mean cotton-cloth ? In Cot-
grave's Diet. I find " Gossaiapine. The bumbast or
cotton-bush, the plant that beares cotton or bumbast."
See, too, Florio'a Diet, in " Gossampino " and " Gossipina."
X the] The 4to. of 1598 "your." — This speech seems to
be somewhat imperfect.
§ stress] Qy. "stretch"?
Thy mercy hath restored me to life.
Bow ye, my knees; and you, my bashful eyes,
Weep so for grief as you to water would.
In trouble, Lord, I called unto thee,
Out of the belly of the deepest hell ;
I cried, and thou didst hear my voice, God !
Tis thou hadst cast me down into the deep :
The seas and floods did compass me about ;
I thought I had been cast from out thy sight ;
The weeds were wrapt about my* wretched head ;
I went unto the bottom of the hills :
But thou, Lord my God, hast brought me up !
On thee I thought whenas my soul did faint :
My prayers did preasef before thy mercy-seat.
Then will I pay my vows unto the Lord,
For why+ salvation cometh from his throne.
"Die Angel appears.
Angel. Jonas, arise, get thee to Nineveh,
And preach to them the preachings that I bade ;
Haste thee to see the will of heaven perform'd.
Jonas. Jehovah, I am prest§ to do thy will. —
[The Angel departs.
What coast is this, and where am I arriv'd ]
Behold sweet Lycus streaming in his bounds,
Bearing the walls of haughty Nineveh,
Whereas three hundred towersll do tempt the
heaven.
Fair are thyU walls, pride of** Assyria;
But, lo, thy sins have pierced through the clouds !
Here will I enter boldly, since I know
My God commands, whose power no power resists.
[Boat.
Oseas. You prophets, learn by Jonas Low to
live;
Repent your sins, whilst he doth warning give.
Who knows his masters will, aud doth it not,
Shall suffer many stripes, full well I wot.
Enter Alvida in rich attire, with the Kino of Ciucla,
and her Ladies.
Alv. Ladies, go sit you down amidst this bower,
And let the eunuchs play you all asleep :
Tut garlands made of roses on your heads,
And play the wantons, whilst I talk a while.
First Lady. Thou beautiful of all the world,
we will. [Ladies enter the bower.
Alv. King of Cilicia, kind and courteous,
» my] The 4to. of 1593 "thy."
t prease] i. c. press.
t For why] i. e. Because.
§ prest] i. e. ready.
|| towers] The three first 4tos. "towns. '
% thy] The4tos. "the."
"* pride of] The 4to. of 1602 "of proud.'
136
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
Like to thyself because a lovely king,
Come, lay thee down upon thy mistress' knee,
And I will sing and talk of love to thee.
K. of Cil. Most gracious paragon of excellence,
It fits not such an abject prince as I,
To talk with Rasni's paramour and love.
Alv. To talk, sweet friend ! who would not
talk with thee?
0, be not coy ! art thou not only fair ?
Come, twine thine arms about thia snow-white
neck,
A love-nest for the great Assyrian king :
Blushing I tell thee, fair Cilician prince,
None but thyself can merit such a grace.
K. of Cil. Madam, I hope you mean not for to
mock me.
Alv. No, king, fair king, my meaning is to
yoke thee.
Hear me but sing of love, then by my sighs,
My tears, my glancing looks, my changed cheer,
Thou shalt perceive how I do hold thee dear.
K. of Cil. Sing, madam, if you please, but love
in jest.
Alv. Nay, I will love, and sigh at every rest.
[Sings.
Beauty, alas, where wast thou born,
Thus to hold thyself in scorn ?
Whenas Beauty kiss'd to woo thee,
Thou by Beauty dost undo me :
Heigh ho, despise me not I
I and thou, in sooth, are one,
Fairer thou,* I fairer none:
Wanton thou, and wilt thou, wanton,
Yield a cruel heart to plant on ?
Do me right, and do me reason ;
Cruelty is cursed treason :
Heigh-ho, I love ! heigh-ho, I love !
Heigh-ho ! and yet he eyes me not.
K. of Cil. Madam, your soug is passing passion-
ate.
Alv. And wilt thou not, then, pity my estate?
K. of Cil. Ask love of them who pity may
impart.
Alv. I ask of thee, sweet ; thou hast stole my
heart.
K. of Cil. Your love is fixed on a greater king.
Alv. Tut, women's love it is a fickle thing.
I love my Rami for his t dignity,
I love Cilician king for his sweet eye ;
I love my Jtasni since he rules the world,
But more I love this kingly little world.
[Embraces him.
How sweet he looks ! 0, were I Cynthia's fere, +
* Fairer thou] " Should it be 'Fairest thou'?" Walker's
Crit. Exam, of the text of Shakespeare, iic,, >• 59,
t his] The 4tos. "my."
} fere] . o. companion,— equal.
And thou Endymion, I should hold thee dear :
Thus should mine arms be spread about thy neck,
[Embraces his neck.
Thus would I kiss my love at every beck ;
[Kisses him.
Thus would I sigh to see thee sweetly sleep,
And if thou wak'dst not soon, thus would I weep ;
And thus, and thus, and thus, thus much I love
thee. [Kisses him.
K. of Cil. For all these vows, beshrew me, if I
prove ye :*
My faith unto my king shall not be fals'd.
Alv. Good Lord, how men are coy when they
are crav'd !
K. of Cil. Madam, behold our king approacheth
nigh.
Alv. Thou art Endymion, then, no more : heigh-
ho, for him I die !
IFaints, while pointing at the King of Cilicia.
Enter Rasni, with his Kings, Lords, and Magi.
Rasni. What ails the centre of my happiness,
Whereon depends the heaven of my delight?
Thine eyes the motors to command my world,
Thy hands the axierf to maintain my world,
Thy smiles the prime and spring-tide of my world,
Thy frowns the winter to afflict my+ world,
Thou queen of me, I king of all the world !
Alv. Ah feeble eyes, lift up, and look on him !
[.Rises os out of a trance.
Is Rasni here? then droop no more, poor heart. —
0, how I fainted when I wanted thee !
[Embraces him.
How fain am I, now I may look on thee !
How glorious is my Rasni, how divine ! —
Eunuchs, play hymna to praise his deity :
He is my Jove, and I his Juno am.
Rasni. Sun-bright as is the eye of summer's day
Whenas he suits his pennons§ all in gold
To woo his Leda in a swan-like shape ;
Seemly as Galatea|| for thy white ;
Rose-colour'd, lily, lovely, wanton, kind,
Be thou the labyrinth to tangle love,
Whilst I command the crown from Venus' crest,
And pull Orion'sU girdle from his loins,
Enchas'd with carbuncles and diamonds,
To beautify fair Alvida, my love. —
* ye] The 4tos. "you": but here a rhyme was in-
tended.
t axier] i. o. axis.
} >»>/] The4tos. "the."
§ his pcnnonn] Tho correction of the Rev. J. Mitford,
Gent. Mag. for March 1833, p. 216.— Tho 4tos. "Spenori."
|| Galatea] The 4tos. "Galbocia."
1[ Orion's] The 4tos. "Onoris."
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
137
Play, eunuchs, sing in honour of her name ;
Yet look not, slaves, upon her wooing eyne,
For she is fair Luciua to your king,
But fierce Medusa to your baser eye.
Alv. What if I slept, where should my pillow
be?
Rasni. Within my bosom, nymph, not on my
knee:
Sleep, like the smiling purity of heaven,
When mildest wind is loth to blend* the peace ;
Meanwhile myt balmj shall from thy breath
arise ;
And while these closures of thy lamps be shut,
My soul may have his peace from fancy's war. —
This is my Morn,§ and I her Cephalus : —
Wake not too soon, sweet nymph, my love is
won. —
Caitiffs, || why stay your strains? why tempt you
me?
Enter the Priests of the Sun, with mitre* on their heads,
carrying fire in their hands.
First Priest. All hail unto th' Assyrian deity !
Rasni. Priests, why presume you to disturb
my peace ? [peace.
First Priest. Rasni, the Destinies disturb thy
Behold, amidst the adytsll of our gods,
Our mighty gods, the patrons of our war,
The ghosts** of dead men howling walk about,
Crying " Vce, vce, woe to this city, woe ! "
The statues+t of our gods are thrown down,]
And streams of blood our altars do distain.
Alv. [starting up.] Alas, my lord, what tidings
do I hear?
Shall I be slain?
Rasyti. Who tempteth Alvida]
Go, break me up the brazen doorsJJ of dreams,
And bind me cursed Morpheus in a chain,
And fetter all the fancies of the night,
Because they do disturb my Alvida.
[A hand from out a cloud threatens with a
burning sword.
K. oj Cil. Behold, dread prince, a burning
sword from heaven,
Which by a threatening arm is brandished !
* blend] See note 1, p. 124, first col.
t my] The4tos. "thy."
t balm] The 4to. of 1598 "blame."
§ Morn] The 4tos. "Morane."
|| Caitiffs'] The 4tos. " Catnies."
If adyts] The 4to8. "addittes" and "addites": from
the Latin, adytum, the innermost part of a temple.
** ghosts] The 4to. of 159S "ghost."
tt statues] The three first 4tos. "statutes."— In this line
"thrown " would seem to be a dissyllable.
JJ doors] The 4to. of 1598 " walles."
Rasni. What, am I threaten' d, then, amidst
my throne ?
Sages, you Magi, speak ; what meaneth this ?
First Magus. These are but clammy exhalations,
Or retrograde conjunctions of the stars,
Or oppositions of the greater lights,
Or radiations* finding matter fit,
That in the starry sphere kindled be ;t
Matters betokening dangers to thy foes,
But peace and honour to my lord the king.
Rasni. Then frolic, viceroys, kings, and poten-
tates;
Drive all vain fancies from your feeble minds.
Priests, go and pray, whilst I prepare my feast,
Where Alvida and I, in pearl and gold,
Will quaff unto our nobles richest wine,
In spite of fortune, fate, or destiny. [Exeunt.
Oseas. Woe to the trains of women's foolish lust,
In wedlock-rites that yield but little trust,
That vow to one, yet common be to all !
Take warning, wantons ; pride will have a fall.
Woe to the land where warnings profit nought !
Who say that nature God's decrees hath wrought ;
Who build on fate, and leave the corner-stone,
The God of gods, sweet Christ, the only one.
If such escapes, London, reign in thee,
Repent, for whyj each sin shall punish'd be :
Repent, amend, repent, the hour is nigh;
Defer not time; who knows when he shall die ?
Enter one clad in Devil's attire.
Dev. Longer lives a merry man than a sad ; and
because I mean to make myself pleasant this
night, I have put myself into this attire, to make
a clown afraid that passeth this way : for of late
there have appeared many strange apparitions, to
the great fear and terror of the citizens. — 0, here
my young master comes.
Enter Adam and the Smith's Wife.
Adam. Fear not, mistress, I'll bring you safe
home : if my master frown, then will I stamp and
stare ; and if all be not well then, why then to-
morrow morn put out mine eyes clean with forty
pound.
S. Wife. 0, but, Adam, I am afraid to walk so
late, because of the spirits that appear in the city.
Adam. What, are you afraid of spirits ? Armed
* radiations] The 4tos. "radiatrous."
t That in the starry sphere kindled be] Here " sphere" is
a dissyllable: see Walker's S/iafa.*j>care's Versification, <fec.,
p. 146.
J for why] i. e. because.
138
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
as I aui, with alo and nutmegs, turn me loose to
all the devils in hell.
S. Wife. Alas, Adam, Adam ! the devil, the
devil !
Adam. The devil, mistress ! fly you 'for your
safeguard; [Exit S. Wife.] let me alone; the devil
and I will deal well enough, if he have any
honesty at all in him : I'll either win him with a
smooth tale, or else with a toast and a cup of ale.
Dev. [singing.]
O, O, O, O, fain would I be,
If that my kingdom fulfill'd I might see !
O, 0,0,0!
Adam.* Surely, this is a merry devil, and I
believe he is one of Lucifer's minstrels ; hath a
sweet voice ; now surely, surely, he may sing to
a pair of tongs and a bag-pipe.
Dev. 0, thou art he that I seek for.
Adam. Spritus santus ! — Away from me, Satan !
I have nothing to do with thee.
Dev. villain, thou art mine !
Adam. Nominuspatrus ! — I blessme from thee,
and I conjure thee to tell me who thou art.
Dev. I am the spirit of the dead man that was
slain in thy company when we were drunk toge-
ther at the ale.+
Adam. By my troth, sir, I cry you mercy ;
your face is so changed that I had quite forgotten
you : well, master devil, we have tossed over
many a pot of ale together. [hell.
Dev. And therefore must thou go with me to
Adam, [aside.] I have a policy to shift him,
for I know he comes out of a hot place, and I
know myself, J the smith and the devil hath a dry
tooth in his head : therefore will I leave him
asleep, and run my way.
Dev. Come, art thou ready ?
Adam. Faith, sir, my old friend, and now good-
man devil, you know you and I have been tossing
many a good cup of ale : your nose is grown very
* Adam] The 4tos. here, aud throughout the rest of
the scene " Clown" : see note f, p. 119, sec. col.
t the ak] " Launce. If thou wilt go with me to the ale-
house, so ; if not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not
worth the name of Christian.
Speed. Why?
Launce. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee
as to go to the ale with a Christian."
It is plain that in the passage of our text, as well as in
that just quoted from Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of
Verona (net ii. sc. 5.), " the ale " is put for the ale-house.
Generally, however, in our early writers " the ale "
means a festival whore much ale was drunk : hence
bride ales, church-ales, clcrk-alcs. &c.
J and 1 know myself, he. ) i.e. (if there be no corruption),
" And I know by myself that both tho smith and the
devil hath ' &c.
rich : what say you, will you take a pot of ale
now at my hands ? Hell is like a smith'3 forge,
full of water, and yet ever athirst.
Dev. No ale, villain; spirits cannot drink:
come, get upon my back, that I may carry thee.
Adam. You know I am a smith, sir : let me
look whether you be well shod or no ; for if you
want a shoe, a remove, or the clinching of a nail,
I am at your command.
Dev. Thou hast never a shoe fit for me.
Adam. Why, sir, we shoe horned beasts, as
well as you. — [Aside.] good Lord ! let me sit
down and laugh ; hath never a cloveu foot : a
devil, quoth he ! I'll use Spritus santus nor Nomi-
nus patrus no more to him, I warrant you; I'll
do more good upon him with my cudgel : now
will I sit me down, and become justice of peace
to the devil.
Dev. Come, art thou ready ?
Adam. I am ready; and with this cudgel I will
conjure thee. [Beats him.
Dev 0, hold thy hand ! thou killest me, thou
killest me ! [Exit.
Adam. Then may I count myself, I think, a
tall* man, that am able to kill a devil : now who
dare deal with me in the parish? or what wench
in Nineveh will not love me, when they say,
" There goes he that beat the devil " 1 [Exit.
Enter Thrasybulus.
Thras. Loath'd is the life that now enfore'd I
lead ;
But since necessity will have it so,
(Necessity itt doth command the gods,)
Through every coast and corner now I pry,
To pilfer what I can to buy me meat.
Here have I got a cloak, not over old,
Which will afford some little sustenance:
Now will I to the broking Usurer,
To make exchange of ware for ready coin.
Enter Alcon, Samia, and Clesiphon.
Ale. Wife, bid the trumpets sound, a prize, a
prize I mark the posy : I cut this from a new-
married wife by the help of a horn-thumbj and
a knife, — six shillings, four pence.
Sam. The better luck ours : but what have we
here, cast apparel 1 Come away, man, the Usurer
is near : this is dead ware, let it not bide on our
hands.
* tall] i. e. bold, brave.
t it] Qy. " that" (tho MS. having had "y 1 ")?
} horn thumb] An implement used by cut-purses; a
case of horn, put on the thumb, to receive the edge of
the knife, during their operations.
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
139
Threat [aside.] Here are my partners in my
poverty,
Enforc'd to seek their fortunes as I do :
Alas, that few men should possess the wealth,
And many souls be fore'd to beg or steal ! —
Alcon, well met.
Ale. Fellow beggar, whither now!
Thras. To the Usurer, to get gold on commo-
dity.
Ale. And I to the same place, to get a vent for
my villany. See where the old crust comes : let
us salute him.
Enter Usurer.
God speed, sir : may a man abuse your patience
upon a pawn ?
Usurer. Friend, let me see it.
Ale. Ecce signum I a fair doublet and hose,
new-bought out of the pilferer's shop, [and] a
handsome cloak.
Usurer. How were they gotten ?
Thras. How catch the fishermen fish ? Master,
take them as you think them worth : we leave
all to your conscience.
Usurer. Honest men, toward men, good men,
my friends, like to prove good members, use me,
command me ; I will maintain your credits.
There's money : now spend not your time in
idleness; bring me commodity; I have crowns
for you : there is two shillings for thee, and six
shillings for thee. [Gives money.
Ale. A bargain. — Now, Samia, have at it for a
new smock ! — Come, let us to the spring of the
best liquor : whilst this lasts, trillill !
Usurer. Good fellows, proper fellows, my com-
panions, farewell : I have a pot for you.
Ham. [aside]. If he could spare it.
Enter Jonas.
Jonas. Repent, ye men of Nineveh, repent !
The day of horror and of torment* comes ;
When greedy hearts shall glutted be with fire,
Whenas corruptions veil'd shall be unmask'd,
When briberies shall be repaid with bane,
When whoredoms shall be recompens'd in hell,
When riot shall with rigour be rewarded,
Whenas neglect of truth, contempt of God,
Disdain of poor men, fatherless, and sick,
Shall be rewarded with a bitter plague.
Repent, ye men of Nineveh, repent !
The Lord hath spoke, and I do cry it out ;
There are as yet but forty days remaining,
And then shall Nineveh be overthrown :
* horror and of torment] The 4to. of 1598 "judgment."
Repent, ye men of Nineveh, repent !
There are as yet but forty days remaining,
And then shall Nineveh be overthrown. [Exit.
Usurer. Confus'd in thought, O, whither shall
I wend ? [Exit.
Thras. My conscience cries, that I have done
amiss. [Exit.
Ale. God of heaven, 'gainst thee have I
offended !
Sam. Asham'd of my misdeeds, where shall I
hide me ?
Cles. Father, methinks this word " repent " is
good :
He that [doth] punish disobedience
Doth bold a scourge for every privy fault.
[Exit with Alcon and Samia.
Oseas. Look, London, look ; with inward eyes
behold
What lessons the events do here unfold.
Sin grown to pride, to misery is thrall :
The warning-bell is rung, beware to fall.
Ye worldly men, whom wealth doth lift on high,
Beware and fear, for worldly men must die.
The time shall come, where least suspect* remains,
The sword shall light upon the wisest brains ;
The head that deems to overtop the sky,
Shall perish in his human policy.
Lo, I have said, when I have said the truth,
When will is law, when folly guideth youth,
When show of zeal is prank'd in robes of zeal,
When ministers powlf the pride of common- weal,
When law is made a labyrinth of strife,
When honour yields him friend to wicked life,
When princes hear by others' ears their folly,
When usury is most accounted holy,
If these shallj hap, as would to God they might
not,
The plague is near : I speak, although I write not.
Enter the Angel.
Angel. Oseas.
Oseas. Lord ?
Angel. Now hath thine eye § perus'd theae
heinous sins,
Hateful unto the mighty Lord of hosts.
The time is come, their sins are waxen ripe,
And though the Lord forewarns, yet they repent
not;
Custom of sin hath harden'd all their hearts.
Now comes revenge, armed with mighty plagues,
To punish all that live in Nineveh ;
* suspect] The 4to. ofl598 "respect. '
t jpoJsJ] i. e. poll.
t thall] The4to. of 1593 "should."
§ eye] The 4tos. "eyes."
140
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
For God is just as he is merciful,
And doubtless plagues all such as scorn repent.
Thou shalt not see the desolation
That falls unto these cursed Ninevites,
But shalt return to great Jerusalem,
And preach unto the people of thy God
What mighty plagues are incident to sin,
Unless repentance mitigate his ire :
Rapt in the spirit, as thou wert hither brought,
I'll seat thee in Judaea's provinces.
Fear not, Oseas, then to preach the word.
Oseas. The will of the Lord be done !
[Oseas is taken, away by the Angel.
Enter JlAStti with his Kings, Magi, Lords, and Attendants;
Alvida and her Ladies ; to a banquet.
Rami. So, viceroys, you have pleas'd me passing
well ;
These curious cates are gracious in mine eye,
But these borachios of the richest wine
Make me to think how blithesome we will be. —
Seat thee, fair Juno, in the royal throne,
And I will serve thee to see* thy face,
That, feeding on the beauty of thy looks,
My stomach and mine eyes may both be fill'd. —
Come, lordings, seat you, fellow-mates at feast,
And frolic, wags ; this is a day of glee :
This banquet is for brightsome Alvida. [wine,
I'll have them skinkf my standing-bowls with*
And no man drink but qua£F§ a whole!! carouse
Unto the health of beauteous Alvida :
For whoso risath from this feast not drunk,
As I am llasni, Nineveh's great king,
Shall die the death as traitor to myself,
For that he scorns the health of Alvida.
K. of Cil. That will I never do, my lord,
Therefore with favour, fortune to your grace,
Carouse unto the health of Alvida. [pledge : —
Rasni. Gramercy, lording, here I take thy
And, Crete, to thee a bowl of Greekish wine,
Here to the health of Alvida. If
K. of Crete. Let come, my lord. — Jack skinker,
fill it full ;
A ** pledge unto the health of heavenly Alvida.
Rasni. Vassals, attendant on our royal feast,
Drink you, I say, unto my lover's health :
* thee to nee] Qy. "thee but to see "1
t think] i. e. fill : it generally means, to draw, pour
out, or serve liquor. Saxon rceucan.
t with] The 4to. of 1598 " of."
§ hid qua ff] i.e. without quaffing.
|| vhole] The 4to. of 1508 " full."
1J Aiviiin] Qy. "heavenly Alvida" 1 and omit that epi-
thet in the next speech? — Did the author forget here that
the King of Crete had been banished by Rasni? seep. 118,
sec col.
** A\ Tho4to. of 1598 "I."
Let none that is in Rasni's royal court
Go this night safe and sober to his bed.*
Enter Adam.
Adam.f This way he is, and here will I speak
with him.
First Lord. Fellow, whither pressest thou ?
Adam. I press nobody, sir; I am going to
speak with a friend of mine.
First Lord. Why, slave, here is none but the
king, and his viceroys.
Adam. The king ! marry, sir, he is the man I
would speak withal.
First Lord. Why, callest him a friend of thine ?
A dam. Ay, marry do I, sir ; for if he be not
my friend, I'll make him my friend, ere he and I
pass.
First Lord. Away, vassal, be gone ! thou speak
unto the king !
Adam. Ay, marry, will I, sir ; an if he were a
king of velvet, I will talk to him.
Rasni. What is the matter there ? what noise
is that?
Adam. A boon, my liege, a boon, my liege !
Rasni. What is it that great Rasni will not
grant,
This day, unto the meanest of his land,
In honour of his beauteous Alvida ?
Come hither, swain ; what is it that thou era vest?
Adam. Faith, sir, nothing, but to speak a few
sentences to your worship.
Rasni. Say, what is it ?
Adam. I am sure, sir, you have heard of the
spirits that walk in the city here.
Rasni. Ay, what of that ?
Adam. Truly, sir, I have an oration to tell you
of one of them ; and this it is.
Ah. Why goest not forward with thy tale 1
Adam. Faith, mistress, I feel an imperfection
in my voice, a disease that often troubles me ;
but, alas, easily mended ; a cup of ale or a cup of
wine will serve the turn.
Alv. Fill him a bowl, and let him want no
drink.
Adam. 0, what a precious word was that,
"And let him want no drink " ! [Drink given to
* Let none that is in Rasni's royal court
Go this night sa,fe and sober to his be/l.] A recollection
of Fielding's Tom Thumb is here forced upon us;
" King. Today it is our pleasure to be drunk,
And this our queen shall be as drunk as we."
Act i. sc. 2.
t Adam] The 4tos. throughout the scone "Clown":
see note t. p. 119, sec. col.
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
141
Adam.] Well, sir, now I'll tell you forth my tale.
Sir, as I was coming alongst the port-royal* of
Nineveh, there appeared to me a great devil, and
aa hard-favoured a devil as ever I saw ; nay, sir,
he was a cuckoldly devil, for he had horns on
his head. This devil, mark you now, presseth
upon mo, and, sir, indeed I charged him with my
pike-staff ; but when that would not serve, I came
upon him with Spritus santus, — why, it had been
able to have put Lucifer out of his wits : when I
saw my charm would not serve, I was in such a
perplexity, that sixpenny-worth of juniper would
not have made the place sweet again.
Alv. Why, fellow, wert thou so afraid?
Adam. O mistress, had you been there and
seen, his very sight had made you shift a clean
smock ! I promise you, though 1 were a man, and
counted a tallf fellow, yet my laundress called
me slovenly knave the next day.
Rami. A pleasant slave. — Forward, sirrah, on
with thy tale.
Adam. Faith, sir, but I remember a word that
my mistress your bed-fellow spoke.
Rasni. What was that, fellow ?
Adam. 0, sir, a word of comfort, a precious
word — " And let him want no drink."
Rasni. Her word is law ; and thou shalt want
no drink. [Drink given to Adam.
Adam. Then, sir, this devil came upon me, and
would not be persuaded, but he would needs
carry me to hell. I proffered him a cup of ale,
thinking, because he came out of J so hot a place,
that he was thirsty ; but the devil was not dry,
and therefore the more sorry was I. Well, there
was no remedy, but I must with him to hell :
and at last I cast mine eye aside ; if you knew
what I spied, you would laugh, sir; I looked
from top to toe, and he had no cloven feet.
Then I ruffled up my hair, and set my cap on the
one side, and, sir, grew to be a justice of peace to
the devil : at last in a great fume, as I am very
choleric, and sometimes so hot in my fustian §
fumes that no man can abide within twenty yards
of me, I start up, and so bombasted the devil,
that, sir, he cried out and ran away.
Alv. This pleasant knave hath made me laugh
my fill.
* port-royal] The 4tos. "port ryuale," and "port
ryualt."
t tall\ i. e. bold, brave.
t out of] The 4to. of 150S " from."
§ fustian] The 4to. of 1594 "fastin " ; the other 4tos.
"fustln."
Rasni, now Alvida begins her quaff,
And drinks a full carouse unto her king.
Rami. A* pledge, my love, aa hearty t as
great Jove
Drunk when his Juno heav'd a bowl to him. — ■
Frolic, my lords; X let all the standards walk; §
Ply it, till every man hath ta'en his load. —
How now, sirrah, what|| cheer ? we have no
words of you.
Adam. Truly, sir, I was in a brown study
about my mistress.
Alv. About me ! for what ?
Adam. Truly, mistress, to think what a golden
sentence you did speak ; all the philosophers in
the world could not have said more ; — " What,
come, let him want no drink." 0, wise speech J
Alv. Villains, why skinkTJ you not unto this
fellow ?
He makes me blithe and merry in my thoughts :
Heard you not that the king hath given command,
That all be drunk this day within his court
In quaffing to the health of Alvida ?
[Drink given to Adam.
Enter Jonas.
Jonas. Repent,** ye men of Nineveh, repent !
The Lord hath spoke,tt and I do cry it out,
There are as yet but forty days remaining,
And then shall Nineveh be overthrown :
Repent, ye men of Nineveh, repent !
Rami. What fellow's this, that thus disturbs
our feast
With outcries and alarums to repent ?
Adam. 0, sir, 'tis one Goodman Jonas, that is
come from Jericho ; and surely I think he hath
seen some spirit by the way, and is fallen out of
his wits, for he never leaves crying night nor day.
My master heard him, and he shut up his shop,
gave me my indenture, and he and his wife do
nothing but fast and pray.
Jonas. Repent, ye men of Nineveh, repent !
Rami Come hither, fellow : what art, and from
whence comest thou ?
Jonas. Rasni, I am a prophet of the Lord,
Sent hither by the mighty God of hosts
To cry destruction to the Ninevites.
* A] The4to. of 1598 "I."
t heart)/] The 4to. of 1594 "hardie."
J lords} The4tos. "lord."
§ the standards walk] i.e. the standing-bowls go round.
|| what] The 4to. of 1594 "how."
f skint] See note t, P- 140, first col.
** Repent] The 4tos. "Repent, repent."
ft spoke] The 4tos. " spoken " : but see the repetition of
the line in Jonas ; s second speech after this.
142
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
Nineveh, thou harlot of the world,
1 raise thy neighbours round about thy bounds,
To come and see thy filthiness and sin !
Thus saith the Lord, the mighty God of hosts :*
Your king loves chambering and wantonness,
Whoredom and murder do distain his court,
He favoureth covetous and drunken men ;
Behold, therefore, all like a strumpet foul,
Thou shalt be judg'd, and puuish'd for thy ciime;
The foe shall pierce the gates with iron ramps,
The fire shall quite consume thee from above,
The houses shall be burnt, the infants slain,
And women shall behold their husbands die.
Thine eldest sister is Lamana,+
And Sodom on thy right hand seated is.
Repent, ye men of Nineveh, repent !
The Lord hath spoke, and I do cry it out,
There are as yet but forty days remaining,
And then shall Nineveh be overthrown.
[Offers to depart.
Rasni. Stay, prophet, stay.
Jonas. Disturb not him that sent me ;
Let me perform the message of the Lord. [Exit.
Rasni. My soul is buried in the hell of
thoughts. —
Ah, Alvida, I look on thee with shame ! —
My lords on sudden fix their eyes on ground,
As if dismay 'd to look upon the heavens. —
Hence, Magi, who have flatter'd me in sin !
[Exeunt Magi.
Horror of mind, disturbance of my soul,
Make me aghast for Nineveh's mishap.
Lords, see proclaim'd, yea, see it straight pro-
claim'd,
That man and beast, the woman and her child,
For forty days in sack and ashes fast :
Perhaps the Lord will yield, and pity us. —
Bear hence these wretched blandishments of sin,
[Taking off' his crown and robe.
And bring me sackcloth to attire your king :
Away with pomp ! my soul is full of woe. —
In pity look on Nineveh, God !
[Exeunt all except Alvida and Ladies.
Air. Assail'd with shame, with horror over-
borne,
To sorrow sold, all guilty of our sin,
Come, ladies, come, let us prepare to pray.
Alas, how dare we look on heavenly light,
That have despis'd the maker of the same ?
How may we hope for mercy from above,
That still despis['d] the warnings from above ?
Woes mo, my conscience is a heavy foe.
* hosts The 4tos. "ho.ste."
t Lamana] Some corruption here.
patron of the poor oppress'd with sin,
Look, look on me that now for pity crave !
Assail'd with shame, with horror overborne,
To sorrow sold, all guilty of our sin,
Come, ladies, come, let us prepare to pray.
[Exeunt.
Enter the Usurer, with a halter in one hand, a dagger in
tlte other.
Usurer. Groaning in conscience, burden'd with
my crimes,
The hell of sorrow haunts me up and down.
Tread where I list, methinks the bleeding ghosts
Of those whom my corruption brought to naughts,
Do serve for stumbling-blocks before my steps ;
The fatherless and widow wrong'd by me,
The poor oppressed by my usury ;
Methinks I see their hands rear'd up to heaven,
To cry for vengeance of my covetousness.
Whereso I walk, all* sigh and shun my way ;
Thus am I made a monster of the world :
Hell gapes for me, heaven will not hold my souL
You mountains, shroud me from the God of truth :
Methinks I see him sit to judge the earth ;
See how he blots me out o' the book of life !
burden, more than ^Etna, that I bear !
Cover me, hills, and shroud me from the Lord;
Swallow me, Lycus, shield me from the Lord.
In life no peace : each murmuring that I hear,
Methinks, the sentence of damnation sounds,
"Die, reprobate, and hie thee hence to hell."
[The Evil Aug-el tempts hint, offering tlie knife
and rope.
What fiend is this that tempts me to the death ]
What, is my death the harbour of my rest ?
Then let me die : — what second charge is this?
Methinkst I hear a voice amidst mine ears,
That bids me stay, and tells me that the Lord
Is merciful to those that do repent.
May I repent ? thou, my doubtful soul,
Thou mayst repent, the judge is merciful !
Hence, tools of wrath, stales* of temptation !
For I will pray and sigh unto the Lord ;
In sackcloth will I sigh, and fasting pray :
Lord, in rigour look not on my sins !
[Sits down in sackcloth, liis hands and eyes
reared to heaven.
Enter Alvida and her Ladies, ,with dispersed locks,§ and
in sackcloth.
Alv. Come, mournful dames, lay off your
broider'd locks,
And on your shoulders spread dispersed hairs :
* all] Tho4tos. "He."
t Methinks] The 4to. of 159S " Methinke."
J stales] i. e. decoys.
locks] The 4tos. "lookea."
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
143
Let voice of music cease where sorrow dwells :
Clothed in sackcloth,* sigh your sins with me ;
Bemoan your pride, bewail your lawless lusts;
With fasting mortify your pamper' d loins;
0, think upon the horror of your sins,
Think, think with me, the burden of your blames !
Woe to thy pomp, falsef beauty, fading flower,
Blasted by age, by sickness, and by death !
Woe to our painted cheeks, our curious oils,
Our rich array, that foster' d us in sin !
Woe to our idle thoughts, that wound our souls !
0, would to God all nations might receive
A good example by our grievous fall !
First Lady. You that are planted thei'e where
pleasure dwells,
And think your pomp as great as Nineveh's,
May fall for sin as Nineveh doth now.
Alv. Mourn, mourn, let moan be all your
melody,
And pray with me, and I will pray for all : —
Lord of heaven, forgive us our misdeeds ! J
Ladies. O Lord of heaven, forgive us our
misdeeds !
Usurer. Lord of light, forgive me my mis-
deeds !
Enter Rasni, with his Kings, and Lords, in saclcloth.
K. of Cil. Be not so overcome with grief,
king,
Lest you endanger life by sorrowing so.
Rasni. King of Cilicia, should I cease my grief,
Whereas my swarming sins afflict my soul ]
Vain man, know this, my burden greater is
Than every private subject's§ in my land.
My life hath been a load-star unto them,
To guide them in the labyrinth of blame :
Thus I have taught them for to do amiss ;
Then must I weep, my friend, for their amiss.
The fall of Nineveh is wrought by me :
1 have maintain'd this city in her shame;
I have contemu'd the warnings from above ;
I have upholden incest, rape, and spoil ;
'Tis I that wrought the|| sin must weep theH sin.
0, had I tears, like to the silver streams
* sad-cloth] Here the 4tos. have "sackcloths": but
compare in the preceding page the speeches of Rasni and
of the Usurer.
t false] The 4to. of 1598 " fal, e " ; the other 4tos. " fall,"
and "falls."
J Lord of heaven, &.c] The 4tos. give this line to a
" Lord" : the word Lord occurring in it perhaps caused
the mistake.
§ subject's] The 4tos. "subiect."
|| the] The 4to. of 1598 "thy."
H the} The 4to. of 159S " thy."
That from the Alpine mountains sweetly stream,*
Or had I sighs, the treasures of remorse,
As plentiful as /Eolus hath blasts,
I then would tempt the heavens with my laments,
And pierce the throne of mercy by my sighs !
K. of Cd. Heavens are propitious unto faithful
prayers.
Rasni. But after our repent, we must lament,
Lest that a worser mischief doth befall.
0, pray : perhaps the Lord will pity us. —
God of truth, both merciful and just,
Behold repentant men, with piteous eyes !
We wail the life that we have led before :
0, pardon, Lord ! 0, pity Nineveh !
All. O, pardon, Lord! O, pity Nineveh !
Rasni. Let not the infants, dallying on the teat, +
For fathers' sius in judgment be oppress'd !
K. of Oil. Let not the painful mothers big
with child,
The innocents, be punish'd for our sin !
Rasni. 0, pardon, Lord ! 0, pity Nineveh !
All. 0, pardon, Lord ! 0, pity Nineveh !
Rasni. Lord of heaven, the virgins weep to
The covetous man sorry £ for his sin, [thee !
The prince and poor, all pray before thy throne ;
And wilt thou, then, be wroth with Nineveh 1
K. of Oil. Give truce to prayer, king, and
rest a space.
Rasni. Give truce to prayers, when times
require no truce !
No, princes, no. Let all our subjects hie
Unto our temples, § where, on humbled knees,
1 will expect some mercy from above.
[They all enter the temple.
Eaters Jonas.
Jonas. This is the day wherein the Lord hath
That Nineveh shall quite be overthrown ; [said
This is the day of horror and mishap,
Fatal unto the cursed Ninevites.
These stately towers shall in thy watery bounds,
Swift-flowing Lycus, find their burials :
These palaces, the pride of Assur's kings,
Shall be the bowers of desolation,
Whereas || the solitary bird shall sing,
And tigers train their young ones to their nest.
all ye nations bounded by the west,
Ye happy isles, where prophets do abound,
* stream] Qy. " flow" ("stre am " having been repeated
by mistake from the preceding line)?
t teat] The 4tos. of 1594, 1598, and 1617 " tent."
} sorry] The 4to. of 1594 "forie sorie."
§ temples] Qy. "temple "(as in the stage-direction which
follows)? But compare the 8th line of the sec. col. in
the next page.
|| Whereas] i. e. Where.
144
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
Ye cities famous in the western world,
Make Nineveh a precedent for you !
Leave lewd desires, leave covetous delights,
Fly usury, let whoredom be exil'd,
Lest you with Nineveh be overthrown.
Lo, how the sun's inflamed torch prevails,
Scorching the parched furrows of the earth !
Here will I sit me down, and fix mine eye
Upon the ruins of yon wretched town :
And, lo, a pleasant shade, a spreading vine,
To shelter Jonas in this sunny heat !
What means my God 1 the day is done and spent :
Lord, shall my prophecy be brought to naught ?
When falls the fire ? when will the judge be
wroth ?
I pray thee, Lord, remember what I said,
When I was yet within my couutry-land :
Jehovah is too merciful, I fear.
0, let me fly, before a prophet fault !
For thou art merciful, the Lord my God,
Full of compassion, and of* sufferance,
And dost repent in taking punishment.
Why stays thy hand J Lord, first take my life,
Before my prophecy be brought to naught ! T
Ah, he is wroth ! behold, the gladsome vine,
[A serpent dtvourtth the vine.
That did defend me from the sunny heat,
Is wither'd quite, and swallow'd by a serpent !
Now furious Phlegon triumphs on my brows,
And heat prevails, and I am faint in heart.
Enter the Angel.
Angel. Art thou so angry, Jonas? tell me why.
Jonas. Jehovah, I with burning heat am
plung'd,J
And shadow'd only by a silly vine ;
Behold, a serpent hath devoured it :
And, lo, the sun, incens'd by eastern wind,
Afflicts me with canicular§ aspect.
Would God that I might die ! for, well I wot,
'Twere better I were dead than rest alive.
Angel. Jonas, art thou so angry for the vine ?
Jonas. Yea, I am angry to the death, my God.
Angel. Thou hast compassion, Jonas, on a vine,
On which thou never labour didst bestow;
# of] Not in the 4to. of 1598.
t to nav/jht] The 4tos. here (as before, p. 142, sec. col.)
"to noughts": but in tho prcsout speech we have just
had " to naught."
X plung'd] i. e. distressed, driven to straits. *' So did
he by that Philistine poom of Parthenophell and Parthe-
nope, which to compare worse than itselfe, it would
plv.nge all the wits of France, Rpaino, or Italy.'' Nash's
Have with you to Saffron- Walden, &C 1596, Sig. O 2. See
note *, p. 131, first col.
§ canicular] The 4tos. "cariculor."
Thou never gav'st it life or power to grow,
But suddenly it sprung, and suddenly died :
And should not I have great compassion
On Nineveh, the city of the world,*
Wherein there are a hundred thousand souls,
And twenty thousand infants that ne wot t
The right hand from the left, beside + much cattle!
Jonas, look into their temples now,
And see the true contrition of their king,
The subjects' tears, the sinners' true remorse 1
Then from the Lord proclaim a mercy-day,
For he is pitiful as he is just.
Jonas. I go, my God, to finish thy command.
[Exit Angel.
0, who can tell the wonders of my God,
Or talk his praises with a fervent tongue 1
He bringeth down to hell, and lifts to heaven ;
He draws the yoke of bondage from the just,
And looks upon the heathen with piteous eyes :
To him all praise and honour be ascrib'd.
0, who can tell the wonders of my God ?
He makes the infant to proclaim his truth,
The ass to speak to save the prophet's life,
The earth and sea to yield increase for man.
Who can describe the compass of his power,
Or testify in terms his endless might ?
My ravish'd sprite, 0, whither dost thou wend ?
Go and proclaim the mercy of my God;
Relieve the careful-hearted Ninevites;
And, as thou wert the messenger of death,
Go bring glad tidings of recover' d grace. [Exit.
Enter Adam.
Adam. Well, Goodman Jonas, I would you had
never come from Jewry to this country; you
have made me look like a lean rib of roast beef,
or like the picture of Lent painted upon a red-
herring-cob. § Alas, masters, we are commanded
by the proclamation to fast and pray ! by my
troth, I could prettily so-so away withTI praying;
but for fasting, why, 'tis so contrary to my
nature that I had rather suffer a short hanging
than a long fasting. Mark me, the words be
these, " Thou shalt take no manner of food for
* world] The4to. of 1598 "Lord." (Compare, in Angel's
speech, p. 119, first col.,—
" Nineveh,
The rich and royal city of the world.")
t ne wot] i. e. know not.
t beside] The 4to. of 1598 "besides."
§ a red-herring-cob] Tho 4tos. "a wf-hcrings cob." —
Our dictionaries seem to be right in explaining a herring-
cob to mean a small or young herring ("A Herring-cob,
Haloc parva." Coles's Diet.): but, I believe, it was occa-
sionally used as a cant term for a herring in general.
H / could away with] i. e. I could endure.
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
145
bo many days." I hart as lief he should have
said, " Thou shalt hang thyself for so many days."
And yet, in faith, I need not find fault with the
proclamation, for I have a buttery and a pantry
and a kitchen about me; for proof, ccce signwml
This right slop* is my pantry, behold a manchet
[Draws it out] ; this place is my kitchen, for, lo,
a piece of beef [Draws it out], — 0, let me repeat
that sweet word again ! for, lo, a piece of beef.
This is my buttery, for, see, see, my friends, to
my great joy, a bottle of beer [Draws it out].
Thus, alas, I make shift to wear out this fasting ;
I drive away the time. But there go searchers
about to seek if any man breaks the king's
command. 0, here they be; in with your
victuals, Adam. [Puts them bach into his slops.
Enter two Searchers.
First Search. How duly the men of Nineveh
keep the proclamation ! how are they armed to
repentance ! We have searched through the
whole city, and have not as yet found one that
breaks the fast.
Sec. Search. The sign of the more grace : — but
stay, here sits one, methinks, at his prayers ; let
us see who it is.
First Search. 'Tis Adam, the smith's man. —
How now, Adam !
Adam. Trouble me not; "Thou shalt take no
manner of food, but fast and pray."
First Search. How devoutly he sits at his
orisons ! but stay, methinks I feel a smell of
some meat or bread about him.
Sec. Search. So thinks me too. — You, sirrah,
what victuals have you about you ?
Adam. Victuals ! horrible blasphemy ! Hin-
der me not of my prayer, nor drive me not into
a choler. Victuals ! why heardest thou not the
sentence, " Thou shalt take no food, but fast and
pray " ?
Sec. Search. Truth, so it should be ; but, me-
thinks, I smell meat about thee.
Adam. About me, my friends ! these words
are actions in the case. About me ! no, no, hang
those gluttons that cannot fast and pray.
First Search. Well, for all your words, we
must search you.
Adam. Search me! take heed what you do;
my hose t are my castles, 'tis burglary if you
break ope a slop : no officer must lift up an iron
hatch ; take heed, my slops are iron.
[They search Adam.
* slop] Slops were wide breeches, trousers.
t hose] i. e. breeches.
Sec. Search. villain ! — See how he hath
gotten victuals, bread, beef, and beer, where *
the king commanded upon pain of death none
should eat for so many days, no, not the sucking
infant !
Adam. Alas, sir, this is nothing but a modicum
non nocet ut medicus daret ; why, sir, a bit to
comfort my stomach.
First Search. Villain, thou shalt be hanged
for it.
Adam. These are your words, " I shall be
hanged for it; " but first answer me to this
question, how many days have we to fast still ?
Sec. Search. Five days.
Adam. Five days ! a long time: then I must
be hanged ?
First Search. Ay, marry, must thou.
Adam. I am your man, I am for you, sir, for I
had rather be hanged than abide so long a fast.
What, five days ! Come, I'll untruss. Is your
halter, and the gallows, the ladder, and all such
furnitui'e in readiness ?
First Search. I warrant thee, shalt want none
of these.
Adam. But hear you, must I be hanged?
First Search. Ay, marry.
Adam. And for eating of meat. Then, friends,
know ye by these presents, I will eat up all my
meat, and drink up all my drink, for it shall
never be said, I was hanged with an empty
stomach.
First Search. Come away, knave : wilt thou
stand feeding now 1
Adam. If you be so + hasty, hang yourself an
hour, while £ I come to you, for surely I will eat
up my meat.
Sec. Search. Come, let's draw him away per-
force.
Adam. You say there is five days yet to fast
these are your words ?
Sec. Search. Ay, sir.
Adam. I am for you : come, let's away, aud
yet let me be put in the Chronicles. [Exeunt.
Enter Jonas, Rasni with his Kings and Lords, Alvida
with her Ladies, and At*«udaiit8.
Jonas. Come, careful king, cast off thy mourn-
ful weeds,
Exchange thy cloudy looks to smoothed smiles ;
Thy tears have pierc'd the piteous throne of
grace,
* where] i. e. whereas.
t so] Not in the 4to. of 1598.
J while] i. e. until.
14G
LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
of
no
my
Thy sighs, like incense* pleasing to the Lord,
Have been peace-offerings for thy former pride :
Rejoice, and praise his name that gave thee peace,
And you, fair nymphs, ye lovely Ninevites,
Since you have wept and fasted 'for[e] the Lord,
He graciously hath + temper'd his revenge :
Beware henceforth to tempt him any more :
Let not the niceness of your beauteous looks
Engraft in you a high-presuming mind ;
For those that climb he casteth to the ground,
And they that humble be he lifts aloft.
Rasni. Lowly I bend, with awful bent
eye,£
Before the dread Jehovah, God of hosts, §
Despising all profane device of man.
Those lustful lures, that whilom led awry
My wanton eyes, shall wound my heart
more;
And she, whose youth in dalliance I abus'd,
Shall now at last become my wedlock-mate. —
Fair Alvida, look not so wo-begone ;
If for thy sin thy sorrow do exceed,
Blessed be thou : come, with a || holy band
Let's knit a knot to salve our former shame.
AIp. With blushing looks, betokening
remorse,
I lowly yield, my king, to thy behest,
So as this man of God shall think it good.
Jonas. Woman, amends may never come too
A will to practise good is virtuous : f [late ;
The God of heaven, when sinners do repent,
Doth more rejoice than in ten thousand just.
Rasni. Then witness, holy prophet, our accord.
Ah. Plight in the presence of the Lord thy
God.
Jonas. Blest may you be, like to the flowering
sheaves
That play with gentle winds in summer-tide ;
Like olive-branches let your children spread,
And as the pines in lofty Lebanon,
Or as the kids that feed on Lepher ** plains,
So be the seed and offspring tt of your loins !
* incense] The 4tos. "imence."
t hath] The three first 4tos. "haue."
{ with awful bent of eye) So Milton ;
" And kings sat still with awful eye," &e.
Hymn, St. iv., in Ode of the Nativity.
§ hosts] The 4tos. "hoste."
|| a J The 4to. of 1598 " thy."
II A wiU to practise, &c] The 4to. of 1594 ;
" A will to practise goodnesso vertuous."
The other 4tos. ;
" I will thou practise goodnesso and vertuousnesse."
** Lepher] Qy. "Sepher"? (which the Vulgate gives in
Numbers, xxxiii. 23-4, while our version has "Shaphcr":
but "Sepher," or " Shapher," is described as a mountain.)
tt qfftprinff'i The 4to. of 1098 "offsprings."
Enter the Usurer, Thkasybui.us, and Alcon.
Usurer. Come forth, my friends, whom wit*
tingly I wrong'd :
Before this man of God receive your due ;
Before our king I mean to make my peace.—
Jonas, behold, in sign of my remorse,
I here restore into these poor men's hands
Their goods which I unjustly have detain'd;*
And may the heavens so pardon my misdeeds
As I am penitent for my offence 1
Thras. And what through want from others I
purloin'd,
Behold, king, I proffer 'foref thy throne,
To be restor'd to such as owe J the same.
Jonas. A virtuous deed, pleasing to God and
man.
Would God, all cities drowned in like shame
Would take example of these Ninevites !
Rasni. Such be the fruits of Nineveh's re-
pent;
And such for ever may our dealings be,
That he that call'd us home in height of sin
May smile to see our hearty penitence. —
Viceroys, proclaim a fast unto the Lord ;
Let Israel's God be honour'd in our laud ;
Let all occasion of corruption die,
For who shall fault therein shall suffer death : —
Bear witness, God, of my unfeigned zeal. —
Come, holy man, as thou shalt counsel me,
My court and city shall reformed be.
Jonas. Wend on in peace, and prosecute this
course. [Exeunt all except Jonas.
You islanders, on whom the milder air
Doth sweetly breathe the balm of kind increase,
Whose lands are fatten'd with the dew of
heaven,
And made more fruitful than Acta?an plaius;
You whom delicious pleasures dandle soft,
Whose eyes are blinded with security,
Unmask yourselves, cast error clean aside.
London, maiden of the mistress-isle,
Wrapt in the folds and swathing-clouts of shame,
In thee more sins than Nineveh contains !
Contempt of God, despite of reverend age,
Neglect of law, desire to wrong the poor,
Corruption, whoredom, drunkenness, and prido.
Swoln are thy brows with impudence and
shame,
proud adulterous glory of the west !
* detain'd] The 4 to. ofl59S "retain'd.
t 'fore) The 4to. of 1598 " forth."
{ owi | i. e. own.
LOOKING GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND.
147
Thy neighbours burn, yet dost thou fear no
fire;
Thy preachers cry, yet dost thou stop thine
ears ;
The 'larum rings, yet sleepest thou secure.
London, awake, for fear the Lord do frown :
I set a looking-glass before thine eyes.
O, turn, 0, turn, with weeping to the Lord,
And think the prayers and virtues of thy Queen
Defer the plague which otherwise woidd fall !
Repent, Loudon ! lest, for thine offence,
Thy shepherd fail, whom mighty God preserve,
That she may bide the pillar of his church
Against the storms of Romish Anti-Christ 1
The hand of mercy overshade her head,
And lot all faithful subjects say, Amen !
[Exit.
12
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
The Honorable Historie of frier Bacon, and frier Bongay. As it was plaid by her Maiesties seruants. Made by
Robert Greene, Maister of Arts. London, Printed for Edward White, and are to tie sold at his shop, at the lillle North
dore of Poules, at the signe of the Gun. 1594, 4to.
This play was reprinted in 1599, 1630, and 1655; and forms a pait of tbe viiita vol. of tbe new edition of
Dodsley's Old Plays.
1
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
Kino Henry the Third.
Edward, Prince of Wales, his son.
Emperor of Germany.
Kino of Castile.
IiACY, Earl of Lincoln.
Warren, Earl of Sussex.
Ermsby, a gentleman.
Kalph Simnell, the King's Fool. #
Friar Bacon.
Miles. Friar Bacon's poor scho 4 ar.
Fhiar b UNSAY.
Jaques Vandermast.
Bird en, -\
Mason, V Doctors of Oxford.
Clement, j
Lambert, )
Serlsby, J gentlemen.
Two Scholars, their sons.
Keeper.
Thomas, )
Richard, J clowns -
Constable.
A Post.
Lords, Clowns, &c.
Elinor, daughter to the King of Castile.
Margaret, the Keeper's daughter.
Joan, a country wench.
Hostess of the Bell at Henley.
A DETIL.
Spirit in the shape of Hercules.
the King's Fool] Not the Prince's. In p. 164, sec. col., Warren mentions him as " King Henry'g only loved.
fool."
THE HONORABLE
HISTORY OF FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
Enter Prince Edward malcontented, with Lacy, Warren,
Ermsbt, and Ralph Simnell.
Lacy. Why looks my lord like to a troubled sky
When heaven's bright shine is shadow'd with a
fog]
Alate we ran the deer, and through the lawnds *
Stripp'dt with our nags the lofty frolic bucks
That scudded 'fore the teasers £ like the wind :
Ne'er was the deer of merry Fressingfield
So lustily pull'd down by jolly mates,
Nor shar'd the farmers such fat venison,
So fraukly dealt, this hundred years before;
Nor have
I seen my lord more frolic in the chase,
And now chang'd to a melancholy dump.
War. After the prince got to the Keeper's
lodge,
And had been jocund in the house awhile,
Tossing off ale and milk in country cans,
Whether it was the country's sweet content,
Or else the bonny damsel fill'd us drink
That Beem'd so stately in her stammel red,§
Or that a qualm did cross his stomach then,
But straight he fell into his passions.
Srms. Sirrah Ralph, what say you to your
master,
Shall he thus all amort || live malcontent ?
Ralph. Hearest thou, Ned?— Nay, look if he
will speak to me !
P. Edw. What sav'st thou to me, fool]
* lawnds] i. e. lawns : see note *, p. 95, sec. col.
t Stripp'd\ i. e. Outstripped.
t teasers] "But these Teazers, rather to rouze then
pinch the game, onely made Whitaker find his spirits.
The fiercest dog is behind, even Bellarrnine himself," &c.
Fuller's Hobj State, p. 66, ed. 1642.
§ ttammtl red] Stammel was a kind of woollen cloth.
The words "red" and "stammel" were, I believe,
seldom used together, the former being the understood
colour of the latter. (" Stammel-colour, Spades, Spadi-
ceus." Coles's Diet.)
|] all amort] Mure properly alamort, i. e. dejected.
Ralph. I prithee, tell me, Ned, art thou in love
with the Keeper's daughter ?
P. Edw. How if I be, what then ?
Ralph. Why, then, sirrah, I'll teach thee how
to deceive Love.
P. Edw. How, Ralph ?
Ralph. Marry, Sirrah Ned, thou shalt put on
my cap and my coat and my dagger, and I will
put on thy clothes and thy sword ; and so thou
shalt be my fool.
P. Edw. And what of this ?
Ralph. Why, so thou shalt beguile Love ; for
Love is such a proud scab, that he will never
meddle with fools nor children. Is not Ralph's
counsel good, Ned ?
P. Edw. Tell me, Ned Lacy, didst thou mark
the maid,
How lovely * in her country-weeds she look'd ?
A bonnier wench all Suffolk cannot yield : —
All Suffolk ! nay, all England holds none such.
Ralph. Sirrah Will Ermsby, Ned is deceived.
Brms. Why, Ralph ?
Ralpih. He says all England hath no such, and
I say, and I'll stand to it, there is one better in
Warwickshire.
War. How provest thou that, Ralph]
Ralph. Why, is not the abbot a learned man,
and hath read many books, and thiukest thou he
hath not more learning than thou to choose a
bonny wench ? yes, warrant I thee, by his whole
grammar.
Erms. A good reason, Ralph.
P. Edw. I tell thee, Lacy, that her sparkling eyes
Do lighten forth sweet love's alluring fire ;
And in her tresses she doth fold the looks
Of such as gaze upon her golden hair :
Her bashful white, mix'd with the morning's red,
Luna doth boast upon her lovely cheeks ;
* lovely] The 4tos. "lively."
154
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
Her i'rout is beauty's table, where she paints
The glories of her gorgeous excellence;
Her teeth are shelves of precious margarites,*
Richly enclos'd with ruddy coral cleevLS.+
Tush, Lacy, she is beauty's over-match,
If thou survey'st her curious imagery.
Lacy. I grant, my lord, the damsel is as fair
As simple Suffolk's homely towns can yield ;
But in the court be quainter dames than she,
Whose faces are enrich'd with honour's taint,*
Whose beauties stand upou the stage of fame,
And vaunt their trophies in the courts of love.
P. Edw. Ah, Ned, but hadst thou watch'd her
as myself,
And seen the secret beauties of the maid,
Their courtly coyness were but foolery.
Erms. Why, how watch'd you her, my lord ?
P. Edw. Whenas she swept like Venus through
the house,
And in her shape fast folded up my thoughts,
Into the milk-house went I with the maid,
And there amongst the cream-bowls she did shine
As Pallas 'mongst her princely huswifery :
She turn'd her smock over her lily arms,
And div'd them into milk to run her cheese ;
But whiter than the milk her crystal skin,
Checked with lines of azure, made her blush §
That art or nature durst bring for compare.
Ermsby,
If thou hadst seen, as I did note it well,
How beauty play'd the huswife, how this girl,
Like Lucrece, laid her fingers to the work,
Thou wouldst, with Tarquin, hazard Rome and all
To win the lovely maid of Fressingfield.
Ralph. Sirrah Ned, wouldst fain have her ?
P. Edw. Ay, Ralph.
Ralph. Why, Ned, I have laid the plot in my
head ; thou shalt have her already.
P. Edw. I'll give thee a new coat, an learn me
that.
Ralph. Why, Sirrah Ned, we'll ride to Oxford
to Friar Bacon : 0, he is a bravo scholar, sirrah ;
they say he is a brave necromancer, that he can
make women of devils, and he can juggle cats
into costermongers.
P. Edw, And how then, Ralph?
Ralph. Marry, sirrah, thou shalt go to him :
and because thy father Harry shall not miss thee,
he shall turn me into thee; and I'll to the court,
* maryeirites] i. o. pearls. Sec note ||, p. 90, first col.
t cleeren] i. c. cliffs: Drayton uses the singular, ekeve.
j taint] Equivalent t" /'«/.
§ madeh r blutk, dkc] Moans. I suppose, — made (would
have made) lli.it w :m blush whom ait, 4c.
and I'll prince it out ; and he shall make thee
either a silken purse full of gold, or else a fine
wrought smock.
P. Edw. But how shall I have the maid ?
Ralph. Marry, sirrah, if thou be'st a silken
purse full of gold, then on Sundays she'll hang
thee by her side, and you must not say a word.
Now, sir, when she comes into a great prease * of
people, for fear of the cutpurse, on a sudden she'll
swap thee into her plackerd ;t then, sirrah, being
there, you may plead for yourself.
Erms. Excellent policy!
P. Edw. But how if I be a wrought smock 1
Ralph. Then she'll put thee into her chest and
lay thee into lavender, and upon some good day
she'll put thee on ; and at night when you go to
bed, then being turned from a smock to a man,
you may make up the match.
Lacy. Wonderfully wisely counselled, Ralph.
P. Edw. Ralph shall have a new coat.
Ralph. God thank you when I have it on my
back, Ned.
P. Edw. Lacy, the fool hath laid a perfect plot;
For why J our country Margaret is so coy,
And stands so much upon her honest points,
That marriage or no market with the maid.
Ermsby, it must be necromantic spells
And charms of art that must enchain her love,
Or else shall Edward never win the girl.
Therefore, my wags, we'll horse us in the morn,
And post to Oxford to this jolly friar :
Bacon shall by his magic do this deed. [way
War. Content, my lord ; and that's a speedy
To wean these headstrong puppies from the teat.
P. Edw. I am unknown, not taken for the
They only deem us frolic courtiers, [prince ;
That revel thus among our liege's game :
Therefore I have devis'd a policy.
Lacy, thou know'st next Friday is Saint James',
And then the country flocks to Harlestou fair :
Then will the Keeper's daughter frolic there,
And over-shine the troop of all the maids
That come to see and to be seen that day.
Haunt thee disguis'd among the country-swains,
Feign thou'rt a farmer's son, not far from thence,
Espy her loves, and who she liketh best;
Cote § him, and court her to control the clown ;
* preas:e] i. c. press.
f plackerd] Commonly written placket, is equivalent
hero topocket. (Concerning the various significations of
this word sue Amncr's [i.e. Steeveus's] note on King Lear,
act iii. sc. 4, Halliwell's Diet, of Arch, and Prov. Words,
and nay Few Notes <>« Shakespeare, p. 53.)
[ For why] i. o Because.
§ Cote] i. c. Keep along side ot. Fr. cotmjer.
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
155
Say that the courtier 'tired all in green,
That help'd her handsomely to run her cheese,
And fill'd her father's lodge with venison,
Commends him, and sends fairings to her.-elf.
Buy something worthy of her parentage,
Not worth her beauty; for, Lacy, then the fair
Affords no jewel fitting for the maid :
And when thou talk'st of me, note if she blush :
0, then she loves; but if her cheeks wax pale,
Disdain it is. Lacy, send how she fires,
And spare no time nor cost to win her loves.
Lacy. I will, my lord, so execute this charge
As if that Lacy were in love with her. [news.
P. Edw. Send letters speedily to Oxford of the
Ralph. And, Sirrah Lacy, buy me a thousand
thousand million of fine bells.
Lacy. What wilt thou do with them, Ralph ?
Ralph. Marry, every time that Ned sighs for
the Keeper's daughter, I'll tie a bell about him :
and so within three or four days I will send word
to his father Harry, that his son, and my master
Ned, is become Love's morris-dance[r].
P. Edw. Well, Lacy, look with care unto thy
And I will haste to Oxford to the friar, [charge,
That he by art aDd thou by secret gifts
Mayst make me lord of merry Fressingfield.
Lacy. God send your honour your heart's
desire.* [Exeunt.
Enter Friar Bacon, and Miles with book-sunder his arm;
Burden, Mason, and Clf.ment.
Bacon. Miles, where are you 1
Miles. Hie sum, doctissime el revcrendissime
doctor.
Bacon. A ttulisti nos lihros meos de necromantia ?
Miles. Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum
habit are libros in unuml
Bacon. Now, masters of our academic state,
That rule in Oxford, viceroys in your place,
Whose heads contain maps of the liberal arts,
Spending your time in depth of learned skill,
Why flock you thus to Bacon's secret cell,
A friar newly stall'd in Brazen-nose ?
Say what's your mind, that I may make reply.
Burd. Bacon, we hear that long we have suspect,
That thou art read in magic's mystery ;
In pyromancy, to divine by flames ;
To tell, by hydromatic, ebbs and tides ;
By aeromancy to discover doubts,
To plain out questions, as Apollo did.
Bacon. Well, Master Burden, what of all this?
Miles. Marry, sir, he doth but fulfil, by rehearsing
* your heart's desire] Qy. " all your heart's desire " f
of these names, the fable of the Fox and the Grapes;
that which is above us pertains nothing to us.
Burd. I tell thee. Bacon, Oxford makes report,
Nay, England, and the court of Henry says,
Thou'rt making of a brazen head by art,
Which shall unfold strange doubts and aphorisms,
And read a lecture in philosophy ;
And, by the help of devils and ghastly fiends,
Thou mean'st, ere many years or days be past,
To compass England with a wall of brass.
Bacon. And what of this ?
Miles. What of this, master! why, he doth
speak mystically ; for he knows, if your skill fail
to make a brazen head, yet Mother Waters' strong
ale will fit his turn to make him have a copper
nose.
Clem. Bacon, we come not grieving at thy skill,
But joying that our academy yields
A mau suppos'd the wonder of the world ;
For if thy cunning work these miracles,
England and Europe shall admire thy fame,
And Oxford shall in characters of brass,
And statues, such as were built up in Rome,
Eternize Friar Bacon for his art.
Mason. Then, gentle friar, tell us thy intent.
Bacon. Seeing you come as friends unto the friar,
Resolve you,* doctors, Bacon can by books
Make storming Boreas thunder from his cave,
And dim fair Luna to a dark eclipse.
The great arch-rider, potentate of hell,
Trembles when Bacon bids him, or his fiends,
Bow to the force of his pentageron.
What art can work, the frolic friar knows ;
And therefore will I turn my magic books,
And strain out necromancy to the deep.
I have coutriv'd and fram'd a head of brass
(I made Belcephon hammer out the stuff),
And that by art shall read philosophy :
And I will strengthen England by my skill,
That if ten Caesars liv'd and reign'd in Rome,
With all the legions Europe doth contain,
They should not touch a grass of English ground :
The work that Ninus rear'd at Babylon,
The brazen walls fram'd by Semiramis,
Carv'd out like to the portal of the sun,
Shall not be such as rings the English strand
From Dover to the market-place of Rye.
Burd. Is this possible ?
Miles. I'll bring ye two or three witnesses.
Burd. What be those ?
Miles. Marry, sir, three or four as honest devils
and good companions as any be in hell.
* Resolve you] i. e. Be you assured.
156
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
Mason. No doubt but magic may do much in
this ;
For he that reads but mathematic rules
Shall fiud conclusions that avail to work
Wonders that pass the common sense of men.
Burd. But Bacon roves a bow beyond his
reach,*
And tells of more than magic can perform J
Thinking to get a fame by fooleries.
Have I not pass'd as far in state of schools,
And read of many secrets? yet to think
That heads of brass can utter any voice,
Or more, to tell of deep philosophy,
This is a fable ^Esop had forgot.
Bacon. Burden, thou wrong'st me in detracting
thus;
Bacon loves not to stuff himself with lies.
But tell me 'fore these doctors, if thou dare,
Of certain questions I shall move to thee.
Burd. I will : ask what thou can.
Miles. Marry, sir, he'll straight be on your
pick-pack, to know whether the feminine or the
masculine gender be most worthy.
Bacon. Were you not yesterday, Master Burden,
at Henley upon the Thames]
Bard. I was : what then ?
Bacon. What book studied you thereon all
night ?
Burd. I ! none at all ; I read not there a line.
Bacon. Then, doctors, Friar Bacon's art knows
naught.
Clem. What say you to this, Master Burden ?
doth he not touch you ?
Burd. I pass not of t his frivolous speeches.
Miles. Nay, Master Burden, my master, ere he
hath done with you, will turn you from a doctor
to a dunce, and shake you so small, that he
will leave no more learning in you than is in
Balaam's ass.
Bacon. Masters, for that learn'd Burden's skill
is deep,
And sore he doubts of Bacon's cabalism,
I'll show you why he haunts to Henley oft :
Not, doctors, for to taste the fragrant air,
But there to spend the night in alchemy,
To multiply with secret spells of art ;
Thus private steals he learning from us all.
* roves a bow, &c] "To rove, a bow beyond his reach is
equivalent to the proverbial phrase of shooting with a
long bow : the bow is too long for the stretch of his
arms."— Editor of Dodsley's Old Plays.
t pass not of] i. c. care not for. " Since he hath lot
Ihcm passe, I greatly passe not." — Chcttlc's Kind harts
Jh-eam, a. d. [1592], Sig. D 3.
To prove my sayings true, I'll show you straight
The book he keeps at Henley for himself.
Miles. Nay, now my master goes to conjura-
tion, take heed.
Bacon. Masters,
Stand still, fear not, I'll show you but his book.
[Conjures
Per omnes deos infernales, Belcephon /
Enter Hostess with a shoulder of mutton on a spit, and a
Devil.
Miles. 0, master, cease your conjuration, or
you spoil all ; for here's a she-devil come with a
shoulder of muttou on a spit : you have marred
the devil's supper; but no doubt he thinks our
college fare is slender, and so hath sent you his
cook with a shoulder of mutton, to make it
exceed.
Hostess. 0, where am I, or what's become of me ]
Bacon. What art thou 1
Hostess. Hostess at Henley, mistress of the Bell.
Bacon. How cam 'at thou here ?
Hostess. As I was in the kitchen 'mongst the
maids,
Spitting the meat 'gainst supper for my guess,*
A motion mov'd me to look forth of door :
No sooner had I pried into the yard,
But straight a whirlwind hoisted me from thence,
And mounted me aloft unto the clouds.
As in a trance I thought nor feared naught,
Nor know I where or whither I was ta'en,
Nor where I am nor what these persons be.
Bacon. No 1 know you not Master Burden ?
Hostess. 0, yes, good sir, he is my daily
guest. —
What, Master Burden ! 'twas but yesternight
That you and I at Henley play'd at cards.
Burd. I know not what we did. — A pox of all
conjuring friars !
Clem. Now, jolly friar, tell us, is this the book
That Burden is so careful to look on ]
Bacon. It is. — But, Burden, tell me now,
Think'st thou that Bacon's necromatic skill
Cannot perform his head and wall of brass,
When he can fetch thine hostess in such post ?
Miles. I'll warrant you, master, if Master Burden
could conjure as well as you, he would have his
book every night from Henley to study on at
Oxford.
* guess] Frequently used for guests by our early writers :
so Chambcrlayne ;
" Tho empty tables stood, for never guest
Came there, except tho bankrupts whom distress
Spurr'd on," &c.— Pharonnida, 1059, 13. iv. C. iii. p. 63.
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
157
Mason. Burden,
What, are you mated * by this frolic friar ? —
Look how he droops ; his guilty conscience
Drives him to 'bash, and makes his hostess blush.
Bacon. Well, mistress, for I will not have you
miss'd,
You shall to Henley to cheer up your guests
'Fore supper gin. — Burden, bid her adieu ;
Say farewell to your hostess 'fore she goes. —
Sirrah, away, and set her safe at home.
Hostess. Master Burden, when shall we see you
at Henley ?
Burd. The devil take thee and Henley too.
[Exeunt Hostess and Devil.
Miles. Master, shall I make a good motion ?
Bacon. What's that?
Miks. Marry, sir, now that my hostess is gone
to provide supper, conjure up another spirit, and
send Doctor Burden flying after.
Bacon. Thus, rulers of our academic state,
You have seen the friar frame his art by proof;
And as the college called Brazen-nose
Is under him, and he the master there,
So surely shall this head of brass be frain'd,
And yield forth strange and uncouth aphorisms ;
And hell and Hecate shall fail the friar,
But I will circle England round with brass.
Miles. So be it et nunc et semper ; amen.
[Exeunt.
Enter Margaret and Joan; Thomas, Richard, and
other Clowns ; and Lacy disguised in country apparel.
Ihom. By my troth, Margaret, here's a weather
is able to make a man call his father "whoreson" :
if this weather hold, we shall have hay good
cheap, and butter aDd cheese at Harleston will
bear no price.
Mar. Thomas, maids when they come to see
the fair
Count not to make a cope for dearth of hay :
When we have turn'd our butter to the salt,
And set our cheese safely upon the racks,
Then let our fathers prize it as they please.
We country sluts of merry Fressingfield
Come to buy needless naughts to make us fine,
And look that young men should be frank this
day,
And court us with such fairings as they can.
Phoebus is blithe, and frolic looks from heaven,
As when he courted lovely Semele,
Swearing the pedlers shall have empty packs,
If that fair weather may make chapmen buy.
* mattd] i. e. confounded.
Lacy. But, lovely Peggy, Semele is dead,
And therefore Phoebus from his palace priea,
And, seeing such a sweet and seemly saint,
Shows all his glories for to court yourself.
Mar. This is a fairiug, gentle sir, indeed,
To soothe me up with such smooth flattery ;
But learn of me, your scoff's too broad before. —
Well, Joan, our beauties must abide their jests ;
We serve the turn in jolly Fressingfield.
Joan. Margaret,
A farmer's daughter for a farmer's son :
I warrant you, the meanest of us both
Shall have a mate to lead us from the church.
[Lacy whispers Margaret in the ear.
But, Thomas, what's the news ? what, in a dump ?
Give me your hand, we are near a pedler's shop ;
Out with your purse, we must have fairings now.
Thorn. Faith, Joan, and shall: I'll bestow a
fairing on you, and then we will to the tavern,
and snap off a pint of wine or two.
Mar. Whence are you, sir ? of Suffolk ? for
your terms
Are finer than the common sort of men.
Lacy. Faith, lovely girl, I am of Beccles by,
Your neighbour, not above six miles from hence,
A farmer's son, that never was so quaint
But that he could do courtesy to such dames.
But trust me, Margaret, I am sent in charge
From him that revell'd in your father's house,
And fill'd his lodge with cheer and venison,
'Tired in green : he sent you this rich purse,
His token that he help'd you run your cheese,
And in the milkhouse chatted with yourself.
Mar. To me 1
Lacy. You forget yourself: *
Women are often weak in memory.
Mar. 0, pardon, sir, I call to mind the man :
'Twere little manners to refuse his gift,
And yet I hope he sends it not for love ;
For we have little leisure to debate of that.
Joan. What, Margaret ! blush not : maids must
have their loves.
TJiom. Nay, by the mass, she looks pale as if
she were angry.
Rich. Sirrah, are you of Beccles ? I pray, how
doth Goodman Cob ? my father bought a horse of
him. — I'll tell you, Margaret, 'a were good to be
a gentleman's jade, for of all things the foul
hilding t could not abide a dung-cart.
* You forget yourself] The 4tos. give these words to
Margaret.
t hilding] i. e. low creature, — a common term of con-
tempt in our old authors.
158
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
Mar. 'aside] How different is this farmer from
the rest
That erst as yet have pleas'd my wandering sight !
His words are witty, quicken'd with a smile,
His courtesy gentle, smelling of the court;
Facile and debonair in all his deeds ;
Proportion' d as was Paris, when, in grey,*
He courted (Enon in the vale by Troy.
Great lords have come and pleaded for my love :
Who but the Keeper's lass of Fressingfield ?
And yet methiuks this farmer's jolly sou
Passeth the proudest that hath pleas'd mine eye.
But, Peg, disclose not that thou art in love,
And show as yet no sign of love to him,
Although thou well wouldst wish him for thy
love :
Keep that to thee till time dotb serve thy turn,
To show the grief wherein thy heart doth burn. —
Come, Joan and Thomas, shall we to the fair 1 —
You, Beccles wan, will not forsake us now ?
Lacy. Not whilst I may have such quaint girls
as you.
Mai\ Well, if you chance to come by Fressing-
field,
Hake but a step into the Keeper's lodge,
And such poor fare as woodmen can afford,
Butter and cheese, cream and fat venison,
You shall have store, and welcome therewithal.
Lnry. Gramercies, Peggy; look for me ere long.
[Exeunt.
Enter Kino Henry the Third, the Emperor, the Kino
of Castile, Elinor, and Vandermast.
K. Hen. Great men of Europe, monarchs of
the west,
Ring'd with the walls of old Oceanus,
Whose lofty surge isf like the battlements
That compass'd high-built Babel in with towers,
Welcome, my lords, welcome, brave western kings,
* in grey] Tliat this "was the phrase for a homely
shepherd's garb" is observed by the Rev. J. Mitford
('/. nt. Mag. for March 1833, p. 216), who cites from Greene's
Bliepherd's Ode in his Ciceronis Amor, —
" A cloak of grey fene'd the rain ;
Thus 'lired was this lovely swain ;
» * » * •
Such was Paris, shepherds say,
When with CEnonc he did play."
and from Pecle's War of Troy, —
" S'. couth he [Part*] sing . . .
And wear his coat of grey and lusty groen," &c.
Mr. .Mitford might al30 have quoted, from our author's
Orlando Furio$o, ]•■ 96, fivst .-,,1 t —
"As Pari*, when CBnoue lov'd Mm well,
All rln, i in grey, Bat piping on a reed," &c.
t surge is] The 4tos. "surges."
To England's shore, whose promontory-cleeves *
Show Albion is another little world;
Welcome says English Henry to you all ;
Chiefly unto the lovely Elinor,
Who dar'd for Edward's sake cut through the seas,
And venture as Agenor's damsel through the
deep,t
To get the love of Henry's wanton son.
K. of Cast. England's rich monarch, brave
Plantagenet,
The Pyren Mounts swelling above the clouds,
That ward the wealthy Castile in with walls,
Could not detain the beauteous Elinor ;
But hearing of the fame of Edward's youth,
She dar'd to brook Neptunus' haughty pride,
And bide the brunt of froward ^Eolus :
Then may fair England welcome her the more.
El in. After that English Henry by his lords
Had sent Prince Edward's lovely counterfeit,^
A present to the Castile Elinor,
The comely portrait of so brave a man,
The virtuous fame discoursed of his deeds,
Edward's courageous resolution,
Dune § at the Holy Land 'fore Damas' walls,
Led both mine eye and thoughts in equal links,
To like so of the English monarch's son,
That I attempted perils for his sake.
Emp. Where is the prince, my lord ?
K. Hen. He posted down, not long since, from
the court,
To Suffolk side, to m-erry Framlingham,
To sport himself amongst my fallow deer :
From thence, by packets sent to Hampton-house,
We hear the prince is ridden, with his lords,
To Oxford, in the acaddmy there
To hear dispute amongst the learned men.
But we will send forth letters for my son,
To will him come from Oxford to the court.
Emp. Nay, rather, Henry, let us, as we be,
Ride for to visit Oxford with our train.
Fain would I see your universities,
And what learn'd men your academy yields.
From Hapsburg have I brought a learned clerk
* promontory-cleeves] See note t, p. 154, first col.
t And venture as Agenor's damsel through the deep] A
corrupted line. Qy. "And venture as Agenor's damsel
did"? (Greene would hardly have written here "through
the deep " whon the preceding line ended with " through
the seas.")
% counterfeit] i. e. portrait : " so that if a painter were
to draw any of their counterfeits on table, he needs no
more but wet his pencill, and dab it on their cheeks, aud
he shall haue vermillion and white enough to furnish out
his worke." — Nash's Pierce I'enidlesse, <Sic., ed. 1095,
Sig 4.
§ Done] Qy. "Shown"!
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
159
To hold dispute with English orators :
This doctor, surnatn'd Jaques Vandermast,
A Germau born, pass'd into Padua,
To Florence and to lair Bologna,
To Paris, Rheima, and stately Orleans,
And, talking there with men of art, put down
The chiefest of them all in aphorisms,
In magic, and the mathematic rules :
Now let us, Henry, try him in your schools.
K. Hen. He shall, my lord ; this motion likes
me well.
We'll progress straight to Oxford with our trains,
And see what men our academy brings. —
And, wonder* Vandermast, welcome to me :
In Oxford shalt thou find a jolly friar,
( 'all'd Friar Bacon, England's only flower :
Set him but nonplus in his magic spells,
And make him yield in mathematic rules,
And for thy glory I will bind thy brows,
Xot with a poet's garland made of bays,
But with a coronet of choicest gold.
Whilstt then we setj to Oxford with our troups,
Let's in and banquet in our English court.
[Exev.nt.
Enter Ralph Simnell in Prince Edward's apparel ; and
Prince Edward, Warren, and Ermsby, disguised.
Ralph. Where be these vagabond knaves, that
they attend no better on their master?
P. Edw. If it please your honour, we are all
ready at an inch.
Ralph. Sirrah Ned, I'll have no more post-
horse' to ride on : I'll have another fetch.
Erms. I pray you, how is that, my lord ?
Ralph. Marry, sir, I'll send to the Isle of Ely
for four or five dozen of geese, and I'll have them
tied six. and six together with whip-cord : now
upon their backs will I have a fair field-bed with
a canopy ; and so, when it is my pleasure, I'll
flee into what place I please. This will be easy.
War. Your honour hath said well : but shall
we to Brazen-nose College before we pull off our
boots ?
Erms. Warren, well motion'd ; we will to the
friar
Before we revel it within the town. —
Ralph, see you keep your countenance like a
prince.
Ralph. Wherefore have I such a company of
cultiug§ kuaves to wait upon me, but to keep and
* wonder] Qy. "wondrous"?
t Whilst] i. e. Until.
1 stt] The 4to. of 1594 " fit."
§ cutting] i. e. swaggering.
defeml my countenance against all mine enemies?
have you not good swords and bucklers ?
Erms. Stay, who comes here ?
War. Some scholar; and we'll ask him where
Friar Bacon is.
Eider Friar Bacon and Miles.
Bacon. Why, thou arrant dunce, shall I never
make thee a good scholar? doth not all the town
cry out and say, Friar Bacon's subsizer is the
greatest blockhead in all Oxford ? why, thou canst
not speak one word of true Latin.
Miles. No, sir? yet,* what is this else? E'jo
sum Pirns homo, "I am your man": I warrant you,
sir, as good Tully's phrase as any is in Oxford.
Bacon. Come on, sirrah ; what part of speech
is E'jo ?
Miles. E'jo, that is "I"; marry, non- en suhstantivo.
Bacon. How prove you that ?
Miles. Why, sir, let him prove himself an 'a
will ; I can be heard, felt, and understood.
Bacon. gross dunce ! [Beats him.
P. Edw. Come, let us break off this dispute
between these two. — Sirrah, where is Brazen-
nose College?
Miles. Not far from Coppersmith's Hall.
P. Eil u: What, dost thou mock me?
Miles. Not I, sir : but what would you at
Brazen-nose ?
Erms. Marry, we would speak with Friar Bacon.
Miles. Whose men be you ?
Erms. Marry, scholar, here's our master.
Ralph. Sirrah, I am the master of these good
fellows ; mayst thou not know me to be a lord
by my reparrel ?
Miles. Then here's good game for the hawk ;
for here's the master-fool and a covey of cox-
combs : one wise man, I think, would spring you
all.
P. Edw. Gog's wounds ! Warren, kill him.
War. Why, Ned, I think the devil be in my
sheath ; I cannot get out my dagger.
Erms. Nor I mine : swones, Ned, I think I am
bewitched.
Miles. A company of scabs ! the proudest of
you all draw your weapon, if he can. — [Asiile.]
See how boldly I speak, now my master is by.
P. Edw. I strive in vain ; but if my sword be
shut
And conjur'd fast by magic in my sheath,
Villain, here is my fist.
[Strides Miles a box on the ear.
* yet] The earlier 4tos. "yes" ; which the latest 4tc.
omits.
160
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
Miles. 0, I beseech you conjure his hands too,
that he may not lift his arms to his head, for he
is light-fingered !
Ralph. Ned, strike him ; I'll warrant thee by
mine honour.
Bacon. What means the English prince to
wrong my man ?
P. Edw. To whom speak'st thou ?
Bacon. To thee.
P. Edw. Who art thou ?
Bacon. Could you not judge when all your
swords grew fast,
That Friar Bacon was not far from hence ?
Edward, King Henry's son and Prince of Wales,
Thy fool disguis'd cannot conceal thyself :
I know both Ermsby and the Sussex Earl,
Else Friar Bacon had but little skill.
Thou com'st in post from merry Fressingfield,
Fast-fancied * to the Keeper's bonny lass,
To crave some succour of the jolly friar :
And Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, hast thou left
To treatf fair Margaret to allow tby loves ;
But friends are men, and love can baffle lords ;
The earl both woos and courts her for himself.
War. Ned, this is strange; the friar knoweth all.
Errns. Apollo could not utter moi-e than this.
P. Edw. I stand amaz'd to hear this jolly friar
Tell even the very secrets of my thoughts. —
But, learned Bacon, since thou know'st the cause
Why I did post so fast from Fressingfield,
Help, friar, at a pinch, that I may have
The love of lovely Margaret to myself,
And, as I am true Prince of Wales, I'll give
Living and lands to strength thy college-state. +
War. Good friar, help the prince in this.
Ralph. Why, servant Ned, will not the friar do
it ? Were not my sword glued to my scabbard by
conjuration, I would cut off his head, and make
him do it by force.
Miles. In faith, my lord, your manhood and
your sword is all alike : they are so fast conjured
that we shall never see them.
Erms. What, doctor, in a dump ! tush, help
the prince,
And thou shalt see how liberal he will prove.
Bacon. Crave not such actions greater dumps
than these ?
I will, my lord, strain out my magic spells ;
* Fast-fancied] Tied by fancy (love),
■f treat] i e. entreat.
J thy coUege-ttate] Here Walker (Shakespeare's Versifi-
cation, &c, p. 257), considering " college " as a genitive,
would print " thy college.' state " (the state or estate of thy
college).
For this day comes the earl to Fressingfield,
And 'fore that night shuts in the day with
dark,
They'll be betrothed each to other fast.
But come with me ; we'll to my study straight,
And in a glass prospective I will show
What's done this day in merry Fressingfield.
P. Edw. Gramercies, Bacon ; I will quite thy
pain.
Bacon. But send your train, my lord, into the
town :
My scholar shall go bring them to their inn ;
Meanwhile we'll see the knavery of the earL
P. Edw. Warren, leave me : — and, Ermsby, take
the fool ;
Let him be master, and go revel it,
Till I and Friar Bacon talk awhile.
War. We will, my lord.
Ralph. Faith, Ned, and I'll lord it out till thou
comest : I'll be Prince of Wales over all the
black -pots in Oxford.
[Exeunt Warren, Ermsbv, Ralph Simnell,
and Miles.
Friar Bacon and Prince Edward go into the study *
Bacon. Now, frolic Edward, welcome to my
cell ;
Here tempers Friar Bacon many toys,
And holds this place his consistory-court,
Wherein the devils plead homage to his words.
Within this glass prospective thou shalt see
This day what's done in merry Fressingfield
'Twixt lovely Peggy and the Lincoln Earl.
P. Edw. Friar, thou glad'st me : now shall
Edward try
How Lacy meaneth to his sovereign lord.
Bacon. Stand there and look directly in the
glass.
Enter Margaret and Friar Bungay, f
What sees my lord ?
P. Edw. I see the Keeper's lovely lass appear,
As brightsomej as the paramour of Mars,
Only attended by a jolly friar.
* Friar Bacon and Prince Edward, &c] Here, after
the exit of Warren, Ermsby, &c, and after Bacon and Ed-
ward had walked a few paces about (or perhaps towards
the back of) the stage, the audience were to suppose that
the scene was changed to the interior of Bacon's cell.
t Enter Maroarkt and Fmar Bungay] Perhaps the
curtain which concealed the upper-stage (i.e. the balcony
at the back of the stage) was withdrawn, discovering
Margaret and Bungay standing there, and when the
representation in the glass was supposed to be over, the
curtain was drawn back again.
t brightsome] The 4tos. "bright BUnne."
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
1G1
Baron. Sit still, and keep the crystal in jour eye.
Mar. But tell me, Friar Bungay, is it true
That this fair courteous* country swain,
Who says his father is a farmer nigh,
Can be Lord Lacy, Earl of Lincolnshire ?
Bun. Peggy, 'tis true, 'tis Lacy for my life,
Or else mine art and cunning both do fail,
Left by Prince Edward to procure his loves ;
For he in green, that holp you run your cheese,
Is son to Henry and the Prince of Wales.
Mar. Be what he will, his lure is but for lust :
But did Lord Lacy like poor Margaret,
Or would he deign to wed a country lass,
Friar, I would his humble handmaid be,
And for great wealth quite him with courtesy.
Bun. Why, Margaret, dost thou love him ?
Mar. His personage, like the pride of vaunting
Troy,
Might well avouch to shadow Helen's rape : +
His wit is quick and ready in conceit,
As Greece afforded in her chiefest prime :
Courteous, ah friar, full of pleasing smiles !
Trust me, I love too much to tell thee more ;
Suffice to me he 's England's paramour.
Bun. Hath not each eye that view'd thy pleasing
face
Surnamed thee Fair Maid of Fressingfield ?
Mar. Yes, Bungay; and. would God the lovely
earl
Had that in esse that so many sought.
Bun. Fear not, the friar will not be behind
To show his cunning to entangle love.
P. Edw. I think the friar courts the bonny
wench :
Bacon, methinks he is a lusty churl.
Bacon. Now look, my lord.
Enter Lacy disguised as before.
P. Edw. Gog's wounds, Bacon, here comes
Lacy !
Bacon. Sit still, my lord, and mark the comedy.
Bun. Here's Lacy, Margaret ; step aside awhile.
[Retires with Maroaeet.
Lacy. Daphne, the damsel that caught Phoebus
fast,
And lock'd him in the brightness of her looks,
Was not so beauteous in Apollo's eyes
As is fair Margaret to the Lincoln Earl.
Recant thee, Lacy, thou art put in trust :
Edward, thy sovereign's son, hath chosen thee,
* That this fair courteous, &eJ] Qy. " That this fair,
witty, courteous," &c. ? See before, Margaret's first speech
in p. 158, first col., and her next speech but one in this
col.
\ rape] The 4tos. "cape."
A secret friend, to court her for himself,
And dar'st thou wrong thy prince with treachery?
Lacy, love makes no exception* of a friend,
Nor deems it of a prince but as a man.
Honour bids thee control him in his lust ;
His wooing is not for to wed the girl,
But to entrap her and beguile the lass.
Lacy, thou lov'st, then brook not such abuse,
But wed her, and abide thy prince's frown ;
For better die than see her live disgrae'd.
Mar. Come, friar, I will shake him from his
dumps. — [Comes forward.
How cheer you, sir ? a penny for your thought :
You're early up, pray God it be the near.t
What, come from Beccles in a morn so soon ?
Lacy. Thus watchful are such men as live in
love,
Whose eyes brook broken slumbers for their sleep.
I tell thee, Peggy, since last Harleston fair
My mind hath felt a heap of passions. [friend :
Mar. A trusty man, that court it for your
Woo you still for the courtier all in green ?
I marvel that he sues not for himself.
Lacy. Peggy,
I pleaded first to get your grace for him ;
But when mine eyes survey'd your beauteous
looks,
Love, like a wag, straight div'd into my heart,
And there did shrine the idea of yourself.
Pity me, though I be a farmer's son,
And measure not my riches, but my love.
Mar. You are very hasty; for to garden well,
Seeds must have time to sprout before they spring :
Love ought to creep as doth the dial's shade,
For timelyj ripe is rotten too-too soon.
Bun. [coming forward!] Deus hie; room for a
merry friar !
What, youth of Beccles, with the Keeper's lass ?
'Tis well ; but tell me, hear you any news ]
Lacy.% No, friar : what news ?
• exception] The 4to. of 1594 "acception."
+ You're early up, pray God it be the near] — near, i. e.
nearer. An allusion to the proverb, " Early up and
never the nearer."
" In yon, yfaith, the proverb's verified, —
Y'are earely up, and yet are nere the nfare."
Muuday and Chettle's Death of the Earle of
Huntington, 1601, Sig. F 4.
" In this perplexity," says that mendacious woman, Mrs.
Elizabeth Thomas, speaking of herself, "slie languished
for some time, when hearing Bishop Burnet's Expo-
sition ot the XXXIX. Articles was in the preas, she waited
the publication with tho utmost impatience. But alas !
never the near," &c. Pylades and Corinna, be, 1731, vol. i.
p. 15.
( timely] i. e. early.
§ Lacy] The 4tos. " Mar."
102
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
Bun. Hear you riot how the pursuivants do
post
With proclamations through each country-town ?
Lacy. For what, gentle friar? tell the news.
Bun. Dwell'st thou in Beccles, aud hear'st not
of these news ?
Lacy, the Earl of Lincoln, is late fled
From Windsor court, disguised like a swain,
And lurks about the country here unknown.
Henry suspects him of some treachery,
And therefore doth proclaim in every way,
That who can take the Lincoln Earl shall have,
Paid in the Exchequer, twenty thousand crowns.
Lacy. The Earl of Lincoln ! Friar, thou art
mad:
It was some other ; thou mistak'st the man.
The Earl of Lincoln ! why, it cannot be.
Mar. Yes, very well, my lord, for you are he :
The Keeper's daughter took you prisoner.
Lord Lacy, yield, I'll be your gaoler once.
P. Edw. How familiar they be, Bacon !
Bacon. Sit still, and mark the sequel of their
loves.
Lacy. Then am I double prisoner to thyself:
Peggy, I yield. But are these news in jest ?
Mar. In jest with you, but earnest unto me ;
For why* these wrongs do wring me at the
heart.
Ah, how these earls and noblemen of birth
Flatter and feign to forge poor women's ill !
Lacy. Believe me, lass, I am the Lincoln Earl :
I not deny but, 'tired thus in rags,
I liv'd disguis'd to win fair Peggy's love.
Mar. What love is there where wedding ends
not love ?
Lacy, I mean.t fair girl, to make thee Lacy's
wife.
Mar. I little think that earls will stoop so low.
Lacy. Say shall I make thee countess ere I
sleep?
Mar. Haudmaid unto the earl, so please him-
self:
A wife in namo, but servant in obedience.
Lacy. The Lincoln Countess, for it shall be so :
I'll plight the bauds, and seal it with a kiss.
P. Edw. Qog's wounds, Bacon, they kiss ! I'll
stab them.
Bacon. 0, hold your hands, my lord, it is the
glass !
P. Edw. Choler to see the traitors gree so well
Made me [to] think the shadows substances.
* Vnr why] i o. Because.
\ mtai'l Tlic earlier 4 tos. "meant."
Bacon. 'Twere a long poniard,* my lord, to
reach between
Oxford and Fressingfield ; but sit still and see
more.
Bun. Well, Lord of Lincoln, if your loves be
knit,
And that your tongues and thoughts do both agree,
To avoid ensuing jars, I'll hamper up the match.
I'll take my portace + forth and wed you here :
Then go to bed and seal up your desires.
Lacy. Friar, content. — Peggy, how like you
this?
Mar. What likes my lord is pleasing unto me.
Bun. Then hand-fast hand, and 1 will to my
book.
Bacon. What sees my lord now ?
P. Edw. Bacon, I see the lovers hand in hand,
The friar ready with his portace there
To wed them both : then am I quite undone.
Bacon, help now, if e'er thy magic serv'd ;
Help, Bacon ; J stop the marriage now,
If devils or necromancy may suffice,
Aud I will give thee forty thousand crowns.
Bacon. Fear not, my lord, I'll stop the jolly friar
For mumbling up his orisons this day.
Lacy. Why speak'st not, Bungay ? Friar, to thy
book. [Bungay is mute, crying, " Hud, hud."
Mar. How look'st thou, friar, as a man dis-
traught ?
Reft of thy senses, Bungay ? show by signs,
If thou be dumb, what passion§ holdeth thee.
Lacy. He's dumb indeed. Bacon hath with
his devils
Enchanted him, or else some strange disease
Or apoplexy hath possess'd his lungs :
But, Peggy, what he cannot with his book,
We'll 'twixt us both unite it up in heart.
Mar. Else let me die, my lord, a miscreant.
P. Edw. Why stands Friar Bungay || so amaz'd ?
Bacon. I have struck ^ him dumb, my lord ;
and, if your houour please,
I'll fetch this Bungay straightway from Fressing-
field,
And he shall dine with us in Oxford here.
P. Edw. Bacon, do that, and thou contentest me.
* 'Twcre a long poniard, &c.] Is this a prose-speech,
or oorrupted verse?
t portace] i. e. breviary, portable prayer-book.
t Help, Bacon, &c] Some word, or words, wanting
here.
§ passion] The 4to. of 1594 "passions."
|| Bungay] The 4tos. "Bacon."
% I have struck. &c] Qy.,
" J have struck him dumb, my lord : and, if you please,
I'll fetch I his Bungay straight from Fressingfield,
And he," &c. ?
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
1G3
Lacy. Of courtesy, Margaret, let us lead the friar
Unto thy father's lodge, to comfort him
With broths, to bring him from this hapless trance.
Mar. Or else, my lord, we were passing unkind *
To leave the friar so in his distress.
Enter a Devil, who carries off Bunoay on his back.
0, help, my lord ! a devil, a devil, my lord !
Look how he carries Bungay on his back !
Let's hence, for Bacon's spirits be abroad.
[Exit zrith Lacy.
P. Edw. Bacon, I laugh to see the jolly friar
Mounted upon the devil, and how the earl
Flees with his bonny lass for fear.+
As soon as Bungay is at Brazen-nose,
And I have chatted with the merry friar,
I will in post hie me to Fressingfield,
And quite these wrongs on Lacy ere 't be long.
Bacon. So be it, my lord : but let us to our
dinner ;
For ere we have taken our repast awhile,
We shall have Bungay brought to Brazen-nose.
[Exeunt.
Enter Burden, Mason, and Clement.
Mason. Now that we are gather'd in the Regent-
house,
It fits us talk about the king's repair,
For he, trooped with all the western kings,
That lie alongst the Dantzic seas by east,
North by the clime of frosty Germany,
The Almain monarch, and the SaxouJ duke,
Castile and lovely Elinor with him,
Have in their jests resolv'd for Oxford town.
Burd. We must lay plots of stately tragedies,
Strange comic shows, such as proud Roscius
Vaunted before the Roman emperors,
To welcome all the western potentates.!
Clem. But more ; the king by letters hath
foretold
That Frederick, the Almain emperor,
Hath brought with him a German of esteem,
Whose surname is Don Jaques Vandermast,
Skilful in magic and those secret arts.
Mason. Then must we all make suit unto the
friar,
To Friar Bacon, that he vouch this task,
And undertake to countervail in skill
* we were passing unkind] Qy. "passing uukind we
were " ?
t Flees with his bonny lass for fear] Some word or words
wanting.
t Saxon] The4tos. "Scocon."
§ To welcome, &c.] The 4tos. give this line to Clement.
The German ; else there's none in Oxford can
Match and dispute with learned Vandermast.
Bard. Bacon, if he will hold the German play,
Will teach him what an English friar can do :
The devil, I think, dare not dispute with him.
Clem. Indeed, Mas doctor, he [disjpleasur'd
you,
In that he brought your hostess with her gpit,
From Henley, posting unto Brazen-nose.
Burd. A vengeance on the friar for his pains !
But leaving that, let's hie to Bacon straight,
To see if he will take this task in hand.
Clem. Stay, what rumour is this ? The town
is up in a mutiny : what hurly-burly is this ]
Enter a Constable, with Ralph Simnell, Warres,
Ermsbv, all three disguised as before, and Miles.
Cons. Nay, masters, if you were ne'er so good,
you shall before the doctors to answer your mis-
demeanour.
Burd. What's the matter, fellow ?
Cons. Many, sir, here's a company of rufHers,
that, drinking in the tavern, have made a great
brawl, and almost killed the vintner.
Miles. Salve, Doctor Burden !
This lubberly lurden,
Ill-shap'd and ill-fac'd,
Disdain'd and disgrae'd,
What he tells unto vobis
Mentitur de nobis.
Burd. Who is the master and chief of this
crew?
Miles. Ecce asinum mundi
Figura rotundi,
Neat, sheat, and fine,
As brisk as a cup of wine.
Burd. What are you ?
Ralph. I am, father doctor, as a man would say,
the bell-wether of this company : these are my
lords, and I the Prince of Wales.
Ckm. Are you Edward, the king's son?
Ralph. Sirrah Miles, bring hither the tapster
that drew the wine, and, I warrant, when they see
how soundly I have broke his head, they'll say
'twas done by no less man than a prince.
Mason. I cannot believe that this is the Prince
of Wales.
War. And why so, sir?
Mason. For they say the prince is a brave and
a wise gentleman.
War. Why, and think'st thou, doctor, that he
is not so ?
Dar'st thou detract and derogate from him,
Being so lovely and so brave a youth ?
m 2
164
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
Erms. Whose face, shining with many a sugar' d
smile,
Bewrays that ho is bred of princely race.
Miles. And yet, master doctor,
To speak like a proctor,
And tell unto you
What is verimeut and true;
To cease of this quarrel,
Look but on his apparel ;
Then mark but my talis,
He is great Prince of Walis,
The chief of our gregis,
And films regis :
Then 'ware what is done,
For ha is Henry's white son.*
Ralph. Doctors, whose doting night-caps are
not capable of my ingenious dignity, know that I
am Edward Plantagenet, whom if you displease,
[I] will make a ship that shall hold all your
colleges, and so carry away the niniversity with a
fair wind to the Bankside in South wark. — How
sayest thou, Ned Warren, shall I not do it ?
War. Yes, my good lord; and, if it please your
lordship, I will gather up all your old pantofles.f
and with the cork make you a pinnace of five-
hundred ton, that shall serve the turn marvellous
well, my lord.
Erms. And I, my lord, will have pionersj to
undermine the town, that the very gardens and
orchards be carried away for your summer-walks.
Miles. And I, with scientia
And great diligeiitw,
Will conjure and charm,
To keep you from harm ;
That utrum korum mavis,
Your very great navis,
Like Barclay's ship,§
From Oxford do skip
With colleges and schools,
Full-loaden with fools.
Quid die is ad hoc,
Worshipful Domine Dawcock ? ||
* white son] See note t, P- 133, sec. col.
f pantofles] i. e. slippers
J jdnners] So (not " pioneers ") the word is usually, if
not always, spelt by our early writers.
§ Barclay's ship] The 4tos. " Bartlets ship" (a. mistake
perhaps of the original compositor, the MS. having had
" Barcleis sftip").— Miles alludes to The shyp of Folys of
the Worlde, translated out of Laten Frenche and Doche into
Enylysshe Toivge, by Alexander Barclay Preste. London by
Richarde Pynson. 1509, folio.
|| Domine Dawcocl] An expression borrowed from tho
author whose stylo is here imitated ;
" Construait hoc,
Domine Dawcocke ! "
Ware the Ilovlce, — Skclton's World, i. 103, ed. Dycc.
Clem. Why, harebrain'd courtiers, are you
drunk or mad,
To taunt us up with such scurrility?
Deem you us men of base and light esteem,
To bring us such a fop for Henry's son? —
Call out the beadles and convey them hence
Straight to Bocardo :* let the roistersf lie
Close clapt in bolts, until their wits be tame.
Erms. Why, shall we to prison, my lord ?
Ralph. What sayest, Miles, shall I honour the
prison with my presence ?
Miles. No, no : out with jour blades,
And hamper these jades ;
Have a flurt and a crash,
Now play revel-dash,
And teach these sacerdos
That the Bocardos,
Like peasants and elves,
Are meet for themselves.
Mason. To the prison with them, constable.
War. Well, doctors, seeing I have sported me
With laughing at these mad and merry wags,
Know that Prince Edward is at Brazen-nose,
And this, attired like the Prince of Wales,
Is Ralph, King Henry's only loved fool ;
I, Earl of Sussex,^ and this Ermsby,§
One of the privy-chamber to the king ;
Who, while the prince with Friar Bacon stays,
Have revell'd it in Oxford as you see.
Mason. My lord, pardon us, we knew not what
you were :
But courtiers may make greater scapes than these.
Wilt please your honour dine with me to-day ?
War. I will, Master doctor, and satisfy the
vintner for his hurt; only I must desire you to
imagine him all this forenoon the Prince of Wales.
Mason. I will, sir.
Ralph. And upon that I will lead the way ;
only I will have Miles go before me, because I
have heard Henry say that wisdom must go before
majesty. [Exeunt.
Enter Prince Edward with his poniard in his hand.
Lacy, and Maroaket.
P. Edw. Lacy, thou canst not shroud thy
traitorous thoughts,
Nor cover, as did Cassius, all thyll wiles ;
* Bocardo] i. c. the old north gate of Oxford, which
was used as a prison ; so called, wo may certainly pre-
sume, from some allusion to the Aristotelian syllogism
in Bocardo. It was taken down in 1771.
t rowttrs] i. e. wild fellows, rioters.
I Sussex] The4tos. "Essex."
§ Ermsby] A trisyllable here, I believe.
|| thy] The 4tos. "his."
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
165
For Edward hath an eye that looks as far
As Lynceus from the shores of Gnecia,
Did not I sit in Oxford by the friar,
And see thee court the maid of Fressingfield,
Sealiug thy flattering fancies with a kiss ?
Did not proud Bungay draw his portaee * forth,
And joining hand in hand had married you,
If Friar Bacon had not struck him dumb,
And mounted him upon a spirit's back,
That we might chat at Oxford with the friar?
Traitor, what answer'st ? is not all this true ]
Lacy- Truth all, my lord ; and thus I make reply.
At Harleston fair, there courting for your grace,
Whenas mine eye survey 'd her curious shape,
And drew the beauteous glory of her looks
To dive into the centre of my heart,
Love taught me that your honour did but jest,
That princes were in fancy but as men ;
How that the lovely maid of Fressingfield
Was fitter to be Lacy's wedded wife
Thau concubine unto the Prince of Wales.
P. Edw. Injurious Lacy, did I love thee more
Thau Alexander his Heplisestion?
Did I unfold the passions t of my love,
And lock them in the closet of thy thoughts ?
Wert thou to Edward Becond to himself,
Sole friend, and partner of his secret loves ?
And could a glance of fading beauty break
Th' enchained fetters of such private friends ?
Base coward, false, and too effeminate
To be corrival with a prince in thoughts !
From Oxford have I posted since I diu'd,
To quite a traitor 'fore that Edward sleep.
Mar. 'Twas I, my lord, not Lacy stept awry :
For oft he su'd and courted for yourself,
And still woo'd for the courtier all in green ;
But I, whom fancy made but over-fond,
Pleaded myself with looks as if I lov'd ;
I fed mine eye with gazing on his face,
And still bewitch'd lov'd Lacy with my looks ;
My heart with sighs, mine eyes pleaded with tears,
My face held pity and content at once,
And more I could not cipher-out by signs,
But that I lov'd Lord Lacy with my heart.
Then, worthy Edward, measure with thy mind
If women's favours will not force men fall,
If beauty, and if darts of piercing love,
Are not of force to bury thoughts of friends.
P. Edw. I tell thee, Peggy, I will have thy loves :
Edward or none shall conquer Margaret.
In frigates bottom'd with rich Sethin planks,
Topt with the lofty firs of Lebanon,
* portaee] See note f, p. 162, sec. col.
t passion*] The 4 to. of 1534 "passion."
Stemm'd and incaa'd with burnksh'd ivory,
And over-laid with plates of Persian wealth,
Like Thetis shalt thou wanton on the waves,
And draw the dolphins to thy lovely eyes,
To dance lavoltas in the purple streams :
Sirens, with harps and silver psalteries,
Shall wait with music at thy frigate's stem,
And entertain fair Margaret with their* lays.
England and England's wealth shall wait on thee ;
Britain shall bend unto her prince's love,
And do due homage to thine excellence,
If thou wilt be but Edward's Margaret.
Mar. Pardon, my lord : if Jove's great royalty
Sent me such presents as to Danae ;
If Phoebus, 'tired t in Latona's webs,
Came J courting from the beauty of his lodge :§
The dulcet tunes of frolic Mercury,
Nor all the wealth heaven's treasury affords,
Should make me leave Lord Lacy or his love.
P. Edw. I have learn'd at Oxford, then, this
point of schools,
Ablata causa. toHitur effect us r
Lacy, the cause that Margaret cannot love
Nor fix her liking on the English prince,
Take him away, and then th' effects will fail.
Villain, prepare thyself ; for I will bathe
My poniard in the bosom of an earl.
Lacy. Rather than live, and miss fair Margaret's
love,
Prince Edward, stop not at the fatal doom,
But stab it home : end both my loves and life.
Mar. Brave Prince of Wales, honour'd for
royal deeds,
'Twere sin to stain fair Venus' courts with blood ;
Love's conquest || ends, my lord, in courtesy :
Spare Lacy, gentle Edward ; let me die,
For so both you and he do cease your loves.
P. Edw. Lacy shall die as traitor to his lord.
Lacy. I have deserv'd it, Edward ; act it well.
Mar. What hopes the prince to gain by Lacv's
death 1
P. Edw. To end the loves 'twixt him and
Margaret,
* thtir] The4tos. "her."
t 'tired] The 4tos. "tied" and "try." — We have already
had in this play,
" Say that the courtier 'fired all in green,"
and
" I not deny, but 'tired thus in rags."
♦ Came] The 4tos. "Come."
§ Phoebus . ... his lodge] So Shakespeare (according
to the first folio);
" Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards PhceOus' lodging," &c.
Romeo and Julkt. net iii. sc. 2.
II conquest] The 4to. of 1594 "conquests."
166
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
Mar. Why, thinks King Henry's son that
Margaret's love
Hangs in th' uncertain balance of proud time ?
That death shall make a discord of our thoughts ?
No, stab the earl, and, 'fore the morning suu
Shall vaunt him thrice over the lofty east,
Margaret will meet her Lacy in the heavens.
Lacy. If aught betides to lovely Margaret
That wrongs or wrings her honour from content,
Europe's rich wealth nor England's monarchy
Should not allure Lacy to over-live.
Then, Edward, short my life, and end her* loves.
Mar. Ridt me, and keep a friend worth many
loves.
Lacy. Nay, Edward, keep a love worth many
friends.
Mar. An if thy mind be such as fame hath
Then, princely Edward, let us both abide [blaz'd,
The fatal resolution of thy rage :
Banish thou fancy.J and embrace revenge,
And in one tomb knit both our carcases,
Whose hearts were linked in one perfect love.
P. Edw. [aside.] Edward, art thou that famous
Prince of Wales,
Who at Damasco beat the Saracens,
And brought'st home triumph on thy lance's
point?
And shall thy plumes be pull'd by Venus down ?
Is't princely to dissever lovers' leagues,
To part such friends as glory in their loves ? §
Leave, Ned, and make a virtue of this fault,
And further Peg and Lacy in their loves :
So in subduing fancy's passion,
Conquering thyself, thou gett'st the richest
spoil.
Lacy, rise up. Fair Peggy, here's my hand :
The Prince of Wales hath conquer'd all his
thoughts,
And all his loves he yields unto the earl.
Lacy, enjoy the maid of Fressingfield ;
Make her thy Lincoln Countess at the church,
And Ned, as he is true Plantagenet,
Will give her to thee frankly for thy wife.
Lacy. Humbly I take her of my sovereign,
As if that Edward gave me England s right,
And rich'd me with the Albion diadem.
Mar. And doth || the English prince mean true '.'
* fur] Qy. "our"?
t Riii\ i. e. Get rid of, destroy.
j fancy] i. e. love.
§ To part such friendi as glory in their loves] Not in the
lab r )tos.
II And doth, &c] Qy. "And doth the English prince
indeed mean true?"
Will he vouchsafe to cease his former loves,
And yield the title of a country maid
Unto Lord Lacy ?
P. Edw. I will, fair Peggy, as I am true lord.
Mar. Then, lordly sir, whose conquest is aa
In conquering love, as Csesar's victories, [great,
Margaret, as mild and humble in her thoughts
As was Aspasia unto Cyrus self,
Yields thanks, and, next Lord Lacy, doth enshrine
Edward the second secret in her heart.
P. Edw. Gramercy, Peggy : — now that vows are
past,
And that your loves are not to be revolt,
Once, Lacy, friends again. Come, we will post
To Oxford ; for this day the king is there,
And brings for Edward Castile Elinor.
Peggy, I must go see and view my wife :
I pray God* I like her as I loved thee.
Beside, Lord Lincoln, we shall hear dispute
'Twixt Friar Bacon and learn*d Vandermast.
Peggy, we'll leave you for a week or two.
Mar. As it please Lord Lacy : but love's foolish
looks +
Think footsteps miles and minutes to be hours.
Lacy. I'll hasten, Peggy, to make short
return.
But please your honour go unto the lodge,
We shall have butter, cheese, and venison ;
And yesterday I brought for Margaret
A lusty bottle of neat claret-wine :
Thus can we feast and entertain your grace.
P. Edw. 'Tis cheer, Lord Lacy, for an emperor,
If he respect the person and the place.
Come, let us in ; for I will all this night
Hide post until I come to Bacon's cell. [Exeunt.
Enter King Henry, the Emperor, the King of Castile,
Elinor, Vandermast, and Bungay.
Emp. Trust me, Plantagenet, these Oxford
schools
Are richly seated near the river-side :
The mountains full of fat and fallow deer,
The battling J pastures lade with kine and flocks,
The town gorgeous with high-built colleges,
And scholars seemly in their grave attire,
Learned in searching principles of art.
What is thy j udgment, Jaques Vandermast ?
Van. That lordly are the buildings of the
town,
* I pray God, &c.] "Read for harmony's sake, 'Pray
Ood, and pronouce lorid." Walker's Crit. Exam, of the
text of Shakespeare, &c , i. 77.
t looks] Can this be the right word ?
J battling] i. o. causing to increase, or to grow fat.
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
107
Spacious the rooms, and full of pleasant walks ;
But for the doctors, how that they be learned,
It may be meanly, for aught I can hear.
Bun. I tell thee, German, Hapsburg holds none
such.
None read so deep as Oxen ford contains :
There are within our academic state
Men that may lecture it in Germany
To all the doctors of your Belgic schools.
K. Hen. Stand to him, Bungay, charm this
Vandermast,
And I will use thee as a royal king.
Van. Wherein dar'st thou dispute with me ?
Bun. In what a doctor and a friar can.
Van. Before rich Europe's worthies put thou
The doubtful question unto Vandermast. [forth
Bun. Let it be this, — Whether the spirits of
pyromancy or geomancy be most predominant in
magic 1
Van. I say, of pyromancy.
Bun. And I, of geomancy.
Van. The cabalists that write of magic spells,
As Hermes, Melchie,* and Pythagoras,
Affirm that, 'mongst the quadruplicity
Of elemental essence, terra is but thought
To be a punctum squared to the rest;
And that the compass of ascending elements
Exceed in bigness as they do in height ;
Judging the concave circle of the sun
To hold the rest in his circumference.
If, then, as Hermes says, the fire be greatest,
Purest, and only giveth shape to spirits,
Then must these daemones that haunt that place
Be every way superior to the rest.
Bun. I reason not of elemental shapes,
Nor tell I of the concave latitudes,
Noting their essence nor their quality,
But of the spirits that pyromancy calls,
And of the vigour of the geomantic fiends.
I tell thee, German, magic haunts the ground,-f-
And those strange J necromantic spells,
That work such shows and wondering in the world,
Are acted by those geomantic spirits
That Hermes calleth tciva Jilii.
The fiery spirits are but transparent shades,
That lightly pass as heralds to bear news ;
But earthly fiends, clos'd in the lowest deep,
Dissever mountains, if they be but charg'd,
Being more gross and massy in their power.
Van. Rather these earthly geomantic spirits
* Melchie] Meant, I suppose, for Malchus (Melech), i.e.
Porphyrins.
t ground] The 4tos. " grounds."
{ And those strange, &c] Something dropt out here.
Are dull and like the place where they remain ;
For when proud Lucifer fell from the heavens,
The spirits and angels that did sin with him,
Retain'd their local essence as their faults,
All subject under Lima's continent:
They which offended less hung* in the fire,
And second faults did rest within the air;
But Lucifer and his proud-hearted fiends
Were thrown into the centre of the earth,
Having less understanding than the rest,
As having greater sin and lesser grace.
Therefore such gross and earthly spirits do eerve
For jugglers, witches, and vile f sorcerers ;
Whereas the pyromantic genii
Are mighty, swift, and of far-reaching power.
But grant that geomancy hath most force;
Bungay, to please these mighty potentates,
Prove by some instance what thy art can do.
Bun. I will. [game;
Emp. Now, English Harry, here begins the
We shall see sport between these learned men.
Van. What wilt thou do 1
Bun. Show thee the tree, leav'd with refined
Whereon the fearful dragon held his seat, [gold,
That watch'd the garden call'd Hesperides, +
Subdu'd and won by conquering H ercules.
Here Bungay conjures, and thr tree appears with the
dragon shouting fire.
Van. Well done!
K. Hen. What say you, royal lordings, to my
friar ]
Hath he not done a point of cunning skill?
Van. Each scholar in the necromantic spells
Can do as much as Bungay hath perform'd.
But as Alcmena's bastard raz'd thistiee,
So will I raise him up as when he liv'd,
And cause him pull the dragon from his seat,
And tear the branches piecemeal from the
Hercules ! Prodi, prodi, Hercules ! [root. —
Hercules appears in his lion's skin.
Her. Quis me vult ?
Von. Jove's bastard son, thou Libyan Hercules,
Pull off the sprigs from off th' Hesperian tree,
As once thou didst to win the golden fruit.
Her. Fiat. [Begins to break the branches.
Van. Now, Bungay, if thou canst by magic
The fiend, appearing like great Hercules, [charm
* hung] The4tos. "hang."
f vile] The 4tos. " vild,"— as the word was often writ-
ten formerly : but in our author's Orlando Furioso the
old copies have " a truthless vile circumference," seep.
98, first col. ; and in his James the Fourth, the 4to. lias
"more vile," and " rile lust," see p. 188, first col., and
p. 191, first col.
t the garden call'd Hesperides] See note *, p. 90, first col.
168
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
From pulling down the branches of the tree,
Then art thou worthy to be counted learned.
Bun. I cannot.
Van. Cease, Hercules, until I give thee
charge. —
Mighty commander of this English isle,
Henry, come from the stout Plantagenets,
Bungay is learn'd enough to be a friar ;
But to compare with Jaques Vandermast,
Oxford and Cambridge must go seek their cells
To find a man to match him in his art.
I have given non-plus to the Paduans,
To them of Sien, Florence, and Bologna,
Rheims, Louvain, and fair Rotterdam,
Frankfort, Utrecht *, and Orleans :
And now must Henry, if he do me right,
Crown me with laurel, as they all have done.
Enter Bacon.
Bacon. All hail to this royal company,
That sit to hear and see this strange dispute ! —
Bungay, how stand'st thou as a man amaz'd ?
What, hath the German acted more than thou ?
Van. What art thou that question'st thus ?
Bacon. Men call me Bacon.
Van. Lordly thou look'st, as if that thou wert
learn'd ;
Thy countenance as if science held her seat
Between the circled arches of thy brows.
K. Hen. Now, monarchs, hath the German
found his match.
Emp. Bestir thee, Jaques, take not now the foil,
Lest thou dost lose what foretime thou didst gain.
Van. Bacon, wilt thou dispute ]
Bacon. No,
Unless he were more learn'd than Vandermast :
For yet, tell me, what hast thou done ?
Van. Rais'd Hercules to ruinate that tree
That Bungay mounted by his magic spells.
Bacon. Set Hercules to work.
Van. Now, Hercules, I charge thee to thy task ;
Pull off the golden branches from the root.
Her. I dare not. See'st thou not great Bacon
here,
Whose frown doth act more than thy magic can ?
Van. By all the thrones, and dominations,
Virtues, powers, and niighty hiei-archies,
I charge thee to obey to Vandermast.
Her. Bacon, that bridles headstrong Belcephon,
* Utrecht] The 4tos. "Lutrech." — This line is certainly
mutilated ; and ho perhaps is the preceding lino : from
the Krnporor's speech, p. 159, first col., it would seem
that "Paris' - ought to be one of tho places mentionod
here.
And rules Asmenoth guider of the north,
Binds me from yielding unto Vamlernisist.
K. Hen. How now, Vandermast ! have you
met with your match ]
Van. Never before was't known to Vandermast
That men held devils in such obedient awe.
Bacon doth more than art, or else I fail.
Emp. Why, Vandermast, art thou overcome] —
Bacon, dispute with him, and try his skill.
Bacon. I came * not, monarchs, for to hold
dispute
With such a novice as is Vandermast ;
I came to have your royalties to dine
With Friar Bacon here in Brazen-nose :
And, for this German troubles but the place,
And holds this audience with a long suspence,
I'll send him to his academy hence.
Thou Hercules, whom Vandermast did raise,
Transport the German unto Hapsburg straight,
That he may learu by travail, 'gainst the spring, f
More secret dooms and aphorisms of art.
Vanish the tree, and thou away with him !
[Exit Hercules with Vandermast and the trie.
Emp. Why, Bacon, whither dost thou send him?
Bacon. To Hapsburg : there your highness at
return
Shall find the German in his study safe.
K. Hen. Bacon, thou hast honour'd England
with thy skill,
And made fair Oxford famous by thine art :
I will be English Henry to thyself. +
But tell me, shall we dine with thee to-day ]
Bacon. With me, my lord ; and while I fit my
cheer,
See where Prince Edward comes to welcome you,
Gracious as the morning-star of heaven. [Exit.
Enter Prince Edward, Lacv, Warren, Ermsbt.
Emp. Is this Prince Edward, Henry's royal son ?
How martial is the figure of his face !
Yet lovely and beset with amorets. §
K. Hen. Ned, where hast thou been ?
P. Edw. At Framlingham, my lord, to try your
bucks
* came] The 4tos. " come " (but see what follows).
t spring] The 4tos, "springs."
J / will be Enilish Henry to thyself] Something wanting
here.
§ amorets] So afterwards, p. 173, sec. col.,
" those piorcing amorets
That Daphne glanced at his deity ", —
whence it ie plain that Greene uses the word as equiva-
lent to— love-kindling looks. (Cotgrave has " Amour, ll s.
Louo-tricks, wanton loue-toyos, ticking, ticklings, d.i-
liancos," &c.)
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
109
If they could scape the teasers* or the toil.
But hearing of these lordly potentates
Lauded, and progress'd up to Oxford town,
I posted to give entertain to them :
Chief to the Almain monarch ; next to him,
And joint with him, Castile and Saxony
Are welcome as they may be to the English court.
Thus for the men : but see, Venus appears,
Or one
That overmatcheth Venus in her shape !
Sweet Elinor, beauty's high-swelling pride,
Rich nature's glory and her wealth at once,
Fair of all fairs, welcome to Albion ;
Welcome to me, and welcome to thine own,
If that thou deign'st the welcome from myself.
Elin. Martial Plantageuet, Henry's high-minded
son,
The mark that Elinor did count her aim,
I lik'd thee 'fore I saw thee : now I love,
And so as in so short a time I may ;
Yet so as time shall never break that so,
And therefore so accept of Elinor.
K. of Cast. Fear uot, my lord, this couple will
agree,
If love may creep into their wanton eyes :
And therefore, Edward, I accept thee here,
Without susponce, as my adopted son.
K. Hen. Let me that joy in these consorting
greets,
And glory in these honours done to Ned,
Yield thanks for all these favours to my son,
And rest a true Plantagenet to all.
Enter Miles with a cloth and trenchers and salt.
Miles. Salvete, omnes reges,
That govern your greges
In Saxony and Spain,
In England and in Almain !
For all this frolic rabble
Must I cover the table
With trenchers, salt, and cloth ;
And then look for your broth.
Emp. What pleasant fellow is this ?
K. Hen. 'Tis, my lord, Doctor Bacon's poor
scholar.
Miles, [aside.] My master hath made me sewer
of these great lords ; and, God knows, I am as
serviceable at a table as a sow is under an apple-
tree : 'tis no matter; their cheer shall not be
great, and therefore what skills where the salt
stand,t before or behind ? [Exit
* teasers] See note t, p. 153, first col.
t what skills where the salt stand]— skills, i. e. signifies. —
The seats at table above the salt-cellar (which used to
K. of Cast. These scholars know more skill in
axioms,
How to use quips and sleights of sophistry,
Than for to cover courtly for a king.
Re-enter Miles with a mess of pottage and broth ; and, after
him, Bacon.
Miles. Spill, sir? why, do you think I never
carried twopenny chop before in my life 1
By your leave, nobile decus,
For here comes Doctor Bacon's pecus,
Being in his full age
To carry a mess of pottage.
Bacon. Lordings, admire not if your cheer be
For we must keep our academic fare ; [this,
No riot where philosophy doth reign :
And therefore, Henry, place these potentates,
And bid them fall unto their frugal cates.
Emp. Presumptuous friar ! what, scon "st thou
at a king ?
What, dost thou taunt us with thy peasants' fare,
And give us cates fit for country swains ]
Henry, proceeds this jest of thy consent,
To twit us with a * pittance of such price ?
Tell me, and Frederick will not grieve thee long.
K. Hen. By Henry's honour, and the royal faith
The English monarch beareth to his friend,
I knew not of the friar's feeble fare,
Nor am I pleas'd he entertains you thus.
Bacon. Content thee, Frederick, for I show'd
these t cates,
To let thee see how scholars use to feed ;
How little meat refines our English wits.
Miles, take away, and let it be thy dinner.
Miles. Marry, sir, I will.
This day shall be a festival-day with me ;
For I shall exceed in the highest degree. [Exit.
Bacon. I tell thee, monarch, all the German
Could not afford thy entertainment such, [peers
So royal and so full of majesty,
As Bacon will present to Frederick.
The basest waiter that attends thy cups
Shall be in honours greater than thyself;
And for thy cates, rich Alexandria drugs,
Fetch'd by carvels from ^Egypt's richest J streights,
Found in the wealthy strand of Africa,
Shall royalize the table of my king;
be placed about the middle) were assigned to the more
distinguished guests; the seats below it, to those of in-
ferior rank.
* with a] The 4to. of 1594 "with such a."
t these] The4tog. "thee."
} richest] An error. (In the preceding line we have
had "rich," and just after this we have " richer " and
"richest"!)
170
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
Wines richer than th' ./Egyptian courtesan
Quaff'd to Augustus' kingly countermatch,
Shall be carous'd in English Henry's feast ;
Candy shall yield the richest of her canes;
Persia, down her Volga * by canoes,
Send down the secrets of her spicery ;
The Afric dates, niirabolans + of Spain,
Conserves and suckets from Tiberias,
Cates from Judaea, choicer than the lamp
That fired Rome with sparks of gluttony, J
Shall beautify the board for Frederick :
And therefore grudge not at a friar's feast.
[Exeunt.
Enter Lambert and Serlsby with the Keeper.
Lam. Come, frolic Keeper of our liege's game,
Whose table spread hath ever venison
And jacks of wine to welcome passengers,
Know I'm in love with jolly Margaret,
That overshines our damsels as the moon
Darkeneth the brightest sparkles of the night.
In Laxfield here my land and living lies :
I'll make thy daughter jointer of it all,
So thou consent to give her to my wife ;
And I can spend five-hundred marks a-year.
Ser. I am the lands-lord, Keeper, of thy holds,
By copy all thy living lies in me ;
Laxfield did never see me raise my due:
I will enfeoff fair Margaret in all,
So she will take her to a lusty squire.
Keep. Now, courteous gentles, if the Keeper's
girl
Hath pleas'd the liking fancy of you both,
And with her beauty hath subdu'd your thoughts,
'Tis doubtful to decide the question.
It joys me § that such men of great esteem
Should lay their liking on this base estate,
And that her state should grow so fortunate
To be a wife to meaner men than you :
* Persia, down her Volga, &c] " This," observes my
friend, Mr. W. N. Lettsom, " is much as if France were
to send claret and burgundy down her Thames."
t mirabolans] i. e. dried plums. The4tos. "niirabiks"
in italics. " I h ive eaten Spanishe mirabolanes, and yet
am nothing the more metamorphosed." — Greene's Notable
Discovery of Coosnagr,, 1591, Sig. A 2.
| CaUtfrom, Jvulcea, choicer than the lamp
'llml fired Rome with sparks of gluttony] A corrupted,
or rather (as I think) a mutilated passage. The Rev. J.
M i 1 1 • ird (Gent Mag. for March 1833, p. 217) alters " lamp "
to " balm " ; which, he feels confident, restores the true
reading: "Balm," ho says, "or tho exudation "t" tin:
Balsamum, was the only export of Judaia to Rome ; and
the halm was peculiar to Judaea." Hut, tin; correction
" balm " docs not suit what- immediately follows.
§ It joys me, &c] If this be what tho author wrote, it is
at least very obscurely expressed.
But sith such squires will stoop to keeper's fee,
I will, to avoid displeasure of you both,
Call Margaret forth, and she shall make her choice.
Lam. Content, Keeper ; send her unto us.
[Exit Keeper.
Why, Serlsby, is thy wife so lately dead,
Are all thy loves so lightly passed over,
As thou canst wed before the year be out]
Serl. I live not, Lambert, to content the dead,
Nor was I wedded but for life to her :
The grave* ends and begins a married state.
Enter Margaret.
Lam,. Peggy, the lovely flower of all towns,
Suffolk's fair Helen, and rich England's star,
Whose beauty, temper'd with her huswifery,
Makes England talk of merry Fressingfield !
Ser. I cannot trick it up with poesies,
Nor paint my passions with comparisons,
Nor tell a tale of Phoebus and his loves :
But this believe me, — Laxfield here is mine,
Of ancient rent seven-hundred pounds a-year,
And if thou canst but love a country squire,
I will enfeoff thee, Margaret, in all :
I cannot flatter ; try me, if thou please.
Mar. Brave neighbouring squires, the stay of
Suffolk's clime,
A keeper's daughter is too base in gree +
To match with men accounted of such worth :
But might I not displease, I would reply.
Lam. Say, Peggy ; naught shall make us dis-
content.
Mar. Then, gentles, note that love hath little
stay,
Nor can the flames that Venus sets on fire
Be kindled but by fancy's motion :
Then pardon, gentles, if a maid's reply
Be doubtful, wbile+Ihave debated with myself,§
Who, or of whom, love shall constrain me like.
Ser. Let it be me ; and trust me, Margaret,
The meads environ'd with the silver streams,
Whose battling || pastures fatten U all my flocks,
Yielding forth fleeces stapled with such wool
As Lemnster cannot yield more finer stuff,
And forty kine with fair and 'burnish'd ** heads,
* grave"] ^ ne t * , °- °f 1594 "graves.
f grce] i. e. degree.
X while] i. e. until.
§ / hane debated with myself] Qy. "I've with mysolf
debated"?
|| battling] See note t, p- 16(5, sec. col.
t fatten] The 4to. of 1594 " fatneth."
** burnish'd] Tho editor of the last ed. of Dodsloy's Old
Plays alters this word into " furuish'd," which, he says,
"in reference to their horns, seems to be tho true read-
ing : besides Greene rather 'affected the letter,' and tho
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
171
With strouting dugs that paggle to the ground,
Shall serve thy dairy, if thou wed with me.
Lam. Let pass the country wealth, as flocks
and kine,
And lands that wave with Ceres' golden sheaves,
Filling my barns with plenty of the fields;
Rut, Peggy, if thou wed thyself to me,
Thou shalt have garments of embroider'd silk,
Lawns, and rich net-works for thy head attire :
Costly shall be thy fair habiliments,
If thou wilt be but Lambert's loving wife.
Mar. Content you, gentles, you have proffer'd
fair,
And more than fits a country maid's degree :
But give me leave to counsel me a time,
For fancy blooms not at the first assault ;
Give me* but ten days' respite, and I will reply,
Which or to whom myself affectiouates.
Ser. Lambert, I tell thee, thou'rt importunate;
Such beauty fits not such a base esquire :
It is for Serlsby to have Margaret. [me ?
Lam. Think'st thou with wealth to overreach
Serlsby, I scorn to brook thy country braves :
I dare thee, coward, to maintain this wrong,
At dint of rapier, single in the field.
Ser. I'll answer, Lambert, what I have
avouch'd.
Margaret, farewell ; another time shall serve.
[Exit.
Lam. I'll follow. — Peggy, farewell to thyself;
Listen how well I'll answer for thy love. [Exit.
Mar. How fortune tempers lucky haps with
frowns,
And wrongst me with the sweets of my delight !
Love is my bliss, and love is now my bale.
Shall I be Helen in my froward fates,
As I am Helen in my matchless hue,
And set rich Suffolk with my face afire 1
If lovely Lacy were but with his Peggy,
The cloudy darkness of his bitter frown
Would check the pride of these aspiring squires.
Before the term of ten days be expir'd,
Whenas they look for answer of their loves,
My lord will come to merry Fressingfield,
And end their fancies and their follies both :
Till when, Peggy, be blithe and of good cheer.
Fnter a Post with a letter and a btg of gold.
Post. Fair lovely damsel, which way leads this
path?
change affords an alliteration. " I can perceive uo necessity
for rejecting the reading of the 4tos.
* Give me] Qy. ought these words to be omitted?
t wrottgs'] Qy. "wrings"?
How might I post me unto Fressingfield ?
Which footpath leadeth to the Keeper's lodge ?
Mar. Your way is ready, and this'path is right :
Myself do dwell hereby in Fressingfield ;
And if the Keeper be the man you seek,
I am his daughter : may I know the cause ?
Post. Lovely, and once beloved of my lord, —
No marvel if his eye was lodg'd so low,
When brighter beauty is not in the heavens, —
The Lincoln Earl hath sent you letters here,
And, with them, just an hundred pounds in
gold. [Gives letter and bag.
Sweet, bonny wench, read them, and make reply.
Mar. The scrolls that Jove sent Danae,]
Wrapt in rich closures of fine burnish'd gold,
Were not more welcome than these lines to me.
Tell me, whilst that I do unrip the seals,
Lives Lacy well ? how fares my lovely lord ?
Post. Well, if that wealth may make men to
live well.
Mar. [reads.] The blooms of the almond-tree
grow in a night, and vanish in a morn ; the flies
hcemerce, fair Peggy, take life with the sun, and
die with the dew; fancy that slippeth in with a
gaze, goeth out with a wink ; and too timely* loves
have ever the shortest length. I write this as thy
grief, and my folly, who at Fressingfield loved th at
which time hath taught me to be but mean dainties :
eyes are dissemblers, and fancy is but queasy ;
therefore know, Margaret, I have chosen a Spanish
lady to be my wife, chief waiting-woman to the
Princess Elinor ; a lady fair, and no less fair than
thyself, honourable and wealthy. In that I for-
sake thee, I leave thee to thine own liking ; and for
thy dowry I have sent thee an hundred pounds ; and
ever assure thee of my favour, which shall avail
thee and thine much.
Farewell. Not thine, nor his own,
Edward Lacy.
Fond Ate, doomer of bad-boding fates,
That wrapp'st proud fortune in thy snaky locks,
Didst thou enchant my birth-day with such stars
As lighten'd mischief from their infancy ?
If heavens had vow'd, if stars had made decree,
To show on me their froward influence,
If Lacy had but lov'd, heavens, hell, and all,
Could not have wrong'd the patience of my mind.
Post. It grieves me, damsel ; but the earl is
fore'd
To love the lady by the king's command.
Mar. The wealth combin'd within the English
shelves,
• timely] i. e. early.
172
FRIAR BACON AND FRfAR BUNGAY.
Europe's commander, nor the English king,
Should not have mov'd the love of Peggy from
her lord.*
Post. What answer shall I return to my lord?
Mar. First, for thou cam'st from Lacy whom I
lov'd,—
Ah, give me leave to sigh at veryt thought I —
Take thou, my friend, the hundred pound he sent;
For Margaret's resolution craves no dower :
The world shall be to her as vanity ;
Wealth, trash ; £ love, hate ; pleasure, despair :
For I will straight to stately Framlingham,
And in the abbey there be shorn a nun,
And yield my loves and liberty to God.
Fellow, I give thee this, not for the news,
For those be hateful unto Margaret,
But for thou'rt Lacy's man, once Margaret's love.
Post. What I have heard, what passions I have
seen,
I'll make report of them unto the earl.
Mar. Say that she joys his fancies be at rest,
And prays that his misfortunes may be hers.
[Exeunt.
Friar Bacon is discovered in his cell, lying on a bed, with
a white stick in one hand, a book in the other, and a
lamp lighted beside him ; and the Brazen Head, and
Miles with weapons by him.
Bacon. Miles, where are you ?
Miles. Here, sir.
Bacon. How chance you tarry so long?
Miles. Think you that the watching of the
Brazen Head craves no furniture ] I warrant you,
Bir, I have so armed myself that if all your devils
come, I will not fear them an inch.
Bacon. Miles,
Thou know'st that I have dived into hell,
And sought the darkest palaces of fiends ;
That with my magic spells great Belcephon
Hath left hia lodge and kneeled at my cell ;
The rafters of the earth rent from the poles,
And three-form'd Luna hid her silver looks,
Trembling upon her concave continent,
When Bacon read upon his magic book.
With seven years' tossing necromantic charms,
Poring upon dark Hecat's principles,
I have fram'd out a monstrous head of brass,
That, by the enchanting forces of the devil,
Shall tell out strange and uncouth aphorisms,
And girt fair England with a wall of brass.
Bungay and I have watch'd these threescore days,
* from her lord] Qy. "from him"? But the earlier
part of the speech is also evidently corrupted.
t very] The 4tos. "euery."
J Wealth, trash, &c.] Qy. " Wealth shall be trash," &c.?
And now our vital spirits crave some rest :
If Argus liv'd, and had his hundred eyes,
They could not over-watch Phobetor's night.
Now, Miles, in thee rests Friar Bacon's weal :
The honour and renown of all his life
Hangs in the watching of this Brazen Head ;
Therefore I charge thee by the immortal God,
That holds the souls of men within his fist,
This night thou watch ; for ere the morning-star
Sends out his glorious glister on the north,
The head will speak : then, Mile3, upon thy life,
Wake me ; for then by magic art I'll work
To end my seven years' task with excellence.
If that a wink but shut thy watchful eye,
Then farewell Bacon's glory and his fame !
Draw close the curtains, Miles : now, for thy life,
Be watchful, and — [Falls aslcej\
Miles. So ; I thought you would talk yourself
asleep anon ; and 'tis no marvel, for Bungay on
the days, and he on the nights, have watched just
these ten and fifty days : now this is the night,
and 'tis my task, and no more. Now, Jesus bless
me, what a goodly head it is ! and a nose ! you
talk of nos autem glorificare ; * but here's a nose
that I warrant may be called nos autem populare
for the people of the parish. Well, I am furnished
with weapons : now, sir, I will set me down by a
post, and make it as good as a watchman to wake
me, if I chance to slumber. I thought, Goodman
Head, I would call you out of your memento.
Passion o' God, I have almost broke my p ite !
[A great noise.] Up, Miles, to your task ; take your
brown-billf in your hand ; here's some of your
master's hobgoblins abroad.
The Brazen Head. Time is.
Miles. Time is ! Why, Master Brazen-head,
have you such a capital nose, and answer you with
syllables, " Time is " ? is this all my master's
cunning, to spend seven years' study about " Time
is"? Well, sir, it may be we shall have some
better orations of it anon : well, I'll watch you as
narrowly as ever you were watched, and I'll play
with you as the nightingale with the slow-worm ;
I'll set a prick against my breast. Now rest there,
Miles. Lord have mercy upon me, I have almost
killed myself ! [A great noise.] Up, Miles ; list
how they rumble.
The Brazen Head. Time was.
Miles. Well, Friar Bacon, you have spent your
* you talk of nos autem glorificare, &c. ] See note §, p.
119, sec. col.
t brown-bill] A weapon formerly borne by our foot-
soldiers, and afterwards by watchmen : it was a sort of
pike or halbcrt, with a hooked point.
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
173
seven-years' study well, that can make your
head speak but two words at once, " Time was."
Yea, marry, time was wheu my master was a wise
man, but that was before he began to make the
Brazen Head. You shall lie while* your arse ache,
an your head speak no better. Well, I will watch,
and walk up and down, and be a peripatetian
and a philosopher of Aristotle's stamp. [4 great
noise.] What,^, fresh noise] Take thy pistols
in hand, Miles.
The Brazen Head. Time is past.
[A lightning flashes forth, and a hand appears
that breaks down the Head with a hammer.
Miles. Master, master, up ! hell's broken loose ;
your head speaks ; and there's such a thunder
and lightning, that I warrant all Oxford is up in
arms. Out of your bed, and take a brown-bill in
your hand ; the latter day is come.
Bacon. Miles, I come. [Rises and comes for-
ward.] 0, passing warily watch'd !
Bacon will make thee next himself in love.
When spake the head ?
Miles. When spake the head ! did not you say
that he should tell strange principles of philo-
sophy ? Why, sir, it speaks but two words at a
time.
Bacon. Why, villain, hath it spoken oft ?
Miles. Oft ! ay, marry, hath it, thrice ; but in
all those three times it hath uttered but seven
words.
Bacon. As how ?
Mdes. Marry, sir, the first time he said " Time
is," as if Fabius Commentator should have pro-
nounced a sentence ; [the second time] he said,
" Time was ;" and the third time, with thunder
and lightning, as in great choler, he said, " Time
is past."
Bacon. 'Tis past indeed. Ah, villain ! time is
past:
My life, my fame, my glory, all are past. —
Bacon,
The turrets of thy hope are ruin'd down,
Thy seven years' study lieth in the dust :
Thy Brazen Head lies broken through a slave,
That watch'd, and would not when the head did
What said the head first ? [will. —
Miles. Even, sir, " Time is."
Bacon. Villain, if thou hadst call'd to Bacon
then,
If thou hadst watch'd, and wak'd the sleepy friar,
The Brazen Head had utter'd aphorisms,
And England had been circled round with brass :
* while] i. e. until.
But proud Asmenoth, ruler of the north,
And Dcmogorgon, master of the fates,
Grudge that a mortal man should work eo much.
Hell trembled at my deep-commanding spell j ,
Fiends frown'd to see a man their over-match ;
Bacon might boast more than a man might boast
But now the braves of Bacon have an end,
Europe's conceit of Bacon hath an end,
His seven years' practice sorteth to ill end :
And, villain, sith my glory hath an end,
I will appoint thee to some fatal end.*
Villain, avoid ! get thee from Bacon's sight !
Vagrant, go roam and range about the world,
And perish as a vagabond on earth !
Miles. Why, then, sir, you forbid me your
service?
Bacon. My service, villain ! with a fatal curse,
That direful plagues and mischief fall on thee.
Miles. 'Tis no matter, I am against you with
the old proverb, — The more the fox is cursed, the
better he fares. God be with you, sir: I'll take
but a book in my hand, a wide-sleeved gown on
my back, and a crowned cap on my head, and see
if I can want promotion.
Bacon. Some fiend or ghost haunt on thy
weary steps,
Until they do transport thee quick to hell :
For Bacon shall have never merry day,
To lose the fame and honour of his head.
[Exeunt.
Enter the Emperor, the King of Castile, Kivg Henry,
Elinor, Prince Edward, Lacy, and Ralph Simnell.
Emp. Now, lovely prince, the primef of Albion's
How fare the Lady Elinor and you ? [wealth,
What, have you courted and found Castile fit
To answer England in equivalence?
Will't be a match 'twixt bonny Nell and thee ?
P. Edw. Should Paris enter in the courts of
Greece,
And not lie fetter'd in fair Helen's looks ?
Or Phoebus scape those piercing amoretsj
That Daphne glanced at his deity ?
Can Edward, then, sit by a flame and freeze,
Whose heat puts Helen and fair Daphne down ?
Now, monarchs, ask the lady if we gree.
K. Hen. What, madam, hath my son found
gi-ace or no ?
Elin. Seeing, my lord, his lovely counterfeit^
And hearing how his mind and shape agreed,
* to some fatal end] The 4tos. "fatal! to some end."
t prime] The 4tos. "prince."
J amorets] See note §, p. 168, sec. (H.
§ counterfeit] i. e. portrait. See note I, p 158, sec. col.
174
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
I came not, troop'd with all this warlike train,
Doubting of love, but so affectionate,
As Edward hath in England what he won in
Spain.*
K. of Cast. A match, my lord ; these wantons
needs must love :
Men must have wives, and women will be wed :
Let's haste the day to honour up the rites.
Ralph. Sirrah Harry, shall Ned marry Nell ?
K. Hen. Ay, Ralph : how then ?
Ralph. Marry, Harry, follow my counsel : send
for Friar Bacon to marry them, for he'll so conjure
him and her with his necromancy, that they shall
love together like pig and lamb whilst they live.
K. of Cast. But hearest thou, Ralph, art thou
content to have Elinor to thy lady ?
Ralph. Ay, so she will promise me two things.
K. of Cast. What's that, Ralph ?
Ralph. That she will never scold with Ned,
nor fight with me. — Sirrah Harry, I have put her
down with a thing impossible.
K. Hen. What's that, Ralph ?
Ralph. Why, Harry, didst thou ever see that
a woman could both hold her tongue and her
hands ? no : but when egg-pies grow on apple-
trees, then will thy grey mare prove a bag-piper.
Emp. What say the Lord of Castile aud the
Earl of Lincoln, that they are in such earnest and
secret talk ?
K. of Cast. I stand, my lord, amazed at his talk,
How he discourseth of the constancy
Of one surnam'd, for beauty's excellence,
The Fair Maid of merry Fressiugfield. +
K. Hen. 'Tis true, my lord, 'tis wondrous for
to hear;
Her beauty passing Mars's paramour,
Her virgin's right as rich as Vesta's was.
Lacy and Ned have told me miracles.
K. of Cast. What says Lord Lacy] shall she be
his wife ?
Lacy. Or else Lord Lacy is unfit to live. —
May it please your highness give me leave to post
To Hressingfield, I'll fetch the bonny girl,
And prove, in true appearance at the court,
What I have vouched often with my tongue.
K. Hm. Lacy, go to the Ymerry of my stable,
And take such coursers as shall fit thy turn :
I ! ie thee to Fressiugfield, and bring home the lass;
And, for her fame flies through the English coast,
* As Edward hath in England what he won in Spain] Cor-
rupt' d
t The Pair Maid of mrrr>/ Frurimgfeld] Here "fair" is
d jyllable : sue Walker's Shakespeare's ('■ - i\flcalion, &c,
i>. 146.
If it may please the Lady Elinor,
One day shall match your excellence and her.
Elin, We Castile ladies are not very coy ;
Your highness may command a greater boon :
And glad were I to grace the Lincoln Earl
With being partner of his marriage-day.
P. Edw. Gramercy, Nell, for I do love the lord,
As he that's second to thyself * in love.
Ralph. You love her? — Madam Nell, never
believe him you, though he swears he loves you.
Elin. Why, Ralph ?
Ralph. Why, his love is like unto a tapster's
glass that is broken with every touch ; for he
loved the fair maid of Fressingfield once out of
all ho. t — Nay, Ned, never wink upon me ; I care
not, I.
K. Hen. Ralph tells all ; you shall have a good
secretary of him. —
But, Lacy, haste thee post to Fressingfield ;
For ere thou hast fitted all things for her state,
The solemn marriage-day will be at hand.
Lacy. I go, my lord. [EmL
Emp. How shall we pass this day, my lord ?
K. Hen. To horse, my lord ; the day is passing
fair,
We'll fly the partridge, or go rouse the deer.
Follow, my lords ; you shall not want for sport.
[Exeunt.
Enter, to Friar Bacon in his cell, Friar Bungay.
Run. What means the friar that frolick'd it of
late,
To sit as melancholy in his cell J
As if he had neither lost nor won to-day ?
Bacon. Ah, Bungay, my§ Brazen Head is spoil'd,
My glory gone, my seven years' study lost !
The fame of Bacon, bruited through the world,
Shall end and perish with this deep disgrace.
Bun. Bacon hath built foundation of his fame
So surely on the wings of true report,
With acting strange and uncouth miracles,
As this cannot infringe what he deserves.
Bacon. Bungay, sit down, for by prospective
skill
I find this day shall fall out ominous :
Some deadly act shall 'tide me ere I sleep;
But what and wherein little can I guess.
Bun. My mind is heavy, whatsoe'er shall bap.
[Knocking within.
* thyself] The 4tos. "myselfe."
t out of all ho] i. e. out of measure. (" Out of all ho,
Immodice." Coles's Diet.)
\ To sit as melancholy in his cell] This line is printed
twice over in the 4to. of 1594.
§ Ah, Bungay, my, &c. j Qy. " Ah, Bungay, ah, my," iic.
.J
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
.1 o
Bacon. Who's that knocks ?
Bun. Two scholars that desire to speak with
you.
Bacon. Bid them come in.
Enter two Scholars.
Now, my youths, what would you have ?
First Schol. Sir, we are Suffolk-men and neigh-
bouring friends ;
Our fathers in their countries lusty squires ;
Their lands adjoin : in Cratfield mine doth dwell,
And his in Laxfield. We are college-mates,
Sworn brothers, as our fathers live as friends.
Bacon. To what end is all this ?
Second Schol. Hearing your worship kept within
your cell
A glass prospective, wherein men might see
Whatso their thoughts or hearts' desire could
wish,
We come to know how that our fathers fare.
Bacon. My glass is free for every honest man.
Sit down, and you shall see ere long, how *
Or in what state your -friendly fathers live. +
Meanwhile, tell me your names.
First Schol. Mine Lambert.
Second Schol. And mine Serlsby.
Bacon. Bungay, I smell there will be a tragedy.
Enter Lambert} and Serlsby with rapiers and daggers.
Lam. Serlsby, thou hast kept thine hour like
a man : §
Thou'rt worthy of the title of a squire,
That durst, for proof of thy affection
And for thy mistress' favour, prize || thy blood.
Thou know'st what words did pass at Fressing-
field,
Such shameless braves as manhood cannot brook:
Ay, for I scorn to bear such piercing taunts,
Prepare thee, Serlsby ; one of us will die.
Ser. Thou see'st I single [meet] thee [in] the
field,
And what I spake, I'll maintain with my sword :
Stand on thy guard, I cannot scold it out.
An if thou kill me, think I have a son,
That lives in Oxford in the Broadgates-hall,
Who will revenge his father's blood with blood.
Lam. And, Serlsby, I have there a lusty boy,
* ere long, how] Qy. "ere long, sirs, how" ?
\ fatliers live] The 4to. of 1594 " father liues."
J Enter Lambert, &c] See note t, P- 160, sec. col.
§ Serlsby, thou hast kept thine hour like a man] I may
just notice that the author intended this line to be read
thus, —
" Serlsby, thou'st kept thine hoicer like a man."
|| prize] i. e. venture, risk, in combat.
That dares at weapon buckle with thy son,
And lives in Broadgates too, as well as thine :
But draw thy rapier, for we'll have a bout.
Bacon. Now, lusty younkers, look within the
glass,
And tell me if you can discern your sires.
First Schol. Serlsby, 'tis hard ; thy father offers
wrong,
To combat with my father in the field.
Second Schol. Lambert, thou liest, my father's
is th' abuse,
And thou shalt find it, if my father harm.
Bun. How goes it, sirs ?
First Schol. Our fathers are in combat hard by
Fressingfield.
Bacon. Sit still, my friends, and see the event.
Lam. Why stand'st thou, Serlsby ] doubt'st
thou of thy life 1
A veney,* man ! fair Margaret craves so much.
Ser. Then this for her.
First Schol. Ah, well thrust !
Second Schol. But mark the ward.
[Lambfrt and Seklsby stab each other.
Lam. 0, I am slain ! [Dies.
Ser. And I, — Lord have mercy on me ! [Dies.
First Schol. My father slain! — Serlsby, ward
that.
Second Schol. And so is mine ! — Lambert, I'll
quite thee well.
[The two Scholars stab each other, and die.
Bun. strange stratagem !
Bacon. See, friar, where the fathers f both lie
dead ! —
Bacon, thy magic doth effect this massacre :
This glass prospective worketh many woes ;
And therefore seeing these brave lusty Brutes,
These friendly youths, did perish by thine art,
End all thy magic and thine art at once.
The poniard that did end their + fatal lives,
Shall break the cause efficiat of their woes.
So fade the glass, and end with it the shows
That necromancy did infuse the crystal with.
[Breaks the glass.
Bun. What means learn'd Bacon thus to break
his glass ?
Bacon. I tell thee, Bungay, it repents me sore
That ever Bacon meddled in this art.
The hours I have spent in py romantic spells,
The fearful tossing in the latest night
Of papers full of necromantic charms,
Conjuring and adjuring devils and fiends,
* A veney] i. e. A bout,
t fathers] Qy. "scholars '
t their] The 4tos. "the."
176
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY
With stole and alb and strong * pentageron ;
The wresting of the holy name of God,
As Sother, Eloim, and Adonai,
Alpha, Manoth, and Tetragrammaton,
With praying to the five-fold powers of heaven,
Are instances that Bacon must be damn'd
For using devils to countervail his God. —
Yet, Bacon, cheer thee, drown not in despair :
Sins have their salves, repentance can do much :
Think Mercy sits where Justice holds her seat,
And from those wounds those bloody Jews did
Which by thy magic oft did bleed afresh, [pierce,
From thence for thee the dew of mercy drops,
To wash the wrath of high Jehovah's ire,
And make thee as a new-born babe from sin. —
Bungay, I'll spend the remnant of my life
In pure devotion, praying to my God
That he would save what Bacon vainly lost.
[Exeunt.
Enter Mabgaket in nun's apparel, the Keeper, and their
Friend.
Keeper. Margaret, be not so headstrong in these
0, bury not such beauty in a cell, [vows :
That England hath held famous for the hue !
Thy father's hair, like to the silver blooms
That beautify the shrub3 of Africa,
Shall fall before the dated time of death,
Thus to forgo his lovely Margaret.
Mar. Ah, father, when the harmony of heaven
Soundeth the measures of a lively faith,
The vain illusions of this flattering world
Seem odious to the thoughts of Margaret.
I loved once, — Lord Lacy was my love ;
And now I hate myself for that I lov'd,
And doted more on him than on my God, —
For this I scourge myself with sharp repents.
But now the touch of such aspiring sins
Tells me all love is lust but love of heavens ;
That beauty us'd for love is vanity :
The world contains naught but alluring baits,
Pride,+ flattery, and inconstant thoughts.
To shun the pricks of death, I leave the world,
And vow to meditate on heavenly bliss,
To live in Framlingham a holy nun,
Holy and pure in conscience and in deed ;
And for to wish all maids to learn of me
To seek heaven's joy before earth's vanity.
Friend. And will you, then, Margaret, be shorn
a nun, and so leave us all ?
Mar. Now farewell world, tho engine of all
woe !
• slronri] The 4to». "strange." Hut compare, in p. 155,
»cc. col., " Bow to the force "f his pentageron."
t Pride, tic] A Blightly mutilated line,
Farewell to friends and father ! Welcome Christ !
Adieu to dainty robes ! this base attire
Better befits an humble mind to God
Than all the show of rich habiliments.
Farewell, love ! * and, with fond love, farewell
Sweet Lacy, whom I loved once so dear !
Ever be well, but never in my thoughts,
Lest I offend to think on Lacy's love :
But even to that, as to the rest, farewell !
Enter Lacy, Warren, and Ermsby, booted and spun-id.
Lacy. Come on, my wags, we're near the
Keeper's lodge.
Here have I oft walk'd in the watery meads,
And chatted with my lovely Margaret.
War. Sirrah Ned, is not this the Keeper ?
Lacy. 'Tis the same.
Erin. The old lecher hath gotten holy mutton +
to him ; a nun, my lord.
Lacy. Keeper, how far'st thou? holla, man,
what cheer ?
How doth Peggy, thy daughter and my love ?
Keeper. Ah, good my lord! 0, woe is me for
Peggy!
See where she stands clad in her nun's attire,
Ready for to be shorn in Framlingham :
She leaves the world because she left your love.
0, good my lord, persuade her if you can !
Lacy. Why, how now, Margaret ! what, a mal-
content ?
A nun 1 what holy father taught you this,
To task yourself to such a tedious life
As die a maid? 'twere injury to me,
To smother up such beauty in a cell.
Mar. Lord Lacy, thinking of my J former
'miss, §
How fond|| the prime of wanton years were spentH
In love (0, fie upon that fond conceit,
Whose hap and essence hangeth in the eye !),
I leave both love and love's content at once,
Betaking me to him that is true love,
And leaving all the world for love of him.
Lacy. Whence, Peggy, comes this metamor-
phosis ?
What, shorn a nun, and I have from the court
Posted with coursers to convey thee hence
* Farewell, love .'] The 4tos. "Lone, hue."
t mutton] A cant term for a prostitute.
{ my] The earlier 4tos. " thy."
§ 'miss] For amiss, i. e. fault.
|| fond) i. e. fondly,— foolishly, vainly.
f the prime of wanton years were spent] In almost nil our
early writers (Shakespeare included) are similar in-
stances of a nominative singular being followed by a
verb plural when a genitive plural intervenes.
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
177
To Windsor, where our marriage shall be kept !
Thy wedding-robes are in the tailor's bauds.
Come, Peggy, leave these peremptory vows.
Mar. Did not my lord resign his interest,
And make divorce 'twixt Margaret aud him?
Lacy. 'Twas but to try sweet Peggy's constancy.
But will fair Margaret leave her love and lord ]
Mar. Is not heaven's joy before earth's fading
bliss,
And life above sweeter than life in love ]
Lacy. Why, then, Margaret will be shorn a nun ?
Mar. Margaret
Hath made a vow which may not be revok'd.
War. We cannot stay, my lord ; * an if she be
so strict,
Our leisure grants us not to woo afresh.
Erms. Choose you, fair damsel, yet the choice
is yours, —
Either a solemn nunnery or the court,
God or Lord Lacy : which contents you best,
To be a nun or else Lord Lacy's wife ?
Lacy. A good motion. — Peggy, your answer
must be short.
Mar. The flesh is frail : my lord doth know it
well,
That when he comes with his enchanting face,
Whate'erf betide, I cannot say him nay.
Off goes the habit of a maiden's heart,
And, seeing fortune will, fair Framlingham,
And all the show of holy nuns, farewell !
Lacy for me, if he will be my lord.
Lacy. Peggy, thy lord, thy love, thy husband.*
Trust me, by truth of knighthood, that the king
Stays for to marry matchless Elinor,
Until I bring thee richly to the court,
That one day may both marry her and thee. —
How say'st thou, Keeper ? art thou glad of this ]
Keep. As if § the English king had given
The park and deer of Fressingfield to me.
Erin. I pray thee, my Lord of Sussex, why art
thou in a brown study]
War. To see the nature of women ; that be they
never so near God, yet they love to die in a man's
arms.
* my lord] Most probably an addition by some tran-
scriber ; which not only injures the metre, but is out of
place in the mouth of Warren, who is himself a " lord ",
aud who, when he last addressed Lacy, called him
"Sirrah Ned."
t Whate'er] The 4tos. "Whatsoe'er." (Compare the
preceding play, p. 110, first col., where (see note) the old
copies have " Howsoe'er," though the metre positively
requires "Howe'er".)
t thy husband] Qy. " thy husband, I
§ As if] Qy. " As glad as if"
Lacy. What have you fit for breakfast] We
have hied
And posted all this night to Fressingfield.
Mar. Butter aud cheese, and umbles* of a deer,
Such as poor keepers have within their lodge.
Lacy. And not a bottle of wine?
Mar. We'll find one for my lord.
Lacy. Come, Sussex, let us in : we shall have
more,
For she speaks least, to hold her promise sure.
[ Exeunt.
Enter a Devil.
Devil. How restless are the ghosts of hellish
sprites,+
When every charmer with his magic spells
Calls us from nine-fold-trenched Phlegethon,
To scud and over-scour the earth in post
Upon the speedy wings of swiftest winds !
Now Bacon hath rais'd me from the darkest
deep,
To search about the world for Miles his man,
For Miles, and to torment his lazy bones
For careless watching of his Brazen Head.
See where he comes : 0, he is mine.
Enter Miles in a gown and a corner-cap.
Miles. A scholar, quoth you ! marry, sir, I
would I had been made a bottle-maker when I
■was made a scholar ; for I can get neither to be a
deacon, reader, nor schoolmaster, no, not the
clerk of a parish. Some call me dunce ; another
saith, my head is as full of Latin as an egg's full
of oatmeal : thus I am tormented, that the devil
and Friar Bacon haunt me. — Good Lord, here's
one of my master's devils ! I'll go speak to him.
— What, Master Plutus, how cheer you]
Dev. Dost thou know me?
Miles. Know you, sir ! why, are not you one
of my master's devils, that were wont to come to
my master, Doctor Bacon, at Brazen-nose ]
Dev. Yes, marry, am I.
Miles. Good Lord, Master Plutus, I have seen
you a thousand times at my master's, and yet I
had never the manners to make you drink. But,
sir, I am glad to see how conformable you are to
the statute. — I warrant you, he's as yeomanly a
man as you shall see : mark you, masters, here's
a plain honest man, without welt or guard. + —
But I pray you, sir, do you come lately from
hell]
* umbles] i. e. the inward parts.
t sprites] The 4to. of 1594 "spirits."
J guard] Or gard,— i. e. facing, trimming.
178
FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY.
Dev. Ay, marry : Low then ?
Miles. Faith, 'tis a place I have desired long to
see : have you not good tippling-houses there?
may not a man have a lusty fire there, a pot of
good ale, a pair* of cards, a swinging piece of
chalk, and a brown toast that will clap a white
waistcoat on a cup of good drink ]
Dev. All this you may have there.
Miles. You are for me, friend, and I am for
you. But I pray you, may I not have an office
there ?
Dev. Yes, a thousand : what wouldst thou be?
Miles. By my troth, sir, in a place where I may
profit myself. I know hell is a hot place, and
men are marvellous dry, and much driuk is
spent there ; I would be a tapster.
Dev. Tbou shalt.
Miles. There's nothing lets me from going with
you, but that 'tis a long journey, and I have
never a horse.
Dev. Thou shalt ride on my back.
Miles. Now surely here's a courteous devil,
that, for to pleasure his friend, will not stick to
make a jade of himself. — But I pray you, goodman
friend, let me move a question to you.
Dev. What's that?
Miles. I pray you, whether is your pace a trot
or an amble 1
Dev. An amble.
Miles. 'Tis well ; but take heed it be not a
trot : but 'tis no matter, I'll prevent it.
[Puts on spurs.
Dev. What dost ?
Miles. Marry, friend, I put on my spurs ; for if
I fiud your pace either a trot or else uneasy,
I'll put you to a false gallop ; I'll make you
feel the benefit of my spurs.
Dev. Get up upon my back.
[Miles mounts on the Devil's back.
Miles. Lord, here's even a goodly marvel,
when a man rides to hell on the devil's back !
[Exeunt, the Devil roaring.
Enter the Emperor with a pointless sword ; next the Kino
ok CABTII.E carrying a sword with a point; Lacy
carrying the glebe ; Prince Edward; Warren carry-
,i,'i a rod of gold with a dove on it; Ermsby with a
crown, and sceptre ; Princess Ei.inor with Marcaret
Counters of Lincoln on her left hand; Kino Henry;
Bacoh ; and Lords attending.
P. Ediv. Great potentates, earth's miracles for
state,
Think that Prince Edward humbles at your feet,
* pair]i.i pock: "outcommethonold pa.ire of cardes,
whereat ti>c Barnard teacheth the Verecr a new game,"
Ac. Oiccdc'h Notable Discovery of Coosnage, 1591, Sig.
A 4.
And, for these favours, on his martial sword
He vows perpetual homage to yourselves,
Yielding these honours unto Elinor.
K. Hen. Gramercies, lordiugs; old Plantagenet,
That rules and sways the Albion diadem,
With tears discovers these conceived joys,
And vows requital, if his men-at-arms,
The wealth of England, or due honours done
To Elinor, may quite his favourites.*
But all this while what say you to the dames
That shine like to the crystal lamps of heaven?
Emp. If but a third were added to these two,
They did surpass those gorgeous images
That gloried Ida with rich beauty's wealth.
Mar. 'Tis I, my lords, who humbly on my knee
Must yield her orisons to mighty Jove
For lifting up his handmaid to this state ;
Brought from her homely cottage to the court,
And grae'd with kiDgs, princes, and emperors,
To whom (next to the noble Lincoln Earl)
I vow obedience, and such humble love
As may a handmaid to such mighty men.
P. Elin. Thou martial man that wears the
Almain crown,
And you the western potentates of might,
The Albion princess, English Edward's wife,
Proud that the lovely star of Fressingfield,
Fair Margaret, Countess to the Lincoln Earl,
Attends on Elinor, — gramercies, lord, for her, —
'Tis I give thanks for Margaret to you all,
And rest for her due bounden to yourselves.
K. Hen. Seeing the marriage is solemnized,
Let's march in triumph to the royal feast. —
But why stands Friar Bacon here so mute ?
Bacon. Repentant for the follies of my youth,
That magic's secret mysteries misled,
And joyful that this royal marriage
Portends such bliss unto this matchless realm.
K. lien. Why, Bacon,
What strange event shall happen to this land?
Or what shall grow from Edward and his queen?
Bacon. I find t by deep prescience of mine art,
Which once I temper'd in my secret cell,
That here where Brute did build his Troynovant,
From forth the royal garden of a king
Shall flourish out so rich and fair a bud,
Whose brightness shall deface proud Phoebus'
And over-shadow Albion with her leaves, [flower,
Till then Mars shall be master of the field,
But then the stormy threats of wars shall cease :
* favourites'] Qy. ' ' fayourers " *
f I find, 4c. J Oue of those compliments to Queen Eliza-
beth which frequently occur at the conclusion of dramas
acted during her lifetime.
FRYER BACON.
179
The horse shall stamp as careless of the pike,
Drums shall be turn'd to timbrels of delight ;
With wealthy favours plenty shall eDrich
The straud that gladded wandering Brute to see,
And peace from heaven shall harbour in these *
leaves
That gorgeous beautify this matchless flower :
Apollo's heliotropion then shall stoop,
And Venus' hyaciuth shall vail f her top;
Juno shall shut her gilliflowers up,
And Pallas' bay shall 'bash her brightest green ;
Ceres' carnation, in consoYt with those,
Shall stoop and wonder at Diana's rose.
K. Hen. This prophecy is mystical.
But, glorious J commanders of Europa's love,
That make fair England like that wealthy isle
Circled with Gihon and swift Euphrates,§
In royalizing Henry's Albion
With presence of your princely mightiness, —
Let's march :||the tables all are spread,
And viands, such as England's wealth affords,
Are ready set to furnish out the boards.
You shall have welcome, mighty potentates :
It rests to furnish up this royal feast,
Only your hearts be frolic ; for the time
Craves that we taste of naught but jouissance.
Thus glories England over all the west.
[Exeunt omnes.
Omne tulit If punctum qui miscuit utile dulci.
The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon, on which
Greene founded his drama, has been already
noticed in the Prefatory Essay to this volume,
and a specimen of it is now subjoined :
"How Fryer Bacon made a Brasen Head to
speake, by the which hee would have walled
England about with brasse.
Fryer Bacon, reading one day of the many
conquests of England, bethought himselfe how
he might keepe it hereafter from the like con-
* these] Qy. "those"? but our early writers did not
always make the distinction between "these" and
" those " which is made at the present day.
t vail] i e. lower.
} But, glorious, &c ] Some corruption here. Qy. " But,
glorious comrades of," &c. 1
§ swift Euphrates] The 4tos. " first Euphrates ".—That
I have rightly con-ected the text is proved by the follow-
ing line of our author's Orlando Furioso,—
" From whence floweth Gihon and swift Euphrates."
p. 8P, see col., where see note.
|| Let's maixh] Qy. " Let us march hence"?
H Omne tulit, &c] Greene's favourite motto: see the
tit'cs of his prose-works in the List appended to the
Account of his life.
quests, and so make himselfe famous hereafter
to all posterities. This, after great study, hee
found could be no way so well done as one ;
which was to make a head of brasse, and if he
could make this head to speake, and beare it
when it speakes, then might hee be able to wall
all England about with brasse. To this purpose
hee got oue Fryer Bungcy to assist him, who was
a great scholler and a magician, but not to bee
compared to Fryer Bacon : these two with great
study and paines so framed a head of brasse,
that in the inward parts thereof there was all
things like as in a naturall mans head. This
being done, they were as farre from perfection
of the worke as they were before, for they knew
not how to give those parts that they had made
motion, without which it was impossible that it
should speake : many bookes they read, but yet
could not finde o>-*t any hope of what they sought,
that at the last tney concluded to raise a spirit,
and to kuow of him that which they could not
attaine to by their owue studies. To do this
they prepared all things ready, and went one
evening to a wood thereby, and after many
ceremonies used, they spake the words of con-
iuration; which the Devill straight obeyed, and
appeared unto them, asking what they would ?
' Know,' said Fryer Bacon, ' that wee have made
an artificiall head of brasse, which we would have
to speake, to the furtherance of which wee have
raised thee ; and being raised, wee will here keepe
thee, unlesse thou tell to us the way and manner
how to make this head to speake.' The Devill
told him that he had not that power of him-
selfe. 'Beginner of lyes,' said Fryer Bacon, ' I
kuow that thou dost dissemble, and therefore tell
it us quickly, or else wee will here bind thee to
remaine during our pleasures.' At these threat-
nings the Devill consented to doe it, and told
them, that with a continuel fume of the six
hotest simples it should have motion, and in one
month space speak ; the time of the moneth or
day hee knew not : also hee told them, that if
they heard it not before it had done speaking, all
their labour should be lost. They being satis-
fied, licensed the spirit for to depart.
Then went these two learned fryers home
againe, and prepared the simples ready, and made
the fume, and with continuall watching attended
when this brasen head would speake. Thus
watched they for three weekes without any rest,
so that they were so weary and sleepy that they
could not any longer refraine from rest: then
called Fryer Bacon his man Miles, and told him,
180
FRYER BACON.
that it was not unknown to him what paines
Fryer Bungey and himselfe had taken for three
weekes space, onely to make, and to heare the
Brazen-head speake, which if they did not, then
had they lost all their labour, and all England
had a great losse thereby; therefore hee intreated
Miles that he would watch whilst that they slept,
and call them if the head speake. ' Feare not,
good master,' said Miles, ' I will not sleepe, but
barken and attend upon the head, and if it doe
chance to speake, I will call you; therefore I pray
take you both your rests and let mee alone for
watching this head.' After Fryer Bacon had
given him a great charge the second time, Fryer
Bungy and he went to sleepe, and Miles, alone to
watch the brasen head. Miles, to keepe him
from sleeping, got a tabor and pipe, and being
merry disposed, sung this song to a northren
tune of
'CAM'.ST THOU NOT FROM NEWCASTLE?'
To couple is a cnstome,
all tilings thereto agree:
Why should not I, then, love?
since love to all is free.
But He have one that's pretty,
her cheekes of scarlet die,
For to breed my delight,
When that I ligge * her by.
Though vertiio be a dowry,
yet lie chuse money store :
If my loye prove untrue,
with that I can get more.
The fuire is oft unconstant,
the blacke is often proud :
He chuse a lovely browne ;
come, fidler, scrape thy crowd, t
Come, fidler, scrape thy crowd,
for Peggie the browne is she
Must be my bride: God guide
that Peggy and I agree !
With his owne musicke and such songs as
these spent he his time, and kept from sleeping
at la«t. After some noyse the head spake these
two words, time is. Miles, hearing it to speake
no more, thought his master would be angry if
hoe waked him for that, and therefore he let
tin-in both sleepe, and began to mocke the head
in this manner; 'Thou brazen-faced head, hath
my master tooke all this paines about thee, and
now dost thou requite him with two words,
timt. rs? Had lire watched with a lawyer so long
as he hath watched with thee, he would have
• I i. e. lie.
t croicrl] i. c. fiddle.
given him more and better words then thou hast
yet. If thou canst speake no wiser, they shal
sleepe till doomes day for me : time is ! I know
Time is, and that you shall heare, Goodman
Brazen-face : —
TO THE TUNE OF ' DAINTIE, COME THOU TO ME.'
Time is for some to plant,
Time is for some to sowe,
Time is for some to graft
The home, as some doe knowe.
Time is for some to eate,
Time is for some to sleepe,
Time is for some to laugh,
Time is for some to weepe.
Time is for some to sing,
Time is for some to pray,
Time is for some to creepe,
That have drunke all the day.
Time is to cart a bawd,
Time is to whip a whore,
Time is to hang a theefe,
And time is for much more.
' Do you tell us, copper-nose, when time is ?
1 hope we schollers know our times, when to
drinke drunke, when to kisse our hostes, when to
goe on her score, and when to pay it, — that time
comes seldome.' After halfe an houre had
passed, the head did speake againe, two words,
which were these, time was. Miles respected
these words as little as he did the former, and
would not wake them, but still scoffed at the
brazen head, that it had learned no better words,
and have such a tutor as his master : and in
scorne of it sung this song ;
TO THE TUNE OF ' A RICH MERCHANT-MAN.'
Time was when thou, a kettle,
wert fill'd with bet'er matter;
But Fryer Bacon did thee spoyle
when he thy sides did batter.
Time was when conscience dwellfcd
with men of occupation ;
Time was wheu lawyers did not thrive
so well by mens vexation.
Time was when kings and beggers
of one poore stuffe had being;
Time was when office kept no knaves,
that time it was worth seeing.
Time was a bowle of water
did give the face reflection ;
Time was when women knew no paint,
Which now they call complexion.
'Timk was! I know that, brazen-face, without
your telling, I know Time was. and I know what
FRYER BACON.
181
things there was when Time was; and if you
speake no wiser, no master shall be waked for
nice.' Thus Miles talked and sung till another
halfe-honre was gone : then the brazen head
spake again these words, Time is past ; and
therewith fell downe, and presently followed a
terrible noyse, with strange flashes of fire, so that
Miles was halfe dead with feare. At this noyse
the two Fryers awaked, and wondred to see the
whole roome so full of smoake ; but that being
vanished, they might perceive the brazen head
broken and lying on the ground. At this sight
they grieved, and called Miles to know how this
came. Miles, halfe dead with feare, said that it
fell downe of itselfe, and that with the noyse
aud fire that followed he was almost frighted out
of his wits. Fryer Bacon asked him if bee did
not speake ? 'Yes,' quoth Miles, 'it spake, but to
no purpose : He have a parret speake better in
that time that you have been teaching this
brazen head.' ' Out on thee, villaine !' said Fryer
Bacon; 'thou hast undone us both : hadst thou
but called us when it did speake, all England had
been walled round about with brasse, to its glory
and our eternal fames. What were the wordea t
spake] ' 'Very few,' said Miles, 'and those were
none of the wisest that I have heard neither :
first he said, time is.' 'Hadst thou call'd us
then,' said Fryer Bacon, ' we had been made for
ever.' 'Then,' said Miles, 'half-an-hour after it
spake againe and said, time was.' 'And wouldst
thou not call us then V said Bungey. ' Alas,'
said Miles, 'I thought he would have told me
some long tale, and then I purposed to have
called you : then half-an-houre after he cried,
time is past, and made such a noyse that hee
hath waked you himselfe, mee thinkes ' At
this Fryer Bacon was in such a rage that hee
would have beaten his man, but he was restrained
by Bungey : but neverthelesse, for his punishment,
he with his art struck him dumbe for one whole
months space. Thus the greate worke of these
learned fryers was overthrown, to their great
griefes, by this simple fellow. "
The Scottish Hhtorie of lames the fourth, slaine at Flodden. Fntermixed with a pleasant Comedie, presented by
Oboram King of Faijeri<s: As it hath owe sundrie times publikely plaide. Written by Robert Greene, Maister of Arti.
Omne tulit punctum. London Printed bv Thomas Creede lo'JS ito
DltAMATIS PERSONS.
Kino of England.
Lord Percy.
Samles.
King ok Scots.
Lord Douglas.
Lord Morton.
Lord Ross.
Bishop of St. Andrews.
Lord Eustace.
Sir Bartram.
Sir Cuthbert Anderson.
Ateukin.
Jaques.
A Lawyer.
A Merchant.
A Divine.
Slipper, \ g0M to tj iian.
Nano, a dwarf, J
Andrew.
Purveyor, Herald, Scout, Huntsmen, Soldiers, Reveller*. *C-
Dorothea, Queen of Scots.
Countess of Arr*n.
Ida, her daughter.
Lady Anderson.
Ladies, &c.
O heron, King of Fairies.
Bohan.
Antics, Fairies, &c.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
Music playing within, enter Astkr Oberon, King of
Fairies; and Antics, who dance at/out a tomb placed
conveniently on the stage; out of the which suddenly
starts up, as they dance,BonAS , a Scot, attired like arid-
stall* man, from whom the Antics fly. Oberon manet.
Boh. Ay say, what's thou ?
Ober. Thy friend, Bohan.
Boh. What wot I or reck I that ? Whay, guid
man, I reck no friend nor ay reck no foe ; als ene
to rue. Git thee ganging, and trouble not may
whayet,t or ays gar J thee recon me nene of thay
friend, by the Mary mass, sail T.
Ober. Why, angry Scot,§ I visit thee for love ;
then what move3 thee to wrath ?
Boh. The deil a whit reck I thy love ; for I
know too well that true love took her flight
twenty winter sence to heaven, whither till ay
can, weel I wot, ay sal ne'er find love : an thou
lovest me, leave me to myself. But what were
those puppets that hopped and skipped about me
year whayle ? ||
Ober. My subjects.
Boh. Thay subjects ! whay, art thou a king?
Ober. I am.
Boh. The deil thou art ! whay, thou lookest
not so big as the King of Clubs, nor so sharp as
the King of Spades, nor so fain as the King o'
Daymonds: be the mass, ay take thee to be the
king of false hearts ; therefore I ridU thee away,
or ayse so curry your kingdom that you's be glad
to run to save your life.
* rid stall] A mis-spelling, if not a corruption.
t may whayet] i. e , I suppose, my quiet.
t ays gar] i. e. I'll make. (Bohan, the reader will ob-
serve, sometimes says "Ay" and sometimes "I": nor
in several other words does he always adhere to the
Scottish dialect.)
§ Why, angry Scot, &c] Walker (Shakespeare's Versifica-
tion, &c., p. 167) would make this speech verse, —
" Why, angry Scot, I visit thee for love;
Then what moves thee to wrath ?"
II year whayle] i. e. erewhile.
li rid] i.e. rede, — advise.
Ober. Why, stoical Scot,* do what thou darest
to me : here is my breast, strike.
Boh. Thou wilt not threap me,f this whinyard
has gard many better men to lope than thou I
[Tries to draxo his sword.'] But how now ! Gos
sayds, what, will't not out ? Whay, thou witch,
thou deil ! Gad's fute, may whinyard !
Ober. Why, pull, man : but what an 'twere out,
how then ?
Boh. This, then, — thou weart best be gone first;
for ay'l so lop thy limbs that thou's go with half
a knave's carcass to the deil.
Ober. Draw it out: now strike, fool, canst thou
not?
Boh. Bread ay gad, what deil is in me ? Whay,
tell me, thou skipjack, what art thou ?
Ober. Nay, first tell me what thou wast from
thy birth, what thou hast passed hitherto, why
thou dwellest in a tomb and leavest the world ?
and then I will release thee of these bonds ;
before, not.
Boh. And not before ! then needs must, needs
sail. I was born a gentleman of the best blood
in all Scotland, except the king. When time
brought me to age, and death took my parents, I
became a courtier; where, though ay list not
praise myself, ay engraved the memory of BohanJ
oil the skin-coat of some of them, and revelled
with the proudest.
Ober. But why, living in such reputation, didst
thou leave to be a courtier?
Boh. Because my pride was vanity, my expense
loss, my reward fair words and large promises,
* Why, stoical Scot, &c.] Here again Walker (ubi supra)
would arrange as verse —
" Why, stoical Scot, do what thou dar'st to me :
Here is my breast, strike."
t threap me, <Src] i. e. obstinately contradict me, that
this sword has made many better men to leap, ifcc.
t Bohan] Here the 4to. " Buughon."
188
JAMES THE FOURTH.
and my hopes spilt, for that after many years'
service one outran me; and what the deil should
I then do there ? No, no ; flattering knaves, that
can cog and prate fastest, speed best in the
court.
Ober. To what life didst thou then betake
thee ?
Boh. I then changed the court for the country,
and the wars for a wife : but I found the craft of
swains more vile than the knavery of courtiers,
the charge of children more heavy than servants,
and wives' tongues worse than the wars itself;
and therefore I gave o'er that, and went to the
city to dwell; and there I kept a great house
with small cheer, but all was ne'er the near.*
Ober. And why 1
Boh. Because, in seeking friends, I found table-
guests to eat me and my meat, my wife's gossips
to bewray the secrets of my heart, kindred to
betray the effect of my life : which when I noted,
the court ill, the country worse, and the city
worst of all, in good time my wife died, — ayf
would she had died twenty winter sooner, by the
mass ! — leaving + my two sons to the world, and
shutting myself into this tomb, where if I die I
am sure I am safe from wild beasts, but whilst I
live cannot be free from ill company. Besides,
now I am sure, gif all my friends fail me, I sail
have a grave of mine own providing. This is all.
Now, what art thou ?
Ober. Oberon, King of Fairies, that loves thee
because thou hatest the world ; and to gratulate
thee, I brought these antics to show thee some
sport in dancing, which thou hast loved well.
Boh. Ha, ha, ha ! Thinkest thou those puppets
can please me ? whay, I have two sons, that with
one Scottish jig shall break the neck of thy
antics.
Ober. That would I fain see.
Boh. Why, thou shalt. — Ho,§ boys !
* ne'er the near] See note t, p. 161, sec. col.
\ ay] i. e., Scottici, I. See note J, p. 187, first col.
} leaving, &c] Some words are wanting here.
§ Ho] The 4to. " Howe ", — which, as innumerable pas-
sages in early books prove, was frequently the spelling
of " Ho " : so in the folio Shakespeare, 1623 ;
" Ware pensals. How t" ["Ware pencils, ho.'"\
Love's Labour's Lost, net v. ec. 2.
" How f Let the doore be lock'd."
Hamlet, Last scene.
Enter Slipper and Nano.
Haud your clacks,* lads, trattle not for thy life,
but gather up your legs, and dance me forthwith
a jig worth the sight.
Slip. Why, I must talk, ant I diefor't: where-
fore was my tongue made ?
Boh. Prattle, an thou darest, ene word more,
and ais dab this whinyard in thy wemb.
Ober. Be quiet, Bohan. I'll strike him dumb,
and his brother too : their talk shall not hinder
our jig. — Fall to it ; dance, I say, man.
Boh. Dance Humer.J dance, ay rid§ thee.
[The two dance a jig devised for the nmist.\\
Now get you to the wide world with more than
my father gave me, that's learning enough both
kinds, knavery and honesty; and that I gave you,
spend at pleasure.
Ober. Nay, for their sport I will give them this
gift : to the dwarf I give a quick wit, pretty^ of
body, and awarrant** his preferment to a prince's
service, where by his wisdom he shall gain more
love than common ; and to loggerhead your son
I give a wandering life, and promise he shall
never lack, and avow f+, if in all distresses he
call upon me, to help him. Now let them go.
[Exeunt Slipper and Nano with courtesies.
Boh. Now, king, if thou be a king, I will show
thee whay I hate the world by demonstration.
In the year fifteen hundred and twenty, was in
Scotland a king, over-ruled with parasites, misled
by lust, and many circumstances too long to
trattle on now, much like our court of Scotland
this day. That story have I set down. Gang
with me to the gallery, and I'll show thee the
same in action by guid fellows of our country-
men ; and then when thou see'st that, judge if any
wise man would not leave the world if he could.
Ober. That will I see : lead, and I'll follow thee.
[Exeunt.
* Haud your clacks] i. e. Hold you your chattering.
t an] The4to. "on."
J Humer] In my former edition I gave " Heimore," be-
cause 1 found that reading in the only copy of the 4to. (Mr.
Mitford's) which I was then able to see: but in that copy
the leaf containing the present passage was a very modern re-
print. After all, the alteration "Heimore" may be right.
§ ay rid] i. e. / rede, I advise.
|| nonst] Or nonce, — i. e. occasion.
U pretty] The substantive to which this epithet belongs
has dropt out (unless Greene wrote " prettmess ").
** anarrant] i. e. warrant.
ft aww] The4to. "auoic that."
ACT I. SCENE T.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
189
Laws Deo detur in ozternum.
ACT I.
SCENE I.
Enter the King op England, the Kino of Scots, Queen
Dorothea, the Countess of Arran, Ida, and Lords ;
and Ateukin aloof.
K. of Scots. Brother of England, since our
neighbouring land[s]
And near alliance do invite our loves,
The more I thiuk upon our last accord,
The more I grieve your sudden parting hence.
First, laws of friendship did confirm our peace,
Now both the seal of faith and marriage-bed,
The name of father, and the style of friend ;
These force in me affection full confirm'd ;
So that I grieve — and this my hearty grief
The heavens record, the world may witness well —
To lose your presence, who are now to me
A father, brother, and a vowed friend.
K. of Eng. Link all these lovely* styles, good
king, in one :
And since thy griff exceeds in my depart,
I leave my Dorothea to enjoy
Thy whole compact [of] loves and plighted vows.
Brother of Scotland, this is my joy,+ my life,
Her father's honour, and her country's hope,
Her mother's comfort, and her husband's bliss :
I tell thee, king, in loving of my Doll,
Thou bind'st her father's heart, and all his
friends,
In bands of love that death can not dissolve.
K. of Scots. Nor can her father love her like to
me,
My life's light, and the comfort of my soul. —
Fair Dorothea, that wast England's pride,
Welcome to Scotland ; and, in sign of love,
Lo, I invest thee with the Scottish crown. —
Nobles and ladies, stoop unto your queen,
And trumpets sound, that heralds may proclaim
Fair Dorothea peerless Queen of Scots.
• lovely] Mr. Collier somewhere pronounces this to be
a misprint for "loving ". But compare Shakespeare ;
" And seal the title with a lovely kiss."
Taming of the Shnw, act iii. sc. 2.
" Two lovely berries moulded on one stem," &c.
Midsummer- Night's Dream, act ii. sc. 3.
and Peele ;
" And I will give thee many a lovely kiss," &c.
The Arraignment of Paris, act ii.
t this is my joy, &e ] Walker (Shakespeare's Versif ra-
tion, &.c, p. 88) would read " Otis' [contraction for " this
is "J my joy," &c.
All. Long live and prosper our fair Queen of
Scots ! [They install and crown her.
Q. Dor. Thanks to the king of kings for my
dignity ;
Thanks to my father that provides so carefully ;
Thanks to my lord and husband for this honour ;
And thauks to all that love their king and me.
All. Long live fair Dorothea, our true queen!
K. of Eng. Long shine the sun of Scotland in
her pride,
Her father's comfort, and fair Scotland's bride !
But, Dorothea, since I must depart,
And leave thee from thy tender mother's charge,
Let me advise my lovely daughter first
What best befits her in a foreign land.
Live, Doll, for many eyes shall look on thee,
With* care of honour and the present state ;
For 6he that steps to height of majesty
Is even the mark whereat the enemy aims :
Thy virtues shall be construed to vice,
Thine affable discourse to abject mind ;
If coy, detracting tongues will call thee proud.
Be therefore wary in this slippery state :
Honour thy husband, love him as thy life,
Make choice of friends, as eagles of their young,
Who soothe no vice, who flatter not for gain,
But love such friends as do the truth maintain.
Think on these lessons when thou art alone,
And thou shalt live in health when I am gone.
Q, Dor. I will engrave these precepts in my
heart :
And as the wind with calmness wooes you hence,
Even so I wish the heavens in all mishaps
May bless my father with continual grace.
K. of Eng. Then, son, farewell :
The favouring winds invite us to depart.
Long circumstance in taking princely leaves
Is more officious than convenient.
Brother of Scotland, love me in my child ;
You greet me well, if so you will her good.
K. of Scots. Then, lovely Doll, and all that
favour me,
Attend to see our English friends at sea :
Let all their charge depend upon my purse :
They are our neighbours, by whose kind accord
We dare attempt the proudest potentate.
W,th\ The4to. "Ha»e."
190
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT 1.
Only, fair countess, and your daughter, stay ;
With you I have some other thing to say.
[Exeunt, in all royalty, the Kino of England,
Queen Dorothea, and Lords.
[Aside.] So let them triumph that have cause to
joy:
But, wretched king, thy nuptial knot is death,
Thy bride the breeder of thy country's ill ;
For thy false heart dissenting from thy hand,
Misled by love, hath* made auother choice,
Another choice, even when thou vow'd'st thy soul
To Dorothea, England's choicest pride :
0, then thy wandering eyes bewitch' d thy heart!
Even in the chapel did thy fancy change,
When, perjur'd man, though fair Doll had thy
hand,
The Scottish Ida's beauty stale thy heart :
Yet fear and love have tied thy ready tongue
From blabbing forth the passions of thy mind,
'Lessf fearful silence have in subtle looks
Bewray 'd the treason of my new-vow'd love.
Be fair and lovely, Doll ; but here's the prize,
That lodgeth here, and enter'd through mine eyes :
Yet, howsoe'er I love, I must be wise. —
Now, lovely countess, what reward or grace
May I employ^ on you for this your zeal,
And humble honours, done us in our court,
In entertainment of the English king *?
Count, of A. It was of duty, prince, that I have
done;
And what in favour may content me most,
Is, that it please your grace to give me leave
For to return unto my country-home.
K. of Scots. But, lovely Ida, is your mind the
same?
Ida. I count of court, my lord, as wise men do,
'Tis fit for those that know what 'longs thereto :
Each person to his place ; the wise to art,
The cobbler to his clout, the swain to cart.
K. of Scots. But, Ida, you are fair, and beauty
shines,
And seemeth best, where pomp her pride refines.
Ida. If beauty, as I know there's none in me,
Were sworn my love, and I his life should be,
The farther from the court I were remov'd,
The more, I think, of heaven I were belov'd.
« hath] Tliolto. "hast."
t 'Lett] Thc4tf>. "Lest."
J employ] In my former edition I altered this word to
"impose"; but! have since met with several passages
in our early writers which forbid the alteration : e. g. ;
" Princes may pick their Buffering nobles out,
And one by one employ 'em to the block," &c.
FUlcher and 't Bloody Brother, Act iv. sc. 1. (where,
according to Mr. Collier in one of his notes ou Shake-
speare, "employ " is a misprint.)
K. of Scots. And why ?
Ida. Because the court is counted Venus' net,
Where gifts and vows for stales* are often set :
None, be she chaste as Vesta, but shall meet
A curious tongue to charm her ears with sweet.
K. of Scots. Why, Ida, then I see you set at
naught
The force of love.
Ida. In sooth, this is my thought,
Most gracious king, — that they that little prove,
Are mickle blest from bitter sweets of love.
And weel I wot, I heard a shepherd sing,
That, like a bee, Love hath a little sting :
He lurks in flowers, he percheth on the trees,
He on kings' pillows bends his pretty knees ;
The boy is blind, but when he will not spy,
He hath a leaden foot and wings to fly :
Beshrew me yet, for all these strange effects,
If I would like the lad that so infects.
A', of Scots, [aside] Rare wit, fair face, what
heart could more desire ?
But Doll is fair aud doth concern thee near :
Let Doll be fair, she is won ; but I must woo
And win fair Ida, there's some choice in two. —
But, Ida, thou art coy.
Ida. And why, dread king ?
K. of Scots. In that you will dispraise so sweet
a thing
As love. Had I my wish —
Ida. What then?
K. of Scots. Then would I place
His arrow here, his beauty in that face.
Ida. And were Apollo mov'd and rul'd by me,
His wisdom should be yours, and mine his tree.
K. of Scots. But here returns our train.
Re-enter Queen Dorothea and Lords.
Welcome, fair Doll :
How fares our father ? is he shipp'd aDd gone ?
Q. Dor. My royal father is both shipp'd and
gone :
God and fair winds direct him to his home !
K. of Scots. Amen, say I.— [Aside.] Would thou
wert with him too !
Then might I have a fitter time to woo. —
But, countess, you would be gone, therefore,
farewell, —
Yet, Ida, if thou wilt, stay thou behind
To accompany my queen :
But if thou liko the pleasures of the court, —
Or if she lik'd me, though she left the court, —
What should I say 1 I know not what to say. —
* stales] i. e. decoys.
SCEira I.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
191
You may depart: — and you, ray courteous
queen,
Leave me a space ; I have a weighty cause
To think upon : — Ida, it nips me near;
It came from thence, I feel it burning here.
[Exeunt all except the King ok Scots and Ateukim.
Now am I free from sight of common eye,
Where to myself I may disclose the grief
That hath too great a part in mine affects.
Ateu. [aside.'] And now is my time by wiles
and words to rise,
Greater than those that think themselves more
wise.
K. of Scots. And first, fond king, thy honour
doth engrave
Upon thy brows the drift of thy disgrace.
Thy new-vow'd love, in sight of God and men,
Links* thee to Dorothea during life;
For who more fair and virtuous than thy wife)
Deceitful murderer of a quiet mind,
Fond love, vile lust, that thus misleads us
men,
To vow our faiths, and fall to sin again !
But kings stoop not to every common thought :
Ida is fair and wise, fit for a king ;
And for fair Ida will I hazard life,
Venture my kingdom, country, and my crown :
Such fire hath love to burn a kingdom down.
Say Doll dislikes that I estrange my love ;
Am I obedient to a woman's look?
Nay, say her father frown when he shall hear
That I do hold fair Ida's love so dear ;
Let father frown and fret, aud fret and die,
Nor earth nor heaven shall part my love and I.
Yea, they shall part us, but we first must meet,
And woo aud win, and yet the world not see't.
Yea, there's the wound, and wounded with that
thought,
So let me die, for all my drift is naught.
Ateu. [coming forward.] Most gracious and
imperial majesty, —
[Aside.] A little + flattery more were but too
much.
K. of Scots. Villain, what art thou
That thus dar'st interrupt a prince's secrets?
Ateu. Dread king, thy vassal is a man of art,
Who knows, by constellation of the stars,
By oppositions and by dry aspects,
The things are past and those that are to come.
K. of Scots. But where's thy warrant to approach
my presence ?
* Li„k.^ The 4to. " Linke."
t A little, &c] This line the 4to. gives to the king.
see your grace a
Ateu. My zeal, aud ruth to
wrong,
Make me lament I did detract • so long.
K. of Scots. If thou know'st thoughts, tell me,
what mean I now ?
Ateu. I'll calculate the cause
Of those your highness' smiles, and tell your
thoughts.
K. of Scots. But lest thou spend thy time in
idleness,
And miss the matter that my mind aims at,
Tell me,
What star was opposite when that was thought?
[Strikes him on the ear.
Ateu. 'Tis inconvenient,t mighty potentate,
Whose looks resemble Jove in majesty,
To scorn the sooth of science with contempt.
I see in those imperial looks of yours
The whole discourse of love : Saturn combust,
With direful looks, at your nativity,
Beheld fair Venus in her silver orb :
I know, by certain axioms I have read,
Your grace's griefs, and further can express
Her name that holds you thus in fancy's bands.
K. of Scots. Thou talkest wonders.
Ateu. Naught but truth, king.
'Tis Ida is the mistress of your heart,
Whose youth must take impression of affects ;
For tender twigs will bow, and milder minds
Will yield to fancy, be they follow'd well.
K. of Scots. What god art thou, compos'd in
human shape,
Or bold Trophonius, to decide our doubts ?
How kuow'st thou this?
Ateu. Even as I know the means
To work your grace's freedom and your love.
Had I the mind, as many courtiers have,
To creep into your bosom for your coin,
And beg rewards for every cap and knee,
I then would say, " If that your grace would give
This lease, this manor, or this patent seal'd,
For this or that I would effect your love :"
But Ateukin is no parasite, prince.
I know your grace knows scholars are but poor;
And therefore, as I blush to beg a fee,
Your mightiness is so magnificent,
You cannot choose but cast some gift apart,
To ease my bashful need that cannot beg.
As for your love, O, might I be employ'd,
How faithfully would Ateukin compass it !
But princes rather trust a smoothing tongue,
Than men of art that can accept the time.
* detract] i.e. avoid, forbear.
f inconvenient] i. e. unbecoming, improper.
192
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT I.
K. of Scots. Ateukin, if so thy name, for so
thou say'st,
Thine art appears in entrance of my love ;
And since I deem thy wisdom match'd with truth,
I will exalt thee, and thyself alone
Shalt be the agent to dissolve my grief.
Sooth is, I love, and Ida is my love ;
But my new marriage nips me near, Ateukin,
For Dorothea may not brook th' abuse.
Ateu. These lets are but as motes against the
sun,
Yet not so great ; like dust before the wind,
Yet not so light. Tut, pacify your grace :
You have the sword and sceptre in your hand ;
You are the king, the state depends on you ;
Your will is law. Say that the case were mine :
Were she my sister whom your highness loves,
She should consent, for that our lives, our goods,
Depend on you ; and if your queen repine,
Although my nature cannot brook of blood,
And scholars grieve to hear of murderous deeds,
But if the lamb should let the lion's way,
By my advice the lamb should lose her life.
Thus am I bold to speak unto your grace,
Who am too base to kiss your royal feet,
For I am poor, nor have I land nor rent,
Nor countenance here in court, but for my love,
Your grace shall find none such within the realm.
K. of Scots. Wilt thou effect my love? shall
6he be mine ?
Ateu. I'll gather moly, crocus,* and the herbs
That heal the wounds of body and the mind ;
I'll set out charms and spells, naught f shall be
left
To tame the wanton if she shall rebel :
Give me but tokens of your highness' trust.
K. of Scots. Thou shalt have gold, honour, and
wealth enough ;
Win my love, J and I will make thee great.
Ateu. These words do make me rich, most
noble prince ;
I am more proud of them than any wealth.
Did not your grace suppose I flatter you,
Believe me, I would boldly publish this; —
Was never eye that saw a sweeter face,
Nor never ear that heard a deeper wit :
God. how I am ravish* d in your worth !
K. of Scots. Ateukin, follow me ; love must
have ease.
* mob/, crocus] Corrected by tho Rev J. Mitford, Gent.
Mag for Murch 1888, p. 217.— Tho lto. " Moly-rocu*. "
t naught] The 4to. "nought else."
} Win my love, &c] Qy. " Win thou my love," lie, or
" Win but my love," &<•. ?
Ateu. I'll kiss your highness' feet, march when
you please. [Exeunt.
SCENE II.
Enter Slipper, Nano, and Andrew, with their bills,
ready written, in their hands.
And. Stand back, sir ; mine shall stand highest.
Slip. Come under mine arm, sir, or get a foot-
stool ; or else, by the light of the moon, I must
come to it.
Nano. Agree, my masters ; every man to his
height : though I stand lowest, I hope to get the
best master.
And. Ere I will stoop to a thistle, I will change
turns ; as good luck comes on the right hand as
the left: here's for me, and me, and mine. [They
set up their bilk.] But tell me, fellows, till better
occasion come, do you seek masters ?
f p - 1 We do.
Nano. J
And. But what can you do worthy preferment?
Nano. Marry, I can smell a knave from a rat.
Slip. And I can lick a dish before a cat.
And. And I can find two fools unsought, — ■
how like you that ]
But, in earnest, now tell me of what trades are
you two ?
Slip. How mean you that, sir, of what trade ?
Marry, I'll tell you, I have many trades : the
honest trade when I needs must; the filching
trade when time serves ; the cozening trade as I
find occasion. And I have more qualities : I
cannot abide a full cup unkissed, a fat capon
uncarved, a full purse unpicked, nor a fool to
prove a justice as you do.
And Why, sot, why callest thou me fool ?
Nano. For examining wiser than thyself.
And. So do many more than I in Scotland.
Nano. Yea, those are such as have more autho-
rity than wit, and more wealth than honesty.
Slip. This is my little brother with the great
wit; 'ware him ! — But what canst thou do, tell
me, that art so inquisitive of us ?
And. Any thing that concerns a gentleman to
do, that can I do.
Slip. So you are of the gentle trade ?
And. True.
Slip. Then, gentle sir, leave us to ourselves,
for here comes one aa if he would lack a servant
ere he went. [Andrew stands aside.
SCENE II.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
193
Enter A teu kin.
Ateu. Why, so, Ateukin, this becomes thee best,
Wealth, houour, ease, and angels in thy chest :
Now may I say, as many often sing,
" No fishing to * the sea, nor service to a king."
Unto this high promotion t doth belong
Means to be talk'd of in the thickest throng.
And first, to fit the humours of my lord,
Sweet lays and lines of love I must record ;
And such sweet lines aud love-lays I'll indite,
As men may wish for, aud my liege J delight :
And next a train of gallants at my heels,
That men may say, the world doth run on wheels ;
For men of art, that rise by indirection
To honour and the favour of their king,
Must use all means to save what they have got,
Aud win their favours whom they§ never knew.
If any frown to see my fortunes such,
A man must bear a little, not too much.
But, in good time, these bills portend, I think,
That some good fellows do for service seek. [Reads.
If any gentleman, spiritual or temporal, will en-
tertain out of his service a young stripling of the age
of thirty years, that can sleep with the soundest,
eat with the hungriest, work with the sickest,\\ lie
with the loudest, face with the proudest, <L-c, that
can wait in a gentleman's chamber when his master
is a mile off, keep his stable when 'tis empty, and
his purse when 'tis full, and hath many qualities
worse than all these,— let him write his name and go
his way, and attendance shall be given.
By my faith, a good servant : which is he ?
Slip. Truly, sir, that am I.
Ateu. And why dost thou write such a bill?
are all these qualities in thee ?
Slip. Lord, ay, sir, aud a great many more,
some better, some worse, some richer, some
poorer. Why, sir, do you look so ? do they not
please you ?
A ieu. Truly, no, for they are naught, and so art
thou : if thou hast no better qualities, stand by.
Slip. 0, sir, I tell the worst first ; but, an you
lack a man, I am for you : I'll tell you the best
qualities I have.
Ateu. Be brief, then.
Slip. If you need me in your chamber, I can
keep the door at a whistle ; in your kitchen, turn
the spit, and lick the pan, and make the fire burn;
but if in the stable, —
Ateu. Yea, there would I use thee.
* to] i.e. compared with.
t promotion] The 4to. " promotions."
j liege] The 4 to. " leech." § th'y] The 4to. " he."
|| sickest] A friend conjectures " sickerest." — Qy.
stoutest"?
Slip. Why, there you kill me, there am I,* aud
turn me to a horse and a wench, and I have no
peer.
A teu. Art thou so good in keeping a horse ]
I pray thee tell me how many good qualities hath
a horse l
Slip. Why, so, sir : a horse hath two properties
of a man, that is, a proud heart and a hardy
stomach; four properties of a lion, a broad
breast, a stiff docket, — hold your nose, master, —
a wild countenance, and four good legs; nine
properties of a fox, nine of a hare, nine of an ass,
and teu of a woman.
Ateu. A woman ! why, what properties of a
woman hath a horse ?
Slip. 0, master, know you not that ? draw your
tables,f and write what wise I speak. Fkst, a
merry countenance; second, a soft pace; third, a
broad forehead; fourth, broad buttocks; fifth,
hard of ward ; sixth, easy to leap upon ; seventh,
good at long journey ; eighth, moving under a
man ; ninth, alway busy with the mouth ; tenth,
ever chewing on the bridle.
Ateu. Thou art a man for me : what's thy name?
Slip. An ancient name, sir, belonging to the
chamber and the night-gown : guess you that.
Ateu. What's that? Slipper?
Slip. By my faith, well guessed ; and so 'tis
indeed. You'll be my master 1
Ateu. I mean so.
Slip. Read this first.
Ateu. [reads.] Pleaseth it any gentleman to
entertain a servant of more wit than stature, let
them subscribe, and attendance shall be given.
What of this )
Slip. He is my brother, sir ; and we two were
born together, must serve together, aud will die
together, though we be both hanged.
Ateu. What's thy name!
Nano. Nano.
Ateu. The etymology of which word is a
dwarf. Art not thou the old stoic's son that
dwells in his tomb ?
** | We are.
Nano. )
Ateu. Thou art welcome to me. Wilt thou
give thyself wholly to be at my disposition ?
Nano. In all humility I submit myself.
t i
* am I, &c] A corrupted passage.— The Rev. J. Mit-
ford (Gent. Mag. for March, 1833, p. 217) suggests "am
I a per se, turn me to a horse and a wench, and 1 have no
peer."
t draw your tables] i. e. take out your memorandvoi-
book.
194
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT I.
Ateu. Then will I deck thee princely, instruct
thee courtly, and present thee to the queen as
my gift: art thou content?
Nano. Yes, and thank your honour too.
Slip. Then welcome, brother, and fellow now.
And. [coming forward.] May it please your
honour to abase your eye so low as to look
either on my bill or myself?
Ateu. What are you ?
And. By birth a gentleman; in profession a
scholar; and one that knew your honour in
Edinburgh, before your worthiness called you to
this reputation : by me, Andrew Snoord.
Ateu. Andrew, I remember thee : follow me,
and we will confer further, for my weighty affairs
for the king command me to be brief at this
time. — Come on, Nano. — Slipper, follow. [Exeunt.
SCENE III.
Enter Sir Bartram, with Eustace, and others, booted.
Sir Bar. But tell me, lovely Eustace, as thou
lov'st me,
Among the many pleasures we have pass'd,
Which is the rifest in thy memory,
To draw thee over to thine ancient friend ?
Eust. What makes Sir Bartram thus inquisitive?
Tell me, good knight, am I welcome or no ?
Sir Bar. By sweet Saint Andrew and may
sale * I swear,
As welcome is my honest Dick to me
As morning's sun, or as the watery moon
In merkest f night, when we the borders track.
I tell thee, Dick, thy sight hath clear'd my
thoughts
Of many baneful troubles that there woon'dj :
Welcome to § Sir Bartram as his life !
Tell me, bonny Dick, hast got a wife ?
Eust. A wife ! God shield, Sir Bartram, that
were ill,
To leave my wife and wander thus astray :
But time and good advice, ere many years,
May chance to make my fancy bend that way.
What news in Scotland ? therefore came I
hither,
To see your country .and to chat together.
* may sole] i. c. my boh], — the author thinking it neces-
sary to interlard the dialogue with Scottish forms of words.
f merkest] i. e. murkiest, darkest.
J woon'd] i. o. dwelt.
§ Welcome to, &c] Qy.
" As welcome to Sir Bartram as his lift .'
B\it teU me,'' Ac. ?
Sir Bar. Why, man, our couutry'3 blithe, our
king is well,
Our queen so-so, the nobles well and worse,
And weel are they that are* about the king,
But better are the country gentlemen :
And I may tell thee, Eustace, in our lives
We old men never saw so wondrous change.
But leave this trattle, and tell me what news
In lovely England with our honest friends ?
Eust. The king, the court, and all our noble
friends
Are well ; and God in mercy keep them so !
The northern lords and ladies hereabouts,
That know I comet to see your queen and court,
Commend them to my honest friend Sir Bartram,
And many others that I have not seen.
Amongst the rest, the Countess Elinor,
From Carlisle, where we merry oft have been,
Greets well my lord, and hath directed me
By message this fair lady's face to see.
[Sliows a portrait.
Sir Bar. I tell thee, Eustace, 'less X mine old
eyes daze,
This is our Scottish moon and evening's pride ;
This is the blemish of your English bride.
Who sail by her are sure of wind at will ;
Her face is dangerous, her sight is ill ;
And yet, in sooth, sweet Dick, it may be said,
The king hath folly, there's virtue in the maid.
Eust. But kuows my friend this portrait ? be
advis'd.
Sir Bar. Is it not Ida, the Countess of Arran's
daughter's?
Eust So was I told by Elinor of Carlisle :
But tell me, lovely Bartram, is the maid
Evil-inclin'd, misled, or concubine
Unto the king or any other lord ?
Sir Bar. Should I be brief and true, then thus,
my Dick.
All England's grounds yield not a blither lass,
Nor Europe can surpass § her for her gifts
Of virtue, honour, beauty, and the rest :
But our fond king, not knowing sin in lust,
Makes love by endless means and precious gifts ;
And men that see it dare not say't, my friend,
But we may wisli that it were otherwise.
But I rid || theo to view the picture still,
For by the person's sight H there hangs some ill.
* are] The 4to. "were."
1 come] The 4to. "came,"
1 'lets] Tho4to. "lest."
§ surpass] The 4 to. "art."
|| rid] i. e. rede, — advise (as before),
^1 sight] The 4to. "sights."
SC1SXB III.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
195
Eust. 0, good Sir Bartram,* you svispect I love
(Then were I mad) bert whom I Dover saw.
But howsoe'er, I fear not euticiugs ;
Desire will give uo place unto a king :
I'll see her whom the world admires so much,
That I may say with them, " There lives none
such." [with her ;
Sir Bar. Be gad, and sail + both see and talk
And when thou'st done, whate'er her beauty be,
I'll warrant thee her virtues may compare
With the proudest she that waits upon your queen.
Enter Servant.
Sew. My lady§ entreats your worship in to
supper.
Sir Bar. Guid, bonny Dick, my wife will tell
thee more :
Was never no man in her book before ;
Be gad, she's blithe, fair, lewely,|| bonny, fcc.f
[Exeunt.
Enter Bohan and Oberon after the first act ; to tliem a
round of Fairies, or some pretty dance.
Boh. Be gad, gramercies, little king, for this ;
This sport is better in my exile life
Than ever the deceitful werld could yield.
Ober. I tell thee, Bohan, Oberon is king
Of quiet, pleasure, profit, and content,
Of wealth, of honour, and of all the world ;
Tied to no place, yet all are tied to me.**
Live thou this life, ft exil'd from world and men,
And I will show thee wonders ere we part.
Boh. Then mark my story, XX and the strange
doubts §§
That follow flatterers, lust, and lawless will,
And then say I have reason to forsake
* 0, good Sir Bartram, &c.] The 4to. gives these six
lines to Sir Bartram.
t her] The 4to. " hee."
t Be gad, and sail] i. e. By God, and shalt.
§ My lady, <fcc.] The 4to. gives this line to Eustace, and
does not mark the entrance of the Servant.
|| lewely] i. e., I suppose, lovely. — The Rev. J. Mitford
(Gent. Mag. for March, 1833, p. 218), speaking of the pre-
sent passage, says ; " This word [lewely] we find in the old
romance of Havelok, ed. Madden, v. 2921 ;
' So the rose in roser,
Hwau it is fayr sprad ut newe
Ageyn the sunne, brith, and lewe '."
But was Mr. Mitford aware that in the lines just quoted
" lewe " means -warm f
IF &c] Was the player here to speak extempore what-
ever he chose? See note t, p. 105, sec. col.
** me] The 4to. "one."
tt this life] The 4to. " in this life."
tt story] The 4to. "stay."
§§ doubts] Qy. "debates" (in the sense of — strifes)?
Compare the last line but two of p. 206, sec. col.
The world and all that are witliin the same.
Go shroud us in our harbour, where we'll see
The pride * of folly, as it ought to be. [Exeunt.
After the first Act.
Ober. Here see I good fond actions in thy jig,
And means to paint the world's inconstant ways :
But turn thine ene, see what+ I can command.
Enter two battles, strongly fighting, the one led by Semiramis, J
the other by St abro bates § : she flies, and her crown it
taken, and she hurt.
Boh. What gars this din of mirk and baleful
harm,
Where every wean is all betaint with blood 1
Ober. This shows thee, Bohan, what is worldly
pomp :
Semiramis, the proud Assyrian queen,
When Ninus died, did levy || in her wars
Three millions of footmen to the fight,
Five hundred thousand horse, of armed cars
A hundred thousand more, yet in her pride
Was hurt and conquer'd by Stabrobates.
Then what is pomp 1
Boh. I see thou art thine ene,
Thou bonny king, if princes fall from high :
My fall is past, until I fall to die.
Now mark my talk, and prosecute my jig.
Ober. How should these crafts withdraw thee
from the world !
But look, my Bohan, pomp allureth.lf
Enter Cvrus, kings humbling themselves; himstlf croimed
by Olive Pat ** : at last dying, laid in a marble tomb
with this inscription :
"Whoso thou be that passest [by],
For I know one shall pass, know I
Am Cyrus of Persia,++ and I pray
Leave me not thus like a clod of clay
Wherewith my body is covered."
[All exeunt.
* pride] Qy. "prize" (i.e. reward)? — The whole of what
follows, till the beginning of the next act, is a mass of
confusion and corruption.
t what] The 4to. "which for."
t Semiramis] Here the 4to. "Simi Ranus", and after-
wards "Simeranus."
§ Stabrobates] Here the 4to. " Staurobates", and after-
wards "S. Taurobates."
|| levy] The4to. "tene."
IF allureth] A quadrisyllable: see Walker's Shakespeare's
Versification, &c, p. 146.
"* Olive Pat] I cannot even conjecture what the author
wrote here.
tt Am Cyrus of Persia, &e.] The 4to. ;
" I am Cirus of Persia,
And J prithee leaue me not thus," &c.
But all this is stark nonsense. See the inscription on the
tomb of Cyrus in Plutarch, Alex. 69.
o 2
19G
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT
Enter the King in great pomp, who reads it, and issueth,
crying " Ver meum."*
Boh. What ineaueth this ?
Ober. Cyrus of Persia,
Mighty in life, within a marble grave
Was laid to rot ; whom Alexander once
Beheld entomb'd, and weeping did confess,
Nothing in life could scape from wretchedness :
Why, then, boast men ?
Boh. What reck I, then, of life,
Who makef the grave my home, J the earth my
wife?
Ober. But mark me more.§
Boh. I can no more ; my patience will not warp
To see these flatterers || how they scorn and carp.
Ober. Turn but thy head.
Enter [f]our Kin^s carrying crowns, Ladies presenting
odours to Potentate *i enthroned, who suddenly is slain
by his Servants and thrust out ; and so they eat.
[Exeunt.
Boh* Sike is the werld ; but whilk is he I saw ?
Ober. Sesostris, who was conqueror of the world,
Slain at the last and stamp'd on by his slaves.
Boh. How blest are peur men, then, that know
their graves ! +
Now mark the sequel of my jig ;
An he weel meet ends. The mirk and sable night
Doth leave the peering morn to pry abroad ;
Thou nill me stay : hail, then, thou pride of kings !
I ken the world, and wot well worldly things.
Mark thou my jig, in mirkest terms that tells
The loath of sins and where corruption dwells.
Hail me ne mere with shows of guidly sights ;
My grave is mine, that rids me from despites ;
Accept my jig, guid king, and let me rest ;
The grave with guid men is a gay-built nest.
Ober. The rising sun doth call me hence away;
Thanks for thy jig, I may no longer stay :
But if my train did wake thee from thy rest,
So shall they sing thy lullaby to nest. [Exeunt.
ACT II.
SCENE I.
The Countess of Arran and Ida discovered in their
porch, sitting at work : a Servant attending.
A Song.**
Count, of A. Fair Ida, might you choose the
greatest good,
Midst all the world in blessings that abound,
Wherein, my daughter, should your liking be ?
Ida. Not in delights, or pomp, or majesty.
Count, of A. And why ?
Ida. Since these are means to draw the mind
From perfect good, and make true judgment
blind.
* " Ver meum"} The 4to. "vermeum": qy. if a mis-
print for "vermium", the first word of some Latin sen-
tence on the vanity of earthly grandeur?— "We think
with him [the editor of the present volume] that it is an
introduction to a moral reflection ; but that it is ' Ver
meum', my spring hath passed away, <fcc. The king
probably quoted the two first words of some moral sen-
tence, and Vermium was not likely to be the common
by-word." Jtcv. J. MUford,—OttU. Mag. for March 1833,
p. 217.
t male] The 'ito. "makes."
♦ home] The 4to. " tomb." Corrected by Mr. Collier,
Introd to Tin- Tunpr t. p. 11, Shtil.>. ....-,<•. ed. 1S5S.
§ But mark mt mort ] The 4to gives this to Botaaa.
J flatterers) The 4to. " flatteries."
«• Potentate] The 4 to. " Potentates."
' • A Song] In the printed cpies of our early plays the
'• Songs " mc frequently omitted.
Count, of A. Might you have wealth and For-
tune's richest store?
Ida. Yet would I, might I choose, be honest-
poor ;
For she that sits at Fortune's feet a-low
Is sure she shall not taste a further woe,
But those that prank on top of Fortune's ball
Still fear a change, and, fearing, catch a faiL
Count, of A. Tut, foolish maid, each one con-
temneth need.
Ida. Good reason why, they know not good
indeed.
Count, of A. Many, marry, then, on whom dis-
tress doth lour.
Ida. Yes, they that virtue deem an honest
dower.
Madam, by right this world I may compare
Unto my work, wherein with heedful care
The heavenly workman plants with curious hand,
As I with needle draw each thing on land,
Even as he list : some men like to the rose
Are fashion' d fresh; some in their stalks do close,
And, born, do sudden die : some are but weeds,
And yet from them a secret good proceeds :
* Boh.] Not in the 4to.
t graven] The 4to. "gr:uie.
SCENE 1.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
197
I with my needle, if I please, may blot
The fairest rose within my cambric plot;
God with a beck can change each worldly thing,
The poor to rich,* the beggar to the king.
What, then, hath man wherein he well may boast,
Since by a beck he lives, a lourt" is lost ]
Count, of A. Peace, Ida, here are strangers near
at hand.
Enter Eustace u-ith Utters.
East. Madam, God speed !
Count, of A. I thank you, gentle squire.
East. The country Countess of Northumberland
Doth greet you well, and hath requested me
To bring these letters to your ladyship.
[Delivers the letters.
Count, of A. I thank her honour, and yourself,
my friend. [Peruses them.
I see she means you good, brave gentleman. — ■
Daughter, the Lady Elinor salutes
Yourself as well as me : then for her sake
'Twero good you entertain'd that courtier well.
Ida. As much salute as may become my sex,
And he in virtue can vouchsafe to think,
I yield him for the courteous countess' sake. —
Good sir, sit down : my mother here and I
Count time misspent an endless vanity.
Eust. [aside.] Beyond report, the wit, the fair, J
the shape ! —
What work you here, fair mistress ? may I see it?
Ida. Good sir, look on : how like you this
compact)
Eust. Methinks in this I see true love in act :
The woodbines witli their leaves do sweetly spread,
The roses blushing prank them in their red ;
No flower but boasts the beauties of the spring ;
This bird hath life indeed, if it could sing.
What means, fair mistress, had you in this work ?
Ida. My needle, sir.
Eust. In needles, then, there lurk§
Some hidden grace, I deem, beyond my reach.
Ida. Not grace in them, good sir, but those
that teach.
Eust. Say that your needle now were Cupid's
sting —
[Aside.] But, ah, her eye must be no less,
In which is heaven and heavenliuess,
* rich] The4to. "earth."
t lour] i.e. frown. — The 4to. " louer." — The Rev. J.
Mitford (Gent. Mag. for March 1833, p. 217) strangely
enough would read "flower."
t .fair] i. e. be.iuty.
§ lurfc] The4to. "lurkes," — which destroys the rhyme.
The construction is—" I deem there lurk "—lurks.)
In which the food of God is shut,
Whose powers the purest minds do glut!
Ida. What if it were ?
Eust. Then see a wondrous thing ;
I fear me you would paint in Tereus' * heart
Affection in his power and chiefest part.f
Ida. Good Lord, sir, no! for hearts but pricked
soft
Are wounded sore, for so I hear it oft.
Eust. What recks the wound,! where but your
happy eye
May make him live whom Jove hath judg'd to die?
Ida. Should life and death within this needle
lurk,
I'll prick no hearts, I'll prick upon my work.
Count, of A. Peace, Ida, I perceive the fox at
hand.
Eust. The fox ! why, fetch your hounds, and
chase him hence.
Count, of A. 0, sir, these great men bark at
small offence.
Come,§ will it please you to enter, gentle sir?
[ They offer to go out.
Enter Ateckin and Slipper.
Ateu. Stay, courteous ladies; favour me eo
much
As to discourse a word or two apart.
Count, of A. Good sir, my daughter learns this
rule of me,
To shun resort and strangers' company ;
For some are shifting mates that carry letters,
Some, such as you, too good because our betters.
Slip. Now, I pray you, sir, what akin are you
to a pickerel ?||
Ateu. Why, knave?
Slip. By my troth, sir, because I never knew a
proper situation fellow of your pitch fitter to
swallow a gudgeon.
Ateu. What meauest thou by this ?
Slip. Shifting fellow, sir, — these be thy words;^[
shifting fellow : this gentlewoman, I fear me,
knew your bringing up.
Ateu. How so ?
Slip. Why, sir, your father was a miller, that
could shift for a peck of grist in a bushel, and
you['reJ a fair-spoken gentlemnn,that can get more
* Tereus'] The 4to. " Teneus."
t part] The4to. "parts."
J wound] The 4to. "second."
§ Covie. i'c] The 4to. gives to Atenkin this line; in
which "to " seems to be an interpolation.
|| pickerel] A small or young pike.
51 thy wo7-ds] i. e. the words which describe yon.
198
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT II.
land by a lie tbau an honest man by his ready
money.
A tea. Caitiff, what sayest thou ?
Slip. I say, sir, that if she call you shifting
kuave, you shall not put her to the proof.
A ten. And why ?
Slip. Because, sir, living by your wit as you
do, shifting is your letters-patents : * it were a
hard matter for me to get my dinner that day
wherein my master had not sold a dozen of
devices, a case of cogs, and a suit of shifts, in
the morning. I speak this in your commenda-
tion, sir, and, I pray you, so take it.
Attn. If I live, knave, I will be revenged.
What gentleman would entertain a rascal thus to
derogate from his honour ?
Ida. My lord, why are you thus impatient ?
Ateu. Not angry, Ida; but I teach this knave
How to behave himself among his betters. —
Behold, fair countess, to assure your stay,
I here present the signet of the king,
Who now by me, fair Ida, doth salute you :
And since in secret I have certain things
In his behalf, good madam, to impart,
I crave your daughter to discourse apart.
Count, of A. She shall in humble duty be
addrest t
To do his highness' will in what she may.
Ida. Now, gentle sir, what would his grace
with me?
Ateu. Fair, comely nymph, the beauty of your
face,
Sufficient to bewitch the heavenly powers,
Hath wrought so much in him that now of late
He finds himself made captive unto love ;
And though his power and majesty require
A straight command before an humble suit,
Yet he his mightiness doth so abase
As to entreat your favour, honest maid.
Ida. Is he not married, sir, unto our queen ?
Ateu. He is.
Ida. And are not they by God accurs'd,
That sever them whom he hath knit in one ?
Ateu. They be: what then? we seek not to
displace
The princess from her seat, but, since by love
The king is made your own, he J is resolv'd
* letters-patents] Such was the phraseology of the time
(not, as we now Kay, 'letters /mtrnt "). So in Shakespeare's
Henry viii, act iii. sc. 2., "Tied it by letters -patents '' ; and
in his Richard ii, act 2. sc. 1., " Call in the letters-patents,"
&c.
t a/idrest] i. e. prepared, roady.
t he] The4to. "shee."
In private to accept your dalliance,
In spite of war, watch,* or worldly eye.
Ida. 0, how he talks, as if he should not die !
As if that God in justice once could wink
Upon that fault I am asham'd to think !
Ateu. Tut, mistress, man at first was born to err ;
Women are all not formed to be saints :
'Tis impious for to kill our native king,
Whom by a little favour we may save.
Ida. Better, than live unchaste, to lie t iu
grave.
Ateu. He shall erect your state, and wed you
well.
Ida. But can his warrant keep my soul from
hell?
Ateu. He will enforce, if you resist his suit.
Ida. What tho + ? the world may shame to him
To be a king of men and worldly pelf, [account,
Yet hath § no power to rule and guide himself.
Ateu. I know you, gentle lady, and the care
Both of your honour and his grace's health
Makes me confused in this dangerous state.
Ida. So counsel him, but soothe thou not his sin :
'Tis vain allurement that doth make him love :
I shame to hear, be you asham'd to move.
Count, of A. I see my daughter grows im-
patient :
I fear me, he pretends || some bad intent.
Ateu. Will you despise the king and scorn
him so?
Ida. In all allegiance I will serve his grace,
But not in lust : 0, how I blush to name it !
Ateu. [aside.'] An endless work is this : how
shoidd I frame it ? [They discourse privately .
Slip. 0, mistress, may I turn a word upon you ?
Count, of A."H Friend, what wilt thou ?
Sliji. O, what a happy gentlewoman be you
truly ! the world reports this of you, mistress,
that a man can no sooner come to your house
but the butler comes with a black-jack and says,
" Welcome, friend, here's a cup of the best for
you " : verily, mistress, you are said to have the
best ale in all Scotland.
Count, of A. Sirrah, go fetch him drink.
[Servant brings drink.
How lik'st thou this ?
Slip. Like it, mistress ! why, this is quincy
quarie pepper de watchet, single goby, of all that
* watch] Qy. "or u-atch"t
t lie] The4to "Hue."
J tho] i. e. then.
§ Yet. hath, &c] The 4to. gives this lino to Ateukin, and
reads " Yet hath to power no rule." &c.
|| pretends] See note t, P- 130, first col.
11 Count, of A.] The 4to. "Ateu."
SCENE II.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
199
ever I tasted. I'll prove in this ale and toast the
compass of the whole world. First, this is the
earth, — it lies* in the middle, a fair brown toast,
a goodly country for hungry teeth to dwell upon ;
next, this is the sea, a fair pool for a dry tongue
to fish in : now come I, and seeing the world is
naught, I divide it thus ; and because the sea
cannot stand without the earth, as Aristotle
sait.li, I put them both into their first chaos,
which is my belly : aud so, mistress, you may
see your ale is become a miracle.
East. A merry mate, madam, I promise you.
Count, of A. Why sigh you, sirrah ]
Slip. Truly, madam, to think upon the world,
which, since I denounced it, keeps such a
rumbling in my stomach that, unless your cook
give it a counterbuff with some of your roasted
capons or beef, I fear me I shall become a loose
body, so dainty, I think, I shall neither hold fast
before nor behind.
Count, of A. Go take him in, and feast this
merry swain. —
Sirrah, my cook is your physician;
He hath a purge for to digest + the world.
[Exeunt Slipper and Servant.
Ateu. Will you not, Ida, grant his highness
this?
Ida. As I have said, in duty I am his :
For other lawless lusts that ill beseem him,
I cannot like, and good I will not deem him.+
Count, of A. Ida, come in : — and, sir, if so you
pk-ase,
Come, take a homely widow's entertain.
Ida. If he have no great haste, he may come
nigh;
If haste, though he be gone, I will not cry.
[Exeunt (he Countess of Arran, Ida, and Eustace.
Atcu. I see this labour lost, my hope in vain ;
Yet will I try another drift again. [Exit.
SCENE II.
Enter, one by one, the Bishop of St. Andrews, Douglas,
Morton, and others, one way; Queen Dorothea v;ith
Nano,§ another way.
Bp. of St. And. [aside.] wreck of common-
weal, wretched state !
* lies] The4to. "ties."
t digest] The 4to. " disiest ", — a spelling which (as well
as " disgest") occurs frequently in our old writers.
t him] Qy. '"em?"
§ Nano] The 4to. "Dwarfes": but there is only one
3Uch diminutive person in the play, — Nano, whom Ateu-
kin has presented to the Queen : see first speech, p. 194,
first col.
Doug, [aside.] O hapless flock whereas * the
guide is blind !
Mort.[aside.] heedless youth where counsel
is despis'd ! [They all are in a muse.
Q. Dor. Come, pretty knave, aud prank it by
my side ;
Let's see your hest attendance out of hand.
Nano. Madam, although my limbs are very
small,
My heart is good; I'll serve you therewithal.
Q. Dor. How, if I were assail'd, what couldst
thou do ?
Nano. Madam, call help, and boldly fight it
Although a bee be but a little thing, [too :
You know, fair queen, it hath a bitter sting.
Q. Dor .How couldst thou do me good, were I
in grief?
Nano. Counsel, dear princess, is a choice
relief :
Though Nestor wanted force, great was his wit,
And though I am but weak, my words are fit.
Bp. of St. And. [aside.] Like to a ship upon the
ocean-seas,
Tost in the doubtful stream, without a helm,
Such is a monarch without good advice.
I am o'erheard: cast rein upon thy tongue ;
Andrews, beware ; reproof will breed a scar.
Mor. Good day, my lord.
Bp. of St. And. Lord Morton, well y-met. —
Whereon deems t Lord Douglas all this while]
Doug. Of that which yours and my poor heart
doth break,
Although fear shuts our mouths, we dare not
speak.
Q. Dor. [aside.] What mean these princes sadly
to consult ?
Somewhat, I fear, betideth them amiss,.
They are so pale in looks, so vex'd in mind. —
In happy hour, ye X noble Scottish peers,
Have I encouuter'd you : what makes you mourn ?
Bp. of St. And. If we with patience may at-
tention § gain,
Your grace shall know the cause of all our
grief.
Q. Dor. Speak on, good father ; come and sit
by me :
I know thy care is for the common good.
Bp. of St. And. As fortune, mighty princess,
reareth some
To high estate aud place in commonweal,
* whereas] i. e. where.
t deems] Qy. "dreams"?
J ye] The4to. "the."
§ attention] The 4to. " attcntiue."
200
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT II.
So by divine bequest to them is lent
A riper judgment and more searching eye,
Whereby they may discern the common barm ;
For where our fortunes* in the world are most,
Where all our profits rise and still encrease,
There is our mind, thereon we meditate,
And what we do partake of good advice,
That we employ for to concern the same.
To this intent, these nobles and myself,
That are, or should be, eyes of commonweal,
Seeing his highness' reckless course of youth,
His lawless and unbridled vein in love,
His too intentive trust to flatterers,
His abject care of couusel and his friends,
Cannot but grieve ; and since we cannot draw
His eye or judgment to discern his faults,
Since we have spoke t and counsel is not heard,
I, for my part, — let others as they list, —
Will leave the court, and leave him to his will,
Lest with a ruthful eye I should behold
His overthrow, which, sore I fear, is nigh, [love,
Q, Dor. Ah father, are you so estrang'd from
From due allegiance to your prince and land,
To leave your king when most he needs your
The thrifty husbandmen are never wont, [help ?
That see their lands unfruitful, to forsake them ;
But when the mould is barren and unapt,
They toil, they plough, and make the fallow fat :
The pilot in the dangerous seas is known ;
In calmer waves the silly sailor strives.
Are you not members, lords, of commonweal,
And can your head, your dear anointed king,
Default, ye lords, except yourselves do fail )
0, stay your steps, return, and counsel him !
Doug. Men seek not moss upon a rolling stone,
Or water from the sieve, or fire from ice,
Or comfort from a reckless monarch's hands.
Madam, he sets us light that serv'd in court,
In place of credit, in his father's days :
If we but enter presence of his grace,
Our payment is a frown, a scoff, a frump ; %
Whilst flattering Guatho § pranks it by bis side,
Soothing the careless king in his misdeeds :
And if your grace consider your estate,
His life should urge you too, if all be true.
Q, Dor. Why, Douglas, why 1
Dowj- As if you have not heard
* our fortune*] Mr. Collier's conjecture, Introd. to the
Tempest, p. 11, Shakespeare, ed. 1858. — The 4to. "impor-
tunes."
t spoke] The 4to. "spake."
} frump] i. e. flout.
§ Gnatho] i.e. Ateukin : — our author appears to have
wavered between those two name* ; see post. {Gnatho is
the parasite iu the Bunurhu? of Terence.)
His lawless love to Ida grown of late,
His careless estimate of your estate.
Q. Dor. Ah Douglas, thou misconstru'st * his
intent !
He doth but tempt his wife, he tries my love :
This injury pertains to me, not you.T
The king is young ; and if he step awry,
He may amend, and I will love him still.
Should we disdain our vines because they sprout
Before their time ? or young men, if they strain
Beyond their reach 1 No j vines that bloom and
spread
Do promise fruits, and young men that are wild
In age grow wise. My friends and Scottish peers,
If that an English princess may prevail,
Stay, stay with him : lo, how my zealous prayer
Is plead with tears ! fie, peers, will you hence ?
Bp. of St. And. Madam, 'tis virtue in your
grace to plead ;
But we, that see his vain untoward course,
Cannot but fly the fire before it burn,
And shun the court before we see his fall.
Q. Dor. Will you not stay 1 then, lordings, fare
you well.
Though you forsake your king, the heavens, I
hope,
Will favour him through mine incessant prayer.
Nano. Content you, madam ; thus old Ovid
sings,
'Tis foolish to bewail recureless J things.
Q. Dor. Peace, dwarf ;§ these words my patience
move.
Nano. Although you charm my speech, charm
not my love.
[Exeunt Queen and Nano.
Enter the King of Scots ; the Nobles ||, spying him as
they are about to go off, return.
K. of Scots. Douglas, how now ! why changest
thou thy cheer?
* misconstru'st] The 4to. " miseonstrest ", — our early
authors frequently writing conster and misconster : but
they arc seldom consistent, writing in other places con-
strue and misconstrue ; compare, in the present play, p,
189, sec col.
" Thy virtues shall be construed to vice " ;
and, in Pandodo, as cited in the Account of Greene and his
Writings, p. 41, "He then began to measure all their
actions, and to misconstrue of their too priuate familiari-
tie," &c.
t not you] The 4to. "not to you."
J recureless] i.e. irrecovorable.
§ dwa,rf\ An epithet belonging to this word would
seom to have dropt out.
|| Enter the King of Scots; the Nobles. &c.J The 4to.
"Enter the King of Scots, Arius, the nobles spying him,
returnee."
SCENE II.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
201
1
my
Doug. My private troubles are so great,
liege,
As I must crave your license for a while,
For to intend mine own affairs at Lome.
K. of Scots. You may depart. [Exit Douglas.
But why is Morton s.id]
Mar. The like occasion doth import me too,
So I desire your grace to give me leave.
K. of Scots. Well, sir, you may betake you to
your ease. [Exit Morton.
[Aside.] When such grim sirs are gone, I see no let
To work my will.
Bp. of St. And* What, like the eagle, then,
With often flight wilt thou thy feathers lose ?
king, canst thou endure to see thy court
Of finest wits and judgments dispossess'd,
Whilst cloaking craft with soothing climbs so
As each bewails ambition is so bad ? [high
Thy father left thee with estate and crown,
A learned council to direct thy course f:
These carelessly, king, thou castest off
To entertain a train of sycophants.
Thou well mayst see, although thou wilt not see,
That every eye and ear both sees and hears
The certain signs of thine incontinence.
Thou art allied unto the English king
By marriage ; a happy friend indeed,
If used well, if not, a mighty foe.
Thinketh your grace, he can endure and brook
To have a partner in his daughter's love ?
Thinketh your grace, the grudge of privy wrongs
Will not procure him change his smiles to threats?
0, be not blind to good ! call home your lords,
Displace these flattering Gnathoes, drive them
hence ;
Love and with kindness take your wedlock wife ;
Or else, which God forbid, I fear a change :
Sin cannot thrive in courts without a plague.
K. of Scots. Go pack thou too, unless thou
mend thy talk :
On pain of death, proud bishop, get you gone,
Unless you headless mean to hop away.
Bp. of St And.% Thou God of heaven prevent
my country's fall ! [Exit with other Nobles.
K. of Scots. These stays and lets to pleasure
plague my thoughts,
Forcing my grievous wounds anew to bleed :
But care that hath transported me so far,
Fair Ida, is dispers'd in thought of thee,
* Bp. of St. And.] The 4to. " 8. Atten." ; but it is plain,
from the King's reply, that the Bishop of St. Andrews is
the speaker.
t course] The4to. "court."
t Bp of St. And.] The 4to. "8. Atten."
Whose answer yields me life or breeds my death.
Yond comes the messenger of weal or woe.
Enter Ateukin.*
Ateukin, what news ?
Ateu. The adamant, king, will not be fil'd
But by itself, and beauty that exceeds
By some exceeding favour must be wrought.
Ida is coy as yet, and doth repine,
Objecting marriage, honour, fear, and death :
She's holy-wise and too precise for me.
K. of Scots. Are these thy fruits of wit,t thy
sight in art,
Thine eloquence, thy policy, thy drift,—
To mock thy prince? Then, caitiff, pack thee hence,
And let me die devoured in my love.
Ateu. Good Lord, how rage gainsayeth reason's
power !
My dear, my gracious, and beloved prince,
The essence of my soul +, my god on earth,
Sit down and rest yourself: appease your wrath,
Lest with a frown ye wound me to the death.
O, that I were included in my grave,
That either now, to save my prince's life,
Must counsel cruelty, or lose my king !
K. of Scots. Why, sirrah, is there means to
move her mind ?
Ateu. 0, should I not offend my royal liege, —
K. of Scots. Tell all, spare naught, so I may
gain my love.
Ateu. Alas, my soul, why art thou torn in twain,
For fear thou talk a thing that should displease !
K. of Scots. Tut, speak whatso thou wilt, I
pardon thee.
Ateu. How kind a word, how courteous is his
grace
Who would not die to succour such a king]
My liege, this lovely maid of modest mind
Could well incline to love, but that she fears
Fair Dorothea's power : your grace doth know,
Your wedlock is a mighty let to love.
Were Ida sure to be your wedded wife, [maud :
That then the twig would bow you might com-
Ladies love presents, pomp, and high estate.
K. of Scots. Ah Ateukin, how should we dis-
place § this let?
Ateu. Tut, mighty prince,— 0, that I might be
whist ! II
* Ateukin] The 4to. "Gnato." See note §, p. 200, first
col.
t wit] The4to. "wits."
t soul] The4to. "sute."— Corrected by Mr. Collier, In-
trod. to The Tempest, p. 11, Shakespeare, ed. 1853.
§ displace] The 4to. "display."
|| whist] i. e. silent.
202
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT III.
K. of Scots. Why dalliest thcu ?
Ateu. I will not move my prince ;
I will prefer his safety 'fore my life.
Hear me, O king ! 'tis Dorothea's death
Mus*; do you good.
K. of Scots. What, murder of my queen !
Yet, to enjoy my love, what is my queen ?
0, but my vow and promise to my queen !
Ay, but my hope to gain a fairer queen :
With how contrarious thoughts am I withdrawn !
Why linger I twixt hope and doubtful fear?
If Dorothea die, will Ida love ?
Ateu. She will, my lord.
K. of Scots. Then let her die : devise, advise
the means ;
All likes me well that lends me hope in love.
Ateu. What, will your grace consent? then let
me work.
There's here in court a Frenchman, Jaques call'd,
A fit performer of our enterprise,
Whom I by gifts and promise will corrupt
To slay the queen, so that your grace will seal
A warrant for the man, to save his life.
K. of Scots. Naught shall he want; write thou,
and I will sign :
And, gentle Gnatho,* if my Ida yield,
Thou shalt have what thou wilt; I'll give thee
straight
A barony, an earldom for reward.
Ateu. Frolic, young king, the lass shall be your
own
I'll make her blithe and wanton by my wit.
[Exeunt.
Enter Bohan with Oberon.
Boh. So, Oberon,now it begius* to work in kind.
The ancient lords by leaving him alone, +
Disliking of his humours and despite,^
Let him run headlong, till his flatterers,
Soliciting § his thoughts of lawless || lust
With vile persuasions and alluring words,
Make him make way by murder to his will.
Judge, fairy king, hast heard a greater ill ?
Ober. Nor seen II more virtue in a country maid.
I tell thee, Bohan, it doth make me sorry,**
To thiuk the deeds the king means to perform.
Boh. To change that humour, stand and see
the rest :
I trow my son Slipper will show 's a jest.
Enter Slipper with a companion, boy or wench, dancing
a hornpipe, and dance out again.
Now after this beguiling of our thoughts,
And changing them from sad to better glee,
Let's to our cell, and sit and see the rest,
For, I believe, this jig will prove no jest.
[Exeunt.
ACT III.
SCENE I.
Enter Slipper one way, and Sir Bartram another way.
Sir Bar. Ho, fellow ! Btay, and let me speak
with thee.
Slip. Fellow ! friend, thou dost abuse f me;
I am a gentleman.
Sir Bar. A gentleman ! how so ?
Slip. Why, I rub horses, sir.
Sir Bar. And what of that ?
Slip. simple-witted ! mark my reason. They
that do good service in the commonweal are
gentlemen ; but such as rub horses do good
service in the commonweal, ergo, tarbox, master
courtier, a horse-keeper is a gentleman.
Sir Bar. Here is overmuch wit, in good earnest.
But, sirrah, where is thy master 1 ?
Slip. Neither above ground nor under ground,
* Gnatho) Sec note §, p. 200, first col.
t abuse] The 4to. " disbuac."
drawing out red into white, swallowing that down
without chawing that was never made without
treading.
Sir Bar. Why, where is he, then ?
Slip. Why, in his cellar, drinking a cup of neat
and brisk claret in a bowl of silver. O, sir, the
wine runs trillill down his throat, which cost the
* begins] Qy. "gins"?
t alone] The 4to. "aliue."
J despite] The 4to. "respight."
§ Soliciting] The excellent correction of Walker, Crit.
Exam, of the text of Shakespeare, <Src, ii. 349: "read", lie
says, " Soliciting (in the old Latin sense, as frequent in
the writers of that age)." — The 4to. "Sweeting;" which
Mr. Collier (Preface to Coleridge's Seven Lectures on Sltake-
speare and Milton, &c, p. cxvi.) "has no doubt" is a
misprint for "Suiting."
|| lawless] Mr. Collier's correction, ubi supra. — The 4to.
"lucklesse."
1[ seen] The 4 to. "send."
** sorry] The 4to. "mcrie."
SCENE II.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
203
poor vintner many a stamp before it was made.
But I must hence, sir, I bare baste.
Sir Bar. Why, whither now, I pritbee ?
Slip. Faith, sir, to Sir Silvester, a knight, bard
by, upon my master's errand, wbom I must cer-
tify tbis, tbat tbe lease of East Spring shall be
confirmed : and therefore must I bid him provide
trash, for my master is no friend without money.
Sir Bar. [aside.] This is the thing for which I
su'd so long,
Tbis is the lease which I, by Gnatbo's* means,
Sought to possess by patent from tbe king ;
But he, injurious man, who lives by crafts,
And sells king's favours for who will give most,
Hath taken bribes of me, yet covertly
Will sell away the thing pertains to me :
But I have found a present help, I hope,
For to prevent his purpose and deceit. —
Stay, gentle friend.
Slij). A good word ; thou hast won me : this
word is like a warm caudle t to a cold stomach.
Sir Bar. Sirrah, wilt thou, for money and
reward,
Convey me certain letters, out of hand,
From out thy master's pocket ?
Slij). Will I, sir? why, were it to rob my father,
bang my mother, or any such like trifles, I am at
your commandment, sir. What will you give me,
sir?
Sir Bar. A hundred pounds.
Slip. I am your man : give me earnest. I am
dead at a pocket, sir; why, I am a lifter, master,
by my occupation.
Sir Bar. A lifter ! what is that ?
Slip. Why, sir, I can lift a pot as well as any
man, and pick a purse as soon as any thief in
my country.
Sir Bar. Wby, fellow, hold ; here is earnest,
ten pound to assure thee. [Gives money.] Go,
despatch, and bring it me to yonder tavern thou
seest ; and assure thyself, thou shalt both have
thy skin full of wine and the rest of thy money.
Slip. I will, sir. — Now room for a gentleman,
my masters ! who gives me money for a fair new
angel, a trim new angel ? [Exeunt severally.
SCENE II.
Enter Andrew and Purveyor.
Pur. Sirrah, I must needs have your master's
horses : the king cannot be unserved.
* Gnatho's] See note §, p. COO, first col.
t caudle'] The 4to. "caudle."
And. Sirrah, you must needs go without them,
because my master must be served.
Pur. Why, I am the king's purveyor, and I
tell thee I will have them.
And. I am Ateukin's servant, Signior Andrew,
and I say, thou shalt not have them.
Pur. Here's my ticket, deny it if thou
darest.
And. There is the stable, fetch them out if
thou darest.
Pur. Sirrah, sirrah, tame your tongue, lest I
make you.
A nd. Sirrah, sirrah, hold your hand, lest I bum *
you.
Pur. I tell thee, thy master's geldings are
good, and therefore fit for the king.
And. I tell thee, my master's horses have
galled backs, and therefore cannot fit the king.
Purveyor, purveyor, purvey thee of more wit :
darest thou presume to wrong my Lord Ateukin,
being the chiefest man in court ?
Pur. The more unhappy commonweal where
flatterers are chief in court.
And. What sayest thou?
Pur. I say thou art too presumptuous, and tbe
officers shall school thee.
And. A fig for them and thee, purveyor! they
seek a knot in a ring that would wrong my
master or bis servants in this court.
Enter Jaques.
Pur. Tbe world is at a wise pass when nobility
is afraid of a flatterer.
Jaq. Sirrah, what be you tbat parley contrc
Monsieur my Lord Ateukin ? en bonne foi, prate
you against Sir Altesse, me maka your tete to leap
from your shoulders, par ma foi c'y ferai-je.
And. 0, signior captain, you show yourself a
forward and friendly gentleman in my master's
behalf: I will cause him to thank you.
Jaq. Poltron, speak me one parola against my
bon gentil/iomme, I shall estramp your guts, and
thump your backa, tbat you no point manage this
ten ours.
Pur. Sirrah, come open me the stable, and let
me have the horses : — and, fellow, for all your
French brags, I will do my duty.
And. I'll make garters of thy guts, thou villain,
if thou enter this office.
Jaq. Mort Dieu, take me tbat cappa pour votre
labeur: be gone, villain, in the mort. [Exit.
Pur. What, will you resist me, then ? well, the
council, fellow, shall know of your insolency.
* bum] i.e. strike, beat.
204
JAMES THE FOURTH.
act rn.
And. Tell theni what thou wilt, and eat that I
can best spare from my back-parts, and get you
gone with a vengeance. [Exit Purveyor.
Enter Ateukin.*
Ateu. Andrew.
And. Sir)
Ateu. Where be my writings I put in my
pocket last night ?
And. Which, sir? your annotations upon Ma-
chiavel ?
Ateu. No, sir; the letters-patents + for East
Spring.
And. Why, sir, you talk wonders to me, if you
ask that question.
Ateu Yea, sir, and will work wonders too
with £ you, unless you find them out : villain,
search me them out, and bring them me, or thou
art but dead.
And. A terrible word in the latter end of a
sessions. Master, were you in your right wits
yesternight ?
Ateu. Dost thou doubt it ?
And. Ay, and why not, sir? for the greatest
clerks are not the wisest, and a fool may dance
in a hood, as well as a wise man in a bare frock :
besides, such as give themselves to pbilautia,§ as
you do, master, are so choleric of complexion
that that which they burn in fire over night
they seek for with fury the next morning. Ah,
I take care of your worship ! this commonweal
should have a great loss of so good a member as
you are.
Ateu. Thou fiatterest me.
And. Is it flattery in me, sir, to speak you
fair? what is it, then, iu you to daily with the
king?
Ateu. Are you prating, knave? I will teach
you better nurture. Is this the care you have
of my wardrobe, of my accounts, and matters of
trust?
And. Why, alas, sir, in times past your gar-
ments have been so well inhabited as your
tenants would give no place to a moth to mangle
them; but since you are grown greater, and your
garments more fine and gay, if your garments
are not fit for hospitality, blame your pride and
" Jlcuttn] The 4to. "Gnato." See noto §, p. 200, first
col.
t htters-vatents] See note *, p. 108, first col.
} with] Tho -I to. "which."
§ philautia] i. o. <pi\a.vria., self-love — The 4to. " Plu-
lantia." — Corrected by Mr. Collier, rrcfaco to Coleri<i<"'s
Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, p. exvii.
commend my cleanliness : as for your writings, I
am not for them, nor they for me.
Ateu. Villain, go fly, find them out : if thou
losest them, thou losest my credit.
And. Alas, sir, can I lose that you never had?
Ateu. Say you so? then hold, feel you that you
never felt. [Beats him.
He-enter Jaques.
Jaq. monsieur, ayez 'patience; pardon your
pauvre valet : me be at your commandment.
Ateu. Siguior Jaques, well met; you shall
command me. — Sirrah, go cause my writings be
proclaimed in the market-place; promise a great
reward to them that find them : look where I
supped and everywhere.
And. I will, sir. — Now are two knaves well
met, and three well parted : if you conceive
mine enigma, gentlemen,* what shall I be, then ?
faith, a plain harp-shilling.f [Exit.
Ateu. Sieur Jaques, this our happy meeting
hinders J
Your friends and me of care and grievous toil ;
For I that look into deserts of men,
And see among the soldiers iu this court
A noble forward mind, and judge thereof,
Cannot but seek the means to raise them up
Who merit credit in the commonweal.
To this intent, friend Jaques, I have found
A means to make you great, and well-esteem'd
Both with the king and with the best iu court;
For I espy in you a valiant mind,
Which makes me love, admire, and honour you.
To this intent, if so your trust, and faith,
Your secrecy be equal with your force,
I will impart a service to thyself,
Which if thou dost effect, the king, myself,
And what or he, and I with him, can work,
Shall be employ'd in what thou wilt desire.
Jaq. Me sweara by my ten bones, my signior,
to be loyal to your lordship's intents, affairs :
* gentlemen] So, again, in the next act, the same
speaker, when alone on the stage, says, "is not this a wily
accord, gentlemen f" nor would it be difficult to cite pas-
sages from various early dramas, in which, with similar
impropriety, the audience is addressed.
t harp-thill ing] So culled from having a harp on it, was
coined for tho use of Ireland, and was not worth more
than nine-pence EDglish money:
" Lyko to an other Orpheus can she play
Vpon her treble harpe, whose siluer sound
Inchaunts the caro, and stealcs the hart away ;
Nor hardly can di ceit therein be found.
Although such musique some a shilling eo>t,
Yet is it worth but nine-pence at the most."
Barnfield's Eneoniiou of the Lady Pecunia,-li>9&, Sig. C 2.
I hinders] The 4 to. "hides."
SCENE III.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
205
yea, my monsdgneur, que non ferai-je pour your
pleasure? * By my sworda, me be no babillard.f
Ateu. Then hoping ou thy truth, I prithee see
How kind Ateukin is to forward thee.+
Hold, \giving money'] take this earnest-penny of
my love,
And mark my words ; the king, by mo, requires
No slender service, Jaques, at thy hands.
Thou must by privy practice make away
The queen, fair Dorothea, as she sleeps,
Or how thou wilt, so she be done to death :
Thou shalt not want promotion here in court.
Jaq. Stabba the woman ! par ma foi, monsdg-
neur, me thrusta my weapon into her belly, so
me may be guard par le roi. Me de your
service : but me no be hanged pour my labour]
Ateu. Thou shalt have warrant, Jaques, from
the king :
None shall outface, gainsay, and wrong my
friend.
Do not I love thee, Jaques ? fear not, then :
I tell thee, whoso toucheth thee in aught
Shall injure me : I love, I tender thee :
Thou art a subject fit to serve his grace.
Jaques, I had a written warrant once,
But that by great misfortune late is lost.
Come, wend we to Saint Andrews, where his
grace
Is now in progress, where he shall assure
Thy safety, and confirm thee to the act.
Jaq. We will attend your nobleness. [Exeunt.
SCENE III.
Enter Qdeen Dorothea, Sir Bartram, Nano, Ross,
Ladies, Attendants.
Q. Dor. Thy credit, Bartram, in the Scottish
court,
Thy reverend years, the strictness of thy vows,
All these are means sufficient to persuade;
But love, the faithful link of loyal hearts,
That hath possession of my constant mind,
Exiles all dread, subdueth vain suspect.
Methinks no craft should harbour in that breast
Where majesty and virtue are install'd :
Methink[s] my beauty should not cause my death.
Sir Bar. How gladly, sovereign princess, would
I err,
* yea, my monseigneur, que non ferai-je -pour your plea-
sure ?] The 4to. " ye my monsign ieur, qui non fera ic pour.
Yea pleasure ? "
t babillard] The 4to. " babie Lords."
} the.e\ The4to. "mce."
And bind * my shame to save your royal life!
'Tis princely in yourself to think the bet,
To hope his grace is guiltless of this crime :
But if in due prevention you default,
How blind are you that were forewarn'd before !
Q. Dor. Suspicion without cause deserveth
blame.
Sir Bar. Who see, and shun not, harms, deserve
the same.
Behold the tenor of this traitorous plot.
[Gives warrant.
Q. Dor. What should I read? perhaps he wrote
it not. [sign,
Sir Bar. Here is his warrant, under seal and
To Jaques, born in France, to murder you.
Q. Dor. Ah careless king, would God this were
not thine !
What though I read? ah, should I think it true?
Ross. The hand and seal confirm the deed is his.
Q. Dor. What know I though, if now he think-
eth this ?
Nano. Madam, Lucretius saith that to repent
Is childish, wisdom to prevent.
Q. Dor. What tho ? +
Nano. Then cease your tears that have dis-
may'd you,
And cross the foe before he have betray'd you.
Sir Bar. What need thesej long suggestions in
this cause,
When every circumstance confirmeth truth ?
First, let the hidden mercy from above
Confirm your grace, since by a wondrous means
The practice of your dangers came to light :
Next, let the tokens of approved truth
Govern and stay your thoughts too much sedue'd,
And mark the sooth and listen the intent.
Your highness knows, and these my noble lords
Can witness this, that whilst your husband's sire
In happy peace possess'd the Scottish crown,
I was his sworn attendant here in court ;
In dangerous fight I never fail'd my lord,
And since his death, and this your husband's reign,
No labour, duty, have I left undone,
To testify my zeal unto the crown.
But now my limbs are weak, mine eyes are dim,
Mine age unwieldy and unmeet for toil,
I came to court, in hope, for service past,
To gain some lease to keep me, being old.
There found I all was upsy-turvy turn'd,
My friends displac'd, the nobles loth to crave :
Then sought I to the minion of the king,
* bind] Qy. "find"?
t tho] i. e. then (as before, p. 198, sec. col.).
t need these] The Ito. " needes this."
206
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT III.
Ateukin, who, allured by a bribe,
Assur'd me of the lease for which I sought.
But see the craft ! when he had got the grant,
He wrought to sell it to Sir Silvester,
In hope of greater earnings from his hands.
In brief, I learn'd his craft, and wrought the
By one his needy servant * for reward, [means,
To steal from out his pocket all the briefs ;
Which he perform'd, and with reward resign'd.
Them when I read, — now mark the power of
God,—
I found this warrant seal'd among the rest,
To kill your grace, whom God long keep alive !
Thus, iu effect, by wonder are you sav'd :
Trifle not, then, but seek a speedy flight ;
God will conduct your steps and shield the right.
Q. Dor. What should I do ? ah poor unhappy
queen,
Born to endure what fortune can contain !
Alas, the deed is too apparent now !
But, mine eyes, were you as bent to hide
As my poor heart is forward to forgive,
Ah cruel king, my love would thee acquit !
0, what avails to be allied and match'd
With high estates, that marry but in show !
Were I bascrf born, my mean estate
Could warrant me from this impendent harm :
But to be great and happy, these are twain.
Ah Ross, what shall I do? how shall I work ?
Ross. With speedy letters to your father send,
Who will revenge you and defend your right.
Q. Dor. As if they kill not me, who with him
fight !
As if his breast be touch'd, I am not wounded !
As if he wail'd, my joys were not confounded !
We are one heart, though rent by hate in twain ;
One soul, one essence doth our weal contain :
What, then, can conquer him, that kills not me ?
Ross. If this advice displease, then, madam, flee.
Q. Dor. Where may I wend or travel without
fear?
Nano. Where not, in changing this attire you
wear ?
Q. Dor. What, shall I cladj me like a country
maid?
Nano. The policy is base, I am afraid.
Q. Dor. Why, Nano ?
Nano. Ask you why? What, may a queen
March forth in homely weed, and be not seen?
* tenant] Tho 4to. "aeruants,"
\ Wert J ban r] <.{y. " If / were hour ", or (according to
the phraseology of our author's timo) " Were I more
fc«Jfr"?
J clad] i. e clothe: see note t, p. 108, sec. col.
The rose, although in thorny shrubs she spread,
Is still the rose, her beauties wax not dead;
And noble minds, although the coat be bare,
Are by their semblance known, how great they are.
Sir Bar. The dwarf saith true.
Q. Dor. What garments lik'st thou, than ? *
Nano. Such as may make you seem a proper
man.
Q. Dor. He makes me blush and smile, though
I am sad.
Nano. The meanest coat for safety is not bad.
Q. Dor. What, shall I jetf in breeches like a
squire ?
Alas, poor dwarf, thy mistress is unmeet ! +
Nano. Tut, go me thus, your cloak before your
face,
Your sword uprear'd with quaint and comely
If any come and question what you be, [grace :
Say you, " A man," and call for witness me.
Q. Dor. What should I wear a sword, to what
intent ?
Nano. Madam, for show ; it is an ornament :
If any wrong you, draw : a shining blade
Withdraws a coward thief that would invade.
Q. Dor. But if I strike, and he should strike
again,
What should I do ? I fear I should be slain.
Nano. No, take it single on your dagger so :
I'll teach you, madam, how to ward a blow.,
Q. Dor. How little shapes much substance may
include ! —
Sir Bartram, Ross, ye ladies, and my friends,
Since presence yields me death, and absence life,
Hence will I fly disguised like a squire,
As one that seeks to live in Irish wars :
You, gentle Ross, shall furnish my depart.
Ross. Yea, prince, and die with you with all
my heart :
Vouchsafe me, then, in all extremest states
To wait on you and serve you with my best.
Q. Dor. To me pertains the woe : live thou§ in
rest.
Friends, fare you well : keep secret my depart :
Nano alone shall my attendant be.
Nano. Then, madam, are you maun'd, I war-
rant ye :
Give me a sword, and if there grow debate,
I'll come behind, and break your enemy's pate.
Ross. How sore we grieve to part so soon away !
* than] A form of then: used here for the sake of the
rhymo.
t jet] i. o. strut.
t thy misitrets is unmeet] Corrupted. This line ought to
rhymo with tho preceding oue.
§ thou] The 4to. " then."
SCENE II.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
207
Q. Dor. Grieve not for those that perish if they
stay.
Nano. Thetime in words mispeut is littie worth;
Madam, walk on, and let them bring us forth.
[Exeunt.
Chorus. Eater Boiian.
Boh. So, these sad motions make the fairy sleep;
And sleep he shall in quiet and content :
For it would make a marble melt and weep,
To see these treasons 'gainst the innocent.
But since she scapes by flight to save her life,
The king may chance repent she was his wife.
The rest is ruthful ; yet, to beguile the time,
'Tis interlac'd with merriment and rhyme. [Exit.
ACT IV.
SCENE I.
After a noise of horns and shoutings, enter certain Huuts-
men (if you please, sinking) one way ; another way
Ateukin and Jaques.*
A leu. Say, gentlemen, where may we fiud the
king]
First Hunts. Even here at hand, on hunting ; t
And at this hour he taken hath a stand,
To kill a deer.
Ateu. A pleasant work in hand.
Follow your sport, and we will seek his grace.
First Hunts. When such him seek, it is a woful
case.
[Exeunt Huntsmen one way, Ateukin and
Jaques another.
SCENE II.
Enter the Countess of Arran, Ida, and Eustace.
Count, of A. Lord Eustace, as your youth and
virtuous life
Deserve a far+ more fair and richer wife,
So, since I am a mother, and do wit
What wedlock is and that which 'longs to it,
Before I mean my daughter to bestow,
'Tvvere meet that she and I your state did know.
Fust. Madam, if I consider Ida's worth,
I know my portion merits § none so fair,
And yet I hold in farm and yearly rent
A thousand pound, which may her state content.
Count, of A. But what estate, my lord, shall
she possess ]
Fust. All that is mine, grave countess, and no
But, Ida, will you love ? [less. —
Ida. I cannot hate.
Eust. But will you wed ?
* Jaques] The 4 to. adds "Gnato;" but Gnalho is only
another name for Ateukin. See note §, p. 200, first col.
t Even lure at hand, on hunting] A mutilated line.
I far] The4to. "faire."
§ portion merits] The 4to. "portions merrit."
Ida. 'Tis Greek to me, my lord :
I'll wish you well, and thereon take my word.
Fust. Shall I some sign of favour, then, receive ?
Ida. Ay, if her ladyship will give me leave.
Count, of A. Do what thou wilt.
Ida. Then, noble English peer,
Accept this ring, wherein my heart* is set,
A constant heart with burning flames be-frefc,
But under-written this, morte dura :
Hereon whenso you look with eyes pura,
The maid you fancy most will favour you.
Eust. I'll try this heart, in hope to find it true.
Enter certain Huntsmen and Ladies.
First Hunts. Widow Countess, well y-met ;
Ever may thy joys be many ; —
Gentle Ida, sair beset, +
Fair and wise, not fairer any ;
Frolic huntsmen of the game
Will you well and give you greeting.
Ida. Thanks, good woodman, for the same,
And our sport, and merry meeting.
First Hunts. Unto thee we do present
Silver hart with arrow wounded.
Fust, [aside.] This doth shadow my lament,
Both [with] fear and love confounded.
First Lady. To the mother of the maid,
Fair as the lilies, red as roses,
Even so many goods are said,
As herself in heart supposes.
Count, of A. What are you, friends, that thus do
wish us well ]
First Hunts. Your neighbours nigh, that have
on hunting been,
Who, understanding of your walking forth,
Prepar'd this train to entertain you with :
This Lady Douglas, this Sir Egmond is.
* my heart] " Qu. 'a heart ' ?" Walker's Crit. Exam, of
the text of Shakespeare, &c. ii. 329.
t sair beset] So Walker, who adds, "Scot id, ut passim."
Crit. Exam, of the text of Shakespeare, &c. ii. 293.— The4to.
" faire beset ".
208
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT IV.
Count, of A. Welcome, ye ladies, and thousand
thanks for this :
Come, enter you a homely widow's house,
And if mine entertainment please you, let us *
feast.
First Hunts. A lovely lady never wants a guest.
[Exeunt Countess of Arkan, Huntsmen, and
Ladies.
Eust. Stay, gentle Ida, tell me what you deem,
What doth this hart.f this tender hart beseem 1 ?
Ida. Why not, my lord, since nature teacheth
art
To senseless beasts to cure their grievous smart ;
Dictamnum J serves to close the wound again.
Eust. What help for those that love ?
Ida. Why, love again.
Eust, Were I the hart,
Ida. Then I the herb would be :
You shall not die for help ; come, follow me.
{Exeunt.
SCENE III.
Enter Andrew and Jaques.
Jaq. Mon dieu, what malheur be this ! Me
come a the chamber, Signior Andrew, mon dieu ;
taka my poniard en ma main to give the estocade
to the damoisella : par ma foi, there was no per-
son ; elle s^est en allee.
And. The worse luck, Jaques : but because I
am thy friend, I will advise thee somewhat to-
wards the attainment of the gallows.
Jaq. Gallows ! what be that ]
And. Marry, sir, a place of great promotion,
where thou shalt by one turn above ground rid
the world of a knave, and make a goodly ensample
for all bloody villains of thy profession.
Jaq. Que di/es vous, Monsieur Andrew?
And. I say, Jaques, thou must keep this path,
and hie thee ; for the queen, as I am certified, is
* let ua] Qy. if an interpolation?
t hart] The 4to. "hast." — Is there not something
wrong in the next speech ?
t IHctamnum] Or dictamnus, is the herb dittany.
" Hie Venus, indigno nati concussa dolore,
/'< lamnum genetrix Cretsea earpit ab Ida,
J'ubcribus canlem foliis et floro comantem
Purpureo : rum illaferU incognita capris
Gramma, cum tergo volucres hatert sagillce."
Virgil,— JEn. xii. 411.
Our author in one of his tracts pays ; " The Oiare being
ntrooken, though Qeuer BO deep, feedeth on the hearb Dic-
tamnum, aril fiirthn-.u, . I, ■ni.it.'' cnnle of Fancie, Sig.
E l, ed. 1C08. But in another tract, being at a loss for a
fliroile, he tells us; "Weomen, poore soulos, are like to
tht harit in Calabria, that knowing Victamnum to bee
deadly, yet browie on it with grtedineitt." Neuer too late,
fart Fir i, Big D ". n. d.
departed with her dwarf, apparelled like a sauire.
Overtake her, Frenchman, stab her : I'll promise
thee, this doublet shall be happy.
Jaq. Pourquon
And. It shall serve a jolly gentleman, Sir Do-
minus Monseigueur Hangman.
Jaq. Cesttoutun; me will ra.ma.pour la tnonnoie.
[Exit.
And. Go, and the rot consume thee ! — 0, what
a trim world is this ! My master lives by cozen-
ing the kiug, I by flattering him ; Slipper, my
fellow, by stealing, and I by lying: is not this a
wily accord, gentlemen * ? This last night, our
jolly horsekeeper, being well steeped in liquor,
confessed to me the stealing of my master's
writings and his great reward : now dare I not
bewray him, lest he discover my knavery ; but
thus have I wrought. I understand he will pass
this way, to provide him necessaries ; but if I
and my fellows fail not, we will teach him such
a lesson as shall cost him a chief place on Penny-
less Bench for his labour. But yond he conies.
Enter Slipper, with a Tailor, a Shoemaker, and a Cutler.
Slip. Tailor.
Tai. Sir?
Slip. Let my doublet be white northern, five
groats the yard : I tell thee, I will be brave, t
Tai. It shall, sir.
Slip. Now, sir, cut it me like the battlements
of a custard, full of round holes : edge nie the
sleeves with Coventry blue, and let the linings
be of tenpenny lockram.
Tai, Very good, sir.
Slip. Make it the amorous cut, a flap before.
Tai. And why so ? that fashion is stale.
Sfy). 0, friend, thou art a simple fellow. I tell
thee a flap is a great friend to a storrie,+ it stands
him instead of clean napery ; and if a man's shirt
be torn, it is a present penthouse to defend him
from a clean huswife's scoff.
Tai. You say sooth, sir.
Slip. [Giving money.] Hold, take thy money ;
there is seven shillings for the doublet, and fight
for the breeches: seven and eight; by'rlady,§
thirty-six is a fair deal of money.
Tai. Farewell, sir.
Slip. Nay, but stay, tailor.
Tai. Why, sir ?
Slip. Forget not this special make,|| let my
* gentlemen] See note *, p. 204, sec. col.
t brave] i. e. fine.
t storrie] A word, if it be not a misprint, with which I
am unacquainted.
§ by'rlady] i. o. by our Lady.
|| make] The 4to. "mate."
8CENF. IV.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
209
back-parts be well lined, for there come many
winter-storuia from a windy belly, I tell thee.
[Exit Tailor.] Shoemaker.
Shoe. Gentleman, what shoe will it please you
to have ?
Slip. A fine neat calves'-leather, my friend.
Shoe. 0, sir, that is too thin, it will not last
you.
Slip. I tell thee, it is my near kinsman, for I
am Slipper, which hath his best grace in summer
to be suited in Jack-ass' skins. Goodwife Calf*
was my grandmother, and goodman Netherleather
mine uncle ; but my mother, good woman, alas,
she was a Spaniard, and being well tanned and
dressed by a goodfellow, an Englishman, is
grown to some wealth : as when I have but my
upper-parts clad in her husband's costly Spanish
leather, I may be bold to kiss the fairest lady's
foot in this country.
Shoe. You are of high birth, sir : but have you
all your mother's marks on you ?
Slip. Why, knave ?
Shoe. Because if thou come of the blood of the
Slippers, you should have a shoemaker's awl
thrust through your ear.
Slip. [Giving money.] Take your earnest, friend,
and be packing, and meddle not with my pro-
genitors. [Exit Shoemaker.] Cutler.
Cut. Here, sir.
Slip. I must have a reaper and digger.+
Cut. A rapier and dagger, you mean, sir.
Slip. Thou sayest true : but it must have a
very fair edge.
Cut. Why so, sir?
Slip. Because it may cut by himself, for truly,
my friend, I am a man of peace, and wear weapons
but for fashion.
Cut. Well, sir, give me earnest, I will fit you.
Slip. [Giving money.] Hold, take it : I betrust
thee, friend ; let me be well armed.
Cut. You shall. [Exit.
Slip. Now what remains? there's twenty crowns
for a house, three crowns for household-stuff", six-
pence to buy a constable's staff ; nay, I will be
the chief of my parish. There wants nothing
but a wench, a cat, a dog, a wife, and a servant,
* Jack-ass' skins. Goodwife Calf, &c] Mr. Collier's con-
jecture (which I adopt with some hesitation), note on
Shakespeare, ed. 1858, vol. v. p. COO.— The -Ho. "lakus
skins, Guidwife Clarke", &c.
t a reaper anddigger] The4to. "a Rapier nm? Dagger";
which I retained in my former edition with the remark,
"from the Cutler's reply it seems that Slipper miscalled
the weapons". I now give Mr. Collier's emendation,
note on Shakespeare, ed. 1858, vol. v. p. 599.
to make an whole family. Shall I marry witli
Alice, Good-man Grimshawe's daughter ? she is
fair, but indeed her tongue is like clocks on
Shrovetuesday, always out of temper. Shall I
wed Sisley of the Whighton? 0, no; she is like
a frog in a parsley-bed ; as skittish as an eel : if I
seek to hamper her, she will horn me. But a
wench must be had, Master Slipper ; yea, and
shall be, dear friend.
And. [aside.] I now will drive him from his
contemplations. — 0, my mates, come forward :
the lamb is unpent, the fox shall prevail.
Enter three Antics, who dance round, and take Slipper
with them.
Slip. I will, my friend[s], and I thank you
heartily: pray, keep your courtesy: I am yours
in the way of an hornpipe. — [Aside.] They are
strangers, I see, they understand not my language:
wee, wee. — * Nay, but, my friends, one horn-
pipe further, a refluenee back, and two doubles for-
ward: what, not one cross-point against Sundays?
What, ho, sirrah, you gonie,+ you with the nose like
an eagle, an you be a right Greek, one turn more.
( Whilst they are dancing, Andrew takes away Slip-
per's money, and then he and the Antics depart.
Thieves, thieves ! I am robbed ! thieves ! Is
this the knavery of fiddlers? Well, I will then
bind the whole credit of their occupation on a
bag-piper, and he for my money. But I will
after, and teach them to caper in a halter, that
have cozened me of my money. [Exit,
SCENE IV.
Enter Queen Dorothea in man's apparel, and Nano.
Q. Dor. Ah Nano, I am weary of these weeds,
Weary to wield this weapon that I bear,
Weary of love from whom my woe proceeds,
Weary of toil, since I have lost my dear !
weary life, where wantethj no distress,
But every thought is paid with heaviness !
Nano. Too much of weary, madam: if you please,
Sit down, let weary die, and take your ease.
Q. Dor. How Look I, Nano ? like a man or no ?
Nano. If not a man, yet like a manly shrow.§
Q. Dor. If any come and meet us on the way,
What should we do, if they enforce us stay ?
* wee, wee] I know not what this means. (In the fifth
scene of the present act the 4to. has " Wee " as tUe
spelling of the Fr. "Oui")
t gome] i. e. fellow. — The 4to. "gone."
t wanteth] The 4to. "wanted."
§ shrow] i. e. shrew.
210
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT IV.
Nano. Set cap a-huff, and challenge him the
field:
Suppose the worst, the weak may fight to yield.
Q. Dor. The battle, Nano, in this troubled mind
Is far more fierce than ever we may find.
The body's * wounds by medicines may be eas'd,
But griefs of mind by salve3 are not appeas'd.
Nano. Say, madam, will you hear your Nano
sing?
Q. Dor. Of woe, good boy, but of no other thing.
Nano. What, if I sing of fancy.t will it please ?
Q. Dor. To such aa nope success such notes
breed ease.
Nano. What, if I sing, like Damon, to my sheep ?
Q. Dor. Like Phillis, I will sit me down to weep.
Nano. Nay, since my songs afford such pleasure
I'll sit me down, and sing you none at all. [small,
Q. Dor. 0, be not angry, Nano !
Nano. Nay, you loathe
To think on that which doth content us both.
Q. Dor. And J how?
Nano. You scorn disport when you are weary,
And loathe my mirth, wholiveto make you merry.
Q. Dor. Danger and fear withdraw me from
delight.
Nano. 'Tis virtue to contemn false fortune's
spite.
Q. Dor. What should I do to please thee,
friendly squire ?
Nano. A smile a-day is all I will require ;
And if you pay me well the smiles you owe me,
I'll kill this cursed care, or else beshrow me.
Q. Dor. We are descried; 0, Nano, we are dead!
Enter Jaques, his sword drawn.
Nano. Tut, yet you walk, you are not dead
indeed.
Draw me your sword, if he your way withstand,
And I will seek for rescue out of hand.§
Q. Dor. Run, Nano, run, prevent thy princess'
death.
Nano. Fear not, I'll run all danger out of breath.
[Exit.
Jaq. Ah, you calleta||, you strumpet ! ta Mai-
tresaa Doretie, ites vous surprise ? Come, say your
paternoster, car vous ites morte, par ma foi.
Q. Dor. Callet.H me strumpet! caitiff as thou art!
But even a princess born, who acorn thy threats :
* body's] Tho 4to. has "bodies", and, in the next line,
" mindca."
t fanry] i. o. love.
t And] Qy. "As"?
} And. I will, &c.] Tho 4to. gives this lino to Dorothea.
|| calleta . . . colut) i.e. drab, trull. — But qy.
" Callest me strumpet," iic. ?
Shall never Frenchman say, an English maid
Of threats of foreign force will be afraid.
Jaq. You no dire votres prices 1 morbleu, me-
chante femme, guarda your breasta there : me
make you die on my Morglay.*
Q. Dor. God shield me, hapless princess and a
wife,
And save my soul, although I lose my life !
[They fight, and she is sore wounded.
Ah, I am slain ! some piteous power repay
This murderer's cursed deed, that doth me slay!
Jaq. Elle est tout morte : me will run pour a
wager, for fear me be surpris and pendu for my
labour. Bien, je m'en allerai au roi lui diref mes
affaires. Je serai un chevalier for this day's tra-
vail. [Exit.
Re-enter Nano, with Sir Cuthbert Anderson, his sword
drawn, and Servants.
Sir Cuth. Where is this poor distressed gentle-
man ?
Nano. Here laid on ground, and wounded
to the death.
Ah gentle heart, how are these beauteous looks
Dimm'd by the tyrant cruelties of death !
weary soul, break thou from forth my breast,
And join thee with the soul I honour'd most!
Sir Cuth. Leave mourning, friend, the man is
yet alive.
Some help me to convey him to my house :
There will I see him carefully recur'd,£
And send [out] privy search to catch the mur-
derer.
Nano. The God of heaven reward thee, cour-
teous knight!
[Exeunt, bearing out Dorothea.
SCENE V.
| Enter the Kino of Scots, Jaques, Ateukin, Andrew ;
Jaques running with his sword one way, the King with
his train another way.
K. of Scots. Stay, Jaques, fear not, sheath thy
murdering blade :
j Lo, here thy king and friends are come abroad
* Morglay] The name of the sword of Sir Bevis of
Southampton ;
" And how fair Josiau gave him Arundel his steed,
And Morglay his good sword."
Drayton's Poly-Olbion, Song Second.
t lui dire] Tho 4to. "auycits."
I recur'd] i. e. recovered.
SCENE V.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
211
To save thee from the terrors of pursuit
What, is she dead?
Jaq. Oui, Monsieur, elle est Hessee par la tete
over let e'i>avles : * I warrant, she no trouble
you.
Ateu. 0, then, my liege, how happy art thou
grown,
How favour' d of the heavens, and blest by love !
Methinks I see fair Ida in thine arms,
Craving remission for her late contempt ;t
Methink[s] I see her blushing steal a kiss,
Unitiug both your souls by such a sweet,
And you, my king, suck nectar from her lips.
Why, then, delays your grace to gain the rest
You long desir'd ] why lose we forward time ?
Write, make me spokesman now, vow marriage :
If she deny you favour, J let me die.
And. Mighty and magnificent potentate, give
credence to mine honourable good lord, for I
heard the midwife swear at his nativity that the
fairies gave him the property of the Thracian
stone; for who toucheth it is exempted from
grief, and he that heareth my master's counsel is
already possessed of happiness; nay, which is
more miraculous, as the nobleman in his infancy
lay in his cradle, a swarm of bees laid honey on
his lips in token of his eloquence, for melle dulcior
fiuit oratio.
Ateu. Your grace must bear with imperfections :
This is exceeding love that makes him speak.
K. of Scots. Ateukin, I am ravish'd in conceit,
And yet depress'd again with earnest thoughts.
Methinks, this murder soundeth in mine ear
A threatening noise of dire and sharp revenge :
I am incens'd with grief, yet fain would joy.
What may I do to end me of these doubts ?
Ateu. Why, prince, it is no murder in a king,
To end another's life to save his own :
For you are not as common people be,
Who die and perish with a few men's $ tears ;
But if you fail, the state doth whole default,
The realm is rent in twain in such a loss.
And Aristotle holdeth this for true,
Of evils needs || we must choose the least :
Then better were it that a woman died
Than all the help of Scotland should be blent.U
* par la tUe, &c] I know not if this be what the author
intended. The 4to. has "per lake teste, oues lei espanles."
t contempt] The 4to. "attempt."
\ you favour] The 4to. "your fauour." (Compare the
ninth line of p. 198, sec. col.)
§ men's] The 4to. "mans."
II needs] Qy. "needeth"?
U blent] See note }, p. 124, first coL
'Tis policy, my liege, in every state,
To cut off members that disturb the head :
And* by corruption generation grows,
And contraries maintain the world and state.
K. of Scots. Enough, I am confirm'd. Ateukin,
come,
Rid me of love, and rid me of my grief;
Drive thou the tyrant from this tainted breast,
Then may I triumph in the height of joy.
Go to mine Ida, tell her that I vow
To raise her head, and make her honours great :
Go to mine Ida, tell her that her hairs
Shall be embellished with orient pearls,
And crowns of sapphire.f compassing her brows,
Shall war+ with those sweet beauties of her eyes :
Go to mine Ida, tell her that my soul
Shall keep her semblance closed in my breast ;
And I, in touching of her milkwhite mould,
Will think me deified in such a grace.
I like no stay ; go write, and I will sign :
Reward me Jaques; give him store of crown[s].
And, Sirrah Andrew, scout thou here in court,
And bring me tidings, if thou canst perceive
The least intent of muttering in my train ;
For either those that wrong thy lord or thee
Shall suffer death.
Ateu. How much, mighty king,
Is thy Ateukin bound to honour thee ! —
Bow thee, Andrew, bend thine sturdy knees ;
Seest thou not here thine only God on earth?
[Exit the King.
Jaq. Mais ou est mon argent, seigneur ?
Ateu. Come, follow me. — [Aside.] His grave, I
see, is made,
That thus on sudden he hath left us here. —
Come, Jaques : we will have our packet soon
despatch'd,
And you shall be my mate upon the way.
Jaq. Comme vous plaira, monsieur.
[Exeunt Ateukin and jAQnta.
And. Was never such a world, I think, before,
When sinners seem to dance within a net :
The flatterer and the murderer, they grow big ;
By hook or crook promotion now is sought.
In such a world, where men are so misled,
What should I do, but, as the proverb saith,
Run with the hare, and hunt with the hound ?
To have two means beseems a witty man.
Now here in court I may aspire and climb
By subtlety, for § my master's death :
* And] Qy. "As"t
t sapphire] The 4to. " sapphires. •'
\ war] The 4to. "weare."
%/or] Qy. "before"!
p 2
212
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT V,
And if that fail, well fare another drift ;
I will, in secret, certain letters send
Unto the English king, and let him know
The order of his daughter's overthrow,
That if my master crack his credit here,
As I am sure long flattery cannot hold,
I may have means within the English court
To scape the scourge that waits on bad advice.
[Exit.
Cliorus. Enter Bohan and Oberon.
Ober. Believe me, bonny Scot, these strange
events
Are passing pleasing, may they end as well.
Boh. Else say that Bohan hath a barren Bkull,
If better motions yet than any past
Do not more glee to make the fairy greet.
But my small son made pretty handsome shift
To save the queen his mistress, by his speed.
Ober. Yea, and yon laddy, for the sport * be
made,
Shall see, when least he hopes, I'll stand his
friend,
Or else he capers in a halter's end.
Boh. What, hang my son ! I trow not, Oberon :
I'll rather die than see him wobegone.
Enter a round, or some dance at pleasure.
Ober. Bohan, be pleas'd, for, do they what they
will,
Here is my hand, I'll save thy son from ill.
[Exeunt.
ACT V.
SCENE I.
Enter Qdeen Dorothea in man's apparel and in a night-
gown, Lady Anderson, and Nano ; -and Sir Cuth-
bert Anderson behind.
Lady An. My gentle friend, beware, in taking
air,
Your walks grow not offensive to your wounds.
Q. Dor. Madam, I thank you of your courteous
care :
My wounds are well-nigh clos'd, though sore they
are.
Lady An. Methinks these closed wounds should
breed more grief,
Since open wounds have cure and find relief.
Q. Dor. Madam, if undiscover'd wounds you
mean,
They are not cur'd, because they are not seen.
Lady An. I mean the wounds which do the
heart subdue.
Nano. 0, that is love : madam, speak I not
true? [Lady Anderson overhears.
Lady An. Say it were true, what salve for such
a sore ?
Nano. Be wise, and shut such neighbours out
of door.
Lady A n. How if I cannot drive him from my
breast 1
Nano. Then chain him well, and let him do his
best.
Sir Cath. [aside.] In rippiug up their wounds,
I see their wit ;
But if these wounds be cur'd, I sorrow it.
Q, Dor. Why are you so intentive to behold
My pale and woful looks, by care controll'd ?
Lady An. Because in them a ready way is found
To cure my care and heal my hidden wound.
Nano. Good master, shut your eyes, keep that
conceit ;
Surgeons give coin to get a good receipt.
Q. Dor. Peace, wanton son: this lady did amend
My wounds; mine eyes her hidden grief shall end :
Look not too much, it is a weighty case.
Nano. Whereas a man puts on a maiden's face,
For many times, if ladies 'ware them not,
A nine months' wound with little work is got.
Sir Cuth. [atide.] I'll break off their dispute,
lest love proceed
From covert smiles to perfect love indeed.
[Comes forward.
Nano. The cat's abroad, stir not, the mice be
still.
Lady An. Tut, we can fly such cats, when so
we will.
Sir Cuth. How fares my guest? take cheer,
naught shall default,
That either doth concern your health or joy :
Use me, my house, and what is mine as t yours.
Q. Dor. Thanks, gentle knight ; and if all hopes
be true,
I hope ere long to do as much for you.
* Tea, and yon laddy, for the sport, &c] Tho 4to. has
" Yea, you Ladie for his sport," Ac— Oberon alludes to
Slipper. See p. 218, first col.
t as] The4to. "is."
SCENE I.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
213
Sir Cuth. Your virtue doth acquit me of that
doubt :
But, courteous sir, since troubles call me hence,
I must to Edinburgh, unto the king,
There to take charge and wait him in his
wars. —
Meanwhile, good madam, take this squire in
charge,
And use him so as if it were myself.
Lady An. Sir Cuthbert, doubt not of my dili-
gence :
Meanwhile, till your return, God send you health.
Q. Dor. God bless his grace, and, if his cause
be just,
Prosper his wars ; if not, he'll mend, I trust.
Good sir, what moves the king to fall to arms ?
Sir Cuth. The King of England forageth his
land,
And hath besieg'd Dunbar * with mighty force.
Q. Dor. What other news t are common in the
court ?
Sir Cuth.\giving letters to Lady Anderson.] Read
you these letters, madam ; tell the squire
The whole affairs of state, for I must hence.
Q. Dor. God prosper you, and bring you back
from thence !
[Exit Sir Cuthbert Anderson.
Madam, what news ?
Lady An. They say the queen is slain.
Q. Dor. Tut, such reports more false than truth
contain.
Lady An. But these reports have made his
nobles leave him.
Q. Dor. Ah, careless men, and would they so
deceive him ?
Lady An. The land is spoil'd, the commons
fear the cross;
All cry against the king, their cause of loss :
The English king subdues and conquers all.
Q. Dor. Alas, this war grows great on causes
small !
Lady An. Our court is desolate, our prince
alone,
Still dreading death.
Q. Dor. Woes me, for him I moan !
Help, now help.J a sudden qualm
Assails my heart !
Nano. Good madam, stand his § friend :
Give us some liquor to refresh his § heart.
* Dunbar] The 4 to. "Dambac."
+ What ot/ur neics, &c] The 4to. gives this line to Sir
Cuthbert.
J Help, now help, &c] Something is wanting here.
§ his} The 4to. "her", — the transcriber perhaps having
orgot that Dorothea is disguised as a man.
Lady An. Daw thou him up,* and I will fetch
thee forth
Potions of comfort, to repress his pain. [Exit.
Nano. Fie, princess, faint on every fond t re-
port !
How well-nigh had you open'd your estate !
Cover these sorrows with the veil of joy,
And hope the best; for why £ this war will
cause
A great repentance in your husband's mind.
Q. Dor. Ah, Nano, trees live not without their
sap,
And Clytie cannot blush but on the sun ;
The thirsty earth is broke with many a gap,
And lands are lean where rivers do not run :
Where soul is reft from that it loveth best,
How can it thrive or boast of quiet rest ?
Thou know'st the prince's loss must be my
death,
His grief, my grief ; his mischief must be
mine.
0, if thou love me, Nano, hie to court !
Tell Ross, tell Bartram, that I am alive;
Conceal thou yet the place of my abode:
Will them,§ even as they love their queen>
As they are chary of my soul and joy,
To guard the king, to serve him as my lord.
Haste thee, good Nano, for my husband's care
Consumeth me, and wounds me to the heart.
Nano. Madam, I go, yet loth to leave you
here.
Q. Dor. Go thou with speed : even as thou
hold'st me dear,
Return in haste. [Exit Nano.
Re-enter Lady Anderson with broth.
Lady An. Now, sir, what cheer? come taste
this broth I bring.
Q. Dor. My grief is past, 1 feel no further
sting.
Lady An. Where is your dwarf! why hath he
left you, sir?
Q. Dor. For some affairs : he is not travell'd
far.
Lady An. If so you please, come in and take
your rest.
Q. Dor. Fear keeps awake a discontented breast.
[28» tint.
* Daw thou him up] — Daw, i.e. revive, resuscitate. — The
4to. "Data thou her vp ;" and in the next line " her
paint."
t fond] i. e. foolish, idle.
{ for ich>/1 i. e. because.
§ Will thou] Qy. "But trill ihrm", or "Audwill Hunt"
— Will them, i e. Desire them.
214
JAMES THE FOURTH.
A<;T v.
SCENE II.
After a solemn service,* enter, from the Countess of
Arran's house, a band of Revellers : to them Ateukin
and Jaques.
Ateu. What means this triumph, friend? why
are these feasts ?
First Revel. Fair Ida, sir, was married yesterday
Unto Sir Eustace, and for that intent
We feast and sport it thus to honour them :
An if you please, come in and take your part ;
My lady is no niggard of her cheer.
[Exit with other Revellers.
Jaq. Monscigneur, why be you so sadda ? faites
tonne chere : foulre de ce monde!
Ateu. What, was I born to be the scorn of kin?
To gather feathers like to af hopper-crow,
And lose them in the height of all my pomp?
Accursed man, now is my credit lost !
Where are my vows I made unto the king?
What shall become of me, if he shall hear
That I have caus'd him kill a virtuous queen,
And hope in vain for that which now is lost ?
Where shall I hide my head? I know the heavens
Are just and will revenge; I know my sins
Exceed compare. Should I proceed in this,
This Eustace must amain % be made away.
0, were I dead, how happy should I be !
Jaq. Est ce done a tel point votre etat ? faith,
then, adieu, Scotland, adieu, Signior Ateukin : me
will homa to France, and no be hanged in a
strange country. [Exit.
Ateu. Thou dost me good to leave me thus alone,
That gidling grief and I may yoke in one.
0, what are subtle means to climb on high,
When every fall swarms with exceeding shame?
I promis'd Ida's love unto the prince,
But she is lost, and I am false forsworn.
I practis'd Dorothea's hapless death,
And by this practice have coinmenc'd a war.
cursed race of men, that traffic guile,
And in the end themselves and kings beguile !
Asham'd to look upon my prince again,
Asham'd of my suggestions and advice,
Asham'd of life, asham'd that I have err'd,
I'll hide myself, expecting^ for my shame.
Thus God doth work with those that purchase fame
By flattery, and make their prince their game.||
[Exit.
* A ft tr a solemn service, &c.J The 4to. '' After a solemnc
seruice, enter from the widdowes house a sernice, musical
eongs of marriages, or a masko, or what prottio triumph
you list, to thiin, A'rul-in nmt (iu;it"."
t a] Qy. dele? t amain] The 4 to. "a roan."
§ expo-tint/] Qy. if tho right word (in the soiibo of—
waiting for)?
II gai/u] The 4 to. " gaine."
SCENE III.
Enter the Kino of England, Percy, Samles, and others.
K. of Em/.* Thus far, yet English peers, have
we display'd
Our waving ensigus with a happy war ;
Thus nearly hath our furious rage reveng'd
My daughter's death upon the traitorous Scot.
And now before Dunbar our camp is pitch'd ;
Which, if it yield not to our compromise,
The plough + shall furrow where the palace stood,
And fury shall enjoy § so high a power
That mercy shall be bauish'd from our swords.
Eater Douglas and others on the walls.
Doug. What seeks the English king ?
K. of Eng. Scot, open those gates, and let me
enter in :
Submit thyself and thine unto my grace,
Or I will put each mother's son to death,
And lay this city levrl with the ground.
Doug. For what offence, for what default oi
ours,
Art thou inceus'd so sore against our state?
Can generous hearts in nature be so stern
To prey on those that never did offend?
What though the lion, king of brutish race,
Through outrage sin, shall lambs be therefore
slain ?
Or is it lawful that the humble die
Because the mighty do gainsay the right 1
English king, thou bearest in thy crest ||
The king of beasts, that harms not yielding ones :
The roseal cross is spread within thy field,
A sign of peace, not of revenging war.
Be gracious, then, unto this little town ;
And, though we have withstood thee for a while
To show allegiance to our liefest liege,
Yet since we know no hope of any help,
Take us to mercy, for we yield ourselves.
K. of Eng. What, shall I enter, then, and be
your lord?
* K. of Eng.'] To the speeches of the King of England
throughout this scene is prefixed " Arius ". — "It is a
singular circumstance," says Mr. Collier, "that the King
of England, who forms one of the characters in this play,
is called Arius, as if Greene at the time he wroto had
some scruple In naming Henry viii., on account of the
danger of giving offence to the Queen and court." Hist,
of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 161. But it is only in the present
scene that tho King of England "is called Arius" ; and
in a stage direction to an earlier sceue (p. 200, see. col.)
the 4to. gives tho name "Arius" when the King of
England cannot be meant.
f ye] Tho4to. "the."
} plough] The 4to. "place."
§ enjoy] The 4 to. "enuy."
|| crest] The 4to. " brcst."
SCENE IV.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
215
Dowj. We will submit us to the English kiug.
[They dexceiul down, open the gales, and humble
tltemselces.
K. of Eng. Now life and death dcpendeth on
my sword :
This hand now rear'd, my Douglas, if I list,
Could part thy head aud shoulders both in twain;
But since I see thee wise aud old in years,
True to thy kiug, aud faithful in his wars,
Live thou aud thine. Duubar is too-too small
To give an entrance to the English king :
I, eagle-like, disdain these little fowls,
And look on none but those that dare resist.
Euter your town, as those that live by me :
For others that resist, kill, forage, spoil.
Mine Euglish soldiers, as you love your king,
Revenge his daughter's death, and do me right.
[Exeunt.
SCENE IV.
Enter a Lawyer, a Merchant, and a Divine.
Law. My friends, what think you of this present
state ?
Were ever seen such changes in a time ?
The manners and the fashions of this age
Are, like the ermine['s] skin, so full of spots,
As sooue[r] may the Moor be washed white
Than these corruptions banish' d from this realm.
Merck. What sees Mas Lawyer in this state
amiss ?
Law. A wresting power that makes a nose of
wax
Of grounded law, a damn'd and subtle drift
In all estates to climb by others' loss,
An eager thirst * of wealth, forgetting truth :
Might I ascend nnto the highest states,
And by descent discover every crime,
My friends, I should lament, and you would
grieve
To see the hapless ruins of this realm.
Div. lawyer, thou hnst curious eyes to pry
Into the secret maims of their estate ;
But if thy veil of error were unmask'd,
Thyself should see your sect do maim her most.
Are you not those that should maintain the peace,
Yet only are the patrons of our strife ?
If your profession have his ground and spring
First from the laws of God, then country's right,
Not any ways inverting nature's power,
Wiiy thrive you by contentions? why devise you
Clauses and subtle reasons to except?
* thirst] The4to. "thrift."
Our state was first, before you grew so great,
A lantern to the world for unity :
Now they that are befriended and are rich
Oppress* the poor : come Homer without coin,
He is not heard. What shall we term this drift?
To say the poor man's cause is good and just,
And yet the rich man gains the best in law.
It is your guise (the more the world laments)
To coin provisos to beguile your laws,
To make a gay pretext of due proceeding,
Wheu you delay your common-pleas for years.
Mark what these dealings lately here have
wrought :
The crafty men have purchas'd great men's lauds;
They po\vl,t they pinch, their tenants are undone;
If these complain, by you they are undone ;
You fleece them of their coin, their children beg,
And many want, because you may be rich :
This scar is mighty, Master Lawyer.^
Now war§ hath gotten head within this land,
Mark but the guise. The poor man that is wrong'd
Is ready to rebel ; he spoils, he pills ;
We need no foes to forage that we have :
The law, say they, in peace consumed us,
And now in war we will consume the law.
Look to this mischief, lawyers : conscience knows
You live amiss; amend it, lest you end.
Law. Good Lord, that these|| divines should see
so far
In others' faults, without amending theirs !
Sir, sir, the general defaults in state
(If you would read before you did corrects
Are, by a hidden working from above,
By their successive changes still remov'd.lt
Were not the law by contraries maintain'd,
How could the truth from falsehood be discern'd ?
Bid we not taste the bitterness of war,
How could we know the sweet effects of peace?
Did we not feel the nipping winter-frosts,
How should we know the sweetness of the spring?
Should all things still remain in one estate,
Should not in greatest arts some scars be found,
Were all upright nor** chang'd, what world were
this ?
A chaos, made of quiet, yet no world,
Because the parts thereof did still accord :
* Oppress] The 4to. " Or pvesse."
t powl] i. e. poll.
t This scar is mighty, Master Lawyer] Here " Lawyer " is
a trisyllable: see Walker's Shakespeare's Versification, &c.,
p. 177.
§ war] The4to. "man."
|| these] The 4to. "their."
^J remov'd] The 4to. " remaiude."
»* nor] The4to. "aud."
216
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT V.
This matter craves a variance, not a speech.
But. Sir Divine, to you : look on your maims,
Divisions, sects, your simonies, and bribes,
Your cloaking -with the great for fear to fall,
You shall perceive you are the cause of all.
Did each man know there were a storm at hand,
Who would not clothe him well, to shun the wet ?
Did prince and peer, the lawyer and the least,
Know what were sin without a partial gloss,
We'd need no long discoursing* then of crimes,
For each would mend, advis'd by holy men.
Thus [I] but slightly shadow out your sins;
But if they were depaiuted out for life,
Alas, we both had wounds enough to heal !
Merck. None of you both, I see, but are in fault ;
Thus simple men, as I, do swallow flies.
This grave divine can tell us what to do ;
But we may say, " Physician, mend thyself."
This lawyer hath a pregnant wit to talk ;
But all are words, I 3ee no deeds of worth.
Law. Good merchant, lay your fingers on your
mouth ;
Be not a blab, for fear you bite yourself.
What should I term your state, but even the way
To every ruin in this commonweal ?
You bring us in the means of all excess,
You rate it and retail t it as you please ;
You swear, forswear, and all to compass wealth ;
Your money is your god, your hoard your heaven ;
You are the ground-work of contention.
First heedless youth by you is over-reach'd ;
We are corrupted by your many crowns :
The gentlemen, whose titles you have bought,
Lose all their fathers' toil within a day,
Whilst Hob your son, and Sib your nutbrown
child,
Are gentlefolks, and gentles are beguil'd.
This makes so many noble minds£ to stray,
And take sinister courses in the state.
Enter a Scout
Scout. My friends, be gone, an if you love your
lives ;
The King of Fngland marcheth here at hand:
Enter the camp, for fear you be surpris'd.
Div. Thanks, gentle scout. — God mend that is
amiss,
And place true zeal whereas § corruption is!
[Exeunt.
• HVd nf" 1 no long dticourting] The 4to. " Wee need no
long discouery."
ail] The 4 to. "rct.iMc."
t mt'nrf*] The 4to. " m;rdcs."
§ lehertc.'] i. e. where.
SCENE V.
Enter Queen Dorothea in -man's apparel, Lady
Anderson, and Nano.
Q. Dor. What news in court, Nano ? let us
know it.
Nano. If so you please, my lord, I straight will
show it :
The English King hath all the borders spoil'd,
Hath taken Morton prisoner, and hath slain
Seven thousand Scottish lads* not far from Tweed.
Q. Dor. A woful murder and a bloody deed !
Nano. The king,t our liege, hath sought by
many means
For to appease his enemy by prayers :
Naught will prevail unless he can restore
Fair Dorothea, long supposed dead :
To this intent he hath proclaimed late,
That whosoe'er return the queen to court
Shall have a thousand marks for his reward.
Lady A n. He loves her, then, I see, although
enfore'd,
That would bestow such gifts for to regain her.
Why sit you sad, good sir ? be not dismay'd.
Nano. I'll lay my life, this man would be a maid.
Q. Dor. [aside.] Fain would I show myself, and
change my tire.
Lady An. Whereon divine you, sir?
Nano. Upon desire.
Madam, mark but my skill, I'll lay my life,
My master here will prove a married wife.
Q.Dor. [aside to~S.] Wilt thou bewray me, Nano?
Nano. [aside to Q. D.] Madam, no :
You are a man, and like a man you go :
But I that am in speculation seen £
Know you would change your state and be a
queen.
Q. Dor. [aside to N.] Thou art not, dwarf, to
learn thy mistress' mind :
Fain would I with § thyself disclose my kind,
But yet I blush.
Nano. [aside to Q. D.] What blush you, madam,
than, ||
To be yourself, who are a feigned man ?
Let me alone.
Lady An. Deceitful beauty, hast thou scorn'd
me so ?
Nano. Nay, muse not, madam, for hell tells you
true.
* lad*] The 4to. "Lords." Corrected by Mr. Collier,
Intrnd. to The Tempest, p. 11, Shakespeare, ed. ISoS.
t The ting] The 4to. "Thinking."
t .'<v»] i. e. skilled
§ with] Qy. "wish"?
II than] i. e. then. See note *, p. 206, sec. col.
U madam, for he] The 4to. " maiden, for she." — I hardly
SCENE VI.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
217
Lady An. Beauty bred love, and love hath bred
iny shame.
Nano. And women's faces work more wrongs
than these :
Take comfort, madam, to cure your* disease.
And yet he loves a man as well as you,
Only this difference, het cannot fancy two.
Lady An. Blush, grieve, and die in tbine insa-
tiate lust.
Q Dor. Nay, live, and joy that thou hast won
a friend,
Tbat loves thee as his life by good desert.
Lady An. I joy, my lord, more than my tongue
can tell :
Though + not as I desir'd, I love you well.
But modesty, that never blush'd before,
Discover my false heart : I say no more.
Let me alone,
Q. Dor. Good Nano, stay awhile.
Were I not sad, how kindly could I smile,
To see how fain I am to leave this weed !
And yet I faint to show myself indeed :
But danger hates delay, I will be bold. —
Fair lady, I am not, [as you] suppose,
A man, but even that queen, more hapless I,
Whom Scottish King appointed bath to die ;
I am the hapless princess for whose right
These kings in bloody war3 revenge despite ;
I am that Dorothea whom they seek,
Yours bounden for your kindness and relief;
And since you are the means that save my life,
Yourself and I will to the camp repair,
"Whereas§ your husband shall enjoy reward,
And bring me to his highness once again.
Lady An. Pardon, most gracious princess, if
you please,
My rude discourse and homely entertain ;
And if my words may savour any worth,
Vouchsafe my counsel in this weighty cause :
Since that our liege hath so unkindly dealt,
Give him no trust, return unto your sire ;
There may you safely live in spite of him.
Q.Dor. Ah lady, so would worldly counsel work;
But constancy, obedience, and my love,
In that my husband is my lord and chief,
These call me to compassion of his state : ||
Dissuade me not, for virtue will not change.
Lady A n. What wondrous constancy is this I
hear !
If English dames their husbands love so dear,
I fear me, in the world they have no peer.
Nano. Come, princess, wend, and let us change
your weed :
I long to see you now a queen indeed. [Exeunt.
understand this ; and perhaps the text here is somewhat
mutilated : but it is evident that Lady Anderson has not
yet learned the sex of her guest.
* your] The 4to. ' ' our. "
t he] The-ito. "she."
♦ Though' The 4to. "Alhough."
i Whereas] i. e. Where.
!| state] The 4to. "estate."
SCENE VI.
Enter the Kixg of Scots, the English Herald, and Lords.
K. of Scots. He would have parley, lords :—
herald, say he shall,
And get thee gone : go, leave me to myself.
[Exit Herald.— Lords retire.
'Twixt love and fear continual are the wars ;
The one assures me of my Ida's love,
The other moves me for my murder'd queen :
Tiius find I grief of that whereon I joy,
And doubt in greatest hope, and death in weal.
Alas, what hell may be compar'd with mine,
Since in extremes my comforts do consist !
War then will cease when dead ones are reviv'd ;
Some then will yield when I am dead for hope.—
Who doth disturb me ? Andrew )
Enter Andrew and Soppeb,
And. Ay, my liege.
K. of Scots. What news 1
And. I think my mouth was made at first
To tell these tragic tales, my liefest lord.
K. of Scots. What, is Ateukin dead 1 tell me
the worst.
A nd. No, but your Ida— shall I tell him all I—
Is married late— ah, shall I say to whom \—
My master sad— for why* he shames the court-
Is fled away ; ah most unhappy flight !
Only myself— ah, who can love you more !—
To show my duty, duty past belief,
Am come unto your grace, gracious liege,
To let you know- -0, would it were not thus !—
That love is vain and maids soon lost and won.
K. of Scots. How have the partial heavens, then,
dealt with me,
Boding my weal for to abase my power !
Alas, what thronging thoughts do me oppress !
Injurious love is partial in my right,
And flattering tongues, by whom I was misled,
Have laid a snare to spoil my state and me.
Methinks I hear my Dorothea's ghost
Howling revenge for my accursed hate :
* for ichy] i. e. because.
218
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT V.
The ghosts* of those my subjects that are slaiu
Pursue me, crying out, " Woe, woe to lust ! "
The foe pursues me at my palace-door,
He breaks my rest, aud spoils me in my camp.
Ah, flattering brood of sycophants, my foes !
First shall my dire revenge begin on you.
I will reward thee, Andrew.
Slip. Nay, sir, if you be in your deeds of charity,
remember me. I rubbed Master Ateukin's horse-
heels when he rid to the meadows.
K. of Scots. And thou shalt have thy recom-
pense for that. —
Lords, bear them to the prison, chain them fast,
Until we take some order for their deaths.
And. If so your grace in such sort give rewards,
Let me have naught ; I am content to want.
Slij). Then, I pray, sir, give me all ; I am as
ready for a reward as an oyster for a fresh tide ;
6pare not me, sir.
K. of Scots. Then hang them both as traitors
to the king.
Slip. The case is altered, sir: I'll none of your
gifts. What, I take a reward at your hands,
master! faith, sir, no; I am a man of a better
conscience.
K. of Scots. Why dally you ? go draw them
hence away.
Slip. Why, alas, sir, I will go away. — I thank
you, gentle friends; I pray you spare your
pains : I will not trouble his honour's master-
ship ; I'll run away.
K. of Scots. Why stay you ? move me not. Let
search be made
For vile Ateukin : whoso finds him out
Shall have five hundred marks for his reward.
Away with themlf
Enter Oberon t and Antics, and carry away Slipper ; he
makes mops,§ and sports, and scorns. Andrew is re-
moved.
Lords, troop about my tent :
Let all our soldiers stand in battle 'ray,
• ghosts] Thc4to. -'gifts."
t Away <■ ,il< Ha ,„ > cfcc.J The Ito. has ;
" Avtnj w ith the Lords troupes about my tent " ;
and it makes Oberon and the Antics enter too soon (the
Stage-directions in our old dramas — which were generally
printed from prompters' copies- being often prematurely
marked in order to give the players notice to be in readi-
ness).
Obcrou (sco p. 212, see. col.) ha/1 told Bohan that he
would Rive his son on this critical occasion ;
" Ob,,- v. i and yon toddy, for the sport he made,
Shall see, when least he hopes, I'll stand his friend,
Or else he capers in .i baiter's end.
Bok. What, hang my son," kc.
i ObtrOn] Th<: Ito. "Adam.'
<; mop$\ i e. grimaces.— The -Ito. "pots." — 1 onco con-
jectured " pouts."
For, lo, the English to their parley come.
March over bravely, first the English host, the sword earri'd
before the King by Percy ; the Scottish an the other side,
with all their pomp, bravely.
What seeks the King of England in this land ?
K. of Eng. False, traitorous Scot, I come for to
revenge
My daughter's death; I come to spoil thy wealth,
Since thou hast spoil'd me of my marriage-joy ;
I come to heap thy land with carcases,
That this thy thirsty soil, chok'd up with blood,
May thunder forth revenge upon thy head ;
I come to quit thy lawless love * with death :
In brief, no means of peace shall e'er be found,
Except I have my daughter or thy head.
K. of Scots. My head, proud king ! abase thy
pranking plumes :+
So striving fondly mayst thou catch thy grave.
But if true judgment do direct thy course,
These lawful reasons should divide the war :+
Faith, not by my consent thy daughter died.
K. of Eng. Thou liest, false Scot ! thy agents
have confess'd it.
These are but fond delays : thou canst not think
A means to § reconcile me for thy friend.
I have thy parasite's confession penn'd ;
What, then, canst thou allege in thy excuse ?
K. of Scots. I will repay the ransom for her
blood. [sell my child?
K. of Ewj. What, think'st thou, caitiff", I will
No, if thou be a prince and man-at-arms,
In single combat come and try thy right,
Else will I prove thee recreant to thy face.
K. of Scots. I brook || no combat, false injurious
king.
But since thou needless art inclin'd to war,
Do what thou dar'st ; we are in open field ;
Arming my battle, Tf I will fight with thee.
K. of Eng. Agreed. — Now, trumpets, sound a
dreadful charge.
Fight for your princess, [my] brave Englishmen !
K. of Scots. Now** for your lands, your chil-
dren, and your wives,
My Scottish peers, and lastly for your king !
* quit thy lawless lore] — quit, i.e. requite. — The 4 to. "<piil
thy louelesse loue." — Corrected by Mr. Collier, Preface to
c<il, ridge's Seven Lectures on Shak-csjieare and Milton, &c
p. cxvi.
t plumes] The 4to. "plaines."
J Tlies: lawful reasons should divide the wor] Qy. "This
lawful reason should divert the war"1
§ to] The (to. "for<o."
|| brook} The4to. "tooke."
1[ my battle] The 4to. "thy battles.'
•" Now, ito] The 4to. gives these two Hues to the King
of England.
SCENE VI.
JAMES THE FOURTH.
219
Alarum sounded ; both the battles offer to meet, and, just as
they are joining, eider Sir Cuthbkrt Anderson and
Lady Anderson, with Queen Dorothea richly attired,
and Nano.
Sir Cuth. Stay, princes, wage not war : a privy
grudge
'Twixt such as you, most high in majesty,
Afflicts both nocent and the innocent.
How many swords, dear princes, see I drawn !
The friend against his friend, a deadly fiend ;*
A desperate division in those lands
Which, if they join in one, command the world.
O, stay ! with reason mitigate your rage ;
And let an old man, humbled on his knees,
Entreat a boon, good princes, of you both.
K. of Eng. I condescend, for why f thy reve-
rend years
Import some news of truth and consequence.
K. of Scots. I am content,! for, Anderson, I know
Thou art my subject and dost mean me good.
Sir Cuth. But by your gracious favours grant
me this,
To swear upon your sword[s] to do me right.
K. of Eng. See, by my sword and by a prince's
In every lawful sort I am thine own. [faith,
K. of Scots. And, by my sceptre and the
Scottish crown,
I am resolv'd to grant thee thy request.
Sir Cuth. I see you trust me, princes, who
The weight of such a war upon my will, [repose
Now mark my suit. A tender lion's whelp,
This other day, came straggling in the woods,
Attended by a young and tender hind,
In courage haught,§ yet 'tired like a lamb.
The prince of beasts had left this young in keep,
To foster up as love-mate and compeer,
Unto the lion's mate, a || neighbour-friend:
This stately guide, seduced by the fox,
Sent forth an eager wolf, bred up in France,
That grip'd the tender whelp and wounded it.
By chance, as I was hunting in the woods,
I heard the moan the hind made for the whelp :
I took them both and brought them to my house.
With chary care I have recur'd % the one ;
And since I know the lions are at strife
About the loss and damage of the young,
I bring her home ; make claim to her who list.
\ Discovers Queen Dorothea.
* 1md] The4to. "friend."
t for why] i. e. because.
t lam content, &c] The 4to. gives this line to the King
of England.
col
§ havght] The 4to. "hautie."— See note J, p. 117, sec.
II a] Q.V- "and"?
% recur'd] i. e. recovered.
Q, Dor. I am the whelp, bred by this lion up,
This royal English King, my happy sire :
Poor Nano is the hind that tended me.
My father, Scottish King, gave me to thee,
A hapless wife : thou, quite misled by youth,
Hast sought sinister loves aud foreign joys.
The fox Ateukin, cursed parasite,
Incens'd your grace to send the wolf abroad,
The French-born Jaques, for to end my days :
He, traitorous man, pursu'd me in the woods,
And left me wounded ; where this noble knight
Both rescu'd me and mine, and sav'd my life.
Now keep thy promise : Dorothea lives ;
Give Anderson his due and just reward :
And since, you kings, your wars began by me,
Since I am safe, return, surcease your fight.
K. of Scots. Durst I presume to look upon
those eyes
Which I have tired with a world of woes,
Or did I think submission were enough,
Or sighs might make an entrance to my soul,
You heavens, you know how willing I would
weep;
You heavens can tell how glad I would submit;
You heavens can say how firmly I would sigh.
Q. Dor. Shame me not, prince, companion in
thy bed :
Youth hath misled,— tut, but a little fault :
'Tis kingly to amend what is amiss.
Might I with twice as many pains as these
Unite our hearts, then should my wedded lord
See how incessant labours I would take. —
My gracious father, govern your affects:
Give me that hand, that oft hath ble3t this head,
And clasp thine arms, that have embrae'd this
[neck],
About the shoulders of my wedded spouse.
Ah, mighty prince, this king and I am one !
Spoil thou his subjects, thou despoilest me;
Touch thou his breast, thou dost attaint this
heart :
0, be my father, then, in loving him !
K. of Eng. Thou provident kind mother of
hi crease,
Thou must prevail, ah, Nature, thou must rule !
Hold, daughter, join my hand and his in one;
I will embrace him for to favour thee :
I call him friend, and take him for my son.
Q. Dor. Ah, royal husband, see what God hath
wrought !
Thy foe is now thy friend. — Good men-at-arms,
Do you the like.— These nations if they join,
What monarch, with his liege-men, in this world,
Dare but encounter you in open field ?
220
JAMES THE FOURTH.
ACT T.
K. of Scots. All wisdom, joiu'd with godly
piety !—
Thou English king, pardon my former youth ;
And pardon, courteous queen, my great misdeed ;
And, for assurance of mine after-life,
I take religious vows before my God,
To honour thee for father,* her for wife.
Sir Cath. But yet+ my boons, good princes, are
not pass'd.
First, English king, I humbly do request,
That by your means our princess may unite
Her love unto mine aldertruest % love,
Now you will love, maintain, and help them both.
K. of Eng. Good Anderson, I grant thee thy
request.
Sir. Cutk. But you, my prince, must yield me
mickle more.
You know your nobles are your chiefest stays,
And long time have been banish'd from your
court :
Embrace and reconcile them to yourself ;
They are your hands, whereby you ought to work.
As for Ateukin and his lewd compeers,
That sooth'd you in your sins and youthly pomp,
Exile, torment, and punish such as they ;
For greater vipers never may be found
Within a state than such aspiring heads,
That reck not how they climb, so that they
climb.
K. of Scots. Guid knight, I grant thy suit. —
First I submit,
And humbly § crave a pardon of your grace. —
Next, courteous queen, I pray thee by thy loves
Forgive mine errors past and pardon me. —
My lords and princes, if I have misdone
« father] The 4 to. " fauour."
t But yet, &c] The 4to. gives to Lady Anderson this
and the next speech of Sir Cuthbert Anderson.
J aldsrtrued] i. e. truest of all,— alder being used as the
genitive o( all. So Chaucer has " alderftret "; and Shake-
speare, and our author in a poem in his Mourning Gar-
ment (see pout), have " ahlerliefest,"
§ humbly] Thc4to. "humble."
(As I have wroug'd indeed both you and yours),
Hereafter, trust me, you are dear to me.
As for Ateukin, whoso finds the man,
Let him have martial law, and straight be hang'd,
As all his vain abettors now are dead.*
And Anderson our treasurer shall pay
Three thousand marks for friendly recompense.
Nano.f But, princes, whilst you friend it thus
in one,
Methinks of friendship Nano shall have none.
Q. Dor. What would my dwarf, that I will
not bestow]
Nano. My boon, fair queen, is this, — that you
would go :
Although my body is but small and neat,
My stomach, after toil, requireth meat :
An easy suit, dread princess ; will you wend ]
K. of Scots. Art thou a pigmy-born, my pretty
friend ?
Nano. Not so, great king, but nature, when she
fram'd me,
Was scant of earth, and Nano therefore nam'd
me ;
And, when she saw my body was so small,
She gave me wit to make it big withal.
K. of Scots. Till time when.J
Q. Dor. Eat, then.
K. of Scots. My friend, it stands with wit,
To take repast when stomach serveth it.
Q. Dor. Thy policy, my Nano, shall prevail. —
Come, royal father, enter we my tent : —
And, soldiers, feast it, frolic it, like friends : —
My princes, bid this kind and courteous train
Partake some favours of our late accord.
Thus wars have end, and, after dreadful hate,
Men learn at last to know their good estate.
[Exeunt omnes.
* As all his vain abettors now are dead] The 4 to. ;
" As (all his vame arbetters now are diuided).'
t Nano] The 4to. " L. Andr."
} Till time when] To this and the next speech of the
King of Scots the 4to. prefixes merely " K." Part of the
text appears to be wanting here.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
j
The ComicaU Historie of Alpkonmu, King of Arugon. At it kath bene tundrie linns Acted. MaeUby R.G. London
Brinted (sic) by Thomas Creede. 1509. 4to.
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
Carinus, the rightful heir to tho crown of Arragon.
Alphonsus, his son.
Flaminius, King of Arragon.
Belinus, King of Naples.
Duke of Milan.
Albinius.
Fa Bins.
I^tXlUS.
Miles.
Amurack, the Great Turlc
Akcastus. King of the Moors.
Claramont, King of Barbary.
Crocon, King of Arabia.
Faustus, King of Babylon.
Bajazet, a lord.
Two Priests of Mahomet.
Provost, Soldiers, Janissaries, <fcc.
Fausta, wife to Amurack.
Iphiqena, her daughter.
Medea,* an enchantress.
Mahomet (speaking from the Brazen Head).
Venus.
The Nine Muses.
* Medea] Greene is not the only modern poet who has introduced an enchantress of this name, distinct from the
ancient one : see Tasso's Rinaldo, Canto, x.
r"
THE COMICAL HISTORY OF ALPHONSUS,
KING OF ARRAGON.
ACT I.
After you. have sounded thrice* let Venus be let down from,
the. top of the stage.
Venus. Poets are scarce, when goddesses them-
selves
Are forc'd to leave their high and stately seats,
Plac'd on the top of high Olympus' Mount,
To seek them out, to pen their champions' praise.
The time hath been when Homer's sugar'd Muse
Did make each echo to repeat his verse,
That every coward that durst crack a spear,
And tilt and tournay for his lady's sake,
Was painted out in colours of such price
As might become the proudest potentate.
But now-a-days so irksome idless' + sleights,
And cursed charms have witch'd each student's
mind,
That death it is to any of them all,
If that their hands to penning you do call.
Virgil, Virgil! wert thou now alive,
Whose painful pen, in stout Augustus' days,
Did dainj to let the base and silly fly§
To scape away without thy praise of her,
1 do not doubt but long or ere this time
Alphonsus' fame unto the heavens should climb ;
Alphonsus' fame, that man of Jove his seed,
Sprung from the loins of the immortal gods,
Whose sire, although he habit on the earth,
May claim a portion in the fiery pole,
As well as any one whate'er he be.
* sounded thrice] In our early theatres the performance
was preceded by three soundings or nourishes of trum-
pets. At the third sounding the curtain which concealed
the stage from the audience was drawn (opening in the
middle and running upon iron rods), and the play began.
t idless'] The4to. "Idels."
t dain\ i. e. disdain.
§ fy] The4to. "flea."— The Culex is the poem alluded
to.
But setting by AlphonsuB' power divine,
What man alive, or now amongst the ghosts,
Could countervail his courage and his strength ?
But thou art dead, yea, Virgil, thou art gone,
And all his acts drown'd in oblivion.*
No, Venus, no, though poets prove unkind,
And loth to stand in penning of hi3 deeds,
Yet rather than they shall be clean forgot,
I, which was wont to follow Cupid's games,
Will put in uret Minerva's sacred art ;
And this my hand, which used for to pen
The praise of love and Cupid's peerless power,'
Will now begin to treat of bloody Mars,
Of doughty deeds and valiant victories.
Enter Melfomene, Clio, Erato, with their Sisters, playing
all upon sundry instruments, Calliope only excepted,
who coming last, hangeth down the head, and plays not
of her instrument.
But see whereas:}: the stately Muses come,
Whose harmony doth very far surpass
The heavenly music of Apollo's pipe !
But what means this 1 Melpomene herself
With all her sisters sound their instruments,
Only excepted fair Calliope,
Who, coming last and hanging down her head,
Doth plainly show by outward actions
What secret sorrow doth torment her heart.
[Stands aside.
Mel. Calliope, thou which so oft didst crake§
How that such clients cluster'd to thy court,
By thick and threefold, as not any one
* And all his acts, &c] This line is printed twice over
in the 4 to.
f ure] i. e. use.
I wliereas] i. e. where.
§ crake] i.e. crack,— boast. "Children and fooles vse
to crake." G. Harvey's Pierce's Supererogation, 1593, p.
104.
4
226'
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
ACT I.
Of all thy sisters might compare with thee,
Where be thy scholars now become, I trow?
Where are they vanish'd in such sudden sort,
That, while as we do play upon our strings,
You stand still lazing and have naught to do ?
Clio. Melpomene, make you a why of that ?
I know full oft you have [in] authors read,
The higher tree, the sooner is his fall,
And they which first do flourish and bear sway,
Upon the sudden vanish clean away.
Cal. Mock on apace; my back is broad enough
To bear your flouts as many as they be.
That year is rare that ne'er feels winter's storms ;
That tree is fertile which ne'er wanteth fruit ;
And that same Muse hath heaped well in store,
Which never wanteth clients at her door.
But yet, my sisters, when the surgent seas
Have ebb'd their fill, their waves do rise again,
And fill their banks up to the very brims ;
And wlien my pipe hath eas'd herself a while,
Such store of suitors shall my seat frequent,
That you shall see my scholars be not spent.
Erato. Spent, quoth you, sister ? then we were
to blame,
If we should say your scholars all were spent.
But pray now tell me when your painful pen
Will rest enough 1
Mel. When husbandmen shear hogs.
Ven. [coming forward.] Melpomene, Erato,* and
the rest,
From thickest shrubs Dame Venus did espy
The mortal hatred which you jointly bear
Unto your sister high Calliope.
What, do you think if that the tree do bend,
It follows therefore that it needs must break ?
And since her pipe a little while doth rest,
It never shall be able for to sound )
Yes, Muses, yes, if that she will vouchsafe
To entertain Dame Venus in her school,
And further me with her instructions,
She shall have scholars which will dainf to be
In any other Muse's company.
Cal. Most sacred Venus, do you doubt of that ?
Calliope would think her three times blest
For to receive a goddess in her school,
Especially so high an one as you,
Which rules the earth, and guides the heavens too.
Ven. Then sound your pipes, and let us bend
our steps
Unto the top of high Parnassus Hill,
And there together do our best devoir
For to describe Alphonsus' warlike fame,
* Erato) Wrong quantity,
t i/cuh] i. c. disdain.
And, in the manner of a comedy,
Set down his noble valour presently.
Cal. As Venus wills, so bids Calliope.
Mel. And as you bid, your sisters do agree.
[Exeunt.
Enter Caeinus and Alphonsus.
Can. My noble son, since first I did recount
The noble acts your predecessors did
In Arragon against their warlike foes,
I never yet could see thee joy at all,
But hanging down thy head as malcontent,
Thy youthful days in mourning have been spent.
Tell me, Alphonsus, what might be the cause
That makes thee thus to pine away with care ?
Hath old Carinus done thee any offence
In reckoning up these stories unto thee ?
What, ne'er a word but mum?* Alphonsus, speak,
Unless your father's fatal day you seek.
Alphon. Although, dear father, I have often
vow'd
Ne'er to unfold the secrets of my heart
To any man or woman, whosome'er
Dwells underneath the circle of the sky ;
Yet do your words so cdnjure me, dear sire,
That needs I must fulfil that you require.
Then so it is. Amongst the famous tales
Which you rehears'd done by our sires in war,
Whenas you came unto your father's days,
With sobbing notes, with sighs and blubbering
tears,
And much ado, at length you thus began ;
" Next to Alphonsus should my father come
For to possess the diadem by right
Of Arragon, but that the wicked wretch,
His younger brother, with aspiring mind,
By secret treason robb'd him of his life,
And me his son of that which was my due."
These words, my sire, did so torment my mind,
As, had I been with Ixiont in hell,
The ravening bird could never plague me worse;
For ever since my mind hath troubled been
Which way I might revenge this traitorous fact,
And that recover which is ours by right.
Cari. Ah, my Alphonsus, never think on that!
In vain it is to strive against the stream :
The crown is lost, and now in hucksters' hands,
And all our hope is cast intoj the dust.
* What, ne'er a word but mum ?] So, towards the end
of Pcclo's Old Wives Tale, Sacrapant says ;
" What, not a vrord but mum ?
Then, Sacrapant, thou art betray'd."
t Ixion] Wrong quantity again. And here Greene
confounds the punishment of Tityus with that of Ixion.
J into] Equivalent to" unto": see note t, p-111, sec. col.
ACT I.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
227
Bridle these thoughts, and learn the sanio of me, —
A quiet life doth pass an empery.
Alpkon. Yet, noble father, ere Carinus' brood
Shall brook his foe for to usurp his seat,
He'll die the death with honour in the field,
And so his life and sorrows briefly end.
But did I know my froward fate were such
As I should fail in this my just attempt,
This sword, dear father, should the author be
To make an end of this my tragedy.
Therefore, sweet sire, remain you here a while,
And let me walk my fortune for to try.
I do not doubt but, ere the time be long,
I'll quite his cost, or else myself will die.
Cari. My noble son, since that thy mind is such
For to revenge thy father's foul abuse,
As that my words may not a whit prevail
To stay thy journey, go with happy fate,
And soon return unto thy father's cell,
With such a train as Julius Caesar came
To noble Rome, whenas he had achiev'd
The mighty monarch of the triple world.
Meantime Carinus in this silly grove
Will spend his days with prayers and orisons
To mighty Jove to further thine intent.
Farewell, dear son, Alphonsus, fare you well.
lExit.
Alpkon. And is he gone? then hie, Alphonsus,
hie,
To try thy fortune where thy fates do call.
A noble mind disdains to hide his head,
And let his foes triumph in his overthrow.
As Alphonsus is about to go out, enter Albinius.
Albi. What loitering fellow have we spied here ?
Presume not, villain, further for to go,
Unless* you do at length the same repent.
Alpkon. [coming towards Albinius.] " Villain,"
say'st thou ? nay, " villain " in thy throat I
What, know'st thou, skipjack, whom thou villain
call'st ?
Albi. A common vassal I do villain call.
Alpkon. That shalt thou soon approve, f per-
suade thyself,
Or else I'll die, or thou shalt die for me.
Albi. What, do I dream, or do my dazzling eyes
Deceive me ? Is't Alphonsus that I see ?
Doth now Medea use her wonted charms
For to delude Albinius' fantasy ?
Or doth black Pluto, king of dark Avern,
Seek to t .flout ma with his .counterfeit ?
* V nltss] i. e. Lest (as afterwards).
t approve] i. e. prove.
1 to] Qy. " for to " (as in the precediug line but one)?
His body like to Alphonsus' framed is,
His face resembles much Alphonsus' hue ;
His noble mind declares him for no less ;
'Tis he indeed. Woe worth Albinius,
Whose babbling tongue hathcaus'd his own annoy !
Why doth not Jove send from the glittering skies
His thunderbolts to chastise this offence?
Why doth Dame Terra cease with greedy jaws
To swallow up Albinius presently ?
What, shall I fly and hide my traitorous head
From stout Alphonsus whom I so misus'd?
Or shall I yield ? Tush, yielding ia in vain,
Nor can I fly but he will follow me.
Then cast thyself down at his grace's feet,
Confess thy fault, and ready make thy breast
To entertain thy well-deserved death. [Kneels.
Alpkon. What news, my friend? why are you
so blank,*
That erst before did vaunt it to the skies ?
Albi. Pardon, dear lord! Albinius pardon craves
For this offence, which, by the heavens I vow,
Unwittingly I did unto your grace ;
For had I known Alphonsus had been here,
Ere that my tongue had spoke so traitorously,
This hand should make my very soul to die.
Alpkon. Rise up, my friend, thy pardon soon is
got : [Albinius rises up.
But, prithee, tell me, what the cause might be
That in such sort thou erst upbraided'st me ?
Albi. Most mighty prince, since first your
father's sire
Did yield his ghost unto the Sisters Three,
And old Carinus forced was to fly
His native soil and royal diadem ;
I, for because I seemed to complain
Against their treason, shortly was forewarn'd
Ne'er more to haunt the bounds of Arragon
On pain of death. Then, like a man forlorn,
I sought about to find some resting-place ;
And at the length did hap upon this shore,
Where showing forth my cruel banishment,
By King Belinus I am succoured.
But now, my lord, to answer your demand :
It happens so, that the usurping king
Of Arragon makes war upon this land
For certain tribute which he claimeth here ;
Wherefore Belinus sent me round about
His country.t for to gather up men
For to withstand this most injurious foe;
Which being done, returning with the king,
* you so blank] Qy. "yon now so blank "?
t His country, &c] Something has dropt out from thia
line.
<|2
228
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
ACT t.
Dispitefully I did so taunt your grace,
Imagining you had some soldier been,
The which, for fear, had sneaked from the camp.
A Iphon, Enough, Albinius, I do know thy mind :
But may it be that these thy happy news
Should be of truth, or have you forged them ?
Albi. The gods forbid that e'er Albinius' tongue
Should once be found to forge a feigned tale,
Especially unto his sovereign lord :
But if Alphonsus think that I do feign,
Stay here a while, and you shall plainly see
My words be true, whenas you do perceive
Our royal army march before your face.
The which, if t please my noble lord to stay,
I'll hasten on with all the speed I may.
Alphon. Make haste, Albinius, if you love my
life ;
But yet beware, whenas your army comes,
You do not make as though you do me know,
For I a while a soldier base will be,
Until I find time more convenient
To show, Albinius, what is mine intent.
Albi. Whate'er Alphonsus fittest doth esteem,
Albinius for his profit best will deem. [Exit.
Alphon. Now do I see both gods and fortune
too
Do join their powers to raise Alphonsus' fame ;
For in this broil I do not greatly doubt
But that I shall my cousin's courage tame.
But see whereas Belinus' army comes,
And he himself, unless I guess awry :
Whoe'er it be, I do not pass * a pin ;
Alphonsus means his soldier for to be.
Enter Belinus, A binius, Fabius, marching, with their
Soldiers.
Beli. Thus far, my lords, we trained have our
camp
For to encounter haughty Arragon,
Who with a mighty power of straggling mates
Hath traitorously assailed this our land,
And burning towns, and sacking cities fair,
Doth play the devil wheresome'er he comes.
Now, as we are informed by our scouts,
He marcheth on unto our chiefest seat,
Naples, I mean, that city of renowm.t
For to begirt it with his bands about,
And so at length, the which high Jove forbid,
To sack the same, as erst he other did.
If which should hap, Belinus were undone,
His country spoil'd and all his subject^] slain :
Wherefore your sovereign thinketh it most meet
• pa*i\ i o. cAre.
f renown] i e. renewn (Fr. rcnom).
For to prevent the fury of the foe,
And Naples succour, that distressed town,
By entering in, ere Arragon doth come,
With all our men, which will sufficient be
For to withstand their cruel battery.
Albi. The silly serpent, found by country-swain,
And cut in pieces by his furious blows,
Yet if her * head do scape away untouch'd,
As many write, it very strangely goes
To fetch an herb, with which in little time
Her batter'd corpse again she doth conjoin :
But if by chance the ploughman's sturdy staff
Do hap to hit upon the serpent's head,
And bruise the same, though all the rest be sound,
Yet doth the silly serpent lie for dead,
Nor can the rest of all her body serve
To find a salve which may her life preserve.
Even so, my lord, if Naples once be lost,
Which is the head of all your grace's land,
Easy it were for the malicious foe
To get the other cities in their hand:
But if from them that Naples town be free,
I do not doubt but safe the rest shall be ;
And therefore, mighty king, I think it best,
To succour Naples rather than the rest.
Beli. 'Tis bravely spoken : by my crown I
swear,
I like thy counsel, and will follow it.
But hark, Albinius, dost thou know the man
That doth so closely overthwart us stand ?
IPointing towards Alphonsus.
Albi. Not I, my lord, nor never saw him yet.
Beli. Then, prithee, go and ask him presently,
What eountrymau he is, and why he comes
Into this place ? perhaps he is some one
That is sent hither as a secret spy
To hear and see in secret what we do.
[Albinius and Fabius go toward Alphonsus.
Albi. My friend, what art thou, that so like a
spy
Dost sneak about Belinus' royal camp ?
Alphon. I am a man.
Fabi. A man ! we know the same :
But prithee, tell me, and set scoffing by,
What countryman thou art, and why you come,
That we may soon resolve the king thereof]
A Iphon, Why, say I am a soldier.
Fabi. Of whose band?
Alphon. Of his that will most wages to me
give.
Fabi. But will you be
Content to serve Belinus in his wars?
her] The 4to. "his"': but see what follows.
ACT II.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
2^0
Alphon,. Ay,
If he'll reward me as I do deserve,
And grant whate'er I win, it shall be mine
Incontinent.
Albi. Believe me, sir, your serviee costly is:
But stay a while, and I will bring you word
What King Belinus says unto the same.
[Goes towards Belinus.*
Bdi. What news, Albinius? who is that we
seel
Albi. It is, my lord, a soldier that you see,
Who fain would serve your grace in these your
wars,
But that, I fear, his service is too dear.
Bell. Too dear ! why so ? what doth the soldier
crave ?
Albi. He craves, my lord, all things that with
his sword
He doth obtain, whatever that they be.
Bdi. Content, my friend : if thou wilt succour
me,
Whate'er you get, that challenge as thine own ;
Beliuus gives it frankly unto thee,
Although it be the crown of Arragon.
Come on therefore, and let us hie apace
To Naples town, whereas by this, I know,
Our foes have pitched their tents against our
walls.
Alphon. March on,* my lord, for I will follow
you;
And do not doubt but, ere the time be long,
I shall obtain the crown of Arragon. [Exeunt.
ACT II.
Alaram; and then enter Venus.
Venus. Thus from the pit of pilgrim's poverty
Alphoasus gins by step and step to climb
Unto the top of friendly Fortune's wheel.
From banish'd state, as you have plainly seen,
He is transform'd into a soldier's life,
And marcheth in the ensign of the king
Of worthy Naples, which Belinus hight ; +
Not for because that he doth love him so,
But that he may revenge him on his foe.
Now on the top of lusty barbed steed
He mounted is, in glittering armour clad,
Seeking about the troops of Arragon,
For to encounter with his traitorous niece. X
How he doth speed, and what doth him befall,
Mark this our act, for it doth show it all. [Exit.
Alarum. Enter Flamikicb on one tide, Alphonsus on
the other. They fight, and Alphonsus kills Flaminius.
Alphon. Go pack thou hence § unto the Stygian
lake,
* Belinus] The 4to. "Alphonsus."
t hight) i. e. is called.
X niece] Is here used for a relation in general : so
afterwards in the present play, p. 236, first col.,
" Unto Belinus, my most friendly niece."
| Qo pack thou lience, &c] AVith this passage compare
the following lines in The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of
Yorke, &c. ( where Gloster stabs the dead King Henry ;
" If anie sparke of life remaine in thee,
Powue, downe to hell, and saie I sent thee thither," —
which Shakespeare retained in The Third Part of Henry
VI., act v. sc. 6, merely altering "remaine in thee" to
And make report unto thy traitorous sire
How well thou hast enjoy 'd the diadem
Which he by treason set upon thy head ;
And if he ask thee who did send thee down,
Alphonsus say, who now must wear thy crown.
Alarum. Enter hAi-uva.
Lceli. Traitor, how dar'st thou look me in the
face, «/
Whose mighty king thou traitorously hast slain I
What, dost thou think Flaminius hath no friends
For to revenge his death on thee again ?
Yes, be you sure that, ere you scape from hence,
Thy gasping ghost shall bear him company,
Or else myself, fighting for his defence,
Will be content by those thy hands to die.
Alphon. Lselius, few words would better thee
become,
Especially as now the case doth stand ;
And didst thou know whom thou dost threaten
thus,
We should you have more calmer out of hand .
For, Lselius, know, that I Alphonsus am,
The son and heir to old Carinus, whom
The traitorous father of Flaminius
Did secretly bereave of his diadem.
But see the just revenge of mighty Jove !
"be yet remaining." Concerning The True Traijedie. &c.
see the Account of Greene and his Writing** P- 60, note §.
* March on, &c] These three lines tu the 4to. form a
part of Beliuus' speech.
230
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
act n.
The father dead, the son is likewise slain
By that man's hand who they did count as dead,
Yet doth survive to wear the diadem,
When they themselves accompany the ghosts
Which wander round about the Stygian fields.
[LuELlus gazes upon Alphonsus.
Muse not hereat, for it is true I say ;
I am Alphonsus whom thou hast misus'd.
Lceli. The man whose death* I did so oft
lament ! [Kneels.
Tben pardon me for thesef uncourteous words,
The wbich I in my rage did utter forth,
Prick'd by the duty of a loyal mind ;
Pardon, Alphonsus, this my first offence,
And let me die if e'er I flight again.
Alphon. Lselius, I fain would pardon this
offence,
And eke accept thee to my grace again,
But that I fear that, when I stand in need
And want your help, you will your lord betray.
How say you, Lrelius, may I trust to thee?
Lceli. Ay, noble lord, by all the gods I vow ;
For first shall heavens want stars, and foaming
seas
Want watery drops, before I'll traitor be
Unto Alphonsus, whom I honour so.
Alphon. Well, then, arise; and for because I'll
try [L.ELIUS rises.
If that thy words and deeds be both alike,
Go haste and fetch the youths of Arragon,
Which now I hear have turn'd their heels and
fled:
Tell them your chance, and bring them back
again
Into this wood; where in ambushment lie
Until I come or send for you myself.
Lceli. I will, my lord. [Exit.
Alphon. Full little think Belinus and his peers
What thoughts Alphonsus casteth in his mind ;
For if thgy did, they would not greatly haste
To pay the same the which they promis'd me.
Enter Belinus, Alkinius, Fabius, with their Soldiers,
marching.
Beli Like simple sheep, when shepherd absent
is
Far from his flock, assail'd by greedy wolves,:}:
Do scattering fly about, some here, some there,
To keep tin ir bodies from their ravening jaws,
So do the fearful youths of Arragon
• Tlie man whose death, &c.] In the 4to. the prefix to
this speech iH omitted,
t these] Qy. " those " ? but see note *, p. 179, first col.
I woloce] The 4 to. "wolfo."
Run round about the green and pleasant plains,
And hide their heads from Neapolitans ;
Such terror have their strong and sturdy blows
Struck to their hearts, as for a world of gold,
I warrant you, they will not come again.
But, noble lords, where is the knight become
Which made the blood be-sprinkle all the place
Whereas * he did encounter with his foe !
My friend, Albinius, know you where he is ?
A Ibi. Not I, my lord, for since in thickest ranks
I saw him chase Flaminius at the heels,
I never yet could set mine eyes on him.
But see, my lord, whereas the warrior stands,
Or else my sight doth fail me at this time.
[Sjiies out Alphonsus, and shows him to Belinus.
Beli. 'Tis he indeed, who, as I do suppose,
Hath slain the king or else some other lord,
For well I wot a carcass I do see
Hard at his feet lie struggling on the ground.
Come on, Albinius, we will try the truth.
[Goes with Albinius towards Alphonsus.
Hail to the noble victor of our foes !
Alphon. Thanks, mighty prince; but yet I
seek not this :
It is not words must recompense my pain,
But deeds. When first I took up arms for you,
Your promise was, whate'er my sword did win
In fight, as his Alphonsus should it crave.
See, then, where lies thy foe Flaminius,
Whose crown my sword hath conquer'd in the
field;
Therefore, Belinus, make no long delay,
But that discharge you promis'd for to pay.
Beli. Will naught t else satisfy thy conquering
mind
Besides the crown ? Well, since thou hast it won,
Thou shalt it have, though far against my will.
Alphonsus sits in the chair ; Belinus takes the crown off
Flaminius' head, and putt it on that of Alphonsus.
Here doth Belinus crown thee with his hand
The King of Arragon.
[Trumpets and drums sounded within.
What, are you pleas'd ?
Alphon. Not so, Belinus, till you promise me
All things belonging to the royal crown
Of Arragon, and make your lordings swear
For to defend me to their utmost power
Against all men that shall gainsay the same.
Beli. Mark, what belonged erst unto the crown
Of Arragon, that challenge as thine own;
Belinus gives it frankly unto thee,
And Bwear[s] by all the powers of glittering skies
* Whereas] i. e. Where.
t naught] The to. "nothing."
ACT II.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
231
To do my beet for to maintain the same,
So that it be not prejudicial
Unto mine honour or my country-soil.
Albi. And by the sacred seat of mighty Jove
Albinius swears that first he'll die the death
Before he'll see Alphonsus suffer wrong.
Fabi. What erst Albinius vow'd we jointly vow.
Alphon. Thanks, mighty lords; but yet I
greatly fear
That very few will keep the oaths they swear.
But, what, Belinus, why stand you so long,
And cease from offering homage unto me ?
What, know you not that I thy sovereign am,
Crowned by thee and all thy other lords,
And now confirmed by your solemn oaths ?
Feed not thyself with fond persuasions,
But presently come yield thy crown to me,
And do me homage, or by heavens I swear
I'll force thee do it maugre all thy train.
Beli. How now, base brat ! what, are thy wits
thine own,
That thou dar'st thus abraid * me in my land ?
'Tis best for thee these speeches to recall,
Or else, by Jove, I'll make thee to repent
That e'er thou sett'st thy foot in Naples' soil.
Alphon. "Base brat," say'st thou? as good a
man as thou :
But say I came but of a base descent,
My deeds shall make my glory for to shine
As clear as Luna in a winter's night.
But for because thou bragg'st so of thy birth,
I'll see how it shall profit thee anon.
Fabi. Alphonsus, cease from these thy threat-
ening words,
And lay aside this thy presumptuous mind,
Or else be sure thou shalt the same repent.
Alphon. How now, sir boy ! will you be
prattling too?
'Tis best for thee to hold thy tattling tongue,
Unlessf I send some one to scourge thy breech.
Why, then, I see 'tis time to look about
When every boy Alphonsus dares control :
But be they sure, ere Phoebus' golden beams
Have compassed the circle of the sky, [serve
I'll clog their tongues, since nothing else will
To keep those vile J and threatening speeches in.
Farewell, Belinus, look thou to thyself:
Alphonsus means to have thy crown ere night.
[Exit.
* abraid] i. e. upbraid.
1 Unless'] See note t, P- 227, first col.
J vile] Here the 4to. has "vilde": but in a later part
of the play it has " so vile a massacre ", p. 238, third line,
sec. col. And see note t, l>- 167, sec. col.
Beli. What, is he gone? the devil break his
neck,
The fiends of hell torment his traitorous corpse !
Is this the quittance* of Belinus' grace,
Which he did show unto that thankless wretch,
That runagate, that rakehell, yea, that thief?
For, well I wot, he hath robb'd me of a crown.
If ever he had sprung from gentle blood,
He would not thus misuse his favourer.
Albi. " That runagate, that rakehell, yea, that
thief" !
Stay there, sir king, your mouth runs over-much ;
It ill becomes the subject for to use
Such traitorous term3 against his sovereign.
Know thou, Belinus, that Carinas' son
Is neither rakehell nor runagate : +
But be thou sure that, ere the darksome night
Do drive God Phcebus to his Thetis' lap,
Both thou, and all the rest of this thy train,
Shall well repent the words which you have sain.+
Beli. What, traitorous villain, dost thou
threaten me? —
Lay hold on him, and see he do not scape :
I'll teach the slave to know to whom he speaks.
Albi. To thee I speak,§ and to thy fellows all ;
And though as now you have me in your power,
Yet doubt I not but that in little space
These eyes shall see thy treason recompens'd,
And then I mean to vauntH our victory.
Beli. Nay, proud Albinius, never build on that;
For though the gods do chance for to appoint
Alphonsus victor of Belinus' land,
Yet shalt thou never live to see that day : —
And therefore, Fabius, stand not lingering,
But presently slash off his traitorous head.
Albi. Slash off his head ! as though Albinius'
head
Were then so easy to be slashed off :
In faith, sir, no ; when you are gone and dead,
I hope to flourish like the pleasant spring.
Beli. Why, how now, Fabius ! what, do you
stand in doubt
To do the deed ? what fear you ? who dares seek
For to revenge his death on thee again,
Since that Belinus did command it so ?
Or are you wax'd so dainty that you dare
Not use your sword for staining of your hands ?
If it be so, then let me see thy sword,
* quittance] i. c. requital.
t nor runagate] Qy. "nor a runagatt"1
\ sain] i. e. said.
§ To thee I speak, &c] The 4to. gives these five lines to
Belinus.
|| vaunt] The 4to. " vaunt of."
232
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
ACT II.
And I will be his butcher for this time.
[Fabius gives Belinus his sword drawn.
Now, Sir Albinius, are you of the mind
That erst you were ? what, do you look to see,
And triumph in, Belinus' overthrow ?
I hope the very sight of this my blade
Hath chang'd your mind into another tune.
Albi. Not so, Belinus, I am constant still.
My miud is like to the asbeston-stone,
Which, if it once be heat in flames of fire,
Denieth to becomen cold again :
Even so am I, and shall be till I die.
And though I should see Atropos appear
With knife in hand, to slit my thread in twain,
Yet ne'er Albinius should persuaded be
But that Belinus he should vanquish'd see.
Beli. Nay, then, Albinius, since that words are
vain
For to persuade you from this heresy,
This sword shall sure put you out of doubt.*
Belinus offers to strike off Albinius' head : alarum ; enter
Alphonscs and his Men ; Belinus and Fabius fly,
followed by Alphonsus and Albinius. Enter Luelius,
MlLES.t and others.
Lali. My noble lords of Arragon, I know
You wonder much what might the occasion be
That Laelius, which erst did fly the field,
Doth egg you forwards now unto the wars ;
But when you hear my reason, out of doubt
You'll be content with this my rash attempt.
When first our king, Flaminius I do mean,
Did set upon the Neapolitans,
The worst of you did know and plainly see
How far they were unable to withstand
The mighty forces of our royal camp,
Until such time as froward fates we thought,
Although the fates ordain'd it for our gain,
Did send a stranger stout, whose sturdy blows
And force alone did cause our overthrow.
But to our purpose : this same martial knight
Did hap to hit upon Flaminius,
And lent our king then such a friendly blow
As that his gasping ghost to Limbo went.
Which when I saw, and seeking to revenge,
My noble lords, did hap on such a prize,
As never king nor keisar got the like.
Miles. Lajlius, of force we must confess to thee,
We wonder'd all whenas you did persuade
Us to return unto the wars again;
* 77a* sword sltatl sure put you out of doubt] Here
"Hiiro" is n flinHTllable : fee Walker's Shakespeare's Vcrsi-
Jlcntinn, <fec , p. 146.
t Mii.fxJ Here, but ouly hero, the 4to. "MiLoa."
But since our marvel is increased much
By these your words which sound of happiness :
Therefore, good Lselius, make no tarrying,
But soon unfold thy happy chance to us.
Lali. Then, friends and fellow soldiers, hark to
me;
When Laelius thought for to revenge his king
On that same knight, instead of mortal foe,
I found him for to be our chiefest friend.
Miles. Our chiefest friend ! I hardly can believe
That he, which made such bloody massacres
Of stout Italians, can in any point
Bear friendship to the country or the king.
Lceli. As for your king, Miles, I hold with you,
He bare no friendship to Flaminius,
But hated him as bloody Atropos;
But for your country, Lselius doth avow,
He loves as well as any other land,
Yea, sure, he loves it best of all the world.
And for because you shall not think that I
Do say the same without a reason why,
Know that the knight Alphonsus hath to name,
Both son and heir to old Carinus, whom
Flaminius' sire bereaved of his crown ;
Who did not seek the ruin of our host
For any envy he did bear to us,
But to revenge him on his mortal foe ;
Which by the help of high celestial Jove
He hath achiev'd with honour in the field.
Miles. Alphonsus, man ! I'll ne'er persuaded be
That e'er Alphonsus may survive again,
Who with Carinus, many years ago,
Was said to wander in the Stygian fields.
Lceli. Truth, noble Miles : these mine ears
have heard,
For certainty reported unto me,
That old Carinus, with his peerless son,
Had felt the sharpness of the Sisters' shears ;
And had I not of late Alphonsus seen
In good estate, though all the world should say
He is alive, I would not credit them.
But, fellow soldiers, wend you back with me,
And let us lurk within the secret shade
Which he himself appointed unto us;
And if you find my words to be untroth,
Then let me die to recompense the wrong.
Alarum; re-enter Albinius with his sword drawn.
Albi. Laelius, make haste : soldiers of Arragon,
Set lingering by, and come and help your king,
I mean Alphonsus, who, whilst that he did
Pursue Belinus at the very heels,
Was suddenly environed about
With all the troops of mighty Milan-land.
ACT III.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
233
Miles. What news is this ! and is it very so ?
Is our Alphonsus yet in human state,
Whom all the world did judge for to be dead ?
Yet can I scarce give credit to the same :
Give credit ! yes, and since the Milan Duke
Hath broke his league of friendship, be he sure,
Ere Cynthia, the Binning lamp of night,
Doth scale the heavens with her horned head,
Both he and his shall very plainly see
The league is burst that caused long the glee.
Lceli. And could the traitor harbour in hia
breast
Such mortal treason 'gainst his sovereign,
As when he should with fire and Bword defend
Him from his foes, he seeks his overthrow ?
March on, my friends : I ne'er shall joy at all,
Until I seo that bloody traitor's fall. [Exeunt.
Alarum: Belinus flies, followed by IJelius; Vti.mvs flies,
followed by Albinius; the Duke of Milan flits, followed
by Miles.
ACT III.
Alarum ; and then enter Venus.
Venus. No sooner did Alphonsus with his troop
Set on the soldiers of Belinus' band,
But that the fury of his sturdy blows
Did strike such terror to their daunted minds
That glad was he which could escape away,
With life and limb, forth of that bloody fray.
Belinus flies unto the Turkish soil,
To crave the aid of Amurack their king ;
Unto the which he willingly did consent,
And sends Belinus, with two other kings,
To know God Mahomet's pleasure in the same.
Meantime the empress by Medea's help
Did use such charms that Amurack did see,
In soundest sleep, what afterward should hap.
How Amurack did recompense her pain,
With mickle more, this act shall show you plain.
[Exit.
Enter one, carrying two crowns upon a crest ; Alphonsus,
Albinius, L^lics, and Miles, with their Soldiers.
Alphon. Welcome, brave youths of Arragon,
to me,
Yea, welcome, Miles, Laelius, and the rest,
Whose prowess alone hath been the only cause
That we, like victors, have subdu'd our foes.
Lord, what a pleasure was it to my mind,
To see Belinus, which not long before
Did with his threatenings terrify the gods,
Now scud apace from warlike Laelius' blows !
The Duke of Milan, he increas'd our sport,
When* doubting that his force was over- weak
For to withstand, Miles, thy sturdy arm,
Did give more credence to his frisking skips
Than to the sharpness of his cutting blade.
What Fabius did to pleasure us withal,
Albinius knows as well as I myself;
* When] Qy. "Who"?
For, well I wot, if that thy tired steed
Had been as fresh and swift in foot as his,
He should have felt, yea, known for certainty,
To check Alphonsus did deserve to die.
Briefly, my friends and fellow-peers in arms,
The worst of you deserve * such mickle praise,
As that my tongue denies for to set forth
The demi-parcel of your valiant deeds ;
So that perforce I must by duty be
Bound to you all for this your courtesy.
Miles. Not so, my lord ; for if our willing arms
Have pleasur'd you so much as you do say,
We have done naught but that becometh us,
For to defend our mighty sovereign.
As for my part, I count my labour small,
Yea, though it had been twice as much again,
Since that Alphonsus doth accept thereof.
Alphon. Thanks, worthy Miles : lest t all the
world
Should count Alphonsus thankless for to be,
Laelius, sit down, and, Miles, sit by him,
And that receive the which your swords have won.
[LuBlius and Miles sit dojen.
First, for because thou, Laelius, in these broils,
By martial might didst proud Belinus chase
From troop to troop, from side to side about,
And never ceas'd from this thy swift pursuit
Until thou hadst obtain'd his royal crown,
Therefore, I say, I'll do thee naught but right,
And give thee that which + thou well hast won.
[Sets the crown on his head.
Here doth Alphonsus crown thee, Laelius, King
Of Naples' town, with all dominions
* deserve] The 4to. "doo deserve."
+ lest] Qy. "but lest'"! Walker (Crii. Exam, of the text
of Shakespeare, &c, ii. 271) would read " lest that."
X that which] Walker (ubi supra) "that the which", as
in the fourth line of this speech.
234
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
act m.
That erst belonged to our traitorous foe,
That proud Belinus in his regiment.*
[Trumpets and drums sounded.
Miles, thy share the Milan Dukedom is,
For, well I wot, thy sword deserv'd no less ;
[Sets the crown on his head.
The which Alphonsus frankly giveth thee,
In presence of his warlike men-at-arms ;
And if that any stomach + this my deed,
Alphonsus can revenge thy wrong with speed.
[ Trumpets and drums sounded.
Now to Albinius, which in all my toils
I have both faithful, yea, and friendly, found :
Since that the gods and friendly fates assign
This present time to me to recompense
The sundry pleasures thou hast done to me,
Sit down by them, and on thy faithful head
[Takes the crown from his own head.
Receive the crown of peerless Arragon.
Alii. Pardon, dear lord, Albinius at this time;
It ill becomes me for to wear a crown
Whenas my lord is destitute himself.
Why, high Alphonsus, if I should receive
This crown of you, the which high Jove forbid,
Where would yourself obtain a diadem?
Naples is gone, Milan possessed is,
And naught is left for you but Arragon.
Alplion. And naught is left for me but Arragon!
Yes, surely, yes, my fates have so decreed,
That Arragon should be too base a thing
For to obtain Alphonsus for her king.
What, hear you not how that our scatter'd foes,
Belinus, Fabius, and the Milan Duke,
Are fled for 6uccour to the Turkish court ?
And think you not that Amurack their king
Will, with the mightiest power of all his land,
Seek to revenge Belinus' overthrow ?
Then doubt I not but, ere these broils do end,
Alphonsus shall possess the diadem
That Amurack now wears upon his head.
Sit down therefore, and that receive of me
The which the fates appointed unto thee.
Albi. Thou king of heaven, which by thy
power divine
Dost see the secrets of each liver's heart,
Beat record now with what unwilling mind
I do receive the crown of Arragon !
[Albinius sits down by Laslius and Miles; and
Alphonsus sets the crown on his hi ad.
Al/ihon. Arise, Albinius, King of Arragon,
Crowned by me, who, till my gasping ghost
Do part asunder from my breathless corpse,
* ret/imenf] i. c. ^way.
\ ttomach,] i. c. be angry at, resont.
Will be thy shield against all men alive
That for thy kingdom any way do strive.
[Trumpets and drums sounded.
Now since we have, in such an happy hour,
Confirm'd three kings, come, let us march with
speed
Into the city, for to celebrate
With mirth and joy this blissful festival. [Exeunt.
Enter Amurack, BELtNus, Fabius, Arcastus, Clara-
mont, and Bajazet, with their train.
Amu. Welcome, Belinus, to thy cousin's court,
Whose late arrival in such posting pace
Doth bring both joy and sorrow to us all ;
Sorrow, because the fates have been so false
To let Alphonsus drive thee from thy land,
And joy, since that now mighty Mahomet
Hath given me cause to recompense at full
The sundry pleasures I receiv'd of thee.
Therefore, Belinus, do but ask and have,
For Amurack doth grant whate'er you crave.
Bell. Thou second sun, which with thy glimpsing
beams
Dost clarify each corner of the earth,
Belinus comes not, as erst Midas did
To mighty Bacchus, to desire of him
That whatsoe'er at any time he touch'd
Might turned be to gold incontinent.
Nor do I come as Jupiter did erst
Unto the palace of Amphitryon,
For any fond or foul concupiscence
Which I do bear to Alcumena's * hue.t
But as poor Saturn, fore'd by mighty Jove
To fly his country, banish'd and forlorn,
Did crave the aid of Troos * King of Troy,
So comes Belinus to high Amurack ;
And if he can but once your aid obtain,
He turns with speed to Naples back again.
Amu. My aid, Belinus ! do you doubt of that?
If all the men-at-arms of Africa,
Of Asia likewise, will sufficient be
To press the pomp of that usurping mate,
Assure thyself thy kingdom shall be thine,
If Mahomet say ay unto the same ;
For were I sure to vanquish all our foes,
And find such spoils in ransacking their tents
As never any keisar did obtain,
Yet would I not set foot forth of this land,
If Mahomet our journey did withstand.
* Alcumena's — Troos] So spelt by Greene for the sake
of the measure. Iu our author's Orlando Furioso, ac-
cording to the Alleyu MS., is " Alcumena's child " ; see
note t, p. 107, first col.
t hue] i. e. beauty.
ACT III.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
235
Beli. Nor would Belinus, for KiDg Croesus' trash,
Wish Amurack to displease* the gods
In pleasuring me in such a trifling toy.
Then, mighty monarch, if it be thy will,
Qet their consents, and then the act fulfil.
Amu. You counsel well; therefore, Belinus,
haste,
And, Claramont, go bear him company,
With King Arcastus, to the city-walls :
Then bend with speed unto the darksome grove
Where Mahomet, this many a hundred year,
Hath prophesied unto our ancestors.
Tell to his priests that Amurack, your king,
Is now selecting all his men-at-arms
To set upon that proud Alphonsus' troop
(The cause you know, and can inform themf
well,
That makes me take these bloody broils in hand);
And say that I desire their sacred god,
That Mahomet which ruleth all the skies,
To send me word, and that most speedily,
Which of us shall obtain the victory.
[Exeunt all except Bajazet ami Amurack.
You, Bajazet, go post away apace
To Syria, Scythia, and Albania,
To Babylon, with Mesopotamia,
Asia, Armenia, and all other lands
Which owe their homage to high Amurack :
Charge all their kings with expedition
To gather up the chiefest men-at-arms
Which now remain in their dominions,
And on the twentieth] day of the same month
To come and wait on Amurack their king
At his chief city Constantinople.
Tell them, moreover, that, whoso doth fail,
Naught else but death from prison shall him bail.
[Exit Bajazet. Music within.
What heavenly music soundeth in my ear ?
Peace, Amurack, and hearken to the same.
[Amurack harkms to the music, and falls asleep.
Enter Medea, Fausta, and Iphioena.
Medea. Now have our charms fulfill'd our
minds full well :
High Amurack is lulled fast asleep,
And doubt I not but, ere he wakes again,
You shall perceive Medea did not gibe
Whenas she put this practice:}: in your mind.
Sit, worthy Fausta, at thy spouse his feet.
Iphigena, sit thou on the other side.
[Fausta and Iphioena sit down.
* to displease] Qy. "so to displease "I
f them] The 4to. "him."
| practice) i. e. stratagem.
Wliate'er you see, be not aghast thereat,
But bear in mind what Amurack doth chat.
{Does ceremonies belonging to conjuring.
Thou, which wert wont, in Agamemnon's days,
To utter forth Apollo's oracles
At sacred Delphos, Calchas I do mean,
I charge thee come ; all lingering set aside,
Unless the penance you thereof abide :
I cdnjure thee, by Pluto's loathsome lake,
By all the hags which harbour in the same,
By stinking Styx and filthy Phlegethon,
To come with speed, and truly to fulfil
That which Medea to thee straight shall will !
Calchas rises up, in a while surplice* and a cardinal's
mitre.
Calc. Thou wretched witch, when wilt thou
make an end
Of troubling us with these thy cursed charms ?
What mean'st thou thus to call me from my grave?
Shall ne'er my ghost obtain his quiet rest ?
Medea. Yes, Calchas, yes, your rest doth now
approach ;
Medea means to trouble thee no more,
Whenas thou hast fulfill'd her mind this once.
Go get thee hence to Pluto back again,
And there inquire of the Destinies t
How Amurack shall speed in these his wars ?
Peruse their books, and mark what is decreed
By Jove himself and all his fellow-gods;
And when thou know'st the certainty thereof,
By fleshless visions show it presently
To Amurack, in pain of penalty.
Calc. Forc'd by thy charm, though with un-
willing mind,
I haste to hell, the certainty to find.
[Sinks down where he came up.
Medea. Now, peerless princess, I must needs be
gone;
My hasty business calls me from this place.
There resteth naught, but that you bear in mind
What Amurack, in this his fit, doth say;
For mark, what dreaming, madam, he doth prate,
Assure yourself that that shall be his fate.
Fausta. Though very loth to let thee so depart,
Farewell, Medea, easer of my heart. [Exit Medea.
[Instruments sound within.
Amu. [speaking in a dream.'] What, Amurack,
dost thou begin to nod ?
Is this the care that thou hast of thy wars ?
As when thou shouldst be prancing of+ thy steed,
* surplice] The 4to. " Cirples."
t And there inquire of the Destinies] In this line "in-
quire " is a trisyllable : see Walker's Shakespeare's Versifi-
cation, &c., p. 146.
I of] i. e. on.
236
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
ACT III.
To egg thy soldiers forward in thy wars,
Thou sittest moping by the fire-side !
See where thy viceroys grovel on the ground ;
Look where Belinus breatheth forth his ghost ;
Behold by millions how thy men do fall
Before Alphonsus, like to silly sheep ;
And canst thou stand still lazing in this sort ?
No, proud Alphonsus, Amurack doth fly
To quail thy courage, and that speedily.
[Instruments sound within.
And dost thou think, thou proud injurious god,
Mahound I mean, since thy vain prophecies
Led Amurack into this doleful case,
To have his princely feet in irons clapt,
Which erst the proudest kings were forc'd to kiss,
That thou shalt scape unpunish'd for the same ?
No, no, as soon as by the help of Jove
I scape this bondage, down go all thy groves,
Thy altars tumble round about the streets,
And whereas erst we sacrific'd to thee,
Now all the Turks thy mortal foes shall be.
[Instruments sound within.
Behold the gem and jewel of mine age,
See where she comes, whose heavenly majesty
Doth far surpass the brave and gorgeous pace
Which Cytherea, daughter unto Jove,
Did put in ure* whenas she had obtain'd
The golden apple at the shepherd's hands.
See, worthy Fausta, where Alphonsus stands,
Whose valiant courage could not daunted be
With all the men-at-arms of Africa ;
See now he stands as one that lately saw
Medusa's head or Gorgon's hoary hue.
[Instruments sound within.
And can it be that it may happen so ?
Can fortune prove so friendly unto me
As that Alphonsus loves Iphigena?
The match is made, the wedding is decreed :
Sound trumpets, hah 1 1 strike drums for mirth
and glee !
And three times welcome son-in-law to me !
Fausta. [rising up in a fury andwaking Amurack.]
Fie, Amurack, what wicked words be these ?
How canst thou look thy Fausta in her face,
Whom thou hast wronged in this shameful sort ?
And are the vows so solemnly you sware
Unto Belinus, my most friendly niece,t
Now wash'd so clearly§ from tliy traitorous heart?
Is all the rancour which you erst did bear
Unto Alplionsus worn so out of mind
* ure] i. e. use.
\ fuih\ The 4to. " haw " (perhaps an error for " how,'
tho old spelling of " ho ").
X niece] See note {, p. 220, first col.
§ clearly] Qy. "cleanly"?
As, where* thou shouldst pursue him to death, t
You seek to give our daughter to his hands ?
The gods forbid that such a heinous deed
With my consent should ever be decreed:
And rather than thou shouldst it bring to pass,
If all the army of Amazonea
Will be sufficient to withhold the same,
Assure thyself that Fausta means to fight
'Gainst Amurack for to maintain the right.
Jphi. Yea, mother, say, — which Mahomet for-
bid,—
That in this conflict you should have the foil,
Ere that Alphonsus should be call'd my spouse,
This heart, this hand, yea, and this blade, should
be
A readier means to finish that decree.
Amu. [rising in a rage from his chair. 1
What threatening words thus thunder in mine
ears?
Or who are they, amongst the mortal troops,
That dare presume to use such threats to me?
The proudest kings and keisars of the land
Are glad to feed me in my fantasy ;
And shall I suffer, then, each prattling dame
For to upbraid me in this spiteful sort ?
No, by the heavens, first will I lose my crown,
My wife, my children, yea, my life and all.
And therefore, Fausta, thou which Amurack
Did t tender erst as the apple of mine eye,
Avoid my court, and, if thou lov'st thy life,
Approach not nigh unto my regiment. §
As for this carping girl, Iphigena,
Take her with thee to bear thee company,
And in my land I rede U be seen no more,
For if you do, you both shall die therefdre. [Exit.
Fausta. Nay, then, I see 'tis time to look about,
Delay is dangerous, and procureth harm :
The wanton colt is tamed in his youth ;
Wounds must be cur'd when they be fresh and
green ;
And pleurisies, when they begin to breed,
With little care H are driven away with speed.
Had Fausta then when Amurack begun
With spiteful speeches to control and check,
Sought to prevent it by her martial force,
This banishment had never hapt to me.
But the echinus, fearing to be gor'd,
* where] 1. e. whereas.
t to death] Qy. "to the death'"! Compare "He'll die
the death," &c, p. 227, first col., and "first he'll die the
death," &c, p. 231, first col.
1 Did] The4to. "Didst."
§ regiment] i. e. government, — dominions.
|| rede\ i. e. advise.
U care) The 4to. "ease."
ACT IIL
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
237
Doth keep her younglings in her paunch so long,
Till, when their pricks be waxen long and sharp,
They put their dam at length to double pain :
And I, because I loath'd the broils of Mars,
Bridled my thoughts and pressed down my rage ;
In recompense of which my good intent,
I have receiv'd this woful banishment.
Woful, said I ? nay, happy I did mean,
If that be happy which doth set one free ;
For by this means I do not doubt ere long
But Fausta shall with ease revenge her wrong.
Come, daughter, come : my mind fortelleth me
That Amurack shall soon requited be.
As Fausta and Iphigena are going out, enter Medea,
meeting than.*
Medea. Fausta, what means this sudden flight
of yours 1
Why do you leave your husband's princely court,
And all alone pass through these thickest groves,
More fit to harbour brutish savage beasts
Than to receive so high a queen as you ?
Although your credit would not stay your steps
From bending them into these darkish dens,
Yet should the danger, which is imminent
To every one which passeth by these paths,
Keep you at home with fair Iphigena.
What foolish toy hath tickled you to this ?
I greatly fear some hap hath hit amiss.
Fausta. No toy, Medea, tickled Fausta's head,
Nor foolish fancy led me to these groves,
But earnest business eggs my trembling steps
To pass all dangers, whatsoe'er they be.
I banish'd am, Medea, I, which erst
Was empress over all the triple world,
Am banish'd now from palace and from pomp.
But if the gods be favourers to me,
Ere twenty days I will revenged be.
Medea. I thought as much when first from
thickest leaves
I saw you trudging in such posting pace.
But to the purpose : what may be the cause
Of this strange t and sudden banishment ?
Fausta. The cause, ask you ? A simple cause,
God wot ;
'Twas neither treason, nor yet felony,
But for because I blam'd his foolishness.
* enter Medea, meeting them] Here a change of scene
is supposed, — from the palace ot Amurack to certain
"groves": seethe nextspeech. It must be remembered,
that, in our author's days, the theatres had no painted
moveable scenery. — And vide note *, p. 160, sec. col.
t this strange] Qy. " this so strange " ? (Queried by me
before the publication of Walker's Crit. Exam, of the text
oj Slatkespeare, &c, where (ii. 208) the same correction is
proposed )
Medea. I hear you say so, but I greatly fear,
Ere that your tale be brought unto an end,
You'll prove yourself the author of the same.
But pray, be brief; what folly did your spouse'?
And how will you revenge your wrong on him ?
Fausta. What folly, quoth you ? Such as never
yet
Was heard or seen since Phoebus first gan shine.
You know how he was gathering in all haste
His nien-at arms, to set upon the troop
Of proud Alphonsus ; yea, you well do know
How you and I did do the best we could
To make him show us in his drowsy dream
What afterward should happen in his wars.
Much talk he had, which now I have forgot ;
But at the length this surely was decreed,
How that Alphonsus and Iphigena
Should be conjoin'd in Juno's sacred rites.
Which when I heard, as one that did despise
That such a traitor should be son to me,
I did rebuke my husband Amurack :
And since my words could take no better place,
My sword with help of all Amazone
Shall make him soon repent his foolishness.
Medea. This is the cause, then, of your banish-
ment?
And now you go unto Amazone
To gather all your maidens in array,
To set upon the mighty Amurack ?
foolish queen, what meant you by this talk ?
Those prattling speeches have undone you all.
Do you disdain to have that mighty prince,
1 mean Alphonsus, counted for your son ?
I tell you, Fausta, he is born to be
The ruler of a mighty monarchy.
I must confess the powers of Amurack
Be great, his confines stretch both far and near ;
Yet are they not the third part of the lands
Which shall be ruled by Alphonsus' hands :
And yet you dain * to call him son-in-law.
But when you see his sharp and cutting sword
Piercing the heart of this your gallant girl,
You'll curse the hour wherein you did denay t
To join Alphonsus with Iphigena.
Fausta. The gods forbid that e'er it happen so!
Medea. Nay, never pray, for it must happen so.
Fausta. And is there, then, no remedy for it ?
Medea. No, none but one, and that you have
forsworn.
Fausta. As though an oath can bridle so my
mind
As that I dare not break a thousand oaths
* dain] i. e. disdain.
f deiuu/] i. e. deny, refuse.
238
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
ACT IV.
For to eschew the danger imminent !
Speak, good Medea, tell that way to me,
And I will do it, whatsoe'er it be.
Medea. Then, as already you have well decreed,
Pack to your country, and in readiness
Select the army of Amazones :
When you have done, march with your female
troop
To Naples' town, to succour Amurack :
And so, by marriage of Iphigena,
You soon shall drive the danger clean away.
Iphi. So shall we soon * eschew Charybdis'
lake,
And headlong fall to Scylla's greedy gulf.
I vow'd before, and now do vow again,
Before I wed Alphonsus, I'll be slain.
Medea. In vain it is to strive against the stream ;
Fates must be follow'd, and the gods' decree
Must needs take place in every kind of oause.
Therefore, fair maid, bridle these brutish thoughts,
And learn to follow what the fates assign.
When Saturn heard that Jupiter his son
Should drive him headlong from his heavenly seat
Down to the bottom of the dark Avern,
He did command his mother presently
To do to death the young and guiltless child :
But what of that ? the mother loath'd in heart
For to commit so vile a massacre ;
Yea, Jove did live, and, as the fates did say,
From heavenly seat drave Saturn clean away.
What did avail the castle all of steel,
The which Acrisius caused to be made
To keep his daughter Danae clogg'd in ?
She was with child for all her castle's force ;
And by that child Acrisius, her sire,
Was after slain, so did the fates require.
A thousand* examples I could bring hereof;
But marble stones need + no colouring,
And that which every one doth know for truth
Needs no examples to confirm the same.
That which the fates appoint must happen so,
Though heavenly Jove and all the gods say no.
Fausta. Iphigena, she sayeth naught but truth,
Fates must be follow'd in their just decrees ;
And therefore, setting all delays aside,
Come, let us wend unto Amazone,
And gather up our forces out of hand.
Iphi. Since Fausta wills, and fates do so com-
mand,
Iphigena will never it withstand. [Exeunt.
ACT IV.
Enter Venus.
Ven. Thus have you seen how Amurack himself,
Fausta his wife, and every other king
Which holds their sceptres at the Turk his hands,
Are now in arms, intending to destroy,
And bring to naught, the Prince of Arragon.
Charms have been us'd by wise Medea's art,
To know before what afterward shall hap ;
And King Belinus, with high Claramont,
Join'd to Arcastu8,+ which with princely pomp
Doth rule and govern all the warlike Moors,
Are sent as legates to God Mahomet,
To know his counsel in these high affairs.
Mahound, provok'd by Amurack's discourse,
Which, as you heard, he in his dream did use,
Denies to play the prophet any more ;
But, by the long entreaty of his priests,
He prophesies in such a crafty sort
As that the hearers needs must laugh for sport.
* So shall we soon, <fec] A recollection of the celobratod
lino in Gaultier's Alexandreis, —
" Incidis in iScyllam cupicns vitare Charybdin."
f Arcastvs] Th 4to. "Alphonsus.' 1
Yet poor Belinus, with his fellow kings,
Did give such credence to that forged tale
As that they lost their dearest lives thereby,
And Amurack became a prisoner
Unto AlphonBus, as straight shall appear. [Exit.
Let there be a Brazen Head tel in the middle of the place
behind the stage. Enter tico Priests.
First Pr. My fellow priest X of Mahound's holy
house,
What can you judge of these strange miracles
Which daily happen in this sacred seat ?
[Drums rumble within.
Hark, what a rumbling rattleth in our ears !
[Flakes of fire are cast forth of the Brazen Head.
See flakes of fire proceeding from the mouth
Of Mahomet, that god of peerless power !
Nor can I tell, with all the wit I have,
What Mahomet, by these his signs, doth crave.
" A thousand] Qy. "Thousand"?
t need) Qy. "do need"?
t priestl The 4to. " priests."
ACT IV.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
Sec. Pi: Thrice ten times Phcebus with his
golden beams
Hath coin passed the circle of the sky,
Thrice ten times Ceres hath her workmen hir'd,
And fill'd her barns with fruitful crops of corn,
Since first in priesthood I did lead my life ;
Yet in this time I never heard before
Such fearful sounds, nor saw such wondrous
sights ;
Nor can I tell, with all the wit I have,
What Mahomet, by these his signs, doth crave.
Mahomet, [speaking out of the Brazen Head.]
You cannot tell, nor will you seek to know :
perverse priest[s], how careless are you wax'd,
As when my foes approach unto my gates,
You stand still talking of "I cannot tell "f"
Go pack you hence, and meet the Turkish kings,
Which now are drawing to my temple ward ;
Tell them from me, God Mahomet is dispos'd
To prophesy no more to Amuraek,
Since that his tongue is waxen now so free
As that it needs must chat and rail at me.
[The Priests hied.
First Pr. Mahomet, if all the solemn prayers
Which from our childhood we have offer'd thee,
Can make thee call this sentence back again,
Bring not thy priest[s] into this dangerous state !
For when the Turk doth hear of this repulse,
We shall be sure to die the death therefore.
Mahomet, [speaking out of the Brazen Head.]
Thou sayest truth : go call the princes in :
I'll prophesy unto them for this once ;
But in such wise as they shall neither boast,
Nor you be hurt in any kind of wise.
Belinus, Claramont, Arcastus, and Fabius are brought
in by the Priests.
First Pr. You kings of Turkey, Mahomet our
god,
By sacred science having notice that
You were sent legates from high Amuraek
Unto this place, commanded us, his priests,
That we should cause you make as mickle speed
As well you might, to hear for certainty
Of that shall happen to your king and ye.
Beli. For that intent we came into this place ;
And sithens * that the mighty Mahomet
Is now at leisure for to tell the same,
Let us make haste and take time while we may,
For mickle danger happeneth through delay.
Sec. Pr. Truth, worthy king, and therefore you
yourself,
* si<fo»»] i. e. since.
With your companions, kneel before this place,
And listen well what Mahomet doth say.
Beli, As you do will, we jointly will obey.
[All kneel doicn before the Brazen Bead.
Mahomet, [speaking out of the Brazen Head.]
Princes of Turkey, and ambassadors
Of Amuraek to mighty Mahomet,
I needs must muse that you, which erst have been
The readiest soldiers of the triple world,
Are now become so slack in your affairs
As, when you should with bloody blade in hand
Be hacking helms in thickest of your foes,
You stand still loitering in the Turkish soil.
What, know you not how that it is decreed
By all the gods and chiefly by myself,
That you with triumph should all crowned be ?
Make haste, kings,* lest when the fates do see
How carelessly you do neglect their words,
They call a council, and force Mahomet
Against his will some other thing to set
Send Fabius back to Amuraek again,
To haste him forwards in his enterprize ;
And march you on, with all the troops you have,
To Naples ward, to conquer Arragon,
For, if you stay, both you and all your men
Must needs be sent down straight to Limbo-den.
Set: Pr. Muse not, brave kings, at Mahomet's
discourse,
For mark what he forth of that mouth doth say,
Assure yourselves it needs must happen so.
Therefore make haste, go mount you on your
steeds,
And set upon Alphonsus presently :
So shall you reap great honour for your pain,
And scape the scourge which else the fates ordain.
[All rise up.
Beli. Then, proud Alphonsus, look thou to thy
crown :
Belinus comes, in glittering armour clad,
All ready prestf for to revenge the wrong
Which, not long since, you offer'd unto him ;
And since we have God Mahound on our side,
The victory must needs to us betide.
Cla. Worthy Belinus, set such threats away,
And let us haste as fast as horse can trot
To set upon presumptuous Arragon. —
You, Fabius, haste, as Mahound did command,
To Amuraek with all the speed you may.
Fabi. With willing mind I hasten on my way.
[Exit.
* Make haste, kings, <fcc.] Qy. " Make haste, then, kimix,"
&.c. 1 Walker (Crit. Exam, of the text of Shakespeai-e, ic ,
ii. 148) conjectures " Make haste, ye kings," &c, and
" Make haste, haste, kings," &c
f prest] i. e. prepared.
240
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
ACT IV.
Belt. And thinking long till that we be in fight,
Eelinus hastes to quail Alphonsus' might.
[Exeunt.
Alarum awhile. Enter Carinus.
Cari. No sooner had God Phoebus' brightsome
beams
Begun to dive within the western seas,
And darksome Nox had spread about the earth
Her blackish mantle, but a drowsy sleep
Did take possession of Carinus' sense,
And Morpheus • show'd me strange disguised
shapes.
Methought I saw Alphonsus, my dear son,
Plac'd in a throne all glittering clear with gold,
Bedeck'd with diamonds, pearls, and precious
stones,
Which shin'd so clear, and glitter'd all so bright,
Hyperion's coachf that well be term'd it might.
Above his head a canopy was set,
Not deck'd with plumes, as other princes use,
But all beset with heads of conquer'd kings,
Install'd with crowns, which made a gallant show,
And struck a terror to the viewers' hearts.
Under his feet lay grovelling on the ground
Thousand of princes, which he in his wars
By martial might did conquer and bring low :
Some lay as dead as either stock or stone,
Some other tumbled, wounded to the death ;
But most of them, as to their sovereign king,
Did offer duly homage unto him.
As thus I stood beholding of this pomp,
Methought Alphonsus did espy me out,
And, at a trice, he leaving throne alone,
Came to embrace me in his blessed arms.
Then noise of drums and sound of trumpets shrill
Did wake Carinus from this pleasant dream.
Something, I know, is now foreshown by this :
The Gods forfend that aught should hap amiss !
Carinus waits up and down. Enter tlie Duke of Milan
in pilgrim's apparel.
Duke of M. This is the chance of fickle For-
tune's wheel ;
A prince at morn, a pilgrim ere't be night.
I, which erewhile did dain+ for to possess
The proudest palace of the western world,
Would now be glad a cottage for to find,
To hide my head ; so Fortune hath assign 'd.
Thrice Hesperus with pomp and peerless pride
Hath heav*d his head forth of the eastern seas,
Thrice Cynthia, with Phoebus' borrow'd beams,
• Morpheus] The 4to. "Morphei.
t coach] The 4to. "couch."
t dain] 1. e. disdain.
Hath shown her beauty through the darkish
clouds,
Since that I. wretched duke, have tasted aught,
Or drunk a drop of any kind of drink.
Instead of beds set forth with ebony,
The greenish grass hath been my resting-place ;
And, for my pillow stuffed with down,*
The hardish hillocks have suffic'd my turn.
Thus I, which erst had all things at my will,
A life more hard than death do follow still.
Cari. [aside.] Methinks I hear, not very far
from hence,
Some woful wight lamenting his mischance :
I'll go and see if that I can espy
Him where he sits, or overhear his talk.
Duke of M. Milan, Milan, little dost thou
think
How that thy duke is now in such distress !
For if thou didst, I soon should be releas'd
Forth of this greedy gulf of misery.
Cari. [aside.] The Milan Duke! I thought as
much before,
When first I glanc'd mine eyes upon his face.
This is the man which was the only cause
That I was forc'd to fly from Arragon :
High Jove be prais'd which hath allotted me
So fit a time to quite that injury. —
Pilgrim, God speed.
Duke of M. Welcome, grave sir, to me.
Cari. Methought as now I heard you for to
speak
Of Milan land : pray, do you know the same ?
Duke of M. Ay, ag&d father,t I have cause to
know
Both Milan land and all the parts thereof.
Cari. Why, then, I doubt not but you can
resolve
Me of a question that I shall demand.
Duke of M. Ay, that I can, whatever that it be.
Cari. Then, to be brief: not twenty winters
past,
When these my limbs, which wither'd are with
age,
Were in the prime and spring of all their youth,
I still desirous, as young gallants be,
To see the fashions of Arabia,
My native soil, and in this pilgrim's weed,
Began to travel through unkenned lands.
* stuffed with down] '"Stuffed soft with down,' I ima-
gine." Walker's Crit. Exam, of the text of Shakespeare,
Ac, ii. 268.
t Ay, agH father, <fec] The4to. gives these two lines to
Carinus.
ACT IV.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
241
Much ground I pass'd, aud many soils I saw;
But when my feet in Milan-laud I set,
Such sumptuous triumphs dairy there I saw
As never in my life I found the like.
I pray, good sir, what might the occasion be,
That made the Milans make such mirth and glee?
Duke of M. This solemn joy whereof you now
do speak
Was not solemnized, my friend, in vain,
For at that time there came into the land
The happiest tidings that they e'er did hear;
For news was brought upon that solemn day
Unto our court, that Ferdinandus proud
Was slain himself, Carinus and his son
Were banish' d both for e r er from Arragon ;
And for these happy news that joy was made.
Cari. But what, I pray, did afterward become
Of old Carinus with his banish'd son ?
What, hear you nothing of them all this while ?
Duke of M. Yes,too-too much, the Milan Duke
may say.
Alphonsus first by secret means did get
To be a soldier in Belinus' wars,
Wherein he did behave himself so well
As that he got the crowu of Arragon ;
Which being got, he dispossess'd also
The king Belinus which had foster'd him.
As for Carinus, he is dead and gone :
I would his son were his companion.
Cari. A blister build upon that traitor's tongue!
But, for thy friendship which thou showed'st me,
Take that of me, I frankly give it thee.
[Stabs the Duke: of MrLAir, who dies.
Now will I haste to Naples with all speed,
To see if fortune will so favour me
To view Alphonsus in his happy state. [Exit.
Enter Amurack, Crocon, Faustus^ and Fabius, with the
Provost and Janissaries.
Amu. Fabius, come hither: what is that thou
say est 1
What did God Mahound prophesy to us ?
Why do our viceroys wend unto the wars
Before their king had notice of the same]
What, do they think to play bob-fool with me ?
Or are they wax'd so frolic now of late,
Since that they had the leading of our bands,
As that they think that mighty Amurack
Dares do no other than to soothe them up ?
Why speak'st thou not? what fond or frantic fit
Did make those careless kings to venture it ?
Fabi. Pardon, dear lord ; no frant.c fit at all,
No frolic vein, nor no presumptuous mind
Did make your viceroys take these wars in hand;
But forc'd they were by Mahouud's prophecy
To do the same, or else resolve to die.
Amu. So, sir, I hear you, but can scarce believe
That Mahomet would charge them go before,
Against Alphonsus, with so small a troop,
Whose number far exceeds King Xerxes' troop.*
Fabi. Yes, noble lord, and more than that, he
said
That, ere that you, with these your warlike men,
Should come to bring your succour to the field,
Belinus, Claramont, and Arcastus too-
Should all be crown'd with crowns of beaten go!d>
And borne with triumph+ round about their tents.
Amu. With triumph, man ! did Mahound tell
them so ? —
Provost, go carry Fabius presently
Unto the Marshalsea : there let him rest,
Clapt sure and safe in fetters all of steel,
Till Amurack discharge him from the same ;.
For be he sure, unless it happen so
As he did say Mahound did prophesy,.
By this my hand forthwith the slave shall die.
As Fabius is being carried out, enter a Soldier.
Sold. Stay, Provost, stay, let Fabius alone :
More fitteth now that every lusty lad
Be buckling on his helmet, than to stand
In carrying soldiers to the Marshalsea.
Amu. Why, what art thou that darest once
presume
For to gainsay that Amurack did bid !
Sold. I am, my lord, the wretched'st man alive,
Born underneath the planet of mishap ;
Erewhile a soldier of Belinus' band,
But now —
Amu. What now?
Sold. The mirror of mishap ;
Whose captain 's slain, aud all his army dead,
Only excepted me, unhappy wretch.
Amu. What news is this! and is Belinus slain?
Is this the crown which Mahomet did say
He should with triumph wear upon his head ?
Is this the honour which that cursed god
Did prophesy should happen to them all?
Dfedalus, an wert thou now alive
To fasten wings upon high Amurack,
. abound should know, and that for certainty,
That Turkish kings can brook no injury !
Fabi. Tush, tush, my lord ; I wonder what you
mean.
* troop] Repeated, most probably, by a mistake of the
transcriber or printer, from the preceding line. Qy.
"host"
t triumph] The 4 to. "triumphes."
242
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
ACT IV.
Thus to exclaim against high Mahomet.
I'll lay my life that, ere this day be past,
You shall perceive his * tidings all be waste.
Amu. We shall perceive, accursed Fabius !
Suffice it not that thou hast been the man
That first didst beat those baubles in my brain,
But that, to help me forward in my grief,
Thou seekest to confirm so foul a lie ]
Go get thee hence, and tell thy traitorous king
[Stabs Fabius, who dies.
What gift you had which did such tidings bring. —
And now, my lords, since nothing else will serve,
Buckle your helms, clap on your steeled coats,
Mount on your steeds, take lances in your hands;
For Amurack doth mean this very day
Proud Mahomet with weapons to assay.
Sold. Mercy, high monarch ! it is no time now
To spend the day in such vain threatenings
Against our god, the mighty Mahomet.
More fitteth thee to place thy men-at-arms
In battle 'ray, for to withstand your foes,
Which now are drawing towards you with speed.
[Drums sounded witldn.
Hark, how their drums with dub-a-dub do come !
To arms, high lord, and set these trifles by,
That you may set upon them valiantly.
Amu. And do they come ? You kings of
Turkey.t
Now is the time in which your warlike arms
Must raise your names above the starry skies.
Call to your mind your predecessors' acts,
Whose martial might, this many a hundred year,
Did keep those fearful dogs in dread and awe,
And let your weapons show Alphonsus plain,
That though that they be clapped up in clay,
Yet there be branches sprung up from these trees,
In Turkish land, which brook no injuries.
Besides the same, remember with yourselves
What foes we have; not mighty Tamburlaine,
Nor soldiers trained up amongst the wars,
But fearful boors,:}: pick'd from their rural flock,
Which, till this time, were wholly ignorant
What weapons meant, or bloody Mars doth crave.
More would I say, but horses that be free
Do need no spurs, and soldiers which themselves
Long and desire to buckle with the foe,
Do need no words to egg them to the same.
Enter Ai.phonsi'S, with a canopy carried over him by three
Lords, having urer each corner a king's head crowned ;
Ai.hinius, liXi.ws, and Miles, with crowns on their
heads, and their Soldiers.
Besides the same, behold whereas § our foes
• his] Qy "these"? t Turkey) Qy. " Turkey land"?
( boors) The 4 to. "bodies." § whereat] i. e. where.
Are marching towards us most speedily.
Courage, my lords, ours is the victory.
Alphon. Thou pagan dog, how dar'st thou be
so bold
To set thy foot within Alphonsus' land?
What, art thou come to view thy wretched kings,
Whose traitorous heads bedeck my tent* so wall?
Or else, thou hearing that on top thereof
There is a place left vacant, art thou come
To have thy head possess the highest seat?
If it be so, lie down, and this my sword
Shall presently that honour thee afford.
If not, pack hence, or by the heavens I vow,
Both thou and thine shall very soon perceive
That he that seeks to move my patience
Must yield his life to me f for recompense.
Amu. Why, proud Alphonsus, think'st thou
Amurack,
Whose mighty force doth terrify the gods,
Can e'er be found to turn his heels, and fly
Away for fear from such a boy as thou ?
No, no, although that Mars this mickle while
Hath fortified thy weak and feeble arm,
And Fortune oft hath view'd with friendly face
Thy armies marching victors from the field,
Yet at the presence of high Amurack
Fortune shall change, and Mars, that god of
might,
Shall succour me, and leave Alphonsus quite.
Alphon. Pagan, I say, thou greatly art deceiv'd.
I clap up Fortune in a cage of gold,
To make her turn her wheel as I think best ;
And as for Mars whom you do say will change,
He moping sits behind the kitchen-door,
Prest J at command of every scullion's mouth,
Who dares not stir, nor once to move a whit,
For fear Alphonsus then should stomach § it.
Amu. Blasphdmous dog, I wonder that the
earth
Doth cease from renting underneath thy feet,
To swallow up that || canker'd corpse of thine.
I muse that Jove can bridle so his ire
As, when he hears his brother so misus'd,
He can refrain from sending thunderbolts
By thick and threefold, to revenge his wrong.
Mars fight for me, and Fortune be my guide !
And I'll be victor, whatsome'er betide.
Albi. Pray loud enough, lest that you pray in
Perhaps God Mars and Fortune are asleep, [vain :
* bedeck my tent] The 4to. " bedeckt my tents.
t »teJThe4to. "thee."
1 Prest] i. e. Ready.
§ stomach] i. e. bo angry at, resent.
|| that] Tho4to. " those."
ACT V.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
243
Amu. *An Mars lies slumbering on his downy
bed,
Yet do not think but that the power we have,
Without the help of those celestial gods,
Will be sufficient, yea, with small ado,
Alphonsus' straggling army to subdue.
Lceli. You had need as then to call for Mahomet,
With hellish hags tot perform the same.
Faustus. High Amurack, I wonder what you
mean,
That, when you may with little toil or none
Compel these dogs to keep their tongues in peace,
You let them stand still barking in this sort :
Believe me, sovereign, I do blush to see
These beggars' brats to chat so frolicly.
Alphon. How now, sir boy ! Let Amurack
himself,
Or any he, the proudest of you all,
But offer once for to unsheath his sword,
If that he dares, for all the power you have.
Amu. What, dar'st thou us? Myself will
venture it. —
To arms, my mates !
Amurack drawe his sword; Alphonsus and all the olhc
Kings draw tlieirs. Alarum: Amurack anil Ins com-
pany fly, followed by Alphonsus and his company.
ACT V.
Alarum. Enter Vests.
Ven. Fierce is the fight, and bloody is the broil.
No sooner had the roaring cannon shot X
Spit forth the venom of their fired paunch,
And with their pellets sent such troops of souls
Down to the bottom of the dark Avern,
As that it § cover' d all the Stygian fields;
But, on a sudden, all the men-at-arms,
Which mounted were on lusty coursers' backs,
Did rush together with so great a noise
As that I thought the giants one time more
Did scale the heavens, as erst they did before.
Long time Dame Fortune temper'd so her wheel
As that there was no vantage to be seen
On any side, but equal was the gain ;
But at the length, so God and Fates decreed,
Alphonsus was the victor of the field,
And Amurack became his prisoner;
Who so remain'd until his daughter came,
And by her marrying did his pardon frame. [Exit.
Alarum : Amurack flies, followed by Alphoksus, who
takes him prisoner and carries him in. Alarum ; as
Crocon and Faustus are flying, enter Fausta and
Iphhjena, with their army, meeting them.
Fausta. You Turkish kings, what sudden flight
is this? [prowess
What mean the men, which for their valiant
Were dreaded erst clean through the triple world,
* An Mars, &c] The 4to. gives these five lines to
Albinius.
t <o] Qy. "for<o" (as elsewhere in this play more than
once) ?
} cannon shot~\ i. e. cannons shot off.
§ it] Is frequently applied by our early writers to
I>lur:il nouns : but qy. " they " ?
Thus cowardly to turn their backs and fly ?
What froward fortune happen'd on your side ?
I hope your king in safety doth abide.
Cro. Ay, noble madam, Amurack doth live,
And long I hope he shall enjoy his life ;
But yet I fear, unless more succour come,
We shall both lose our king and sovereign.
Fausta. How so, King Crocon? dost thou speak
in jest,
To prove if Fausta would lament his death ?
Or else hath any thing hapt him amiss ?
Speak quickly, Crocon, what the cause might be,
That thou dost utter forth these words to me.
Cro. Then, worthy Fausta, know that Amurack,
Our mighty king and your approv.-d spouse,
Prick'd with desire of everlasting fame,
As he was pressing in the thickest ranks
Of Arragonians, was, with much ado,
At length took prisoner by Alphonsus' hands.
So that, unless you succour soon do bring,
You lose your spouse, and we shall want our king.
Jphi. hapless hap, dire and cruel fate !
What injury hath Amurack, my sire,
Done to the gods, which now I know are wroth,
Although unjustly and without a cause ?
For well I wot, not any other king,
Which now doth live, or since the world begun
Did sway a sceptre, had a greater care
To please the gods than mighty Amurack :
And for to quite our father's great good-will,
Seek they thus basely all his fame to spill ?
Fausta. Iphigena, leave off these woful tunes :
It is not words can cure and ease this wound,
But warlike swords; not tears, but sturdy spears.
High Amurack is prisoner to our foes :
r2
244
ALPHONSUS, KING OF APJIAGON.
ACT V.
What then] Think you that our Amazones,
Join'd with the forces of the Turkish troop,
Are not sufficient for to set him free ?
Yes, daughter, yes, I mean not for to sleep,
Until he 's free, or we him company keep. —
March on, my mates. [Exeunt.
Alarum. : Alphonsus flits, followed by Iphioena.
Iphi. How now, Alphonsus ! you which never
yet
Could meet your equal in the feats of arms,
How haps it now that in such sudden sort
You fly the presence of a silly maid ?
What, have you found mine arm of such a force
As that you think your body over-weak
For to withstand the fury of my blows ?
Or do you else disdain to fight with me,
For staining of your high nobility ?
Alphon. No, dainty dame, I would not have
That ever thou or any other wight [thee think
Shall live to see Alphonsus fly the field
From any king or keisar whosome'er :
First will I die in thickest of my foe,
Before I will disbase * mine honour 80.
Nor do I scorn, thou goddess, for to stain
My prowess with thee, although it be a shame
For knights to combat with the female sect : t
But love, sweet mouse, J hath so benumb' d my
wit,
That, though I would, I must refrain from it.
Iphi. I thought as much when first I came to
Your noble acts were fitter to be writ [wars ;
Within the tables of Dame Venus' son
Than in God Mars his warlike registers :
Whenas your lords are hacking helms abroad,
And make their spears to shiver in the air,
Your mind is busied in fond Cupid's toys.
Come on, i'faith, I'll teach you for to know,
We came to fight, and not to love, I trow.
Alphon. Nay, virgin, stay. An if thou wilt
vouchsafe
To entertain Alphonsus' simple suit,
Thou shalt ere long be monarch of the world :
All christen'd kings, with all your pagan dogs,
Shall bend their knees unto Iphigena ;
The Indian soil shall be thine at command,
Where every step thou settcst on the ground
SI Kill be received on the golden mines;
Rich Pactolus §, that river of account,
* dUbaie] Qy. "debase"?
t sect] i. c. sex (as frequently in our early writers).
t mouse] Was formerly a vory common term of endear-
ment.
§ Partr.ht.'] Another f:i! e quantity —like "Euphrates,"
" Krato," and " Ixlon," ante.
Which doth descend from top of Tmolus* Mount,
Shall be thine own, and all the world beside,
If you will grant to be Alphonsus' bride.
Iphi. Alphonsus' bride ! Nay, villain, do not
think
That fame or riches can bo rule my thoughts
As for to make me love and fancy him
Whom I do hate, and in such sort despise,
As if my death could bring to pass his bane,
I would not long from Pluto's port remain.
Alphon. Nay, then, proud peacock, since thou
art so stout
As that entreaty will not move thy mind
For to consent to be my wedded spouse,
Thou shalt, in spite of gods and fortune too,
Serve high Alphonsus as a concubine.
Iphi. I'll rather die than ever that shall hap.
Alphon. And thou shalt die unless it come to
pass.
Alphonsus and Iphioena jlght. Iphioena flies, followed
by Alphonsus. Alarum: enter Alphonsus with his
rapier, Albinius, Lslius, Miles, with their Soldiers;
Amurack, Fausta, Iphioena, Crocon, and Faustus,
all bound, with their hands behind them. Amurack
looks angrily on Fausta.
Enter Medea.
Medea. Nay, Amurack, this ia no time to
jar:
Although thy wife did, in her frantic mood,
Use speeches which might better have been spar'd,
Yet do thou not judge this t same time to be
A season to requite that injury.
More fitteth thee, with all the wit thou hast,
To call to mind which way thou mayst release
Thyself, thy wife, and fair Iphigena,
Forth of the power of stout Alphonsus' hands ;
For, well I wot, since first you breathed breath,
You never were so nigh the snares of death.
Now, Amurack, your high and kingly seat,
Your royal sceptre, and your stately crown,
Your mighty country, and your men-at-armB,
Be conquer'd all, and can no succour bring.
Put, then, no trust in these same paltry toys,
But call to mind that thou a prisoner art,
Clapt up in chains, whose life and death depend X
Upon the hands of thy most mortal foe.
Then take thou heed, that whatsome'er he say,
Thou dost not once presume for to gainsay.
Amu. Away, you fool I think you your cursed
Can bridle so the mind of Amurack [charms
As that he will stand crouchine to his foe?
• Tmolus] The4to. "Tiuole."
t this] The4to. "the."
J death depend] The 4to. "deaths depends."
ACT V.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
240
No, uo, be sure that, if that beggar's brat
Do dare but once to contrary my will,
1 11 make hini soou iu heart for to repent
That e'er such words 'gainst Amuraek he spent.
Medea. Then, since thou dost disdain my good
Look to thyself, and if you fare amiss, [advice,
Remember that Medea counsel gave
Which mightyousafefrom all those perils save.* —
But, Fausta, you, as well you have begun,
Beware you follow still your friend's advice:
If that Alphonsus do desire of thee
To have your daughter for his wedded spouse,
Beware you do not once the same gainsay,
Unless t with death he do your rashness pay.
Faueta. No, worthy wight ; first Fausta means
Before Alphonsus she will contrary. [to die
Mtdea. Why, then, farewell. — But you, Iphi-
gena,
Beware you do not over-squeamish wax,
Whenas your mother giveth her consent.
Ipki. The gods forbid that e'er I should
gainsay
That which Medea bids me to obey. [Exit Medea.
Alphonsus, who all this while hat been talking to Albinius,
rues up out of his chair.
Alphon. Now, Amuraek, the proud blas-
phemous dogs,
For so you term'd us, which did brawl and rail
Against God Mars and fickle Fortune's wheel,
Have got the goal for all your solemn prayers.
Yourself are prisoner, which as then did think
That all the forces of the triple world
Were insufficient to fulfil the same.
How like you this? Is Fortune of such might,
Or hath God Mars such force or power divine,
As that he can, with all the power he hath,
Set thee and thine forth of Alphonsus* hands ?
I do not think but that your hope's so small
As that you would with very willing mind
Yield for my spouse the fair Iphigena,
On that condition, that without delay
Fausta and you may scot-free scape away.
Amu. What, think' at thou, villain, that high
Amuraek
Bears such a mind as, for the fear of death,
He'll yield his daughter, yea, his only joy,
Into the hands of such a dunghill-knight?
No, traitor, no ; for [though] as now I lie
Clapt up in irons and with bolts of steel,
Yet do there lurk within the Turkish soil
Such troops of soldiers that, with small ado,
They'll set me scot-free from your men and you.
* safe save] Qy. "sav'd have"?
f Unlets] See uote f, p. 227, first col.
Alphon. " Villain," say'st thou ? "traitor "and
" dunghill-knight "?
Now, by the heavens, since that thou dust deny
For to fulfil that which in gentle wise
Alphonsus craves, both thou and all thy train
Shall with your lives requite that injury. —
Albinius, lay hold of Amuraek,
And carry him to prison presently,
There to remain until I do return
Into my tent ; for by high Jove I vow,
Unless he wax more calmer out of hand,
His head amongst his fellow-kings shall stand.
Amu. No, villain, think uot that the fear of
death
Shall make me calmer while I draw my breath.
[Exit in custody qf ALfciNiua.
Alphon. Now, Laelius, hike you Iphigena,
Her mother Fausta, with these other kings,
And put them into prisons severally ;
For Amurack's stout stomach shall undo
Both he himself and all his other crew.
Fausta. [kneeling.'] O sacred prince, if that the
salt-brine tears,
Distilling down poor Fausta's wither'd cheeks,
Can mollify the hardness of your heart,
Lessen this judgment, which thou in thy rage
Hast given on thy luckless prisoner' '
Alphon. Woman, away ! my word is gone and
past;
Now, if I would, I cannot call it baek.
You might have yielded at my first demand,
And then you needed* not to fear this hap. —
[Fausta rites.
Lselius, make haste, and go thou prestntly
For to fulfil that I commanded thee.
Iphi. [kneeling.'] Mighty Alphoaaua, since my
mother's suit
Is so rejected that in any case
You will not grant us pardon for her sake,
I now will try if that my woful prayers
May plead for pity at your grace's feet.
When first you did, amongst the thickest ranks,
All clad iu glittering arms encounter me,
You kuow yourself what love you did protest
You then did bear unto Iphigena.
Then for that love, if any love you had,
Revoke this sentence, which is too-too bad.
Alphon. No, damsel t; he that will not when
he may,
When he desii-es shall surely purchase nay :
If that you had, when first I proffer made,
Yielded to me, mark, what I promis'd you
• needed] The 4 to.
t damsel] The no
'need."
'damsel d»m»el "
246
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
AOT V.
I would have done ; but since you did deny,
Look for denial at Alphonsua' hands.
Iphigena rises, and standi aside. Alphonsus talks with
Albinius. Enter Carinus in pilgrim's apparel.
Can. [aside.] friendly Fortune, now thou
show'st thy power
In raising up my son from banish'd state
Unto the top of thy most mighty wheel !
But, what be these which at his sacred feet
Do seem to plead for mercy at his hands ?
I'll go and sift this matter to the full.
[does totvards Alphonsus, and speaks to one of his
soldiers.
Sir knight, an may a pilgrim be so bold
To put your person to such mickle pain
For to inform me what great king is this,
And what these be, which, in such woful sort,
Do seem to seek for mercy at his hands ]
Sol. Pilgrim, the king that sits on stately
throne
Is call'd Alphonsus ; and this matron hight *
Fausta, the wife to Amurack the Turk ;
That is their daughter, fair Iphigena ;
Both which, together with the Turk himself,
He did take prisoners in a battle fought.
Alphon. [spying out Carinus.] And can the gods
be found so kind to me
As that Carinus now I do espy ?
'Tis he indeed. — Come on, Albinius :
The mighty conquest which I have achiev'd,
And victories the which I oft have won,
Bring not such pleasure to Alphonsus' heart
As now my father's presence doth impart.
Alphonsus and Albinius go toward Carinus; and
Alphonsus stands looking on him
Cari. What, ne'er a word, Alphonsus 1 art thou
dumb?
Or doth my presence so perturb thy mind
That, for because I come in pilgrim's weed,
You think each word which you do spend to me
A great disgrace unto your name to be ?
Why speak'st thou not? If that my place you
crave,
I will be gone, and you my place shall have.
Alphon. Nay, father, stay; the gods of heaven
forbid
That e'er Alphonsus should desire or wish
To have his absence whom he doth account
To be the loadstone + of his lifo !
What, though the Fates and Fortune, both in ono,
Have been content to call your loving son
* hight] i. o. is called
w myiit\ i. o. :s c.iiiea.
t the loadstone) Qy. "tht very loadstar"?
From beggar's 6tate unto this princely seat,
Should I therefore disdain my aged sire ]
No, first both crown and life I will detest,
Before such venom breed within my breast.
What erst I did, the sudden joy I took
To see Carinus in such happy state,
Did make me do, and nothing else at all,
High Jove himself do I to witness call.
Cari. These words are vain ; I knew as much
before.
But yet, Alphonsus, I must wonder needs
That you, whose years are prone * to Cupid's
snares,
Can suffer such a goddess as this dame
Thus for to shed such store of ciystal tears.
Believe me, son, although my years be spent,
Her sighs and sobs in twain my heart do rent.
Alphon. Like power, dear father, had she over
Until for love I looking to receive [me,
Love back again, not only was denied,
But also taunted in most spiteful sort :
Which made me loathe that which I erst did love,
As she herself, with all her friends, shall prove.
Cari. How now, Alphonsus ! You which have
so long
Been trained up in bloody broils of Mars,
What, know you not that castles are not won
At first assault, and women are not woo'd
When first their suitors proffer love to them ?
As for my part, I should account that maid
A wanton wench, unconstant, lewd, and light,
That yields the field before she venture fight;
Especially unto her mortal foe,
As you were then unto Iphigena.
But, for because I see you fitter are
To enter lists and combat with your foes
Than court fair ladies in God Cupid's tents,
Carinus means your spokesman for to be,
And if that she consent, you shall agree.
Alphon. What you command Alphonsus must
not fly,
Though otherwise perhaps he would deny.
Cari. Then, dainty damsel, stint these trickling
tears,
Cease sighs and sobs, yea, make a merry cheer :
Your pardon is already purchased,
So that you be not over-curious f
In granting to Alphonsus' just demand.
Iphi. Thanks, mighty prince : no curiouser
I'll be
Than doth become a maid of my degree.
* prone] Tho 4to. "prone."
f over-curious] i. o. over-serupuloue.
ACT V.
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
247
Can. The gods forbid that e'er Carinus tongue
Should go about to make a maid consent
Unto the thing which modesty denies.
That which I ask is neither hurt to thee,
Danger to parents, nor disgrace to friends,
But good and honest, and will profit bring
To thee and those which lean unto that thing.
And that is this : since first Alphonsus' eyes
Did hap to glance upon your heavenly hue,
And saw the rare perfection of the same,
He hath desired to become your spouse :
Now, if you will unto the same agree,
I dare assure you that you shall be free.
Iphi. Pardon, dear lord ; the world goes very
hard
When womenkind are forced for to woo.
If that your son had loved me so well,
Why did he not inform me of the same ]
Cari. Why did he not ! what, have you clean
forgot
What ample proffers he did make to you
When, hand to hand, he did encounter you ?
Iphi. No, worthy sir, I have not it forgot ;
But Cupid cannot enter in the breast
Where Mars before had took possession.
That was no time to talk of Venus' games
When all our fellows were press'd in the wars.
Cari. Well, let that pass : now canst thou be
content
To love Alphonsus and become his spouse 1
Iphi. Ay, if the high Alphonsus could vouch-
safe
To entertain me as his wedded spouse.
Alphon. If that he could ! what, dost thou
doubt of that ?
Jason did jet* whenas he had obtain'd
The golden fleece by wise Medea's art ;
The Greeks rejoiced when they had subdu'd
The famous bulwarks of most stately Troy ;
But all their mirth was nothing in respect
Of this my joy, since that I now have got
That which I long desired in my heart.
Cari. But what says Fausta to her daughter's
choice ?
Fausta. Fausta doth say, the gods have been
her friends,
To let her live to see Iphigena
Bestowed so unto her heart's content.
Alphon. Thanks, mighty empress, for your gen-
tleness ;
And, if Alphonsus can at any time
With all his power requite this courtesy,
* jet] i. e. strut,— exult.
You shall perceive how kindly he doth take
Your forwardness in this his happy chance.
Cari. Albinius, go call forth Amurack :
We'll see what he doth say unto this match.
Albinius brings forth Amurack.
Most mighty Turk, I, with my warlike son
Alphonsus, loathing that so great a prince
As you should live in such unseemly sort,
Have sent for you to proffer life or death ;
Life, if you do consent to our demand,
And death, if that you dare gainsay the same.
Your wife, high Fausta, with Iphigena,
Have given consent that this my warlike son
Should have your daughter for his bedfellow :
Now resteth naught but that you do agree,
And so to * purchase sure tranquillity.
Amu,, [aside.] Now, Amurack, advise thee
what thou say'st ;
Bethink thee well what answer thou wilt make :
Thy life and death dependeth on thy words.
If thou deny to be Alphonsus' sire,
Death is thy share ; but if that thou consent,
Thy life is sav'd. Consent ! nay, rather die :
Should I consent to give Iphigena
Into the hands of such a beggar's brat ?
What, Amurack, thou dost deceive thyself;
Alphonsus is the son unto a king :
What then 1 the[u] worthy of thy daughter's love.
She is agreed, and Fausta is content ;
Then Amurack will not be discontent. —
[Takes Iphioena by the hand, and gives Jier to
Alphonsus.
Here, brave Alphonsus, take thou at my hand
Iphigena, I give her unto thee ;
And for her dowry, when her father die[s],
Thou shalt po.-sess the Turkish empery.
Take her, I say, and live King Nestor's years :
So would the Turk aud all his noble peers.
Alphon. Immortal thanks I give unto your
grace.
Cari. Now, worthy princes, since by help of
On either side the wedding is decreed, [Jove
Come, let us wend to Naples speedily
For to solemnize it with mirth and glee.
Amu. As you do will, we jointly do agree.
[Exeunt omnet.
Enter Venus with the Museg.
Ven. Now, worthy Muses, with unwilling mind
Venus is fore'd to trudge to heavens again,
For Jupiter, that god of peerless power,
Proclaimed hath a solemn festival
* to] Qy. "do"T
248
ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARRAGON.
ACT V.
In honour of Dame Danae's luckless death ;
Unto the which, in pain of his displeasure,
He hath invited all the immortal godB
And goddesses, bo that I must be there,
Unless I will his high displeasure bear.
You see Alphonsus hath, with much ado,
At length obtained fair Iphigena,
Of Amurack her father, for his wife ;
Who now are going to the temple wards
For to perform Dame Juno's sacred rites ;
Where we will leave them, till the feast be done,
Which, in the heavens, by this time is begun.
Meantime, dear Muses, wander you not far
Forth of the path of high Parnassus' hill,
That, when I come to finish up his life,*
• That, when I come to finish up his life, Ac] This proves
that Greene intended to write a Second Part of Alphonsus.
You may be ready for to succour me ;
Adieu, dear dames ; farewell, Calliope.
Cal. Adieu, you sacred goddess of the sky.
[Exit Venus ; or, if you can conveniently, let a
chair come down from the top of the stage, and
draw her up.
Well, loving sisters, since that she is gone,
Come, let us haste unto Parnassus' hill,
As Cytherea did lately will.*
Mdpom. Then make you haste her mind for to
fulfill.
[Exeunt omnes, playing on their instrument*.
Perhaps, indeed, he did write one : " possibly," observes
Mr. Collier (Hist, of Engl. Pram. Poet. iii. 171), " the con-
tinuation has perished."
* did lately will] Qy. "did us lately will" t (i. e., ac-
cording to the phraseology of Greene's time, ' did lately
dtsirt us.")
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
A Pleasant conceyted comedie of George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield. As it was sundry time* acted by the seruants
of the right Honourable the Earle of Sussex. Imprinted at London by Simon Stafford, for Cuthbert Burby : And are to
be sold at his shop neere the Royall Exchange. 15'/). i'*.
Reprinted in the different editions of Dodsley's Old Hays.
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
Edward, King of England.
James, King of Scotland.
Earl of Kendal.
Earl of Warwick.
Lord Bonfield.
Lord Humps.
Sir Gilbert Armstrong.
Sir Nicholas Mannerinq.
Georoe-a-Greene.
Musorove.
Cuddy, his son.
Ned-a-Barley.
Grime.
Eobin Hood.
Much, the Miller's son.
Scarlet.
Jenkin, George-a-Greene's man.
Wily, George-a-Greene's boy.
John.
Justice.
Townsmen, Shoemakers, Soldiers, Messeiitfera, o.
Jane-a-Barley.
Bettris. daughter to Grime.
Maid Marian.
THE PINNER* OF WAKEFIELD.
Enter the Earl or Kendal; with him Lord Bonfield,
Sir Gilbert Armstrong, Sir Nicholas Mannering,
and John.
Ken. Welcome to Bradford, martial gentlemen,
Lord Bonfield, and Sir Gilbert Armstrong both ;
And all my troops, even to my basest groom,
Courage and welcome ! for the day is ours.
Our cause is good, 'tis for the land's avail :
Then let us fight, and die for England's good.
All. Wo will, my lord.
Ken. As I am Henry Momford, Kendal's earl,
You honour me with this assent of yours ;
And here upon my sword I make protest
For + to relieve the poor or die myself.
And know, my lords, that James, the King of
Scots,
Wars hard upon the borders of this land :
Here is his post. —
Say, John Taylor, what news with King James ?
John. War, my lord, [I] tell, and good news, I
trow ; for King Jamy vows to meet you the
twenty-sixth of this month, God willing ; marry,
doth he, sir.
Ken. My friends, you see what we have to
win. —
Well, John, commend me to King James, and
tell him,
I will meet him the twenty-sixth of this month,
And all the rest ; and so, farewell. [Exit John.
Bonfield, why stand' st thou as a man in dumps ?
Courage ! for, if I win, I'll make thee duke :
I Henry Momford will be king myself;
* Pinner] " Or Pinder ; the keeper of the Pinfolds be-
longing to the common fields about Wakefield. Junius,
in his Etymologkon, voce Pende, says : ' Pende Includere.
Ch. ab A. S. pennau pynr>an idem siguificante. Ilinc
pinder, pinner, Qui pecora ultra fines vagantia septo iu-
chidit.' Mr. Steevens observes, that the figure of this
rustic hero is still preserved on a sign at the bottom of
Gray's- Inn-Lane. "—Reed.
t For] <4y. "Or"?
And I will make thee Duke of Lancaster,
And Gilbert Armstrong Lord of Doucaster.
Bon. Nothing, my lord, makes me amaz'd at all,
But that our soldiers find our victuals scant.
We must make havoc of those country-swains ;
For so will the rest tremble and be afraid,
And humbly send provision to your camp.
Arm. My lord Bonfield gives good advice :
They make a scorn, and stand upon the king ;
So what is brought is sent from them perforce ;
Ask Mannering else.
Ken. What say'st thou, Mannering ?
Man. Whenas I show'd your high commission,
They made this answer,
Only to send provision for your horses.
Ken. Well, hie thee to Wakefield, bid the town
To send me all provision that I want,
Lest I, like martial Tamburlaine, lay waste
Their bordering countries, leaving * none alive
That contradicts my commission.
Man. Let me alone, my lord, I'll make them
Their plumes ; [ vail t
For whatsoe'er he be, the proudest knight,
Justice, or other, that gainsay'th your word,
I'll clap him fast, to make the rest to fear.
Ken. Do so, Nick : hie thee thither presently,
And let us hear of thee again to-morrow.
Man. Will you not remove, my lord ]
Ken. No, I will lie at Bradford all this night
And all the next. — Come, Bonfield, let us go,
And listen out some bonny lasses here. [Exeunt.
Enter the Justice, Townsmen,} Geokoe-a-Greene, and
Sir Nicholas Mannerino with his commission.
Jus. Master Mannering, stand aside, whilst we
confer
* leaving] The 4to. " and leauing."
t %'ail] i. c. lower.
I Toumsmen] The 4to. has only "a Townesman " (i. e.
tlie spokesman of the body of townsmen who are on the
stage during this scene).
254
GEORGE-A GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
What is best to do. — Townsmen of Wakefield,
The Earl of Kendal here hath sent for victuals ;
And in aiding him we show ourselves no less
Than traitors to the king ; therefore
Let me hear, townsmen, what is your consents.
First Towns. Even as you please, we are all
content.
Jus. Then, Master Mannering, we are resolv'd —
Man. As how?
Jus. Marry, sir, thus.
We will send the Earl of Kendal no victuals,
Because he is a traitor to the king;
And in aiding him we show ourselves no less.
Man. Why, men of Wakefield, are you waxen
That present danger cannot whet your wits, [mad,
Wisely to make provision of yourselves ?
The earl is thirty thousand men strong in power,
And what town soever him resist,
He lays it flat and level with the ground.
Ye silly men, you seek your own decay :
Therefore
Send my lord such provision as he wants,
So he will spare your town,
And come no nearer Wakefield than he is.
Jus. Master Mannering, you have your answer ;
You may be gone.
Man. Well, Woodroffe, for so I guess is thy
name,
I'll make thee curse thy overthwart denial;
And all that sit upon the bench this day
Shall rue the hour they have withstood my lord's
Commission.
Jus. Do thy worst, we fear thee not.
Man. See you these seals 1 before you pass the
I will have all things my lord doth want, [town,
In spite of you.
Geo. Proud dapper Jack, vail * bonnet to the
That represents the person of the king ; [bench
Or, sirrah, I'll lay thy head before thy feet.
Man. Why, who art thou ?
Geo. Why, I am George-a-Greene,
True liegeman to my king,
Who scorns that men of such esteem as these
Should brook the braves of any traitorous squire.
You t of the bench, and you, my fellow-friends,
Neighbours, we subjects all unto the king ;
We are English born, and therefore Edward's
friends,
Vow'd unto him even in our mothers' womb,
Our minds to God, our hearts unto our king;
Our wealth, our homage, and our carcasses,
* vail] i. e. lower.
t You, Ac. J Here "You" seems to be a misprint for
" You " : but the whole passage is corrupted.
Be all King Edward's. Then, sirrah, we
Have nothing left for traitors, but our swords,
Whetted to bathe them in your bloods, and
die
'Gainst you, before we send you any victuals.
Jus. Well spoken, George-a-Greene !
First Toicns. Pray let George-a-Greene speak
for us.
Geo. Sirrah, you get no victuals here,
Not if a hoof of beef would save your lives.
Man. Fellow, I stand amaz'd at thy pre-
sumption.
Why, what art thou that dar'st gainsay my lord,
Knowing his mighty puissance and his stroke ?
Why, my friend, I come not barely of myself ;
For, see, I have a large commission.
Geo. Let me see it, sirrah. [Takes the commis-
sion.'] Whose Reals be these ?
Man. This is the Earl of Kendal's seal-at-arms ;
This Lord Charuel Bonfield's;
And this Sir Gilbert Armstrong's.
Geo. I tell thee, sirrah, did good King Edward's
son
Seal a commission 'gainst the king his father,
Thus would I tear it in despite of him,
Tears the commission.
Being traitor to my sovereign.
Man. What, hast thou torn my lord's commis-
sion?
Thou shalt rue it, and so shall all Wakefield.
Geo. What, are you in choler? I will give you
pills
To cool your stomach. Seest thou these seals ]
Now, by my father's soul,
Which was a yeoman when he was alive,
Eat them,* or eat my dagger's point, proud squire.
Man. But thou dost but jest, I hope.
Geo. Sure that shall you see before we two part.
Man. Well, an there be no remedy, so, George :
[Swallows one of the seals.
One is gone ; I pray thee, no more now.
Geo. 0, sir,
If one be good, the others cannot hurt.
So, sir ; [Mannering swallows the other two seals.
Now you may go tell the Earl of Kendal,
Although I have rent his large commission,
Yet of courtesy I have sent all his seals
Back again by you.
• Sat them, Ac] The resemblance between this inci-
dent and an adventure in which our author was con-
cerned is pointed out in my remarks on The Pinner of
Wakefield in the Aeeownt of Green, and his Writings, p. 33:
sec also the extract from the prose History of Qeorge-a-
Oreene at the end of this play.
GEORGE- AG REENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
255
Man. Well, sir, I will do your errand. [Exit,
Geo. Now let him tell his lord that he hath
spoke
With George-a-Greene,
Hight * Pinner of merry Wakefield town,
That hath physic for a fool,
Pills for a traitor that doth wrong his sovereign.
Are you content with this that I have done ?
Just. Ay, content, George ;
For highly hast thou houour'd Wakefield town
In cutting off proud Mannering ao short.
Come, thou shalt be my welcome guest to-
day ;
For well thou hast deserv'd reward and favour.
[Exeunt.
Enter Musgrove and Cuddy.
Cud. Now, gentle father, list unto thy son,
And for my mother's love,
That erst was blithe and bonny in thiue eye,
Grant one petition that I shall demand.
Mils. What is that, my Cuddy ?
Cud. Father, you know
The ancient enmity of late +
Between the Musgroves and the wily Scots,
Whereof they have oath,
Not to leave one alive that strides a lance.*
father,
You are old, and waning age§ unto the grave :
Old William Musgrove, which whilom was thought
The bravest horseman in all Westmoreland,
Is weak,
And fore'd to stay his arm upon a staff,
That erst could wield a lance.
Then, gentle father, resign the hold to me ;
Give arms to youth, and honour unto age.
Mus. Avaunt, false-hearted boy ! my joints do
quake
Even with anguish of thy very words.
Hath William Musgrove seen an hundred years ?
Have I been fear'd and dreaded of the Scots,
That, when they heard my name in any road,||
They fled away and posted thence amain,
And shall I die with shame now in mine age]
No, Cuddy, no : thus resolve I,
Here have I liv'd, and here will Musgrove die.
[ Exeunt.
* Hight] i. e. Called. The 4 to. "Right."
t enmity of late] Qy. " enmity of late reviv'd'"!
t strides a lance] "i.e. not to leave even a child of them
alive, one who tquitat in ar undine longa. [" Equitare in
arundine longa " Horace, Sat. ii. 3. 248] " Stecvent.
§ age] In my former edition I conjectured "aye" : but,
though this speech is mutilated, " age" is doubtless the
true reading.
|| road] i. e. inroad.
Enter Lord Bonfield, Sir Gilbert Armstkohg, Grime,
and Bettkis.
Bon. Now, gentle Grime, god-a-mercy for our
good cheer ;
Our fare was royal, and our welcome great :
And sith so kindly thou hast entertaiu'd us,
If we return with happy victory,
We will deal as friendly with thee in recompense.
Grime. Your welcome was but duty, gentle
lord ;
For wherefore have we given us our wealth,
But to make our betters welcome when they
come?
[Aside.] 0, this goes hard when traitors must be
flatter'd !
But life is sweet, and I cannot withstand it :
God, I hope, will revenge the quarrel of my king.
Arm. What said you, Grime ?
Grime. I say, Sir Gilbert, looking on my
daughter,
I curse the hour that e'er I got the girl ;
For, sir, she may have many wealthy suitors,
And yet she disdains them all,
To have poor George-a-Greene unto her husband.
Bon. On that, good Grime, I am talking with
thy daughter ;
But she, in quirks and quiddities of love,
Sets me to school, she is so over-wise. —
But, gentle girl, if thou wilt forsake the Pinner
And be my love, I will advance thee high ;
To dignify those hairs of amber hue,
I'll grace them with a chaplet made of pearl,
Set with choice rubies, sparks,* and diamonds,
Planted upon a velvet hood, to hide that head
Wherein two sapphires burn like sparkling fire :
This will I do, fair Bettris, and far more,
If thou wilt love the Lord of Doucaster.
Bet. Heigh-ho ! my heart is in a higher place,
Perhaps 4 - on the earl, if that be he.
See where he comes, or angry, or in love,
For why his colour looketh discontent.
Enter the Earl of Kendal and Sir NicholasMannkri.no.
Ken. Come, Nick, follow me.
Bon. How now, my lord ! what news ?
Ken. Such news, Bonfield, as will make thee
laugh,
And fret thy fill, to hear how Nick was us'd.
Why, the Justices stand on their terms :
Nick, as you know, is haughty in his words;
He laid the law unto the Justices
* rubies, sparks] Qy. " ruby-sparks " 1
t Perhaps,&c. \ Ought this line (which is imperfect) and
the two following lines to be given to Bonfield ?
256
GEORGE A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
With threatening braves, that one look'd on
another,
Ready to stoop; but that a churl came in,
One George-a-Greene, the Pinner of the town,
And with his dagger drawn laid hands on Nick,
And by no beggars swore that we were traitors,
Rent our commission, and upon a brave
Made Nick to eat the seals or brook the stab :
Poor Mannering, afraid, came posting hither
straight.
Bet. lovely George, fortune be still thy friend!
And as thy thoughts be high, so be thy mind *
In all accords, even to thy heart'? desire !
Bon. What says fair Bettris ?
Orime. My lord, she is praying for George-a-
Greene :
He is the man, and she will none but him.
Bon. But him ! why, look on me, my girl :
Thou know'st that yesternight I courted thee,
And swore at my return to wed with thee.
Then tell me, love, shall I have all thy fair If
Bet. I care not for earl, nor yet for knight,
Nor baron that is so bold ;
For George-a-Greene, the merry Pinner,
He hath my heart in hold.
Bon. Bootless, my lord, are many vain replies :
Let us hie us to Wakefield, and send her the
Pinner's head.
Ken. It shall be so. — Grime, gramercy,
Shut up thy daughter, bridle her affects J
Let me not miss her when I make return ;
Therefore look to her, as to thy life, good Grime.
Grime. I warrant you, my lord.
Ken. And, Bettris,
Leave a base Pinner, for to love an earl.
[Exeunt Grime and Bettris.
Fain would I see this Pinner George-a-Greene.
It shall be thus ;
Nick Maunering shall lead on the battle,
And we three will go to Wakefield in some dis-
guise :
But howsoever, I'll have his head to-day.
[Exeunt.
Enter Jamks Kino of Scots, Lord Humes, with Soldiers,
and John.
K. James. Why, Johnny, then the Farl of Ken-
dal is blithe,
And hath brave men that troop along witli him ?
John. Ay, marry, my liege,
And hath good men that come along with him,
* so be thy mind, &<;.] Corrupted.
t fair i e. bcruity.
t afftett] i. c. affections.
And vows to meet you at Scrasblesea,* God
willing.
K. James. If good Saint Andrew lend King
Jamy leave,
I will be with him at the 'pointed day.
Enter Ned.
But, soft ! — Whose pretty boy art thou 1
Ned. Sir, I am son unto Sir John-a-Barley,
Eldest, and all that e'er my mother had ;
Edward my name.
K. James. And whither art thou going, pretty
Ned?
Ned. To seek some birds, and kill them, if I
can:
And now my schoolmaster is also gone,
So have I liberty to ply my bow ;
For when he comes, I stir not from my book.
K. James. Lord Humes, but mark the visage cf
this child :
By him I guess the beauty of his mother ;
None but Leda could breed Helena. —
Tell me, Ned, who is within with thy mother ?
Ned. Nonet but herself and household-servants,
sir :
If you would speak with her, knock at this gate.
K. James. Johnny, knock at that gate.
[John knocks at the gate.
Enter Jane-a-Barley upon the walls.
Jane. 0, I'm betray 'd ! What multitudes be
these ?
K. James. Fear not, fair Jane, for all these men
are mine,
And all thy friends, if thou be friend to me :
I am thy lover, James the King of Scots,
That oft have su'd and woo'd with many letters,
Painting my outward passions with my pen,
Whenas my inward soul did bleed for woe.
Little regard was given to my suit ;
But haply thy husband's presence wrought it :
Therefore, sweet Jane, I fitted me to time,
And, hearing that thy husband was from home,
Am come to crave what long I have desir'd.
Ned. Nay, soft you, sir ! you get no entrance
here,
That seek to wrong Sir John-a-Barley so,
And offer such dishonour to my mother.
K. James. Why, what dishonour, Ned ?
Ned. Though young,
Yet often have I heard my father say,
No greater wrong than to be made [a] cuckold.
* Scrasbhsra] Qy. " Scrivdsby" or " Scamblesby"!
t None] The4w. ' Not."
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
257
Were I of age, or were my body strong,
Were he ten kings, I would shoot him to the
heart
That should attempt to give Sir John the horn.—
Mother, let him not come in :
I will go lie at Jocky Miller's house.
K. James. Stay him.
Jane. Ay, well said, Ned, thou hast given the
king his answer ;
For were the ghost of Caesar on the earth,
Wrapp'd in the wonted glory of his honour,
He should not make me wrong my husband so.
But good King James is pleasant, as I guess,
And means to try what humour I am in ;
Else would he never have brought an host of
men,
To have them witness of his Scottish lust.
K. James. Jane, in faith, Jane, —
Jane. Never reply,
For I protest by the highest holy God,
That doometh just revenge for things amiss,
King James, of .all men, shall not have my love.
K. James. Then list to me ; Saint Andrew be
my boot,
But I'll raze thy castle to the very ground,
Unless thou open the gate and let me in.
Jane. I fear thee not, King Jamy : do thy
worst.
This castle is too strong for thee to scale ;
Besides, to-mor row will Sir John come home.
K. James. Well, Jane, since thou disdaiu'st
King James's love,
I'll draw thee on with sharp and deep ex-
tremes ;
For, by my father's soul, this brat of thine
Shall perish here before thine eyes,
Unless thou open the gate and let me in.
Jane. O deep extremes ! my heart begins to
My little Ned looks pale for fear. — [break :
Cheer thee, my boy, I will do much for thee.
Ned. But not so much as to dishonour me.
Jane. An if thou diest, I cannot live, sweet
Ned.
Ned. Then die with honour, mother, dying
Jane. I am arm'd : [chaste.
My husband's love, his honour, and his fame,
Join * victory by virtue. Now, King James,
If mother's tears cannot allay thine ire,
Then butcher him, for I will never yield :
The son shall die before I wrong the father.
K. James. Why, then, he dies.
« Join] Qy. " Gain " or
"Ioynes" >
"Win"? (The 4 to. has
Alarum within. Enter a Messenger.
Mess. My lord, Musgrovo is at Land.
K. James. Who, Musgrove f The devil he is !
Come, my horse ! {Exeunt
Enter Mu&orove with Kino Jaiues prisoner.
Mm. Now, King James, thou art my prisoner.
K. James. Not thine, but fortune's prisoner.
Enter Cuddt.
Cud. Father, the field is oura :
Their colours we have seiz'd, and Humes is
slain ;
I slew him hand to hand.
Mus. God and Saint George !
Cud. father, I am sore athirst !
Jane. Come in, young Cuddy, come and drink
thy fill ;
Bring in King Jamy with you as a guest ;
For all this broil was 'cause he could not enter.
[Exit above. — Exeunt, below, the ntheri.
Enter George-a-Greene.
Geo. The sweet content of men that live in love
Breeds fretting humours in a restless miud ;
And fancy, being check'd by fortune's spite,
Grows too impatient in her sweet desires ;
Sweet to those men whom love leads on to bliss,
But sour to me whose hap is still amiss.
Enter Jenkis,
Jen. Marry, amen, sir.
Geo. Sir, what do you cry " amen " at ?
Jen. Why, did not you talk of love ?
Qeo. How do you know that ?
Jen. Well, though I say it that should not say
it, there are few fellows in our parish so nettled
with love as I have been of late.
Qeo. Sirrah, I thought no less, when the other
morning you rose so early to go to your wenches.
Sir, I had thought you had gone about my honest
business.
Jen. Trow, you have hit it ; for, master, be it
known to you, there is some good-will betwixt
Madge the souce-wife* and I ; marry, she hath
another lover.
Qeo. Canst thou brook any rivals in thy love ?
Jen. A rider ! no, he is a sow-gelder and goes
afoot. But Madge 'pointed to meet mo in your
wheat-close.
Geo. Well, did she meet you there ?
* $ouce-wife] i. e. woman who sell* souce, — which, I
believe, meant, properly, the head, feet, and cars of
ewine, boiled and pickled.
8
253
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE
PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
Jen. Never make question of that. And first
I saluted her with a green gown, and after fell as
hard a-wooiug as if the priest had been at our
backs to have married us.
Geo. What, did she grant ?
Jen. Did she grant ! never make question of
that. And 6he gave me a shirt-collar wrought
over with no counterfeit stuff.
Geo. What, was it gold 1
Jen. Nay, 'twaa better than gold.
Geo. What was it ?
Jen. Right Coventry blue. We* had no sooner
come there but wot you who came by ?
Geo. No : who ?
Jen. Clim the sow-gelder.
Geo. Came he by ?
Jen. He spied Madge and I sit together : he
leapt from his horse, laid his hand on his dagger,
and began to swear. Now I seeing he had a dag-
ger, and I nothing but this twig in my band, I
gave him fair words and said nothing. He comes
to me, and takes me by the bosom. " You whore-
son slave," said he, " hold my horse, and look he
take no cold in his feet." " No, marry, shall he,
sir," quoth I; "I'll lay my cloak underneath
him." I took my cloak, spread it all along, and
[set] his horse on the midst of it.
Geo. Thou clown, didst thou set his horse upon
thy cloak ?
Jen. Ay, but mark how I served him. Madge
and he were no sooner gone down into the ditch,
but I plucked out my knife, cut four holes in my
cloak, and made his horse stand on the bare
ground.
Geo. 'T was well done. Now, sir, go and survey
my fields : if you find any cattle in the corn, to
pound with them.
Jen. And if I find any in the pound, I shall
turn them out. [Exit.
Enter the Earl op Kendal, Lord Bonfield, Sir Gilbert
Armstrong, all disguised, with a train of men.
Ken. Now we have put the horses in the corn,
Let ua stand in some corner for to hear
What braving terms the Pinner will breathe
When he spies our horses in the corn.
[Retires with the others.
Re-enter Jp.NKiNt blowing his horn.
Jen. master, where are you ? wo have a prize.
Geo. A prize ! what is it 1
Jen. Three goodly horses in our wheat-cloao.
• We] The4to. "Who."
f Jenkin] Tho 4to. "Iacke."
Geo. Three horses in our wheat-close ! whose
be they ?
Jen. Marry, that's a riddle to me ; but they are
there; velvet horses, and I never saw such
horses before. As my duty was, I put off my
cap, and said as followeth : " My masters, what
do you make in our close ? " One of them, hear-
ing me ask what he made there, held up his head
and neighed, and after his manner laughed as
heartily as if a mare had been tied to his girdle.
" My masters," said I, " it is no laughing matter ;
for, if my master take you here, you go as round
as a top to the pound." Another untoward jade,
hearing me threaten him to the pound and to
tell you of them, cast up both his heels, and let
such a monstrous great fart, that was as much as
in his language to say, " A fart for the pound, and
a fart for Qeorge-a-Greene." Now I, hearing this,
put on my cap, blew my horn, called them all
jades, and came to tell you.
Geo. Now, sir, go and drive me those three
horses to the pound.
Jen. Do you hear ? I were best take a constable
with me.
Geo. Why so ?
Jen. Why, they,* being gentlemen's horses, may
stand on their reputation, and will not obey me.
Geo. Go, do as I bid you, sir.
Jen. Well, I may go.
The Earl of Kendal, Lord Bonfield, and Sir Gilbert
Armstrong, come forward.
Ken. Whither away, sir ?
Jen. Whither away! I am going to put the
horses in the pound.
Ken. Sirrah, those three horses belong to us,
And we put them in,
And they must tarry there and eat their fill.
Jen. Stay, I will go tell my master. — Hear you,
master ? we have another prize : those three
horses be in your wheat-close still, and here be
three geldings more.
Geo. What be these ?
Jen. These are the masters of the horses.
Geo. Now, gentlemen, (I know not your degrees,
But more you cannot be, unlessf you be kings,)
Why wrong you us of Wakefield with your horses?
I am the Pinner, and, before you pass,
You shall make good the trespass they have done.
Ken. Peace, saucy mate, prate not to us :
I tell thee, Pinner, we are gentlemen.
* Why, they, *c] Given in the 4to. to George,
f unless] Qy. '"loss"!
GEOROE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
259
Geo. Why, sir,
So may I, sir, although I give no arms.
Ken. Thou ! how art thou a gentleman ?
Jen. And * such is my master, and he may give
as good arms as ever your great grandfather
could give.
Ken. Pray thee, let me hear how.
Jen. Marry, my master may give for his arms
the picture of April in a green jerkin, with a rook
on one fist and an horn on the other: but my
master gives his arms the wrong way, for he
gives the horn on his fist ; and your grand-
father, because he would not lose his arms, wears
the horn on his own head.
Ken. Well, Pinner, 6ith our horses be in,
In spite of thee they now shall feed their fill,
And eat until our leisures serve to go.
Geo. Now, by my father's soul,
Were good King Edward's horses in the corn,
They shallf amend the scath, or kiss the pound ;
Much more yours, sir, whatsoe'er you be.
Ken. Why, man, thou knowest not us :
We do belong to Henry Momford. Earl of Kendal ;
Men that, before a month be full expir'd,
Will be King Edward's betters in the land.
Geo. King Edward's better[s] ! rebel, thou liest.
[Strikes him.
Bon. Villain, what hast thou done ? thou hast
struck an earl,
Geo. Why, what care I ? a poor man that is true,
Is better than an earl, if he be false.
Traitors reap no better favours at my hands.
Ken. Ay, so methinks; but thou shalt dear
aby this blow. —
Now or never lay hold on the Pinner !
All the train aomes forward.
Geo. Stay, my lord,:}: let us parley on these
broils :
Not Hercules against two, the proverb is,
Nor I against bo great a multitude. —
[Aside.] Had not your troops come marching as
they did,
I would have stopt your passage unto London :
But now I'll fly to secret policy.
Ken. What dost thou murmur, George?
Geo. Marry, this, my lord ; I muse,
If thou be Henry Momford, Kendal's earl,
That thou wilt do poor Qeorge-a-Greene this
Ever to match me with a troop of men. [wrong,
• And] Qy. "Ay"?
f Were good King Edward's horses in the corn,
They shall, &c] In passages like this our old writers
often prefer "shall" to "should." And see note t. p.
123, sec. col.
J lord] The 4to. " Lords."
Ken. Why didst* thou strike me, then !
Geo. Why, my lord, measure ma but by your-
Had you a man had serv'd you long, [self :
And heard your foe misuse you behind your back,
And would not draw his sword in your defence,
You would cashier him.f
Much more, King Edward is my king :
And before I'll hear him so wrong'd,
I'll die within this place,
And maintain good whatsoever I have said.
And, if I speak not reason in this case,
What I have said I'll maintain in this place.
Bon. A pardon, my lord, for this Pinner ;
For, trust me, he speaketh like a man of worth.
Ken. Well, George,
Wilt thou leave Wakefield and wend with me,
I'll freely put up all and pardon thee.
Geo. Ay, my lord, considering X me one thing,
You will leave these arms and follow your good
king.
Ken. Why, George, I rise not against King
Edward,
But for the poor that is oppress'd by wrong ;
And, if King Edward will redress the same,
I will not offer him disparagement,
i But otherwise ; and so let this suffice.
Thou hear'st the reason why I rise in arms :
Now, wilt thou leave Wakefield and wend with me,
I'll make thee captain of a hardy band,
And, when I have my will, dub thee a knight.
Geo. Why, my lord, have you any hope to win?
Ken. Why, there is a prophecy doth say,
That King James and I shall meet at London,
And make the king vail§ bonnet to us both.
Geo. If this were true, my lord.
This were a mighty reason.
Ken. Why, it is
A miraculous prophecy, and oannot fail.
Geo. Well, my lord, yon have almost turn'd me,—
Jenkin, come hither,
Jen. Sir?
Geo. Go your ways home, sir,
And drive me those three horses home unto my
house,
And pour them down a bushel of good oats.
* didst] The4to. "doest".
f You woidd cashier him, &o.] In Dodsley's Old Plays*
vain attempt is made to ros'ore the metre of this cor-
rupted passage by arranging it as follows, —
" You would cashier him. Much more,
King Edward is my king : and before I'll hear him
So wrong'd, I'll die within this place.
And maintain," &c.
t considering] Qy. "conceding"?
f vail] i. e. lower.
« a
200
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
Jen. Well, I will. — [Aside.] Must I give these
scurvy horses oats? [Exit.
Geo. Will it please you to command your train
aside ?
Ken. Stand aside. [The train retires.
Geo. Now list to me :
Here in a wood, not far from hence,
There dwells an old man iu a cave alone,
That can foretel what fortunes shall befall you,
For he is greatly skilful in magic art.
Go you three to him early in the morning,
And question him : if he says good,
Why, then, my lord, I am the foremost man
Who* will march up with your camp to London.
Ken. George, thou honourest me in this.
But where shall we find him out 1 ?
Geo. My man shall conduct you to the place ;
But, good my lord,t tell me true what the wise
man saith.
Ken. That will I, as I am Earl of Kendal.
Geo. Why, then, t© honour George-a-Greene the
more,
Vouchsafe a piece of beef at my poor house ;
You shall have wafer-cakes your fill,
A piece of beef hung up since Martlemaa : J
If that like you not, take what you bring, for me.
Ken. Gramereies, George. [Exeunt.
Enter Wily disguised as a woman.
Wily. 0, what is love ! it is some mighty power,
Else could it never conquer George-a-Greene.
Here dwells a churl that keeps away his love :
I know the worst, an if I be espied,
'Tis but a beating ; and if I by this means
Can get fair Bettris forth her father's door,
It is enough.
Venus, for me, of all the gods alone,§
Be aiding to my wily enterprize !
[Knocks at the door.
Enter Grime.
Grime. How now ! who knocks there ? what
would you have?
From whence came you? where do you dwell ?
Wily. I am, forsooth, a sempster's maid hai-d-
by,
That hath brought work home to your daughter. ||
• Who] The4to. "We."
t lord] The4to. "Lords."
J Martlemas] A form of "Martinmas.'' — This passage,
somewhat varied, and without its present ridiculous
repetition, occurs again, p. 206, first col.
§ Vinus, for me, of all the gods alone] The 4to. ;
" Venus for me, and all goes alone."
Reod, apud Dodsley's Old Plays, printed ;
" Venus he for me and she alone."
H That hath t/rouyht work home to your daughter] Hero
Grime. Nay, are you not
Some crafty quean that comes from George-a-
Greene,
That rascal, with some letters to my daughter ?
I will have you search'd.
Wily. Alas, sir, it is Hebrew unto me,
To tell me of George a-Greene or any other.
Search me, good sir, and if you find a letter
About me, let me have the punishment that's due.
Grime. Why are you muffled? I like you the
worse for that.
Wily. I am not, sir, asham'd to show my face ;
Yet loth I am my cheeks should take the air :
Not that I'm chary of my beauty's hue,
But that I'm troubled with the tooth-ache sore.
[ Unmuffles.
Grime, [aside.] A pretty wench, of smiling
countenance !
Old men can like, although they cannot love ;
Ay,
And love, though not so brief as young men can. —
Well,
Go in, my wench, and speak with my daughter.
[Exit Wilt into the house.
I wonder much at the Earl of Kendal,
Being a mighty man, a9 still he is,
Yet for to be a traitor to his king,
Is more than God or man will well allow.
But what a fool am I to talk of him !
My mind is more here of the pretty lass.
Had she brought some forty pounds to town,*
I could be content to make her my wife :
Yet I have heard it in a proverb said,
He that is old and marries with a lass,
Lies but at home and proves himself an ass.
Bntei;from the house, Bettris in Wily's apparel.
How now, my wench ! how is't? what, not a
word ? —
Alas, poor soul, the tooth-ache plagues her sore. —
Well, my wench, [Gives money.
Here is an angel for to buy thee pins,
And I pray thee use mine house ;
The oftener, the more welcome : farewell. [Exit.
Bet. blessed love, and blessed fortune both !
But, Bettris, stand not here to talk of love,
But hie thee straight unto thy George-a-Greene.
Never went roe-buck swifter on the downs
Than I will trip it till I see my George. [Exit.
Enter the Earl of Kendal, Lord Bunfield, Sir Gilbert
Armstrong, and Jenkin.
Ken. Come away, Jenkin.
"daughter" ia a trisyllable: see Walker's Shakespeare't
Versification, Ac, p. 208.
* town] Qy "dower"?
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
2GI
Jen. Come, here is his house [Knocks at the
door]. — Where be you, ho ?
Geo. [within.'] Who knocks there?
Ken. Here are two or three poor men, father,
Would speak with you.
Geo. [tcithin.] Pray, give your man leave to lead
me forth.
Ken. Go, Jeukin, fetch him forth.
Jenkin brings forth. Georqe-a-Greene dis[iu.i*ed.
Jen. Come, old man.
Ken. Father,
Here are three poor men come to question thee
A word in secret that concerns their lives.
Geo. Say on, my son.*
Ken. Father, I am sure you hear the news,
how that
The Earl of Kendal wars against the king.
Now, father, we three are gentlemen by birth,
But younger brethren that want revenues,
And for the hope we have to be preferr'd,
If that we knew that we shall win,
We will march with him : if not,
We will not march a foot to London more.
Therefore, good father, tell us what shall happen,
Whether the king or the Earl of Kendal shall
Geo. The king, my son. [win.
Ken. Art thou sure of that ?
Geo. Ay, as sure as thou art Henry Momford,
The one Lord Bonfield, the other Sir Gilbert
[Armstrong].
Ken. Why, this is wondrous, being blind of
sight,
His deep perceiverance t should be such to know
us.
Arm. Magic is mighty and fortelleth great
matters. —
Indeed, father, here is the earl come to see thee,
And therefore, good father, fable not with him.
Geo. Welcome is the earl to my poor cell, and
so
Are you, my lords ; but let me counsel you
To leave these wars against your king, and live
In quiet.
* son] The 4to. "sonnes."
t perceiverance] Spelt in the 4to. " perseuerance," L e.
power of perceiving, discernment. Compare The Widow
(a play attributed to Jonson, Fletcher, and Mkldleton);
"methiuks the words
Themselves should make him do't, had he but the per-
ceiverance
Of a cock-sparrow," 6c.
Act iii. sc. •!,— Middleton's Works, iii. 388, ed. Dyce.
(Compare, too, Shakespeare's Ci/mbeline, "yet this imper-
ceiverant thing," <fcc, act iv. sc. 1, and see my note ou
that passage.)
Ken. Father, we come not for advice iu war,
But to know whether we shall win or leese.*
Geo. Lose, gentle lords, but not by good King
Edward ;
A baser man shall give you all the foil.
Ken. Ay, marry, father, what mau is that ?
Geo. Poor George-a-Greene, the Pinner.
Ken. What shall he?
Geo. Pull all your plumes and sore dishonour
you.
Ken. He ! as how ?
Geo. Nay, the end tries all ; but so it will full
out.
Ken. But so it shall not, by my honour t
Christ
I'll raise my camp, and fire Wakefield town,
And take that servile Pinner George-a-Greene,
And butcher him before King Edward's face.
Geo. Good my lord, be not offended,
For I speak no more than art reveals to me :
And for greater proof,
Give your man leave to fetch me my staff".
Ken. Jenkin, fetch him his walking-staff
Jen. [giving it.] Here is your walking-staff.
Geo. I'll prove it good upon your carcasses,
A wiser wizard never met you yet,
Nor one that better could foredoom your fall.
Now I have singled you here alone,
I care not though you be three to one.
Ken. Villain, hast thou X betray 'd us ?
Geo. Momford, thou lie.>t, ne'er was I traitor
Only devis'd this guile to draw you on [yet ;
For to be combatants.
Now conquer me, and then march on to London :
But shall go hard but I will hold you task.
Arm. Come, my lord, cheerly, I'll kill Liin
hand to hand.
Ken. A thousand pound to him that strikes
that stroke !
Geo. Then give it me, for I will have the first.
[Here they fig)U ; George kills Sir Gilbert Arm-
strong, and takes the other two prisoners.
Bon. Stay, George, we do appeal.
Geo. To whom t
Bon. W T hy, to the king :
For rather had we bide what he appoints,
Than here be murder'd by a servile groom.
Ken. What wilt thou do with us ?
Geo. Even as Lord Bonfield wist,
You shall unto the king ; and, for that purpose.
See where the Justice is plac'd.
* leese] i. e. lose.
t honour] Qy. " honour'd " ?
t hast thou] Qy. "thou hast " J
2G2
GEORGE- A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
Enter Justice.
Jus Now, my Lord of Kendal, where be all
your threats ?
Even as the cause, so is the combat fallen,
Else one could never have conquer'd three.
Ken. I pray thee, Woodroffe, do not twit me ;
If 1 have faulted, I must make amends.
Geo. Master Woodroffe, here is not a place for
many words :
I beseech ye, sir, discharge all his soldiers,
That every man may go home unto his own
house.
Jus. It shall be so. What wilt thou do,
George ?
Oeo. Master Woodroffe, look to your charge;
Leave me to myself.
Jus. Come, my lords.
[Exeunt all except George.*
Geo. Here sit thou, George, wearing a willow-
wreath,
As one despairing of thy beauteous love.
Fie, George ! no more;
Pine not away for that which cannot be.
I cannot joy in any earthly bliss,
So long as I do want my Bettris.t
Enter Jenkin.
Jen. Who see a master of mine ?
Geo. How now, sirrah ! whither away ?
Jen. Whither away ! why, who do you take
me to be?
Geo. Why, Jenkin, my man.
Jen. I was so once indeed, but now the case is
Geo. I pray thee, as how? [altered.
Jen. Were not you a fortune-teller to-day ?
Geo. Well, what of that ?
Jen. So sure am I become a juggler. What
will you say if I juggle your sweet-heart ?
Geo. Peace, prating losel ! her jealous father
Doth wait o'er her with such suspicious eyes,
That, if a man but dally by her feet,
He thinks it straight a witchj to charm his
daughter.
Jen. Well, what will you give me, if I bring
her hither 1
* Exeunt nil except George] Hero a change of sceno is
supposed. — See note •, p. 160, sec. col., note *, p. 237,
first col., and note t, P- 265, first col.
t Bettris] A trisyllablo here, — BMeris = Beatrice.
\ a wiich] i. •. a sorcerer, — as is remarked by Walker
(Cril. Exam, of the text of Shakespeare, &.c. ii. 89), who ar-
ranges the passage thus ;
" Her jealous father doth wait over her
With such suspicious eyes, that, if a man
Rut dally by lifer bat, he thinks it straight
A wj.t.eh to charm his daughter."
Geo. A suit of green, and twenty crowns
besides.
Jen. Well, by your leave, give me room. You
must give me something that you have lately
worn.
Geo. Here is a gown, will that serve you ?
[Qives yown.
Jen. Ay, this will serve me. Keep out of my
circle,
Le3t you be torn in pieces with she-devila. —
Mistress Bettris, once, twice, thrice !
Jenkin throws the gown in, and Bettris conies out.
O, is this no cunning ] *
Geo. Is this my love, or is it but her shadow *
Jen. Ay, this is the shadow, but here is the
substance.
Geo. Tell me,t sweet love, what good fortune
brought thee hither?
For one it was that favour'd George-a-Greene.
Bel. Both love and fortune brought me to my
George,
In whose sweet sight is all my heart's content.
Geo. Tell me, sweet love, how cam'st thou from
thy father's ?
Bet. A willing mind hath many slips in love :
It was not I, but Wily, thy sweet boy.
Geo. And where is Wily now ?
Bet. In my apparel, in my chamber still.
Geo. Jenkin, come hither : go to Bradford,
And listen out your fellow Wily. —
Come, Bettris, let us in,
And in my cottage we will sit and talk.
[Exeunt.
Enter Kino Edward, James Kino or Scots, Lord
Warwick, Cuddy, and Train.
K. Edw. Brother of Scotland, I do hold it hard,
Seeing a league of truce was late confirm'd
'Twixt you and me, without displeasure offer'd
You should make such invasion in my land.
The vows of kings should be as oracles,
Not blemish'd with the stain of any breach ;
Chiefly where fealty and homage willj it.
K. James. Brother of England, rub not the sore
afresh ;
My conscience grieves me for my deep misdeed.
I have the worst ; of thirty thousand men,
There scap'd not full five thousand from the
field.
* is this no cunning ?] Qy. "this is no cunning!'"!
f Tell me, &c. ] It is plain from Bettris's answer that
something has dropt out here,
t will] The 4to. " willeth."
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OP WAKEFIELD.
203
K. Ediv. Graniercy, Musgrove, else it had gone
hard:
Cuddy, I'll quite thee well ere we two part
K. James. But had not bis old father, William
Musgrove,
Play'd twice the man, I had not now been here.
A stronger man I seldom felt before;
But one * of more resolute valiance
Treads not, I think, upon the English ground.
K. Edw. I wot well, Musgrove shall not lose
his hire.
Cud. An it please your grace, my father was
Five-score and three at Midsummer last past :
Yet t had King Jamy been as good as George-a-
Greene,
Yet Billy Musgrove would have fought with him.
K. Edw. As George-a-Greene !
I pray thee, Cuddy, let me question thee.
Much have I heard, since I came to my crown,
Many in manner of a proverb say,
" Were he as good as George-a-Greene, I would
strike him sure."
I pray thee tell me, Cuddy, canst thou inform
me,
What is that George-a-Greene ?
Cud. Know, my lord, I never saw the man,
But mickle talk is of him in the country :
They say he is the Pinner of Wakefield town :
But for his other qualities, I let alone.
War. May it please your grace, I know the
man too well.
K. Edic. Too well ! why so, Warwick ?
War. For once he swing'd me till my boneB
did ache.
K. Edw. Why, dares he strike an earl ?
War. An earl, my lord ! nay, he will strike a
king,
Be it not King Edward. For stature he is fram'd
Like to the picture of stout Hercules,
And for his carriage passeth Robin Hood.
The boldest earl or baron of your land,
That offereth scath unto the town of Wakefield,
George will arrest his pledge unto the pound ;
And whoso resisteth bears away the blows,
For he himself is good enough for three.
K. Edw. Why, this is wondrous. My lord of
Warwick,
Sore do I long to see this George-a-Greene.
But leaving him, what shall we do, my lord,
For to subdue the rebels in the north ?
* But one, &c] Qy.
" And one of valiance more resolute
Treads not," &c.
t Yet . . . Yet] Some corruption, of course.
They * are now marching up to Doucaoter. —
Soft ! who have we there ?
Enter one ecith tke Earl of Kkndai. prisoner.
Cud. Here is a traitor, the Earl of Kendal.
K. Edw. Aspiring traitor ! how durest thou
Once cast thine eyes upon thy sovereign
That honour'd thee with kindness aiid with
favour ?
But I will make thee by t this treason dear.
Ken. Good my lord, —
K. Edw. Reply not, traitor. —
Tell me, Cuddy, whose deed of honour
Won the victory against this rebel ?
Cud. George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield.
K. Edw. George-a-Greene 1 now shall I hear
Certain, what this Pinner is. [news
Discourse it briefly, Cuddy, he-w it befell.
Cud. Kendal and Bonfield, with Sir Gilbert
Armstrong,
Came to Wakefield town disguis'd,
And there spoke ill of your grace ;
Which George but hearing, fell'd them at his feet,
And, had not rescue come into+ the place,
George had skiin them § in hi» close of wheat.
K. Edw. But, Cuddy,
Caust thou not tell where I might give and grant
Some thing that might please
And highly gratify the Pinner's thoughts ?
Cud. This at their parting George did say to
me || ;
" If the king vouchsafe of this my service,
Then, gentle Cuddy, kneel upon thy knee,
And humbly crave a boon of him for me."
K. Edw. Cuddy, what is it ?
Cud. It is his will your grace would pardon
them,
And let them live, although they have offended.
K. Edw. I think the man etriveth to be
glorious.
Well, George hath crav'd it, and it shall be
granted,
Which none but he in England should have
gotten. —
Live, Kendal, but as prisoner,
So ahalt thou end thy days within the Tower.
■ They] Qy. "That"!
t by] i. e. aby. (In p. 259, first col., we have had
" but thou shalt dear aby this blow.")
t into] For "unto": see note t, p. 111, sec. col,
§ them] The 4to. "him." This account in at variano
with what has occurred in p. 261, seo. col.
|| This at thtir parting Qeorp did say to Vtf, Ac ] Yet
Cuddy a little before has told the kiug he never saw
George-a-Greene
264
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OP WAKEFIELD.
Ken. Gracious is Edward to offending subjects-
K.James. My Lord of Kendal, you are welcome
to the court.
K. Edw. Nay, but ill-come as it falls out now ;
Ay,
Ill-come indeed, were't not for George-a-Greene.
But, gentle king, for so you would aver,
And Edward's betters, I salute you both,
And here I vow by good Saint George,
You'll gain but little when your sums are
counted.
I sore do long to see this George-a-Greene :
And for because I never saw the north,
I will forthwith go see it;
And for that to none I will be known, we will
Disguise ourselves and steal down secretly,
Thou and I, King Jame3, Cuddy, and two or
three,
And make a merry journey for a month. —
Away, then, conduct him to the Tower. —
Come on, King James, my heart must needs be
merry,
If fortune make such havock of our foes. {Exeunt.
Enter Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Scarlet, and Much.
Rob. Why is not lovely Marian blithe of
cheer?
What ails my leman,* that she gins to lour ?
Say, good Marian, why art thou so sad ?
Mar. Nothing, my Robin, grieves me to the
heart
But, whensoever I do walk abroad,
I hear no songs but all of George-a-Greene ;
Bettris, his fair leman, passeth me :
Aud this, my Robin, galls my very souL
Rob. Content thee t :
What recks it us, though George-a-Greene be
So long as he doth proffer us no scath ? [stout,
Envy doth seldom hurt but to itself;
And therefore, Marian, smile upon thy Robin.
Mar. Never will Marian smile upon her Robin,
Nor lie with him under the green-wood shade,
Till that thou go to Wakefield on a green,
And beat the Pinner for the love of me.
Rob. Content thee, Marian, I will ease thy
grief,
My merry men and I will thither stray ;
Aud here I vow that, for the love of thee,
I will beat George-a-Greene, or he Bliall beat me.
Scar. As I am Scarlet, next to Little John,
One of the boldest yeomen of the crew,
* leman] i. o. mistress, love.
I thee) Not in tho 4 to. But compare Robin's next
speoch.
So will I wend with Robin all along,
And try this Pinner what he dares do. *
Much. As I am Much, the miller's son,
That left my mill to go with thee,
And nillt repent that I have done,
This pleasant life contenteth me ;
In aught I may, to do thee good,
I'll live and die with Robin Hood.
Mar. And, Robin, Marian she will go with
thee,
To see fair Bettris how bright she is of blee.J
Rob. Marian, thou shalt go with thy Robin. —
Bend up your bows, and see your strings be
tight,
The arrows keen, and every thing be ready,
And each of you a good bat on his neck,
Able to lay a good man on the ground.
Scar. I will have Friar Tuck's.
Much. I will have Little John's.
Rob. I will have one made of an ashen plank, §
Able to bear a bout or two. —
Then come on, Marian, let us go ;
For before the sun doth show the morning day,||
I will be at Wakefield to Bee this Pinner, George-
a-Greene. [Exeunt.
A Shoemaker % at work : enter Jenkin, carrying a staff.
Jen. My masters,** he that hath neither meat
nor money, and hath lost his credit with the ale-
wife, for anything I know, may go supperless to
bed. — But, soft ! who is here ? here is a shoe-
maker; he knows where is the best ale. —
Shoemaker, I pray thee tell me, where is the
best ale in the town ?
Shoe. Afore, afore, follow thy nose; at the
sign of the Egg-shell.
Jen. Come, shoemaker, if thou wilt, and take
thy part of a pot.
Shoe, [coming forward.] Sirrah, down with your
staff, down with your staff.
Jen. Why, how now ! is the fellow mad ? I
* And try this Pinner what he dares do] Here "dares"
is a dissyllable : see Walker's Shakespeare's Versification,
&c., p. 146.
t nill] i. e. will not.
J how bright she is of blee] Bright of bice is an expres-
sion freqnont in old ballads : blee is colour, complexion
(Sax. bleo).
§ plank] The 4to. "plunke." Qy. " plant"?— '* The
editor suggests 'plant' ; but plank is surely right, out
of which the bat is to be cut." Rev. J. Mitford, — Gent.
Mag. for March 1833, p. 218.
|| the morning day] Qy. " his morning ray " ?
% A Shoemaker, <fcc ] The 4to. has "Enter a Shoomakcr
fitting vpon tho stnge at Korke, Ienkin to him."
** My masters, &c] See note *, p. 204, sec. col.
GEORGE- A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
260
pray thee tell me, why should I hold down my
staff?
Shoe. You will down with him, will you not, sir?
Jen. Why, tell me wherefore ?
Shoe. My friend, this is the town of merry
Wakefield, and here is a custom held, that none
shall pass with his staff on his shoulders but he
must have a bout with me ; and so shall you, sir.
Jen. And so will not I,* sir.
Shoe. That will I try. Barking dogs bite not
the sorest.
Jen. [aside.] I would to God I were once well
rid of him.
Shoe. Now, what, will you down with your
staff?
Jen. Why, you are not in earnest, are you ?
Shoe. If I am not, take that. [Strikes him.
Jen. You whoreson cowardly scab, it is but the
part of a clapperdudgeon + to strike a man in the
street. But darest thou walk to the town's end
with me ?
Shoe. Ay, that I dare do : but stay till I lay in
my tools, and I will go with thee to the town's
end presently.
Jen. [aside.] I would I knew how to be rid of
this fellow.
Shoe. Come, sir, will you go to the town's end
now, sir ?
Jen. Ay, sir, come. — Now we are at the town's
end,:}: what say you now ?
Shoe. Marry, come, let us even have a bout.
Jen. Ha, stay a little ; hold thy hands, I pray
Shoe. Why, what's the matter ] [thee.
Jen. Faith, I am Under-pinnerof the§ town, and
there is an order, which if I do not keep, I shall
be turned out of mine office.
Shoe. What is that, sir 1
Jen. Whensoever I go to fight with anybody, I
use to flourish my staff thrice about my head
before I strike, and then show no favour.
<SAoe. Well, sir, and till then I will not strike
thee.
Jen. Well, sir, here is once, twice : — here is my
hand, I will never do it the third time.
Shoe. Why, then, I see we shall not fight.
* trill not r\ i. e. will not I down with my staff.
f clapperdudgton] i.e. beggar. (A clap-dish, — a wooden
dish with a moveable lid, which they clapped to show
that it was empty, — used to be carried by beggars.)
J Now we are at the town's end, &c J Here, after Jenkin
had said "Ay, sir, come," and had walked round the
stage with the Shoemaker, the audience were to suppose
that the scene was changed to "the town's end." See
note *, p. 202, first col.
§ the] The 4to. " a."
Jen. Faith, no : come, I will give thee two pota
of the best ale, and be friends.
Shoe, [aside.] Faith, I see it is as hard to get
water out of a flint as to get him to have a bout
with me : therefore I will enter into him for
some good cheer. — My friend, I see thou art a
faint-hearted fellow, thou hast no stomach to
fight, therefore let us go to the ale-house and
drink.
Jen. Well, content : go thy ways, and say thy
prayers, thou scapest my hands to-day. [Exeunt.
Enter George-a-Greese and Bettris.
Geo. Tell me, sweet love, how is thy mind con-
tent?
What, canst thou brook to live with George-a-
Greene ?
Bet. 0, George, how little pleasing are these
words !
Came I from Bradford for the love of thee,
And left my father for so sweet a friend?
Here will I live until my life do end.
Geo. Happy am I to have so sweet a love. —
But what are these come tracing here along ?
Bet. Three men come striking through the
corn, my love.
Enter Robin Hood, Scarlet, Much, and Maid Marian.
Geo. Back again, you foolish travellers,
For you are wroDg, and may not wend this way.
Rob. That were great shame. Now, by my
soul, proud sir,
We be three tall* yeomen, and thou art but one. —
Come, we will forward in despite of him.
Geo. Leap the ditch, or I will make you skip.
What, cannot the highway serve your turn,
But you must make a path over the corn ?
Bob. Why, art thou mad ? dar'st thou encoun-
ter three ?
We are no babes, man, look upon our limbs.
Geo. Sirrah,
The biggest limbs have not the stoutest hearts.
Were ye as good as Robin Hood and his three
merry men,
I'll t drive you back the same way that ye came.
Be ye men, ye scorn to encounter me all at once;
But be ye cowards, set upon me all three,
And try the Pinner what he dares perform.
Scar. Were thou as high in deeds
As thou art haughty in words,
Thou well mightst be a champion for a king :
* tall] i. e. bold, brave,
t Wire ye ... .
I'll, <fec] Sec note t. P- 123, sec. col., and note t, p.
209, first col.
206
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
But empty vessels have the loudest sounds,
And cowards prattle more than men of worth.
Geo. Sirrah, darest thou try me ?
Scar. Ay, sirrah, that I dare.
[They fight, and O eos oe-a Greene beats him.
Much. How now ! what, art thou down ? —
Come, sir, I am next.
[They fight, and George- i -Greene beats him.
Rub. Come, sirrah, now to me : spare me not,
For I'll not spare thee.
Geo. Make no doubt I will be as liberal to thee.
[They fight ; Robin Hood stays.
Rob. Stay, George, for here I do protest,
Thou art the stoutest champion that ever I
Laid hands upon.
Geo. Soft, you sir ! by your leave, you lie ;
You never yet laid hands on me.
Bob. George, wilt thou* forsake Wakefield,
And go with me ?
Two liveries will I give thee every year,
And forty crowns shall be thy fee.
Geo. Why, who art thou ?
Rob. Why, Robin Hood :
I am come hither with my Marian
And these my yeomen for to visit thee.
Geo. Robin Hood !
Next to King Edward art thou lieff to me.
Welcome, sweet Robin ; welcome, Maid Marian ;
And welcome, you my friends. Will you to my
poor house ?
You shall have wafer-cakes your fill,
A piece of beef hung up since Martlenias,£
Mutton and veal : if this like you not,
Take that you find, or that you bring, for me.
Rob. Godamercies, good George,
I'll be thy guest to-day.
Geo. Robin, therein thou honourest me.
I'll lead the way. [Exeunt.
Several Shoemakers at work: enter Kino Edward and
James Kino of Scots disguised, each carrying a staff.
K. Edw. Come on, King James ; now we are
thus disguis'd,
There is none, I know, will take us to be kings :
I think we are now in Bradford,
Where all the merry shoemakers dwell.
First Shoe, [coming forward.] Down with your
staves, my friends,
Down with them.
* George, wilt thou, &.c] See the Ballad at the end of
this play,
t lvf\ i. e. dear.
t Martlemtu] Sec note J, p. 200, first col.
K. Edw. Down with our staves ! I pray thee,
why so?
First Shoe. My friend, I see thou art a stranger
here,
Else wouldst thou not have question'd of the
This is the town of merry Bradford, [thing.
And here hath been a custom kept of old,
That none may beiir his staff upon his neck,
But trail it all along throughout the town,
Unless they mean to have a bout with me.
K. Edw. But hear you, sir, hath the king
granted you
This custom ?
First Shoe. King or kaisar, none shall pass this
way,
Except King Edward ;
No, not the stoutest groom that haunt3 his court :
Therefore down with your staves.
K. Edw. What were we best to do ?
K. James. Faith, my lord, they are stout
fellows ;
And, because we will see some sport,
We will trail our staves.
K. Edw. Hear'st thou, my friend ?
Because we are men of peace and travellers,
We are content to trail our staves.
First Shoe. The way lies before you, go along.
Enter Robin Hood and George-a-Gheene, disguised.
Rob. See, George, two men are passing through
the town,
Two lusty men, and yet they trail their staves.
Geo. Robin,
They are some peasants trick'd in yeoman's
weeds. —
Hollo, you two travellers !
K. Edw. Call you us, sir ?
Geo. Ay, you. Are ye not big enough to bear
Your bats upon your necks, but you must trail
them
Along the streets ?
K. Edw. Yes, sir, we are big enough ;
But here is a custom kept,
That none may pass, his staff upon his neck,
Unless he trail it at the weapon's point.
Sir, we are men of peace, and love to sleep
In our whole skins, and therefore quietness is best.
Geo. Base-minded peasants, worthless to be
men !
What, have you bones and limbs to strike a blow,
And be your hearts so faint you cannot fight?
Were't not for shame, I would drub* your shoul-
ders well,
• druh) Tlic4to. "shrub."
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD.
267
And teach you manhood 'gainst another time.
First Shoe. Well preach'd, Sir Jack ! down
with your staff ! [wise, keep down
K. Edw. Do you hear, my friends? an you be
Your staves, for all the town will rise upon you.
Geo. Thou speakest like an honest quiet fellow :
But hear you me ; in spite of all the swains
Of Bradford town, bear me your staves upon
your necks,
Or, to begin withal, I'll baste you both so well,
You were never better basted in your lives.
K. Edw. We will hold up our staves.
Georoe-a-Greene./^Ms with the Shoemakers, and beats
them all down.
Geo. What, have you any more ?
Call all your town forth, cut and longtail.*
The Shoemakers discover George a-Greene.
First Shoe. What, George-a-Greene, is it you ?
A plague found+ you !
I think you long'd to swinge me well.
Come, George, we will crush a pot before we part.
Geo. A pot, you slave ! we will have an hun-
dred. —
Here, Will Perkins, take my purse, fetch me
A stand of ale, and set [it] in the market-place,
That all may drink that .are athirst this day ;
For this is for a fee to welcome Robin Hood
To Bradford town.
The stand of ale is brought out, and they fall a drinking.
Here, Robin, sit thou here ;
For thou art the best man at the board this day.
You that are strangers, place yourselves where
Robin, [you will.
Here's a carouse to good King Edward's self;
And they that love him not, I would we had
The basting of them a little.
* cut and longtail] This expression, it would seem, was
originally applied to dogs : "Yea, even their verie dogs,
Rug, Rig, and Risbie, yea, cut and long-taile, they shall
be welcome." Ulpian Ful well's Art of Flatter;/, 1576, sig.
G 3. (In his note on "call me cut," Twelfth-Night, act ii.
sc. 3, Shakespeare, ii. 671, ed. 1858, Mr. Collier writes ;
" ' Cut ' (as Stecvens suggests) was probably abbreviated
from curtnl, a horse whose tail has been docked ; and
hence the frequent opposition, in old comic writers, of
cut and long tail. The Rev. Mr. Dyce in a note on ' Wit
at several Weapons ' (B. and F. iv. 39) says that cut and
longtail means 'dogs of all kinds.' What marks of ad-
miration would lie uot have placed after it, if any other
editor had committed such a mistake ! " But Mr. Col-
lier's memory must be sadly impaired ; for his note on
"come cut and long-tail". Merry Wives of Windsor, act
iii. sc. 4, Shakespeare, i. 222, ed 1858, runs thus ; " A
phrase expressive of dogs of every kind; which Slender
applies to persons precisely in the same way as by [sic]
Pompey in Beaumont and Fletcher's ' Wit at several
Weapons' (edit. Dyce, iv. p. 39)," &c.)
t found] i. e. confound.
Enter the Earl or Warwick with other Noblemen, brings
ing out the King's garments; then Gkoroe-a-Orkknk
and the rest kneel down to the King.
K. Edw. Come, masters, all fellows. — Nay,
Robin,
You are the best man at the board to-day.—
Rise up, George.
Geo. Nay, good my liege, ill-nurtur'd we were,
then :
Though we Yorkshire men be blunt of speech,
And little skill'd in court or such quaint fashions,
Yet nature teacheth ua duty to our king ;
Therefore I
Humbly beseech you pardon George-a- Greene.
Rob. And, good my lord, a pardon for poor
Robin ;
And for us all a pardon, good King Edward.
First Shoe. I pray you, a pardon for the shoe-
makers.
K. Edw. I frankly grant a pardon to you all :
[They rise.
And, George-a-Greene,* give me thy hand ;
There's none in England that shall do thee wrong.
Even from my court I came to see thyself;
And now I see that fame speaks naught but truth.
Geo. I humbly thank your royal majesty.
That which I did against the Earl of Kendal,
'Twas but a subject's duty to his sovereign,
And therefore little merit[s] such good words.
K. Edw. But ere I go, I'll grace thee with good
deeds.
Say what King Edward may perform,
And thou shalt have it, being in England's bounds.
Geo. I have a lovely leman,f
As bright of blee+ as is the silver moon,
And old Grime her father will not let her match
With me, because I am a Pinner,
Although I love her, and she me, dearly.
K. Edw. Where is she ?
Geo. At home at my poor house,
And vows never to marry unless her father
Give consent; which is my great grief, my lord.
K. Edw. If this be all, I will despatch it
straight ;
* And, George-a-Greene, tzc] Mr. Collier (Hist, of Engl.
Dram. Pod. iii. 167) cites this passage with the following
regulation ;
" And George-a-Grccne, give me thy hand : there is
None in England that shall do thee wrong," —
observing that " the word ' England ' is to lie pronounced
as a trisyllable. " But though our early poets occasionally
use " England " as a trisyllable, they certainly never in-
tended it to be accented " Euge'laud."
t laitan] i. e. mistress, love.
♦ bright of bite] See note J, p. 204, see. col.
2G8
GEORGE-A-GREENE, THE PINNER OP WAKEFIELD.
I'll send for Grime and force him give his grant :
He will not deny King Edward such a suit.
Enter Jenkin.
Jen. Ho, who saw a master of mine ? 0, he is
gotten into company, an a body should rake hell
for company.
Geo. Peace, ye slave ! see where King Edward is.
K. Edw. George, what is he 1
Qeo. I beseech your grace pardon him ; he is
my man.
First Shoe. Sirrah, the king hath been drinking
with us, and did pledge us too.
Jen. Hath he so 1 kneel ; I dub you gentlemen.
First Shoe. Beg it of the king, Jenkin.
Jen. I will.— I beseech your worship grant
me one thing.
K. Edw. What is that 1
Jen. Hark in your ear.
[ Whispers K. Edw. in the ear.
K. Edw. Go your ways, and do it.
Jen. Come, down on your knees, I have got it.
First Shoe. Let us hear what it is first.
Jen. Marry, because you have drunk with the
king, and the king hath so graciously pledged
you, you shall be no more called Shoemakers ;
but you and yours, to the world's end, shall be
called the trade of the Gentle Craft.
First Shoe. I beseech your majesty reform this
which he hath spoken.
Jen. I beseech your worship consume this
which he hath spoken.
K. Edw. Confirm it, you would say.—
Well, he hath done it for you, it is sufficient.—
Come, George, we will go to Grime, and have thy
love.
Jen. I am sure your worship will abide ; for
yonder is coming old Musgrove and mad Cuddy
his son.— Master, my fellow Wily comes drest
like a woman, and Master Grime will marry Wily.
Here they come.
Enter Musgrove and Cuddy ; Grime, Wily disguised as
a woman, Maid Marian, and Bettris.
K. Edw. Which is thy old father, Cuddy ?
Cad. This, if it please your majesty.
[Musorove kneels.
K. Edw. Ah old Musgrove, stand up ;
It fits not such grey hairs to kneel.
Mu.8. [riwng.] Long live
My sovereign ! long and happy be his days !
Vouchsafe, my gracious lord, a simple gift
At Billy Musgrovc's hand.
King James at Middleham-castle gave me this ;
This won the honour, and this give I thee.
[Gives sword to K. Edw.
K. Edw. Godamercy, Musgrove,for this friendly
gift;
And for thou fell'dst a king with this same
weapon,
This blade shall here dub valiant Musgrove knight.
Mus. Alas, what hath your highness done] I
am poor.
K. Edw. To mend thy living take thou Middle-
ham-castle,*
The hold of both t ; and if thou want living,
complain,
Thou shalt have more to maintain thine estate. —
George, which is thy love 1
Geo. This, if please your majesty.
K. Edw. Art thou her aged father?
Grime. I am, an it like your majesty.
K. Edw. And wilt not give thy daughter unto
George 1
Grime. Yes, my lord, if he will let me marry
With this lovely lass.
K. Edw. What say'st thou, George?
Geo. With all my heart, my lord, I give consent.
Grime. Then do I give my daughter unto George.
Wily. Then shall the marriage soon be at an end.
Witness, my lord, if that I be a woman ;
[Throws off his disguise.
For I am Wily, boy to George-a-Greene,
Who for my master wrought this subtle shift.
K. Edw. What, is it a boy ?— What say'st thou
to this, Grime ?
Grime. Marry, my lord, I think this boy hath
More knavery than all the world besides.
Yet am I content that George shall both have
My daughter and my lands.
K. Edw. Now, George, it rests I gratify thy
worth :
And therefore here I do bequeath to thee,
In full possession, half that Kendal hath ;
And what as Bradford holds of me in chief,
I give it frankly unto thee for ever.
Kneel down, George.
Geo. What will your majesty do ?
K. Edw. Dub thee a knight, George.
Geo. I beseech your grace, grant me one thing.
K. Edw. What is that ?
* MiddUham-castle] Grose in his Antiq. of England and
Wales, vol. iv. gives two views of this castle, and is at
the trouble to inquiro what foundation the preseut play
has on history : well might Ritson (Rubin Hood, vol. i.
p. xxix.) sneer at "his very gravely sitting down and
debating his opinion in form."
t The hold of both, <Sic. J Corrupted.
GEORGE-A-GREENE.
2G9
Geo. Then let mo live and die a yeoman still :
So was my father, so must live his son.
For 'tis more credit to men of base degree,
To do great deeds, than men of dignity.
K. Edw. Well, be it so, George.
K. James. I beseech your grace despatch with
me,
And set down my ransom.
K. Edw. George-a-Greene, set down the King
of Scots
Hia ransom.
Geo. I beseech your grace pardon me ;
It passeth my skill.
K. Edw. Do it, the honour's thine.
Geo. Then let King James make good
Those towns which he hath burnt upon the bor-
ders;
Give a small pension to the fatherless,
Whose fathers he caus'd murder'd in those wars ;
Put in pledge for these things to your grace,
And so return.
K. Edw. King James, are you content? *
K. James. I am content, an like your majesty,
And will leave good castles in security.
K. Edw. I crave no more. — Now, Georgea-
Greene,
I'll to thy house; and when I have supt,
I'll go to Ask,
And see if Jane-a-Barley be so fair
As good King James reports her for to be.
And for the ancient custom of Vail staff,
Keep it still, claim privilege from me :
If any ask a reason why or how,
Say, English Edward vail'd his staff to you.
[Exeunt.
Specimen of The History of George-a-Greene, on
which the preceding play is founded : see p.
254 ; and the Account of our author and his
writings, p. 33.
" Richard having settled his affairs, he prepar'd
for a voyage to the Holy Land, in conjunction
with Philip the Second, then king of France.
During his absence he constituted the bishop of
Ely, then chancellor of England, vicegerent of
the kingdom. This bishop being on the one side
covetous, and by many unjust impositions op-
pressing the nation, and the king's brother ambi-
tious on the other, as presuming much upon his
royal birth and his great possessions, some per-
* King James, are you content?] The 4to. gives these
words to George-a-Greene.
sous fomented great factions and combinations
against the tyrauizing prelate; so that all things
grew out of frame and order; and great die-
tractions ensued ; nay, a third ulcer, worse than
the former, broke into open rebellion, namely, an
insurrection was raised by the Earl of Kendal,
with divers of his adherents, as, the Lord Bou-
teil, Sir Gilbert Armestrong, and others. These
having gather'd an army of some twenty thou-
sand malecontents, made publick proclamation,
that they came into the field for no other cause,
but to purchase their country-men's liberty, and
to free them from the great and insufferable op-
pression which they then liv'd under by the
prince and prelate. This drew to the earl many
followers for the present, so that he seemed to
have got together a very potent army. But the
main reason of this rebellion was, that when the
earl was but a child, a wizard had prophesy 'd of
him, That Richard and he should meet in Lon-
don, and the king should there vail his bonnet
unto him : and this prediction of the sooth-sayer
prov'd afterwards to be true, but not as he vainly
had expounded it. The earl having led his army
into the north, struck a great terror into all those
honest subjects, that tender'd their allegiance to
their absent king and sovereign, and wish'd well
to the good of the commonwealth and the safety
of the kingdom ; yet many were forced through
fear to supply his men with necessary provisions,
lest otherwise they should have made spoil and
havoek of all they had. Now, the earl being for
some time destitute of many things that are
useful and commodious for an army, and encamp-
ing some five miles from the town of Wakefield,
the three confederates drew a commission, and,
having sign'd it with their own seals, sent it by
one Mannering, a servant of the earl's, to the
bailiff and towns-men of Wakefield, requiring
seemingly, by way of intreaty, to send unto his
host such a quantity of provision, of corn and,
cattle, with other necessaries (of which he was
then in great want), and withal, such a sum of
money as he demanded for the payment of so
many soldiers ; to which this Mannering was to
perswade them by all fair means possible ; but, if
they should deny his request, he was to threaten
them with fire and sword, with all the violence
that could be suggested to them. The news of
this commission coming to their knowledge, the
bailiff sent abroad to the neighbouring justices,
as, to Mr. Grymes and others ; so that he and his
brethren appointed to give them a meeting in the
town-house, where many of the commons were
270
GEORGE-A-GREENE.
to be present, and, amongst others, George A
Green purposed to be there, to hear what would
become of the business. The summons being
made, the assembly met, and the messenger ap-
pear'd, show'd his warrant, and, according to his
orders, told them what great conveniencies would
grow in supplying the army, and withal entreated
from the lords their love and favour. The bailiff
and the justices were loth, it being contrary to
their allegiance to grant their request : yet they
were fearful withal peremptorily to deny it, and
stood wavering long and debating amongst them-
selves what they had best do for their own safe-
ties ; which Mannering seeing, without doing any
reverence at all unto the bench, he began to alter
his phrases, and changed the copy of his counte-
nance, first taunting and deriding their faiut-
hearted cowardize, and afterward threatening
them, that if they gave not present satisfaction to
his demand, the army would instantly remove,
make havock and spoil of their goods and chat-
tels, ravish their daughters, and deflower their
wives before their faces, and make a bonfire of the
town, to the terrifying of others, whose insolence
dur3t oppose the earl his master's commission.
At this [these] haughty and insufferable menaces,
whilst the bench sate quaking, George presseth
forward in the face of the court, and desireth, by
the favour of the bench, to have the liberty,
according to his plain and weak understanding,
to give the messenger an answer ; which being
granted him, he boldly stept up to him, and
demanded his name; who made him answer, that
his name was Mannering. Mannering (saith he) ;
that name was ill bestow'd on one who can so
forget all manners, as to stand cover'd before a
bench upon which the majesty of his sovereign
was represented : which manners (saith he) since
thou wantest, I will teach thee ; and withal, first
snatching his bonnet from his head, trod upon
it, then spurn'd it before him. At which the
other being iuraged, ask'd him, How he durst to
offer that violence to one who brought so strong
a commission ? Your commission (saith George),
I cry your [you] mercy, sir ; and withal, desired
the favour of the bench, that he might have tho
liberty to peruse it; which being granted, I, marry,
(saith he, having read it,) I cannot chuse but sub-
mit mytelf to this authority; and making an
offer as if he meant to kiss it, tore it in pieces.
Mannering seeing this, began to stamp, st'ire, and
swear; but George taking him fast by the collar,
so shook him as if he had purposed to have
made all his bones loose in his skin, and drawing
his dagger, and pointing it to his bosom, told hiin,
He had devised physick to purge his cholerick
blood ; and gathering up the three seals, told him,
It was these three pills which he must instantly
take and swallow, and [or] never more expect to
return to his master ; nor did he leave him, or
take the dagger from his breast, till he had seen
it down, and afterwards, when he had perceiv'd
that they had almost choak'd him, he call'd for a
bottle of ale, and said these words: It shall never
be said, that a messenger shall be sent by such
great persons to the town of Wakefield, and that
none would be so kind as to make him driuk ;
therefore here (saith he), Mannering, is a health
to the confusion of the traitor thy master, and all
hi3 rebellious army ; and pledge it me without
evasion or delay, or I vow, by the allegiance
which I owe to my prince and sovereign, that
thou hast druuk thy last already. Mannering,
seeing there was no remedy, and feeling the wax
still sticking in his throat, drank it off super-
naculum; which the other seeing, Now (saith he)
commend me to thy master and the rest, and
tell them, one George A Green, no better man
than the Pindar of the town of Wakefield, who
tho' I have torn their commission, yet I have
sent them their seals safe back again by their
servant. Whatsoever Mannering thought, little
was he heard to speak, but went away muttering
the devil's Pater Noster, and so left them.
Every body commended the resolution of George,
and, by his sole encouragement, purposed hence-
forward to oppose themselves against the insur-
rection of the rebels." — Thoms's Early Romances,
vol. ii. p. 174, ed. 1858.
BALLAD.—" The Jolly Pinder of WahejleM,
with Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.
" From an old black letter copy in A. h, Wood's
collection, compared with two other copies in the
British Museum, one in black letter. It should
be sung ' To an excellent tune,' which has not
been recovered.
" Several lines of this ballad are quoted in the
two old plays of the ' Downfall ' and ' Death of
Robert earle of Huntington,' 1601, 4to. b. 1. but
acted many years before. It is also alluded to in
Shakspeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, Act. 1.
sc. 1. and again in his Second part of K. Henry
IV. Act. V. sc. 3.
" In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder,
In Wakefield al! on a grocu,
In Wakcfiold all on a green :
There is neither knight nor squire, said the pinder,
GEORCJE-A-GREENE.
271
Nor baton that is so bold,
Nor baron that is so bold,
Dare make a trespass to the town of Wakefield,
But his pledge goes to the pinfold, &c.
All this be heard three witty young men,
*Twas Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John ;
With that they espy'd the jolly pinder,
As he sat under a thorn.
Now turn again, turn again, said the pind&r.
For a wrong way you have gone ;
For yon have forsaken the kings highway,
And made a path over the corn.
O that were a shame, said jolly Robin,
We being three, and thou but one.
The pinder leapt back then thirty good foot,
'Twas thirty good foot and one.
He leaned his back fast unto a thorn,
And his foot against a stone,
And there he fought a long summers day,
A summers day so long,
Till that their swords on their broad bucklers
Were broke fast into their hands.
Hold thy hand, hold thy hand, said bold Robin Hood,
And my merry men every one ;
For this is ono of the best pimlers.
That ever I tryed with sword.
And wilt thou forsake thy pinders craft.
And live in the green-wood with me ?
'At Michaelmas next my cov'nunt comes out.
When every man gathers his lee ;
Then I'le take my blew blade all in my hand,
And plod to the green-wood with thee.'
Hast thou either meat or drink, said Robiu Hood,
For my merry men and me ?
I have both bread and beef, said the pinder,
And good ale of the best.
And that is meat good enough, said Robin Hood,
For such unbidden ' guests.'*
' wilt thou forsake the pinder his craft.
And go to the green- wood with me?
Thou shu.lt have a livery twice in the year.
The one green, the other brown.'
' If Michaelmas day was come and gone,
And my master had paid me my fee,
Then would I set as little by him
As my master doth by me.' "
Ritson's Robin Hood, vol. ii. p. 16.
* ' gve$ts '] Qy., rather, ' guest ' [a plural] ?
A MAIDEN'S DREAM.
L.
A Maiden* Vrcame. Vpon the death of the Right Honorable Sir Christopher Hatton, Knight, late Lord Chancelor o)
Mngland. By Robert Green, Master of Arts. Imprinted at London by Tliomas Scarlet for Thomas Nelson. 1591. 4to.
A transcript of this poem -was communicated to The Shniespeare Society's Papers, 1845, vol. ii. p. 127, by the
possessor of the only copy known. — In the present reprint the text has been corrected throughout.
TO THE
RIGHT WORSHIPFUL, BOUNTIFUL, AND VIRTUOUS LADY, THE LADY ELIZABETH
HATTON, WIFE TO TnE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL SIR WILLIAM HATTON,* KNIGHT,
INCREASE OF ALL HONOURABLE VIRTUES.
Mourning as well as many, right worshipful lady, for the loss of the right honourable your
deceased uncle, whose death, being the common prejudice of thet present age, was lamented of most, if
not all, and I among the rest sorrowing that my country was deprived of him that lived not for himself
but for his country, I began to call to mind what a subject was ministered to the excellent wits of both
universities to work upon, when so worthy a knight and so virtuous a justiciar had by his death left
many memorable actions performed in his life deserving highly by some rare pent to be registered.
Passing over many days in this muse, at last I perceived men's humours slept, that love of many
followed friends§ no further than their graves, that art was grown idle, and either choice scholars feared
to write of so high a subject as his virtues, or else they dated their devotions no further than his life.
While thus I debated with myself, I might see, to the great disgrace of the poets of our time, some
mechanical wits blow up mountains and bring forth mice, who with their follies did rather disparage
his honours than decipher his virtues : beside, as virtutis comes est invidia, so base report, who hath
her tongue blistered by slanderous envy, began, as far as she durst, now after his death, to murmur, who
in his life-time durst not once mutter. Whereupon, touched with a zealous jealousy over his wonderful
virtues, I could not, whatsoever discredit I reaped by my presumption, although I did tenui arena
meditari, but discover the honourable qualities of so worthy a counsellor, not for any private benefit I
ever had of him which should induce me favourably to flatter his worthy parts, but only that I shame[d]
to let slip with silence the virtues and honours of so worthy a knight, whose deserts had been so many
and so great towards all. Therefore, right worshipful lady, I drew a fiction called A Maiden's Dream,
which as it was enigmatical, so it is not without some special and considerate reasons. Whose slender
Muse I present unto your ladyship, induced thereunto, first, that I know you are partaker of your
husband's sorrows for the death of his honourable uncle, and desire to hear his honours put in memory
after his death, as you wished his advancement in virtues to be great in his life ; as also that I am your
ladyship's poor countryman, and have long time desired to gratify your right worshipful father with
something worthy of himself. Which because I could not to my content perform, I have now taken
opportunity to show my duty to him in his daughter, although the gift be far too mean for so worshipful
and virtuous a lady. Yet, hoping your ladyship will with courtesy favour my presuming follies, and in
gracious acceptance vouch of my well-meant labours,
I humbly take my leave.
Your ladyship's humbly at command,
R. Greene, Xordoviecnsis.
• the Lady Elizabeth Hatton, wife to the right worshipful Sir William Hatton] " Sir Christopher Hatton [who died Nov.
20th, 1591] did not leave a Will. He had settled his estates upon his nephew Sir William Newport, alias Hatton,
and the heirs male of his body ; failing which, on his Godson and collateral heir-male Sir Christopher Hatton. Sir
William succeeded accordingly to Holdenby and Kirby, and all the Chancellor's other property. He married first
in June 15S9, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Gawdy, Justice of the King's Bench, " <fcc. Sir
H. Nicolas's Memoirs of Sir C. Hatton, p. 502.
t the] Olded. "a."
} pen] Olded. "men."
§ followed friends] Old ed. " friends followed.'
T 2
A MAIDEN'S DREAM.
Mkthought, in slumber as I lay and dreamt,
I saw a silent spring rail'd in with jet,
From sunny shade or murmur quite exempt,
The glide whereof 'gainst weeping flints did
beat ;
And round about were leafless beeches set :
So dark it seem'd night's mantle for to borrow,
And well to be the gloomy den of sorrow.
About this spring, in mourning robes of black,
Were sundry nymphs or goddesses, methought,
That seemly sat in ranks, j ust back to back,
On mossy benches nature there had wrought ;
And, 'cause the wind and spring no murmur
brought,
They fill'd the air with such laments and
groans
That echo sigh'd out their heart-breaking moans.
Elbow on knee, and head upon their hand,
An mourners sit, so sat these ladies all :
Garlands of eben-boughs, whereon did stand
A golden crown ; their mantles were of pall ;
And from their watery eyes warm tears did
fall:
With wringing hands they sat and sigh'd, like
those
That had more grief than well they could disclose.
I look'd about, and by the fount I spied
A knight lie dead, yet all in armour clad,
Booted and spurr'd ; a falchion by his side,
A crown of olives on his helm he had;
As if in peace and war he were adrad * :
A golden hind was placed at his feet,
Whose vailed + ears bewray'd her inward greet. J
* adrad] i. o. dreaded,
t vailid] !. e. lowered.
{ greet] i. c. sorrow.
She seemed wounded by her panting breath ;
Her beating breast with sighs did fall and rise :
Wounds were there none ; it was her master's
death
That drew electrum from her weeping eyes.
Like scalding smoke her braying throbs out-flies :
As deer do mourn when arrow hath them gall'd,
So was this hind with heart-sick pains enthrall'd.
Just at his head there sat a sumptuous queen;
I guess'd her so for why * she wore a crown :
Yet were her garments parted white and green,
'Tir'd like unto the picture of Renown.
Upon her lap she laid his head adown :
Unlike to all, she smiled on his face ;
Which made me long to know this dead man's
case.
As thus I look'd, gan Justice to arise,
I knew the goddess by her equal beam ;
And dewing on his face balm from her eyes,
She wet his visage with a yearnful t stream :
Sad, mournful looks did from her arches gleam ;
And like to one whom sorrow deep attaints,
With heaved hands she poureth forth these
plants.
The complaint of Justice..
" Untoward twins that temper human fate,
Who from your distaff draw the life of man,
Parcse, impartial to the highest state,
Too soon you cut what Clotho erst began :
Your fatal dooms this present age may ban,
For you have robb'd the world of such a knight
As best could skill to balance justice right.
* for why] i. e. because,
t yearnful] i. e. mournful.
278
A MAIDEN'S DREAM.
" His eyes were seats for mercy and for law,
Favour in one, and justice in the other :
The poor he smooth' d, the proud he kept in
awe;
As just to strangers as unto his brother :
Bribes could not make him any wrong to
smother,
For to a lord or to the lowest groom
Still conscience and the cause set down the
doom.
" Delaying law, that picks the client's purse,
No could this knight abide to hear debated
From day to day (that claims the poor man's
curse),
Nor might the pleas be over-long dilated * :
Much shifts of law there was by him abated :
"With conscience carefully he heard the cause,
Then gave his doom with short despatch of laws.
<! The poor man's cry he thought a holy knell :
No sooner gan their suits to pierce his ears
But fair-ey'd pity in his heart did dwell ;
And like a father that affection bears,
So tender'd he the poor with inward tears,
And did redress their wrongs when they did
call ;
But, poor or rich, he still was just to all.
" O, woe is me ! " saith Justice, " he is dead ;
The knight is dead that was so just a man,
And in Astrsea's lap low lies his head
Who whilom wonders in the world did scan :
Justice hath lost her chiefest limb, what
thanr'f
At this her sighs and sorrows were so sore,
And so she wept, that she could speak no
more.
The complaint of Prudence.
A wreath of serpents 'bout her lily wrist
Did seemly Prudence wear; she then J arose ;
A silver dove sat mourning on her fist ;
Tears on her cheeks like dew upon a rose ;
And thus began the goddess' grief-ful glose :
" Let England mourn for why § his days are
done
Whom Prudence nursed like her dearest son.
* dilated] I. e. delayed.
t than] i. e. then. Soe note *, p. 206, sec. col.
J the then] Qy. "who then'"!
§ for why] i. e. because.
'' Hatton," — at that I started in my dream,
But not awoke, — " Hatton is dead," quoth she :
" 0, could I pour out tears like to a stream,
A sea of them would not sufficient be !
For why our age had few more wise than he :
Like oracles as were Apollo's saws,
So were his words accordant to the laws.
" Wisdom sat watching in his wary eyes,
His insight subtle, if unto a foe;
He could with counsels commonwealths com-
prise :
No foreign wit could Hatton's overgo :
Yet to a friend wise, simple, and no mo.*
His civil policy unto the state
Scarce left behind him now a second mate.
" For country's weal his counsel did exceed,
And eagle-ey'd he was to spy a fault :
For wars or peace right wisely could he rede + :
'Twas hard for treachours 'fore his looks to
halt ;
The smooth-fae'd traitor could not him assault.
As by his country's love his grees J did rise
So to his country was he simple-wise.
" This grave adviser of the commonweal,
This prudent counsellor unto his priuce,
Whose wit was busied with his mistress' heal,§
Secret conspiracies could well convince ;||
Whose insight pierced the sharp-eyed lynce *U ;
He is dead ! " At this her sorrows were so
sore,
And so she wept, that she could speak no more.
Tlie complaint of Fortitude.
Next Fortitude arose unto this knight,
And by his side sat down with steadfast eye[s] :
A broken column 'twixt her arms was pight ** :
She could not weep nor pour out yearnfulft
cries ;
From Fortitude such base affects nill %% rise ;
Brass-renting goddess, she can not lament :
Yet thus her plaints with breathing sighs were
spent.
* mo] i. e. more.
f rede] i. e. advise.
J grees] i. e. degrees.
§ heal] i. e. health, welfare.
|| convince] i. e. overpower.
% lynce] i. e. lynx. — Old ed. " Linx."
** pight] i. e. placed, fixed.
]\ yeamful] i. e. mournful.
It nill] i. e. will not.
A MAIDEN'S DREAM.
279
■ Within the Maiden's Court, place of all places,
I did advance a man of high desert *,
Whom nature had made proud with all her
graces,
Inserting courage in his noble heart :
No perils drad t could ever make him start ;
But, like to Scsevola, for country's good
He did not value for to spend his blood.
"His looks were stern, though in a life of
peace;
Though not in wars, yet war hung in his
brows :
His honour did by martial thoughts increase :
To martial men living this knight allows,
And by his sword he solemnly avows.J
Though not in war, yet if that war were here,
As warriors do, to value honour dear.
"Captains he kept, and foster' d. them with
fee ;
Soldiers were servants to this martial knight ;
Men might his stable full of coursers see,
Trotters whose manag'd looks would some
affright ;
His armoury was rich and warlike dight j
And he himself, if any need had crav'd,
Would as stout Hector have himself behav'd.
" I lost a friend whenas I lost hi3 life " :
Thus plained Fortitude, and frown'd withal :
' Cursed be Atropos, and curs'd her knife
That made the captain of my guard to fall,
Whose virtues did his honours high install."
At this she storm'd, and wrung out sighs so
sore,
That what for grief her tongue could speak no
more.
Hie complaint of Temperance.
Then Temperance, with bridle in her hand,
Did mildly look upon this lifeless lord, §
And like to weeping Niobe did stand :
Her sorrows and her tears did well accord ;
Their diapason was in self-same cord.||
" Here lies the man," quoth she, "that breath' d
out this, —
' To shun fond pleasures is the sweetest bliss.'
* desert] Old ed. "degree."
t drad] i. e. dread, dreadful.
t avoirs] Old ed. "auowed."
| lord] Olded. "Cord."
II cord] Old ed. " Lord."
u No choice delight could draw his eyes awry ;
He was not bent to pleasure's fond conceits ;
Inveigling pride, nor world's sweet vanity,
Love's luring follies with their strange deceits,
Could wrap this lord within their baleful
sleights :
But he, despising all, said ' Man was grass,
His date a span, el omnia vanitas.'
" Temperate he was, and temper'd all his
deeds :
He bridled those affects that might offend ;
He gave his will no more the reins than
needs ;
He measur'd pleasures ever by the end :
His thoughts on virtue's censures * did depend :
What booteth pleasures that so quickly pass,
When such delights are brickie t like to
glass ?
" First pride of life, that subtle branch of sin,
And then the lusting humour of the eyes,
And base concupiscence which plies her gin ;
These Sirens, that do worldlings still entice,
Could not allure his mind to think of vice ;
For he said still, ' Pleasure's delight it is
That holdeth man from heaven'B delightful
bliss.'
" Temperate he was in every deep extreme,
And could well bridle his affects with reason.
What I have lost in losing him then deem :
Base Death, that took away a man so geason,+
That measur'd every thought by time and
season ! "
At this her sighs and sorrows were so sore,
And so she wept, that she could speak no
more.
The complaint of Bounty.
With open hands, and mourning locks § depend-
ant,
Bounty stept forth to wail the dead man's loss :
On her were Love and Plenty both attendant :
Tears in her eyes, arms folded quite across,
Sitting by him upon a turf of moss,
She sigh'd, and said, " Here lies the knight de-
ceas'd,
Whose bounty Bounty's glory much increas'd.
* censures] i. e. judgments, opinions.
t brickie] i. e. brittle.— Old ed. "fickle."
X geason] i. e. rare, uncommon.
§ locks] Olded. "lookes."
280
A MAIDEN'S DREAM.
" His looks were liberal, and in his face
Sat frank magnificence with arms display 'd ;
His open hands discours'd his inward grace ;
The poor were never at their need denay'd :*
His careless scorn of gold his deeds bewray'd :
And this he crav'd, — 'no longer for to live
Than he had power and mind and will to give.'
" No man went empty from his frank dispose ;
He was a purse-bearer unto the poor :
He well observ'd the meaning of this glose,—
' None lose reward that giveth of their store' :
To all his bounty pass'd. Ay me, therefore,
That he should die ! " With that she sigh'd
so sore,
And so she wept, that she could speak no more.
The complaint of Hospitality.
Lame of a leg, as she had lost a limb,
Start + up kind Hospitality and wept :
She silent sat a while and sigh'd by him ;
As one half-maimed, to this knight she crept :
At last about his neck this nymph she lept,
And, with her cornucopia in her fist,
For very love his chilly lips she kiss'd.
" Ay me," quoth she, " my love is lorn by death ;
My chiefest stay is crack'd, and I am lame :
He that his alms % frankly did bequeath,
And fed the poor with store of food, the same,
Even he, is dead, and vanish'd is his name,
Whose gates were open, and whose alms-deed
Supplied the fatherless' and widow's need.
" He kept no Christmas-house for once a year ;
Each day his boards were fill'd with lordly fare :
He fed a rout § of yeomen with his cheer,
Nor was his bread and beef kept in with care :
His wine and beer to strangers were not spare ;
And yet beside to all that hunger griev'd
His gates were ope, and they were there re-
liev'd.
" Well could the poor tell where to fetch their
bread :
Ah Baucis and Philemon were y-blcst
For fcastiDg Jupiter in stranger's stead,
So happy be his high immortal rest,
That was to hospitality addrest !
* denay'd] i. o. denied.
t Star/.] i. c. Started.
t alms] Is horo, as in tbo sixth liuc of this stanza, a
dissyllablo ;— the spelling of the old copy being " almes"
aufl " almcs deede."
§ rout] i. o. company, band.
For few such live." And then she sigh'd so
sore,
And so she wept, that she could speak no
more.
Then Courtesy, whose face was full of smiles,
And Friendship, with her hand upon her heart,
And tender Charity, that loves no wiles,
And Clemency, their * passions did impart :
A thousand Virtues there did straight upstart,
And with their tears and sighs they did disclose
For Hatton's death their hearts were full of woes.
The complaint of Religion.
Next, from the furthest nook of all the place,
Weeping full sore, there rose a nymph in black,
Seemly and sober, with an angel's face,
And sigh'd as if her heart-strings straight should
crack :
Her outward woes bewray'd her inward rack.
A golden book she carried in her hand :
It was Religion that thus meek did stand.
God wot, her garments were full loosely tuck'd,
As one that careless was in some despair;
To tatters were her robes and vestures pluck'd ;
Her naked limbs were open to the air :
Yet, for all this, her looks were blithe and
fair :
And wondering how Religion grew forlorn,
I spied her robes by Heresy were torn.
This holy creature sat her by this knight,
And sigh'd out this : " 0, here he lies," quoth
she,
" Lifeless, that did Religion's lamp still light ;
Devout without dissembling, meek, and free
To such whose words and livings did agree :
Lip-holiness in clergymen t he could not brook,
Ne such as counted gold above their book.
" Upright he liv'd as Holy Writ him led :
His faith was not in ceremonies old;
Nor had he new-found toys within his head;
No was he luke-warm, neither hot nor cold :
But in religion he was constant, bold,
And still a sworn professed foe to all
Whoso looks were smooth, hearts pharisaical.
* their] Old cd. "her" (a misprint for "ther":— in the
next lino but ono the old cd. has " And with liter teai cs,"
&c.
t Lip-holinets in clergymen] Qy. " Lip-holy clergymen "?
A MAIDEN'S DREAM.
281
" The brainsick aud illiterate surmiseis,
That like to saints would holy be in looks,
Of fond religious fabulous devisers,
Who scorn 'd the academies and their books,
And yet could sin as others in close nooks ;
To such wild-headed mates he was a foe,
That rent her robes and wrong' d Religion so.
"Ne was his faith in men's traditions ;
He hated Antichrist and all his trash :
He was not led away by superstitions,
Nor was he in religion over-rash :
His hands from heresy he lov'd to wash.
Then, base Report, 'ware what thy tongue doth
spread :
'Tis sin and shame for to belie the dead.
" Heart-holy men he still kept at his table,
Doctors that well could doom of Holy Writ :
By them he knew to sever faith from fable,
And how the text with judgment for to hit;
For Pharisees in Moses' chair did sit."
At this Religion sigh'd, and griev'[d] so sore,
And so she wept, that she could speak no
more.
Primates].
Next might I see a rout * of noblemen,
Earls, barons, lords, in mourning weeds attir'd :
I cannot paint their passions with my pen,
Nor write so quaintly as their woes requir'd ;
Their tears and sighs some Homer's quill desir'd :
But this I know, their grief was for his death
That there had yielded nature, life and breath.
Milites
Then came by soldiers trailing of their pikes :
Like men dismay 'd, their beavers were adowu ;
Their warlike hearts his death with sorrow
strikes :
Yea, War himself was in a sable gown ;
For grief you might perceive his visage frown :
And scholars came by with lamenting cries,
Wetting their books with tears fell from their
eyes.
Plcbs.
The common people they did throng in flocks,
Dewing their bosoms with their yearnful t tears ;
Their sighs were such as would have rent the
rocks,
Their faces full of grief, dismay, and fears :
Their cries struck pity in my listening ears,
* rout] i.e. company, band,
t yearn/vl] i. e. mournful.
Foi why * the groans are less at hell's black gate
Thau echo there did then reverberate.
Some came with scrolls and papers in their
hand ;
I guess'd them suitors that did rue his loss :
Some with their children in their hand did stand ;
Some poor aud hungry with their hands across.
A thousand there sat wailing on the moss :
" pater patrice /" still they cried thus,
" Hatton is dead ; what shall become of us ? "
At all these cries my heart was sore amov'd,
Which made me long to see the dead man's face ;
What he should be that was so dear-belov'd,
Whose worth so deep had won the people's grace.
As I came pressing near unto the place,
I look'd, and, though his face were pale and wan,
Yet by his visage did I know the man.
No sooner did I cast mine eye on him
But in his face there flash'd a ruddy hue ;
And though before his looks by death were grim,
Yet seem'd he smiling to my gazing view
(As if, though dead, my presence still he knew) :
Seeing this change within a dead man's face,
I could not stop my tears, but wept apace.
I call'd to mind how that it was a knight
That whilom liv'd in England's happy soil :
I thought upon his care and deep insight
For country's weal, his labour and his toil
He took, lest that the English state might foil;
And how his watchful thought from first had
been
Vow'd to the honour of the Maiden Queen.
I call'd to mind again he was my friend,
And held my quiet as his heart's content :
What was so dear for me he would not spend ?
Then thought I straight such friends are seldom
hent.t
Tims still from love to love my humour went,
That pondering of his loyalty so free,
I wept him dead that living honour'd me.
At this Astrrea, seeing me so sad,
Gan blithely comfort me with this reply :
"Virgin," quoth she, "no boot by tears is had,
Nor do laments aught pleasure them that dio.
Souls must have change from this mortality;
For, living long, sin hath the larger space,
And, dying well, they find the greater grace.
* For vrfiy] i. e. Because.
t halt j i. e laid hold ou, — gotten.
282
A MAIDEN'S DREAM.
" And sith thy tears bewray thy love," quoth
she,
" His soul with me shall wend unto the skies :
His lifeless body I will leave to thee ;
Let that be earth'd and tomb'd in gorgeous
wise :
I'll place his ghost among the hierarchies ;
For as one star another far exceeds,
So souls in heaven are placed by their deeds."
With that, methought, within her golden lap,
The sun-bright goddess, smiling with her eye,
The soul of Hatton curiously did wrap,
And in a cloud was taken up on high.
Vain dreams are fond *; but thus as then dreamt I,
And more, methought I heard the angels sing t
An alleluia for to welcome him.
As thus ascendaui* fair Astrsea flew,
The nobles, commons, yea, and every wight
That living in his life-time Hatton knew,
Did deep lament the loss of that good kuight.
But when Astraea was quite out of sight,
For giief the people shouted sach a scream
That I awoke and start cat of my dream.
* fond] i. e. foolish, idle.
t sing] Qy. "hymn" (though the next line ends with
'him")?
J ascendant] Old ed. "attendant."
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
L.
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
FROM
M0RAND0, the tritameron of love.
(Ed. 1587.)
THE DESCRIPTION OF SILVESTRO'S
LADY.
Her stature like the tall straight cedar-trees
Whose stately bulks do fame th' Arabian groves ;
A pace like princely Juno when she brav'd
The Queen of Love 'fore Paris in the vale ;
A front beset with love and courtesy ;
A face like modest Pallas when she blush'd
A seely shepherd should be beauty's judge ;
A lip sweet ruby-red, grac'd with delight ;
A cheek wherein for interchange of hue
A wrangling strife 'twixt lily and the rose ;
Her eyes two twinckling* stars in winter-nights
When chilling frost doth clear the azur'd sky ;
Her hair of golden hue doth dim the beams
That proud Apollo giveth from his coach ;
The Gnidian doves, whose white and snowy
pens
Do stain the silver-streaming ivory,
May not compare with those two moving hills
Which, topp'd t with pretty teats, discover down
a vale
Wherein the God of Love may deign to sleep ;
A foot like Thetis when she tripp'd the sands
To steal Neptunus' favour with her $ steps ;
In fine,§ a piece, despite of beauty, fram'd
To show what Nature's lineage could afford.
* twinckling] The 4to. "tinckling."
t Which, topp'd, &c] Qy. did Greene intend an Alex-
andrine here, or is the line corrupted?
t Neptunus'. . . . her] The 4to. " Neptunes . . . .his."
§ In fine] Not in the 4to. ; but found in the alteration
of these verses apwl our author's Farewell to Folly : see
post, p. 3U0, first col.
LACENA'S RIDDLE.
The man whose method hangeth by the moon,
And rules his diet by geometry ;
Whose restless mind rips up his mother's
breast,
To part her bowels for his family ;
And fetcheth Pluto's glee in from the grass
By careless cutting of a goddess' gifts ;
That throws his gotten labour to the earth,
As trusting to content for others' shifts;
: Tis he, good sir, that Saturn best did please
When golden world set worldlings all at ease;
His name is Person, and his progeny,
Now tell me, of what ancient pedigree )
VERSES
UNDER THE PICTURE OF FORTUNE.
The fickle seat whereon proud Fortune sits,
The restless globe whereon the Fury stands,
Bewrays her fond and far inconstant fits ;
The fruitful horn she haudleth in her hands
Bids all beware to fear her flattering smiles,
That giveth most when most she meaneth
guiles ;
The wheel that, turning, never taketh rest,
The top whereof fond worldlings count their
bliss,
Within a minute makes a black exchange,
And then the vile * and lowest better is :
Which emblem tells us the inconstant state
Of such as trust to Fortune or to Fate.
vile] The 4to. " vild " : but see note t, p. 167, seo. col.
28G
FROM MENAPHON.
FROM
MENAPHON.
(Ed. 1589, COMPARED with Ed. 1616.)
— ♦ —
APOLLO'S ORACLE.
When Neptune, riding on the southern seas,
Shall from the bosom of his leman * yield
Th' Arcadian wonder, men and gods to please,
Plenty in pride shall march amidst the field ;
Dead men shall war, and unborn babes shall
frown,
And with their falchions hew their foemen down.
When lambs have lions for their surest guide,
And planets rest upon th' Arcadian hills,
When swelling seas have neither ebb nor tide,
When equal banks the ocean-margin fills ;
Then look, Arcadians, for a happy time,
And sweet content within your troubled clime.
MENAPHON'S SONG.
Some say Love,
Foolish Love,
Doth rule and govern all the gods :
I say Love,
Inconstant Love,
Sets men's senses far at odds.
Some swear Love,
Smooth-fac'd + Love,
Is sweetest sweet that men can have :
I say Love,
Sour Love,
Makes virtue yield as beauty's slave :
A bitter sweet, a folly worst of all,
That forceth wisdom to be folly's thrall.
Love is sweet :
Wherein sweet?
In fading pleasures that do pain.
Beauty sweet :
Is that sweet,
That yieldeth sorrow for a gain ?
If Love's sweet,
Herein sweet,
That minutes' joys are monthly woes :
'Tis not sweet,
That is sweet
Nowhere but where repentance grows.
Then love who list, if beauty be so sour ;
Labour for me, Love rest in prince's bower.
* lemon] i. o. mistress, love.
t Smooth-fin''' 1 ] Until 4toB. " Siuootli'd faco."
SEPHESTIA'S SONG TO HER CHILD.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ;
When thou art old there's grief enough for theo.
Mother's wag, pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy ;
When thy father first did see
Such a boy by him and me,
He was glad, I was woe ;
Fortune changed made him so,
When he left his pretty boy,
Last his sorrow, first his joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ;
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
Streaming tears that never stint,
Like pearl-drops from a flint,
Fell by course from his eyes,
That one anothei-'s place supplies ;
Thus he griev'd in every part,
Tears of blood fell from his heart,
When he left his pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ;
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
The wanton smil'd, father wept,
Mother cried, baby lept ;
More he crow'd, more we cried,
Nature could not sorrow hide :
He must go, he must kiss
Child aud mother, baby bless,
For he left his pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ;
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
MENAPHON'S ROUNDELAY.
When tender ewes,* brought home with evening
sun,
Wend to their folds,
And to their holds
The shepherds trudge when light of day is done,
Upon a tree
Tho eagle, Jove's fair bird, did perch ;
There resteth f he :
A little fly his harbour then did search,
* When tender ewes, &c ] The beginning of this rounde-
lay bears some resemblance to the opening of Gray's
Elegy.
t resteth] Qy. "rested"? but just before wo have
"trudge'' and "wend."
FROM MENAPHON.
287
And did presume, though others laugh'd thereat,
To perch whereas * the princely eagle sat.
The eagle frown'd, and shook his + royal wings,
And charg'd the fly
From thence to hie :
Afraid, iu haste the little creature flings,
Yet seeks again,
Fearful, to perk him by the eagle's side :
With moody vein,
The speedy post of Ganymede replied,
"Vassal, avaunt, or with my wings you die :
Is't fit an eagle seat him with a fly 1 "
The fly crav'd pity, still the eagle frowu'd :
The silly fly,
Ready to die,
Disgrac'd, displac'd, fell grovelling to the ground :
The eagle saw,
And with a royal mind said to the fly,
" Be not in awe,
I scorn by me the meanest creature die ;
Then seat thee here." The joyful fly up flings,
And sat safe-shadow'd with the eagle's wings.
DORON'S DESCRIPTION OF SAMELA.
Like to Diana in her summer-weed,
Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye,
Goes fair Samela ;
Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed,
When wash'd by Arethusa Fount J they lie,
Is fair Samela ;
As fair Aurora in her morning-grey,
Deck'd with the ruddy glister of her love,
Is fair Samela ;
Like lovely Thetis on a calmed day,
Whenas her brightness Neptune's fancy move,
Shines fair Samela;
Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams,
Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory
Of fair Samela ;
Her cheeks, like rose and lily, yield forth gleams,
Her brows bright arches fram'd of ebony :
Thus fair Samela
Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue,
And Juno in the show of majesty,
For she's Samela ;
Pallas in wit, all three, if you well view,
For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity,
Yield to Samela.
* whereas] i. e. where,
f his] The4to. of 1589 "her."
t Fount] Walker's correction (Crit. Exam, of the text of
SlrjJccspcare, <tc, ii. 268).— Both 4tos. "faint."
DORON'S JIG.
Througui the shrubs as I can * crack
For my lambs, little ones,
'Mongst many pretty ones,
Nymphs I mean, whose hair was black
As the crow ;
Like the snow
Her face and brows shiu'd, I ween ;
I saw a little one,
A bonny pretty one,
As bright, buxom, and as sheen,
As was she
On her knee
That lull'd the god whose arrow + warms
Such merry little ones,
Such fair-fac'd pretty ones,
As dally in love's chiefest harms :
Such was miue,
Whose grey eyne
Made me love. I gan to woo
This sweet little one,
This bonny pretty one ;
I woo'd hard a day or two,
Till she bade
" Be not sad,
Woo no more, I am thine own,
Thy dearest little one,
Thy truest pretty one " :
Thus was faith and firm love shown,
As behoves
Shepherds' loves.
MELICERTUS' DESCRIPTION OF HIS
MISTRESS.
Tune on, my pipe, the praises of my love,
And, midst thy oaten harmony, recount
How fair she is that makes thy music mount,
And every string of thy heart's harp to move.
Shall I compare her form unto the sphere
Whence sun-bright Venus vaunts her silver
shine ?
Ah, more than that by just compare is thine,
Whose crystal looks the cloudy heavens do clear !
How oft have I descending Titan seen
His burning locks couch in the sea-queen's lap,
And beauteous Thetis his red body wrap
In watery robes, as he her lord had been !
* can] Which in my former edition I hastily altered
to " 'gan ", — is often used by our early writers for gan or
began : see Richardson's Diet, in v.
\ arroic] Both 4tos. "arrowes."
288
FROM MENAPHON.
Whenas my nyniph, impatient of the night,
Bade bright Astrseus* with his train give place,
Whiles she led forth the day with her fair face,
And lent each star a more than Delian light.
Not Jove or Nature, should they both agree
To make a woman of the firmament,
Of his mix'd purity could not invent
A sky-born form t so beautiful as she.
MELICERTUS' MADRIGAL.
What are my sheep without their wonted food ?
What is my life except I gain my love 1
My sheep consume and faint for want of blood,
My life is lost unless I grace approve :
No flower that sapless thrives,
No turtle without fere.J
The day without the sun doth lour for woe,
Then woe mine eyes, unless they beauty see ;
My sun Samela's eyes, by whom I know
Wherein delight consists, where pleasures be :
Naught more the heart revives
Than to embrace his dear.
The stars from earthly humours gain their light,
Our humours by their light possess their power ;
Samela's eyes, fed by my weeping sight,
Infuse § my pain or joys by smile or lour :
So wends the source of love ;
It feeds, it fails, it ends.
Kind looks, clear to your joy behold her eyes,
Admire her heart, desire to taste her kisses ;
In them the heaven of joy and solace lies,
Without them every hope his succour misses :
0, how I love to prove
Whereto this solace tends I
MENAPHON'S SONG IN HIS BED.
You restless cares, companions of the night,
That wrap my joys in folds of endless woes,
Tire l| on my heart, and wound it with your spite,
Since love and fortune prove my equal foes :
* Astravs] The father of the primeval stars : vide
Aratus, *.VIN. 98 ; and compare Marlowe's Dido, —
Works, p. 252, ed. Dyco, 1858.
t A ski/born form, &c ] The Rev. J. Mitford (Gent. Mag.
for March 1833, p. 218) rrmarks that this passage is bor-
rowed, with some alterations, by the author of Tlie
Thracian Wonder, a play falsely ascribed to Webster (see
Webster's Works, iv. 211, ed. Dyco, 1830); and that Col-
lins (Ode to Mercy) has adopted from our text the
expression " Gentlest of sky-born forms," &c.
J fere] i. e. mate.
§ Infuse) The tto. of 1589 " Insuos " ; that of 1610 "In-
fades." || Tire] i. o. prey.
Farewell my hopes, farewell my happy days ;
Welcome sweet grief, the subject of my lays.
Mourn heavens, mourn earth ; your shepherd in
forlorn; [bower;
Mourn times and hours, since bale invades my
Curse every tongue the place where I was born,
Curse every thought the life which makes me
lour :
Farewell my hopes, farewell my happy days;
Welcome sweet grief, the subject of my lays.
Was I not free ? was I not fancy's aim ?
Fram'd not desire my face to front disdain ?
I was ; she did ; but now one silly maim
Makes me to droop, as he whom love hath slain :
Farewell my hopes, farewell my happy days ;
Welcome sweet grief, the subject of my lays.
Yet drooping, and yet living to this death,
I sigh, I sue for pity at her shrine,
Whose fiery eyes exhale my vital breath,
Aud make my flocks with parching heat to pine :
Farewell my hopes, farewell my happy days ;
Welcome sweet grief, the subject of my lays.
Fade they, die I : long may she live to bliss,
That feeds * a wanton fire with fuel of her form,
Aud makes perpetual summer where she is ;
Whiles I do cry, o'ertook with envy's storm,
"Farewell my hopes, farewell my happy
days ;
Welcome sweet grief, the subject of my lays."
SONG.
Fair fields, proud Flora's vaunt, why is't you
Whenas I languish ? [smile
You golden meads, why strive you to beguile
My weeping anguish ]
I live to sorrow, you to pleasure spring :
Why do you spring thus ?
What, will not Boreas, tempest's wrathful king,
Take some pity on us,
Aud send forth winter in her rusty weed,
To wail t my bemoanings, J
Whiles I distress'd do tune my country-reed
Unto my groanings?
But heaven, and earth, time, place, aud every
Have with her conspir'd [power
To turn my blissful sweets to baleful sour,
Since fond I desir'd
* That feeds, &c.J See note t, p. 285, first col.
t wail] The 4to. of 1589 " waite."
I bemoanings] Qy. "moanings "I
FROM MENAPHON.
289
The heaven whereto my thoughts may not aspire.
Ay me, unhappy !
It was my fault t' embrace my bane, the fire
That forceth me die.
Mine be the pain, but her's the cruel cause
Of this strange torment ;
Wherefore no time my banning prayers shall
pause
Till proud she repent.
MENAPHON'S ECLOGUE.
Too weak the wit, too slender is the brain,
That means to mark the power and worth of love ;
Not one that lives, except he hap to prove,
Can tell the sweet, or tell the secret pain.
Yet I that have been prentice to the grief,
Like to the cunning sea-man, from afar,
By guess will take * the beauty of that star
Whose influence must yield me chief relief.
You censors of the glory of my dear,
With reverence and lowly bent of knee,
Attend and mark what her perfections be ;
For in my words my fancies shall appear.
Her locks are plighted like the fleece of wool
That Jason with his Grecian mates achiev'd ; +
As pure as gold, yet not from gold deriv'd ;
As full of sweets as sweet of sweets is full.
Her brows are pretty tables of conoeit,
Where Love his records of delight doth quote;
On them her dallying locks do daily float,
As Love full oft doth feed upon the bait.
Her eyes, fair eyes, like to the purest lights
That animate the sun or cheer the day;
In whom the shining sunbeams brightly play,
Whiles Fancy doth on them divine delights.
Her cheeks like ripen'd lilies steep'd in wine,
Or fair pomegranate-kernels wash'd in milk.
Or snow-white threads in nets of crimson silk,
Or gorgeous clouds upon the sun's decline.
* fake] The4to. of 1589 "talke."
t Her locks are plighted like the fleece of wool
That Jason with his Grecian mates achiev'd] — plighted,
i. e. plaited, braided. — It is possible that Shakespeare
recollected these lines when he wrote the following;
" Her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece ;
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her."
Tlie Merchant of Venice, act i. sc. 1.
Her lips are roses over-wash'd with dew,
Or like the purple of Narcissus' flower ;
No frost their fair,* no wind doth waste their
power,
But by her breath her beauties do renew.
Her crystal chin like to the purest mould
Enchas'd with dainty daisies soft and white,
Where Fancy's fair pavilion once is pight.t
Whereas embrae'd his beauties he doth hold.
Her neck like to an ivory shining tower,
Wherethrough with azure veins sweet nectar
runs,
Or like the down of swans where Senesse wons,J
Or like delight that doth itself devour.
Her paps are like fair apples in the prime,
As round as orient pearls, as soft as down ;
They never vail§ their fair through winter's
frown,
But from their sweets Love sucks || his summer-
time.
Her body Beauty's best-esteemed bower,
Delicious, comely, dainty, without stain ;
The thought whereof (not touch) hath wrought
my pain ;
Whose fair all fair and beauties doth devour.
Her maiden mount, the dwelling-house of Plea-
sure ;
Not like, for why Tf no like surpasseth wonder :
0, blest is he may bring such beauties under,
Or search by suit the secrets of that treasure !
Devour'd in thought, how wanders my device !
What rests behind I must divine upon:
Who talks the best can say but " Fairer none " ;
Few words well-couch'd do most content the
wise.
All you that hear, let not my silly style
Coudemn my zeal ; for what my tongue should
say
Serves to enforce my thoughts to seek the way
Whereby my woes and cares I do beguile.
* fair] i. e. beauty.
t pight] i. e. pitched.
t wons] i. e. dwells.
§ vail] i. e. lower, let fall, — diminish.
|| sucks] Both 4tos. "suck'd."
U for why] i. e. because.
290
FROM MENAPHON.
Seld speaketh Love, but sighs his * secret pains ;
Tears are his truchmen,+ words do make hini
tremble:
How sweet is Love to them that can dissemble
In thoughts and looks till they have reap'd the
gains !
All lonely I complain, J and what I say
I think, yet what I think tongue cannot tell :
Sweet censors, take my silly worst for well;
My faith is firm, though homely be my lay.
MELICERTUS' ECLOGUE.
What need compare where sweet exceeds com-
pare ?
Who draws his thoughts of Love from senseless
things,
Their pomp and greatest glories doth impair,
And mounts Love's heaven with over-laden wings.
Stones, herbs, and flowers, the foolish spoils of
earth,
Flocds, metals, colours, dalliance of the eye;
The>e show conceit is stain'd with too much
dearth,
Such abstract fond compares make cunning die.
But he that hath the feeling taste of Love
Derives his essence from no earthly toy ;
A weak couceit his power cannot approve,
For earthly thoughts are subject to annoy.
Be whist, be still, be silent, censors, now:
My fellow-swain has told a pretty tale,
Which modern poets may perhaps allow,
Yet I condemn the terms, for they are stale.
Apollo, when my mistress first was born,
Cut off his locks, and left them on her head,
And said, " I plant these wires in Nature's scorn,
Whose beauties shall appear when time is dead."
From forth the crystal heaven when she was made,
The purity thereof did taint § her brow,
On which the glistering sun that sought the shade
Gau set, and there bis glories doth avow.
Those eyes, fair eyes, too fair to be doserib'd,
Were those that erst the chaos rl id reform ;
To whom the heavens their beauties have ascrib'd,
That fashion life in man, in beast, in worm.
• kit] Both 4tos. "her."
•f truchmm] i. o. interpreters.
} complain] Both 4tos. "an plaine."
5 taint] Equivalent to "tint:" see note {, p. 184, first
tol.
When first her fair delicious cheeks were wrought,
Aurora brought her blush, the moon her white;
Both so combin'd as parsed Nature's thought,
Compil'd those pretty orbs of sweet delight.
When Love and Nature once were proud with
play,
From both their lips her lips the coral drew ;
On them doth Fancy sleep, and every day
Doth swallow joy, such sweet delights to view.
Whilom while Venus' son did seek a bower
To sport with Psyche, his desired dear,
He chose her chin, and from that liuppy stowre *
He never stints in glory to appear.
Desires and Joys, that long had served Love,
Besought a hold where pretty eyes might woo
them :
Love made her neck, and for their best behove
Hath shut them there, whence no man can undo
them.
Once Venus drearu'd upon two pretty thing--,
Her thoughts they were + affection's chiefest
nests ;
She suck'd, and sigh'd, and bath'd her in the
springs,
And when she wak'd, they were my mistress'
breasts.
Once Cupid sought a hold to couch bis kisses,
And found the body of my best-helov'd,
Wherein he clos'd the beauty of his blisses,
And from that bower can never be remov'd.
The Graces erst, when Acidalian springs
Were waxen dry, perhaps did find her fountain
Within the vale of bliss, where Cupid's wings
Do shield the nectar fleeting from the mountain.
No more, fond man : things infinite, I see,
Brook no dimension ; hell a foolish speech;
For endless things may never talked be ;
Then let me live to honour and beseech.
* stowre] In old poetry frequently signifies tumult,
disorder, battle, <fec. : but here it means — time, moment ;
an interpretation of the word which is not given in any
dictionary or glossary I have ever met with. Comparo
Lodge ;
" Whose dire disdaine (the god that kindles loue,
And makes impressions straungly from aboue,
MisliKing) strake with faneie at that stover."
Forbonius and Prisceria, 1584, Sig. 1 2.
t Her thoughts they were, &c] Walker (Shakespeare's
Versification, &c, p. 285), after quoting examples of
" melhoughi" and "methoughtt" from our early poets,
bids us " so understand Greene " in the present line.
FROM MENAPHON.
291
Sweet Nature's pomp, if rny deficient phrase
Hath stain'd thy glories by too little skill,
Yield pardon, though mine eye, that long did gaze,
Hath left no better pattern to my quill.
I will no more, no more will I detain
Your listening ears with dalliance of my tongue ;
I speak my joys, but yet conceal my pain,
My pain too old, although my years be young.
DORON'S ECLOGUE, JOINED WITH
CARMELA'S.
DORON.
Sit down, Carmela ; here are cobs * for kings,
Sloes black as jet or like my Christmas shoes,
Sweet cider which my leathern bottle brings ;
Sit down, Carmela, let me kiss thy toes.
CARMELA.
Ah Doron ! ah my heart ! thou art as white
As is my mother's calf or brinded cow ;
Thine eyes are like the glow-worms + in the
night ;
Thine hairs resemble thickest of the snow.
The lines within thy face are deep and clear
Like to the furrows of my father's wain ;
The J sweat upon thy face doth oft appear
Like to my mother's fat and kitchen-gain.
Ah, leave my toe, and kiss my lips, my love !
My lips are thine, for I have given them thee ; §
Within thy cap 'tis thou shalt wear my glove ;
At foot-ball sport thou shalt my champion be.
DORON.
Carmela dear, even as the golden ball
That Venus got, such are thy goodly eyes ;
When cherries' juice is jumbled therewithal,
Thy breath is like the steam of apple-pies.
Thy lips resemble two cucumbers fair ;
Thy teeth like to the tusks of fattest swine ;
Thy speech is like the thunder in the air :
Would God, thy toes, thy lips, and all were mine !
* cobs] Does this word mean here cob-apples? or cob-
nuts? or the loaves called cobs 9 .— Both 4tos. " cubbs."
t glow-worms] Both 4tos. "slow-worm*.''
t The] Both4tos. "Thy."
§ My lips are thine, for I have given them thee] The 4to.
of 1589 ; "My lippes and thine, for I haw giuen it thee."
CARMELA.
Doron, what thing doth move this wishing grief?
DORON.
'Tis Love, Carmela, ah, 'tis cruel Love !
That, like a slave and caitiff villain-thief,
Hath cut my throat of joy for thy behove.
CARMELA.
Where was he born ?
DORON.
In faith, I know not where;
But I have heard * much talking of his dart :
Ay me, poor man ! with many a trampliugt tear
I feel him wound the fore-horse J of my heart.
What, do I love ? 0, no, I do but talk :
What, shall I die for love ? 0, no, not so :
What, am I dead ? 0, no, my tongue doth walk :
Come, kiss, Carmela, and confound my woe.
CARMELA.
Even with this kiss, as once my father did,
I seal the sweet indentures of delight :
Before I break my vow the gods forbid,
No, not by day, nor yet by darksome night.
DORON.
Even with this garland made of hollyhocks
I cross thy brows from every shepherd's kiss :
Heigh-ho, how glad am I to touch thy locks !
My frolic heart even now a freeman is.
CARMELA.
I thank you, Doron, and will think on you ;
I love you, Doron, and will wink on you.
I seal your charter-patent with my thumbs :
Come, kiss and part, for fear my mother conies.
SONNETTO.
What thing is Love 1 It is a power divine
That reigns in us, or else a wreakful law
That dooms our minds to beauty to incline :
It is a star whose influence doth draw
Our hearts to Love, dissembling of his might
Till he be master of our hearts and sight.
* heard] The 4to. of 1589 " had."
f trampling] The 4to. of 1616 "trickling. 1
X fore-horse] Both 4tos. " f>>rehearse."
U 3
292
FROM PERIMEDES, THE BLACKSMITH.
Love is a discord, and a strange divorce
Betwixt our sense and reason, by whose power,
As mad with reason, we admit that force
Which wit or labour never may devour :
It is a will that brooketh no consent ;
It would refuse, yet never may repent.
Love's a desire wbich, for to wait a time,
Doth lose an age of years, and so doth pass,
As doth the shadow, sever'd from his prime,
Seeming as though it were, yet never was ;
Leaving behind nought but repentant
thoughts
Of days ill-spent, for that which profits
noughts.
It's now a peace, and then a sudden war;
A hope consum'd before it is eonceiv'd;
At hand it fears, and menaceth afar ;
And he that gains is most of all deceiv'd :
It is a secret hidden and not known,
Which one may better feel than write upon.
FROM
PERIMEDES, THE BLACKSMITH.
(1588.)
— • —
MADRIGAL.
The swans, whose pens as white as ivory,
Eclipsing fair Endymion's silver love,
Floating like snow down by the banks of Po,
Ne'er tun'd their notes, like Leda once forlorn,
With more despairing sorts of madrigals,
Than I, whom wauton Love hath with his gad
Prick'd to the core* of deep and restless thoughts.
The frolic youngsters Bacchus' liquor mads
Run not about the wood[s] of Thessaly
With more enchanted fits of lunacy
Than I, whom Love, whom sweet and bitter Love
Fires, infects with sundry passions;
Now lorn with liking over-much my love,
Frozen with fearing if I step too far,
Fired with gazing at such glimmering stars
As, stealing light from Phoebus' brightest rays,
Sparkle and set a flame within my breast.
Rest, restless Love ; fond baby, be content ;
Child, hold thy darts within thy quiver close:
An if thou wilt bo roving with thy bow,
Aim at those hearts that may attend on love :
Let country swains and silly swadst be still;
To court, young wag, and wanton there thy fill.
* core] The 4to. "court."
t swadt] i.e. clowns, bumpkins.
DITTY.
Obscure and dark is all the gloomy air,
The curtain of the night is overspread ;
The silent mistress of the lowest sphere
Puts on her sable-colour'd veil and lours.*
Nor star, nor milk-white circle of the sky,
Appears, where Discontent doth hold her lodge.
She sits shrin'd in a canopy of clouds,
Whose massy darkness rnazeth every sense.
Wan are her looks, her cheeks of azure hue ;
Her hairs as Gorgon's foul retorting snakes ;
Envy the glass wherein the hag doth gaze ;
Restless the clock that chimes her fast asleep ;
Disquiet thoughts the minutes of her watch.
Forth from her cave the fiend full oft doth fly :
To kings she goes, and troubles them with crowns,
Setting those high-aspiring brands on fire,
That flame from earth unto the seat of Jove ;
To such as Midas, men that dote on wealth,
And rent the bowels of the middle earth
For coin, who gape, as did fair Danae,
For showers of gold, — there Discontent in black
Throws forth the vials of her restless cares ;
To such as sit at Paphos for relief,
And offer Venus many solemn vows ;
To such as Hymen in his saffron robe
Hath knit a Gordian knot of passions ;
To these, to all, parting the gloomy air,
Black Discontent doth make her bad repair.
SONNET.
In Cyprus sat fair Venus by a fount,
Wanton Adonis toying on her knee :
She kiss'd the wag, her darling of account ;
The boy gan blush ; which when his lover see,
She smil'd, and told him love might challenge
debt,
And he was young, and might be wanton yet.
The boy wax'd bold, fired by fond desire,
That woo he could and court her with con-
ceit :
Reason spied this, and sought to quench the fire
With cold disdain ; but wily Adon straight
Cheer'd up the flame, and said," Good sir, what let?
I am but young, and may be wanton yet."
Reason roplied, that beauty was a bane
To such as feed their fancy with fond love,
That when sweet youth with lust is overta'en,
It rues in ago : this could not Adon move,
" loure] The 4to. "lower."
FROM PERIMEDES, THE BLACKSMITH.
203
For Venus taught him still this rest to set,
That he was young, and might be wanton yet.
Where Venus strikes with beauty to the quick,
It little 'vails sage Reason to reply ;
Few are the cares for such as are love-sick,
But love : then, though I wauton it awry,
And play the wag, from Adon this I get, —
I am but young, and may be wanton yet.
SONNET,
IN ANSWER TO THE PRECEDING.
The Siren Venus nouric'd * in her lap
Fair Adon, swearing whiles he was a youth
He might be wanton : note his after-hap,
The guerdon that such lawless lust ensu'th ;
So long he follow'd nattering Venus' lore,
Till, seely lad, he perish'd by a boar.
Mars in his youth did court this lusty dame,
He won her love ; what might his fancy let ?
He was but young : at last, unto his shame,
Vulcan entrapp'd them slyly in a net,
And call'd the gods to witness as a truth,
A lecher's fault was not exous'd by youth.
If crooked age accounteth youth his spring,
The spring, the fairest season of the year,
Eurich'd with flowers, and sweets, and many a
thing,
That fair and gorgeous to the eyes appear ;
It fits that youth, the spring of man, should be
'Rich'd with such flowers as virtue yieldeth thee.
SONNET.
Fair is my love, for April in her face,
Her lovely breasts September claims his part,
And lordly July in her eyes takes place ;
But cold December dwelleth in her heart :
Blest be the months that set my thoughts on fire,
Accurs'd that month that hindereth my desire !
Like Phoebus' fire, so sparkle both her eyes;
As air perfum'd with amber is her breath ;
Like swelling waves her lovely teats do rise;
As earth her heart, cold, dateth me to death :
Ay me, poor man, that on the earth do live,
When unkind earth death and despair doth give!
* nouric'd] i. e. nursed, — fondled.
In pomp sits Mercy seated in her face ;
Love 'twixt her breasts his trophies doth
imprint ;
Her eyes shine favour, courtesy, and grace ;
But touch her heart, ah, thatisfram'd of flint!
Therefore my harvest in the grass bears grain ;
The rock will wear, wash'd with a winter's raiu>
SONNET.
PHrLLis kept sheep along the western plains,
And Coridon did feed his flocks hard by :
This shepherd was the flower of all the swains
That trae'd the downs of fruitful Thessaly ;
And Phillis, that did far her flocks surpass
In silver hue, was thought a bonny lass.
A bonny lass, quaint in her country 'tire,
Was lovely Phillis, Coridon swore so ;
Her locks, her looks, did set the swain on fire,
He left his lambs, and he began to woo ;
He look'd, he sigh'd, he courted with a kiss,
No better could the silly swad* than this.
He little knew to paint a tale of love,
Shepherds can fancy, but they cannot say :
Phillis gau smile, and wily thought to prove
What uncouth grief poor Coridon did pay ;
She ask'd him how his flocks or he did fare,
Yet pensive thus his sighs did tell his care.
The shepherd blush'd when Phillis question'd so,
And swore by Pan it was not for his flock[s] ;
" 'Tis love, fair Phillis, breedeth all this woe,
My thoughts are trapt within thy lovely locks,
Thine eye hath piere'd, thy face hath set on fire;
Fail- Phillis kiudleth Coridon's desire."
" Can shepherds love?" said Phillis to the swain.
"Such saints as Phillis," Coridon replied.
" Men when they lust can many fancies feign,"
Said Phillis. This not Coridon denied,
That lust had lies ; " But love," quoth he, " says
truth :
Thy shepherd loves, then, Phillis, what ensu'th'?"
Phillis was won, she blush'd and hung the head;
The swain stept to, and cheer'd her with a
kiss :
With faith, with troth, they struck the matter
dead ;
So used they when men thought not amiss :
This t love begun and ended both in one;
Phillis was lov'd, and she lik'd Coridon.
* swad] i. e. clown, bumpkin.
t 77, iV] Qy "Thus"
294
FROM NEVER TOO LATE.
FROM
PANDOSTO, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME.
(Ed. 1694.)
Dorastus * in love-passion writes these few lines in praise
of his loving and best-beloved Fawnia.
Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair,
Or but as mild as she is seeming so,
Then were my hopes greater than my despair,
Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe.
Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand,
That seems to melt even with the mildest touch,
Then knew I where to seat me in a land,
Under wide heavens, but yet [there is] not such.
So as she shows, she seems the budding rose,
Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower,
Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows ;
Compass'd she is with thorns and canker'd
bower,+
Yet, were she willing to be pluck'd and worn,
She would be gather'd, though she grew on thorn.
Ah, when she sings, all music else be still,
For none must be compared to her note ;
Ne'er breath'd such glee from Philomela's bill,
Nor from the morning-singer's swelling throat
Ah, when she riseth from her blissful bed,
She comforts all the world as doth the sun,
And at her sight the night's foul vapour's fled ;
When she ia set, the gladsome day is done.
glorious sun, imagine me the west,
Shine in my arms, and set thou in my breast !
FROM
NEVER TOO LATE.
(Ed. 1590.)
BELLARIA'S EPITAPH.
Here lies entomb'd Bellaria fair,
Falsely acous'd to be unchaste ;
Clear'd by Apollo's sacred doom,
Yet slain by jealousy at last.
Whate'er thou be that passeth by,
Curse him that caus'd this queen to die.
• Dorastus, Sic] I find this " love-passion" on the back
of the title pago of some of the latest editions of this
tract, when it was put forth under tho name of Dorastui
and Fawnia : in none of the earlier editions have I cvoi
rn et with it.
Mr. Collier conjectures that " it may possibly have
been taken from the earliest, and now lost, edition ol
Pandoslo." Introd. to Pandosto, p. iii, — Shakespeare'*
L 1 1 rary.
t bower] Tho 4tos. "flower." — I adopt the conjecture
of the Rov. J. Mitford (Gent. Mag. for March, 1833, p.
HIS), who compares a lino in our author's Radagon's &m-
net (soe port, p. 301, first col.), —
" Solemn and sad within a withcr'd botctr."
AN ODE.
Down the valley gan he track,
Bag and bottle at his back,
In a surcoat all of grey ;
Such wear palmers on the way,
When with scrip and staff they see
Jesus' grave on Calvary :
A hat of straw, like a swain,
Shelter for the sun and rain,
With a scallop-shell before ;
Sandals on his feet he wore ;
Legs were bare, arms unclad :
Such attire this palmer had.
His face fair, like Titan's shine ;
Grey and buxom were his eyne,
Whereout dropt pearls of sorrow ;
Such sweet tears Love doth borrow,
When in outward dews he * plains
Heart's distress that lovers pains ;
Ruby lips, cherry cheeks ;
Such rare mixture Venus seeks,
When, to keep her damsels quiet,
Beauty sets them down their diet : '
Adou was not thought more fair :
Curled locks of amber hair,
Locks where Love did sit and twine
Nets to snare the gazer's eyne.
Such a palmer ne'er was seen,
'Less Love himself had palmer been.
Yet, for all he was so quaint,
Sorrow did his visage taint :
Midst the riches of his face
Grief decipher'd high disgrace.
Every step straiu'd a tear;
Sudden sighs show'd his fear;
And yet his fear by his sight
Ended in a strange delight ;
That his passions did approve f
Weeds and sorrow were for love.
THE PALMER'S ODE.
Or.D Menalcas, on a day,
As in field this shepherd lay,
Tuning of his oaten pipe,
Which ho hit with mauy a stripe,
Said to Coridon that he
Once was young and full of glee.
* he] The 4to. " she " (and our early poets sometimes
make "Love" feminine— Me Queen of love) : but presently
we have " Lovo himself." \ approve] i. e. prove.
FROM NEVER TOO LATE.
2U5
" Blithe and wanton was I then :
Such desires fallow men.
As I lay and kept my sheep,
Came the god that hateth sleep,
Clad in armour all of fire,
Hand in hand with Queen Desire,
And with a dart that wounded nigh
Pierc'd my heart as I did lie ;
That, when I woke, I gan swear
Phillis' beauty palm did bear.
Up I start, forth went I,
With her face to feed mine eye :
There I saw Desire sit,
That my heart with love had hit,
Laying forth bright beauty's hooka
To entrap my gazing looks.
Love I did, and gan to woo,
Pray and sigh : all would not do ;
Women, when they take the toy,
Covet to be counted coy.
Coy she was, and I gau court ;
She thought love was but a sport ;
Profound hell was in my thought;
Such a pain desire had wrought,
That I su'd with sighs and tears;
Still ingrate she stopp'd her ears,
Till my youth I had spent.
Last a passion of repent
Told me flat, that desire
Was a brand of love's fire,
Which consumeth men in thrall,
Virtue, youth, wit, and all.
At this saw back I start,
Bet desire from my heart,
Shook off love, and made an oath
To be enemy to both.
Old I was when thus I fled
Such fond toys as cloy'd my head;
But this I learn' d at Virtue's gate, —
The way to good is never late."
THE HERMIT'S VERSES.
Here look, my son, for no vain-glorious shows
Of royal apparition for the eye :
Humble and meek bciitteth men of years.
Behold my cell, built in a silent shade,
Holding content for poverty and peace;
And in my lodge is fealty and faith,
Labour and love united in one league.
I want not, for my mind affordeth wealth ;
I know not envy, for I climb not high :
Thus do I live, and thus I mean to die.
If that the world presents illusions,
Or Satan seeks to puif me up with pomp,
As man is frail and apt to follow pride;
Then sec, my sou, where I have in my cell
A dead man's scull, which calls this straight to
That as this is, so must my ending be. [mind,
When, then, I see that earth to earth must pass,
I sigh, and say, " All flesh is like to grass."
If care to live, or sweet delight in life,
As man desires to see out many days,
Draws me to listen to the flattering world ;
Then see my glass, which swiftly out doth run,
Compar'd to man, who dies ere he begins.
This tells me, time slacks not his posting course,
But as the glass runs out with every hour,
Some in their youth, some in their weakest age,
All- sure to die, but no man knows his time.
By this I think, how vain a thing is man,
Whose longest life is liken'd to a span.
When Satan seeks to sift me with his wiles,
Or proudly dares to give a fierce assault,
To make a shipwreck of my faith with fears ;
Then arm'd at all points, to withstand the foe,
With holy armour, — here's the martial sword,
This book, this bible, this two-edged blade,
Whose sweet content pierceth the gates of hell.
Deciphering laws and discipline of war,
To overthrow the strength of Satan's jar.
ISABEL'S ODE.
Sitting by a river-side.
Where a silent stream did glide,
Bank'd about with choice flowers,
Such as spring from April-showers,
When fair Iris smiling shews
All her riches in her dews;
Thick-leav'd trees so -were planted,
As nor art nor nature wanted,
Bordering all the brook with shade,
As if Venus there had made,
By Flora's wile, a curious bower,
To dally with her paramour ;
At this current as I gaz'd,
Eyes entrapt, mind amaz'd^
I might see in my ken
Such a flame as fireth men,
Such a fire as doth fry
With one blaze both heart and eye,
Such a heat as doth prove
No heat like to heat of love.
Bright she was, for 'twas a she
That trae'd her steps towards me:
296
FROM NEVER TOO LATE.
On her bead she ware a bay,
To fence Phoebus' light away :
In her face one might descry
The curious beauty of the sky :
Her eyes carried darts of fire,
Feather'd all with swift desire ;
Yet forth these fiery darts did pass
Pearled tears as bright as glass,
That wonder 'twas in her eyne
Fire and water should combine,
If the old saw did not borrow,*
Fire is love, and water sorrow.
Down she sat, pale and sad ;
No mirth in her looks she had ;
Face and eyes show'd distress,
Inward sighs discours'd no less :
Head on hand might I see,
Elbow leaned on her knee.
Last she breathed out this saw,
" 0, that love hath no law !
Love enforceth with constraint,
Love delighteth in complaint.
Whoso loves hates his life,
For love's peace is mind's strife.
Love doth feed on beauty's fare,
Every dish sauc'd with care :
Chiefly women, reason why,
Love is hatched in their eye ;
Thence it steppeth to the heart,
There it poisoneth every part,
W iud and heart, eye and thought,
Till sweet love their woes hath wrought
Then repentant they gint cry,
'0 my heart that trow'd mine eye + ! '"
Thus she said, and then she rose,
Face and mind both full of woes ;
Flinging thence with this saw, —
" Fie on love that hath no law ! "
FRANCESCO'S ODE.
When I look about the place
Where sorrow nurseth up disgrace,
Wrapt within a fold of cares,
Whose distress no heart spares ;
Eyes might look, but see no light,
Heart might think, but on despite ;
Sun did shine, but not on me :
Sorrow said, it may not be
That heart or eye should once possess
Any salvo to euro distress;
* borrow] i. e. give warrant,— assure us.
t gin] The4to. "sun."
\ trow'd mine eye] i. e. believed mine eye.
For men in prison must suppose
Their couches are the beds of woes.
Seeing this, I sighed then
Fortune thus should punish men :
But when I call'd to mind her face,
For whose love I brook this place,
Starry eyes, whereat my sight
Did eclipse with much delight,
Eyes that lighten, and do shine *
Beams of love that are divine,
Ldy cheeks, whereon beside
Buds of roses show their pride,
Cherry lips, which did speak
Words that made all hearts to break,
Words most sweet, for breath was sweet,
Such perfume for love is meet,
Precious words, as hard to tell
Which more pleased, wit or smell ;
When I saw my greatest pains
Grow for her that beauty stains,
Fortune thus I did reprove,
" Nothing grief-full grows from love."
CANZONE.
As then the sun sat lordly in his pride,
Not shadow'd with the veil of any cloud,
The welkin had no rack that seem'd to glide,
No dusky vapour did bright Phoebus shroud ;
No blemish did eclipse the beauteous sky
From setting forth heaven's secret-searching eye.
No blustering wind did shake the shady trees,
Each leaf lay still and silent in the wood ;
The birds were musical ; the labouring bees,
That in the summer heap their winter's good,
Plied to their hives sweet honey from those
flowers
Whereout the serpent strengthens all his powers.
The lion laid and stretch'd him in the lawns ;
No storm did hold the leopard from his prey ;
The fallow-fields were full of wanton fawns ;
The plough-swains never saw a fairer day;
For every beast and bird did take delight
To see the quiet heavens to shine so bright.
When thus the winds lay sleeping in the caves,
The air was silent in her concave sphere,
And Neptune with a calm did please his slaves,
Ready to wash the never-drenched bear ;
Then did the change of my affects begin,
And wanton love assay'd to snare me in.
* shine, &c] Compare, ante, p. 293, sec. col ; "Her
eyes ahine favour, courtesy, and grace."
FROM NEVER TOO LATE.
297
Leaning my back against a lofty pine,
Whose top did check the pride of all the
air,
Fixing my thoughts, and with my thoughts
mine eyne,
Upon the sun, the fairest of all fair ;
" What thing made God so fair as this ? " quoth I :
And thus I mus'd until I dark'd mine eye.
Finding the sun too glorious for my sight,
I glanc'd my look to shun so bright a lamp :
With that appear'd* an object twice as
bright,
So gorgeous as my senses all were damp ; +
In Ida richer beauty did not win, t
When lovely Venus show'd her silver skin.
Her pace was like to Juno's pompous strains,
Wheuas she sweeps through heaven's brass-
paved way ;
Her front was powder'd through with azur'd
veins,
That 'twixt sweet roses and fair lilies lay,
Reflecting such a mixture from her face
As tainted Venus' beauty with disgrace.
Arctophylax, the brightest of the stars,
Was not so orient as her crystal eyes,
Wherein triumphant sat both peace and
wars,
From out whose arches such sweet favour §
flies
As might reclaim Mars in his highest rage,
At beauty's charge, his fury to assuage.
The diamond gleams not more reflecting
lights,
Pointed|| with fiery pyramids to shine,
Than are those flames that burnish in our
sights,
Darting fire out the crystal of her eyne,
Able to set Narcissus' thoughts on fire,
Although he swore him foe to sweet desire.
Gazing upon this lemanTI with mine eye,
I felt my sight vail** bonnet to her looks ;
So deep a passion to my heart did fly
As I was trapt within her luring hooks, tt
Forc'd to confess, before that I had done,
Her beauty far more brighter than the sun.
* appear'd] The 4to. "appeare."
t damp] The 4to. " dampt."
X win] i. e. win the prize (the golden apple) from
Paris.
§ favour] The 4to. "fauours."
|| Pointed] The 4to. 'Tainted."
U leman] i. e. love, mistress.
** vail] i. e. lower.
It hooks] The 4to. "lookes."
INFIDA'S SONG.
Sweet Adon, dar'st not glance thine eye — ■
N'oserez vous, man bel ami f —
Upon thy Venus that must die?
Je vous en prie, pity me ;
N'osei-ez vous, mon bel, man bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ?
See how sad thy Venus lies, —
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ? —
Love iu heart, and tears in eyes ;
Je vous en prie, pity me ;
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami i
Thy face as fair as Paphos' brooks, —
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ? —
Wherein fancy baits her hooks;
Je vous en prie, pity me ;
N'oserez vous, rnon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ?
Thy cheeks like cherries that do grow —
N'oserez vous, mon bd ami ? —
Amongst the western mounts of snow ;
Je vous en prie, pity me ;
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ?
Thy lips vermilion, full of love, —
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ? —
Thy neck as silver- white as dove ;
Je vous en prie, pity me;
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ?
Thine eyes, like flames of holy fires, —
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami? —
Burn all my thoughts with sweet desires ;
Je vous en prie, pity me ;
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mo7i bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ?
All thy beauties sting my heart ; —
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ? —
I must die through Cupid's dart ;
Je vous en prie, pity me ;
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ?
Wilt thou let thy Venus die 1
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ? —
Adon were unkind, say I, —
Je vous en prie, pity me ;
N'oserez vous, mon bd, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami? —
298
FROM NEVER TOO LATE.
To let fair Venus die for woe, —
Woserez vous, mon bel ami? —
That doth love sweet Adou so ;
Je -vous en prie, pity me ;
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ?
FRANCESCO'S ROUNDELAY.*
Sitting and sighing in my secret muse,
As once Apollo did surpris'd with love,
Noting the slippery ways young years do use,
What fond affects the prime of youth do move;
With bitter tears, despairing I do cry,
" Wo worth the faults and follies of mine eye ! "
When wanton age, the blossom t of my time,
Drew me to gaze upon the gorgeous sight
That beauty, pompous in her highest prime,
Presents to tangle men with sweet delight;
Then with despairing tears my thoughts didj cry,
" Wo worth the faults and follies of mine eye !"
When I survey'd the riches of her looks,
Whereout flew flames of never-quench'd desire,
Wherein lay baits that Venus snares with hooks,
Or§ where proud Cupid sat all-arm'd with fire ;
Then, touch'd with love, my inward soul did cry,
" Wo worth the faults and follies of mine eye ! "
The milk-white galaxia of her brow,
Where Love doth dance lavoltas of his skill,
Like to the temple where true lovers vow
To follow what shall please their mistress' will;
Noting her ivory frout, now do I cry,
" Wo worth the faults and follies of mine eye !"
Her face, like silver Luna in her shine,
All tainted || through with bright vermilion
stains, T[
Like lilies dipt in Bacchus' choicest wine,
Powder'd and interseam'd with azur'd veins;
Delighting in their pride, now may I cry,
" Wo worth the faults and follies of mine eye ! "
The golden wires that checker in the day
Inferior to the tresses of her hair,
Her amber trammels did my heart dismay,
That, when I look'd, I durst not over-dare;
Proud of her pride, now am I fore'd to cry,
" Wo worth the faults and follies of mine eye ! "
* Inserted in Hynd's Elinsto Libidinoso, 1606, p. 91, as
" borrowed "fa worthy writer."
t hi' worn] The 4to. " blossomes."
J did] The4to. "do."
§ Or] The4to. "Oh."
|| tainted] Equivalent to tinted : seo note §, p. 290, first
col.
% ttainx] The 4to. "straiues."
These fading beauties drew me on to sin,
Nature's great riches fram'd my bitter ruth ;
These were the traps that love did snare me in,
0, these, and none but these, have wreck'd my
Misled by them, I may despairing cry, [youth !
" Wo worth the faults and follies of mine eye ! "
By these I slipp'd from virtue's holy track,
That leads unto the highest crystal sphere ;
By these I fell to vanity and wrack,
And as a man forlorn with sin and fear,
Despair and sorrow do constrain me cry,
" Wo worth the faults and follies of mine eye ! "
THE PENITENT PALMER'S ODE.
Whilom in the winter's rage,
A palmer old and full of age
Sat and thought upon his youth,
With eyes' tears and heart's ruth ;
Being all with cares y-bieut,*
When he thought on years mispent.
When his follies came to mind,
How fond love had made him blind,
And wrapt him in a field of woes,
Shadowed with pleasure's shows,
Then he sigh'd, and said, " Alas,
Man is sin, and flesh is grass !
I thought my mistress' hairs were gold,
And in their locks my heart I fold ;
Her amber tresses were the sight
That wrapped me in vain delight :
Her ivory front, her pretty chin
Were stales t that drew me on to sin :
Her starry looks, her crystal eyes,
Brighter than the sun's arise,
Sparkling pleasing flames of fire,
Yok'd my thoughts and my desire,
That I gan cry, ere I blin,+
' O, her eyes are paths to sin ! '
Her face was fair, her breath was sweet,
All her looks for love were meet;
But love is folly, this I know,
And beauty fadeth like to snow.
0, why should man delight in pride,
Whose blossom like a dew doth glide !
When these supposes touch'd my thought,
That world was vain and beauty nought,
I gan sigh, and say, 'Alas,
Man is sin, and flesh is grass ! ' "
* y-blei\t] i. e. confounded : see note {, p. 124, first col
\ stales] i. e. decoys.
{ bliri] i. e. cease, — ceased.
FROM NEVER TOO LATE.
299
ISABEL'S SONNET,
THAT SHE MADE IN PRISON.
No storm so sharp to rent the little reed,
For seld it breaks, though every way it bend ;
The fire may heat, but not consume the flint;
The gold in furnace purer is indeed ;
Report, that seld to honour is a friend,
May many lies against true meaning mint,
But yet at last
'Gainst slander's blast
Truth doth the silly sackless * soul defend.
Though false reproach seeks honour to distain,
And envy bites the bud though ne'er so pure ;
Though lust doth seek to blemish chaste desire,
Yet truth that brooks not falsehood's slanderous
Nor can the spite of envy's wrath endure, [stain,
Will try true love from lust in j ustice' fire,
And, maugre all,
Will free from thrall
The guiltless soul that keeps his footing sure.
Where innocence triiimpheth in her prime,
And guilt cannot approach the honest mind ;
Where chaste intent is free from any 'miss,t
Though envy strive, yet secret-searching + time
With piercing insight will the truth outfind,
And make discovery who the guilty is ;
For time still tries
The truth from lies,
And God makes open what the world doth blind.
FRANCESCO'S SONNET,
MADE IN THE PRIME OF HIS PENANCE.
With sweating brows I long have plough'd the
sands ;
My seed was youth, my crop was endless care ;
Repent hath sent me home with empty hands
At last, to tell how rife our follies are ;
And time hath left experience to approve, §
The || gain is grief to those that traffic love.
The silent thoughts ^ of my repentant years,
That fill my head, have call'd me home at last ;
Now Love unmask'd a w r anton wretch appears,
Begot by guileful thought with over-haste ;
* sackless] i. e. guiltless.
t 'miss'] For amiss, i. e. fault.
J secret-searching] The 4to. "searching." — I adopt the
certain correction of Walker (Crit. Exam, of lice text of
Shakespeare, ii. 266), who compares "heaven's secret-
searching eye " in our author's Canzone, p. 296, sec. col.
§ approve] i. e. prove.
II The] Qy. "That"?
ii thoughts] The4to. "thought."
In prime of youth a rose, in age a weed.
That for a minute's joy pays endless need.
Dead to delights, a foe to fond conceit,
Allied to wit by want and sorrow bought,
Farewell, fond youth, long foster'd in deceit ;
Forgive me, time, disguis'd in idle thought ;
And, love, adieu : lo, hasting to mine end,
I find no time too late for to amend !
FRANCESCO'S SONNET,
CALLED HIS PARTING BLOW.
Reason, that long in prison of my will
Hast wept thy mistress' wants and loss of time,
Thy wonted siege * of honour safely climb ;
To thee I yield as guilty of mine ill.
Lo, fetter'd in their tears, mine eyes are prestf
To pay due homage to their native guide ■
My wretched heart, wounded with bad betide,
To crave his peace from reason is addrest.
My thoughts asham'd, since by themselves con-
sum' d,
Have done their duty to repentant wit :
Asham'd of all, sweet guide, I sorry sit,
To see in youth how I too far presum'd.
Thus he whom love and error did betray,
Subscribes to thee, and takes the better way.
EURYMACHUS' FANCY IN THE PRIME
OF HIS AFFECTION.
When lordly Saturn, in a sable robe,
Sat full of frowns and mourning in the west,
The evening-star scarce peep'd from out her lodge,
And Phoebus newly gallop'd to his rest;
Even then
Did I
Within my boat sit in the silent streams,
All void of cares as he that lies and dreams.
As Phao, so a ferryman I was;
The country-lasses said I was too fair :
With easy toil I labour'd at mine oar,
To pass from side to side who did repair ;
And then
Did I
For pains take pence, and Charon-like transport
As soon the swain as men of high import.
• sitge] i. e. seat.
f prest] i. e. ready.
300
FROM NEVER TOO LATE.
When want of work did give me leave to rest,
My sport was catching of the wanton fish :
So did I wear the tedious time away,
And with my labour mended oft my dish;
For why *
I thought
That idle hours were calendars of ruth,
And time ill-spent was prejudice to youth.
I scorn'd to love ; for were the nymph as fair
As she that lov'd the beauteous Latmian swain,
Her face, her eyes, her tresses, nor her brows
Like ivory, could my affection gain ;
For why
I said
With high disdain, " Love is a base desire,
And Cupid's flames, why, they're but watery fire."
As thus I sat, disdaining of proud Love,
" Have over, ferryman," there cried a boy;
And with him was a paragon for hue,
A lovely damsel, beauteous and coy ;
And there
With her
A maiden, cover'd with a tawny veil,*
Her face unseen for breeding lovers' bale.
I stirr'd my boat, and when I came to shore,
The boy was wing'd; methought it was a wonder:
The dame had eyes like lightning, or the flash
That runs before the hot report of thunder ;
Her smiles
Were sweet,
Lovely her face ; was ne'er so fair a creature,
For earthly carcass had a heavenly feature.
" My friend," quoth she, " sweet ferryman, behold,
We three must pass, but not a farthing fare ;
But I will give, for I am Queen of love,
The brightest lass thou lik'st unto thy share;
Choose where
Thou lov'st,
Re she as fair as Love's sweet lady is,
She shall be thine, if that will be thy bliss."
With that she smil'd with such a pleasing face
As might have made the marble rock relent ;
But I, that triumph'd in disdain of love,
Bade fie on him that to fond love was bent,
And then
Said thus,
"So light the ferryman for love doth care,
As Venus pass not, if she pay no fare."
# Fur tch i/] i. o. Because.
At this a frown sat on her angry brow ;
She winks upon her wanton son hard by ;
He from his quiver drew a bolt of fire,
And aiin'd so right as that he piere'd mine eye ;
And then
Did she
Draw down the veil that hid the virgin's face,
Whose heavenly beauty lighten'd all the place.
Straight then I lean'd mine ear upon mine arm,*
And look'd upon the nymph (if so) was fair;
Her eyes were stars, and like Apollo's locks
Methought appear'd the trammels of her hair :
Thus did
I gaze
And suck'd in beauty, till that sweet desire
Cast fuel on, and set my thought on fire.
When I was lodg'd within the net of love,
And that they saw my heart was all on flame,
The nymph away, and with her trips along
The winged boy, and with her goes his dame :
0, then
I cried,
" Stay, ladies, stay, and take not any care,
You all shall pass, and pay no penny fare."
Away they fling, and looking coyly back,
They laugh at me, 0, with a loud disdain !
I send oat sighs to overtake the nymph, f
And tears, as lures, to call them back again;
But they
Fly thence ;
But I sit in my boat, with hand on oar,
And feel a pain, but know not what's the sore.
At last I feel it is the flame of love,
I strive, but bootless, to express the pain ;
It cools, it fires, it hopes, it feats, it frets,
And stirreth passions throughout every vein;
That down
I sat,
And sighing did fair Venus' laws approve,
And swore no thing so sweet and sour as love.
RADAGON'S SONNET.
No clear appear'd upon the aznr'd sky ;
A veil of storms hud shadow'd Phoebus' face,
And in a sable mantle of disgrace
Sat he that is y-clepedj heaven's bright eye,
* ear upon mine arm] The 4to. " arme vpon mine care."
t nympli] The. 4to. "Nimphs": but see tho two pre-
ceding stanzas.
t y-clepid] i.e. called.
FROM NEVER TOO LATE.
As though that he,
PcrplexM for Clytie, meant to leave his place,
And wrapt in sorrows did resolve to die,
For death to lovers' woes is ever nigh :
Tims folded in a hard and mournful laze
Distress'd sat he.
A misty fog had thicken'd all the air ;
Iris sat solemn and denied her showers ;
Flora in tawny hid up all her flowers,
And would not diaper her meads with fair,*
As though that she
Were artn'd upon the barren earth to lour ;
Unto the founts Diana nild t repair,
But sat, as overshadow'd with despair,
Solemn and sad within a wither'd bower,
Her nymphs and she.
Mars malcontent lay sick on Venus' knee ;
Venus in dumps sat muffled with a frown ;
Juno laid all ber frolic humours down,
And Jove was all in dumps as well as she :
'Twas fate's decree ;
For Neptune, as he meant the world to drown,
Heav'd up his surges to the highest tree,
And, leagu'd with JEo\, marr'd the seaman's glee,
Beating the cedars with his billows down ;
Thus wroth was he.
My mistress deigns to show her sun-bright face,
The air clear'd up, the clouds did fade away ;
Phoebus was frolic when she did display
The gorgeous beauties that her front do grace :
So that when she
But walk'd abroad, the storms then fled away ;
Flora did checker all her treading-place,
And Neptune calm'd the surges with his mace ;
Diana and her nymphs were blithe and gay
When her they see.
Venus and Mars agreed in a smile,
And jealous Juno ceased now to lour;
Jove saw her face, and sighed in his bower ;
Iris and JEol laugh [VI] within a while
To see this glee.
Ah, born was she within a happy hour,
That makes heaven, earth, and gods, and all, to
smile !
Such wonders c;m her beauteous looks compile
To clear the world from any froward lour ;
Ah, blest be she !
* fair] i e. beauty. — In the next line but one "arni'd"
would seem to be the wrong word.
t nild | i. e. would not.
EURYMACHUS IN LAUDEM MIRIMID^E.
When Flora, proud in pomp of all her flowers,
Sat bright and gay,
And gloried in the dew of Iris' showers,
And did display
Her mantle checker'd all with gaudy green ;
Then I
Alone
A mournful man in Erecyne was seen.
With folded arms I trampled through the grass,
Tracing as he
That held the throne of Fortuue brittle glass,
And Love to be,
Like Fortune, fleeting as the restless wind,
Mixed
With mists,
Whose damp doth make the clearest eyes grow
blind.
Thus in a maze, I spied a hideous flame;
I cast my sight,
And saw where, blithely bathing in the same
With great delight,
A worm did lie, wrapt in a smoky sweat,
And yet
'Twas strange,
It careless lay and shrunk not at the heat.
I stood amaz'd and wondering at the sight,
While that a dame,
That shone like to the heaven's rich sparkling light,
Discours'd the same ;
And said, " My friend, this worm within the fire
Which lies
Content,
Is Venus' worm, and represents desire.
"A salamander is this princely beast :
Deck'd with a crown,
Given him by Cupid as a gorgeous crest
'Gainst Fortune's frown,
Content he lies and bathes him in the flame,
And goes
Not forth,
For why he cannot live without the same.
'• As he, so lovers lie within the fire
Of fervent love,
And shrink not from the flame of hot desire,
Nor will not move
From any heat that Venus' force imparts,
But lie
Content
Within a fire, and waste away their hearts.'
r
302
FROM NEVER TOO LATE.
Up flew the dame, and vanish' d in a cloud :
As thus the virgins did disdain
But there stoud I,
Lovers' joy and lovers' pain,
And many thoughts within my mind did shroud
Cupid nigh
Of love; for why
Did espy,
I felt within my heart a scorching fire,
Grieving at Diana's song,
And yet,
Slyly stole these maids among.
As did
The salamander, 'twas my whole desire.
His bow of steel, darts of fire,
He shot amongst them sweet desire,
Which straight flies
In their eyes,
RADAGON IN DIANAM.
And at the entrance made them start,
For it ran from eye to heart.
It was a valley gaudy-green,
Where Dian at the fount was seen ;
Green it was,
And did pass
All other of Diana's bowers
In the pride of Flora's flowers.
Calisto straight supposed Jove
Was fair and frolic for to love ;
Dian she
Scap'd not free,
For, well I wot, hereupon
A fount it was that no sun sees,
She lov'd the swain Endymion ;
Circled in with cypress-trees,
Set so nigh
As Phcebus' eye
Could not do the virgins scathe,
To see them naked when they bathe.
Clytie Phcebus, and Chloris' eye
Thought none so fair as Mercury :
Venus thus
Did discuss
By her son in darts of fire,
She sat there all in white,
None so chaste to check desire.
Colour fitting her delight :
Dian rose with all her maids,
Virgins so
Ought to go,
For white in armory is plac'd
To be the colour that is chaste.
Blushing thus at love's braids : *
With sighs, all
Show their thrall ;
And flinging hence pronounce this saw,
Her taff ta cassock might you see
" What so strong as love's sweet law 1 "
Tucked up above her knee,
Which did show
There below
Legs as white as whales-bone ;
So white and chaste were never none.
MULLIDOR'S MADRIGAL.
Dildido, dildido,
Hard by her, upon the ground,
Sat her virgins in a round,
love, love,
I feel thy rage rumble below and above I
Bathing their
Golden hair,
In summer-time I saw a face,
And singing all in notes high,
Trop belle pour moi, kelas, Mlast
" Fie on Venus' flattering eye !
Like to a ston'd-horse was her pace :
Was ever young man so dismay 'dl
" Fie on love ! it is a toy ;
Her eyes, like wax-torches, did mako me afraid :
Cupid witless and a boy ;
Trop belle pour moi, voilA mon trSpas.
All his fires,
And desires,
Are plagues that God sent down from high
* braids] i.e., perhaps, — crafts, deceits (vide Stcevons's
unto on "Since Frenchmen arc so braid." Shakespeare's
To pester men with misery."
All's well that ends well. Act iv. sc. 2.).
FROM NEVER TOO LATE.
303
Tby beauty, my love, exceedeth supposes;
Thy hair is a nettle for the nicest roses.
Mon dieu, aide moi!
That I with the primrose of my fresh wit
May tumble her tyranny under my foot :
He doncje serai unjeune roil
Trop belle pour moi, helas, helas I
Trop belle pour moi, voila mon tripos/
THE PALMER'S VERSES.
In greener years, whenas my greedy thoughts
Gan yield their homage to ambitious will,
My feeble wit, that then prevailed noughts,
Perforce presented homage to his ill ;
And I in folly's bonds fulfill'd with crime,
At last unloos'd, thus spied my loss of time.
As in his circular and ceaseless ray
The year begins, and in itself returns,
Refreshed by presence of the eye of day,
That sometimes nigh and sometimes far
sojourns ;
So love in me, conspiring my decay,
With endless fire my heedless bosom burns,
And from the end of my aspiring sin
My paths of error hourly do begin.
ARIES.
When in the Ram the sun renews hi3 beams,
Beholding mournful earth array 'd in grief,
That waits relief from his refreshing gleams,
The tender flocks rejoicing their relief,
Do leap for joy and lap the silver streams :
So at my prime when youth in me was chief,
All heifer-like, with wanton horn I play'd,
And by my will my wit to love betray'd.
TAURUS.
When Phcebus with Europa's bearer bides,
The spring appears ; impatient of delays,
The labourer to the fields his plough-swains
guides,
He sows, he plants, he builds, at all assays :
When prime of years, that many errors hides,
By fancy's force did trace ungodly ways,
I blindfold walk'd, disdaining to behold
That life doth vade,* and young men must be
old.
* vade] i. e. fade.
GEMINI.
When in the hold, whereas the Twins do rest,
Proud Phlegon, breathing fire, doth post amain,
The trees with leaves, the earth with flowers is
drest :
When I in pride of years, with peevish brain,
Presum'd too far, and made fond love my guest,
With frosts of care my flowers were nipt amain:
In height of weal who bears a careless heart,
Repents too late his over-foolish part.
CANCER.
When in festival Cancer's gloomy bower
The greater glory of the heavens doth shine,
The air is calm, the birds at every stowre*
Do + tempt the heavens with harmony divine :
When I was first enthrall'd in Cupid's power,
In vain I spent the May-month of my time,
Singing for joy to see me captive thrall
To him, whose gains are grief, whose comfort
small.
LEO.
When, in the height of his meridian walk,
The Lion's hold contains the eye of day,
The riping corn grows yellow in the stalk :
When strength of years did bless me every way,
Mask'd with delights of folly was my talk,
Youth ripen'd all my thoughts to my decay ;
In lust I sow'd, my fruit was loss of time ;
My hopes were proud, and yet my body slime.
VIRGO.
When in the Virgin's lap earth's comfort sleeps,
Bating the fury of his burning eyes,
Both corn and fruits are firm'd,and comfort creeps
On every plant and flower that springing rise :
When age at last his chief dominion keeps,
And leads me on to see my vanities,
What love and scant foresight did make me sow
In youthful years, is ripen'd now in woe.
LIBRA.
When in the Balance Daphne's leman J blins,§
The ploughman gathereth fruit for passed pain :
When I at last cousider'd on my sins,
And thought upon my youth and follies vain,
I cast my count, and reason now begins
To guide mine eyes with judgment, bought
with pain,
Which weeping wish a better way to find,
Or else for ever to the world be blind.
* stow>-e] See note *, p. 290, sec. col.
t Do] The 4to. " To."
J leman] i. e. lover.
§ blin»] i. e stops.
304
FROM THE MOURNING GARMENT.
SCORPIO.
When with the Scorpion proud Apollo plays,
The vines are trod and carried to their press,
The woods are fell'd 'gainst winter's sharp affrays:
When graver years my judgment* did address,
I gau repair my ruins and decays,
Exchanging will to wit and soothfastness,
Claiming from time and age no good but this,
To see my sin, and sorrow for my 'miss.+
SAGITTARIUS.
Whenas the Archer in his winter hold,
The Delian harper tunes his wonted love,
The ploughman sows and tills his labour'd mould :
When with advice and judgment I approve
How love in youth hath grief for gladness sold,
The seeds of shame I from my heart remove,
And in their steads I set down plants of grace,
And with repent bewail t my youthful race.
CAPRICORNUS.
When he that in Eurotas' silver glide
Doth bain § his tress, beholdeth Capricorn,
The days grow short, then hastes the winter-tide ;
The sun with sparing lights doth seem to
mourn ;
Grey is the green, the flowers their beauty hide :
Whenas I see that I to death was born,
My strength decay'd, my grave already drest,
I count my life my loss, my death my best.
AQUARIUS.
When with Aquarius Phoebe's brother stays,
The blithe and wanton winds are whist and still ;
Cold frost and snow the pride of earth betrays :
When age my head with hoary hairs doth fill,
Reason sits down, and bids me count my days,
And pray for peace, and blame my froward
In depth of grief, in this distress I cry, [will ;
Peccavi, Domine, miserere met I
PISCES.
When in the Fishes' mansion Phcehus dwells,
The days renew, the earth regains his rest :
When old in years, my want my death foretells,
My thoughts and prayers to heaven are whole
addrest ;
Repentance youthly|| folly quite expells;
I long to be dissolved for my best,
That young in zeal, long beaten with my rod,
1 may grow old to wisdom and to God.
* judgment] The 4to. " iudgements."
t 'mils] For amiss, i. e. fault.
t bewail] The 4to. " bewailde."
§ hain] i. c. bathe.
|| youtkly] The Ito. "youth by."
FROM
THE MOURNING GARMENT.
(Ed. Itil6.)
— • —
THE DESCRIPTION OF THE SHEPHERD
AND HIS WIFE.
It was near a thicky shade,
That broad leaves of beech had made,
Joining all their tops so nigh,
That scarce Phoebus in could pry,
To see if lovei-s in the thick
Could dally with a wanton trick ;
Where sat the swain and his wife,
Sporting in that pleasing life,
That Coridon commendeth so,
All other lives to overgo.
He and she did sit and keep
Flocks of kids and folds of sheep :
He upon his pipe did play ;
She tun'd voice unto his lay,
And, for you might her huswife know,
Voice did sing and fingers sew.
He was young : his coat was green,
With welt3 of white seam'd between,
Turned over with a flap
That breast and bosom in did wrap,
Skirts side * and plighted f free,
Seemly hanging to his knee :
A whittle with a silver chape :
Cloak was russet, and the cape
Served for a bonnet oft
To shroud him from the wet aloft :
A leather scrip of colour red,
With a button on the head.
A bottle full of country whig J
By the shepherd's side did lig ; §
And in a little bush hard by.
There the shepherd's dog did lie,
Who, while his master gan to sleep,
Well could watch both kids and sheep.
The shepherd was a frolic swain ;
For though his 'parel was but plain,
Yet doon|| the authors soothly say,
His colour was both fresh and gay,
And in their writs plain discuss,
Fairer was not Tityrus,
Nor Menalcas, whom they call
The alderliefest U swain of all.
Seeming** him was his wife,
Both in line and in life :
* side] i. e. long. t plighted] i. e. plaited.
J whig] i.e. a liquor made from whey : see Nares's Gloss.
(Hut the word is variously explained.) § lig] i. e. lie.
|| doon] i. e. do. U alderliefest] See note t, P- 220,
** Seeming] i. e. Beseeming. [first col.
FROM THE MOURNING-GARMENT.
305
Fair she was as fair might be,
Like the rosea on the tree ;
Buxom, blithe, and young, I ween,
Beauteous like a summer's queen,
For her cheeks were ruddy-hu'd,
As if lilies were imbru'd
With drops of blood, to make the white
Please the eye with more delight :
Love did lie within her eyes
In ambush for some wanton prize.
A liefer * lass than this had been
Coridon had never seen,
Nor was Phillis, that fair may,t
Half so gaudy or so gay.
She wore a chaplet on her head ;
Her cassock was of scarlet red,
Long and large, as straight as bent :
Her middle was both small and gent ;
A neck as white as whales-bone,
Compass'd with a lace of stone.
Fine she was, and fair she was,
Brighter than the brightest glass ;
Such a shepherd's wife as she
Was not more in Thessaly.
THE SHEPHERD'S WIFE'S SONG.
Ah, what is love ? It is a pretty thing.j
As sweet unto a shepherd as a king;
And sweeter too,
For kings have cares that wait upon a crown,
And cares can make the sweetest love to frown :
Ah then, ah then,
If country loves such sweet desires do gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?
His flocks are folded, he comes home at night,
As merry as a king in his delight ;
And merrier too,
For kings bethink them what the state require,
Where + shepherds careless carol by the fire :
Ah then, ah then,
If country loves such sweet desires do § gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?
He kisseth first, then sits as blithe to eat
His cream and curds as doth the king his meat ;
And blither too,
* liefer] i. e. more dear, more agreeable.
f may] i. e. maid.
I Wlure] i. e. Whereas.
§ do] The 4to. omits this word of the burden in all th«
stanzas except the first.
For kings have often fears when they do sup,
Where shepherds dread no poison in their cup :
Ah then, ah then,
If country loves such sweet desires do gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swaiu 1
To bed he goes, as wanton then, I w een,
As is a king in dalliance with a queen ;
More wanton too,
For kings have many griefs affects to move,
Where shepherds have no greater grief than love :
Ah then, ah then,
If country loves such sweet desires do gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain 1
Upon his couch of straw he sleeps as sound,
As doth the king upon his bed * of down ;
More sounder too,
For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to spill,
Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill :
Ah then, ah then,
If country loves such sweet desires do gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?
Thus with his wife he spends the year, as blithe
As doth the king at every tide or sithe ; t
And blither too,
For kings have wars and broils to take in hand,
Where + shepherds laugh and love upon the land .
Ah then, ah then,
If country loves such sweet desires do gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ]
HEXAMETRA ALEXIS IN LAUDEM
ROSAMUNDS.
Oft have I heard my lief Coridon report on a
love-day,
When bonny maids do meet with the swains in
the valley by Tempe,
How bright-ey'd his Phillis was, how lovely they
glanced,
When from th' arches ebon-black flew looks as a
lightning,
That set a-fire with piercing flames even hearts
adamantine :
Face rose-hu'd, cherry-red, with a silver taint§ like
a lily :
Venus' pride might abate, might abash with a
blush to behold her ;
* bed] The4to. "beds."
f sithe] i. e. time.
t Where] The 4to. " When " (wrongly aa the preceding
stanzas prove).
§ taint] Equivalent to "tint." see note t, p. 154, first
col.
30G
FROM THE MOURNING-GARMENT.
Phoebus' wires corupar'd to her hairs unworthy
the praising ;
Juno's state and Pallas' wit disgrae'd with the
graces
That grae'd her whom poor Coridon did choose
for a love-mate.
Ah, but had Coridon now seen the star that
Alexis
Likes and loves so dear that he melts to sighs
when he sees her,
Did Coridon but see those eyes, those amorous
eye-lids,
From whence fly holy flames of death or life in a
moment !
Ah, did he see that face, those hairs that Venus,
Apollo
Bash'd to behold, and, both disgrae'd, did grieve
that a creature
Should exceed in hue, compared] both a god and
a goddess !
Ah, had he seen my sweet paramour, the saint *
of Alexis,
Then had he said, " Phillis, sit down surpassed
in all points,
For there is one, more fair than thou, belov'd of
Alexis"!
HEXAMETRA ROSAMUNDS IN DOLOREM
AMISSI ALEXIS.
Tempe, the grove where dark Hecate doth keep
her abiding,
Tempe, the grove where poor Rosamond bewails
her Alexis,
Let not a tree nor a Bhrub be green to show thy
rejoicing,
Let not a leaf once deck thy boughs and branches,
O Tempe !
Let not a bird record her tunes, nor chant any
Bweet notes,
But Philomel, let her bewail the less of her
amours.,
And fill all the wood with doleful tunes to be-
moan her :
Parched leaves fill every spring, fill every
fountain ;
All the meads in mourning-weed fit them to
lamenting ;
Echo sit and sing despair i* the valleys, i' the
mountains ;
All Thessaly help poor Rosamond mournful to
bemoan her,
• saint] Tho4to "taint."
For she's quite bereft of her love, and left of
Alexis :
Once was she lik'd and once was she lov'd of
wanton Alexis ;
Now is she loath'd and now is she left of trotbless
Alexis.
Here did he clip* and kiss Rosamond, and vow
by Diana,
None so dear to the swain as I, nor none so
beloved;
Here did he deeply swear and call great Pan for
a witness,
That Rosamond was only the rose belov'd of
Alexis,
That Thessaly had not such another nymph to
delight him :
" None," quoth he, " but Venus' fair shall have
any kisses ;
Not Phillis, were Phillis alive, should have any
favours,
Nor Galate, Galate so fair for beauteous eyebrows,
Nor Doris, that lass that drew the swains to
behold her,
Not one amongst all these nor all should gain
any graces,
But Ro=samond alone to herself should have her
Alexis."
Now, to revenge the perjur'd vows of faithless
Alexis,
Pan, great Pan, that heard'st his oaths, and
mighty Diana,
You Dryades, and watery Nymphs that sport by
the fountains,
Fair Tempe, the gladsome grove of greatest
Apollo,
Shrubs, and dales, and neighbouring hills, that
heard when he swore him,
Witness all, and seek to revenge the wrongs of a
virgin i
Had any swain been lief to me but guileful
Alexis,
Had Rosamond twin'd myrtle-boughs, or rose-
mary brandies,
Sweet hollyhock, or else daffodil, or slips of a
bay-tree,
And given them for a gift to any swain but
Alexis,
Well had Alexis done t' have left his rose for a
giglott :
But Galate ne'er lov'd more dear her lovely
Monalcas
* clip] i. e. embrace
t si is/lot [ i. e. giddy or wanton girl.
FROM THE MOURNING-GARMENT.
307
Than Rosamond did dearly love her toothless
Alexis ;
Endyrnion was ne'er belov'd of his Cytherea *
Half so dear as true Rosamond belov'd her
Alexis. [down to the willows,
Now, seely lass, hie down to the lake, haste
And with those forsaken twigs go make thee a
chaplet ; [brooks, by the rivers,
Mournful sit, and sigh by the springs, by the
Till thou turn for grief, as did Niobe, to a marble ;
Melt to tears, pour out thy plaints, let Echo
reclaim them, [Alexis.
How Rosamond, that loved so dear, is left of
Now die, die, Rosamond ! let men engrave o' thy
tomb-stone, [A lexis,
Here lies she that loved so dear the youngster
Once beloved, forsaken late of faithless Alexis,
Yet Rosamond did die for love, false-] tear ted
Alexis 1
PHILADOR'S ODE
THAT HE LEFT WITH THE DESPAIRING LOVER.
When merry autumn in her prime,
Fruitful mother of swift time,
Had filled Ceres' lap with store
Of vines and corn, and mickle more
Such needful fruits an do grow
From Terra's bosom here below ;
Tityrus did sigh, and see
With heart's grief and eyes' gree,+
Eyes and heart both full of woes,
Where Qalate hi3 lover goes.
Her mantle was vermilion red ;
A gaudy chaplet on her head,
A chaplet that did shroud the beams
That Phoebus on her beauty streams,
For sun itself desir'd to see
So fair a nymph as was she,
For, viewing from the east to west,
Fair Galate did like him best.
Her face was like to welkin's shine ;
Crystal brooks such were her J eyne,
And yet within those brooks were fires
That scorched youth and his desires.
Galate did much impair
Venus' honour for her fair ; §
* Cytherea] Ought to be " Cynthia" ; which, however,
will not stand rightly in the verse. I cannot agree with
the Rov. J. Mitford when he remarks; "We conceive
'Cytherea' is put here in a general sense, as 'Venus' is
often used. ' Cynthia was the Cytherea of Eudymion'."
Gent. Mag. for March 1833. p. 218.
t gree) Qy. if right? (Spelt in the 4to. "greee.")
} her] The 4to. " his " : § fair] i. e. beauty.
For stately stepping, Juno's pace
By Galate did take disgrace ;
And Pallas' wisdom bare no prize
Where Galate would show her wise.
This gallant girl thus passeth by
Where Tityrus did sighing lie,
Sighing sore, for love strains
More than sighs from lovers' veins :
Tears in eye, thought in heart,
Thus his grief he did impart.
" Fair Galate, but glance thine eye ;
Here lies he that here must die,
For love is death, if love not gain
Lover's salve for lover's pain.
Winters seven and more are past
Since on thy face my thoughts I cast :
When Galate did haunt the plains,
And fed her sheep amongst the swains,
When every shepherd left his flocks
To gaze on Galate's fair locks,
When every eye did stand at gfize,
When heart and thought did both amaze,
When heart from body would asunder,
On Galate's fair face to wonder ;
Then amongst them all did I
Catch such a wound as I must die,
If Galate oft say not thus,
' I love the shepherd Tityrus.'
'Tis love, fair nymph, that doth pain
Tityrus, thy truest swain ;
True, for none more true can be
Than still to love, and none but thee.
Say, Galate, oft smile and say,
1 'Twere pity love should have a nay' ;
But such a word of comfort give,
And Tityrus thy loye shall live :
Or with a piercing frown reply,
'I cannot love',* and then I die,
For lover's nay is lover's death,
And heart-break frowns do stop the breath."
Galate at this arose,
And with a smile away she goes,
As one that little card to ease
Tityr, pain'd with love's disease.
At her parting, Tityrus
Sigh'd amain, and sayed thus :
" 0, that women are so fair,
To trap men's eyesf in their hair,
With beauteous eyes, love's fires,
Venus' sparks that heat desires !
* love] The4to. "line."
f eyes] An error, I believe, caused by the occurrence of
the word in the next line.
x 2
308
FROM THE MOURNING GARMENT.
But 0, that women have such hearts,
Such thoughts, aud such deep-piercing darts,
As in the beauty of their eye
Harbour naught but flattery !
Their tears are drawn * that drop deceit,
Their faces calends of all sleight,
Their smiles are lures, their looks guile,
And all their love is but a wile.
Then, Tityr, leave, leave, Tityrua,
To love such as scorns you thus ;
And say to love and women both,
• What I lik'd, now I do loath.'"
With that he hied him to the flocks,
And counted love but Venus' mocks.
THE SONG
OF A COUNTRY SWAIN AT THE RETURN OP
PHILADOR.
The silent shade had shadow'd every tree,
And Phoebus in the west was shrouded low ;
Each hive had home her busy-labouring bee,
Each bird the harbour of the night did know :
Even then,
When thus
All things did from their weary labour lin,t
Menalcas sat and thought him of his sin :
His head on hand, his elbow on his knee ;
And tears, like dew, be-drench'd ur>on his face,
His face as sad as any swain's might be ;
His thoughts and dumps befitting well the place :
Even then,
When thus
Menalcas sat in passions all alone,
Ho sighed then, and thus he gan to moan.
" I that fed flocks upon Thessalia-plains,
And bade my lambs to feed on daffodil, [gains,
That livM on milk and curds, poor shepherds'
And merry sat,J and pip'd upon a pleasant hill ;
Even then,
When thus
I sat secure, and fear'd not Fortune's ire,
Mine eyes eclips'd, fast blinded by desire.
" Then lofty thoughts began to lift my mind,
I grudg'd and thought my fortune was too low ;
A shepherd's life 'twas baso and out of kind ;
The tallest cedars have the fairest grow:
Even then,
When thus
Pride did intend the sequel of my ruth,
Began the faults and follies of my youth.
* drawn) A mioprint. Qy. "dowe"?
t lin] i. o. ccaso.
t And mtrry tat, Ac] Soe note t, p 28. r i, first col.
" I left the fields and took me to the town,
Fold sheep who list, the hook was cast away;
Menalcas would not be a country clown,
Nor shepherd's weeds, but garments far more
gay:
Even then,
When thus
Aspiring thoughts did follow after ruth,
Began the faults and follies of my youth.
" My suits were silk, my talk was all of state,
I stretch'd beyond the compass of my sleeve ;
The bravest courtier was Menalcas' mate,
Spend what I would, T never thought on grief :
Even then,
When thus
I lash'd out lavish, then began my ruth,
And then I felt the follies of my youth.
" I cast mine eye on every wanton face,
And straight desire did hale me on to love ;
Then lover-like I pray'd for Venus' grace,
That she my mistress' deep affects might move :
Even then,
When thus
Love trapp'd me in the fatal bands of ruth,
Began the faults and follies of my youth.
" No cost I spar'd to please my mistress' eye,
No time ill-spent in presence of her sight;
Yet oft she * frown'd, and then her love must
die,
But when she smil'd, 0, then a happy wight !
Even then,
When thus
Desire did draw me on to deem of ruth,
Began the faults and follies of my youth.
" The day in poems often did I pass,
The night in sighs and sorrows for her grace;
And she, as fickle as the brittle glass,
Held sun-shine showers within her flattering face :
Even then,
When thus
I spied the woes that women's loves ensu'th,
I saw and loath['d] the follies of my youth.
" I noted oft that beauty was a blaze,
I saw that love was but a heap of cares ;
That such as stood, as deer do, at the gaze,
Aud sought their wealth amongst affection's
snares,t
* she) Tlio4to. "we."
t snara) Thu 4to. " tliares.'
FROM THE FAREWELL TO FOLLY.
^;9
Even such
I saw
With * hot pursuit did follow after ruth,
And foster'd up the follies of their youth.
" Thus clogg'd with love, with passions, and with
I saw the country life had least molest ; [grief,
I felt a wound, and fain would have relief,
And this resolv'd I thought would fall out best:
Even then,
When thus
I felt my senses almost sold to ruth,
I thought to leave the follies of my youth.
" To flocks again ! away the wanton town,
Fond pride avaunt ! give me the shepherd's hook,
A coat of grey ! I'll be a countiy clown ;
Mine eye shall scorn on beauty for to look:
No more
Ado;
Both pride and love are ever pain'd with ruth,
And f therefore farewell the follies of my youth."
FROM
THE FAREWELL TO FOLLY.
(Ed 1617.)
— ♦ —
DESCRIPTION OF THE LADY NLESIA +
Her stature and her shape were passing tall,
Diana-like, when 'longst the lawns she goes ;
A stately pace, like Juno when she brav'd
The Queen of Love § 'fore Paris in the vale ;
A front beset with love and majesty ;
A face like lovely Venus when she blush'd
A seely shepherd should be beauty's judge;
A lip sweet ruby-red, grac'd with delight ;
Her eyes two sparkling stars in winter-night
When chilling frost doth clear the azur'd sky ;
Her hairs, in tresses twin'd with threads of silk,
Hung waving down like Phoebus' in his prime;
Her breasts as white as those two snowy swans
That draw to Paphos Cupid's smiling dame ;
A foot like Thetis' when she tripp'd the sands
To steal Neptunus' favour with her || steps ;
In fine, a piece, despite of beauty, fram'd
To show U what Nature's cunning could afford.
* With] The 4to. " Which."
t And] An interpolation ?
J This is an alteration and abridgement of a copy of
verses in the Morando : see ante, p. 285, first col.
§ iow]The 4to. "heauen:" but see <in(e, p. 285, first col.
|| her] The 4to. "his."
1J shnic] So in our author's Morando: vide ante, p. 285,
first col. — The 4to. " see."
SO NO.
Swf.kt are the thoughts that savour of content ;
The quiet mind is richer than a crown ;
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent ;
The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown :
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss, [bliss,
The homely house that harbours quiet rest ;
The cottage that affords no pride nor care ;
The mean that 'grees with country music best ;
The sweet consort of mirth and music's fare ;
Obscured life sets down a type of bliss:
A mind content both crown and kingdom ia.
LINES TRANSLATED FROM GUAZZO.
(" Chi spinto d amort," &c.)
He that appaled * with lust would sail in haste to
Corinthum,
There to be taught in Lais' school to seek for a
mistress,
Is to be train'd in Venus' troop and chang'd to
the purpose ;
Rage embrae'd, but reason quite thrust out as an
exile ;
Pleasure a pain, rest turn'd to be care, and mirth
as a madness ;
Fiery mindf inflam'd with a look, enrag'd as
Alecto ;
Quaint in array, sighs fetch'd from far, and tears,
marry, feigned ;
Pensive,* sore, deep-plung'd in pain, not a place
but his heart whole ;
Days in grief and nights consum'd to think oa
a goddess ;
Broken sleeps, sweet dreams, but short, from the
night to the morning ; [Apollo;
Venus dash'd, his mistress* face as bright as
Helena stain'd, the golden ball wrong-given by
the shepherd ;
Hairs of gold, eyes twinkling stars, her lips to be
rubies ;
Teeth of pearl, her breasts like snow, her cheeks
to be roses ;
Sugar-candy she is, as I guess, from the waist to
the kneestead;
Naught is amiss, no fault were found, if soul
were amended ;
All were bliss, if such fond lust led not to re-
pentance.
* appaled] Qy. "impell'd"?
f mind] The 4to. "mindes."
} Pensive] The 4 to. ' • Pen sicke. "
310
FROM THE GROATSWORTH OF WIT.
FROM
DANTE.
(" // vizio che conduce," &c.)
A monster seated in the midst of men,
Which, daily fed, is never satiate;
A hollow gulf of vile * ingratitude,
Which for his food vouchsafes not pay of thanks,
But still doth claim a debt of due expense:
From hence doth Venus draw the shape of lust;
From hence Mars raiseth blood and stratagems :
The wreck of wealth, the secret foe to life ;
The sword that hasteneth on the date of death ;
The surest friend to physic by disease ;
The pumice that defaceth memory ;
The misty vapour that obscures the light,
And brightest beams of science' glittering sun,
And doth eclipse the mind with sluggish thoughts :
The monster that affords this cursed brood,
And makes commixture of these dire mishaps,
Is but a stomach overcharg'd with meats,
That takes delight in endless gluttony.
FROM
THE GROATSWORTH OF WIT.
(Ed. 1617.)
LAMILIA'S SONG.
Fie, fie on blind fancy !
It hinders youth's joy :
Fair virgins, learn by me
To count Love a toy.
When Love leam'd first the A B C of delight,
And knew no figures nor conceited phrase,
He simply gave to due desert her right,
He led not lovers in dark winding ways ;
He plainly will'd to love, or flatly answer'd no :
But now who lists to prove, shall find it nothing so.
Fie, fie, then, on fancy !
It hinders youth's joy:
Fair virgins, learn by me
To count love a toy.
For since he leam'd to use the poet's pen,
He learn'd likewise with smoothing words to
feign, [men,
Witching chaste ears with trothless tongues of
And wronged faith with falsehood and disdain.
He gives a promise now, anon he sweareth no :
Who listeth for to prove, nhall find his changing so.
Fie, fie, then, on fancy !
It hinders youth's joy :
Fair virgins, learn by me
To count Love a toy.
* viU] The 4to. •' vild": but see note t. p. 1<*7, sec col.
VERSES AGAINST ENTICING COURTE-
ZANS.
What mean the poets in * invective verse
To sing Medea's shame, and Scylla's pride,
Calypso's charms by which so many died ?
Only for this their vices they rehearse, —
That curious wits, which in the world converse,
May shun the dangers and enticing shows
Of such false Sirens, those home-breeding foes,
That from their eyes their venom do disperse.
So soon kills not the basilisk with sight,
The viper's tooth is not so venomous,
The adder's tongue not half so dangerous,
As they that bear the shadow of delight,
Who chain blind youths in trammels of their hair,
Till waste brings woe, and sorrow hastes despair.
VERSES..
Deceiving world, that with alluring toys
Hast made my life the subject of thy scorn,
And scornest now to lend thy fading joys
T' outlength my life, whom friends have left, for-
lorn;
How well are they that die ere they be born,
And never see thy sleights, which few men thun
Till unawares they helpless are undone !
Oft have I sung of Love and of his fire ;
But now I find that poet was advis'd,
Which made full feasts increasers of desire,
And proves weak Love was with the poor despis'd ;
For when the life with food is not suffie'd,
What thoughts of love, what motion of delight,
What pleasance can proceed from such a wight !
Witness my want, the murderer of my wit :
My ravish'd sense, of wonted fury reft,
Wants such conceit as should in poems fit
Set down the sorrow wherein I am left :
But therefore have high heavens their gifts bereft,
Because so long they lent them me to use,
And I so long their bounty did abuse.
0, that a year were granted me to live,
And for that year my former wits restor'd !
What rules of life, what counsel would I give,
How should my sin with sorrow be deplor'd ! t
But I must die of every man abhorr'd :
Time loosely spent will not again be won ;
My time is loosely spent, and I undone.
* mean .... in] Tho 4to. "meant . . . . to."
1 be deplor'd] The 4to. " then doplore."
FROM CICERONIS AMOR,
311
A CONCEITED FABLE OF THE OLD
COMEDIAN ^ESOP.
An ant and a grasshopper, walkiug together on a
green, the one carelessly skipping, the other care-
fully prying what winter's provision was scattered
in the way; the grasshopper scorning (as wantons
will) this needless thrift, as he termed it, reproved
him thus ;
" The greedy miser thirsteth still for gain ;
His thrift is theft, his weal works others woe :
That fool is fond which will in caves remain,
When 'mongst fair sweets he may at pleasure
go."
To this, the ant, perceiving the grasshopper's
meaning, quickly replied ;
" The thrifty husband spares what unthrift *
spends,
His thrift no theft, for dangers to provide :
Trust to thyself; small hope in want yield
friends :
A cave is better than the deserts wide t."
In short time these two parted, the one to his
pleasure, the other to his labour. Anon harvest
grew on, and reft from the grasshopper his
wonted moisture. Then weakly skips he to
the meadows' brinks, where till fell winter he
abode. But storms continually pouring, he went
for succour to the ant, his old acquaintance ; to
whom he had scarce discovered his estate, but
the little worm made this reply ;
" Pack hence," quoth he, " thou idle, lazy worm ;
My house doth harbour no unthrifty mates :
Thou scorn'dst to toil, and now thou feel'st
the storm,
And starv'st for food, while I am fed with cates:
Use no entreats, I will relentless rest,
For toiliDg labour hates an idle guest."
The grasshopper, foodless, helpless, and strength-
less, got into X the next brook, and in the yielding
sand digged himself a pit : by which likewise he
engraved this epitaph ;
" When spring's green prime array'd me with
delight,
And every power, with youthful vigour fill'd,
Gave strength to work whatever fancy will'd,
I never fear'd the force of winter's spite.
" When first I saw the sun the day begin,
And dry the morning's tears from herbs and
grass,
* umhrift\ The4to. " vnthrifts."
t Kide] The 4to. " wilde."
X into] Equivalent to •■ unto " : see note t, p. lll f sec.
col.
I little thought his cheerful light would paws,
Till ugly night with darkness enter d in ;
And then day lost I mouru'd, spring past I
wail'd ;
But neither tears for this or that avail'd.
" Then too-too late I prais'd the emmet's pain,
That sought in spring a harbour 'gainst the heat,
And in the harvest gather' d winter's meat,
Perceiving famine, frosts, and stormy rain.
"My wretched end may warn green-springing
youth
To use delights as toys that will deceive,
And scorn the world before the world them
leave,
For all world's trust is ruin without ruth.
Then blest are they that, like the toiling ant,
Provide in time 'gainst woeful winter's want.''
With this the grasshopper, yielding to the
weather's extremity, died comfortless without
remedy.
FROM
CICERONIS AMOR, TULLY'S LOVE.
(Ed. 1597.)
VERSES.
When gods had fram'd the sweet of women's
face,
And lock'd men's looks within their golden
hail',
That Phoebus blush' d to see their matchless
grace,
And heavenly gods on earth did make repair ;
To quip fair Venus' overweening pride,
Love's happy thoughts to jealousy were tied.
Then grew a wrinkle on fair Venus' brow;
The amber sweet of love is turn'd to gall ;
Gloomy was heaven ; bright Phoebus did avow
He could be coy, and would not love at all,
Swearing, no greater mischief could be wrought
Than love united to a jealous thought.
VERSUS.
Vita quse tandem magis est jucunda,
Vel viris doctis magis expetenda,
Meute quam pura soeiam jugalem
Semper amare?
312
FROM C1CERONIS AMOR.
Vita quae tandem magis est dolenda,
Vel magis cunctis fugienda, quam quae,
Fals6 suspecta probitate amicae,
Tollit amorem ?
Nulla earn tollit niedicina pestem,
Murmura, emplastrum, vel imago sagae,
Astra nee curant niagicae nee artes
Zelotypiam.
I'll wear the bays, and call the wag a boy,
And think of love but as a foolish toy.
Some give him bow and quiver at his back,
Some make him blind to aim without advice,
When, naked wretch, such feather'd bolts he
lack,
And sight he hath, but cannot wrong the
wise;
For use but labour's weapon for defence,
SONG.
Mars in a fury 'gainst Love's brightest Queen,
Put on his helm, and took him to his lauce ;
On Erycinus» Mount was Mavors seen,
And there his ensigns did the god advance,
And by heaven's greatest gates he stoutly swore,
Venus should die, for she had wrong'd him sore.
Cupid heard this, and he began to cry,
And wish'd his mother's absence for a while :
" Peace, fool," quoth Venus ; " is it I must die 1
Must it be Marsf 1 " with that she coin'd a smile ;
She trimm'd her tresses, and did curl her hair,
And made her face with beauty passing fair.
A fan of silver feathers in her hand,+
And in a coach of ebony she went :
She pass'd the place where furious Mars did
stand,
And out her looks a lovely smile she sent ;
Then from her brows leap'd out so sharp a frown,
That Mars for fear threw all his armour down.
He vow'd repentance for his rash misdeed,
Blaming his choler that had caus'd his woe :
Venus grew gracious, and with him agreed,
And Cupid, like a coward, flieth thence.
He's god in court, but cottage calls him child,
And Vesta's virgins with their holy fires
Do cleanse the thoughts that fancy hath defil'd,
And burn the palace of his fond desireB ;
With chaste disdain they scorn the foolish god,
And prove him but a boy not past the rod.
LENTULUS'S DESCRIPTION OF TERENTIA
IN LATIN.
Qualis in aurora splendescit lumine Titan,
Talis in eximio corpore forma fuit :
Lumina seu spectes radiantia, sive capillos,
Lux, Ariadne, tua, et lux tua, Phcebe, jacet.
Venustata fuit verbis, spirabat odorem ;
Musica vox, nardus spiritus almus erat;
Rubea labra, genae rubrae, faciesque decora,
In qua concertaut lilius atque rosa ;
Luxuriant gemmae formoso in pectore mammae;
Circundant niviae Candida colla comae;
Denique talis erat divina Terentia, quales
Quondam certantes, Juno, Minerva, Venus.
But charg'd him not to threaten beauty so,
For women's looks are such enchanting charms
As can subdue the greatest god in arms.
THUS IN ENGLISH.
Brightsome Apollo in his richest pomp
ROUNDELAY.
Fond, feigning poets make of love a god,
And leave the laurel for the myrtle-boughs,
When Cupid is a child not past the rod,
And fair Diana Daphne § most allows :
Was not like to the trammels of her hair ;
Her eyes, like Ariadne's sparkling stars,
Shone from the ebon arches of her brows ;
Her face was like the blushing of the east
When Titan charg'd the morning sun to rise ;
Her cheeks, rich strew'd with roses and with
white,
* Eryrinus] Our author seems to forget here that the
mountain, from which Venus had the name of Erycina,
was Eryx : it is not likuly that he wrote " Eryciua's
Mount."
t Must it be Mars) Qy. " Mast I hy Mars " 1
\ A fan of silver feathers in her hand] The Rev. J. Mit-
ford (Qcnt. Mag for March, 1833, p 218.) coniparos —
Did stain the glory of Anchises' love;
Her silver teats did ebb and flow delight;
Her neck column * of polish'd ivory ;
Her breath was perfume f made of violets
And all this heaven was but Terentia.
" A fan of painted fathers in his hand," he.
Collins's S cond Oriental Eclogue.
§ Daphne] The 4to " Dapuuis."
* column] The 4to. "columns."
t perfume] The 4to. "perfumes."
FROM CICERONIS AMOR. 31 3
THE SHEPHERD'S ODE.
Under a cool silent shade,
Walking in a valley green,
By the streams, she garlands made :
Spread with Flora, sutnmer-queen,
Thus sat Phillis all alone.
Where she heaping all her graces,
Miss'd she was by Coridon,
Niggard seeui'd in other places ;
Chiefest swain of all the rest ;
Spring it was, and here did spring
Lovely Phillis lik'd him best.
All that nature forth can bring.
His face was like Phoebus' love ;
Groves of pleasant trees there grow,
His neck white as Venus' dove ;
Which fruit and shadow could bestow :
A ruddy cheek, fill'd with smiles,
Thick-leav'd boughs small birds cover,
Such Love hath when he beguiles ;
Till sweet notes themselves discover;
His locks * brown, his eyes were grey,
Tunes for number seein'd confounded,
Like Titan in a summer-day :
Whilst their mixtures music * sounded,
A russet jacket, sleeves red ;
'Greeing well, yet not agreed
A blue bonnet on his head ;
That one the other should exceed.
A cloak of grey t fene'd the rain ;
A sweet stream here silent glides,
Thus 'tired was this lovely swain ;
Whose clear water no fish hides ;
A shepherd's hook, his dog tied ;
Slow it runs, which well bewray 'd
Bag and bottle by his side :
The pleasant shore the current stay'd.
Such was Paris, shepherds say,
In this stream a rock was planted,
When with G^none he did play.
Where no art nor nature wanted.
From his flock stray'd Coridon,
Each thing so did other grace,
Spying Phillis all alone ;
As all places may give place;
By the stream he Phillis spied,
Only this the place of pleasure,
Braver than was Flora's pride.
Where is heaped nature's treasure.
Down the valley 'gan he track,
Here mine eyes with wonder stay'd ;
Stole behind his true-love's back ;
Eyes amaz'd, and mind afraid,
The sun shone, and shadow made,
Ravish'd with what was beheld,
Phillis rose, and was afraid ;
From departing were withheld.
When she saw her lover there,
Musing then with sound advice
Smile she did, and left her fear.
On this earthly paradise;
Cupid, that disdain doth loath,
Sitting by the river-side,
With desire strake them both.
Lovely Phillis was descried.
The swain did woo; she was nice,
Gold her hair, bright her eyne,
Following fashion, nay'd him twice :
Like to Phoebus in his shine ;
Much ado he kiss'd her then ;
White her brow, her face was fair;
Maidens blush when they kiss men;
Amber breath perfum'd the air;
So did Phillis at that stowre ; +
Rose and lily both did seek
Her face was like the rose-flower.
To show their glories on her cheek ;
Last they 'greed, for love would so,
Love did nestle in her looks,
Faith and troth, they would no mo;§
Baiting there his sharpest hooks.
For shepherds ever held it sin,
Such a Phillis ne'er was seen,
To false the love they lived in.
More beautiful than Love's Queen :
The swain gave a girdle red ;
Doubt it was, whose greater grace,
She set garlands on his head :
Phillis' beauty, or the place.
Gifts were given ; they kiss again ;
Her coat was of scarlet red,
Both did smile, for both were fain.
All in plaits ; a mantle spread,
Thus was love 'mongst shepherds sold
Fring'd with gold ; a wreath of boughs
When fancy knew not what was gold :
To check the sun from her brows ;
They woo'd, and vow'd, and that they keep,
In her hand a shepherd's hook,
In her face Diana's look.
And go contented to their sheep.
Her sheep grazed on the plains :
* locks] The 4to. "lookes."
f A cloak of grey, &c] See note •, p. 158, first col.
She had stolen from the swains ;
} stowre] See note *, p. 200, sec. col.
§ mo] i. e. more.
* »i«sic] The 4to. " musickes."
314 FROM PHILOMELA.
FROM
Had tawny veils ; cold had scanted *
What the spring t and nature planted.
PHILOMELA, THE LADY FITZWATER'S
Leafless boughs there might you see,
NIGHTINGALE.
All except fair Daphne's tree :
(Ed. 1615.)
On their twigs no birds perch'd ;
—♦—
Warmer coverts now X they search'd ;
PHILOMELA'S ODE THAT SHE SUNG
And by nature's secret reason,
IN HER ARBOUR.
Fram'd their voices to the season,
Sitting by a river's side,
With their feeble tunes bewraying
Where a silent stream did glide,
How they griev'd the spring's decaying.
Muse I did of many things
Frosty winter thus had gloom'd.
That the mind in quiet brings.
Each fair thing that summer bloom'd ;
I gan think how some men deem
Fields were bare, and trees unclad,
Gold their god ; and some esteem
Flowers wither'd, birds were sad : §
Honour is the chief content
When I saw a shepherd fold
That to man in life is lent ;
Sheep in cote, to shun the cold.
And some others do contend,
Himself sitting ou the grass,
Quiet none like to a friend ;
That with frost wither'd was,
Others hold, there is no wealth
Sighing deeply, thus gan say;
Compared to a perfect health ;
" Love is folly when astray:
Some man's mind in quiet stands
Like to love no passion such,
When he is lord of many lands :
For 'tis || madness, if too much ;
But I did sigh, and said all this
If too little, then despair;
Was but a shade of perfect bliss ;
If too high, he beats the air
And in my thoughts I did approve,
With bootless cries ; if too low,
Naught so sweet as is true love.
An eagle matcheth with a crow :
Love 'twist lovers passeth these,
Thence grow jars. Thus I find,
When mouth kisseth and heart 'grees,
Love is folly, if unkind ;
With folded arms and lips meeting,
Yet do men most desire
Each soul another sweetly greeting ;
To be heated with this fire,
For by the breath the soul fleeteth,
Whose flame is so pleasing hot,
And soul with soul in kissing meeteth.
That they burn, yet feel it not.
If love be so sweet a thing,
Yet hath love another kind,
That such happy bliss doth bring,
Worse than these unto the mind ;
Happy is love's sugar'd thrall ;
That is, when a wanton eye
But unhappy maidens all,
Leads desire clean awry,
Who esteem your virgin* blisses
And with the bee doth rejoice
Sweeter than a wife's sweet kisses.
Every minute to change choice,
No such quiet to the mind
Counting he were then in bliss,
As true love with kisses kind :
If that each fair face H were his.
But if a kiss prove unchaste,
Highly thus is** love disgrac'd,
Then is true love quite disgrac'd.
When the lover is unchaste,
Though love be sweet, learn this of me,
And would taste of fruit forbidden,
No love sweet but honesty.
'Cause the scape is easily hidden.
Though such love be sweet in brewing,
Bitter is the end ensuing ;
PHILOMELA'S SECOND ODE.
For the honour ft of love he shameth,
It was frosty winter-season,
And himself with lust defameth ;
And fair Flora's wealth was geason.T
Meads that erst with green were spread,
With choice flowers diap'red,
* aravtal] The 4to. "scattered."
t spring] The -Ito. "springs."
t now] The4to. "none." IT face] The 4 to. "fall."
* virgin] The 4to. "virgins."
§ tad] The4to. "had." ** is] Tlie 4to. "in."
t geason] i. e. rare, uncommon.
|| 'tis] The 4to. "his." ft honour] The 4to. "humour."
FROM PHILOMELA.
!la
For a miuutc'a pleasure gaining,
Fame and honour ever staining.
Gazing thus so far awry,
Last tlie chip falls in his eye ;
Then it burns that erst but heat him,
And his own rod gins to beat him;
His choicest sweets turn to gall ;
He finds lust his sin's thrall;
That wanton women in their eyes
Men's deceivings do comprise ;
That homage done to fair faces
Doth dishonour other graces.
If lawless love be such a-sin,
Curs'd is he that lives therein,
For the gain of Venus' game
Is the downfall unto shame."
Here he paus'd, and did stay ;
Sigh'd, and rose, and went away.
SONNET.
On women Nature did bestow two eyes,
Like heaveu's* bright lamps, in matchless beauty
shining,
Whose beams do soonest captivate the wise,
And wary heads, made rare by art's refining.
But wby did Nature, in her choice combining,
Plant two fair eyes within a beauteous face,
That they might favour two with equal grace]
Venus did soothe up Vulcan with one eye,
With th' other granted Mars his wished glee :
If she did so who Hymen f did defy,
Think love no sin, but grant an eye to me ;
In vain else Nature gave two stars to thee :
If then two eyes may well two friends maintain,
Allow of two, and prove not Nature vain.
ANSWER.
Nature foreeseing how men would devise
More wiles than Proteus, women to entice,
Granted them two, and those bright-shining eyes,
To pierce into men's J faults if they were wise ;
For they with show of virtue mask their vice :
Therefore to women's eyes belong these gifts,
The one must love, the other see men's shifts.
* heaven's] The 4to. "Hemians."
t who Hymen] The 4to. " whom Heimens.'
J men's] The 4to. "man's."
Both these await upon one simple heart,
And what they choose, it hides up without
change.
The emerald will not with his portrait part,
Nor will a woman's thoughts delight to range ;
They hold it bad to have so base exchange :
One heart, one friend, though that two eyes do
choose him,
No more but one, and heart will never lose
him.
AN ODE.
What is love once disgrac'd,
But a wanton thought ill p'.ac'd ?
Which doth blemish whom it paiDeth,
And dishonours whom it deigneth ;
Seen in higher powers most,
Though some fools do fondly boast,
That whoso is high of kin
Sanctifies his lover's sin.
Jove could not hide Io's scape,
Nor conceal Calisto's rape :
Both did fault, and both were frain'd
Light of loves, whom lust had shani'd.
Let not women trust to men ;
They can flatter now and then,
And tell them many wanton tales,
Which do breed their after-bales.
Sin in kings is sin, we see,
And greater sin 'cause great of gree ; *
Majus peccatum, this I read,
If he be high that doth the deed.
Mars, for all his deity,
Could not Venus dignify,
But Vulcan trapp'd her, and her blame
Was punish'd with an open shame :
All the gods laugh'd them to scorn
For dubbing Vulcan with the horn.
Whereon may a woman boast,
If her chastity be lost]
Shame await'th upon her face,
Blushing cheeks and foul disgrace :
Report will blab, this is she
That with her lust wins infamy.
If lusting love be so disgrac'd,
Die before you live unchaste;
For better die with honest fame,
Than lead a wanton life with shame.
* gree] i. e. degree.
316
FROM THE ORPHARION.
FROM
THE SECOND PART OF MAMILLIA.
(Ed. 1593.)]
VERSES AGAINST THE GENTLEWOMEN
OF SICILIA.
Since lady mild, too base in array, hath liv'd as
an exile,
None of account but stout; if plain, stale slut,
not a courtress :
Dames now-a-days, fie, none, if not new-guised in
all points :
Fancies fine, sauc'd with conceits, quick wits
very wily,
Words of a saint, but deeds guess how, feign'd
faith to deceive men ;
Courtsies coy, no veil,* but a vaunt, trick'd up
like a Tuscan,
Pac'd in print, brave lofty looks, not us'd with
the vestals ;
In hearts, too, glorious, not a glance but fit for an
empress :
As minds most valorous, so strange in array,
marry, stately ;
Up from the waist like a man, new guise to be
cas'd in a doublet,
Down to the foot perhaps like a maid, but hos'd
to the kneestead,
Some close-breech'd to the crotch for cold, tush,
peace, 'tis a shame, sir !
Hairs by birth as black as jet, what ! art can
amend them, —
A periwig frounc'd fast to the front, or curl'd
with a bodkin;
Hats from France, thick-pearl'd for pride and
plum'd like a peacock ;
Ruffs of a size, stiff-starch'd to the neck, of lawn,
marry, lawless ;
Gowns of silk, why, those be too bad, side,f wide
with a witness,
Small and gent i' the waist, but backs as broad
as a burgess ;
Npedless naughts, as crisps and scarfs, worn a la
Morisco,
Fum'd with sweets, as sweet as chaste, no want
but abundance.
* veil] Qy. " vail," i. e. murk of recopnlticn ? (to " v;iil
I. e. owcr) tho bonnet," was a common expression). —
he 4 to. has " vale."
f tide] i. e. long.
FROM
THE ORPHARION.
(Ed. 1599.)
ORPHEUS' SONG.
He that did sing the motions of the stars,
Pale-colour'd Phcebe's* borrowing of her light,
Aspects of planets oft oppos'd in jars,
Of Hesper, henchman to the day and night ;
Sings now of love, as taught by proof to sing,
Women are false, and love a bitter thing.
I lov'd Eurydice, the brightest lass,
More fond+ to like so fair a nymph as she;
In Thessaly so bright none ever was,
But fair and constant hardly may agree :
False-hearted wife to him that lov'd thee well,
To leave thy love, and choose the priuce of hell !
Theseus did help, and I in haste did hie
To Pluto, for the lass I loved so :
The god made grant, and who so glad as I )
I tun'd my harp, and she and I gan go ;
Glad that my love was left to me alone,
I looked back, — Eurydice was gone.
She slipp'd aside, back to her latest love ;
Unkind, she wrong'd her first and truest fere : %
Thus women's loves delight, as trial proves
By false Eurydice I lov'd so dear,
To change and fleet, and every way to shrink,
To take in love and lose it with a wink.
THE SONG OF ARION.
Seated upon the crooked dolphin's back,
Scudding amidst the purple-colour'd waves,
Gazing aloof for land ; Neptune in black,
Attended with the Tritons as his slaves,
Threw forth such storms as made the air thick,§
For grief his lady Thetis was so sick.
Such plaints he throbb'd as made the dolphin
stay : [health,"
"Women," quoth he, "are harbours of man's
Pleasures for night, and comforts for the day;
What are fair women but rich nature's wealth ?
Thetis is such, and more if more may be ;
Thetis is sick, then what may comfort me ?
* Phcebe's] The4to. "Phrcbus."
t fond] i e. foolish, simple.
} fire] i. e. mate.
§ Tli rew forth su<h storms as made the air thick] Ileie
"air "is a dissyllable: see Walker's Shakespeare's t'.rsif-
cation, <tc., p. 146.
FROM PENELOPE'S WEB.
317
" Women are sweets that salve men's sourest ills;
Women are saints, their virtues are so rare ;
Obedient souls that seek to please men's wills ;
Such love with faith, Buch jewels women are :
Thetis is such, and more if more may be ;
Thetis is sick, then what may comfort me ? "
With that he div'd into the coral waves,
To see his love, with all his watery slaves :
The dolphin swam ; yet this I learned then,
Fair women are rich jewels unto men.
SONNET.
Cupid abroad was lated in the night,
His wings were wet with ranging in the rain ;
Harbour he sought, to me he took his flight,
To dry his plumes : I heard the boy complain ;
I op'd the door, and granted his desire,
I rose myself, and made the wag a fire.
Looking more narrow by the fire's flame,
I spied his quiver hanging by his back :
Doubting the boy might my misfortune frame,
I would have gone for fear of further wrack ;
But what I drad, did me poor wretch betide,
For forth he drew an arrow from his side.
He pierc'd the quick, and I began to start,
A pleasing wound, but that it was too high ;
His shaft procur'd a sharp, yet sugar'd smart :
Away he flew, for why his wings were dry ;
But left the arrow sticking in my breast,
That sore I griev'd I welcom'd such a guest.
FROM
PENELOPE'S WEB.
(Ed. 1601.)
SONNET FROM ARIOSTO.
The sweet content that quiets angry thought,
The pleasing sound of household harmony,
The physic that allays what fury wrought,
The huswife's means to make true melody,
Is not with simple, harp, or worldly pelf,
But smoothly by submitting of herself.
Juno, the queen and mistress of the sky,
When angry Jove did threat her with a frown,
Caus'd Ganymede for nectar fast to hie,
With pleasing face to wash such choler down ;
For angry husbands find the soonest ease,
When sweet submission choler doth appease.
The laurel that impales the head witb praise,
The gem that decks the breast of ivory,
The pearl that's orient in her silver rays.
The crown that honours dames with dignity ;
No sapphire, gold, green bays, nor margarite,
But due obedience worketh this delight.
BARMENISSA'S SONG.
The stately state that wise men count their good,
The chiefest bliss that lulls asleep desire,
Is not descent from kings and princely blood,
Ne stately crown ambition doth require ;
For birth by fortune is abased down,
And perils are compris'd within a crown.
The sceptre and the glittering pomp of mace,
The head impal'd with honour and renown,
The kingly throne, the seat and regal place,
Are toys that fade when angry Fortune frown :
Content is far from such delights as those,
Whom woe and danger do envy as foes.
The cottage seated in the hollow dale,
That Fortune never fears because so low,
The quiet mind that want doth set to sale,
Sleeps safe when princes seats do overthrow :
Want smiles secure when princely thoughts do feel
That fear and danger tread upon their heel.
Bless Fortune thou whose frown hath wrought
thy good,
Bid farewell to the crown that ends thy care;
The happy Fates thy sorrows have withstood
By 'signing want and poverty thy share :
For now Content, fond Fortune to despite,
With patience 'lows thee quiet and delight.
VERSES.
ASPIRING thoughts led Phaethon amiss ;
Proud Icarus did fall, he soar'd so high ;
Seek not to climb with fond Semiramis,
Lest son revenge the father's injury :
Take heed, ambition is a sugar'd ill,
That Fortune lays, presumptuous minds to spill.
The bitter grief that frets the quiet mind,
The sting that pricks the froward man to woe,
Is envy, which in honour seld we find,
And yet to honour sworn a secret foe :
Learn this of me, envy not others' state ;
The fruits of envy are env/ and hate.
318
FROM ALCIDA.
The misty cloud that so eclipseth fame,
That gets reward a chaos of despite,
Is black revenge, which ever winneth shame,
A fury vile * that's hatched iu the night :
Beware, seek not revenge against thy foe,
Lest once revenge thy fortune overgo.
These blazing comets do foi'eshow mishap ;
Let not the flaming lights offend thine eye : +
Look ere thou leap, prevent an after-clap ;
These three, forewarned, well may est thou fly : 3
If now by choice thou aim'st at happy health,
Eschew self-love, choose for the common-wealth
FROM
ARBASTO.
(Ed. 1626. J
SONG.
Whereat erewhile I wept, I laugh ;
That which I fear'd, I now despise ;
My victor once, my vassal is ;
My foe constrain'd, my weal supplies :
Thus do I triumph on my foe ;
I weep at weal, I laugh at woe.
My care is cur'd, yet hath no end ;
Not that I want, but that I have ;
My charge was change, yet still I stay ;
I would have less, and yet I crave :
Ay me, poor wretch, that thus do live,
Constrain'd to take, yet fore'd to give !
She whose delights are signs of death,
Who, when she smiles, begins to lour,
Constant in this, that still she change,
Her sweetest gifts time proves but sour :
I live in care, cross'd with her guile ;
Through her I weep, at her I smile.
SONG.
In time we see the silver drops
The craggy stones make soft ;
The slowest snail in time we see
Doth creep and climb aloft.
With feeble puffs the tallest pine
In tract of time doth fall ;
The hardest heart in time doth yield
To Veuus' luring call.
* vile] The 4to. " vilde": but see note +, p. 167, sec. coL
\ tye\ The 4 to. "eyes."
♦ Theee. three, forewarned, well mayesl thou fly] In this lino
Walker ( Shakespeare's Versification, Sic., p. 34) "suspects
that something s lost."
Where chilling frost alate did nip,
There flasheth now a fire ;
Where deep disdain bred noisome hate,
There kindleth now desire.
Time causeth hope to have his hap :
What care in time not eas'd ?
In time I loath'd that now I love,
In both content and pleas'd.
FROM
ALCIDA.
(Ed. 1617.)
VERSES WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE
OF VENUS
HOLDING THE BALL THAT BROUGHT TROY TO
RUIN.
When Nature forg'd the fair unhappy mould,
Wherein proud beauty took her matchless shape,
She over-slipp'd her cunning and her skill,
And aim'd too fair, but drew beyond the mark;
For, thinking to have made a heavenly bliss,
For wanton gods to dally with in heaven,
And to have fram'd a precious gem for men,
To solace all their dumpish thoughts with glee,
She wrought a plague, a poison, and a hell :
For gods, for men, thus no way wrought she well.
Venus was fair, fair was the Queen of Love,
Fairer than Pallas, or the wife of Jove ;
Yet did the giglot's * beauty grieve the smith,
For that she brav'd the creeple + with a horn.
Mars said, her beauty was the star of heaven,
Yet did her beauty stain him with disgrace.
Paris for fair t gave her the golden ball,
And bought his and his father's ruin so.
Thus Nature making what should far excell,
Lent gods and men a poison and a hell.
VERSES
WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE OF A PEACOCK.
The bird of Juno glories in his plumes ;
Pride makes the fowl to prune his feathers so :
His spotted train, fetch'd from old Argus' head,
With golden rays like to the brightest sun,
Inserteth self-love in a silly bird,
Till, midst his hot and glorious § fumes,
He spies his feet, and then lets fall his plumes.
* giglot's] See note t, P- 306, sec. col.
t creepk] A form of cripple, sometimes used by old
writers.
} fair] i. e. beauty.
§ anil, glorious] The 4to. " an glorious. " — Qy. "and his
vnm-glorioue " 1
FROM ALCIDA.
319
Beauty breeds pride, pride hatcheth forth disdain.
Disdain gets bate, and hate calls for revenge,
Revenge with bitter prayers urgeth still ;
Thus self-love, nursing up the pomp of pride,
Makes beauty wreck against an ebbing tide.
VERSES
WRTTTEN UNDER A CARVING OF MERCURY
THROWING FEATHERS UNTO THE WIND.
The richest gift the wealthy heaven affords,
The pearl of price sent from immortal Jove,
The shape wherein we most resemble gods,
The fire Prometheus stole from lofty skies;
This gift, this pearl, this shape, this fire is it,
Which makes us men bold by the name of wit.
By wit we search divine aspect above,
By wit we learn what secrets science yields,
By wit we speak, by wit the mind is rul'd,
By wit we govern all our actions;
Wit is the load star of each human thought,
Wit is the tool by which all things are wrought.
The brightest jacinth hot becouieth dark ;
Of little 'steem is crystal being crack'd ;
Fine heads that can conceit no good but ill,
Forge oft that breedeth ruin to themselves ;
Ripe wits abus'd that build on bad desire,
Do burn themselves, like flies within the fire.
VERSES
WRITTEN UNDER A CARVING OF CUPID BLOWING
BLADDERS IN THE AIR.
Love is a lock that linketh noble minds,
Faith is the key that shuts the spring of love,
Lightness a wrest that wringeth all awry,
Lightness a plague that fancy cannot brook ;
Lightness in love so bad and base a thing,
As foul disgrace to greatest states do[th] bring.
VERSES WRITTEN ON TWO TABLES AT
A TOMB.
ON THE FIRST TABLE.
The Graces in their glory never gave
A rich or greater good to womankind,
That more impales their honours with the palm
Of high renown, than matchless constancy.
Beauty is vain, accounted but a flower,
Whose painted hue fades with the summer sun;
Wit oft hath wreck by self-conceit of pride ;
Riches are trash that fortune boasteth on.
Constant in love who tries a woman's mind,
Wealth, beauty, wit, and all in her doth find.
ON THE SECOND TABLE.
The fairest gem, oft blemish'd with a crack,
Loseth his beauty and his virtue too ;
The fairest flower, nipt with the winter's frost,
In show seems worser than the basest weed;
Virtues are oft far over-stain'd with faults.
Were she as fair as Phoebe in her sphere,
Or brighter than the paramour of Mars,
Wiser than Pallas, daughter unto Jove,
Of greater majesty than Juno was,
More chaste than Vesta, goddess of the maids,
Of greater faith than fair Lucretia ;
Be she a blab, and tattles what she hears,
Want to be secret gives far greater stains
Than virtue's glory which in her remains.
MADRIGAL*
Rest thee, desire, gaze not at such a star;
Sweet fancy, sleep ; love, take a nap awhile ;
My busy thoughts that reach and roam so far,
With pleasant dreams the length of time be-
guile ;
Fair Venus, cool my over-heated breast,
And let my fancy take her wonted rest.
Cupid abroad was lated in the night,
His wings were wet with ranging in the rain;
Harbour he sought, to me he took his flight,
To dry his plumes : I heard the boy complain ;
My door I op'd, to grant him his desire,
And rose myself to make the wag a fire.
Looking more narrow by the fire's flame,
I spied his quiver hanging at his back :
I fear'd the child might my misfortune frame,
I would have gone for fear of further wrack;
And what I drad (poor man) did me betide,
For forth he drew an arrow from his side.
He pierc'd the quick, that I began to start ;
The wound was sweet, but that it was too high,
And yet the pleasure had a pleasing smart :
This done, he flies away, his wings were dry ;
But left his arrow still within my breast,
That now I grieve I welcom'd such a guest.
* The three last stanzas of this madrigal are in the
Orpharion with some variations: see p. 317, first col.
320
FRAGMENTS.
FROM
GREENE'S VISION.*
DESCRIPTION OF CHAUCER.
Hia stature was not very tall ;
Lean he was ; his legs were small,
Hos'd within a stock+ of red ;
A button'd bonnet on his head,
From under which did hang, I ween,
Silver hairs both bright and sheen ;
His beard was white, trimmed round ;
His countenance blithe and merry found ;
A sleeveless jacket, large and wide,
With many plaits and skirts side,+
Of water-camlet did he wear ;
A whittle § by his belt he bear;
His shoes were corned ||, broad before ;
His ink-horn at his side he wore,
And in his hand he bore a book : —
Thus did this ancient poet look.
DESCRIPTION OF GOWER.
Large he was ; his height was long ;
Broad of breast; his limbs were strong;
But colour pale, and wan his look, —
Such have they that plyen their book ;
His head was grey and quaintly shorn ;
Neatly was his beard worn ;
His visage grave, stern, and grim, —
Cato was most like to him ;
His bonnet was a hat of blue;
His sleeves strait, of that same hue;
A surcoat of a tawny dye
Hung in plaits over his thigh;
A breechU close unto his dock,
Handsom'd with a long stock ;
* See List of Greene's prose-works, p. 80 of the present
vol.
t stock] i. e. stocking.
} side] i. e. long.
5 vhittle] i. e. knife.
II cornid] i. e. pointed.
H A breech} i. e. ilroeehos.
Prick'd before were his shoon,* —
He wore such as others doon ; +
A bag of red by his side,
And by that his napkin tied : —
Thus John Gower did appear,
Quaint attired, as you hear.
PASSAGES QUOTED FROM GREENE IN
ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS.
(1600.)
He that will stop the brook, must then begin
When summer's heat hath dried up the spring,
And when his pittering streams are low and thin;
For let the winter aid unto them bring,
He grows to be of watery floods the king ;
And though you dam him up with lofty ranks,
Yet will he quickly over-flow his banks.
p. 55, sub " Delay."
It was the month in which the righteous maid,
That, for disdain of sinful world's upbraid,
Fled back to heaven, where she was first conceiv'd,
Into her silver bower the sun receiv'd ;
And the hot Sirian Dog, on him awaiting,
After the chafed Liou's cruel baiting,
Corrupted had the air with noisome breath,
And pour'd on earth plague, pestilence, and
death. + p. 369, sub "August."
* Prick'd .... shoon'] i. e. Pointed .... shoes.
t doon] i. e. done, — do.
t death] Old ed. "dearth."-The later part of this
fragment resembles one of Pope's flourishes upon Homer ;
" Not half so dreadful rises to the sight,
Thro' the thick gloom of some tempestuous night,
Orion's dog (the year when Autumn weighs),
And o'er the feebler stars exerts his rays ;
Terrific glory ! for his burning breath
Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death."
Compare the simplicity of the original ;
l](tu?a.t>ov!}', &rr cicrif', luiacu^ivov Tt&toio,
Of pa t' iriftK tTirif x. r, A. — II. xxii. 26.
THE
WORKS OE GEORGE PEELE.
r~
SOME ACCOUNT
OF
GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
George Peele, a gentleman by birth,* was, it is said, a native of Devonshire.t
" Malone conjectures that he was born in 1557 or 1558 ;J but, since in the first
extant Matriculation-book § of the University of Oxford, about the year 1564, Peele
is mentioned as a member of Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), and since it
is unlikely that he was entered before the age of 12 or 13, we may reasonably carry
back the date of his birth to 1552 or 1553. According to Wood he was elected
'student of Christ-church 1573, or thereabouts.'|| He took his degree of Bachelor
of Arts on the 12th of June, 1577, determined during the following Lent, and was
made Master of Arts on the 6th of July, 1579. "IT So I wrote in 1828, — long-
before the late Dr. Bliss had communicated to me the following extract from a
* "Generosus" : see, post, the extract from the " Depositions" in the University Court ; which at
once overthrows Mr. Collier's hypothesis that he was the son of a bookseller. "Peele," says Mr. Collier,
"was, we have every reason to believe, the son of Stephen Peele a ballad- writing bookseller, two of
whose productions are printed in the earliest publication of the Percy Society. The Rev. Mr, Dyce was
not aware of Peele 's parentage." Note on Henslowe's Diary, p. 39, ed. Shake. Soc.
+ "George Peele was, if I mistake not, a Devonian born." Wood's Ath. Ox. vol. i. col. 688, ed.
Bliss. Some of Peele's biographers, who wrote after Wood, positively state that he was born in Devon
shire, but they produce no authority to confirm the assertion. In the Jest "How George Peele was
shaven," &c. (see Peele's Jests at the end of the present vol.) we are told, that "the gentleman" who
patronised him "dwelt in the west country." — The document quoted in the preceding note designates
him as " civitatis Londonensis", — "of the city of London ", — which certainly does not necessarily imply
that he was born in London.
t MS. note in his copy of Wood's Athence.
§ Peg. Matric. p. 490.
|| Ath. Ox. vol. i. col. 688, ed. Bliss.
U Reg. Congreg. K. K. 234, b ; 252, 276, b. For these exact references to the University Registers,
as well as for other valuable communications, I am indebted to the kindness of the Rev. Dr. Bliss.
y 2
324 ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
volume of MS. Depositions* in the University Court, Oxford : which, unless I
misunderstand it, proves that Peele, being twenty-five years old when he gave
evidence in March 1583, must have been born in 1558 ; and, moreover, that the
date assigned above to the first extant Matriculation-book of the University of
Oxford is incorrect : —
" Testis inductus ex parte Johannis Yate super positionibus [possessionibus 1] ex
heris [et hsereditamentis ?] juratus, in perpetuam rei memoriam, examinatus xxix°
Martii 1583 —
" Georgius Peele, civitatis London ensis, generosus, ubi moram traxit fere per duos
annos, et antea in Universitate Oxoniee per novem annos, etatis xxv annorum,
testis, &c.
" Ad primum dicit esse verum, for so the executor Hugh Christian hath con-
fessed to this deponent.
" Ad secundum dicit that he thinketh it to be trewe, for Home hath tolde this
deponent so.
" Ad tertium dicit esse verum, for that the land descended to this deponent in
the right of his wife, and that the said Home hath sayed to this deponent that he
might make his choise whether he wold lay the band vppon the executor or the
heyre of the land, being this deponent's wife, et aliter non habet deponere, ut
dicit."
We are informed by Wood that Peele " was esteemed a most noted poet in the
University "t ; and it is most probable that the Tale of Troy, which he published
in 1589, and which he calls "an old poem of mine own," was written during
his academic course. To the same period of his life we may assign his English
version of one of the two Iphigenias of Euripides, — a lost work, and known to me
only from the following verses by Dr. Gager, which are now for the first time
printed^ : —
"In Iphigeniam Georgii Peeli Anglicanis versibus redditam.
** Aut ego te nimio forsan complector amore,
Aut tua sunt aptis cavmina scripta modis.
Nomen amicitise non rue pudet usque fateri ;
Nee si forte velim, dissimulare queo.
* Dr. Bliss remarks : " These Depositions of the various witnesses in various causes are reduced into
writing by the Registrar of the Court, entered in a book by him, and then signed by the witness ; but
the evidence in the causes is not continuous, that is, the examinations are entered day by day as they
take place," &c.
•f- He "took the degrees in arts, that of master being compleated 1579. At which time, as he was
esteemed a most noted poet in the University, so afterwards," &c. Ath. Ox. vol. i. col. 689, ed. Bliss.
To Wood's account Dr. Bliss adds, "He is characterised as 'poeta' in the transcript of degrees made
for Edward Rowe Mores, now among Gough's MSS. in the Bodleian."
+ They form a portion of a volume of MS. poetry by Dr. Gager (in his own hand-writing) which was
lent to me by the late Mr. Rodd the bookseller. — Gager was elected student of Christ-Church in 1574
(see Wood's Ath. Ox. vol. ii. col. 87, ed. Bliss). His Latin plays were much admired : two of them are
mentioned post, p.p. 326-7.
;.
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS. 325
Oxonise fateor subitum mirabar acumen,
Et tua cum lepidis seria mista jocis.
Hsec me suasit amor, sed non ego credulus illi ;
Nee tibi plus dabitur quam meruisse putem :
Et forsan jussit, sed non quia scribere jussit,
In laudes ibit nostra Thalia tuas ;
Sed quia, si similes dignemur laude labores,
Quicquid id est, nierito vindicet iste liber.
Ergo si quicquam, quod parvuni est, carmine possim,
Si quid j udicio detur, amice, meo,
Cumque tui nimio non sim deceptus amore,
Htec tua sunt aptis carmina scripta modis.
Viveret Euripides, tibi se debere putaret,
Ipsa tibi grates Iphigenia daret.
Perge, precor, priscos tibi devincire poetas ;
Si priscis, facile gratilicere novis."
" In eandem.
" Carmina dum sero meditabar vespere mecum
Scribere de libro qualiacunque tuo,
Hie me nescio quis cubito deprendere coepit,
Aut cubito saltern prendere visus erat.
Hoc scio, quisquis erat, mire fuit is pede curtus,
Ore niger, luscus lumine, crine ruber.
Et quid agis ? dixit ; nescis, temerarie, nescis
Quam facile in calamum fabula stulta venit :
Grseca legunt docti, saltern Romana ; sed istis
Quern moveant tandem carmina scripta modis ?
Ille sub his fugit : conantem scribere contra
Talia sunt dextram verba sequuta meam.
Fabula sit certe ; sed non quia fabula, stulta est ;
Nee facile in calamum fabula docta venit :
Fabula Nasonem fecit Senecamque legendos ;
Totus in his Sophocles, totus Homerus erat.
Scilicet et segetes tellus et lilia profert,
Robora dat celsum, dat quoque fraga, nemus :
Utile jueundo commistum fabula praebet,
Qure placeat puero detineatque senem.
Quin etiam quoties digitos mordere coegit,
Et caput et pluteum credere, ficta licet J
Crede mihi nullo quae facta labore videntur,
Magni, si tentes, ilia laboris erunt :
Nostra quidem fateor ; sed inest quoque gratia nostris,
Et satis ingenuis perplacuere viris.
Grreca quidem doctis, etiam Romana, legantur ;
Sed tamen innumeros utraque lingua latet.
lis [Is ?] ha?c scribuntur : quanquam bene reddita nostris,
Et doctis placeant ilia vel ilia modis.
Aureus est Goulding * et pura purior unda,
Et multi quos haud commemorare libet ;
Quos nee summa dies nee rugis cana vetustas
Tollere nee livor carpere possit edax.
i. e. Arthur Golding, whose translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis is here alluded to.
326 ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
Hos tu perge sequi wtudiis, mi Peele ; sequendo
Propedieni nulli laude secundus eris :
Sin respondebunt tua primis ultima coeptis,
Non modo par primis, sed bene primus eris.
Ergo perge, precor : cum tollat csetera fatum,
Effugiunt * mcestos carmina sola rogos."
From the "Deposition" of Peele at Oxford, March 29th, 1583 (see ante, p. 324),
we learn that just before that date he had been residing about two years in London ;
and that he was possessed of some " land which had descended to him in the right
of his wife." We can hardly doubt that during those two years he had occasionally
employed his pen for the metropolitan theatres, and it is not improbable that he
had also occasionally exercised his histrionic talents, t Of his wife nothing more
is known.
In June, 1583, Albertus Alasco, a Polish Prince Palatine, spent several days at
Oxford, having been recommended by the Queen to the attentions of the University ;
and in an old Account-book, which contains the charges for his entertainment there,
the following items are found : —
" To Mr. Peele for provision for the playes at Christchurche, xviijV
" The Charges of a Comedie and a Tragedie and a shewe of the worke, as
appeareth by the particular bills of Mr. Vice-chancelor, Mr. Howson, Mr. Maxie, aixl
Mr. Peele, 8 6 U 18 s 2 d ." %
Peele perhaps may have acted in the two Latin plays exhibited on this occasion :
but it is more likely that he only assisted in getting them up. Of Alasco's visit to
Oxford we have a minute description in Holinshed, part of it running thus. " All
vp the high street vnto saint Maries chmch, on either side the waie, were decentlie
marshalled scholers in their gownes and caps, batchelors and maisters in their habits
and hoods. At saint Maries the orator of the vniuersitie (notable in his facultie) pre-
sented him a booke, in which were closelie couched verie rich and gorgeous gloues.
From thense he marched to Christs church, where he was, whilest he abode in the
vniuersitie, most honourablie interteined. And the first night being vacant, as in
which he sought rather rest in his lodging than recreation in anie academicall
pastimes, strange fire workes were shewed, in the great quadrangle, besides rockets and
a number such maner of deuises. On the second daie his first dinner was made him
at Alsoules college, where (besides dutiful] receiuing of him) he was solemnelie satis-
fied with scholerlie exercises and courtlie fare. This night and the night insuing, after
sumptuous suppers in his lodging, he personaly was present with his traine in the
hall; first at the plaieing of a pleasant comedie intituled Riuales§; then at the
* Effugiunt, &c] From Ovid, Am. iii. ix. 28 ;
" Diffugiunt avidos carmina sola rogos."
t Whirh wc are sure he did at some period of his life : see post, p. 330.
X These extracts from the Account-book were obligingly sent me by Dr. Bliss.
§ J3j Dr. Gager, whose eulogies on Peele have been before cited.
Betting out of a verie statelio tragedie named Dido*, wherein the queenea banket
(with Eneas narration of the destruction of Troie) was liuelie described in a march -
paine patterne ; there was also a goodlie sight of hunters with full crie of a kennell of
hounds, Mercurie and Iris descending and ascending from and to an high place, the
tempest wherein it hailed small confects, rained rosewater, and snew an artificial)
kind of snow, all strange, maruellous, and abundant. Most of the actors were of
the same house [Christ-Church], six or seauen of them were of saint Johns, and
three or foure of other colleges and hals,t"&c.
We hear no more of Peele at Oxford. The remainder of his life appears to
have been passed chiefly in London,J where he figured as one of the " authors
by profession " who formed so numerous a body during the Elizabethan reign.
— Among the town-wits of those days habits of debauchery were but too prevalent.
Not a few of them hung loose upon society, now struggling with poverty and
" driven to extreme shifts," and now, when successful plays or poems had put money
in their purses, revelling in the pleasures of taverns and ordinaries ; § some of
them terminating a career of folly by miserable and untimely death. Peele, there is
every reason to believe, mingled as eagerly as any of his contemporaries in the
dissipations of London.
He seems to have lived on terms of intimacy and friendship with the following
persons, of whom, though they were all admired and celebrated in their day, the
first-mentioned has alone acquired enduring fame : Christopher Marlowe ; Robert
Greene||, a dramatist of considerable powers, and a miscellaneous writer of inex-
* Also by Dr. Gager. Large portions of it, which I recovered from the author's own MS., are
printed in Appendix III. to my edition of Marlowe's Works, ed. 1858.
+ Chronicles, &c, vol. iv. p. 508, ed. 1808.
X "From Oxford," says Berkenhout (Biog. Lit. p. 404), "he [Peelej went to London, where he
became intimately acquainted with the two principal dramatic poets of that age, Shakespeare and Ben
Jonson, as appears from his letter to his friend Marie [Marlowe]." Berkenhout, who "had no doubt
of the authenticity" of this letter, was not aware that the date assigned to it was 1600, that Marlowe
died in 1593, and that Peele was dead in or before 1598 : it is as follows. " Friend Marie, I must
desyre that my syster hyr watche and the cookerie book you promysed, may be sente bye the man. I
never longed for thy company more than last night : we were all very merrye at the Globe, when Ned
Alleyn did not scruple to affyrme pleasauntely to thy friende Will that he had stolen his speeche about
the qualityes of an actor's excelleucye, in Hamlet his Trajedye, from conversations manyfold whych had
passed betweene them, and opinyons given by Alleyn touchinge the subjecte. Shakespeare did not take
this talke in good sorte ; but Jonson put an end to the strife with wittylye remarkinge, ' This affaire
needeth no contentione ; you stole it from Ned, no doubte ; do not marvel : have you not seen him act
tymes out of number !' Believe me most syncerilie your's G. Peel."
§ But let us not forget the remark of Gifford : " Domestic entertainments were, at that time, rare :
the accommodations of a private house were ill calculated for the purposes of a social meeting, and
taverns and ordinaries are therefore almost the only places in which we hear of such assemblies. This
undoubtedly gives an appearance of licentiousness to the age, which, in strictness, does not belong to it."
Memoirs of Ben Jonson, p. cxc.
|| I may mention that, when I wrote the above notice of Greene (in 182S), my edition of his
Dramatic Works and Poems had not yet made its appearance.
328 ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
haustible resources ; Thomas Nash,* the author of some plays, but most remarkable
for his satirical and controversial pieces in prose, on which Draytont bestows a
deserved encomium when he says, —
' ' I surely think
Those words shall hardly be set down with ink,
Shall scorch and blast, so as his could where he
Would inflict vengeance ; "
Thomas Lodge, a play-wright, a satirist, a sweet pastoral and amatory poet, and a
novellist ; and Thomas Watson, who was laude.d for his sonnets as the English
Petrarch, and was no contemptible composer of Latin verse. — In one of Dekker's
tracts, A Knight's Conjuring, Done in earnest, Discovered in iest, 1607, Peele, Greene,
and Marlowe are introduced together in the Elysian fields. " Beyond all these places
is there a groue which stands by it selfe like an iland ; for a streame (that makes
musicke in the running) clasps it round about like a hoope-girdle of christall :
lawrells grew [grow] so thicke on all the bankes of it, that lightning itselfe, if it came
[come] thither, hath no power to pierce through them. It seemes, without, a desolate
and vnfrequented wood, for those within are retyrde into themselues ; but from them
came [come] forth such harmonious sounds that birdes build nests onely in the trees
there to teach tunes to their young ones prettily. This is called The Groue of Bay-
trees, and to this consort-rome resort none but the children of Phoebus, poets and
musitions : the one creates the ditty, and giues it the life or number, the other lends
it voyce, and makes it speake musicke. When these happy spirits sit asunder, their
bodies are like so many starres ; and when they ioyne togither in seuerall troopes,
they shew like so many heauenly constellations. Full of pleasant bowers and queint
arboures is all this walke whil'st Marlow, Greene, and Peele had got vnder
the shades of a large vyne, laughing to see Nash (that was but newly come to their
colledge) still haunted with the sharpe and satyricall spirit that followed him heere
vpon earth ; for Nash inueyed bitterly (as he had wont to do) against dry-fisted
patrons, accusing them of his vntimely death, because if they had giuen his Muse
that cherishment which shee most worthily deserued, hee had fed to his dying day on
fat capons, burnt sack and suger, and not so desperately haue ventur'de his life and
shortend his dayes by keeping company with pickle-herrings. J The rest ask't him
what newes in the world ; hee told them that barbarisme was nowe growne to bee
an epidemiall disease and more common then the tooth-ache : being demaunded how
poets and players agreed now, ' Troth,' sayes hee, ' as phisitions and patients agree,
for the patient loues his doctor no longer then till hee get his health, and the player
* For much concerning Nash see the Account of Greene and his Writings in the present volume.
+ Epistle to Henry Reynolds, of Poets and Poesy.
X An allusion to the banquet of "pickled herrings," which caused the death of poor Greene, and
kt which Nash was present.
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WHITINGS. 329
loues a poet so long as the sicknesse lyes in the two-penie gallery when none will
come into it ; nay,' sayes he, ' into so lowe a miserie, if not contempt, is the sacred
arte of poesie falne, that tho a wryter, who is worthy to sit at the table of the Sunue,
wast his braines to earne applause from the more worthie spirits, yet when he has
done his best, hee workes but like Ocnus, that makes ropes in hell; for as hee twists,
an asse stands by and bites them in sunder, and that asse is no other than the
audience with hard hands.' " *
The tract entitled Merrk conceited Iests t of George Peele % professes to give an
account of " the course of his life, how he lived, a man very well known in the city
of London and elsewhere." It represents him as a low and vulgar sharper, who
scrupled not to raise money by the most fraudulent methods and ridiculous
rogueries ; it tells us that he resided at the Bankside, over against Blackfriars, that
he had a wife, and that his daughter of ten yeai*s old sometimes assisted him in
his knavish tricks ; and, though it says nothing of his personal appearance, it
affords the unimportant information that his voice " was more woman than man."
This tract (which I have annexed to the present volume) I regard as a work of
fiction, containing a slight intermixture of truth : I apprehend that but few of the
adventures § it relates have any foundation on incidents in the life of Peele, and that
* Sigs. K 4 and L.
+ By Jests we are to understand amusing doings as well as sayings.
+ This pamphlet (a thin 4to.) probably appeared soon after Peele's death, though the earliest known
edition of it bears the date 1607 ; it was printed again in 1626, 1627, 1657, and 1671 ; and there is
an edition without a date, published by " Henry Bell" of which a reprint was given in 1809. Anthony
Wood notices "his [Peele's] book of jests or clinches, which at length was sold on the stalls of ballad-
mongers." Ath. Oxon. vol. i. col. 688, ed. Bliss. I find it thus mentioned, among the most famous
productions of the kind, in the lines prefixed to the fourth edition of A Banquet of Jests, 1634 ;
"Pasquel's conceits are poore, and Scoggins' drie,
Skelton's meere rime, once read, but now laid by,
Peele's Jests are old, and Tarleton's are growne stale."
In a short pamphlet called The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbon, 1622, (reprinted in the
Pfuenix Britannicus, 1732,) we are told, "then after supper it is usual for him [the confessor] to read
a little of Venus and Adonis, the Jests of George Peele, or some such scurrilous book." Shakespeare's
poem and Peele's Jests coupled together !
Pinkerton seems strangely to have mistaken some other work for Peele's Jests ; vide his Scottish
Poems, vol. i. p. 14, ed. 1792.
Since the preceding part of this note was written, I have been informed by Mr. David Laing that the
Mery TailU which are printed on the margin of the edition of the Priests of Peblis, 1603, and which
Pinkerton thought taken from Peele's Jests, are selected from A C [100] Mery Talys, printed at Loudon
by John Rastell without date, but probably not later than 1530. — A G Mery Talys were reprinted in
1815, making a portion of the work entitled Shakespeare's Jest Book.
§ The story headed " The Jest of George and the Barber" was probably founded on fact, as we
meet with it dramatized in a comedy called The Puritaine, or the Widdow of Watling-streete, written
by W. S. 1607, the hero of which is named George Pyeboard, — i. e. George Peele, peel signifying a
board with a long handle, with which bakers put things in and out of the oven. It has been stated by
more than one writer that "several" of Peele's Jests are incorporated in The Puritaine; but, except
in the instance just mentioned, the resemblances between the tract and the comedy are comparatively
slight.
The Puritaine (reprinted in the folio Shakespeare, 1664,) was most probably written by Wentworth
330 ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
his notorious name was given to its hero solely with the view of ensuring its popu-
larity. Nor ought we to be surprised that such a liberty was taken with the name
of a dissipated dramatist, when we remember that one of Scotland's most
illustrious sons — a man of rare erudition and of true poetic genius — has been
metamorphosed into "the King's Fool" in a chap-book entitled The Jests of
George Buchanan, which still finds many readers among the peasantry of the north,
who receive it, with all its absurdities, as an authentic record.*
The professions of dramatist and player were sometimes united in the same
person ; and from the following letter (among Henslowe's papers at Dulwich College)
it has been justly concluded that Peele had tried his talents as an actor with success.
" What the wager alluded to was," says Malone, " it is now impossible to ascertain.
It probably was, that Allejm would equal his predecessors Knell and Bentley in
some part which they had performed, and in which his contemporary George Peele
had likewise been admired." t
" Your answer the other nighte so well pleased the gentlemen, as I was satisfied
therewith, though to the hazarde of the wager : and yet my meaninge was not to
prejudice Peele' s credit, neither wolde it, though it pleased you so to excuse it. But
beinge now gi'owen farther % in question, the partie affected to Bentley scomynge
to wynne the wager by your deniall, hath now given yow libei*tie to make choice
of any one playe that either Bentley or Knell plaide ; and least this advantage
agree not with your minde, he is contented both the plaie and the tyme shalbe
referred to the gentlemen here present. I see not how yow canne any waie hurte
your credit by this action : for if yow excell them, yow will then be famous : if
equall them, yow wynne both the wager and credit ; yf short of them, we must and
will saie, Ned Allen still.
" Your frend to his power,
"W. P.
Smith, an industrious playwright, who composed most of his pieces in conjunction with Heywood,
Dekker, Drayton, Chettle, Munday, Webster, Haughton, Hathway, and Day.
* Three editions of George Buchanan's Jests are now before me. 1. The Merry and diverting
Exploits of George Buchanan, commonly called the King's Fool. Edinburgh, Printed for the Book-
sellers in town and country, by R. Menzies, Lawn-market, price three pence, n. d. 2. The Merry
and Entertaining Jokes of George Buchanan ; who was servant or teacher to King James VJth, as his
private counseller, but publicly acted his fool. The ichole compiled in three numbers, for the enter-
tainment of youth. Newcastle: printed by G. Angus, in the Side, n. d. 3. The Witty and, Enter-
taining Exploits of George Buchanan, who was commonly called the King's Fool. In six Parts
complete. To which is added, Several Witty and Entertaining Jests. Stirling ; printed and sold by
M. Randall, 1814. Several of The Jests of George Buchanan probably originated in the sayings and
doings of Archee Armstrong, who appears to have been confounded with the learned preceptor of James
the Sixth : some of them have been told of various other persons in various jest-books ; most of them
are very extravagant, and not very delicate.
+ Shakespeare (by Bi well), vol. iii. p. 335.
X The word " farther" is omitted by Mr. Collier (Memoirs of Alleyn, p. 12), — whether rightly or by
mistake I know not.
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS. 331
" Deny mee not, sweete Nedd ; the wager's downe,
And twice as muche commaunde of me or myne ;
And if you wynne, I sweare the half is thyne,
And for an overplus an English crowne ;
Appoint the tyme, and stint it as you pleas,
Your labor's gaine, and that will prove it ease."
On the preceding paper Mr. Collier observes that it "has no date, but we may place
it in 1590 or 1591 at the latest All this is written in a beautiful hand,
and ' Ned Allen ' in the letter, and ' sweete Nedd ' and ' English crowne ' in the verses,
are in characters of gold. It is clear that Alleyn at this time had not attained the
loftiest point of his celebrity, inasmuch as he is told, that if he excels Bentley and
Knell, he ' will then be famous.' " *
" The Jest of George Peele at Bristoio " informs us how he there announced the
repi'esentation of a play which he never meant to exhibit, and how, an audience being
assembled, he spoke a short prologue, threw some fireworks among them, and rode off
to London with the receipts of the house. But even if we allow the said jest to be
true, I conceive we are not to gather from it that the citizens of Bristol expected
Peele to act a part in the promised play ; they regarded him merely as " a scholar
and a gentleman," who was to get up and superintend the performance. — There can
be no doubt, however, that Peele occasionally trod the boards. "It is not
impossible," says the Editor of Dodsley"s Old Plays,i "that he was the -'humorous
George ' addressed by the Juggler in the Prologue to Wily Beguiled, and that he
performed one of the characters in it, as well as delivering the Prologue." J
* Memoirs of A lleyn, ubi supra.
+ Vol. xi. p. 3, last ed.
X The following "Jest,'" written about the reign of Charles the First, was printed by Mr. Collier,
from a MS. belonging to himself, in Extracts from the Registers of the Stationers' Company, &c,
vol. ii. p. 216. The tale is originally found in a small prose-work entitled A Sackful of Newcs : but
we owe to our versifier the introduction of George Peele and John Singer (a celebrated actor under
Henslowe).
" A Jest of Peele and Singer.
" G. Peele and Singer travelling together
Neare Cambridge towne, where they oft times had playde ;
It was in summer, and full hot the weather ;
Sitting beneath a spreading beeches shade,
They saw a drove of pigs all coming thither,
A clownish hoggerd driving. ' Now,' Peele saide,
' He showe you sporte ; do you my ccuncell keepe,
And He perswade the clowne his pigges are sheepe.
" ' Go you on forward or he sees you here,
And meete him comming, and unto him say,
Holla, my friend ! are thy sheepe very deare ?
I would buy some ; soe stoppe them on the waye.'
Singer agreed, and made a circuit cleare
Over the fieldes, and that without delaye,
That he might meet the hoggerd on his roade,
Some halfe mile on, whilst G. Peele there abode.
332
ACCOUNT OP GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WPJTINGS.
The earliest production of Peele yet discovered is a copy of commendatory verses
prefixed to Watson's 'EKATOMnAeiA, or Passionate Centurie of Loue, a collection of
" Soone as the pigs came neare him and the man,
G. Peele stept forward and survey' d the drove,
As he would buy some, and bespake him than :
' Those truly are fine sheepe, I sweare by Jove,
I nere saw finer since my time began :
Wilt thou sell one ? for mutton much I love.'
And true it was stewde mutton he lov'd well
As anie man twixt this and Clerkenwell.
" The hoggerd, hearing thus his pigs calde sheepe,
Did laugh outright whilst Q. continued on ;
' Tell me, my friend, what shall I give to keepe
One of thy sheepe ? Say, and the bargaines done.' —
' What ! ' cried the clowne, ' art thou not half asleepe,
To take my pigs for sheepe ? sheepe are they none,
But pigs ; and harke how they squeake, grunt, and snore :
Ich never heard a sheepe bleate soe before.' —
" ' Man, thou art mad,' quoth Peele, 'and I will wager
These angels gainst a sheepe that sheepe they are.' —
'Done,' said the peasant to the humorous stager :
'Take which you will, for hang me if I care.' —
'Toule wish ere long,' said G., 'you had been sager,
Ime very sure : but prithee now declare
Who shall be judge betweene us : shall we saye
The first man that we meete upon the way ? ' —
" 'With all my hart,' the hoggerd answered.
Singer, be sure, was not far off by now :
They saw him coming on the road. Then said
The hoggerd, ' Here's a stranger, as I vowe :
It may be Adam, or He loose my head.' —
' His verdict in the matter He alowe,'
Geo. Peele replied : ' to me to[o] he's a stranger.
Thy sheepe, good friend, is mine and in my danger.'—
" ' When pigges are sheepe it is, but not till then,'
The clowne replied. And so they drove along
To meete with Singer, who, some nine or ten
Yardes distant, stood and gazde upon the throng
Of hogges, all grunting as when in a pen.
' How sell you, you, your sheepe ? for them among
I see some fine ones that I faine would buy :
How do you sell your sheepe ? He buy one, I.' —
" ' There !' exclaimed G., 'does he not call them sheepe ?
And sheepe they are, albeit pigs you call them.
I have won my wager : one is mine to keepe,
And you were lucky not to jeoperd all them.'
The hoggerd starde, and cride, ' If so you clepe
Pigs sheepe, you have no eies, but faire befall them !
If you have eies, then I ray wittes have lost.' —
' And that you have,' said George, ' unto your cost.'
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS. 333
sonnets, which Steevens with unexampled want of taste preferred to those of
Shakespeare. The 'E/caT^waS/a, printed without a date, was published in 1582.* —
Peele was a sincere admirer of Watson ; for in the Prologus to The Honour of the
Garter, 1593, he mentions him, then deceased, as
" worthy many epitaphs
For his sweet poesy."
In 1584 was printed, without the author's name, The Araygnement of Paris,
a Pastorall, 'presented before the Queenes Maiestie by the Cldldren of her Chappell :
that it was written by Peele we learn from the following passage in Nash's Address
"To the Gentlemen Students of both Universities", prefixed to Greene's Arcadia,
or Menaphon, 1587; " And for the last [Peele], though not the least of them all,
I dare commend him vnto all that know him as the chiefe supporter of pleasance
now liuing, the Atlas of poetrie, and primus verborum artifex : whose first increase,
The Arraignement of Pa?-is, might pleade to your opinions his pregnant dexterity
of wit, and manifold varietie of inuention, wherein (me judice) he goeth a steppe
beyond all that write." t — " There is also," says T. Warton, " at least originating
from the English Ovid, a pastoral play, presented by the queen's choir-boys, Peele's
Arraignment of Paris, in 1584 : and I have seen a little novel on that subject, with
the same compliment to the queen, by Dickenson, in 1593." J — Malone chooses
to suppose that by Colin and the cruel shepherdess in this play Peele meant to
represent Spenser and his Rosalind, and that Spenser, offended at having been ex-
hibited on the scene, alludes to Peele in his Colin Clout, under the name of Palin ; §
" There eke is Palin, worthie of great praise,
Albe he envie at my rustick quill : "
" The hoggerd scrat his head in strange confusion,
Rubbing his eyes and looking every waye :
He felt he must be under some delusion,
And pigs in truth were sheepe, as they did saye :
He never dreamed of the vilde abusion
They put upon him in the open daye,
But paide his wager mid the players laughter,
And callde pigs sheepe, perchance, for ever after."
* See Collier's Extracts from the Eetjisters of the Stationers' 1 Company, &c, vol. ii. p. 162. —
Peele's copy of verses is the last of the laudatory poems prefixed to the EKa.TOfj.na.8ta ; the other five are
by G-. Bucke, T. Acheley, C. Downhalus, and M. Roydon, — Downhalus contributing a copy of English,
and a copy of Latin verses : and there is a prose epistle (not a poem, as I have somewhere seen it stated)
from "John Lyly to the Authour his friend."
t Sig. B 3, ed. 1610.
t Hist, of E. P., vol. iii. p. 417, ed. 4 to.
§ "Palin is doubtless the abbreviation of Palinode, which Spenser has used as the name of a
shepherd in his fifth Eclogue ; and, I conceive, was here intended to represent George Peele, a distin-
guished poet of that time, who was nearly of Spenser's age, and had commenced a poetical writer about
the same time with him. He is thus denominated on the same principle which appears to have guided
the author [Spenser] in the choice of several of the adumbrations found in these verses, in consequence
of Peele's having published, in 1589, a high eulogy on Lord Essex, a nobleman for whom Spenser had
334 ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
but Todd* with more probability thinks that Spenser points at Thomas Chaloner. —
The Arraignment of Paris displays considerable warmth and luxuriance of fancy; and
is written in a variety of measures, each of which Peele seems to have employed
with equal facility.
Our author was sometimes called upon to devise the pageant which used to grace
the inauguration of a new Lord Mayor. The two pieces produced in his occasional
capacity of city-poet, which have come down to us, are ingenious enough, and must
have appeared miracles of invention to the apprentices of London, for whose
entertainment they were designed : one of them is to be noticed here, — The Device
of the Pageant borne before Woolstone Dixi, Lord Maior of the Citie of London, An.
1585, October 29.
When the English forces were about to sail for Portugal, in 1589, t the Muse of
Peele poured forth A Farewell to Sir John N orris, Sir Francis Drake, and their brave
associates ; to which was added A Tale of Troy. The Farewell is an energetic and
harmonious composition, breathing a fine spirit of patriotism. The Tale of Troy
contains one or two lines which Peele has used in The Arraignment of Paris ; and
though he gravely informs us that he annexed it to the Farewell in the hope of
rousing his countrymen to imitate the example of " their glorious and renowTied pre-
the greatest respect. In this piece [An Eclogue Gratulatory, &c] the interlocutors are Piers and
Palinode.*. ... At this distance of time it is not easy to say to what part of Peele's conduct Spenser
alludes, in the qualification of his encomium on this poet : but, I imagine, he was displeased at his
having been personally introduced on the scene, under his assumed name of Colin, in a dramatick
pastoral entitled The Arraignment of Paris, written by Peele, and represented before Queen Elizabeth
in or before 1584. As Spenser's unfortunate passion for the lady whom he has concealed under the
name of Rosalind, was, after the publication of his eclogues, well known, the application of this
character to the new poel, as he was then called, must have been immediately made by the spectators,
and he had some reason to be offended at being exhibited on the scene, as a hapless swain, actually dying
for love : in addition to which serio-comick representation, his fellow shepherds, Hobbinol, Diggon,
and Thenot, bring his corpse on the stage, and while they are proceeding to his interment, sing a
funeral dirge over it. 'The pangs of despised love,' however they may affect the bosom of pining
youth, exciting but little sympathy in the mass of mankind, this exhibition had certainly a tendency
to place him in a ludicrous light, and is perhaps alluded to under the words,
' Albe he envie at my rustick quill.'
He may, however, also have had in view Peele's not very successful imitation of his rustick pastorals, in
the piece above-mentioned, a performance of which perhaps this poet had boasted as equal or superior to
the admired prototype on which it was formed." Malone's Shakespeare (by Boswell), vol. ii. p. 248. sqq.
* Life of Spenser, p. 98.
t " The Biographia Britannica," says Berkenhout, "tells us that this expedition was undertaken
with a design of restoring Don Antonio to the crown of Portugal. This however appears to have been
only a secondary object ; else why did they make their first attack upon the Groign in Gallicia ? The
principal intention of this expedition seems to have been, to return the insult intended by the Spaniards
the preceding year.— See Camd. An. Q. Eliz. p. 429." Life of Essex, Biog. Lit. p. 532.
The reader will find a versified account of this expedition in Niccolls's England's Eliza (st. 290,
sqq.), a poem appended to the Mirrow for Magistrates, 1610.
* " Palin is used as the abbreviation of rotivorfe by Peele in his Eclogue Gratulatorie, &c. 4to. 1589 ;
' Twit me with boldnop., Palin, as thou wilt,' &c.
In like manner, Spenser uses Hobbin for Hobbinol."
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS. 335
decessors the Trojans," there can be no doubt that he printed it merely to increase
the size of his pamphlet. Even in the altered, and in some respects improved, edition
which appeared, after his death, in 1G04, the Tale of Troy is a rather rugged and
unpleasing narrative.
When Essex, who had joined the expedition to Portugal without the consent of
her majesty, returned to England, he was hailed by our author with An Eglogue
Gratidatorie, entituled to the right honorable and renowmed Shepheard of Albion's
Arcadia, Robert Earle of Essex and Etve,for his welcome into England from Portugall,
1589. For a printed copy of this poem I have long sought in vain : but a transcript
of it which was once in the possession of Malone, and afterwards belonged to the late
Mr. Heber, has luckily come into my hands. Ritson* does not mention the Eclogue
Gratulatory in his list of Peele's writings. T. Warton, who gives its title imper-
fectly, and tells us that it was licensed to R. Jones, Aug. 1, 1589, had evidently
never seen it, and was ignorant of its author's name.t
[The following certificate, which represents Peele as a "sharer" in the Black-
friars Theatre, 1589, is one of the papers discovered by Mr. Collier in Lord
Ellesmere's collection ; and I now insert it between brackets in consequence of the
strong suspicion which attaches to most, if not all, of those documents : —
"These are to certifie your Right Honble Lordships that her Maiesties poore
playeres, James Burbadge, Richard Burbadge, John Laneham, Thomas Greene,
Robert Wilson, John Taylor, Anth. Wadeson, Thomas Pope, George Peele, Augustine
Phillipps, Nicholas Towley, William Shakespeare, William Kempe, William Johnson,
Baptiste Goodale, and Robert Armyn, being all of them sharers in the Blacke-Fryers
playehouse, have never given cause of displeasure in that they have brought into
theire playes maters of state and religion, vnfitt to bee handled by them or to bee
presented before lewde spectators : neither hath anie complaynte in that kinde ever
bene preferrde against them or anie of them. Wherefore they trust moste humblie
in your Lordships consideration of their former good behaviour, being at all tymes
readie and willing to yeelde obedience to any command whatsoever your Lordships
in your wisdome may thinke in such case meete. &c.
Novr. 1589."]
Sir Henry Lee, the queen's champion, who had bound himself by a vow to appear
* Bihl. Poet.
t Hist, of E. P., vol. iii. p. 422, ed. 4to.— The Editor of the new edition of Dodsley's Old Plays
(vol. xi. p. 5,) says, that on the return of Drake and Norris to England, Peele addressed to them "a
complimentary poem in a dialogue between two shepherds," and he informs me that his authority for
the statement was a MS. note by Malone on one of Peele's tracts. I feel convinced that no such poem
ever existed. The Eclogue Gratulatory was addressed to Essex on his return to England, and consisted
of a dialogue between two shepherds ; and to it Malone must have alluded when he wrote the note in
question, having not yet met with it, and supposing that Drake and Norris (whom Peele had com-
plimented on their departure) were the persons panegyrized.
336 ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
in the royal tilt-yard on each anniversary of her majesty's accession * to the throne
till disabled by age, solemnly resigned his office to the Earl of Cumberland, on the
17th of November, 1590, after the customary exercises of the day had been performed ;
and his resignation was accompanied with romantic ceremonies and pageantries,
characteristic of the taste of Elizabeth and her times. Of that event Peele has
bequeathed to posterity a picturesque memorial in his poem Polyhymnia : to it he
has appended a sonnet, which, as we learn from Segar's treatise On Honour, was sung
before the queen during the above mentioned ceremonies ; — see the prefatory matter
to Polyhymnia in this edition. That Peele wrote the sonnet in question there can
be no doubt ; and that he was the inventor and director of the shows exhibited at
the resignation of the veteran knight, I think quite as certain.
On the 10th of May, 1591, Queen Elizabeth visited Theobalds, the seat of Lord
Burghley. Certain Speeches, composed by Peele, which were addressed to her
Majesty on that occasion, will be found (with some further particulars concerning
them) in the present collection.
Descensus Astroeoe, the Device of a Pageant borne before M. \aster\ William Web, Lord
Maior of the Citie of London, on the day he took his oath, being the 29th of October, 1591,
&c, was from our author's pen.
In the same year a licence was obtained by R. Jones for publishing The Hunting
of Cupid by George Peele. As no copy of it has yet turned up, bibliographers
seem to have agreed that it was never printed ; but in the MSS. of William
Drummond of Hawthornden (in the possession of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries)
I have found a decisive proof that it was submitted to the press. Drummond
mentions The Hunting of Cupid in a list of " Bookes red anno 1 609 be [by] me ;"
and, according to his laborious habit of transcribing favourite portions of the works
he read, has extracted from it various unconnected passages and expressions, the
whole of which I have given verbatim in the present edition. " Coridon and
Melampus' Song" in England's Helicon, 1600, "Cupid's Arrows" in England's
Parnassus, 1600, and a description of " Love" in one of Bawlinsons MSS. Po. Ixxxv.
13. in the Bodleian Library, are taken, as Drummond' s excerpta show, from The
Hunting of Cupid : it was evidently a pastoral drama.
In 1592 "a surfeit of pickled herrings and Rhenish wine" proved fatal to Robert
Greene : he died wretchedly poor and neglected ; and soon after his death his
Groatsivorth of Wit bought with a million of Repentance was given to the public by
Henry Chettle. It concludes with an Addresst to his brother poets, which is
headed " To those Gentlemen his quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits
in making playes, R. G. wisheth a better exercise, and wisedome to preuent his
* Mills erroneously says "on the anniversary of the queen's birth.''' Hut. of Chivalry, vol. ii.
p. 132.
t The edition of the Groat xworth of Wit from which I now quote is dated 1617.— This Address has
been already given entire in the present volume ; see the Account of Greene and his Writings, p. 59, sqq.
. , , I
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND IIIS WRITINGS. 337
extremities." He first addresses Marlowe as the " famous gracer of tragedians ; "
next Lodge* under the appellation of "young Juuenall;" and then proceeds
as follows; "And thou [Peele] no lesse deseruing then the other two, in some things
rarer, in nothing inferiour, driuen, as myselfe, to extreame shifts, a little li.n.- 1
to say to thee ; and, were it not an idolatrous oath, I would sweare by s
S. George, thou art vnworthy better hap, sith thou dependest on so meane a
stay. Base-minded men all three of you, if by my misery yee bee not warned ; for
vnto none of you, like me, sought those burs to cleaue ; those puppits, I meane,
that speake from our mouths, those anticks garnisht in our colours. Is it not-
strange that I to whome they all haue bin beholding, is it not like that you to whom
they all haue bin beholding, shall, were yee in that case that I am now, be both of
them at once forsaken 1 Yes, trust them not ; for there is an vpstart crow beautified
with our feathers, that, with his Tygres heart wrapt in a players hyde, supposes hee is
as well able to bombast out a blanke-verse as the best of you ; and, beeing an
absolute Johannes-fac-totum, is in his owne conceyt the onely Shake-scene in a
countrey." — The expressions " vpstart crow beautified with our feathers," and " the
onely Shake-scene in a countrey," point plainly at Shakespeare ; "our feathers" meaning
certain plays written, either separately or conjointly, by Greene, Marlowe, Lodge, or
Peele, which Shakespeare had new-modelled : and it would appear that there is a more
particular allusion to The First Part of the Contention betwixt the tivo famous houses of
Yorke and Lancaster, &c, and The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, <fec, out of
which old dramas the great poet formed The Second and Third Parts of Henry Vlth ; for
the words "his Tygres heart wrapt in a players hyde" are parodied from the line,
" tiger's heart, wrapt in a woman's hide,"
which is found both in The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke and in The
Third Part of Henry Vlth, act. i. sc. 4.t — Greene concludes his Address thus ;
" Let me heartilie intreate you to be warned by my harmes. Delight not, as I haue
done, in irreligious oaths, for from the blasphemers house a curse shall not depart.
Despise drunkennes, which wasteth the wit, and makethj men all equall vnto beasts.
Flie lust, as the deathsman of the soule, and defile not the temple of the Holy Ghost
Abhorre those epicures whose loose life hath made religion loathsome to your eares ;
and when they sooth you with tearms of mastership, remember Robert Greene,
whome they haue often so flattered, perishes now for want of comfort. Remember,
* Not Nash, — as Farmer supposed : see the Account of Greene and his Writings, note *, p. 60, in
the present volume.
+ Concerning the authorship of The First Part of the Contention and of The True Tragedie, and
concerning the offence taken by Marlowe and Shakespeare at the allusions to them in this Address, see
the Account of Gi-eene and his Writings, note §, pp. 60-1, in the present volume.
t maketh] Olded. "making."
338 ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
gentlemen, your Hues are like so many light * tapers, that are with care deliuered to
all of you to maintaine : these with wind-puft wrath may be extinguished, with t
drunkennesse put | out, with § negligence let fall ; for mans time of itselfe is not so
short but it is more shortened by sinne. The fire of my life|| is now at the last snuffe,
and the want of wherewith to sustaine it, there is no substance for life to feed on.
Trust not, then, I beseech yee, left to such weake stayes ; for they are as changeable
in minde as in many attires. Well, my hand is tyred, and I am forst to leaue where
I would beginne ; for a whole booke cannot contain their wrongs, which I am forst to
knit vp in some few lines of wordes.
Desirous that you should Hue, though himselfe be dying,
Robert Greene."
This solemn exhortation, spoken, as it were, from the grave, 11 unfortunately produced
no effect on Marlowe and Peele : Lodge, it is believed, was untainted by the vices of
his comrades.
In 1593 was printed our author's Chronicle of Edivard the First, of which drama
a second edition appeared in 1599. Both editions abound with the grossest typo-
graphical errors ; here lines have dropped out ; there verses are inserted where they
ought not to stand : after a careful revision of the text, I have been obliged to leave
some passages in a doubtful state, and others, which defy emendation, in all their
old corruption. — The following entry occurs in Henslowe's Diary ;
"29 of aguste 1595, ne Rd at longe shanke xxxx 8
„B » **
on which Mr. Collier remarks ; " This could not be G. Peele's historical play of
Edivard the First, as Malone suggests, unless it was not acted until after it had been
printed in 1593. It was most likely a play by some other dramatist upon the same
portion of English history : this was its first performance, and is so marked by
Henslowe, but Malone did not know that ne denoted a first representation." Long-
shank is afterwards repeatedly mentioned in the same Diary. — Peele's Edward the
First, acted perhaps several years before it passed the press, was undoubtedly a
favourite with the frequenters of the theatre. It is one of the earliest of our Chronicle
Histories,tt a species of dramatic composition which became so fascinating in the
* light'] i. e. lit, — lighted.
t with] Old ed. "which."
X put] Olded. "puts."
§ with] Old. ed "which."
|| life] Old ed. " light." Some words seem to have dropt out from this sentence.
U Mr. Collier — very unnecessarily, I think — has "some doubts of the authenticity of the
Oroatsworth of Wit as a work by Greene": see the Account of Greene and his Writings, note+,
p. 58, in the present volume.
** P. 55, ed. Shake. Soc.
-f-f "For the subiect of them, (for the most part) it is borrowed out of our English Chronicles,
wherein our forefathers' valiant acts (that haue Hue long buried in rustie brasse and worme-eaten bookes)
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS. 339
hands of Shakespeare. A vein of extravagance pervades the whole play, but the
tragic portion is occasionally written with power, and the comic part is by no
means destitute of humour. The fiendish cruelty and the inchastity which Peele
attributes to Eleanora are also laid to her charge by a nameless ballad-maker in
" A Warning-piece to England against Pride and Wickedness : Being tlie fall of
Queen Eleanor, wife to Edward tlie First, King of England ; who, for her pride,
by God's judgments, sunk into the ground at Charing-cross, and rose at Queenhithe.
If the ballad (which I have prefixed to the play) was really written, as its editox*s
suppose, during the reign of the bigot Mary, we must not accuse Peele of
being the original libeller of Edward's virtuous queen. " This [our author's
Edward the First]," says Anthony Wood, " and a ballad of the same subject
[doubtless A Warning-piece, &c] are now usually sold by ballad-singers or ballad-
mongers."*
On the 26th of June, 1593, Henry Earl of Northumberland, Edward Earl of
Worcester, Thomas Lord Burough, Edward Lord Sheffield, and Sir Francis Knowles
(or Knolles,) were created Knights of the Garter at Windsor ; and to celebrate their
installation Peele produced his Honour of the Garter, a very pleasing description of a
magnificent vision seen by the sleeping poet. Because it is dedicated to the Earl of
Northumberland, Oldys and others have concluded that our author was then under
his patronage. Among the allusions to contemporary poets in the Prologus to this
piece, the enthusiastic apostrophe to Marlowe is peculiarly striking, as it must have
been composed but a short time after the violent end of that extraordinary man, who
died perhaps before his genius had put forth the fullness of its strength ; he was
buried on the 1st of June, 1593, and the event which the Honour of the Garter
records took place twenty -five days after.
To The PJuenix Nest, 1593, Peele contributed a poem called The Praise of
Chastity.
An anonymous tragedy, entitled The Battle of Alcazar, was published in 1594 :
and to it most probably we may refer the several entries in Henslowe"s Diary
concerning a play the name of which he gives with various spelling, " Midomorco"
" Midamullueo," t &c, his earliest mention of it being as follows ;
" Rd at mulomorco, the 20 of febreary [1591-2] xxix*."?—
are reuiued, and they themselues raised from the graue of obliuion, and brought to plead their aged
honours in open presence : then [than] which, what can be a sharper reproofe to these degenerate
effeminate daies of ours?" Nash's Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication to tlteDiuell, ed. 1595, Sig. F 3.
* Ath. Ox. vol. i. col. 688, ed. Bliss.
t See the Presenter's speech in The Battle of Alcazar, act i. ;
" This brave barbarian lord, Muly Molocco, '
t P. 21, ed. Shake. Soc.
z 2
340 ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
Six lines quoted in England '$ Parnassw* 1600, and there attributed to "G. Peele,"
occur in the Second Act of Tlw, Battle of Alcazar ;
" We must affect our country as our parents,
And if at any time we alienate
Our love or industry from doing it honour,
It must respect effects, and touch the soul,
Matter of conscience and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit."
Again, The Battle of Alcazar contains sundry expressions which are also found in the
undoubted productions of Peele ; e. g. ;
" And calls the Furies from Avernuz 1 crags. 1 '
The B. of Ale.
" Down to the shades of deep A vermis 1 crags."
A Farewell, &c.
" The dismal night-raven and tragic owl."
The B. of Ale.
" Night-ravens and owls to rend my bloody side."
David and Bethsabe.
" and now prepares amain
With sails and oars to cross the swelling seas."
The B. of Ale.
" aboard amain,
With stretching sails to plough the swelling waves."
A Farewell, &c.
" Thereby to propagate religious truth."
The B. of Ale.
<l To propagate religious piety."
A Farewell, &c.
"Top and top-gallant, all in brave array."
The B. of Ale.
" Top and top-gallant in the bravest sort."
The Tale of Troy, according to ed. 1580.
" Lying for want of wind in Aulis' gulf."
The B. of Ale.
*' In Aulis' gulf they mightily assemble."
The Tale of Troy.
u To fetch to Aulis' gulf the Argive Queen."
The Tale of Troy, according to ed. 1689.
" Besides a number almost numberless."
The B. of Ale.
" A number numberless."
The Honour of the Garter.
" On that brave bridge, the bar that thivarts the Thames."
The B. of Ale.
* P. 37, under the head " Country." — But in England's Parnassus the quotations are not always
rightly assigned : at p. 227, under the head " Parents," this line is ascribed to Peele ;
" [For] Parents' thoughts in love oft step awry," —
which occurs in Greene's Orlando Furioso, p. 91, first col., of the present volume. Greene, however,
may have taken it from some production of Peele : the Orlando Furioso contains, with slight variations,
four lines which are found in Peele's Old Wives' Tale ; see p. 90, first, col., of the present volume.
Which of the two plays was first written it is impossible to determine.
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS. 34J
" To that brave bridge, the bar that thwarts her course."
A Farewell, &c.
" And by the bar that thwarts this silver stream."
Descensus Astrcea.
Nor must I omit to mention that in Malone's copy of The Battle of Alcazar, now in
the Bodleian Library, I met with the following note by that laborious critic : — " This
play, I believe, was written by George Peele j" but he has given no reasons for his
belief. I have admitted it into the present collection, because some of my readers
may perhaps think that there are sufficient grounds for ascribing it to our author,
and because none of them, I imagine, will be displeased that a drama of so early date
and rare occurrence has been rendered more accessible. That the writer of it
possessed no ordinary talents is apparent from the nervous lines which occasionally
redeem its bombast : the speech beginning
"Hold thee, Calipolis, feed, and faint no more,"
is a piece of splendid exaggeration, which the ridicule of Shakespeare has immor-
talized ; vide Henry IVth, Part Sec, act ii. sc. 4.
A " famous play," named The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek, was
written by Peele ; see among The Jests of George Peele (at the conclusion of this
volume) the Jest " How George read a play-book to a gentleman :" but it appears never
to have been printed, and has long ago perished. Henslowe, who in his Diary has
various entries concerning a drama called " Mahomett," the earliest of them being, —
"14 of aguste 1594, Rd at mahomett up v',"*
also mentions twice t a play entitled " The love of a Gresyan lady," the first notice of
which is dated 4th Oct. 1594 j : and by "Mahomett''' at least, if not by " The love of
a Gresyan lady" Henslowe seems to allude to Peele's lost work. The exclamation
of Pistol, "Have we not Hiren here ?" is supposed to be a quotation from it ; see
Malone's note on Shakespeare's Henry IVth, Part Sec, act ii. sc. 4.
Peele's Old Wives' Tale was printed in 1595 ; but how long before that date it
was brought upon the stage is quite uncertain. It has been described in the
Biographia Dramatica, and in T. Warton's edition of Milton's Minor Poems, as a
play from which the great poet seems partly to have derived the plan and characters
of C omits ; and consequently the students of English poetry are familiar with its
name, though very few of them can have perused a drama of such excessive rarity. —
Milton, it is well known, read with attention the writings of his predecessors, and
not unfrequently (perhaps by an involuntary act of plagiarism) adopted their
conceptions, which, after passing through his mighty mind, came forth purified from
dross, and glowing with new beauties. That, for the composition of his enchanting
* P. 39, ed. Shake. Soc.
+ Oftener, if what he calls '■'■The Greasyon comodey" was the same play as The love of a
Gresyan lady.
J P. 42, ed. Shake. Soc.
342 ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
Masque, a portion of The Old Wives Tale was submitted to this intellectual process,
there is some reason to believe : Sacripant, Delia, her Brothers, and the Ghost of
Jack, when divested of their meanness and vulgarity, and arrayed in all the poetic
loveliness that the highest genius could pour around them, might have assumed the
forms of Comus, the Lady, her Brothers, and the Attendant Spirit ;
iyzvovro vec&repoi fi Trdpos T)0~av,
Kal wo\v KaWioves Ka\ /xel^oves itaopdaadai.*
But those critics may be right who conjecture that both Peele and Milton were
indebted to a common original which is yet undiscovered.
" It is a remarkable fact," says the Editor of Dodsley's Old Plays,i " that during
the whole contest between Nash and Harvey, in which the latter abused the former
for his abandoned associates, Peele is not mentioned as one of them. Either Nash
was not then intimate with Peele, or Harvey had some other motive for not intro-
ducing his name. This literary warfare was carried on principally previous to the
year 1594, and there is eveiy reason to suppose that Peele was then alive : but if he
had been dead, this circumstance would not have protected him from the malignity
of Harvey." However Gabriel Harvey might have been affected towards Peele before
the Old Wives' Tale was produced, assuredly after its appearance he must have
considered him as an enemy. In it Huanebango is made to cite a line from Gabriel's
Encomium Lauri ; an offence which never would be forgiven by the conceited pedant
who fancied that his English hexameters had raised him to an equality with Homer. J
That Peele intended to ridicule and mortify Harvey there can be little doubt :
Huanebango's quotation is taken from that poem § against which Nash (the very
best of banterers) so successfully employed his caustic wit.
Anglorum Feriw, Englandes Hollydayes, celebrated the 17th of Novemb. last, 1595,
beginninge happyly the 38 yeare of the raigne of our Soveraigne Ladie Queene Elizabeth,
By George Peele, Mr. of Arte in Oxforde, was first printed about thirty years ago,1T
from the author's manuscript, by a gentleman at Ipswich. This poem is much in
the style of Polyhymnia (see ante, p. 336), and, like it, is not without value as a
specimen of early undramatic blank-verse.
* The Rev. H. J. Todd obligingly pointed out to me the following passage of Milton's Animad-
versions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus, 1641, in which he thought he could
discover (what, I confess, I cannot) an allusion to Peele' s Old Wives' Tale as well as to his Edward
the First ; " To make the word gift, like the river Mole in Surrey, to runne under the bottome of a
long line, and so start up to governe the word Pvcsbyterie, as an immediate syntaxis, a device ridiculous
enough to make good that old wives' tale of a certaine Queene of England that sunk at Chart uy-crosse,
and rose up at Queene-hithe." p. 39.
+ Vol. xi. p. 5, last ed.
X " Though Spenser me hath often Homer term'd."
Harvey's xxiid Sonnet, — Fovre Letters and certaine Sonnets, &c. 1592, p. 73.
§ Harvey's Encomium Lauri, a piece of hexameter folly (in his Three proper and wittie familiar
Letters, &c, 1580, p. 34), and Nash's parody on the opening lines of it, have been already cited in the
present vol., pp. 63-4, note. H I write in 1860. The Ipswich ed. has no date.
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS. 343
The following letter, preserved among the Burghhy Papers in the Lansdowne
Collection, vol. xcix. no. 54, affords a melancholy proof that in Jany., 1595-6, Peele
was struggling with sickness and poverty.
" Salue, Parens Patriae, tibi plebs, tibi curia nomen
Hoc dedit, hoc dedimus nos tibi nomen, Eques.
" In these tearmes, r. honorable, am I bolde to salute yo r Lordeship, whose highe
desertes in o r Englandes greate designes haue earned large praises euen from Envies
mouthe. Pardon, greate Patrone of Learninge & Vertue, this rude encounter, in that
I presume, a scholler of so meane meritt, to present yo r wisdome w th this small
manuell, by this simple messenger, my eldest daughter & necessities serufit. Longe
sicknes hauinge so enfeebled me maketh bashfullnes allmost become impudency. Sed
quod [quis] psitaco suu x at P e expediuit 1 Magister artis ingenijque largitor venter.*
The subiect wherew th I presume to greete y r honor, is the history of Troy in 500 verses
sett downe & memorable accidents thereof. Receiue it, noble Senator of Englandes
Councell-house, as a schollers duties significacon ; & Hue longe in honor & prosperitie
as happie as Queene Elizabeths gracious countenance can make yo w .
Ecce tibj nihilum magno pro munere mitto :
Esse potest aliquid, te capiete, nihil.
Yo r honors most
bounden,
George Peele."
It is directed ;
The endorsement is ;
"To the r. honorable
& woorthie Patrone
of Learninge, the L.
Burleigh, L. highe
Theasorer of England,
& one of hir M ties
most honorable'
Priuie Counsell."
"17 Jan. 1595,.
Goorg. Peele m 1 ' of Arts
Presents y e tale of Troy
in 500 Verses by his
eldest daughter, necessities
servaunte."
An incorrect quotation from the Prologue to the Satires of Persius ;
" Quis expedivit psittaco suum Xdipe 1
Magister artis ingenique largitor
Venter,'* &c.
344 ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
" The Tale of Troy" just mentioned was doubtless an altered MS. copy of
the poem which Peele had published in 1589 ; and most probably its text agreed
mainly, if not wholly, with that of the copy which (as we shall afterwards see) found
its way to the press in 1604. — Mr. Collier has observed,* that in consequence perhaps
of having been employed to compose the Speeches to Queen Elizabeth at Theobalds in
1591, (vide ante, p. 336,) Peele was emboldened to address the above letter to Lord
Burghley.
The date of Peele's death is not known. " This person," says Anthony Wood,
" was living in his middle age, in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth, but when or
whei*e he died I cannot tell ; for so it is, and always hath been, that most poets die
poor, and consequently obscurely, and a hard matter it is to trace them to their
graves." t — That he was dead in 1598 is certain, for Francis Meres in Palladis
Tamia, Wit's Treasury, dec, which was published during that year, informs us, "as
Anacreon died by the pot, so George Peele by the pox." X
David and Bethsabe, the chef-d'oeuvre of Peele, was not printed till 1599 ; how
much earlier it was written there are no means of ascertaining. The statement in
The History of English Poetry \ that "George Peele had also published his tragedy of
David and Bethsabe about the year 1579," I am forced to attribute either to a
mistake of Warton, or to an error of the printer, though the unamiable Ritson has
not set it down among the inaccuracies of that work. The circumstance of a
simile || in David and Bethsabe being imitated from a passage in the First Book of The
Faerie Queene, 1590,11 is no evidence that Peele's drama was not written till after
the publication of Spenser's poem. The Faerie Queene must have been handed about
in manuscript before it was given to the press ; for a portion of the thirty-fifth
stanza of the Fourth Canto of the Second Book is quoted by Abraham Fraunce in
his Arcadian Bhetoricke, 1588 ; and a gorgeous simile in the thirty-second stanza of
the Seventh Canto of the First Book is transplanted into The Second Part of
Marlowe's Tambttrlaine,** which appears to have been acted before 1587. "Peele's
David and Bathsheba [Bethsabe^," says T. Warton, " is a remain of the fashion of
Scriptui'e-plays ; " t+ and Hawkins observes with reference to it that the poet's
" genius seems to have been kindled by reading the Prophets and the Song of
Solomon." Xt
* Hist, of Engl. Dram. Poetry, vol. i. p. 284.
T Ath. Ox. vol. i. col. 688, ed. Bliss.
t Fol. 286.
§ Vol. iii. p. 67, ed. 4to.
|| "As when the sun, attir'd in glistering robe,
Comes dauciug fioni his oriental gate," &c.
H The earliest edition of The Faerie Queene, consisting only of the Three First Books, was in 1590.
** See Marlowe's Works, p. 66, ed. Dyce, 1858.
+t Hitt. of E. P., vol. iii. p. 328, ed. 4to.
XX Preface to The Origin of the English Drama, p. 11.
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WHITINGS. 345
The Hiatorie of the two valiant knights, Syr Clyomxm Knight of the Golden Sheeld,
sonne to the King of Denmarke, and Clamydes the White Knight, sonne to the King of
Suauia was printed in 1599. On the title-page of a copy of this play, a MS. note in
a very old hand attributes it to Peele ; and, I have no doubt, rightly. It was pro-
duced probably soon after his Arraignment of Paris, which, according to Nash, (see
ante, p. 333,) was his "first increase." The story of Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes
is not, I presume, the invention of Peele, but borrowed from some romance.
The Phoenix Nest, 1593, England's Helicon, 1600, and England 's Parnassus, 1600,
have been already mentioned as miscellanies which contain specimens of Peele's
poetry ; * and to the list may here be added Belvidere, or the Garden of the Muses,
1610.
A merry ballad of the Hawthorn tree has been admitted into the present collec-
tion only because to the original MS. (in the Cottonian Library, Vesp. A. xxv.) the
name of our author is appended.
Of Peele's dramatic works, on which his celebrity was chiefly founded, t perhaps
not half has survived the ravages of time. % Many of the plays performed during
Elizabeth's reign never reached the press : abandoned to decay in the tiring-rooms
of different theatres, they have utterly perished ; and possibly among the number
were several from the pen of Peele. Nor is it unlikely that the fire of London in
1666 may have consumed all the copies which remained of some of his printed
pieces.§
* Dr. Bliss in his ed. of Wood's A th. Ox. has included among them, by an oversight, The Paradise
of Dainty Devices.
t "As these tragicke poets," says Meres, " flourished in Greece, iEschylus, Euripedes, Sophocles,
Alexander iEtolus, Achasus Erithriseus, Astydanias Atheniensis, Apollodorus Tarsensis, Nicomachus
Phrygius, Thespis Atticus, aud Timon Apolloniates ; and these among the Latines, Aceius, M. Attilius,
Pouiponius Secundus, and Seneca ; so these are our best for tragedie, the Lorde Buckhurst, Doctor Leg
of Cambridge, Doctor Edes of Oxforde, Maister Edward Ferris, the au thorn* of the Mirrour for Magis-
trates, Marlow, Peele, Watson, Kid, Shakespeare, Drayton, Chapman, Decker, and Beniamin
Johnson." — Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, &c, 1598, fol. 283.
One is surprised to find that Meres in another passage of the same work considers Peele as the
English Ariosto : "As Italy had Dante, Boccace, Petrarch, Tasso, Celiano, and Ariosto ; so England had
Mathew Roydon, Thomas Atchelow, Thomas Watson, Thomas Kid, Robert Greene, and George Peele."
fol. 282.
" His [Peele's] comedies and tragedies," says Wood, "were often acted with great applause, and
did endure reading with due commendation many years after their author's death." — Ath. Ox. vol. 1,
col. 688, ed. Bliss.
% Of three of his lost dramas we know the names, — Iphigenia (translated from one of the Iphigenias
of Euripides), The Hunting of Cupid, and The Turkish Mahomet and Biren the Fair Greek: see ante,
pp. 324, 336, 341.
§ During that dreadful conflagration, notes Evelyn, "the ruins of the vaulted roof [of St. Paul's
Church] falling, broke into St. Faith's, which, being filled with the magazines of books belonging to the
Stationers, and carried thither for safety, they were all consumed, burning for a week following." —
Diary, &c, vol. ii. p. 13, ed. 1850. — Pepys observes: " I hear the great loss of books in St. Paul's
Church-yard, and at their Hall also, which they value at about £150,000.; some booksellers being
wholly undone they trusting to St. Fayth's, and the roof of the church falling, broke the arch
34G ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS.
When we regard Peele as a dramatist, it is difficult to separate him from
Marlowe * and Greene, with whom he divided the admiration of his contemporaries.
These three gifted men, — though they often present to us pictures that in design
and colouring outrage the truth of natiu-e, and though their language sometimes
swells into bombast, sometimes sinks into meanness, — are the earliest + of our
writers for the stage who exhibit any just delineation of the workings of passion.
They as much J excel their immediate predecessors as they are themselves excelled
by Shakespeare, — by "him, wondrous him!" — whose genius was beginning to
blaze upon the world about the close of their career.
The reader must not imagine that I consider Peele on a par with Marlowe as an
improver of the English drama. I cannot but be aware that Marlowe had a far
more powerful intellect than Peele, and a far deeper insight into the human heart :
yet, though Peele was quite unequal to the production of dramas so full of terror
and pity as Faustus and Edward the Second, it may not be too much to assert that
his David and Bethsabe vies in tenderness and poetic beauty with any of the plays of
his sublime associate^ — The superiority of Peele to Greene is, I conceive, on the
whole, unquestionable.
down into the lower church, and so all the goods burned that the goods laid in the church-
yard fired through the windows those in St. Fayth's church ; and those coming to the warehouses'
doors fired them, and burned all the books and the pillars of the church, so as the roof falling down,
broke quite down." — Diary, &c, vol. iii. pp. 294, 300, ed. 1848.
Since the above was written, Gifford's edition of Ford has made its appearance ; and in the Intro-
duction to it (p. xxxiii) the writings of Peele are mentioned among those works to which the fire of
London proved most destructive.
* " He [Marlowe], and his contemporary Peele, were produced just as the chaos of ignorance was
breaking up : they were among the earliest to perceive the glimmering of sense and nature, and
struggled to reach the light." Gifford's note on Ben Jonson, vol. viii, p. 331.
f Thomas Kyd — who, though an unpleasing dramatist, is in some respects superior to both Peele
and Greene — belongs to the same period : but Marlowe, Peele, and Greene had each produced plays before
Kyd was known.
J With this sentence, which I wrote in 1828, I hardly feel satisfied in 1860 : but I leave it
unaltered, because it is quoted by Mr, Hallam (Tntrod. to the Lit. of Europe, vol. ii. p. 174, note,
ed. 1843), who curtly adds " Not quite."
§ "Nash calls him [Peele] an Atlas in poetry. Unless we make allowance for his antiquity, the
expression will appear hyperbolical ; but, with that allowance, we may justly cherish the memory of
l'eele as the oldest genuine dramatic poet of our language. His David and Bethsabe is the earliest
fountain of pathos and harmony that can be traced in our dramatic poetry. His fancy is rich, and his
feeling tender ; and his conceptions of dramatic character have no inconsiderable mixture of solid
veracity aud ideal beauty. There is no such sweetness of versification and imagery to be found in our
blank- verse anterior to Shakespeare." Campbell's Spec, of Brit. Poets, vol. i. p. 140.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
1
The Araygnemerd of Paris A Pastorall. Presented btfore the Queenes Maiestk, by the Children of her Chappell Im~
printed at London by Henrie Marsh. Anno. 1584. 4to.
The writer in The Retrospective Review (vol. iii. p. 101.) who erroneously says that The Arraignment of Pari!
"is not divided into acts," had, I presume, seen only a transcript of it, not the original.
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
Saturn. Pan.
Jupiter. Faunus.
Neptune. Silvanus.
Pluto. Paris.
Apollo. Colin.
Mars. Hobbinol.
Bacchus. Digoon.
Mercury. Thenot.
Vulcan.
Cupids, Cyclops, Shepherds, Knights, &c.
Juno. Clotho.
Pallas. Lachesis.
Venus. Atropos.
Diana. The Muses.
Pomona. A Nymph of Diana.
Flora. OSnone.
Rhanis. Helen.
Ate. Thestyljs.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
Enter Ate, Prologus.
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 in place, and bring beside
The bane of Troy ! behold, the fatal fruit,
Raught * from the golden tree of Proserpine !
Proud Troy must fall, so bid the gods above,
And stately Ilium's lofty towers be raz'd
By conquering hands of the victorious foe ;
King Priam's palace waste with flaming fire,
Whose thick and foggy smoke, piercing the sky,
Must serve for messenger of sacrifice,
T' appease the anger of the angry heavens ;
And Priam's younger son, the shepherd swain,
Paris, th' unhappy organ of the Greeks.*
So loth and weary of her heavy load,
The Earth complains unto the hellish prince,
Surcharg'd with the burden that she nill f sus-
tain.
Th' unpartial daughters of Necessity
Bin aiders J in her suit : and so the twine
That holds old Priam's house, the thread of Troy,
Dame Atropos with knife in sunder cuts.
Done be the pleasure of the powers above,
Whose bests men must obey : and I my part
Perform in Ida vales. Lordings, adieu ;
Imposing silence for your task, I end,
Till just assembly of the goddesses
Make me begin the tragedy of Troy.
f Exit cum aureo porno.
ACT I.
SCENA I.
Enter Pan, Faunus, and Silvanus, with their Attend-
ants, to give welcome to the goddesses: Pan's Shepherd
hag a Iamb, Faunus' Hunter has a fawn, Silvanus'
Woodman with an oaken-bough laden with acorns.
Pan. Silvanus, either Flora doth us wrong,
Or Faunus made us tarry all too long,
For by this morning mirth it should appear,
The Muses or the goddesses be near.
Faun. My fawn was nimble, Pan, and whipt
apace, —
Twas happy that we caught him up at last, —
The fattest, fairest fawn in all the chace ;
I wonder how the knave could skip so fast.
Raught] i. e. snatched.
Pan. And I have brought a twaggcr for the
nones, §
A bunting lamb ; nay, pray you feel no bones :
Believe me now my cunning much I miss,
If ever Pan felt fatter lamb than this.
SiL Sirs, you may boast your flocks and herds
that bin both fresh and fair,
Yet hath Silvanus walks, i-wis, that stand in
wholesome air ;
And, lo, the honour of the woods, the gallant
oaken-bough,
Do I bestow, laden with acorns and with mast
enow !
* of the Greeks.} Something to complete the sense seen 8
to be wanting here.
t nill] i.e. will not. { aiders] The 4to. "aydes."
§ the 7iones] i. e. the occasion.
352
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
ACT I.
Pan. Peace, man, for shame 1 shalt have both
lamba aud dams aud flocks and herds and all,
And all my pipes to make the glee ; we meet
not now to brawl.
Faun. There's no such matter, Pan ; we are all
friends assembled hither,
To bid Queen Juno and her feres * most humbly
welcome hither :
Diana, mistress of our woods, her presence will
not want ;
Her courtesy to all her friends, we wot, is
nothing scant.
Enter Pomona with her fruit.
Pom. Yea, Pan, no farther yet, and had the
start of me ?
Why, then, Pomona with her fruit comes time
enough, I see.
Come on a while ; with country store, like friends,
we venture forth :
Thiuk'st, Faunus, that these goddesses will take
our gifts in worth 1
Faun. Yea, doubtless, for shall tell thee, dame,
'twere better give a thing,
A sign of love, unto a mighty person or a king,
Than to a rude and barbarous swain, but bad
and basely born,
For gently takes the gentleman that oft the clown
will scorn.
Pan. Say'st truly, Faunus ; I myself have
given good tidy lamb3
To Mercury, may say to thee, to Phoebus, and to
Jove;
When to a country mops, forsooth, chave t offer 'd
all their dams,
And pip'd and pray'd for little worth, and raug'd
about the grove.
Pom. God Pan, that makes your flock so thin,
and makes you look so lean,
To kiss in corners.
Pan. Well said, wench ! some other thing
you mean.
Pom. Yea, jest it out till it go alone : but
marvel where we miss
Fair Flora all this merry morn.
Faun. Some news ; see where she is.
Enter Fj/)ra.
Pan. Flora, well met, and for thy taken pain,
Poor country gods, thy debtors we remain.
Flo. Believe me, Pan, not all thy lambs and ewes,
Nor, Faunus, all thy lusty bucks and does,
* feres} i. e. companions,
f chave] i. e. I have.
(But that I am instructed well to know
What service to the hills and dales I owe,)
Could have enfore'd me to so strange a toil,
Thus to enrich this gaudy, gallant soil.
Faun. But tell me, wench, hast done't so trick*
indeed,
That heaven itself may wonder at the deed ?
Flo. Not Iris, in her pride and bravery ,t
Adorns her arch with such variety ;
Nor doth the milk-white way, in frosty night,
Appear so fair and beautiful in sight,
As done these fields, and groves, and sweetest
bowers,
Bestrew'd and deck'd with parti-colour'd flowers.
AloDg the bubbling brooks and silver glide,
That at the bottom do in silence slide;
The water-flowers J and lilies on the banks,
Like blazing comets, burgen § all in ranks ;
Under the hawthorn and the poplar-tree,
Where sacred Phoebe may delight to be,
The primrose, and the purple hyacinth,
The dainty violet, and the wholesome minth,
The double daisy, and the cowslip, queen
Of summer flowers, do overpeer the green ;
Aud round about the valley as ye pass,
Ye may ne see for peeping flowers the grass :
That well the mighty Juno, and the rest,
May boldly think to be a welcome guest
On Ida hills, || when to approve the thing,
The Queen of Flowers prepares a second spring.
Sil. Thou gentle nymph, what thanks shall wo
repay
To thee that mak'st our fields and woods so gay .
Flo. Silvanus, when it is thy hap to see
My workmanship in portraying all the three,
First stately Juno with her port and grace,
Her robes, her lawns, her crownet, and her
mace,
Would make thee muse this picture to behold,
Of yellow oxlipsH bright as burnish'd gold.
* trick] i. e. cleg.autly, neatly,
t bravery'] i. e. finery.
J water-fioicers] The 4to. " watery flowers."
§ bwgen] The same as burgeon or bourgeon, i. e. sprout,
bud, blossom. " To Burgeon (sprout), Germino," Coles's
Vict.
|| Ida hills] Not a misprint for "Ida hill." Compare
our author's Tale of Troy ;
" He lives a shepherd's lad on Ida hills,
And breathes a man 'gainst Troy and Trojans'
wills," &c.
% oxlips] "The description of the oxlip in this line
shows that the poet used it for the crow-foot or paigle ;
the butter-cup of the fiolds. It is now applied to the
larger cowslip." Rev. J. Mitford, — Gent. Mag. for Febr.
1833, p. 101.
St'KNA I.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
353
Pom. A rare device ; and Flora well, perdy,*
Did paint her yellow for ber jealousy.
Flo. Pallas in flowers of hue and colours red ;
Her plumes, her helm, her lance, her Gorgon's
head,
Her trailing tresses that Lang flaring round,
Of July-flowers so graffed in the ground,
Tiiat, trust me, sirs, who did the cunning see,
Would at a blush suppose it to be she.
Pan. Good Flora, by my flock, 'twere very good
To dight her all in red resembling blood.
Flo. Fair Venus of sweet violets in blue,
With other flowers infix'd for change of hue;
Her plumes, her pendants, bracelets, and her
rings,
Her dainty fan, and twenty other things,
Her lusty mantle waving in the wind,
And every part in colour and in kind ;
And for her wreath of roses, she nill dare
With Flora's cunning counterfeit compare.
So that what living wight shall chance to see
These goddesses, each plac'd in her degree,
l'ortray'd by Flora's workmanship alone,
Must say that art and nature met in one.
Sil. A dainty draught to lay her down in blue,
The colour commonly betokening true.
Flo. This piece of work, compact with many a
flower,
And well laid in at entrance of the bower,
Where Phoebe means to make this meeting royal,
Have I prepar'd to welcome them withal.
Pom. And are they yet dismounted, Flora, say,
That we may wend to meet them on the way 1
Flo. That shall not need : they are at hand by
this,
And the conductor of the train hightt Rhanis.
Juno hath left her chariot long ago,
And hath return'd her peacocks by her rainbow ; J
And bravely, as becomes the wife of Jove,
Doth honour by her presence to our grove.
Fair Venus she hath let her sparrows fly,
To tend on her and make her melody ;
Her turtles and her swans unyoked be,
And flicker near her side for company.
Pallas hath set her tigers loose to feed,
Commanding them to wait when she hath need.
And hiiherward with proud and stately pace,
To do us honour in the sylvan chace,
They march, like to the pomp of heaven above,
Juno the wife and sister of King Jove,
The warlike Pallas, and the Queen of Love.
* perdy] i. e. par Dieu, verily.
+ hight] i. e. called.
J rain&ow] Qy. "bow"?
Pan. Pipe, Pan, for joy, and let thy shepherds
sing ;
Shall never age forget this memorable thing.
Flo. Clio, the sagest of the Sisters Nine,
To do observance to this dame divine,
Lady of learning and of chivalry,
Is here arriv'd in fair assembly ; *
And wandering up and down th' unbeaten ways,
Ring through the wood sweet songs of Pallas'
praise.
Pom. Hark, Flora, Faunus ! here is melody,
A charmt of birds, and more than ordinary.
[An artificial charm, of birds heard within.
Pan. The silly birds make mirth ; then should
we do them wrong,
Pomona, if we nill+ bestow an echo to their song.
The Song. A quire within and without.
Gods.% Ida, Ida, Ida, happy hill !
This honour done to Ida may it continue still !
Muses, [within.] Ye country gods that in this
Bring down your gifts of welcome,!! [Ida won,[|
For honour done to Ida.
Gods. Behold, in sign of joy we siug,
And signs of joyful welcome bring,
For honour done to Ida.
M uses. [within.] The Muses give you melody to
gratulate this chance, [all to dance.
And Phoebe, chief of sylvan chace, commands you
Gods. Then round in a circle our sportance
must be ;**
Hold hands in a hornpipe, all gallant in glee.
[Dance.
Muses, [within.] Reverence, reverence, most
humble reverence !
Gods. Most humble reverence !
Rhanis leading the way, enter Juno, Pallas, and Vends.
Pan alone sings.
THE SONG.
The God of Shepherds, and his mates,
With country cheer salute your states,
Fair, wise, and worthy as you be,
And thank the gracious ladies three
For honour done to Ida. [The birds sing.
* assembly] A quadrisyllable.
t charml i. e. singing, music. (" With charmof earliest
birds." Milton's Par. Lost, iv. 641.)
t nill] i. e. will not.
§ Gods] Viz. Pan, Faunus, and Silvauus, — if not also
Pomona and Flora. || won] i. e. dwell, haunt.
51 Bring down your gifts nf welcome, <tc. ) Walker (Crit.
Exam, of the text of Shakespeare, &c, vol. ii. p. 98) would
read ;
" Bring down your gifts of welcome every one,
For honour done to Ida."
** Then round .... must be] The -Ho. •' Tho
round .... must must be."
A A
354
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
ACT I.
Juno. Venus, what shall I say ? for, though I
be a dame divine,
This welcome and this melody exceed these wits
of mine.
Ven. Believe me, Juno,as I bight* the Sovereign
of Love,
These rare delights in pleasure + pass the ban-
quets of King Jove.
Pal. Then, Venus, I conclude, it easily may
be seen,
That in her chaste and pleasant walks fair Phcobe
is a queen.
Rha. DivineJ Pallas, and you sacred dames,
Juno and Venus, houour'd by your names,
Juno, the wife and sister of King Jove,
Fair Venus, lady-president of love,
If any entertainment in this place,
That can afford but homely, rude, and base,
It please your godheads to accept in gree,§
That gracious thought our happiness shall be.
My mistress Dian, this right well I know,
For love that to this presence she doth owe,
Accounts more honour done to her this day,
Than ever whilom in these woods of Ida ;
And for our country gods, I dare be bold,
They make such cheer, your presence to behold,
Such jouisance,|| such mirth, and merriment,
As nothing else their mind might more content :
And that you do believe it to be so,
Fair goddesses, your lovely looks do show.
It rests in fine, for to confirm my talk,
Ye deign to pass along to Dian's walk ;
Where she among her troop of maids attends
The fair arrival of her welcome friends.
Flo. And we will wait with all observance due.
And do just honour to this heavenly crew.
Pan. The God of Shepherds, Juno, ere thou go,
Intends a lamb on thee for to bestow.
Faun. Faunus, high ranger in Diana's chace,
Presents a fawn to Lady Venus' grace.
Sil. Silvauus gives to Pallas' deity
This gallant bough raughtlj from the oaken-tree.
Porn. To them that do this honour to our fields
Her mellow apples poor Pomona yields.
Juno. And, gentle gods, these signs of your
goodwill
We take in worth, and shall accept them still.
Ven. And, Flora, this to thee among the rest, —
Thy workmanship comparing with the best,
* hight] i. e. am called.
t pleasure] The 4to. "pleasures."
J Divine] Qy. " You divine " ?
{ yree] i. e. good part.
|| jouisance] i. e. jollity.
TT rauyht] i. o. .snatched.
Let it suffice thy cunning to have power *
To call King Jove from forth his heavenly bower.
Hadst thou a lover, Flora, credit me,
I think thou wouldst bedeck him gallantly.
But wend we on; and, Rhanis, lead the way,
That kens the painted paths of pleasant Ida.
[Exeunt.
SCENA II.
Enter Paris and (Enone.
Par. (Enone, whilef we bin dispos'd to walk,
Tell me what shall be subject of our talk ?
Thou hast a sort + of pretty tales in store,
Dare say no nymph in Ida woods hath more :
Again, beside thy sweet alluring face,
In telling them thou hast a special grace.
Then, prithee, sweet, afford some pretty thing,
Some toy that from thy pleasant wit doth spring.
(En. Paris, my heart's contentment and my
choice,
Use thou thy pipe, and I will use my voice ;
So shall thy just request not be denied,
And time well spent, and both be satisfied.
Par. Well, gentle nymph, although thou do
me wrong,
That can ne tune my pipe unto a song,
Me list this once, (Enone, for thy sake,
This idle task on me to undertake.
They sit imder a tree together.
(En. And whereon, then, shall be my roundelay?
For thou hast heard my store lougsiuce, dare say;
How Saturn did divide his kingdom tho §
To Jove, to Neptune, and to Dis below ;
How mighty men made foul successless war
Against the gods and state of Jupiter ;
How Phorcys' imp,|| that was so trick and fair,
That tangled Neptune in her golden hair,
Became a Gorgon for her lewd misdeed, — •
A pretty fable, Paris, for to read,
A piece of cunning, trust me, for the nones,
That wealth and beauty alter men to stones ;
How Salmacis, resembling idleness,
Turns TI men to women all through wantonness;
• pmner] This word is omitted in the 4to.
\ vii ile\ i. e. until.
J tort] i.e. set, collection.
§ tho] i. e. then, of old.
|| Phorcys' imp] i. e. Phorcys' offspring, viz. Medusa. —
The 4 to. "Phorcias ympe."
s] flow Saint acis, resembling idleness,
Turns, &•• | That Peele had an eye to Holding's Epistle
8CKNA II.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
355
How Pluto raught Queen Ceres' daughter thence,
And what did follow of that love-offence ;
Of Daphne turn'd into the laurel-tree,
That shows a mirror of virginity ;
How fair Narcissus tooting on his shade,*
Reproves disdain, and tells how form doth vade; t
How cunning Philomela's needle tells
What force in love, what wit in sorrow dwells;
What pains unhappy souls abide in hell,
They say because on earth they liv'd not well, —
Ixion's wheel, proud Tantal's pining woe,
Prometheus' torment, and a many mo,+
How Dauaus' daughters ply their endless task,
What toil the toil of Sisyphus doth ask :
All these are old and known I know, yet, if thou
wilt have any,
Choose some of these, for, trust me, else (Enone
hath not many.
Par. Nay, what thou wilt : but sith my cun-
ning not compares with thine,
Begin some toy that I can play upon this pipe of
mine.
(En. There is a pretty sonnet, then, we call it
Ciqiid's Curse,
" They that do change old love for new, pray <jods
they change for worse ! "
The note is fine and quick withal, the ditty will
agree,
Paris, with that same vow of thine upon our
poplar-tree.
to Leicester, prefixed to his translation of Ovid's Meta-
morphoses, the following extracts from it will show ;
" Hermaphrodite and Salmacis declare that idlenesse
Is cheefest mirce and cherisher of all voluptuousuesse.
*****
As for example, in the tale of Daphnee turnd too bay,
A myrror of virginitie appeere untoo us may.
*****
Narcissus is of scornfulnesse and pryde a myrror
cleere,
Whore beauties fading vanitie most playnly may
appeere."
* How fair Narcissus tooting on his shade] Tooting (which
generally means prying, searching narrowly,) is here —
poring, eagerly gazing on. Fairfax has ;
" As in his spring Narcissus tooting laid."
Tasso's Godfrey of Bulloigne, B. xiv. st. 66.
t vade] i. e. fade.
I mo] i. e. more.
Par. No better thing ; begin it, then : (Enone,
thou sh dt see
Our music figure of the love that grows 'twixt
thee aud me.
They sing ; and while (Enone sings, he pipes.
(En. Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be ;
The fairest shepherd on our green,
A love for any lady.
Par. Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be ;
Thy love is fair for thee alone,
Aud for no other lady.
(En. My love is fair, my love is gay,
As fresh as bin the flower-! in May,
Aud of my love my roundelay,
My merry merry merry roundelay,
Concludes with Cupid's curse, —
They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods they change for worse 1
Both. They that do change, &c.
(En. Fair and fair, &c.
Par. Fair aud fair, &c.
Thy love is fair, &c.
(En. My love can pipe, my love can sing,
My love can many a pretty thing,
And of his lovely praises ring
My merry merry roundelays,
Amen to Cupid's curse, —
They that do change, &c.
Par. They that do change, <fec.
Both. Fair and fair, &c.
The song being ended, they rise.
(En. Sweet shepherd, for CEnone'e sake be
cunning in this song,
And keep thy love, and love thy choice, or else
thou dost her wrong.
Par. My vow is made aud witnessed, the pop-
lar will not start,
Nor shall the nymph (Euone's love from fo-th
my breathing heart.
I will go bring thee on thy way, my flock are
here behind,
And I will have a lover's fee ; they say, unkiss'd
unkind. [Exeunt.
A A 1
356
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
ACT II.
ATT II.
SCENA I.
Enter Juno, Pallas, and Yexus.
Ven. ex But pray you, tell me, Juno, was it so,
abrupto. As Pallas told me here the tale of
Echo?
Juno. She was a nymph indeed, as Pallas
tells,
A walker, such as in these thickets dwells ;
And as she told what subtle juggling prank-
She play'd with Juno, so she told her thanks :
A tattling trull to come at every call.
And now, forsooth, nor tongue nor life at all.
And though perhaps she was a help to Jove,
And held me chat while he might court his
love,
Believe me, dames, I am of this opinion,
He took but little pleasure in the minion ;
And whatsoe'er his scapes have been beside,
Dare say for him, 'a never stray'd so wide :
A lovely nut-brown lass or lusty trull
Have power perhaps to make a god a bull.
Ven. Gramercy, gentle Juno, for that jest ;
I' faith, that item was worth all the rest
Pal. No matter, Venus, howsoe'er you scorn,
My father Jove at that time ware the horn.
Juno. Had every wanton god above, Venus, not
better luck,
Then heaven would be a pleasant park, and Mars
a lusty buck.
Ven. Tut, Mars hath horns to butt withal,
although no bull 'a shows,
'A never needs to ma*k in nets, 'a fears no jealous
froes.*
Juno. Forsooth, the better is his turn, for, if 'a
speak too loud,
Must find some shift to shadow him, a net or else
a cloud.
Pal. No more of this, fair goddesses; unrip not
bo your shames,
To stand all naked to the world, that bene such
heavenly dames.
Juno. Nay, Pallas, that's a common trick with
Venus well we k;
And all the gods in heaven have seen her naked
long ago.
' j'roff) i. e. frows.
Ven. And then she was so fair and bright, so *
lovely and so trim,
As Mars is but for Venus' tooth, and she will
sport with him :
And, but me list not here to make comparison
with Jove,
Mars is no ranger, Juno, he, in every open grove.
Pal. Too much of this : we wander far, the
skies begin to scowl ;
Retire we to Diana's bower, the weather will be
foul.
The storm being past of thunder and lightning, and Ate
haring trundled the ball into place, crying, "Fatinu
Trojse," Juso takes it up.
Juno. Pallas, the storm is past and gone, and
Phcebus clears the skies,
An 1, lo, behold a ball of gold, a fair and worthy
prize !
Ven. This posy wills the apple to the fairest
given be ;
Then is it mine, for Venus hight the fairest of
the three.
Pal. The fairest here, as fair i3 meant, am I,
ye do me wrong ;
And if the fairest have it must, to me it doth
belong.
Juno. Then Juno may it not enjoy, so every
one says no,
But I will prove myself the fairest, ere I lose it so.
[Thty read the port/.
The brief+ is this, Detur pvlcherrim.ee,
Let this unto the fairest givt-n be,
The fairest of the three, — and I am she.
Pal. Detur pidcherrimce,
Let this unto the fairest given be,
The fairest of the three, — and I am she.
Ven. Detur pidcherrimce,
Let this unto the fairest given be,
The fairest of the three, — and I am she.
Juno. My face is fair ; but yet the majesty,
That all the gods in heaven have seen in me,
Have made them choose me. of the planets seven,
To be the wife of Jove and queen of heaven.
If, then, this prize be but bequeath'd to beauty,
The only she that wins thi3 prize am I.
* so] The 4to. "and."
I ] i. e. writing, —posy.
SlE.VA T.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
357
Vcn. That Venus is the fairest, this doth prove,
That Venus is the lovely Queen of Love:
The name of Venus is indeed but beauty,
And men rue fairest call per excellency.
If, then, this prize be but bequeath'd to beauty,
The only she that wins this prize am I.
Pal. To stand on terms of beauty as you take it,
Believe me, ladies, is but to mistake it.
The beauty that this subtle prize must win,
No outward beauty bight, but dwells within ;
And sift it as you please, and you shall find,
This beauty is the beauty of the miiid :
This fairness, virtue bight in general,
That mauy branches hath in special ;
This beauty wisdom bight, whereof am I,
By heaven appointed, goddess worthily.
An-l look how much the mind, the better part,
Doth overpass the body in desert,
So much the mistress of those gifts divine
Excels thy beauty, and that state of thine.
Then, if this prize be thus bequeath'd to beauty,
The only she that wins this prize am I.
Ven. Nay, Pallas, by your leave you wander
clean :
We must not construe * hereof as you mean,
But take the sense as it is plainly meant;
And let the fairest ha't, I am content.
Pal. Our reasons will be infinite, I trow,
Unless unto some other point we grow :
But first here's none, methinks, dispos'd to yield,
And none but will with words maintain the field.
Juno. Then, if you will, t' avoid a tedious
Refer it to the sentence of a judge ; [grudge,
Whoe'er be be that cometh next in place,
Let him bestow the ball and end the case.
Ven. So can it not go wrong with me at all.f
Pal. I am agreed, however it befal :
And yet by common doom, so may it be,
I may be said the fairest of the three.
Juno. Then yonder, lo, that shepherd swain is
That must be umpire in this controversy ! [he,
Enter Paris.
Vcn. Juno, in happy time, I do accept the
man ;
It seemeth by his looks some skill of love he can. J
Par. [aside.] The nymph is gone, and I, all
solitary,
Must wend to tend my cbarge, oppress'd with
melancholy.
* construe] The 4to. "conster." See note *, p. 200,
see. col.
t me at all] The 4to. " me not at al"
X can] i e. knows, — has.
This day (or else me fails my shepherd's skill)
Will tide me passing good or passing ill.
Juno. Shepherd, abash not, though at sudden
Thou be arriv'd by ignorance among us, [thus
Not earthly but divine, and goddesses all three ;
Juno, Pallas, Venus, these our titles be.
Nor fear to speak for reverence of the place,
Chosen to end a hard and doubtful case.
This apple, lo, (nor ask thou whence it came,)
Is to be given unto the fairest dame !
And fairest is, nor she, nor she, but she
Whom, shepherd, thou shalt fairest name to be.
This is thy charge ; fulfil without offence,
And she that wins shall give thee recompense.
Pal. Dread not to speak, for we have chosen
thee,
Sith in this * case we can no judges be.
Ven. And, shepherd, say that I the fairest am,
And thou shalt win good guerdon for the same.
Juno. Nay, shepherd, look upon my stately
grace,
Because the pomp that 'longs to Juno's mace
Thou "f" mayst not see ; and think Queen Juno's
name,
To whom old shepherds title works of fame,
Is mighty, and may easily suffice,
At Phoebe's hand,J to gain a golden prize.
Aad for thy meed, sith I am queen of riches,
Shepherd, § I will reward thee with great mo-
narchies,
Empires, and kingdoms, heaps of massy gold,
Sceptres and diadems curious to behold,
* ttw] The4to. "thie."
t Thou/ The4to. "They."
} At Phmbe's hand, &e.J The 4to. "At Phebus ham?,"
&e — " The Editor conjectures ' Phtebe'*,' but surely not
correctly ; for Juno, who is speaking, could not foresee
that the prize was to be bestowed by Phoebe or Diana.
It was an afterthought. Thj peculiar propriety of the
word ' Phoebus' ' in the text is certainly not clear ; and
we think that the error may be deeper than a misprint
in the last syllable." Rev. J. Mil/ord, — Gent. Mag. for
Feby. 1833, p. 101.
1 still think that "Phabe's" is right. Compare, in
p. 354, first col.,
" It rests in fine, for to confirm my talk,
Ye deign to pass along to Dian's walk ;
Where she among her troop of maids attends
The fair arrival of her welcome friends " ;
and, in p. 353, first col.,
" Where Phabe means to make this meeting royal."
Again, after Diana has assigned the golden apple to
Queen Elizabeth, Juno says
" The Queen of Heaven yields at Phaibe's doom,"
P 360, sec. co'.,
where (let it be particularly noticed) the 4to. has, by: a
misprint, " Phoebus doom."
§ Shepherd] Qy. an interpolation ?
358
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
Rich robes, of sumptuous workmanship and cost,
And thousand things whereof I make no boast :
The mould whereon thou treadest shall be of
Tagus' sands,
And Xanthus shall run liquid gold for thee to
wash thy hands;
And if thou like to tend thy flock, and not from
them to fly,
Their fleeces shall be curled gold to please their
master's eye ;
And last, to set thy heart on fire, give this one
fruit to me,
And, shepherd, lo, this tree of gold will I bestow
on thee !
Juno's Show.
A Tree of Gold rises, laden with diadems and crowns
of gold.
The ground whereon it grows, the grass, the
root of gold,
The body and the bark of gold, all glistering to
behold,
The leaves of burnish'd gold, the fruits that
thereon grow
Are diadems set with pearl in gold, in gorgeous
glistering show ;
And if this tree of gold in lieu may not suffice,
Require a grove of golden trees, so Juno bear the
prize. [The Tree sinks.
Pal. Me list not tempt theo with decaying
wealth,
Which is embas'd by want of lusty health ;
But if thou have a mind to fly above,
Y-crown'd with fame, near to the seat of Jove,
If thou aspire to wisdom's worthiness,
Whereof thou* mayst not see the brightness,
If thou desire honour of chivalry,
To be renown'd for happy victory,
To fight it out, and in the champaign field
To shroud thee under Pallas' warlike shield,
To prance on barbed steeds, this honour, lo,
Myself for guerdon shall on thee bestow !
And for encouragement, that thou mayst see
What famous knights Dame Pallas' warriors be,
Behold in Pallas' honour here they come,
Marching along with sound of thundering drum.
Pallas' Skow.
Enter Nine Knights in armour, treading a warlike almain,\
by drum and fife : and then they having marched forth
again, Venus speaks.
Ven. Come, shepherd, come, sweet shepherd,
look on me,
These bene too hot alarums these for thee :
* Whereof thou, &c] PerhapK a slightly mutilated line,
f almain] Or allimande, i. o. a kind of dauco.
But if thou wilt give me the golden ball,
Cupid my boy shall ha't to play withal,
That, whensoe'er this apple he shall see,
The God of Love himself shall think on thee,
And bid thee look and choose, and he will
wound
Whereso thy fancy's object shall be found ;
And lightly * when he shoots he doth not miss :
And I will give thee many a lovelyt kiss,
And come and play with thee on Ida here ;
And if thou wilt a face that hath no peer,
A gallant girl, a lusty minion trull,
That can give sport to thee thy bellyfull,
To ravish all thy beating veins with joy,
Here is a lass of Venus' court, my boy,
Here, gentle shepherd, here's for thee a piece,
The fairest face, the flower of gallant Greece.
Venus' Stww.
Mnter Helen in her bravery, with four Cupids attending on
her, each having his fan in his hand to fan fresh air in
her face: she sings as follows.
Se Diana nel cielo l una stella
Chiara e luccnte, piena di splendore,
Che porge luc all' affanato cuore ;
Se Diana nel ferno e una dea,
Che da conforto all' anime dannate,
Che per amor son morte desperate ;
Se Diana, ch' in terra e delle ninfe
Reina imperativa di dolci fiori,
Tra bosch' e selve da morte a pastori ;
lo son un Diana dolce e vara,
CJie con li guardi io posso far guerra
A Dian' tnfevri, in cielo, e in terra. [Exit.
Par. Most heavenly dames, was never man as I,
Poor shepherd swain, so happy and unhappy ;
The least of these delights that you devise,
Able to rape and dazzle human eyes.
But since my silence may not pardon'd be,
And I appoint which is the fairest she,
Pardon, most sacred dames, sith one, not all,
By Paris' doom must have this golden ball.
Thy beauty, stately Juno, dame divine,
That like to Phoebus' golden beams doth shine,
Approves itself to be most excellent;
But that fair face that doth me most content,
Sith fair, fair dames, is neither she nor she,
But she whom I shall fairest deem to be,
That face is hers that bight the Queen «>f Love,
Whose sweetness doth both gods and creatures
move:
* lightly] i. e commonly, usually.
t lovely] See note *, p. 189, first col.
8CKNA T.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
359
Aud if the fairest face deserve the ball,
Fair Venus, ladies, bears it from ye all.
[Gives the golden ball to Venus.
Ven. And in this ball doth Venus more
delight
Than in her lovely boy fair Cupid's sight.
Come, shepherd, come; sweet Venus is thy
friend ;
No matter how thou other gods offend.
[Venus takes Paris aimty with her.
Juno. But he shall rue and ban the dismal
day
Wherein his Venus bare the ball away ;
And heaven and earth just witnesses shall
be,
I will revenge it on his progeny.
Pal. Well, Juno, whether we be lief * or
loth,
Venus hath got the apple from us both.
[Exeunt.
ACT III.
SCENA I.
Enter Colin, who sings his passion of lore.
gentle Love, ungentle for thy deed,
Thou mak'st my heart
A bloody mark
With piercing shot to bleed !
Shoot soft, sweet Love, for fear thou shoot amiss,
For fear too keen
Thy arrows been,
And hit the heart where my beloved is.
Too fair that fortune were, nor never I
Shall be so blest,
Among the rest,
That Love shall seize on her by sympathy.
Then since with Love my prayers bear no boot,
This doth remain
To ease * my pain,
I take the wound, and die at Venus' foot.
[Exit.
Enter Hobbinol, Diogon, and Thenot.
Hob. Poor Colin, woeful man, thy life for-
spoke by love,
What uncouth fit, what malady, is this that thou
dost prove ?
Dig. Or Love is void of physic clean, or Love's
our common wrack,
That gives us bane to bring us low, and let[s]
us medicine lack.
Hob. That ever Love had reverence 'mong
silly shepherd swains !
Belike that humour hurts them most that most
might be their pains.
* ea*e] So in England's Helicon, 1600. where this song is
printed with Peele's signature. — The 4to. " cease."
The. Hobbin, it is some other god that che-
risheth their t sheep,
For sure this Love doth nothing else but inako
our herdmen weep.
Dig. And what a hap is this, I pray, when all
our woods rejoice,
For Colin thus to be denied his young and lovely
choice ]
The. She hight indeed so fresh and fair that
well it is for thee,
Colin, and kind J hath been thy friend, that
Cupid could not see.
Hub. And whither wends yon thriveless
swain ] like to the stricken deer,
Seeks he dictamnum § for his wound within our
forest here ?
Dig. He wends to greet the Queen of Love,
that in these woods doth wou,||
With mirthless lays to make complaint to Venus
of her son.
The. Ah, Colin, thou art all deceiv'd ! she
dallies with the boy,
And winks at all his wanton pranks, and thinks
thy love a toy.
Hob. Then leave him to his luckless love, let
him abide his fate ;
The sore is rankled all too far, our comfort comes
too late.
Dig. Though Thestylis the scorpion be that
breaks his sweet assault,
Yet will RhamnusiaTI vengeance take on her dis-
dainful fault.
« lief] The4to. "leyse."
t their] The ita. "her "; which is sometimes equivalent
to — their: but I have not retained it hero, because "their"
occurs in the preceding line. } kind] i. e nature.
§ dictamnum] The 4to. "Dictamum." See note {, i>.
205, first col. || won] i. e. dwell, — haunt.
IT Rhaminma] i. e. Nemesis, so called from Rhamnus
3G0
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARrS.
ACT III.
The. Lo, yonder comes the lovely nymph, that
iu these Ida vales
Plays with Amyntas' lusty boy, aud coys * him
in the dales !
Hob. Thenot, methinks her cheer + is chang'd,
her mirthful looks are laid,
She frolics not; pray god, the lad have not
beguil'd + the maid !
Eater CEnone with a wreath of poplar on her head.
(En. [aside.] Beguil'd, disdain'd, and out of
love ! Live long, thou poplar-tree,
And let thy letters grow in length, to witness
this with me.
Ah, Venus, but for reverence unto thy sacred
name,
To steal a silly maiden's love, I might account it
blame !
And if the tales be true I hear, and blush for to
recite,
Thou dost me wrong to leave the plains and
dally out of sight.
False Paris, this was not thy vow, when thou and
I were one,
To range and change old love for new ; but now
those days be gone.
But I will find the goddess out, that she thy vow
may read,
And fill these woods with my laments for thy
\mhappy deed.
Hob. So fair a face, so foul a thought to
harbour in his breast !
Thy hope consum'd, poor nymph, thy hap is
worse than all the rest.
(En. Ah, shepherds, you bin full of wiles, and
whet your wits on books,
And rape poor maids with pipes and songs, and
sweet alluring looks !
Dig. Mis-speak not all for his amiss ;§ there
bin that keepen flocks,
That never chose but once, nor yet beguiled love
with mocks.
(En. False Pai-is, he is none of those; his
trothless double deed
Will hurt a many shepherds else that might go
nigh to speed.
in Attica, whore were her temple and statue. Our old
dramatists were fond of this sounding title.
* coys'] i. e. caresses, soothes, strokes.
t cheer] i. e. air, look.
t beguil'd] The 4to. "beguide."
§ amiss] i. e. fault.
The. Poor Colin, that is ill for thee, that art
as true in trust
To thy sweet smart as to his nymph Paris hath
bin unjust.
(En. Ah, well is she bath Colin won, that nill*
no other love !
And woe is me, my luck is loss, my pains no pity
move !
Hob. Farewell, fair nymph, sith he must heal
alone that gave the wound ;
There grows no herb of such effect upon Dame
Nature's ground.
[Exeunt Hobbinol, Digoon, ami Thenot.
Enter Mercury with Vulcan's Cyclops.
Mer. Here is a nymph that sadly sits, and she
beleek +
Can tell some news, Pyracmon, of the jolly swain
we seek :
Dare wage my wings, the lass doth love, she
looks so bleak and thin ;
And 'tis for anger or for grief: but I will talk
begin.
(En. [aside.] Break out, poor heart, and make
complaint, the mountain flocks to move,
What proud repulse and thankless scorn thou
hast receiv'd of love.
Mer. She singeth ; sirs, be hush'd a while.
CEnone sings as she sits.
QEnone's Complaint.
Melpomene, the Muse of tragic songs,
With mournful tunes, in stole of dismal hue,
Assist a silly nymph to wail her woe,
And leave thy lusty company behind.
ThouJ luckless wreath ! becomes not me to wear
The poplar-tree for triumph of my love :
Then, as my joy, my pride of love, is left,
Be thou unclothed of thy lovely green ;
And in thy leaves my fortune § written be,
And them || some gentle wind let blow abroad,
That all the world may see how false of love
False Paris hath to his CEnone been.
* nill] i. e. will not.
t she beleek] Qy. " she to us beleek" 1— beleek, i. e. belike.
—The 4to. "belike": but compare our author's Tale oj
Troy ;
" Unwares to wreak Patroclus' death brUek,
He slays a peerless Trojan for a Greek."
} Thou] England's Helicon, where CEnone's Complaint
is printed with Peele's signature, "This."
§ fortune] E. H. "fortunes."
|| them] E. H. "then."
.J
SCENA II.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
3GI
The song ended, CEnopje fitting still, Mercury speaks.
Ma: Good day, fair maid ; weary belike with
following of your game,
I wish thee cunning at thy will, to spare or strike
the same.
(En. I thauk you, sir; my game is quick, and
rids * a length of ground,
And yet I am deceiv'd, or else 'a had a deadly
wound.
Mer. Your hand perhaps did swerve awry.f
(En. Or else it was my heart.
Mer. Then sure 'a plied his footmanship.
(En. 'A play'd a ranging part.
Mer. You should have given a deeper wound.
(En. I could not that for pity.
Mer. You should have ey'd him better, then.
(En. Blind love was not so witty.
Mer. Why, tell me, sweet, are you in love ?
(En. Or would I were not so.
Me?: Ye mean because 'a does ye wrong.
(En. Perdy,^ the more my woe.
Mer. Why, mean ye Love, or him ye lov'd ?
(En. Well may I mean them both.
Mer. Is Love to blame?
(En. The Queen of Love hath made him
false his troth.
Mer. Mean ye, indeed, the Queen of Love ?
(En. Even wanton Cupid's dame.
Me?: Why, was thy love so lovely, then ?
(En. His beauty hight his shame ;
The fairest shepherd on our green.
Me?: Is he a shepherd, than ?§
(En. And sometime kept a bleating flock.
Mer. Enough, this is the man.
Where wons || he, then?
(En. About these woods, far from the poplar-
tree.
Mer. What poplar mean ye ? [me.
(En. Witness of the vows 'twixt^f him and
And come and wend a little way, and you shall
see his skill.
Mer. Sirs, tarry you.
(En. Nay, let them go.
Me?: Nay, not unless you will.
Stay, nymph, and hark** what I say of him thou
blamest so,
And, credit me, I have a sad discourse to tell
thee ere I go.
* rids] i e. clears.
t awry] The 4to. "awarie"
t Perdy] i. e. par Dieu, verily.
§ than] A form of then : see note *, p. 206, sec. col.
|| wons] i. e. dwells.
f 'twixt] The 4to. " betwixt."
** hark] Qy. "barken"?
Know then, my pretty mops, that I hight
Mercury,
The messenger of heaven, and hither fly,
To seize upon the man whom thou dost love,
To summon him before my father Jove,
To answer matter of great consequence :
And Jove himself will not be long from hence.
(En. Sweet Mercury, and have poor (Enon's
cries
For Paris' fault y-piere'd* th' unpartial skies?
Mer. The eame is he, that jolly shepherd's
swain.
(En. His flock do graze upon Aurora's plain,
The colour of his coat is lusty green ;
That would these eyes of mine had never seen
His 'ticing curled hair, his front of ivory,
Then had not I, poor I, bin unhappy.
Mer. No marvel, wench, although we cannof
find him,
When all too late the Queen of Heaven doth
mind him.
But if thou wilt have physic for thy sore,
Mind him who list, remember thou him no
more,
And find some other game, and get thee gone ;
For here will lusty suitors come anon,
Too hot and lusty + for thy dying vein,
Such as ne'er wontj to make their suits in vain.
[Exit with the Cyclops.
(En. I will go sit aud pine under the poplar-
tree,
And write my answer to his vow, that every eye
may see. [Exit.
SCENA II.
Enter Venus, Paris, and a company of Shepherds.
Yen. Shepherds, I am content, for this sweet
shepherd's sake,
A strange revenge upon the maid and her disdain
to take.
Let Coliu's corpse be brought in place, and
buried § in the plain,
And let this be the verse, The love whom Thcs-
tylis hath slain.
And, trust me, I will chide my son for partiality,
That gave the swain so deep a wound, and let her
scape him by.
* y-pierc'd\ The 4to. "ypeircest."
t lusty] Repeated, it would seem, by mistake from the
preceding line.
X ne'er wont] The 4to. "weremonte."
§ buried] The 4to. "burned."
3G2
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
ACT III.
First Shep. Alas that ever Love was blind, to
shoot so far amiss !
Ven. Cupid my sou was more to blame, the
fault uot mine, but his.
[Exiunt Shepherds.
Par. madam, if yourself would deign the
handling of the bow,
Albeit it be a task, yourself more skill, more
justice know.
Ven. Sweet shepherd, didst thou ever love?
Par. Lady, a little once.
Ven. And art thou chang'd?
Par. Fair Queen of Love, I lov'd not all
attonce.*
Ven. Well, wanton, wert thou wounded so
deep as some have been,
It were a cunning cure to heal, and rueful to be
seen.
Par. But tell me, gracious goddess, for a
start t and false offence
Hath Venus or her son the power at pleasure to
dispense ?
Ven. My boy, I will instruct thee in a piece of
poetry,
That haply erst thou hast not heard : in hell j
there is a tree,
Where once a-day do sleep the souls of false for-
sworen lovers,
With open hearts; and there about in swarms the
number hovers
Of poor forsaken ghosts, whose wings from off
this tree do beat
Round drops of fiery Phlegethon to scorch false
hearts with heat.
This pain did Venus and her son entreat the
prince of hell
T' impose to such as faithless were to such as
lov'd them well :
And, therefore, this, my lovely boy, fair Venus
doth advise thee,
Be true and steadfast in thy love, beware thou
do disguise thee;
For he that makes but love a jest, when pleaseth
him to start,
Shall feel those fiery water-drops consume his
faithless heart.
Par. Is Venus and her son so full of justice
and severity ]
Ven. Pity it wore that love should not be
linked with indifferency.
* attonce] For "at once."
+ a start] Compare the last line but one of the next
speech.
However lovers can exclaim for hard success in
love,
Trust me, some more than common cause that
painful hap doth move :
And Cupid's bow is not alone his triumph, but
his rod ;
Nor is he only but a boy, he bight a mighty god ;
And they that do him reverence have reason for
the same,
His shafts keep heaven aud earth in awe, and
shape rewards for shame.
Par. And hath he reason to maintain why
Colin died for love ?
Ven. Yea, reason good, I warrant thee, in
right it might behove.
Par. Then be the name of Love ador'd ; his
bow is full of might,
His wounds are all but for desert, his laws are all
but right.
Ven* Well, for this once me list apply my
speeches to thy sense,
And Thestylis shall feel the pain for Love's
suppos'd offence.
The Shepherds bring in Colin's hearse, singing,
Welladay, welladay, poor Colin, thou art going
to the ground,
The love whom Thestylis t hath slain,
Hard heart, fair face, fraught with disdain,
Disdain in love a deadly wound.
Wound her, sweet Love, so deep again,
That she may feel the dying pain
Of this unhappy shepherd's swain,
And die for love as Colin died, as Colin died.
Ven. Shepherds, abide; let Colin's corpse be
witness of the pain
That Thestylis endures in love, a plague for her
disdain.
Bjhold the organ of our wrath, this rusty churl
is he;
She dotes on his ill-favour'd face, so much
accurs'd is she.
Enter afoul crooked Churl, with Thestylis a fair Lass, who
woos him, and sings an old song called The Wooing of
Colman : he crabbedly refuses her, and goes out of place:
she tarries behind.
Par. Ah, poor unhappy Thestylis, unpitied is
thy pain !
Ven. Her fortune not unlike to hers + whom
cruel thou hast slain.
* Ven.] Omitted in the 4to.
t Thestylis] The 4to. " Thestis. '
t hers] The4to. "his."
SCEXA II.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
3G3
Thest? lis tinyt, and the Shepherds reply.
THE SONO.
Thest. The strange affects of Luy tormented
heart,
Whom cruel love hath woeful prisoner caught,
Whom cruel hate hath into bondage brought,
Whom wit no way of safe escape hath taught,
Enforce me say, in witness of my smart,
There is no pain to foul disdain in hardy suits of
Shepherds. There is no pain, &c. [love.
Thest. Cruel, farewell.
Shepherds. Cruel, farewell.
Thest. Most cruel thou, of all that nature
Shepherds. Most cruel, &c. [fram'd,
Thest. To kill thy love with thy disdain.
Shepherds. To kill thy love with thy disdain.
Thest. Cruel Disdain, so live thou nam'd,
Shepherds. Cruel Disdain, &c.
Thest. And let me die of Iphis' pain,
Shephei-ds. A life too good for thy disdain.
Thest. Sith this my stars to me allot,
And thou thy love hast all forgot.
Shepherds. And thou, &c. [Exit Thestylis.
The grace of this song is in the Shepherds' echo to her verse.
Yen. Now, shepherds, bury Colin's corpse,
perfume his hearse with flowers,
And write what justice Venus did amid these
woods of yours.
[Hie Shepherds carry out Colin's hearse.
How now, how cheers my lovely boy, after this
dump of love?
Par. Such dumps, sweet lady, as bin these,
are deadly dumps to prove.
Ven. Cease, shepherd, there* are other news,
after this melancholy :
My mind presumes some tempest toward upon
the speech of Mercury.
Enter Mercury with Vulcan's Cyclops.
Mer. Fair Lady Venus, let me pardon'd be,
That have of long bin well-belov'd of thee,
If, as my office bids, myself first brings
To my sweet madam these unwelcome tidings.
• there] The 4to. " these."
Ven. What news, what tidings, gentle Mercury,
In midst of my delights, to trouble me?
Mer. At Juuo's suit, Pallas assisting her,
Sith both did join in suit to Jupiter,
Action is enter'd in the court of heaven ;
And me, the swiftest of the planets seven,
With warrant they have thence despatch' d away,
To apprehend aud find the man, they say,
That gave from them that self-same ball of gold,
Which, I presume, I do in place behold ;
Which man, unless my marks be taken wide,
Is he that sits so near thy gracious side.
This being so, it rests he go from hence,
Before the gods to answer his offence.
Ven. What tale is this? doth Juno and her mate
Pursue this shepherd with such deadly hate,
As what was then our general agreement,
To stand unto they uill * be now content ?
Let Juno jet,+ and Pallas play her part,
What here I have, I won it by desert;
And heaven and earth shall both confounded be,
Ere wrong in this be doue to him or me.
Mer. This little fruit, if Mercury can spell,
Will send, I fear, a world of souls to hell.
Ven. What mean these Cyclops, Mercury ? is
Vulcan wax'd so fiue,
To send his chimney-sweepers forth to fetter any
friend of mine ? —
Abash not, shepherd, at the thing; myself thy
bail will be. —
He shall be present at the court of Jove, I warrant
Mer. Venus, give me your pledge. [thee.
Ven. My ceston, or my fan, or both ?
Mer. [taking her fan.'] Nay, this shall serve,
your word to me as sure as is your oath,
At Diana's J bower ; and, lady, if my wit or policy
May profit him, for Venus' sake let him make
bold with Mercury.
[Exit with the Cyclops.
Ven. Sweet Paris, whereon dost thou muse ?
Par. The angry heavens, for this fatal jar,
Name me the instrument of dire and deadly war.
[Exeunt.
* nill] i e. will not.
f jet] i. e. strut.
J Diana's] Qy. "DianVt
3G4
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
ACT IV.
ACT IV.
SCENA I.
Enter one of Diana's Nymphs, folloiced by Vulcan.
Vul. Why, nymph, what need ye run so fast ?
what though but black I be ?
I have more pretty knacks to please than every
eye doth see;
And though I go not so upright, and though I am
a smith,
To make me gracious you may have some other
thing therewith.
Enter Bacchus.
Bac. Yea, Vulcan, will ye so indeed ? — Nay,
turn, and tell him, trull,
He hath a mistress of his own to take his bellyful].
Vul. Why, sir, if Phoebe's dainty nymphs
please lusty Vulcan's tooth,
Why may not Vulcan tread awry as well as Venus
doth]
Nym. Ye shall not taint your troth for me :
you wot it very well,
All that be Dian's maids are vow'd to halter apes*
in hell.
Bac. I'faith, i'faith, my gentle mops, but I do
know a cast,
Lead apes who list, that we would help t'unhalter
them as fast.
Nym. Fie, fie, your skill is wondrous great !
Hadf thought the God of Wine
Had tended but his tubs and grapes, and not ben
half so fine.
Vul. Gramercy for that quirk, my girl.
Bac. That's one of dainty's frumps.J
Nym. I pray, sir, take't with all amiss; our
cunning come3 by lumps.
VuL Sh'ath capp'd his answer in the cue.
Nym. How says 'a, has she so ?
As well as she that capp'd your head to keep you
warm below.
Vul. Yea, then you will be curst I see.
Bac. Best let her even alone.
Nym. Yea, gentle gods, and find some other
string to harp upon.
* apex] Tho 4 to. "apples."
t Had] i. c I bad.
t frumps] i. c flouts, mocking speeches.
Bac. Some other string ! agreed, i'faith, some
other pretty thing;
'Twere shame fair maids should idle be : how say
you, will ye sing 1
Nym. Some rounds or merry roundelays, we
sing no other songs ;
Your melancholic notes not to our country mirth
belongs.
Vul. Here comes a crew will help us trim.
Enter Mercury with the Cyclops.
Met: Yea, now our task is done.
Bac. Then, merry Mercury, more than time
this round were well begun.
Tluy sing "Hey down, down, down," &c.
The song done, the Nymph winds a horn in Vulcan's ear,
and runs out.
Vul. A harlotry, I warrant her.
Bac. A peevish elvish shroe.*
Met: Have+ seen as far to come as near, for all
her ranging so.
But, Bacchus, time well-spent I wot, our sacred
father Jove,
With Phoebus and the God of War are met in
Dian's grove.
Vul. Then we are here before them yet : but
stay, the earth doth swell ;
God Neptune, too, (this hap is good,) doth meet
the Prince of Hell.
Pluto ascends from belmc in his chair ; Neptune cntirs
at another way.
Plu. What jars are these, that call the gods of
heaven and hell below 1
Ncp. It is a work of wit and toil to rule a lusty
shroe.
Enter Jupiter, Saturn, Apoi.t.o, Mars, Juno, Pallas,
and Diana.
Jup. Bring forth the man of Troy, that he may
hear
Whereof he is to be arraigned here.
Ncp. Lo, where 'a comes, prepar'd to plead his
case,
Under conduct of lovely Venus' grace !
* shroe] i. o. shrew.
+ Hare] i. e. I have.
BCBNA I.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
305
Enter Venus with Faris.
Mcr. I have not seen a more alluring boy.
Apol. So beauty bight the wreck of Priam's
Troy.
The gods being set in Diana's boirer ; Diana, Juno, Pallas,
Venus, and Paris, stand on sides before them.
Ven. Lo, sacred Jove, at Juno's proud com-
plaint,
As erst I gave my pledge to Mercury,
I bring the man whom he did late attaint,
To answer his indictment orderly;
And crave this grace of this immortal senate,
That ye allow the man his advocate.
Pal. That may not be ; the laws of heaven deny
A man to plead or answer by attorney.
Ven. Pallas, thy doom is all too peremptory.
Apol. Venus, that favour is denied him flatly :
He is a man, and therefore by our laws,
Himself, without bis aid, must plead his cause.
Ven. Then 'bash not, shepherd, in so good a
case ;
And friends thou hast, as well as foes, in place.
Juno. Why, Mercury, why do ye not indict
him ?
Ven. Soft, gentle Juno, I pray you, do not bite
him.
Juno. Nay, gods, I trow, you are like to have
great sileuce,
Unless this parrot be commanded hence.
Jup. Venus, forbear, be still. — Speak, Mercury.
Ven. If Juno jangle, Venus will reply.
Mer. Paris, king Priam's son, thou art arraign'd
of partiality,
Of sentence partial and unjust; for that without
indifferency,
Beyond desert or merit far, as thine accusers say,
From them, to Lady Venus here, thou gav'st the
prize away :
What is thine answer ?
Paris' oration to the Council of the Gods.
Sacred and just, thou great and dreadful Jove,
And you thrice-reverend powers, whom love nor
May wrest awry ; if this to me a man, [hate
This fortune fatal be, that I must plead
For safe excusal of my guiltless thought,
The honour more makes my mishap the less,
That I a man must plead before the gods,
Gracious forbearers of the world's amiss,*
For her, whose beauty how it hath entie'd,
This heavenly senate may with me aver.
amiss'] i. e sin.
But sith nor that nor this may do me boot,
And for myself myself must speaker be,
A mortal man amidst this heavenly presence;
Let me not shape a long defence to them
That ben beholders of my guiltless thoughts.
Then for the deed, that I may not deny,
Wherein consists the full of mine offence,
I did upon command ; if then I err'd,
I did no more than to a man belong'd.
And if, in verdict of their forms divine,
My d.izzled eye did swerve or surfeit more
On Venus' face than any face of theirs,
It was no partial fault, but fault of his,
Belike, whose eyesight not so perfect was
As might discern the brightness of the rest.
And if it were permitted unto men,
Ye gods, to parle with your secret thoughts,
There ben that sit upon that sacred seat,
That would with Paris err in Venus' praise.
But let me cease to speak of error here ;
Sith what my hand, the organ of my heart,
Did give with good agreement of mine eye,
My tongue is void with process to maintain.
Plu. A jolly shepherd, wise and eloquent.
Par. First, then, arraign'd of partiality,
Paris replies, " Unguilty of the fact " ;
His reason is, because he knew no more
Fair Venus' ceston than Dame Juno's mace,
Nor never saw wise Pallas' crystal shield.
Then, as I look'd, I lov'd and lik'd attonce,*
And as it was referr'd from them to me,
To give the prize to her whose beauty best
My fancy did commend, so did I praise
And judge as might my dazzled eye discern.
Nep. A piece of art, that cunningly, perdy.t
Refers the blame to weakness of his eye.
Par. Now, for I must add reason for my deed,
Why Venus rather pleas'd me of the three ;
First, in the entrails of my mortal ears,J
* attonce] For "at ouce. - '
+ perdy] Here the 4to. has the more unusual form
"pardie " : but see note *, p. 353, first, col., and uote {,
p. 361, first col.
X in the entrails of my mortal ears] In a note on The
First Part of Henry iv, act I. sc. 1., Shakespeare, vol. iii.
821, ed. 1S58, Mr. Collier remarks ; " In Feele's 'Arraign-
ment of Paris,' A. iv. sc. 4, entrails is unquestionably
misprinted for 'entrance,' where Paris talks of* the en-
trails of my mortal ears,' instead of ' the entrance of my
mortal ears ' The Rev. editor has failed to detect this
blunder: see Dyce's Peek's Works, i. 53." To which I
have already thus replied in another work (Strictures on
Mr. Collier's new ed. of Shakespeare, 1S58, p. 107); " So far
from assenting to Mr. Collier's dictum, that in tbi- pas-
sage 'entrails' (spelt in the 4to. 'intrayles') is a misprint,
I believe it to be the poet's own word ; and, moreover, I
am sure that 'the entrance of my mortal ears' would
not convey the sense which Peele intended. . . . Our
3G6
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARfS.
ACT. IV.
The question standing upon beauty's blaze,
The name of her that bight* the Queen of Love,
Metlioughtt, in beauty should not be excell'd.
Had io been destined to majesty,
(Yet will I not rob Venus of her grace.)
Then stately Juno might have borne the ball.
Had it to wisdom been intituled,
My human wit had given it Pallas then.
But sith unto the fairest of the three
That power, that threw it for my farther ill,
Did dedicate this ball ; and safest durst
My shepherd's skill adventure, as I thought,
To judge of form and beauty rather than
Of Juno's state or Pallas' worthiness,
That learn'd to ken the fairest of the flock,
And praised beauty but by nature's aim ;
Behold, to Venus Paris gave this fruit,
A daysman^ chosen there by full consent,
And heavenly powers should not repent their
Where it is said, beyond desert of hers [deeds.
I honour'd Veuus with this golden prize,
Ye gods, alas, what can a mortal man
Discern betwixt the sacred gifts of heaven ?
Or. if I may with reverence reason thus ;
Suppose I gave, and judg'd corruptly then.
For hope of that that best did please my thought,
Tuis apple not for beauty's praise alone;
I might offend, sith I was pardoned,§
And tempted more than ever creature was
With wealth, with beauty, and with chivalry,
And so preferr'd beauty before them all,
The thing that hath enchanted heaven itself.
And for the one, contentment is my wealth ;
A shell of salt will serve a shepherd swaia,
A slender banquet in a homely scrip,
And water running from the silver spring.
For arms, they dread no foes that sit so low ;
A thorn can keep the wind from off my back,
A sheep-cote thatch'd a shepherd's palace hight.
Of tragic Muses shepherds con|| no skill ;
Enough is them, if Cupid ben displeas'd,
To sing his praise on slender oaten pipe.
And thus, thrice-reverend, have I told my tale,
And crave the torment of my guiltless soul
To be measured by my faultless thought.
If warlike Pallas or the Queen of Heaven
Sue to reverse my sentence by appeal,
early authors sometimes employ the word 'entrails'
where modern writers would hardly think of using it:
bo in Tilut Andronieus, act ii. sc. 4, we have 'the ragged
. ntrailt of this pit.' " * hight] i. e. called.
I Mahought} The 4to. "My thought."
; daysman] i.e. umpire.
8 pardonid] Is this a misprint ? and, if so, tor what?
II con] i. e. know,— have.
Be it as please your majesties divine ;
The wrong, the hurt, not mine, if any be,
But hers whose beauty claim'd the prize of me.
Paris having ended, Jupiter speaks.
Jup. Venus, withdraw your shepherd for a
space,
Tdl he again be call'd for into place.
{Exeunt Venus and Paris.
Juno, what will ye after this reply,
But doom with sentence of indifferency ?
And if you will but justice in the cause,
The man must quited* be by heaven's laws.
Juno. Yea, gentle Jove, when Juno's suits are
mov'd,
Then heaven may see how well she is belov'd.
Apol. But, madam, fits it majesty divine
In any sort from justice to decline ]
Pal. Whether the man be guilty, yea or no,
That doth not hinder our appeal, I trow.
Juno. Phoebus, I wot, amid this heavenly crew,
There be that have to say as well as you.
Apol. And, Juno, I with them, aud they with me,
In law aud right must needfully agree.
Pal. I grant ye may agree, but be content
To doubt upon regard of your agreement.
Phi. And if ye mark'd, the man in his defence
Said thereof as 'a might with reverence.
Vul. And did ye very well, I promise ye.
Juno. No doubt, sir, you could note it cun-
ningly.
Sat. Well, Juno, if ye will appeal, ye may,
But first despatch the shepherd hence away.
Mars. Then Vulcan's dame is like to have the
wrong.
Juno. And that in passion doth to Mars belong.
Jup. Call Venus and the shepherd in again.
Bac. And rid the man that he may know his
pain.
Apol. His pain, his pain, his never-dying pain,
A cause to make a many more complain.
Mercury brings in Venus and Paris.
Jup. Shepherd, thou hast ben heard with
equity and law,
And for thy stars do thee to other calling draw,
We here dismi.-s thee hence, by order of our senate:
Go take thy way to Troy, and there abide thy fate.
Ven. Sweet shepherd, with such luck in love,
while thou dost live,
As may the Queen of Love to any lover give.
* quited] i. e. acquitted.
BCBNA X.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
307
Par. My luck is loss, howe'er vay love do speed :
I fear me Paris shall but rue his deed. [Exit.
Apol. From Ida woods now wends the shep-
herd's boy,
That in his bosom carries fire to Troy.
Jup. Venus, these ladies do appeal, you see,
And that they may appeal the gods agree :
It resteth, then, that you be well content
To stand in this unto our final judgment;
And if King Priam's son did well in this,
The law of heaven will not lead amiss.
Ven. But. sacred Jupiter, might thy daughter
choose,
She might with reason this appeal refuse :
Yet, if they be unmoved in their shames,
Pe it a stain and blemish to their names ;
A deed, too, far unworthy of the place,
Unworthy Pallas' lance or Juno's mace :
And if to beauty it bequeathed be,
I doubt not but it will return to me.
[Lays doirn the ball
Pal. Venus, there is no more ado than so,
It resteth where the gods do it bestow.
Nep. But, ladies, under favour of your rage,
Howe'er it be, you play upon the vantage.
Jap. Then, dames, that we more freely may
debate,
And hear th' indifferent, sentence of this senate,
Withdraw you from this presence for a space,
Till we have throughly questional of the case :
Dian shall be your guide ; nor shall you need
Yourselves t' inquire how things do here succeed ;
We will, as we resolve, give you to know,
By general doom how everything doth go.
Dia. Thy will, my wish. — Fair ladies, will ye
wend ?
Juno. Beshrew her whom this sentence doth
offend.
Ven. Now, Jove, be just ; and, gods, you that
be Venus' friends,
If you have ever done her wrong, then may you
make amends.
[Exeunt Diana, Jpno, Pallas, and Venus.
Jup. Venus is fair, Pallas and Juno too.
Vul. But tell me now without some more ado,
Who is the fairest she, and do not flatter.
Plu. Vulcan,
Upon comparison hangs all the matter :
That done, the quarrel and the strife were ended
Mars. Because 'tis known, the quarrel is pre-
tended.
Vicl. Mars, you have reason for your speech,
yer.iy ;
My dame, I trow, is fah - est in your eye.
Mars. Or, Vulcan, I should do her double
wrmig.
Sat. About a toy we tarry here too* long.
Give it by voices, voices give the odds;
A trifle so to trouble all the gods!
Nep. Relieve me, Saturn, be it so for me.
Bac. For me.
Plu. For me.
Mars. For me, if Jove agree.
Mer. And. gentle gods, I am indifferent;
But then I know who's likely to be shent.f
Apol. Thrice-reverend gods, and thou, im-
mortal Jove,
If Phoebus may, as him doth much behove,
Be licensed, according to our laws,
To speak uprightly in this doubted cause,
(Sith women's wits work men's unceasing woes.)
To make them friends, that now bin friendless
foes,
And peace to keep with them, with us, and all,
Tlmt make their title to this golden ball ;
i Nor think, ye gods, my speech doth derogate
From sacred power of this immortal senate ;)
Refer this sentence where it doth belong :
In this, say I, fair Phoebe hath the wrong ;
Not that I mean her beauty bears the prize,
But that the holy law of heaven denies
One god to meddle in another's power;
And this befel so near Diana's bower,
As for th'appeasing this unpleasant grudge,
In my conceit, she hight the fittest judge.
If Jove control not Pluto's hell with charms,
If Mars have sovereign power to manage
arms,
If Bacchus bear no rule in Neptune's* sea,
Nor Vulcan's fire doth Saturn's scythe obey,
Suppress not, then, 'gainst law and equity,
Diana's power in her own territory,
Whose regiment, § amid her sacred bowers,
As proper hight as any rule of yours.
Well may we so wipe all the speech away,
That Pallas, Juno, Venus, hath to say,
And answer that, by justice of our laws
We were not suffer' d to conclude the cause.
And this to me most egal|| doom appears,
A woman to be judge among her feres. U
Mer. Apollo hath found out the only mean
To rid the blame from us and trouble clean.
• too] The4to. "so."
t shent) " Shent; confums, dedecoratus." Coles's Diet.
J Neptune's] The 4to. "Neptune."
§ regiment] i. e. sway.
|| egal] i. e. equal, just.
*! ftre*\ i. e. companions,— equals.
308
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
ACT V.
Vul. We are beholding * to his sacred wit.
Jap. I can commend and well allow of it;
And so derive the matter from us all,
That Dian have the giving of the ball.
Vul. So Jove may clearly excuse him in the
case,
Where Juno else would chide and brawl apace.
[ They all rise.
Mer. And now it were some cunning to divine
To whom Diana will this prize resign.
Vul. Sufficeth me, it shall be none of mine.
Bac. Vulcan, though thou be black, thou'rt
nothing fine.
Vul. Go bathe thee, Bacchus, in a tub of wine ;
The ball's as likely to be mine as thine.
[Exeunt.
ACT V.
SCENA I.
Enter Diana, Juno, Pallas, and Venus.
Dia. Lo, ladies,t far beyond my hope and will,
you see,
This thankless office is impos'd to me ;
Wherein if you will rest as well content,
As Dian will be judge indifferent,
My egal doom shall none of you offend,
And of this quarrel make a final end :
And therefore, whether you be lief or % loath,
Confirm your promise with some sacred oath.
Pal. Phcebe, chief mistress of this sylvan chace,
Whom gods have chosen to conclude the case
That yet in balance undecided lies,
Touching bestowing of this golden prize,
I give my promise and mine oath withal,
By Styx, by heaven's power imperial,
By all that 'longs to Pallas' deity,
Her shield, her lance, ensigns of chivalry,
Her sacred wreath of olive and of bay,
Her ci'ested helm, and else what Pallas may,
That wheresoe'er this ball of purest gold,
That chaste Diana here in hand doth hold,
Unpartially her wisdom shall bestow,
Without mislike or quarrel any mo,§
Pallas shall rest content and satisfied,
And say the best desert doth there abide.
Juno. And here I promise and protest withal,
By Styx, by heaven's power imperial,
By all that 'longs to Juno's deity,
Her crown, her mace, ensigns of majesty,
Her spotless marriage-rites, her league divine,
And by that holy name of Proserpine,
That wheresoe'er this ball of purest gold,
That chaste Diana here in hand doth hold,
* beholding] Equivalent to beholden.
t ladies] Perhaps an insertion of the transcriber.
J or] The4to. "of."
§ mo\ i. e. more.
Unpartially her wisdom shall bestow,
Without mislike or quarrel any mo,
Juno shall rest content and satisfied,
And say the best desert doth there abide.
Ven. And, lovely Phcebe, for I know thy
doom
Will be no other than shall thee become,
Behold, I take thy dainty hand to kiss,
And with my solemn oath confirm my promise,
By Styx, by Jove's immortal empery,
By Cupid's bow, by Venus' myrtle-tree,
By Vulcan's gift, my ceston and my fan,
By this red rose, whose colour first began
When erst my wanton boy (the more his blame)
Did draw his bow awry and hurt his dame,
By all the honour and the sacrifice
That from Cithjeron * and from Paphos rise,
That wheresoe'er this ball of purest gold,
That chaste Diaua here in hand doth hold,
Unpartially her wisdom shall bestow,
Without mislike or quarrel any mo,
Venus shall rest content and satisfied,
And say the best desert doth there abide.
Diana, having taken their oaths, speaks.
Diana describes the Nymph Eliza, a figure of the Queen.
Dia. It is enough, and, goddesses, attend.
There wonst within these pleasant shady woods,
Where neither storm nor sun's distemperature
* Cithceron] Peele should have written Cythera, not
Cithatron; but greater jioets have fallen into the same
error : so Chaucer ;
" For sothly all the mount of Citheron,
Thcr Venus hath hire principal dwelling."
The Knighles Tate, ed. Tyrwhitt, v. 193S.
and Spenser ;
" She [i.e. Venus] brought her to her joyous Paradizo:
******
■Whether in Paphos or Cj/theron hill."
The Faerii Q u, R. 3. c. 6. at. 29.
+ toons] i. e. dwells.
scena r.
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
309
Have power to hurt by cruel heat or cold,
Under the climate of the milder heaven ;
Where seldom lights Jove's angry thunderbolt,
For favour of that sovereign earthly peer ;
Where whistling winds make music 'iuong the
trees, —
Far from disturbance of our country gods,
Amids the cypress-springs *, a gracious nymph,
That honours t Dian for her chastity,
And likes the labours well of Phoebe's groves;
The place Elyzium hight, and of the place
Her name that governs there Eliza is ;
A kingdom that may well compare with mine,
An aucieut seat of kings, a second Troy,
Y-compass'd round with a commodious sea :
Her people are y-cleped :£ Angeli,
Or, if I miss, a letter is the most :
She giveth laws of justice and of peace ;
And on her head, as fits her fortune best,
She wears a wreath of laurel, gold, and palm ;
Her robes of purple and of scarlet dye ;
Her veil of white, as best be6ts a maid :
Her ancestors live in the House of Fame :
She giveth arms of happy victory,
And flowers to deck her lions crown'd with gold.
This peerless nymph, whom heaven and earth
This paragon, this only, this is she, [belove,
In whom do meet so many gifts in one,
On whom our country gods so often gaze,
In honour of whose name the Muses sing ;
In state Queen Juno's peer, for power in arms
And virtues of the mind Minerva's mate,
As fair and lovely as the Queen of Love,
As chaste as Dian in her chaste desires :
The same is she, if Phoebe do no wrong,
To whom this ball in merit doth belong.
Pal. If this be she whom some Zabeta call,
To whom thy wisdom well bequeaths the ball,
I can remember, at her day of birth,
How Flora with her flowers strew'd the earth,
How every power with heavenly majesty
In person honour'd that solemnity.
Juno. The lovely Graces were not far away,
They threw their balm for triumph of the day.
Ven. The Fates against their kind§ began a
cheerful song,
And vow'd her life with favour to prolong.
Then first gan Cupid's eyesight wexen dim ;
Belike Eliza's beauty blinded him.
* cypress-springs] i. e. cypress-woods.
t honours] The 4to. "honour."
J y-clepM] i. e. called.
§ against tlieir kind] Qy. "'gainst kind"' — kind, i.e.
nature.
To this fair nymph, not earthly, but divine,
Contents it me my honour to resign.
Pal. To this fair queen, so beautiful and wiae,
Pallas bequeaths her title in the prize.
Juno. To her whom Juno's looks so well
become,
The Queen of Heaven yields at Phoebe's* doom ;
And glad I am Diana found the art,
Without offence so well to please desert.
Dia. Then mark my tale. The usual time is nigh,
When wont the Dames of Life and Destiny,
In robes of cheerful colours, to repair
To this renowned queen so wise and fair,
With pleasant songs this peerless nymph to greet ;
Clotho lays dowu her distaff at her feet,
And Lachesis doth pull the thread at length,
The third with favour gives it stuff and strength,
And for contrary kind affords her leave,
As her best likes, her web of life to weave.
This time we will attend, and in mean while +
With some sweet song the tediousness beguile.
The Music sounds, and the Nymphs within sing or sol/a
with voices and instruments awhile. Then tiiUr Clo-
tho, Lachesis, and Atropos, singing as follows : the
state } being in place.
THE SONG.
do. Humana; vita; Jilum sic volvere Parca;.
Lack. Humana; vita; Jilum sic tende'ie Parca;.
Atro. Humana; vita; Jilum sic scindere Parca;.
Clo. Clotho colum bajulut.
Lack. Lachesis trahit.
Atro. Atropos occat.
Tres SIMDL. Vive diu felix votis hominumquc
deumque,
Corpore, inente, libro, doctissima, Candida, casta.
[They lay down their properties^ at the Queen's
feet.
Clo. Clotho colum pedlbus.
Lach Lachesis tibi pendula fila.
Atro. Et fatale tuis mambus ferrttm Atropos
offert.
Tres simdl. Vive diu felix, d-c.
Tfie song being ended, Clotho speaks to the Queen.
Clo. Gracious and wise, fair Queen of rare
renown,
Whom heaven and earth belove, amid thy train,
» Phoebe's] The 4to. "Phoebus."
t in mean while] The 4to. " in the meane while."
\ the state] i. e. the royal chair with a canopy: it some-
times signifies the raised platform on which the chair
was placed, and sometimes the canopy.
§ properties'] i e. the articles required fur the scene,--
viz. the distafl. <tc.
370
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.
ACT V.
Noble and lovely peers, to honour thee,
And do thee favour more than may belong
By nature's law to any earthly wight,
Behold continuance of our yearly due ;
Th'uupartial Dames of Destiny we meet,
As have the gods and we agreed in one,
In reverence of Eliza's noble name ;
And humbly, lo, her distaff Clotho yields !
Lack. Her spindle Lachesis, and her fatal reel,
Lays down in reverence at Eliza's feet.
Te tamen * in terris unam tria numina Divam
Invito, statuunt natures lege sorores,
Et tibi non aliis didicerunt parcere Parcce.
Atro. Dame Atropos, according as her feres, t
To thee, fair Queen, resigns her fatal knife :
Live long the noble phcenix of our age,
Our fair Eliza, our Zabeta fair !
Dia. And, lo, beside this rare solemnity,
And sacrifice these dames are wont to do,
* Te tamen, Ac] Are not these Latin lines misplaced?
t feres] i. e. companions, — sisters.
A favour, far indeed contrary kiud,
Bequeathed is unto thy worthiness, —
This prize from heaven and heavenly goddesses !
[Delivers the ball of gold to the Queen's own
hands.
Accept it, then, thy due by Dian's doom,
Praise of the wisdom, beauty, and the state,
That best becomes thy peerless excellency.
Ven. So, fair Eliza, Venus doth resign
The honour of this honour to be thine.
Juno. So is the Queen of Heaven content like-
wise
To yield to thee her title in the prize.
Pal. So Pallas yields the praise hereof to thee,
For wisdom, princely state, and peerless beauty.
Epilogus.
Omnes simul. Vive diu felix votis hominumque
deumque,
Corpore, menle, libro, doctissima, Candida, casta.
[Exeunt Omnes.
The Famous Chronicle ofHng Edward the first, simamed Edward Longshonhes, with his retnrne jrom the holy land.
Alto the life of LUvellen rebell in Wales. Lastly, the sinking of Queene Elinor, who sunck at Charingcrosse, and rose ogn.ine
at Potters-hith, now named Queenehith. London Printed by Abell Jeffes, and are to be solde by William Barley, at his shop
in Gratious streete. 1593. 4to.
Another edition appeared, Imprinted at London by W. White dwelling in Cow-Lane. 1589. 4to.
Several of the events in this drama (perhaps the most incorrectly printed of all our old plays) are taken from
Holinshed, but introduced without any regard to their chronological order. I subjoin the ballad already men-
tioned in my Account of Pecle and his xoritings.
Edwnrd the First has been reprinted in Dodsley's Old Ploys, vol. xi., last ed.
A WARNING-PIECE TO ENGLAND AGAINST PRIDE AND
WICKEDNESS :
Beiug the full of Queen Eleanor, wife to Edward the First, King of England ; who, for her pride, by
God's judgments, sunk into the ground at Charing-Cross, and rose at Queenkithe,
Wuen Edward was in England king,
The first of all that name,
Proud Ellinor he made his queen,
A stately Spanish dame ;
Whose wicked life, and sinful pride,
Thro' England did excel :
To dainty dames and gallant maids
This queen was known full well.
She was the first that did invent
In coaches brave to ride ;
She was the first that brought this land
To deadly sin of pride.
No Euglish taylor here could serve
To make her rich attire ;
But sent for taylors into Spain,
To feed her vain desire :
They brought in fashions strange and new,
With golden garments bright ;
The farthingale, and mighty ruff,
With gowns of rich delight :
The London dames in Spanish pride
Did flourish every where ;
Our English men, like women then,
Did wear long locks of hair.
Both man and child, both maid and wife,
Were drown' d in pride of Spain,
And thought the Spanish taylors then
Our Euglish men did stain :
Whereat the queen did much despight,
To see our English men
In vestures clad as brave to see
As any Spaniard then.
She crav'd the king, that every man
That wore long locks of hair,
Might then be cut and polled all,
Or shaved very near.
Whereat the king did seem content,
And soon thereto agreed ;
And first commanded, that his own
Should then be cut with speed ;
And after that, to please his queen,
Proclaimed thro' the land,
That ev'ry man that wore long hair,
Should poll him out of hand.
But yet this Spaniard, not content,
To women bore a spite,
And then requested of the king,
Against all law and right,
That ev'ry womankind should have
Their right breast cut away,
And then with burning irons sear'd,
The blood to stanch and stay.
King Edward then, perceiving well
Her spite to womankind,
Devised soon by policy
To turn her bloody mind :
He sent for burning irons straight,
All sparkling hot to see ;
And said, "0 queen, come on thy way;
"I will begin with thee."
Which words did much displease the queen,
That penance to begin ;
But ask'd him pardon on her knees ;
Who gave her grace therein.
374
EDWARD I.
■
But afterwards she cbanc'd to pass
r ■ ■- ■
The water that did spring from ground
Along brave London streets,
She would not touch at all ;
Whereas the mayor of London's wife
But wash'd her hands with the dew of heav'n,
In stately sort she meets ;
That on sweet roses fall.
With music, mirth, and melody,
She bath'd her body many a time
Unto the church they went,
In fountains fill'd with milk ;
To give God thanks, that to th' lord mayor
And ev'ry day did change attire,
A noble son had sent.
In costly Median silk.
It grieved much this spiteful queen
But coining then to London back,
To see that any one
Within her coach of gold,
Should so exceed in mirth and joy,
A tempest strange within the skies
Except herself alone :
This queen did there behold :
For which she after did devise
Out of which storm she could not go,
Within her bloody mind,
But there remain'd a space ;
And practis'd still more secretly
For horses could not stir the coach
To kill this lady kind.
A foot out of the place :
Unto the mayor of London then
A judgment lately sent from heav'n,
She sent her letters straight,
For shedding guiltless blood,
To send his lady to the court,
Upon this sinful queen that slew
Upon her grace to wait.
The London lady good.
But when the London lady came
King Edward then, as wisdom will'd,
Before proud El'nor's face,
A ecus' d her of that deed ;
She stript her of her rich array,
But she denied, and wish'd that God
And kept her vile and base.
Would send his wrath with speed ;
She sent her into Wales with speed,
If that upon so vile a thing
And kept her secret there ;
Her heart did ever think,
And us'd her still more cruelly
Than ever man did hear :
She made her wash, she made her starch,
She made her drudge alway ;
She made her nurse up children small,
And labour night and day.
But this contented not the queen,
But sbew'd her most despite ;
She bound this lady to a post,
At twelve a clock at night ;
And as, poor lady, she stood bound,
The queen (in angry mood)
Did set two snakes unto her breast,
That suck'd away her blood.
Thus died the mayor of London's wife,
Most grievous for to hear ;
Which made the Spaniard grow more proud,
As after shall appear.
The wheat that daily made her bread
Was bolted twenty times ;
The food that fed this stately dame
Was boil'd in costly wines.
She wish'd the ground might open wide,
And therein she might sink !
With that at Charing-cross she sunk
Into the ground alive ;
And after rose with life again,
In London, at Queenhithe.
When, after that, she languish'd sore
Full twenty days in pain,
At last confess'd the lady's blood
Her guilty hand had slain ;
And likewise how that by a friar
She had a base-born child,
Whose sinful lusts and wickedness
Her marriage-bed defil'd.
Thus have you heard the fall of pride,
A just reward of sin ;
For those who will forswear themselves
God's vengeance daily win.
Beware of pride, ye courtly dames,
Both wives and maidens all ;
Hear this imprinted on your mind,
That pride must have a fall.
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
Edward I, Kin£ of England, surnatued Lonoshankb.
Edmund, Dnke of Lancaster, his brother.
Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Glocester.
Mortimer. Earl of March.
Earl of Sussex.
Sir Thomas Spencer.
Cressingiiam.
John Baliol, e'ected King of Scotland.
Versses.
Lluellen, Prince of Wales.
Sir David of Brecknock, his brother.
Rice ap Meredith.
Owen ap Kice.
Guenther.
Friar Hugh ap David.
Jack, his novice.
Harper.
Fanner.
John.
Bishop, English Lords, Scottish Lords, Welsh Burons,
Messengers, Soldiers, &c.
Queen-Mother.
Queen Elinor.
Joan of Acon, her daughter.
I/ADY Elinor.
Mary, Duchess of Lancaster.
Mayoress op London.
Guenthian, the Friar's wench.
Potter's Wife.
Catherine.
Ladies.
THE FAMOUS CHRONICLE HISTORY OF
KING EDWARD THE FIRST, Etc.
Enter the Queen-Mother attended b</ Giocbsteb, Sussex,
Mortimer, Sir David, and Ladies.
Q. Mother. My Lord Lieutenant of Glocester,
and Lord Mortimer,
To do you honour in your sovereign's eyes..
That, as we hear, is newly come a-land
From Palestine, with all his men-of-war,
(The poor remainder of the royal fleet,
Preserv'd by miracle in Sicil road,)
Go mount your coursers, meet him on the way :
Pray him to spur his steed ; minutes are* hours,
Until his mother see her princely son
Shining in glory of his safe return.
[Ex eun t Glocester and Mortdier.
Illustrious England, ancient seat of kings,
AVhose chivalry hath royaliz'd thy fame,
That sounding bravely through terrestrial vale,
Proclaiming conquests, spoils, and victories,
Rings glorious echoes through the farthest world ;
What warlike nation, train'd in feats of arms,
What barbarous people, stubborn, or untam'd,
What climate under the meridian signs,
Or frozen zone under his brumal stage,
Erst have not quak'd aud trembled at the name
Of Britain and her mighty conquerors ?
Her neighbour realms, as Scotland, Denmark,
France,
Aw'd with hert deeds, and jealous of her arms,
Have begg'd defensive and offensive leagues.
Thus Europe, rich and mighty in her king3,
Hath fear'd brave England, dreadful in her kings.
And now, t' eternize Albion's champions
Equivalent with Trojans' ancient fame,
Comes lovely Edward from Jerusalem,
Veering before the wind, ploughing the sea :
His stretched sails fill'd with the breath of men
That through the world admire his manliness.
• art] So the Editor of Dodsley"s 0. P.— Both 4tos.
Mid." t hir\ Both4tos. '•their."
And, lo, at last arriv'd in Dover-road,
Longshank[s], your king, your glory, and our
sou,
With troops of conquering lords and warlike
knights,
Like bloody-crested Mars, o'erlooks his host,
Higher than all his army by the head,
Matching along as bright as Phoebus' eyes !
And we, his mother, shall behold our son,
And England's peers shall see their sovereign.
The tr. I „d, and enter the train, wis. King Edward
Loxgshaxks's maimed Soldiers with head-pieces and
garlands on them, every Man tctih kit red-cross on his
coat; the Ancient borne in a chair, his garland and his
phones on kit head-piece, his ensign in his hand. Enter,
after them, Glocester and Mortimer bartheaded. and
others, as many as may be. Then otter King Edward
LONGSHANKS, QUEEN ELISOR, JuAN, LANCASTER, and
Signior Hoxtfort (pie Earl of Leicester's pri-
soner) zrith Charles de Moxtfort his brother;
Sailors and Soldiers.
Glocester ! * Edward ! my sweet sons !
[ivi/k and sicoo7\s.
Lomjsh. Help, ladies ! — ingrateful destiny,
To welcome Edward with this tragedy !
Glocester. Patient, your highness : 'tis but
mother's love
Ravish' dt with sight of her thrice-valiant sons. —
Madam, amaze not : see his majesty
Return'd with glory from the holy land.
Q. Mother. Brave sons, the worthy champions
of our God,
The honourable soldiers of the Highest,
Bear with your mother, whose abundant love
With tears of joy J salutes your sweet return
From famous journeys hard aud fortunate.
* Glocester] Can this be right? Why should she here
exclaim " Glocester " ? (Her "sweet sous" are Edward
and Lancaster.)
+ Jiarish'd] Both ttoa. " Reeeiud."
t >y] Both 4t>s. •■ ioyes."
378
EDWARD I.
But, lords, alas, how heavy is our loss
Since your departure to these Christian wars !
The king your father, and the prince your son,
And your brave uncle, Almain's emperor,
Ay me, are dead !
Longsh. Take comfort, madam ; leave these
sad laments :
Dear was my uncle, dearer was my son,
And ten times dearer was my noble father ;
Yet, were their lives valu'd at thousand worlds,
They cannot scape th' arrest of dreadful death,
Death that doth seize and summon all alike.
Then, leaving them to heavenly blessedness,
To join in thrones of glory with the just,
I do salute your royal majesty,
My gracious mother-queen, and you, my lords,
Gilbert de Clare, Sussex, and Mortimer,
And all the princely states of England's peers,
With health and honour to your hearts' content.
And welcome, wished England, on whose ground
These feet so often have desir'd to tread :
Welcome, sweet queen, my fellow-traveller,
Welcome, sweet Nell, my fellow-mate in arms,
Whose eyes have seen the slaughter'd Saracens
Pil'd in the ditches of Jerusalem :
And lastly welcome, manly followers,
That bear the scars of honour and of arms,
And on your war-drums carry crowns as kings,
Crown mural, naval, and triumphant all ;
At view of whom the Turks have trembling fled
Like sheep before the wolves, and Saracens*
Have made their cottages in walled towns ; t
But bulwarks had no fence to beat you back.
Lords, these arej they will enter brazen gates,
And tear down lime and mortar with their
nails :
Embrace them, barons : these have got the name
Of English gentlemen and knights-at-arms ;
Not one of these but in the champaign field
Hath won his crown, his collar, and his spurs.
Not Caesar, leading through the streets of Rome
The captive kings of conquer'd nations,
Was in his princely triumphs honour'd more
Than English Edward in this martial sight.
* Like sheep before the wolves, and Saracens] Both Itos.
" And Sarazens like sheepe before the walles." — I make
this transposition at the suggestion of the Rev. J. Mit-
ford. Gent. Mag. for Febry. 1833, p. 101.
t [lave made their cottages in walle'd towns) The words
" made their cottages " are, I think, vory suspicious,
though the Rev. J. Mitford, ubisuptf., explains the line
to moan "Have, at tho approach oi „n invading army,
fled from the open country to tho defouce of a fortified
town."
t are) Both 4tos. "and."
Countrymen,
Your limbs are lost in service of the Lord,
Which is your glory and your country's fame :
For limbs you shall have living, lordships, lands,
And be my counsellors in war's affairs.*
Soldiers, sit down. — Nell, 3it thee by my side. —
These be Prince Edward's pompous treasury.
[The Qdeen-Mother being set cm the one side,
and Queen Elinok on the other, (he King
sits in the midst, mounted highest, and
at his feet the ensign underneath him.
glorious Capitol ! beauteous senate-house !
Triumphant Edward, how, like sturdy oaks,
Do these thy soldiers circle thee about,
To shield and shelter thee from winter's storms !
Display thy cross, old Aimes of the Vies :
Dub on your drums, tanned with India's sun,
My lusty western lads : Matrevers, thou
Sound proudly here a perfect point of warf"
In honour of thy sovereign's safe return.
Thus Longshanks bids his soldiers Bicn venu.
[Use drums, trumpets, and ensigns.
God, my God, the brightness of my day,
How oft hast thou preserv'd thy servant safe,
By sea and land, yea, in the gates of death !
O God, to thee how highly am I bound
For setting me with these on English ground !
One of my mansion-houses will I give
To be a college for my maimed men,
Where every one shall have an hundred marks
Of yearly pension to his maintenance :
A soldier that for Christ and country fights
Shall want no living whilst King Edward lives.
Lords, you that love me, now be liberal,
And give your largess to these maimed men.
Q. Mother. Towards this erection doth thy mo-
ther give,
Out of her dowry,J five thousand pounds of gold,
To find them surgeons to recure their wounds ;
And whilst this ancient standard-bearer lives,
He shall have forty pound of yearly fee,
And be my beadsman, father, if you please.
Longsh. Madam, I tell you, England never bred
A better soldier than your beadsman is ;
And that the Soldan and his army felt.
Lancaster. Out of the duchy of rich Lancaster,
To find soft bedding for their bruised bones,
Duke Edmund gives three thousand pouuds.§
Longsh. Gramercics, brother Edmund.
Happy is England under Edward's reign,
When men are had so highly in regard
* affairs) The 4to. of 1689 "affaire."
\ point of war] See note *, p. Pi, sec. col.
J dowry) Qy. " dower " ?
S pounds] Qy. "poundl of gold"? (as a little before.)
EDWARD I.
379
That nobles strive who shall remunerate
The soldiers' resolution with regard.*
My Lord of Glocester, what is your benevolence ?
Olocester. A thousand marks, an please your
majesty.
Longsh. And yours, my Lord of Sussex )
Sussex. Five hundred pound, an please your
majesty.
Longsh. What say you, Sir David of Brecknock 1
Sir David. To a soldier Sir David cannot be
too liberal : yet that I may give no more than a
poor knight is able, and not presume as a mighty
earl, 1 give, my lord, four hundred, fourscore, and
nineteen pounds. — And so, my Lord of Sussex, I
am behind you an ace.
Sussex. And yet, Sir David, ye amble after
apace.
Longsh. Well said, David ! thou couldst not be
a Camber- Briton, if thou didst not love a soldier
with thy heart. Let me see now if my arithmetic
will serve to total the particulars.
Q. Elinor. Why, my lord, I hope you mean I
shall be a benefactor to my fellow-soldiers.
Longsh. And well said, Nell ! what wilt thou
I set down for thee ?
Q. Elinor. Nay, my lord, I am of age to set it
down for myself. You will allow what I do, will
you not ?
Longsh. That I will, madam, were it to the
value of my kingdom.
Q. Elinor. What is the sum, my lord ?
Longsh. Ten thousand pounds, my NelL
Q. Elinor. Then, Elinor, bethink thee of a gift
worthy the King of England's wife and the King
of Spain's daughter, and give such a largess that
the chronicles of this land may crakef with
record of thy liberality.
ParturiuntX montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
[Makes a cipher.
There, my lord ; neither one, two, nor three, but
a poor cipher in agrum, to enrich good fellows,
and compound their figure in their kind.
Longsh. Madam, I commend your composition,
an argument of your honourable disposition.
Sweet Nell, thou shouldst not be thyself, did not,
with thy mounting mind §, thy gift surmount the
rest.
* regard] Repeated by mistake from the preceding
line but one ; and certainly not a misprint for " reward ",
— which word could not so follow "remunerate."
t crake] i. e. crack. — boast. See note §, p. 225, sec. col.
\ Parturiunt, &c] Horace, Ars Poetka. 139.
§ mounting mind] So Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost,
act iv. sc. 1 :
"Whoe'er he was, he show'd a mounting itiittd."
Olocester. Call you this ridiculus mus 1 Marry,
sir, this mouse would make a foul hole iu a fair
cheese. 'Tis but a cipher in agrum, and it hath
made of ten thousand pounds a hundred thousand
pounds.
Lancaster. A princely gift, and worthy memory.
Olocester. My gracious lord,* as erst I was as-
signed Lieutenant to his majesty, here render I up
the crown, left in charge with me by your princely
father King Henry ;
Who on his death-bed still did call for you,
And dying will'd to you the diadem.
Longsh. Thanks, worthy lord t •'
And seeing by doom of heavens it is decreed,
And lawful line of our succession,
Unworthy Edward is become your king,
We take it as a blessing from on high,
And will our coronation be solemniz'd
Upon the fourteenth of December next.
Q. Elinor. Upon the fourteenth of December
next !
Alas, my lord, the time is all too short
And sudden for so great solemnity :
A year were scarce enough to set a- work
Tailors, embroiderers, and men of rare device,
For preparation of so great estate.
Trust me, sweet Ned, hardly shall I bethink mo
In twenty weeks what fashion robes to wear.
I pray thee, then, defer it till the spring,
That we may have our garments point-device.^:
I mean to send for tailors into Spain,
That shall confer of some fantastic suits
With those that be our cunning'st Englishmen.
What, let me brave it now or never, Ned !
Longsh. Madam, content ye : would that were
greatest care !
You shall have garments to your heart's desire.
I never read but Englishmen excell'd
For change of rare devices every way.
Q. Elinor. Yet, pray thee, Ned, my love, my
lord, and king,
My fellow-soldier, and compeer in arms,
Do so much honour to thy Elinor,
To wear a suit that she shall give thy grace;
Of her own cost and workmanship perhaps.
Q. Mother. 'Twill come by leisure, daughter,
then, I fear :
Thou'rt too fine-fiuger'd to be quick at work.
* Mi/ gracious lord, &c] I need hardly observe that the
whole of the present speech was originally blank-verse,
— the text of this play being now miserably corrupted
jyassim.
t lord] Both 4tos. "Lordes."
t point-device] i. e. nice, or exact, in the extreme.
380
EDWARD I.
Longsh. 'Twixt us a greater matter breaks no
square,
So it be sucb, uiy Nell, as may beseem
The majesty ami greatuess of a kiug. —
And now, my lords and loving friends,
Follow your general to* the court,
After his travels, to repose him then,
There to recount with pleasure what is past
Of war's alarums, showers, and sharpest storms.
{Exeunt all except Q. Elinor and Joan.
Q. Minor. Now, Elinor, now England's lovely
queen,
Bethink thee of the greatness of thy state,t
And how to bear thyself with royalty
Above the other queens of Christendom ;
That Spain reaping renown by Elinor,
And Elinor adding renown to Spain,
Britain may her magnificence admire. —
I tell thee, Joan, what time our highness sits
Under our royal canopy of state,
Glistering with pendants of the purest gold,
Like as our seat were spangled all with stars,
The world shall wonder at our majesty,
As if the daughter of eternal Ops, J
Turn'd to the likeness of vermilion fumes,
Where§ from her cloudy womb the Centaurs leapt,
Were | j in her royal seat enthronized.
Joan. Madam, if Joan thy daughter may advise,
Let not your honour make your manners change.
The people of this land are men of war,
The women courteous, mild, and debonair ;
Laying their lives at princes' feetlf
That govern with familiar majesty.
But if their sovereigns once gin swell with pride,
Disdaining commons' love, which is the strength
And sureness of the richest commonwealth,
That prince were better live a private life
Thau rule with tyranny and discontent.
Q. Minor. Indeed, we count them headstrong
Englishmen ;
But we shall bold them in a Spanish yoke,
And make them know their lord and sovereign.
Come, daughter, let us home for to provide ;
For all the cunning workmen of this isle
In our great chamber shall be set a-work,
And in my hall shall bountifully feed.
* to] Qy- " unto " ? But the preceding line halts also.
+ state] The 4to. of 1599 "estate."
t eternal Ops] The 4to. of 1599 "the eternall Ops."
§ Where] Qy. "Whou"? (This simile, as it now
stands, is unintelligible)
|| Were] The 4to. of 1599 "Where."
U lives at princes' feet] Qy. " lives down at those princes'
feet" J.
My king, like Phoebus, bridegroom-like, shall march
With lovely Thetis* to her glassy bed,
And all the lookers-on shall stand amaz'd
To see King Edward and his lovely queen
Sit royallyt in England's stately throne. [Exeunt.
Enter Lluellen, Rice ap Meredith, Owen ap Rice,
with suords and bucklers, and frieze jerkins.
Lluellen. Come, Rice, and rouse thee for thy
country's good :
Follow the man that means to make you great;
Follow Lluellen, rightful Prince of Wales,
Sprung from the loins of great Cadwallader,
Descended from the loinsj of Trojan Brute.
And though the traitorous Saxons, Normans,
Danes,
Have pent§ the true remains of glorious Troy
Within the western mountains of this isle,
Yet have we hope to climb these stony pales,
When Londoners, as Romans erst, amaz'd,
Shall trembling cry, " Lluellen's at the gate ! "
T' accomplish this, thus have I brought you forth
Disguis'd to Milford- Haven : here attend
The landing of the Lady Elinor.
Her stay doth make me muse : the wind stands
fair,
And ten days hence we did expect them here.
Neptune, be favourable to my love,
And steer her keel with thy three-forked mace,
That from this shore I may behold her sails,
And in mine arms embrace my dearest dear.
Mice ap Mer. Brave Prince of Wales, this
honourable match
Cannot but turn to Cambria's common good.
Simon de Montfort, her thrice-valiant son,
That in the barons' wars was general,
Was lov'd and honour'd of the Englishmen :
When they shall hear she's your espoused wife,
Assure your grace we shall have great supply
To make our roads|| in England mightily.
Owen ap Rice. What we resolv'd must strongly
be perform' d,
Before the king return from Palestine.
Whilst he wins glory at Jerusalem,
Let us win ground upon the Englishmen.
Lluellen. Owen ap Rice, 'tis that Lluellen fears :
* Thetis] Both 4tos. "Xliecis."
f royally] Both 4tos. " kmely."
t loins'] Qy. " race " or "blood"?
§ Have pent, &c.J Both 4tos. " Haue spent the true Ro-
mans of glorious Troy "—On the margins of tho two old
copies of this play in the Garrick collection some one has
conjectured " remains" in place of " Romans ; " an alter-
ation as obviously necessary as that of "spent" into
"pent."
|| roads] i o. inroads.
EDWARD I.
381
I fear me Edward will be come ashore
Ere we can make provision for the war.
But be it as it will, within his court
My brother David is, that bears a face
As if he were my greatest enemy.
He by this craft shall creep into his* heart,
And give intelligence from time to time
Of his* intentions, drifts, and stratagems.
Here let us rest upon the salt sea shore,
And while our eyes long for our hearts' desires,
Let us, like friends, pastime us on the sands.
Our frolic minds are ominous for good.
Enter Friar Hugh ap David, Guenthian in flannel,
and Jack.
Friar. Guenthian, as 1 am true man,
So will I do the best I can ;
Guenthian, as I am true priest,
So will I be at thy behest ;
Guenthian, as I am true friar,
So will I be at thy desire.
Jack. My master stands too near the fire :
Trust him not, wench ; he'll prove a liar.
Lluellen. True man, true friar, true priest, and
true knave,
These four in one this trull shall have.
Friar. Here swear I by my shaven crown,
Wench, if I give thee a gay green gown,
I'll take thee up as I laid thee down,
And never bruise nor batter thee.
Jack. 0, swear not, master; flesh is frail. —
Wench, when the sign is in the tail,
Mighty is love and will prevail :
This churchman doth but flatter thee.
Lluellen. A pretty worm, and a lusty friar,
Made for the field, not for the quire.
Guenthian. Mas friar, as I am true maid,
So do I hold me well apaid : f
'Tis churchman's lay X and verity
To live in love and charity ;
And therefore ween I, as my creed,
Your words shall company your§ deed.
Davy, my dear, I yield in all,
Thine own to go and come at call.
Rice ap Met: And so far forth begins our brawl.
Friar. Then, my Guenthian, to begin,
Sith idleness in love is sin, —
Boy, to the town I will thee hie,
And so return even by and by,
When thou with cakes and muscadine,
And other junkets good and fine,
Hast fill'd thy bottle and thy bag.
* his] Both4tos. "her."
J lay] i. e. law.
t apaid] i. e. satisfied.
§ your] Both 4tos. "my."
Jack. Now, master, as I am true wag,
I will be neither late nor lag,
But go and come with gossip's cheer,
Ere Gib our cat can lick her ear.
For long ago I learn'd in school,
That love's desires and pleasures cool
Sans Ceres' wheat and Bacchus' vine : *
Now, master, for the cakes and wine. [Exit.
Friar. Wench f, to pass away the time in glee,
Guenthian, sit+ thee down by me,
And let our lips and voices meet
In a merry country song.
Quenthian. Friar, I am at beck and bay,
And at thy commandment to sing and say,
And other sports among.
Owen ap Rice. Ay, marry, my lord, this ia
somewhat like a man's money. Here's a whole-
some Welsh wench, lapt in her flannel, as warm as
wool, and as fit as a pudding for a friar's mouth.
The Friar and Guenthian sing.%
Lluellen. Pax vobis, Pax vobisl good fellows,
fair fall ye 1
Friar. Et cum spiritu tuo I Friends, have you
any thing else to say to the friar]
Owen ap Rice. Much good do you, much good
[do] you, my masters, heartily.
Friar. And you, sir, when ye eat. Have ye
any thing else to say to the friar?
Lluellen. Nothing ; but I would gladly know,
if mutton || be your first dish, what shall be your
last service 1
Friar. It may be, sir, I count it physic to feed
but on one dish at a sitting. Sir, would you any
thing else with the friar ?
Rice ap Mer. 0, nothing, sir : but if you had If
any manners, you might bid us fall to.
Friar. Nay, an that be the matter, good enougk.
Is this all ye have to say to the friar ?
Lluellen. All we have to say to you, sir : it
may be, sir, we would walk aside with your wench
a little.
* That lore's desires and pleasures cool
Sans Ceres' wheat and Bacchus' vine] Corrected, partly
by a writer in Churton's Literary Register for April 1845,
and partly by Mr. Keightley in Holes and Queries for
January 7th 1SG0, p. S. — "Sans," i. e. Without (a word
adopted into our language from the Freuch long before
Peele's time). — The 4tos. ;
" That loners desire, and pleasures coole :
Sanet [and "Sainct"] Ceres sweetes, and Bacchus vine."
t Wench] An addition, perhaps, by the transcriber.
\ sit] The4to. of 1593 "set."
§ The Friar and Guenthian sing] See note **, p. 190,
first col.
|| mutton] A cant term for a prostitute.
1 had] The 4to. of 1599 " haue."
r~
382
EDWARD I.
Friar. My masters and friends, I am a poor
friar, a man of God's making, and a good fellow
as you are, legs, feet, face, and hands, and heart,
from top to toe, of my word, right shape and
Christendom ; and I love a wench as a wench
should be loved ; and if you love yourselves *,
walk, good friends, I pray you,+ and let the friar
alone with his flesh.
Lluellen. friar, your holy mother, the Church,
teaches you to abstain from these morsels. —
Therefore, my masters, 'tis a deed of charity to
remove this stumbling-block, a fair wench, a
shrewd temptation to a friar's conscience.
Guenthian. Friend, if you knew the friar half
so well as the Bailey of Brecknock, you would
think you might as soon move Monk Davy into
the sea as Guenthian from his side.
Lluellen. Mass, by your leave, we'll prove.
Guenthian. At your peril, if you move his pa-
tience.
Friar. Brother, brother, and my good country-
men, —
Lluellen. Countrymen ! nay, I cannot think
that an English friar will come so far into Wales
barefooted.
Owm ap Rice. That's more than you know ; and
yet, my lord, he might ride, having a filly so near.
Friar. Hands off, good countrymen, J at few
words and fair warnings.
Lluellen. Countrymen ! not so, sir ; we re-
nounce thee, friar, and refuse your country.
Friar. Then, brother, and my good friends,
hands off, an if you love your ease.
Rice ap Mer. Ease me no easings : we'll ease
you of this carriage.
Friar. Fellow, be gone quickly, or my pike-
staff" and I will set thee away with a vengeance.
Lluellen. I am sorry, trust me, to see the
Church so unpatient.
Friar. Ye§ dogs, ouns ! do me a shrewd turn
and mock me too? flesh and blood will not bear
this. Then rise up, Robert, and say to Richard,
Reticle rationem || villication is tua. Sir countryman,
kinsman, Englishman, Welshman, you with the
wench, return your habeas corpus; here's a cer-
tiorari for your procedendo.
[Attacks them with his stc^ff.^
* yourselves] Both 4tos. "yoursolfe."
t you] Omitted in tlie 4to of 1599.
J countrymen] Both 4tos. "countriman."
§ Ye\ Tbe 4to. of 1599 "Yea."
|| Rcdde rationem, <fcc ] Lvc. xvi. 2. (Vulgate.)
f " The Friar falls upon them with his staff, which
here and elsewhere he calls ' Richard ' and his ' man
Richard.' " Editor of Vodsley's O. P.
Owen ap Rice. Hold, friar ! we are thy country-
men.
Rice ap Mer. Paid, paid ! Digon ! we are thy
countrymen, Man Dieu I
Friar. My countrymen ! nay, marry, sir, Khali
you not be my countrymen ; you, sir, you,
specially you, sir, that refuse the friar and
renounce his country.
Lluellen. Friar, hold thy hands. I swear as I
am a gentleman. I am a Welshman, and so are
the rest, of honesty.
Friar. Of honesty, sayest thou 1 they are
neither gentlemen nor Welshmen that will deny
their country. — Come hither, wench ; I'll have a
bout with them once more for denying of their
country. [ Offers to fight.
Riceap Mer. Friar, thou wottest not what thou
sayest : this is the prince, and we are all his
train, disposed to be pleasant with thee a little ;
but I perceive, friar, thy nose will bide no jest.
Friar. As much as you will with me, sir, but
not at any hand with my wench : I and Richard*
my man here, for here contra omnes gentes — but
is this Lluellen, the great Camber-Briton ?
Lluellen. It is he, friar : give me thy Laud, and
gramercies twenty times. I promise thee thou hast
cugelled two as good lessons into my jacket as
ever churchman did at so short warning : the one
is, not to be too busy with another man's cattle ;
the other, not in haste to deny my country.
Friar. 'Tis pity, my lord, but you should have
more of this learning, you profit so well by it.
Lluellen. 'Tis pity, friar, but thou shouldst be
Lluellen's chaplain, thou edifiest so well ; and so
shalt thou be, of mine honour : here I entertain
thee, thy boy, and thy trull, to follow my fortune
in secula seculorum.
Friar. And Richard my man, sir, an you love
me, — he that stands by me and shrunk not at all
weathers ; and then you have me in my colours.
Lluellen. Friar t, agreed. — Rice, welcome tha
ruffians.
Enter the Harper and Jack.
Harper, [singing to the tune of " Who list to
lead a soldier's life."]
Go to, go to, you Britons all,
And play the men, both great and small :
A wondrous matter hath befall,
That makes the prophetj cry and call,
Turn date § elite dote dum,
* J and Richard, &c.] Some corruption here.
+ Friar] Both 4tos. "Friars."
t prophet] Both 4V>s. "prophets."
§ Turn date, &c] Printed thus in both 4tos. " Turn da
et di te de te dum."
EDWARD I.
383
That you must march, both all and some,
Against your foes with trunip and drum :
I speak to you from God, that you shall over-
come. [ With a turn both ways.
Llitellen. What now? Who have we here?
"Tutu date dite dote dum" .'
Friar. What, have we a fellow dropt out of
the element ? What's he for a man 1*
Rice ap Mer. Knowest thou this goose cap]
Friar. What, not Morgan Pigot, our good
Welsh prophet 1 0, 'tis a holy harper !
Rice ap Mer. A prophet, with a murrian !
Good my lord, let's hear a few of his lines, I
pray you.
Jack. My lords, 'tis an odd fellow, I can tell
you, as any is in all Wales. He can sing, rhyme
with reason, and rhyme without reason, and
without reason or rhyme.
Lluellen. The devil, he can ! Rhyme with
reason, and rhyme without reason, and reason
without rhyme ! Then, good Morgan Pigot,
pluck out thy spigot, and draw us a fresh pot
from the kinder-kind t of thy knowledge.
Friar. Knowledge, my son, knowledge, I war-
rant ye. — How sayest thou, Morgan, art thou not
a very prophet ?
Harper. Friar, friar, a prophet verily,
For great Lluellen's love,
Sent from above
To bring him victory.
Rice ap Mer. Come, then, gentle prophet, let's
see how thou canst salute thy prince. Say, shall
we have good success in our enterprise or no ?
Harper. When the weathercock of Carnarvon $
steeple shall engender young ones in the belfry,
and a herd of goats leave their pasture to be
clothed in silver,
Then shall Brute be born anew,
And Wales record their ancient hue.
Ask Friar David if this be not true.
Friar. This, my lord, 'a§ means by you.
0, he is a prophet, a prophet.
Lluellen. Soft you now, good Morgan Pigot,
and take us with ye || a little, I pray. What
means your wisdom by all this ?
* What's he for a man ?] i. e. What manner of man is
he? So in The Wit of a Woman, 1604; "Let us take a
little view of this gallant, what he may be for a man."
Sig. D 4.
t kinder-kind] " i. e. kilderkin." Editor of Dodsley's
O. P.
X Carnarvon'] Both 4tos. "Carmarthen " in this place ;
but a little after, in the explanation of the prophecy,
" Carnarvon."
§ 'a] The 4to. of 1590 "he "
|| take us with ye] i. e. let us understand ye.
Harper. The weathercock, my lord, was your
father, who by foul weather of war was driven
to take sanctuary in Saint Mary's at Carnarvon,
where he begat young ones on your mother in
the belfry, viz. your worship and your brother
David.
Lluellen. But what didst thou mean by the
goats ?
Harper. The goats that leave the pasture to be
clothed in silver, are the silver goats your men
wore * on their sleeves.
Friar. 0, how I love thee, Morgan Pigot, our
sweet prophet !
Lluellen. Hence, rogue, with your prophecies,
out of my sight I
Rice ap Mer. Nay, good my lord, let's have a
few more of these metres : he hath great store
in his head.
Jack. Yea, and of the best in the market, an
your lordship would vouchsafe to hear them.
Lluellen. Villain, away ! I'll hear no more of
your prophecies.
Harper. When legs shall lose their length,
And shanks yield up their strength, t
Returning weary home from out the holy land,
A Welshman shall be king and govern merry
England.
Rice ap Mer. Did I not tell your lordship he
would hit it home anon ?
Friar. My lord, he comes to your time, that's
flat.
Jack. Ay, master, an you mark him, he hit the
mark pat.
Friar. As how, Jack ?
Jack. Why, thus :
When legs shall lose their length,
And shanks yield up their strength,
Returning weary home from out the holy land,
A Welshman shall be king and govern merry
England.
Why, my lord, in this prophecy is your advance-
ment as plainly seen as a three half-pence through
a dish of butter in a sunny day.
Friar. I think so, Jack; for he that sees [the]
three half-pence must tarry till the butter be
melted in the sun : and so, forth, apply, boy.
Jack. Nan rrfo, master : do you, an you dare.
Lluellen. And so, boy, thou meanest, he that
tarries this prophecy may see Longshanks shorter
* wore] Qy. " wear " ?
+ And thanks yield up their strength] This line is not
found here in the 4tos., but, from the repetition of the
prophecy by Jack, we are certain that it has been
omitted b\ accident.
38±
EDWARD I.
by the head and Lluellen wear the crown in the
field?
Friar. By Lady, my lord, you go near the
matter. — But what saith Morgan Pigot more ?
Harper. In the year of our Lord God 1272,
shall spring from the loins of Brute, one whose
wife's name being the perfect end of his own,*
shall consummate the peace betwixt England and
Wales, and be advanced to ride through Cheap-
side with a crown on his head ; and that's meant
by your lordship, for your wife's name being
Ellen, and your own Lluellen, beareth the perfect
end of your own name : so must it needs be that,
[though] for a time Ellen flee from Lluellen, ye
being betrothed in heart each to others, must
needs be advanced to be highest of your kin.
Lluellen. Jack, I make him thy prisoner. Look,
what way my fortune inclines, that way goes he.
Bice ap Me?: Sirrah, see you run swiftest.
Friar. Farewell : be far from the spigot.
\Exeunt Friar and Guenthian.
Jack. Now, sir, if our country ale were as good
as your metheglin, I would teach you to play the
knave, or you should teach me to play the harper.
Harper. Ambo, boy ; you are too light-witted
as I am light-minded.
Jack. It seemed + to me thou art fittest and
passing well. [Exeunt Jack and Harper.
Enter Guenther with letters.
Lluellen. What tidings bringeth Guenther with
his haste?
Say, man, what bodes thy message, good or bad ?
Guenther. Bad, my lord ; and all in vain, I wot,
Thou dart'st J thine eyes upon the wallowing main,
As erst did ^Egeus § to behold his son,
To welcome and receive thy welcome || love ;
And sable sails he saw, and so mayst thou,
For whose mishap the brackish seas lament.
Edward, 0, Edward !
Lluellen. And what of him?
Guenther. Landed he is at Dover with his men,
From Palestine safe ; by his English lords
Receiv'd in triumph II like an earthly god :
He lives to wear his father's diadem,
And sway the sword of British Albion.
But Elinor, thy Elinor !
* own] Both 4 1 os. "ground."
t It seemed, &c.J A mutilated speech, — in which
"teemed " ought, I believe, to be "seems."
t darl'st] Both 4tos. "darcst."
§ JEgeus] Both 4tns "Aegen."
j| welcome] Repeated by mistake — Qy. " lovely " or
"liefest "? (see Queuther's next speech but one.)
TJ triumph] Both 4tos. " triumphes."
Lluellen. And what of her?
Hath amorous Neptune gaz'd upon my love,
And stopt her passage with his forked mace ?
Or, that I rather fear, — deadly fear ! —
Enamour'd Nereus * doth he withhold
My Elinor ?
Guenther. Nor Neptune, Nereus, nor other god
Withholdeth from my gracious lord his love :
But cruel Edward, that injurious king,
Withholds thy liefest t lovely Elinor;
Ta'enJ in a pinnace on the narrow seas
By four tall ships of Bristow, and with her
Lord Emerick, her unhappy noble brother,
As from Montargis hitherward they sail'd.
This say in brief § these letters tell at large.
[Lluellen reads his brother Sir David's letters.
Lluellen. Is Longshauks, then, so lusty now
become ?
Is my fair love, my beauteous Elinor, ta'en?
Villains, || damn'd villains, not to guard her safe,
Or fence her sacred person from her foes !
Sun, couldst thou shine, and see my love beset,
And didst not clothe thy clouds in fiery coats,
O'er all the heavens, with winged sulphur flames,
As when thy U beams, like mounted combatants,
Battled with Python ** in the fallow'd lays ? tt
But if kind Cambria deign me good aspe'ct,
To make me chiefest Brute of western Wales,
I'll short that gain-legg'd+i Longshank[s] by the
top,
And make his flesh my murdering falchion's food.
To arms, true Britons, sprung of Trojans' seed,
And with your swords write in the Book of Time
Your British names in characters of blood !
Owen ap Rice, while we stay for further force,
Prepare, away in post, and take with thee
A hundred chosen of thy countrymen,
And scour the marches with your Welshmen's
hooks,
That Englishmen may think the devil is come.
Rice shall remain with me : make thou thy bode
In resolution to revenge these wrongs
With blood of thousands guiltless of this rage.
* Nere'u] Wrong quantity.
+ liefest] i. e. dearest.
\ Ta'en] Both 4tos. "Taking." — Here in my former
eds. I printed "Taken" : but compare the second line of
the next speech..
§ This say in brief] i. e this short account. — The4to. of
1599 " This say I in bree/e "
|| Villains] Both 4tos. " Villains."
U thy\ Both 4(os. " the."
** Python] Both 4tos. •' Tyetion."
tt lays] An old form of leas.
t} gain -keg' d] "i.e. ungain-legg'd," says the Editor of
Dodsley's 0. P.
EDWARD I.
385
Fly thou ou them amain ! — Edward, my love
Be thy life's bane ! — Follow me, countrymen !
Words make no way : my Elinor is surpriz'd ;
Robb'd am I of the comfort of my life :
And know 1 this, and am not veng'd on him ?
[Exeunt.*
Eider Hie Nine Lords of Scotland, with their Nine Pages ;
Glocester, Sussex, Kino Edward Longshanks in
his suit of glass, Queen Elinor, the Queen-Mother,
and Joan : the King and Queeu sit under a canopy.
Lonr/sk. Nobles of Scotland, t we thank you all
For this day's gentle princely service done
To Edward, England's king and Scotland's lord.
Our coronation's due solemnity
Is ended with applause of all estates :
Now, then, let us repose % and rest us here.
But specially we thank you, gentle lords,
That you so well have governed your griefs,
As, being grown unto a general jar,
You choose King Edward by your messengers,
To calm, to qualify, and to compound
Th' ambitious strife § of Scotland's climbing peers.
I have no doubt, fair lords, but you well wot
How factions waste the richest commonwealth,
And discord spoils the seats of mighty kings.
The barons' war, a tragic wicked war,
Nobles, bow hath it shaken England's strength !
Industriously, it seems to me, you have
Loyally ventur'd to prevent this shock ;
For which, sith you have chosen me your judge,
My lords, || will you stand to what I shall award ?
Baliol. Victorious Edward, to whom the Scottish
Owe homage as their lord and sovereign, [kings
Amongst us nine is but one lawful king :
But might we all be judges in the IT case,
Then should in Scotland be nine kings at once,
* Exeunt] After this both 4tos. have ;
"Manet the Friar and Nouice.
" Friar. Come boie we must buckle I see,
The prince is of my profession right :
Rather than he wil lose his wenche,
He will fight Ab ouo vsque ad mala.
Nouice. O maister, doubt you not, but your Nouice
will prooue a whot shot, with a bottle of Methegliu.
Exeunt, [h]ere the wenche fall into a Welsli song, and
the Friar aunswer, and the Nouice betweene."
But the Friar and his companions have already quitted
the stage.
t Scotland] \?a.YkcY(Shak-espeare's Versification, &.C., p. 32)
seems to be quite right when he considers " Scotland "
as a trisyllable here, though in two other lines of the
present speech it is a dissyllable.
t repose] Both 4tos. "appose."
§ Th' ambitious strife] The very probable correction of
Mr. Keightley in Notes and Queries for Janry. 7th 1800,
p. 8.— Both 4tos. " Thanke Britaius strife."
II My lords] Qy. "Lords"?
% the] The 4 to. of 1599 "this."
And this contention never set or limited.
To stay these jars we jointly make appeal
To thy imperial throne, who knows our claims.
We stand not ou our titles 'fore your grace,
But do submit ourselves to your award ;
And whom your majesty shall name our * king,
To him we'll yield obedience as a king.
Thus willingly, and of her t own accord,
Doth Scotland make great England's king herf
judge.
Longsli. Then, nobles, since you all agree in one,
That for a crown so disagree in all,
Since what I do shall rest irrevocable,:!:
And, lovely England, § to thy lovely queen,
Lovely Queen Elinor, unto her turn thy eye,
Whose honour cannot but love thee well j
Hold up your hands in sight, with general voice,
That are content to stand to our award.
[They all hold up their hands and say " He shall."
Deliver me the golden diadem.
Lo, here I hold the goal for which ye striv'd,
And here behold, my worthy men-at-«arms,
For chivalry and worthy wisdom's praise,
Worthy each one to wear a diadem :
Expect my doom, as erst at Ida hills II
The goddesses divine waited th' award
Of Dardan's son.U Baliol, stand farthest forth :
Baliol, behold, I give thee the Scottish crown :
Wear it with heart ** and with thankfulness.
Sound trumpets, and +t say all after me,
God save King Baliol, the Scottish king !
[T?ie trumpets sound; all cry aloud, "God
save King Baliol, the Scottish King."
Thus, lords, though you require no reason why,
According to the conscience in the cause,
I make John Baliol your anointed king.
Honour and love him, as behoves him best
That is in peace of Scotland's crown possess'd.
Baliol. Thanks, royal England, for thy honour
done.
This justice that hath calm'd our civil strife,
* name our] Both 4tos. " name to be our."
t her] Both 4tos. "their."
J irrevocable] Both 4tos. " mreuocable."
§ And, lovely England, &c] Mutilated and corrupted.
In the second line after this the author probably wrote
"cannot choose but, " Ac. ; and in the stage-direction the
words "He shall" mean perhaps " he (Edward) shall as-
sign the Scottish crown as he thinks proper."
|| Ida hills] See note ||, p. 352, sec. col.
If Dardan's son] Corrected by the Rev. J. Mitford,
Gent. Mag. for Feby. 1833, p. 101. (Paris was the
descendant of Dardanus.) — Both 4tos. "Dauaes sonne."
** heart] Qy. " heart's-ease " ? Compare, post, p. 404,
first col., "God bless thee with long life, honour, and
heart's-ease ! "
tt Sound trumpets, and, &c.] Qy. "Sound trumpets,
aound, and ", iia. ?
o o
386
EDWARD I.
Shall now be ceas'd * with honourable love.
So moved of remorse and pity,+
We will erect a college of my name ;
In Oxford will I build, for memory
Of Baliol'a bounty and his gratitude ;
And let me happy days no longer see
Than here to England loyal I shall be.
Q. Elinor. Now, brave John Baliol, Lord of
Galloway
And King of Scots, shine with thy golden head ;
Shake thy + spears, in honour of his name,
Under whose royalty thou wear'st the same.
Queen Elinor's Speech.^
The welkin, spangled through with golden spots,
Reflects no finer in a frosty night
Than lovely Longshanks in his Elinor's eye :
So, Ned, thy Nell in every part of thee,
Thy person's guarded with a troop of queens,
And every queen as brave as Elinor.
Give glory to these glorious crystal quarries,
Where every robe an object entertains
Of rich device and princely majesty.
Thus like Narcissus, diving in the deep,
I die in honour and in England's arms ;
And if I drown, it is in my delight,
Whose company is chiefest life in death,
From forth whose coral lips I suck the sweet
Wherewith are dainty Cupid's caudles || made.
Then live or die, brave Ned, or sink or swim,
An earthly bliss it is to look on him.
On thee, sweet Ned, it shall become thy Nell
Bounteous to be unto the beauteous :
O'er-pry the palms.H sweet fountains of my bliss,
And I will stand on tiptoe for a kiss.
Longsh. He had no thought of any gentle
heart,
That would not seize ** desire for such desert.
If any heavenly joy in women be,
Sweet of all sweets, sweet Nell, it is in thee. —
Now, lords, along : by this the Earl of March,
Lord Mortimer, o'er Cambria's mountain-tops
Hath rang'd his men, and feels Lluellen's mind :
• ceas'd] An error. Qy. for what?
t pity] Qy- "piety"?
t Shake thy] Qy. " Shake ttiou thy " ?
§ Queen Elinor's Speech] Which follows very awkwardly
what precedes, has perhaps beon shuffled out of its right
place.
|| caudles] Both 4tos. "candles."
*U O'er-pry the palms, Ac. ] The Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.
observes that " it is not very easy to make sense of this
passage " : no, indeed ; nor of the rest of her majesty's
"Speech."
** seize] Qy. "fool"? But what does tho whole sentenco
mean?
To which confines, that well in wasting be, "
Our solemn service of coronation * past,
We will amain to back our friends at need ;
And into Wales our men-at-arms shall march,
And we with them in person, foot by foot. —
Brother of Scotland, you shall to your home,
And live in honour there fair England's friend. —
And thou, sweet Nell, Queen of King Edward's
heart,
Shall now come lesser at thy dainty love,
And at coronation meet thy loving peers,
When storms are past, and we have cool'd the
rage
Of these rebellious Welshmen, that contend
'Gainst England's majesty and Edward's crown.
Sound, trumpets ! Heralds, lead the train along :
This be King Edward's feast and holiday.
[Exeunt all except Queen Elinor, Joan, and
Glocester.
Enter the Mayoress or London from church, and music
before her.
Q. Elinor. Glocester, who may this be? A
bride or what? —
I pray ye, Joan, go see,
And know the reason of the harmony.
Joan. Good woman, let it not offend you any
whit
For to deliver unto me the cause
That in thisf unusual kind of sort
You pass the streets with music so.
Mayoress. Mistress, or madam, whate'er you
be,
Wot you I am the Mayor of London's wife,
Who, for I have been deliver'd of a son,
Having not these dozen years had any before, \
Now in my husband's year of mayoralty,
Bringing him a goodly boy,
I pass unto my house a maiden bride :
Which private pleasure, touching godliness,
Shall here no way, I hope, offend the good.
Q. Elinor. You hope so, gentle mistress; do
you indeed ?
But do not make it parcel of your creed.
Mayoress, [aside.] Alas, I am undone ! it is the
Queen ;
The proudest Queen that ever England knew.
[Exit with Attendants.
Q. Elinor. Come, Glocester, let's to the court,
and revel there.
[Exit with Glocester and Joan.
* service of coronation] Qy. "coronation-service "?
t Tltat in this, 4c J Corruption here, and in tho next
speech.
EDWARD I.
387
Enter Rice ap Meredith, Sir Dayid, and Lluellen.
Sir David. Soft ! is it not Meredith I behold 1
Lluelkn. All good, all friends. — Meredith, see
the man
Must make us great, and raise Lluelleu's head :
Fight thou, Lluellen, for thy friend and thee.
Rice ap Mer. Fight, mangre * fortune strong,
our battle's strong,
And bear thy foes before thy pointed lance.
Sir David. Not too much prowess, good my
lord, at once.
Some talk of policy another while.
Rice ap Mer. How come thy t limbs hurt at
this assault 1
Lluellen. Hurt for our good, Meredith, make
account.
Sir David's wit is full of good device,
And kindly will perform what he pretends.
<S?> David. Enough of this, my lord, at once.
What will you, that I hold the king in hand ?
Or what shall I especially advise,
Sitting in council with the English lords,
That so my counsel may avail my friends ?
Lluellen. David, if thou wilt best for me
devise,
Advise my love be render'd to my hand.
Tell them the chains that Mulciber erst made
To tie % Prometheus' limbs to Caucasus,
Nor Furies' fangs shall hold me long from her,
But I will have her from th' usurper's tent,
My beauteous Elinor ! If aught in this,
If in this case thy wit may boot thy friends,
Express it, then, in this, in nothing else.
Sir David. Ay, there's a card that puts us to
our trump ;
For might I see the star of Leicester's loins,
It were enough to darken and obscure
This Edward's glory, fortune, and his pride.
First, hereof cau I put you out of doubt :
Lord Mortimer of the king hath her in charge,
And honourably eutreata your Elinor.
Some think he prays Lluellen were in heaven,
And thereby hopes to couch § his love on earth.
Lluellen. No : where Lluellen mounts, there
Ellen flies. ||
Inspeakable are my thoughts for her :
She's not from me in death to be divorc'd.
Go to,U it shall be so ; so shall it be.
• Fiyht, maugre, &c] Something wrong here
t thy] Both 4tos. "my." (Qy. " limbs thus hurt " ?)
X tie] The 4to of 1593 "trie."
§ couch] Both 4tos. "coache."
|| flies] The 4to. of 1599 " fiie."
^[ Go to, &c ] These five lines in both 4toa. are given to
David, but, as they evidently do not belong to him, I
Edward is full resolved of thy faith,
So are the English lords and barons all :
Then what may let thee to intrude on them
Some new-found stratagem to feel their wit ?
Sir David. It is enough. Meredith, take my
weapons ;
I am your prisoner ; say so at the least.
Go hence, and when you parle on the walls,
Make show of monstrous tyranny you intend
To execute on me, as on the man
That shamefully rebels 'gainst kin and kind ;
And 'less * thou have thy love, and make thy
peace
With such conditions as shall best concern,
David must die, say thou, a shameful death.
Edward, perhaps, with ruth and pity mov'd,
Will in exchange yield Elinor to thee,
And thou by me shalt gain thy heart's desire.
Lluellen. Sweetly advis'd : David, thou blessest
me,
My brother David, lengthener of my life ! —
Friends, gratulate to me my joyful hopes.
[Exeunt.
Enter Kino Edward Lonoshanks, Sussex, Mortimer,
and others.
Longsh, Why, barons, suffer ye ourf foes to
breathe ?
Assault, assault, and charge them all amain !
They fear, they fly, they faint, they fight in vain.
But where is gentle David ? in his den IX
Loth were I aught but good should him betide.
[Sau?id an alarum
Enter, on the icalls, Lluellen, Rice ap Meredith, with a
dagger in his hand, holding Sir David by the collar, the
Friar, and Soldiers.
Where is the proud disturber of our state,
Traitor to Wales and to his sovereign?
Lluellen. Usurper, here I am. What dost thou
crave ?
Longsh. Welshman, allegiance, which thou
ow'st thy § king.
Lluellen. Traitor, no king, that seeks thy coun-
try's sack,
The famous runagate of Christendom.
have assigned them to Lluellen. An anonymous MS.
annotator on the first edition of this play in the Garriclc
collection has rightly pointed out that David's answer
begius at "It is enough."
* 'less] Both 4tos. "least."
t our] The4to. of 1599 "your."
J in his den?] "Query, ought we not to read 'in hit
tent ' ? " Editor of Dodsley's O P.
§ thy] The 4to. of 1599 " the."
C 2
388
EDWARD I.
Longsh. Ambitious rebel, know'st thou what I
am,
How great, how famous, and how fortunate?
And dar'st thou carry arms against me here,
Even when thou shouldst do reverence at my
feet?
Yea, fear'd and honour'd iu the farthest parts
Hath Edward been, the * noble Henry's son.
Traitor, this sword unsheath'd hath shined oft
With reeking in the blood of Saracens ;
When, like to Perseus on his winged steed,
Brandishing bright the blade t of adamant
That aged Saturn gave fair Maia's son,
Conflicting tho J with Gorgon in the vale,
Sitting § before the gates of Nazareth,
My horse's hoofs I stain 'd in pagan's gore,
Sending whole centuries || of heathen souls
To Pluto's house : this swoi'd, this thirsty
sword,
Aims at thy head, and shall, I hope, ere long,
Gage and divide thy bowels and thy bulk,
Disloyal villain, thou, and what is more ?*[f
Lluellen. Why, Longshanks, think'st thou I
will be** scar'd with words?
No : didst thou speak in thunder like to Jove,
Or shouldst, as Briareus,ff shake at once
A hundred bloody swords with bloody hands,
I tell thee, Longshanks, here he faceth thee
Whom naught can daunt, no, not the stroke of
death.
Resolv'd ye see : but see the chance of war :
Know'st thou a traitor an thou seest his head ?
Then, Longshanks, look this villain in the face :
This rebel, he hath wrought his country's
wreck ;
Base rascal, bad %% and hated in his kind,
Object of wrath, and subject of revenge.
Longsh. Lluellen, call'st thou this the chance
of war?
Bad for us all, perdy,§§ but worse for him. —
* the] Both 4tos. "thy."
t blade] The first 4to. "bloud," the second "blood."
} tho] i. e. then.
§ Sitting] Both 4tos. "Setting."
|| centuries] i.e. hundreds. — Both 4tos. "countries."
Walker (Shakespeare's Versification, &c. p. ]0) observes
that "the sense, though not the metre ["countries"
being frequently used aa a trisyllable], requires centu-
ries."
U and what is mo-e ?] i. e. and what is more disloyal?
"* think'st thou I will be] Peele most probably wrote
"think'st [will be", — not " think'st thou I'll be."
tt Briareas] Wrong quantity.
tj bod] Both 4tos. "had."
§§ 7>erdi/] Both 4tou. " pardie." See note t, P- 365,
80':. col.
Courage, Sir David! kings thou know'st must
die,
And noble minds all dastard fear defy.
Sir David. Renowned Edward,* star of Eng-
land's globe,
My liefest f lord and sweetest sovereign,
Glorious and happy is this chance to me,
To reap this fame and honour in my death, —
That I was hew'd with foul-defiled hands
For my beloved, king and country's good,
And died in grace and favour with my prince. —
Seize on me, bloody butchers, with your paws :
It is but temporal that you can inflict.
Longsh. Bravely resolv'd, brave soldier, by my
life!
Friar. Hark you, sir, I am afeard you will not
be so resolved by that time you know so much as
I can show you : here be hot dogs, I can tell
you, mean to have the baiting of you.
Mortimer. Lluellen, in the midst of all thy
braves,
How wilt thou use thy brother thou hast ta'en \
Wilt thou not let + his master ransom him ?
Lluellen. No, nor his mistress, gallant Mor-
timer,
With all the gold and silver of the land.
Rice ap Mer. Ransom this Judas to his father's
line !
Ransom this traitor to his brother's life !
No. — Take that earnest-penny of thy death. —
[Seems to stab Sir David into the arms and shouldert.
This touch, my lord, comes nothing near the mark.
Longsk. damned villain, hold thy hands !
Ask and have.
Lluellen. We will nor ask nor have. Seest
thou these tools ? [ Shoics hot pincers.
These be the dogs shall bait him to the death,
And shall by piece-meals tear his cursed flesh ;
And in thy sight here shall he hang and pine.
Longsh. villains, traitors, how will I be
veng'd !
Lluellen. What, threat'st thou, Edward ? Des-
perate minds contemn
That fury menaceth : see thy words' effects.
[Seems to cut Sir David's nose.
Sir David. gracious heavens, dissolve me into
clay !
This tyranny is moro than flesh can bear.
* Renowndd Edward, &c.J Both 4tos. " Renowmed
England, star of Edwards globe." (Compare the 4th line
of our author's Polyhymnia :
" Britannia's Atlas, star of England's globe")
t liefest] i. o. dearest.
J thou not let] Both 4tos. "thou let."
EDWARD I.
389
Lonysh. Bear it, brave mind, sith nothing but
thy blood
May satisfy in tbis extreme estate.
Sussex. My lord, it is iu vain to threaten them ;
They are resolv'd, ye see, upon his death.
Lonysh. Sussex, his death, they all shall buy it
Offer them any favour for his life, [dear :
Pardon, or peace, or aught what is beside :
So love me God as I regard my friends ! —
Lluellen, let me have thy brother's life
Even at what rate and ransom thou wilt name.
Lluellen. Edward, King Edward, as thou list
be term'd,
Thou know'st thou hast my beauteous Elinor :
Produce her forth to plead for David's life ;
She may obtain more than an host of men.
Lonysh. Wilt thou exchange thy prisoner for
thy love ?
Lluellen. Talk no more to me ; let me see her
face.
Mortimer. Why, will your majesty be all so base
To stoop to his demands in every thing ?
Lonysh. Fetch her at once; good Mortimer,
be gone.
Mortimer, [aside.] I go; but how unwilling
heaven* doth know.
Rice ap Mer. Apace, Mortimer, if thou love thy
friend.
Mortimer, [aside.] I go for dearer than I leave
behind. [Exit.
Lonysh. See, Sussex, how he bleedeth in my eye,
That beareth fortune's shock triumphantly.
Friar. Sa-ha, master ! I have found, I have
found.
Lluellen. What hast thou found, friar, ha ?
Rice ap Mer. News, my lord, a star from out
the sea ;
The same is risen and made a summer's day.
Re-enter Mortimer, conducting in the Lady Elinor.
Lluellen. What, Nell, sweet Nell, do I behold
thy face ]
Fall heavens, fleet stars, shine Phoebus' lamp no
more !
This is the planet lends this world ber light;
Star of my fortune this, that shineth bright,
Queen of my heart, loadstar of my delight,
Fair mould of beauty, miracle of fame.
0, let me die with Elinor in mine arms !
What honour shall I lend thy loyalty
Or praise unto thy sacred deity ?f
* heaven] Both 4tos. " heauens."
t deity] So the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.— Both 4tos.
' ' diotie ".— Qy. ' ' piety " ?
Rice ap Mer. Marry, this, my lord, if I may
give you counsel : sacrifice this tyke in her sight,
her friend ; which being done, one of your
soldiers may dip his foul shirt in his blood ; bo
shall you be waited with as many crosses as King
Edward.
Lonysh. Good cheer, Sir David; we shall up
anon.
Mortimer, [aside.] Die, Mortimer; thy life is
almost gone.
Elinor. Sweet Prince of Wales, were I within
thine arms,
Then should I in peace possess my love,
And heavens open fair their crystal gates,
That I may see the palace of my intent.*
Longsh. Lluellen, set thy brother free :
Let me have him, thou shalt have Elinor.
Lluellen. Sooth, Edward, I do prize my Elinor
Dearer than life ; but there belongeth more
To these affairs than my t content in love :
And to be short, if thou wilt have thy man,
Of whom, I swear, thou thinkest over-well,
The safety of Lluellen and his men
Must be regarded highly in this match.
Say, therefore, and be short, wilt thou give peace
And pardon to Lluellen and his men?
Lonysh. I will herein have time to be advis'd.
Lluellen. King Edward, no : we will admit no
pause,
For goes this wretch, this traitor, to the pot.J
And if Lluellen be pursu'd so near,
May chance to show thee such a tumbling-cast,
As erst our father when he thought to scape,
And broke his neck from Julius Caesar's tower. §
Sussex. My lord, these rebels all are desperate.
Mortimer, [aside.] And Mortimer of all most
miserable.
Lonysh. How, say you, Welshmen, will you
leave your arms,
And be true liegemen unto Edward's crown ?
First Soldier. If Edward pardon surely what is
past,
Upon conditions we are all content.
Lonysh. Belike you will condition with us, then ?
First Soldier. Special conditions for our safety
first,
* may see the palace of my intent] A friend conjectures
" might see the place of my content."
t my] The4to. of 1599 "may."
J to the pot] One of the many passages iu our early
writers which show how ridiculously Mr Collier, at the
bidding of his MS. Corrector, substituted "To the port"
for " To the pot" in Coriolanus, act i. ec. 4: see Mr. Col-
lier's Shakeyyeare, cd. 1S58.
§ toner] Both 4tos. "towne."
390
EDWARD I.
And for our country Cambria's common good,
T' avoid the fusion of our guilty blood.
Longsh. Go to; say on.
First Soldier. First, for our followers, and our-
selves, and all,
We ask a pardon in the prince's word ;
Then for this lord's possession in his love ;
But for our country chief these boons we beg,
And England's promise princely to thy Wales,
That none be Cambria's prince to govern us
But he that is a Welshman, born in Wales :
Grant this, and swear it on thy knightly sword,
And have thy man and us and all in peace.
Lluellen. Why, Cambria-Britons, are you so
incens'd ]
Will you deliver me to Edward's hands ?
First Soldier. No, Lord Lluellen ; we will back
for thee
Thy life, thy love, and golden liberty.
Mortimer, [aside.] A truce with honourable
conditions ta'en ;
Wales' happiness, England's glory, and my
bane.
Longsh. Command retreat be sounded in our
camp. —
Soldiers, I grant at full what you request. —
David, good cheer. — Lluellen, open the gates.
Lluellen. The gates are open'd : enter thee and
thine.
Sir David. The sweetest sun that e'er I saw to
shine !
Longsh. Madam, a brabble* well begun for
thee :
Be thou my guest and Sir Lluellen's love.
[Exeunt all except Mortimer.
Mortimer. Mortimer, a brabble ill begun for
thee;
A truce with capital conditions ta'en,
A prisoner sav'd and ransom'd with thy life.
Edward, my king, my lord, and lover dear,
Full little dost thou wot how this retreat,
As with a sword, hath slain poor Mortimer.
Farewell the flower, the gem of beauty's blaze,
Sweet Ellen, miracle of nature's hand !
Hellt in thy name, but heaven is in thy
looks :
Sweet Venus, let me saint or devil be
In that sweet heaven or hell that is in thee.
[Exit.
• brabble] i. e. quarrel.
t Hell\ The 4to. of 1593 " Fuellon," that of 1509 " Lluel-
len." — I have adopted the conjecture of the Editor of
Dodsley's 0. P.
Enter Jack and the Harper, getting a standing again.it
the Queen comes in.
The trumpets sound : enter Queen Elinor, Joan, and
Ladies in a litter, borne by four Negro-Moors, and
attended on by the Earl ov Glocester and four Foot-
men : one having set a ladder to the side of the litter,
Queen Elinor descends, and Joan and Ladies follow.
Q. Elinor. Give me my pantables.*
Fie, this hot weather how it makes me sweat !
Heigh-ho, my heart ! ah, I am passing faint !
Give me my fan that I may cool my face.
Hold, take my mask, but see you rumple't not. +
This wind and dust, see how it smolders me !
Some drink, good Glocester, or I die for thirst.*
Ah, Ned, thou hast forgot thy Nell I see,
That she is thus enforc'd to follow thee !
Glocester. This air's distemperature, an please
your majesty, [mist,§
Noisome through mountain vapours and thick
Unpleasant needs must be to you and your
Company, that ne'er was wont to take the air
Till Flora had|| perfum'd the earth with sweets,
With lilies, roses, mints, and eglantine.
Q. Elinor. I tell thee, the ground is all too base
For Elinor to honour with her steps;
Whose footpace, when she progress'd in the
street[s]
Of Aeon and the fair Jerusalem,
Was [upon] naught but costly arras-points,
Fair island-tapestry, and azur'd silk ;
My milk-white steed treading on cloth of ray, if
And trampling proudly underneath the feet
Choice of our English woollen drapery.
This climate o'er-lowering with black congealed
clouds,**
That take their swelling from the marish soil,
Fraught with infectious fogstt and misty damps,
Is far unworthy to be once embalm'd
With redolence of this refreshing breath,
That sweetens!! where it lights, as do the flames
And holy fires of Vesta's sacrifice.
Joan. Whose pleasant fields, §§new-planted with
the spring,
* pantables] i. e. slippers. — The 4to. of 159S "panta-
phels."
t rumple't not] The 4to. of 1593 "romple not," that of
1599 " romple it not."
I thirst] Both4toa. "drinke."
§ mountain vapours and thick mist] Both 4tos. " moun-
tains vapors send thick mist."
|| had] Both 4tos. "haue."
H cloth of ray] i. e. striped cloth : Fr. raie.
** This climate o'er-lowering with black congealed clouds]
Qy. " This cliino o'er-lowering with congealed clouds" f
It fogs] The 4to. of 159'5 "frogges."
JJ sweetens] The 4to. of 151/0 "sweetnesse."
§§ Whose pleasant lelds, tic. | A mutilated and cor-
EDWARD I.
391
Make Thauie.sis to mount above the banks,
And, like a wanton, wallowing up and down
On Flora's beds and Napaj's silver down.
Qlocester. And Wales for me, madam, while
you are here ;
No climate good unless your grace be near.
Would Wales had aught could please you half so
Or any precious thing in Glocester's gift, [well,
Whereof your ladyship would challenge me !
Joan. Well said, my lord ! 'tis as my mother
says;
You men have learnt to woo a thousand ways.
Qlocester. 0, madam, had I learnt, against my
need,
Of all those ways to woo, one way to speed,
My cunning, then, had been my fortune's guide.
Q. Minor. Faith, Joan, I think thou must be
Glocester's bride. —
Good earl, how near he steps unto her side !
So soon this eye these younglings had espied. —
I'll tell thee, girl, when I was fair and young,
I found such honey in sweet Edward's tongue,
As I could never spend one idle walk
But Ned and I would piece it out with talk. —
So you, my lord, when you have got your Joan,
No matter, let queen-mother be alone.
Old Nell is mother now, and grandmother may;
The greenest grass doth droop and turn to hay.
Woo on, kind clerk, good Glocester,love thy Joan :
Her heart is thine, her eye* is not her own.
Qlocester. This comfort, madam, that your
grace doth give
Binds me in double duty whilst I live.
Would God, King Edward see and say no less !
Q. Elinor. Glocester, I warrant thee upon my life
My king vouchsafes his daughter for thy wife.
Sweet Ned hath not forgot, since he did woo,
The gall of love and all that 'longs thereto.
Qlocester. Why, was your grace so coy to one
so kind ?
Q. Elinor. Kind, Glocester ! so, methinks,
indeed :
It seems he loves his wife no more than needs,
That sends for us in all the speedy haste,
Knowing his queen to be so great with child,
And makest me leave my princely pleasant seats
To come into his ruder part of Wales.
Qlocester. His highness hath some secret reason
why
rupted speech (in which perhaps "new-planted" should
be " n€tc-paiuted " and "wallowing" should be "wal-
low"). As to " Thamesis ", — it must be recollected that
the speaker is in Wales .' !
* tye\ Both 4tos. "eies."
t makes] Both 4tos. "make."
He wisheth you to * move from England's
pleasant court. +
Tbe Welshmen have of long time suitors been,
That when the war of rebels sorts an end,+
None might be prince and ruler over them
But such a one as was their countryman ;
Which suit, I think, his grace hath granted them.
Q. Elinor: So, then, it is King Edward's policy
To have his son — forsooth, son if it be —
A Welshman : well, Welshman it liketh me.
And here he comes.
Enter Kino Edward Lonoshanks and Lords.
Longsh. Nell, welcome into Wales !
How fares my Elinor ?
Q. Elinor. Ne'er worse : beshrew
Their hearts, 'tis long on.
Longsh. Hearts, sweet Nell ?
Beshrew § no hearts where euch Bweet saints do
dwell. [Holds her hand fast.
Q. Elinor. Nay, then, I see I have my dream :
I pray, let go :
You will not will you, whether I will or no ?
You are dispos'd to move me.
Longsh. Say any thing but so.
Once, Nell, thou gav'st me this.
Q. Elinor. I pray, let go ;
Ye are dispos'd,|| I think.
Longsh. Ay, madam, very well.
Q. Elinor. Let go and be naught, U I say !
Longsh. What ails my Nell ?
Q. Elinor. Ay me, what sudden fit** is this I
prove 1
What grief, what pinching pain, like young men's
love,
That makes me madding run thus to and fro ?
Longsh. What, melancholy, Nell ?
Q. Elinor. My lord, pray, let me go.
Give me sweet water. Why,tt how hot it is !
Glocester. [aside.] These be the fits
Trouble men's wits.
Longsh. Joan, ask thy beauteous motheriJ
how she doth.
Joan. How fares your majesty?
* to) Qy. dele ?
f court] Both 4tos. " courts."
% sorts an end] Fr. sortir effet.
§ Beshrew] Both 4tos. "shrow."
|| dispos'd] i. e. inclined to be merry : a senBe in which
the word is often used by old writers.
U and be naught) Equivalent to— and be hanged !
** fit] Both4tos. "fits."
tt Why] Qy. "Fie"? Compare the second line of
Queen Elinor "s first bpeech in this sceno.
tJ mother) Both 4tos. " mistres." (Afterwards, p. 400,
sec. col., we must read " mistress " where both 4tos. have
" mother.")
392
EDWARD L
Q. Elinor. Joan, aggriev'd at the heart,
And auger'd worse, because I cannot right me :*
I tliiuk the king comes purposely to spite me.
My fingers itch till I have had my will :
Proud Edward, + call in thy Elinor; be still.
It will not be, nor rest I anywhere
Till I have set it soundly on his ear.
Joan, [aside.] Is that the matter ? then let me
alone.
Q. Elinor. Fie, how I fret with grief !
Longsh. Come hither, Joan :
Know'st thou what ails my queen ?
Joan. Not I, my lord :
She longs, I think, to give your grace a box on
th' ear.
Longsh. Nay, wench, if that be all, we'll ear it
well. —
What, all amort ! J How doth my dainty Nell ?
Look up, sweet love: unkind ! not kis3 me once?
That may not be.
Q, Elinor. My lord, I think you do it for the
nonce. § .
Longsh. Sweetheart, one kiss.
Q. Elinor. For God's sake, let me go.
Longsh. Sweetheart, a kiss.
Q. Elinor. What, whether I will or no ?
You will not leave ? let be I say.
Longsh. I must be better chid.
Q. Elinor. No, will ? [striking him on the ear.]
take that, then, lusty lord : sir, leave
when you are bid.
Longsh. Why, so, this chare is char'd.||
Olocester. A good one, by the rood.TI
Q. Elinor. No force, no harm.
Longsh. No harm that doth my Elinor any
good. —
Learn, lords, 'gainst you be married men, to bow
to women's yoke ;
And sturdy though you be, you may not stir for
every stroke. —
Now, my sweet Nell, how doth my qeeen ?
Q. Elinor. She vaunts
That mighty England** hath felt her fist,
Takingtt a blow basely at Elinor's hand.
* I cannot right me] Both 4tos. "/came not right in."
t I'rowl Edward, &c. ] Some corruption in this line.
{ all amort] Mure properly alamort, i. e. dejected,
spiritless.
§ nonce] i. e. occasion.
|| this cluire is char'd] " That char for chare] is char'd,"
is a proverbial expression, meaning, " that business is
dispatch'd." See Ray's North Country Words, p. 20.
^f rood] i e. cross.
** England] A trisyllable here (as it frequently is in our
early poets).
tt Taking] Both 4toa. "Taken."
Longsh. And vaunt * she may, good leave,
being curst and coy :
Lack nothing, Nell, whilst t thou hast brought
thy lord a lovely boy.
Q. Elinm: Ven aea;% I am sick ;
Good Katheriue,§ I pray thee, be at hand.
Kath. This sickness, I hope,
Will bring King Edward a jolly boy.
Longsh. And, Katherine,
Who brings me that news shall not go empty-
handed. [Exeunt.
Enter Mortimer, Lluellen, Rice ap Meredith, and
the Lauv Elinor.
Mortimer. Farewell, Lluellen, with thy loving
Nell.
Lluellen. God-a-mercy, Mortimer; and so fare-
well.
[Mortimer retires and conceals himself.
Rice ap Mer. Farewell and be hang'd, false
Sinon's serpent brood. ||
Lluellen. Good words, Sir Rice : wrongs have
best remedy,
So takeull with time, patience, and policy.
But where is the friar? who can tell ?
Enter Friar.
Friar. That can I, master, very well ;
And say, i'faith, what hath befel,
Must we at once to heaven or hell ?
Elinor. To heaven, friar ! friar, no, fie !
Such heavy soids mount not so high.
Friar, [lying down.] Then, friar, lie thee down
And if any ask the reason why, [and die;
Answer and say thou canst not tell,
Unless because thou must to hell.
Elinor. No, friar, because thou didst rebel :
Gentle Sir Rice ring** out thy knell.
Lluellen. And Maddock toll thy passing-bell.
So, there lies a straw,
And now to the law.
Masters and friends ; naked came we into the
world, naked are we turned out of the good
* And vaunt, &c. ] These two lines, given to the queen
in both 4tos., are rightly assigned to Longshanks by the
MS. annotator on the copy of the first edition in the
Garrick collection.
t whilst] i. e. until.
J Ven acd] i. e. Come hither. — The 4tos. " Veniacion "
and " Veniacian."
§ Katherine] The 4to. of 1503 " Katherina " ; but in
the next speech of Longshanks " Katherin."
|| false Sinon's serpent brood] Both 4tos. "half Sinon't
sapons brood.'' — The Rev. J. Mitford((3«l£. Mag. forFetry.
1888, p 101) reads "false Sinon's spawn and brood."
If So taken] Another error.
** Gentle Sir Rice ring, etc.] Is this equivalent to "Let
gontlc Sir Rice ring," &c. 1
EDWARD I.
593
towns into the wilderness. Let me see;* mass,
niethinks we are a handsome commonwealth, a
handful of good fellows, set a-sunning to dog on
our own discretion. What say you, sir[s] ? We
are enough to keep a passage : will you be ruled
by me? We'll get the next day from Brecknock
the Book of Robin Hood ; the friar he shall
instruct us in hist cause, and we'll even here
fare and well : since the king hath put us
amongst the discarding cards, and, as it were,
turned us with deuces and treys out of the deck,!
every man take his standing on Mannock-deny,
and wander like irregulars up and down the
wilderness. I'll be Master of Misrule, I'll be
Robin Hood, that's once :§ cousin Rice, thou
shalt be Little John : and here's Friar David as
fit as a die for Friar Tuck. Now, my sweet
Nell, if you will make up the mess|| with a good
heart for Maid Marian, and dwellll with Llu-
ellen under the green-wood trees, with as good a
will as in the good towns, why, plena est curia.
Elinor. My sweetest love, an this my infract
fortune**
Could never vaunt her sovereignty,
And shouldst thou pass the ford of Phlegethon,
Or with Leander swim ft the Hellespont,
In deserts JEthiopian^J ever dwell,
Or build thy bower on ^Etna's fiery tops,
Thy Nell would follow thee and keep with thee,
Thy Nell would feed with thee and sleep with
thee.
Friar. Cupido quantus, quantus!
Rice ap Mer. Bravely resolved, madam. — And
then what rests, my Lord Robin, but we will
live and die together like Camber-Britons, —
Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, and Maid
Marian ?
Lluellen. There rests nothing now, cousin, but
* see] The 4tos. "saie" and "say."
t hti] The4to of 1590 "this."
| deck] i. e. pack.
"Simplicity for you play the best at a game
call'd smelling of the four knaves that ever 1 saw.
Usury. Foure ! soft, yet they have not smelt thee.
Simplicity. No, I am one more than is in the deck:"
Mnrall of the Three lordes of London, 1.090, Sig D 3.
§ that's once] i. e. that's once for all, that's flat. — The
4to. of 1593 "that once" — So Nash in his Have with yi u
to Saffron wolden ; "But when I doo play my prizes in
print, lie be paid for my paines, that's once, and not make
myselfe a gazing stoeke," &c. Sig. T 4. ed. 1596.
|| mess] i. e. party of four.
1[ dwell] Both4t,os. "doe well."
** an this my infract fortune, &c.] Nonsense.
ft swim] Both 4tos. "win."
tt Ethiopian] So the Rev. J. Mitford, Gent. Mag. for
Feby. 1833, p. 102.— Both 4tos. "Oeuophrius."
that 1 sell my chain * to set us all in green, and
we'll all play the pi oners to make us a cave and
cabin + for all weathers.
Elinor. My sweet Lluellen, though this sweet
be gall,
Patience doth conquer by J out-suffering all.
Friar. Now, Mannock-deny,
I hold thee a penny,
Thou shalt have neither sheep nor goat
But Friar David will fleece § his coat :
Wherever Jack, my novice, jet,||
All is fish with him that comes to net ;
David, this year thou pay'st no debt. [Exeunt.
Mortimer, [coming forward from, his concealment.]
Why, friar, is it so plain, indeed ]
Lluellen, art thou flatly so resolv'd
To roistit out, and roost so near the king?
What, shall we have a passage kept in Wales
For men-at-arms and knights adventurous ?
By cock, Sir Rice, I see no reason why
Young Mortimer should notU make one among,
And play his part on Mannock-deny ** here,
For love of his beloved Elinor.
His Elinor ! her, were ft she his, I wot,
The bitter northern wind upon the plains,
The damps that rise from out the queachy+J
plots,
Nor influence of contagious air should touch ;
But she should court it§§ with the proudest
dames,
* chain] i. e. the gold chain worn by him as a person
of rank.
t pioners to make us a cave and cabin, &c] See note },
p. 164, first col. — The 4to. of 1599 " — and a cabin," &c.
I conquer by] Both 4tos. "conquer me by."
% fleece] Both 4tos. "fleeces."
|| jet] i. e. strut.
IT not] Omitted in both 4tos.
** Mannock-deny] Both 4tos. "Maumocke dying."
tt her, were] Both 4tos. "where."
Jt queachy] i.e. quaggy, washy, marshy.— The 4to. of
1593 " quechy," that of 1599 "quesie." — In our author's
Polyhymnia the old copy has;
*' When in the qucackie plot Python he slew."
Compare Heywood ;
" Our blood is chang'd to hike, our haires to quils,
Our eyes halfe-buried in their quechy plots."
The Golden Age, 1611, Sig. K.
And Chettle, in a rather picturesque passage ;
" Lorrique, returne into the beaten path.
I askt thee for a solitary plot,
And thou hast brought me to the dismal'st groue
That euer eye beheld : noe Wooduimphes here
Seeke with their agill steps to outstrip the roe,
Nor doth the sun suctke from the queachy plot
The rauknes and the venom of the earth :
It seemes frequentlesse for the vse of men ;
Some basiliskes or poysouous serpents den."
Hoffman, 1631, Sig. I.
§§ it} Both 4tos. "yet."
394
EDWARD I.
Rich in attire, and sumptuous in her fare,
And take her ease in beds of softest* down.
Why, Mortimer, may not thy offers move,
And win sweet Eliuor from Lluellen's love?
Why, pleasant gold and gentle eloquence
Have 'tied the chastest nymphs, the fairest
dames,
And vauuts of words, delights of wealth and ease
Have made a nun to yield Lluellen'st
Being set to see the last of desperate chance.
Why should so fair a star stand in a vale,
And not be+ seen to sparkle in the sky ?
It is enough § Jove change his glittering robea
To see Mnemosyne aud the flit- s.
Masters, have after gentle Robin Hood :
You 're not so well accompanied, I hope,
But if a potter come to play his part,
You'll give him stripes or welcome, good or
worse.
Go, Mortimer, and make there love-holidays :
The king will take a common '6cuse of thee,
And who hath more men to attend than Mor-
timer 1 [Exit.
Enter Lluellen, Rice ap Meredith, Friar, the Lady
Elinor, and their train.
They are all clad in green, and sing " Blithe and bonny."
Lluellen. Why, so, I see, my mates, of old
All were not lies that beldames |J told
Of Robin Hood and Little John,
Friar Tuck and Maid Marian.
Friar. Ay, forsooth, master.
Lluellen. How well they couch'd in forest
green,
Frolic and lively withouten teen,H
And spent their day in game and glee :
Lluellen, do seek ** if aught please thee,
Nor, though thy foot be out of town,
Let thine look black on Edward's crown J
Nor think this green is not so gay
As was the golden rich array;
And if sweet Nell, my Marian,
Trust me, as I am gentleman,
• softest] Both4tos. "safest."
f Have made a nun to yield Lluellen's] Mutilated.
t nut be] The4to of 1509 "not to be."
§ It it enough, &c] The Rev. J. Mitford (dent. Mag. for
Feby. 18:i3, p. 102) amends this (to his own satisfaction
at lea»t) as fid lows ;
" It it enough. Jove changes glittering robes,
And then he flics to see Mnemosyne."
|| beldames] Both 4tos. "Bedlams."
t vithouten teen] Both 4tos. " with oaten lecne '." — teen,
i. e. grief.
•* Lluellen, do seek, &c. ] A vory corrupt passage.
Thou art as fine in this attire,
As fine and fit to my desire,
As when of Leicester's hall and bower
Thou wert the rose and sweetest flower.
How say'st thou, friar, say I well ?
For any thing becomes my Nell.
Friar. Never made man of a woman born
A bullock's tail a blowing horn ;
Nor can an ass's hide disguise
A lion, if he ramp and rise.
Elinor. My lord, the friar is wondrous wise.
Lluellen. Believe him, for he tells no lies. —
But what doth Little John devise ?
Rice ap Mer. That Robin Hood beware of
spies.
An aged saying and a true,
Black will take no other hue ;
He that of old hath been thy foe
Will die but will continue so.
Friar. O, masters, whither shall we go f*
Doth any living creature know ?
Lluellen. Rice and I will walk the round.
Friar, see about the ground,
Enter Mortimer disguised as a Potter.
And spoil what prey is to be found.
My love I leave within in trust,
Because I know thy dealing just. —
Come, potter, + come, and welcome too,
Fare as we fare, and do as we do. —
Nell,J adieu : we go for news.
[Exeunt Lluellen and Rice ap Meredith.
Friar. A little serves the friar's lust,
When nolens volens fast I must :
Master, at all that you refuse.
Mortimer, [aside.] Such a potter § would I
choose,
When I mean to blind a 'scuse :
While Robin walkjY] with Little John,
The Friar will lick || his Marian :
So will the potter if he can.
Elinor. Now, friar, sith your lord is gone,
And you and I are left alone,
What can the friar do or say
To pass the weary time away ? —
Weary, God wot, poor wench, to thee,
That never thought these days to see.
Mortimer, [aside.] Break, heart! aud split, mine
eyes, in twain !
Ne'er let me hear those words again.
* go] Omitted in both itos.
t potter] The 4to. of 1599 " porter."
1 Nell, (ve. ] Both 4tos. give this lino to the Friar.
§ potter] Uoth 4Los. " porter " horc and a little after.
|| lick] Wrong word.
EDWARD I.
395
Friar. What can the friar do or say
To pass the weary time away ?
More dare he * do than he dare say,
Because he doubts to have a nay.t
Elinor. Do somewhat, friar, say or sing,
That may to sorrows solace bring ;
And I meanwhile will garlands make.
Mortimer, [aside.] 0, Mortimer, were 't for thy
sake,
A garland were the happiest stake,
That e'er this hand unhappy drew !
Friar. Mistress, shall I tell you true ?
I have a song, I learu'd it loug ago :
I wot not whether you'll like it well or uo.^
'Tis short and sweet, but somewhat brawl'd
before :
Once let me sing it, and I ask no more.
Elinor. What, friar, will you so indeed]
Agrees it somewhat with your need?
Friar. Why, mistress, shall I sing my creed ?
Elinor. That's fitter of the two at need.
Mortimer, [aside.] 0, wench, how mayst thou
hope to speed?
Friar. 0, mistress, out it goes :
Look what comes next, the friar throws.
[Sits along and sings.
Mortimer, [aside.] Such a sitting who ever saw ?
An eagle's bird of a jackdaw.
Elinor. So, sir, is this all ?
Mortimer, [coming forward. ] Sweet-heart, here's
do more.
Elinor. How now, good fellow! more indeed
by one than was before.
Friar. How now ! the devil instead of a ditty !
Mortimer. Friar, a ditty
Come late from the city,
To ask some pity
Of this lass so pretty : —
Some pity, sweet mistress, I pray you.
Elinor. How now, friar! where are we now, an
you play not the man ?
Friar. Friend copesmate, you that
Came late from the city,
To ask some pity
Of this lass so pretty,
In likeness of a doleful ditty, —
Hang me if I do not pay ye.
Mortimer. 0, friar, you grow choleric : well,
you'll have no man to court your mistress but
• he\ Both4to9. "I."
t a nay] Both 4tos. "away"?
1 or no] Both 4tos. "or ill."
yourself. Ou my word, I'll take you down a
button-hole.
Friar. Ye talk, ye talk, child. [They fight.
Re-enter Lluellen and Rick ap Meredith.
Lluellen. 'Tis well, potter ; you fight in a good
quarrel.
Rice ap Mer. Mass, this blade will hold : let
me see, then, friar.
Friar. Mine's for mine own turn, I warrant :
give him his tools. Rise, and let's to it ; but no
change, an if you love me. I scorn the odds, I
can tell you : see fair play, an you be gentle-
men.
Lluellen. Marry, shall we, friar. Let us see :
be their staves of a length? Good : so, now
Let us deem of the matter,
Friar and potter,
Without more clatter;
I have cast your water,
And see as deep into your desire,
As he that had div'd every day into your bosom.
O, friar,
Will nothing serve your turn but larks ?
Are such fine birds for such coarse clerks ?
None but my Marian can serve your turn.
Elinor. Cast water, for the house will burn.
Friar. 0, mistress, mistress, flesh is frail j
'Ware when the sign is in the tail :
Mighty is love and doth prevail.
Lluellen. Therefore, friar, shalt thou not fail,
But mightily your foe assail,
And thrash this potter with thy flail : —
And, potter, never rave nor rail,
Nor ask questions what I ail,
But take this tool, and do not quail,
But thrash this friar's russet coat ;
And make him sing a dastard's note,
And cry, Peccavi* miserere David,
In amo amavi. Go to. [They take the fiailt.
Mortimer. Strike, strike.
Friar. Strike, potter, be thou lief or loth :
An if you'll not strike, I'll strike for both.
Mortimer. He must needs go that the devil
drives.
Then, friar, beware of other men's wives. [Strikes.
Friar. I wish, master proud potter, the devil
have my soul,
But I'll make my flail circumscribe your noul.+
[Strikes.
* And cry, Peccavi, &c J I suspect that this is cor-
rupted, — that here we ought to have a couplet with
" Peccavi " rhyming to " amavi."
t noul] i. e. head.
396
EDWARD I.
Lluellen. Why, so ; now it cottens,* now the
game begins ;
One knave currieth another for his sins.
Friar [kneeling.] master, shorten my offences
in mine + eyes !
If this crucifix + do not suffice,
Send me to heaven in a hempen sacrifice.
Mortimer, [kneeling.] masters, masters,§ let
this be warning !
The friar bath infected me with his learning.
Lluellen. Villains, do not touch the forbidden
tree,||
Now to delude or to dishonour me.
Friar. O, master, quw negata sunt grata sunt.
Lluellen. Rice, every day thus shall it be :
We'll have a thrashing set among the friars ; and
he
That of these challengers lays on slowest load,
Be thou at band, Rice, to gore him with thy
goad.
Friar. Ah potter, potter, the friar may rue
That ever this day this our quarrel he knew ;
My pate addle, mine arms black and blue.
Mortimer. Ah friar, who may bis fate's force
eschew ?
I think, friar, you are prettily school'd.
Friar. And I think the potter is handsomely
cool'd. [Exeunt all except Mortimer.
Mortimer. No, Mortimer; bere['s] that eternal
fire
That burns and flames with brands of hot desire :
Why, Mortimer, why dost thou not discover
Thyself her knight, her liegeman, and her lover ?
[Exit.
Enter Baliol King of Scots, with his train.
Baliol. Lords of Albania, H and my peers in
France,
Since Baliol is invested in his rights,
And wears the royal Scottish diadem,
Time is to rouse him, that the world may wot
Scotland disdains to carry England's yoke.
Therefore, my friends, thus put in readiness,
Why slack we time to greet the English king
With resolute message, to let him know our
minds ?
Lord Versses, though thy faitb and oath be ta'en
* cottens] i. e. goes right.
t mine] Qy. "thine"?
J crucifix] The 4 to. of 1593 "crucifige."
§ masters, masters] Qy. "master, master"? (as before
and after).
|| tree] Both 4tos. " hairc ", but, as the Editor of Dods-
ley's 0. P. observes, "tho rhyme, which seems intended,
requires tree to be substituted.'
T[ Albania] Both 4tos. " Albana."
To follow Baliol's arms for Scotland's right,
Yet is thy heart to England's honour knit :
Therefore, in spite of England and thyself,
Bear thou defiance proudly to thy king ;
Tell him, Albania finds heart and hope
To shake off England's tyranny betime,
To rescue Scotland's honour with her* sword. —
Lord Bruce, see+ cast about Versses' neck
A strangling halter, that he mind his haste.J —
How say'st thou, Versses, wilt thou do this
message ?
Versses. Although no common post, yet, for my
king,
I will to England, maugre England's might,
And do mine errand boldly, as becomes ;
Albeit I honour English Edward's name,
And hold this slavish contemnment to scorn.§
Baliol. Then hie away, as swift as swallow
flies,
And meet me on our roads || on England's
ground ;
Whither U think of thy message and thy haste.
[Sound trumpets. Exit Baliol with his train.
Enter Kino Edward Longshanks, Lancaster, Gloces-
ter,** Sussex, Sir David, Cressingham, all booted
from Northam.
Longsh. Now have I leisure, lords, to bid you
welcome into Wales :
Welcome, sweet Edmund, to christen thy young
nephew; —
And welcome, Cressingham; give me thy
hand. —
But, Sussex, what became of Mortimer ?
We have not seen the man this many aft day.
Sussex. Before your highness rid from hence to
Northam,
Sir Roger was a suitor to your grace
Touching fair Elinor, Lluellen's love ;
* her] Both4tos. "hi3."— Qy. "the"?
f see] Qy. "go see " ?
J haste] Both 4tos. "hast ;" and in my former editions
I remarked that "perhaps we should read here (and
also a few lines after this) ' hest.' " But compare, p. 405,
sec. col., " his halter makes him haste."
§ contemnment to scorn] " Contemnment " can hardly be
right (qy. " 'coutrement ", i.e. accoutrement?); and
"to" should probably be altered, with the Editor of
Dodsley's 0. P., to "in."
|| roads] i. e. inroads.
1 Whither] Both 4tos. "We there."
** Oloce.ster, &c] "Tho quartos give this latter part of
the stage-direction as fellows : ' Gloucester, Sussex, Da-
vid, Crespall booted from Northam.' But the name is
Cressingham, as afterwards appeal's; and an abbreviation
i in the MS. was most likely coupled by the printer with
the next word all, as the king and his peers have all
just ridden from Northam." Editor of Dodrtcy's O. P.
\\ a] Not in the lto. of 1590.
EDWARD I.
397
Arid so, belike denied, with discontent
'A discontinues from your royal presence.
Longsh. Why, Sussex, said we not for Elinor,
So she would leave whom she had lov'd too long,
She might have favour with my queen and me ?
But, man, her mind above her fortune mounts,
And that's a cause she fails in her accounts. —
But go with me, my Lord of Lancaster;
We will go see my beauteous lovely queen,
That hath enrich'd me with a goodly boy.
The Queen's tent opening, she is discovered in bed, dand-
ling her * young Son, and attended by Maky Duchess
of Lancaster, Joan, and Ladies.
Ladies, by your leave. —
How doth my Nell, mine own, my love, my life,
My heart, my dear, my dove, my queen, my wife '<
Q. Elinor. Ned, art thou come, sweet Ned?
welcome, my joy !
Thy Nell presents thee with a lovely boy :
Kiss him, and christen him after thine own name.
Heigh-ho !
Whom do I see? my Lord of Lancaster!
Welcome heartily.
Lancaster. I thank your grace : sweet Nell,
well met withal.
Q. Elinor. Brother Edmund, here's a kinsman
of yours :
You must needs be acquainted.
Lancaster. A goodly boy ; God bless him ! —
Give me your hand, sir :
You are welcome into Wales.
Q. Elinor. Brother, there's a fist, I warrant you,
will hold a mace as fast as ever did father or
grandfather before him.
Longsh. But tell met now, lapped in lily
bands,
How with my X queen, my lovely boy it stands,
After thy journey and these childbed pains?
Q. Elinor. Sick, mine own Ned,§ thy Nell for
thy company ;
That lur'd her with thy lies all so far,
To follow thee unwieldy in thy war.
But I forgive thee, Ned, my life's || delight,
So thy young son thou see be bravely dight,
And in Carnarvon christen'd royally.
Sweet love, let him be lapp'd most curiously :
* her~\ Both 4tos. "his"; which, according to the
Editor of Dodsley's 0. P., means " the king's."
t me] The4to. of 1593 "hi."
J my] The4to. of 1699 "the."
§ Sick, mine own Ned, Ac. J A corrupted line.
|| life's] Both 4tos. " lims " (a misprint, I suppose, for
" Hues ").
He is thine own, as true as he is mine;*
Take order, then, that he be passing fine.
Longsh. My lovely lady, let that care be less :
For my young son the country will I feast,
And have him borne as bravely to the font
As ever yet king's son to christening went.
Lack thou no precious thing to comfort thee,
Dearer + than England's diadem unto me.
Q. Elinor. Thanks, gentle lord. — Nurse, rock
the cradle : fie,
The king so near, and hear the boy to cry ! —
Joan, take him up, and sing a lullaby.
Longsh. 'Tis well, believe me, wench : Goda-
mercy, Joan !
Lancaster. She learns, my lord, to lull a young
one of her own.
Q. Elinor. Give me some drink.
Longsh. Driuk nectar, my sweet Nell ;
Worthy for seat in heaven with Jove to dwell.
Q. Elinor. Gramercies, Ned. Now, well re-
member'd yet ; [it. —
I have a suit, sweet lord ; but you must not deny
Where's J my Lord of Glocester, good Clare,§
mine host, my guide ? —
Good Ned, let Joan of Aeon be his bride :
Assure yourself that they are throughly woo'd.
Glocester. [aside.] God send || the king be taken
in the mood !
Longsh. Then, niece, 'tis like that you shall
have a husband. —
Come hither, Glocester: hold, give her thy hand;
Take her, sole daughter to the Queen of
England. — [Gives Joan to Glocester.
For news he brought, H Nell, of my young son,
I promis'd him as much as I have done.
Glocester, 1 [hand in f We humbly thank your
Joan. J hand.] I majesty.
Lancaster. Much joy may them betide,
A gallant bridegroom and a princely bride !
Longsh. Now say, sweet queen, what doth my
lady crave ?
Tell me what name shall this young Welshman
have,
Born Prince of Wales by Cambria's full consent ?
Q. Elinor. Edward the name that doth me
well content.
* mine] Both 4tos. "thiue."
t Dearer] The 4to. of 1593 "De reare", that of 1599
" Deare are ".
J Where's] Both 4tos. "Whereas."
§ Clare] The 4to. of 1593 " Clace ", that of 1599
" Uloster".
|| God send, dtc.] Both 4tos. give this line tc Long-
shanks. — The MS. an otator on the first edition in the
Garrick collection rightly as-igus it to Glocester.
If brought\ Qy. "brought rue"?
398
EDWARD I.
Longsh. Then Edward of Carnarvon shall he
be,
And Prince of Wales, christen'd in royalty.
Lancaster. My lord, I think the queen would
take a nap.
Joan. Nurse, take the child, and hold it* in
your lap.
Longsh. Farewell, good Joan ; be careful of my
queen. —
Sleep, Nell, the fairest swan mine eyes have seen.
[They close the tent.— Exit Sussex.
Lancaster. I had forgot to ask your majesty
How do you with the abbeys here in Wales ]
Longsh. As kings with rebels, Mun ; our right
prevails.
We have good Robin Hood and Little John,
The Friar and the good Maid Marian :
Why, our Lluellen is a mighty man.
Glocester. Trust me, my lord, methinks 'twere
very good
That some good fellows went and scour' d the
wood,
And taket in hand to cudgel Robin Hood.
I think the Friar, for all his lusty looks,
Nor Robin's rabble + with their glaives and
hooks,
But would be quickly driven to the nooks.
Sir David. I can assure your highness what I
know :
The false Lluellen will not run nor go,
Or give an inch of ground, come man for man ;
Nor that proud rebel called Little John,
To hitn that wields the massiest sword of
England.
Glocester. Welshman, how wilt thou that we
understand 1
But for Lluellen, David, I deny ;
England hath men will make Lluellen fly,
Maugre his beard, and hide him in a hole,
Weary of England's dints and manly dole.§
Lancaster. Glocester, grow not so hot in Eng-
land's right,
That paints his honour out in every fight.
Longsh. By Qis,|| fair lords, ere many days be
past,
Englaud shall give this Robin Hood his break-
fast. —
« it] Omitted in the 4to. of 1698.
t take] Qy. "took "?
t Nor Robin's rabble, he] Both 4tos. "Nor Robin rule
v>ith their gleamos and hookes ". (A little farther on, men-
tion i9 made of *' Robin Hood and his rabble.)"
§ dole | i e. blows dealt out.
|| Gis\ A corruption of Jesus.
David, be secret, friend, to that I say,
And if I use thy skill, thou know'st the way
Where this proud Robin and his yeomen roam.
Sir David. I do, my lord, and blindfold thither
can I run.
Longsh. David, enough : as I 'm a gentleman,
I'll have one merry flirt with Little John,
And Robin Hood, and his Maid Marian.
Be thou my counsel and my company,
And thou mayst Englaud's resolution see.
Re-enter Sussex.
Sussex. May it please your majesty, here ere
four good squires of the cantreds* where they do
dwell, come in the name of the whole country to
gratulate unto your highness all your good
fortunes, and by me offer their most humble
service to your young son, their prince, whom
they most heartily beseech God to bless with
long life and honour.
Itongsh. Well said, Sussex ! I pray, bid them
come near. [Exit Sussex.] Sir David, trust me,
this is kindly done of your countrymen.
Sir David, [aside.] Villains, traitors to the
ancient glory and renown of Cambria ! Morris
Vaughan, art thou there? And thou, proud
Lord of Anglesey ?
Re-enter Sussex with the four Barons of Wales, carrying
the mantle of frieze. The Barons kneel.
First Baron. The poor country of Cambria, by
us unworthy messengers, gratulates to your ma-
jesty the birth of your young son, Prince of
Wales, and in this poor present express + their
most zealous duty and affection, which with all
humbleness we present to your highness' sweet
and sacred hands.
Longsh. Gramercies, barons, for your gifts and
good-wills :+ by this means my boy shall wear a
mantle of country's weaving to keep him warm,
and live for England's honour and Cambria's
good. I shall not need, I trust, courteously to
invite you ; I doubt not, lords, but you will be
all in readiness to wait on your young prince,
and do him honour at his christening.
Sussex. The whole country of Cambria round
about, all well-horsed and attended on, both men
and women in their best array, are come down to
do service of love and honour to our late-born
prince, your majesty's son and honey : the men
* the cantredf] " Cantred is as much in Wales as hundred
in England, for cantre in Welch is centum." Minsheu.
t present express] Both 4tos. " prest exprest."
J gift* and goodwills] Here wo might have expected
"gilt and good-wili " : but in the King's next speech we
find "courtesies and presents."
EDWARD I.
399
and women of Snowdon especially have sent in
great abundance of cattle and corn, enough by
computation for your highness' household a
whole month and more.
Longsh. We thank them all; and will present
our queen with these courtesies aud presents be-
stowed on her young sou, and greatly account
you for our friends. [Exeunt Barons.
Tlit Queen's tent open*.
Q. Minor. Who talketh there ?
Longsh. A friend, madam.
Joan. Madam, it is the king.
Elinor. Welcome, my lord. Heigh-ho, what
have we there ?
Longsh. Madam, the country, in all kindness
and duty, recommend their service and good-will
to your son ; and, in token of their pure good-
will, present him by us with a mantle of frieze,
richly lined to keep him warm.
Elinor. A mantle of frieze ! fie, fie ! for God's
sake let me hear no more of it, an if you love me.
Fie,* my lord ! is this the wisdom and kindness
of the country? Now I commend me to them
all, and if Wales have no more wit or manners
than to clothe a king's son in frieze, I have a
mantle in store for my boy that shall, I trow,
make him shine like the sun, and perfume the
Btreets where he comes.
Longsh. In good time, madam; he is your own;
lap him as you list : but I promise thee, Nell, I
would not for ten thousand pounds the country
should ta'<e unkindness at thy words.
Elinor. Tis no marvel, sure ; you have been
royally received at their hands.
No, Ned, but that thy Nell doth want her will.f
Her boy should glister like the summer's sun,
In robes aa rich as Jove when he triumphs.
His pap should be of precious nectar made,
His food ambrosia — no earthly woman's milk ;
Sweet fires of cinnamon to open him by ;
The Graces on his cradle should attend;
Venus should make his bed and wait on him,
And Phcebu8' daughter sing him still asleep.
Thus would I have my boy us'd as divine,
Because he is King Edward's son and mine :
And do you mean to make him up in frieze ?
For God's sake lay it up charily and perfume it
against winter ; it will make him a goodly warm
Christmas coat.
Longsh. Ah, Mun, my brother, dearer than my
life,
• Fie] The 4to. of 1599 " hee."
t want her will) The 4to. of 1599 " wante of her will."
How this proud humour * slays my heart with
grief! —
Sweet queen, how much I pity the effects ! +
This Spanish pride 'grees not with England's
prince :
Mild is the mind where honour builds his bower,
And yet is earthly honour but a flower.
Fast to those looks are all my fancies tied,
Pleas 'd with thy sweetness, angry with thy pride.
Q. Elinor. Fie, fie ! methinks I am not where I
should be;
Or at the least I am not where I would be.
Longsh. What wants my queen to perfect her
content ?
But ask and have, the king will not repent.
Q. Elinor. Thanks, gentle Edward. — Lords,
have at you, then !
Have at you all, long-bearded Englishmen !
Have at you, lords and ladies ! when I crave
To give your English pride a Spanish brave.
Longsh. What means my queen ?
Glocester.% [aside.] This is a Spanish fit.
Q. Elinor. Ned, thou hast granted, and canst
not revoke it.
Longsh. Sweet queen, say on : my word shall
be my deed.
Q. Elinor. Then shall thy word § make many
a bosom bleed.
Read, Ned, thy queen's request lapt up in rhyme,
[Gives a paper.
And say thy Nell had skill to choose her time.
Longsh. [reads] || The pride of Englishmen's long
Is more than England's Queen can bear : [hair
Women's right breast, cut them off all ;
And let the great tree perish with the small.
What means my lovely Elinor by this?
Q. Elinor. Not [to] be denied, for my request
it is.H
Lancaster. Glocester, an old said Baying, — He
that grants all is ask'd,
Is much harder than Hercules task'd.**
Glocester. [aside.] Were the king so mad as
the queen is wood,++
Here were an end of England's good.
Longsh. My word is pass'd, — I am well agreed ;
* humour) Both 4tos. "honor."
f the effects] Qy. "its effects'"! or "thy affects"? but
probably something is wanting after this line.
{ Glocester] Stands in both 4tos. as a portion of the text.
§ thy word] Both 4tos. "my wordes."
|| Longsh. [reads.]] Both 4tos. "Read the paper Rice."
If request it is] After this both 4tos. have "The rime is,
that mens bcardes and wornens breastes be cut off, Ac."
*» task'd] Both4tos. "taske."
ft wood] Synonymous with mad.
400
EDWARD I.
Let men's beards milt* and women's boooms
bleed. —
Call forth my barbers ! Lords, we'll first begin.
Enter two Barbers.
Come, sirrah, cut me close unto the chin,
And round me even, see'st thou, by a dish ;
Leave not a lock : my queen shall have her wish.
Q. Minor. What, Ned, those locks that ever
pleas'd thy Nell,
Wheret her desire, where her delight doth dwell!
Wilt thou deface that silver labyrinth,
More orient than purpledj hyacinth 1
Sweet Ned, thy sacred person ought not droop,
Though my command make other gallants stoop.
Lonr/sh. Madam, pardon rue and pardon all ;
No justice but the great runs with the small. —
Tell me, good Glocester, art thou not afeard?
Glocester. No, my lord, but resolv'd to lose
my beard.
Longsh. Now, madam, if you purpose to pro-
To make so many guiltless ladies bleed, [ceed
Here must the law begin, sweet Elinor, at thy
breast,
And stretch itself with violence to the rest.
Else princes ought no other do,
Fair lady, than they would be done unto.
Q. Elinor. What logic call you this? Doth
Edward mock his love ?
Longsh. No, Nell ; he doth as best in honour
doth behove,
And prays thee, gentle queen, — and let my pray-
ers § move, —
Leave these ungentle thoughts, put on a milder
mind ;
Sweet looks, not lofty, civil mood become a
woman's kind : ||
And live, as, being dead and buried in the ground,
Thou mayst for affability and honour be renown'd.
Q. Elinor. Nay, an you preach, I pray, my
lord, be gone :
The child will cry and trouble you anon.
Mayoress, [aside.] Quo semel*h est imbula recens
servabit odorem
Testa diu.
* milt] "Perhaps moult." Editor of Bodslei/'s O. P.
t Where] Both 4tos "Were."
\ purpled] Both 4tos. " ptmpilde."
§ prut/em] The 4to. of 1593 "praies."
|| Hn>l] i. e. nature.
TI Quo sernel, &c] Horace, Epist. I. ii. 69. In both
4tos. this quotation stands, without any prefix, between
the stage-direction " The Nurse closeth the tent " (which
stage-direction is manifestly out of place), and the
speech of the Lady Mayoress " Proud incest," &c. ;
and the Editor of Dodsley.'a 0. P. says that it "seems
Proud incest in the cradle of disdain,
Bred up in court of pride, brought up in Spain,
Dost thou command him coyly from thy sight,
That is thy* star, the glory of thy light? +
Longsh. O, could I with the riches of my crown
Buy better thoughts for my renowned Nell,
Thy mind, sweet queen, should be as beautiful
As is thy face, as are thy features all,
Fraught with pure honour's treasure, t andenrich'd
With virtues and glory incomparable. —
Ladies about her majesty, see that the queen
your mistress § know not so much; but at any
hand our pleasure is that our young son be in
this mantle borne to his christening, for special
reasons are thereto moving ; from the church, as
best it please your women's wits to devise. You,||
sweet Joan, see this faithfully performed ; and,
hear you, daughter, look you be not last up when
this day comes, lest Glocester find another bride
in your stead. — David, go with me.
[Exit with Sir David.
Glocester. She riseth early, Joan, that beguileth
thee of a Glocester.
Lancaster. Believe him not, sweet niece : we
men can speak smooth for advantage.
Joan. Women,1J do you mean, my good uncle ?
Well, be the accent where it will, women are
women. — I will believe you for as great a matter
as this comes to, my lord.
Glocester. Gramercies, sweet lady, et habebis
fidei mercedem contra.
[Exeunt— The Queen's tent is closed.
Enter Jack and his company, to give the Queen music at
her tent.
Jack. Come, fellows, cast yourselves even round
in a string — a ring I would say : come, merrily on
inserted as an observation of the poet, and not, like a
previous line from the same author [see p. 379, fiwt
col.], put into the mouth of one of the characters."
But as Peele wrote for the stage, not for the closet, it is
more than unlikely that he should have inserted any
such "observations." — The Editor of Dodsiey's P. also
remarks that " The Lady Mayoress performs the office of
nurse to the prince " I do not, however, think that we
are to conclude so from the present scene; and in a sub-
sequent scene, before putting her to death, the Queen
tells her, " Our mind is to bestow an office on you
straight," and asks,
" Whether will you be our nurse or laundress? "
and the Mayoress chooses to be the former.
* thy] Both 4tos. " the."
t light] The 4to. of 1593 "sight."
J pure honour's treasure] The 4to of 1593 "pure honor,
treasure", that of 1599 "true honor, treasure."
§ mistress] Both 4tos "mother."
II You] Both4tos. "Yet."
«[ Women] A play upon the similarity of the sound of
we men and women.
EDWARD I.
4<H
my word, for the queen is most liberal, and if you
will please her well, she will pay you royally : so,
lawful to brave well thy British lustily to solace
our good queen : God save her grace, and give
our young prince a carpell in their kind ! * Come
on, come on, set your crowds,t and beat your
heads together, and behave you handsomely.
[Here they play and sing, and then exeunt.
Enter Friar.
Friar. I have a budget in my nose this gay
morning, and now will I try how clerkly the
friar can behave himself. 'Tis a common fashion
to get gold with " Stand : deliver your purses ! "
Friar Davy \ will once in his days get money by
wit. There is a rich farmer should pass this way §
to receive a round sum of money : if he come to
me, the money is mine, and the law shall take no
vantage ; I will cut off the law as the hangman
would cut a man down when he hath shaken his
heels half-an-hour under the gallows. Well, I
must take some pains for this gold ; and have at
it!
[Spreads the lappet of his gown, and falls to dice.
Enter a Farmer.
Farmer. 'Tis an old said saying, I remember I
read it in Cato's Pueriles, \\ that Cantabit H vacuus
coram latrone viator; a man** purse-penniless
may sing before a thief : true, as I have not one
penny, which makes me so pertly pass through
these thickets. But indeed I [am to] receive a
hundred marks ; and all the care is how I shall
pass again. Well, I [am] resolved either to ride
* lawful to brave well . . . a carpell in their kind] Of
this I can make nothing satisfactory.
\ crowds] i e. fiddles.
} Davy] Both 4tos. "Dauies."
f way] Both 4tos. "waies."
|| Cato's Pueriles] "From Peele's Historical play of Ed-
ward I. 4to. 1593, if he did not intend a blunder, Pueriles
and Cato's Moral Distichs should seem to have been the
same book with a double title. But Drayton mentions
them as different ;
' And when that once Pueriles I had read,
And newly had my Cato construed,' &c.
Epistle to Henry Reynolds, Esq."
Malone's Life of Shakespeare, p. 104, note. — In Everie Wo-
man in her humour, 1009, one of the characters says, "As
the learned puerelis writes, 'tis good sleeping in a whole
skin." Sig. D 2. — Pueriles continuod in use long after
the time of Peele : a copy is now before me, — Sentential
Pueriles, Pro primis Latino; Lingw? Tyronibas, e£ diversis
Scriptoribus cMectce. Per Leonardum Ctdmavi. His acces-
serunt plermque Veterv.m Theologorum Sententiw de vera
Religione. Londini, Excutum pro Societate Stationariorum.
1670, duud.
If Cantabit, be] Juvenal, Sat. x. 22.
** man] Both 4tos. "maus."
twenty miles about, or else to be so well accom-
panied that I will not care for these ruftWs.
Friar. Did ever man play with such uucircum-
cised hands ? size-ace to eloven aud lose the
chance !
Farmer. God speed, good fellow ! why chafest
thou so fast ? there's nobody will win thy money
from thee.
Friar. Zounds, you offer me injury, sir, to
speak in my cast.
Farmer, [aside.] The friar undoubtedly is
lunatic. — I pray thee, good fellow, leave chafing,
and get some warm drink to comfort thy brains.
Friar. Alas, sir, I am not lunatic : 'tis not so
well, for I have lost my money, which is far
worse. I have lost five gold nobles to Saint
Francis ; and if I knew where to meet with his
receiver, I would pay him presently.
Farmer. Wouldst thou speak with Saint Francis'
receiver ?
Friar. Lord, ay, sir, full gladly.
Farmer. Why, man, I am Saint Francis' receiver,
if you would have any thing with him.
Friar. Are you Saint Francis' receiver 1 Jesus,
Jesus ! are you Saint Francis' receiver ? and how
does all ? *
Farmer. I am his receiver, and am now going
to him : 'a bids Saint Thomas a'Wateriugs to
breakfast this morning to a calf s-head and bacon.
Friar. Good Lord, sir, I beseech you carry + him
these five nobles, and tell him I deal honestly
with him as if he were here present.
[Gives money.
Farmer. I will of my word and honesty, friar ;
and so farewell.
Friar. Farewell, Saint Francis' receiver, even
heartily. [Exit Farmer.] Well, now the friar is
out of cash five nobles, God knows how he shall
come into cash again : but I must to it again.
There's nine for your holiness and six for me.
Enter Lluellen, Rick ap Meredith, and Moetimeu,
with their Prisoners.
Lluellen. Come on, my hearts : bring forth
your prisoners, and let us see what store of fish is
there in their purse-nets. — Friar, why chafest thou,
man ? here's nobody will offer thee any foul play,
I warrant thee.
Friar. 0, good master, give me leave : my
hand is in a little ; I trust I shall recover my
losses.
Lluellen. The friar is mad ; but let him alone
with his device. — And now to you, my masters,
* all] Qy. *"a"(i. e. he)?
1 yua carry] The 4to of 1599 "you to carrie."
to u
402
EDWARD I.
Pedler, Priest, and Piper : throw down your
budgets in the mean while, and when the friar
is at leisure he shall tell you what you shall
trust to.
Pedler. Alas, Sir, I have but three pence in
the corner of my shoe.
Rice ap Mer. Never a shoulder of mutton,
Piper, in your tabor ] But soft ! here comes
company.
Enter Kino Edward Lonoshanks, Sir David, and
Farmer.
Farmer. Alas, gentlemen, if you love your-
selves, do not venture through this mountain :
here's such a coil with Robin Hood and his
rabble, that every cross* in my purse trembles
for fear.
Longsh. Honest man, as I said to thee before,
conduct us through this wood, and if thou beest
robbed or Lave any violence offered thee, as I am
a gentleman, I will repay it thee again. [thee !
Sir David. How much money hast thou about
Farmer. Faith, sir, a hundred marks; I re-
ceived it even now at Brecknock. But, out alas,
we are undone ! yonder is Robin Hood and all
the strong thieves in the mountain. I have no
hope left but your honour's assurance.
Longsh. Fear not ; I will be my word's master.
Friar. Good master, an if you love the friar,
Give ainif a while, I you desire,
And as you like of my device,
So love him that holds the dice.
Farmer. What, friar, art thou still labouring
so hard ? Will you have any thing more to
Saint Francis]
Friar. Good Lord, are you here, sweet Saint
Francis' receiver ? How doth his holiness, and
all his good family ?
Farmer. In good health, faith, friar: hast thou
any nobles for him ]
Friar. You know the dice are not partial : an
Saint Francis were ten saints, they will favour
him no more than they would favour the devil,
if he play at dice. In very truth, my friend, they
have favoured the friar, and I have won a hun-
dred marks of Saint Francis. Come, sir ; I pray,
sirrah, draw it over : I know, sirrah, he is a good
man, and never deceives none.
* cross] i. e. piece of muncy (many coins being marked
with a cross on one side).
t Give aim] A phrase in archery : "he who (tare aim
was stationed near the butts, and pointed out, after
every discharge, how wide or how short tho arrow fell
of the mark." Clifford's note on Massinger's Works,
vol. ii. p. 28, ed. 1813. Metaphorically it is equivalent
to direct.
Farmer. Draw it over ! what meanest thou by
that ?
Friar. Why, in numeratis pecuniis legem pone ;
pay me my winniugs.
Farmr. What ass is this ! * should I pay thee
thy winnings'?
Friar. Why, art not thou, sirrah, Saint Francis*
receiver ?
Farmer. Indeed, I do receive for Saint Francis.
Friar. Then I'll make you pay for Saint
Francis, that's fiat.
Farmer. Help, help! I am robbed, I am robbed!
[Bustling on both sides.
Longsh. Villaiu, you wrong the man : hands off !
Friar. Masters, I beseech you leave this braw-
ling, and give me leave to speak. So it is, I went
to dice with Saint Francis, and lost five nobles :
by good fortune his cashier came by, [and] received
it of me in ready cash. I, being very desirous to
try my fortune further, played still ; and as the
dice, not being bound prentice to him or any
man, favoured me, I drew a hand and won a
hundred marks. Now I refer it to your judg-
ments, whether the friar is to seek his winnings.
Longsh. Marry, friar, the farmer must and
shall pay thee honestly ere he pass.
Farmer. Shall I, sir ? Why, will you be content
to pay half as you promised me ?
Longsh. Ay, farmer, if you had been robbed of
it ; but if you be a gamester, I'll take no charge
of you, I.
Farmer. Alas, I am undone !
[Gives money and exit.
Lluellen. So, Sir Friar, now you have gathered
up your winnings, I pray you stand up aud give
the passengers t their charge, that Robin Hood
may receive his toll.
Friar. And shall, my lord. Our thrice-re-
jowned Lluellen, Prince of Wales and Robin
Hood of the great mountain, doth will and com-
mand all passengers, at the sight of Richard, %
servant unto me Friar David ap Tuck, to lay
down their weapons, aud quietly to yield, for
custom towards the maintenance of his highness*
wars, the half of all such gold, silver, money, and
money-worth, as the said passenger § hath then
about him ; but if he conceal any part or parcel
of the same, then shall he forfeit all that he pos-
sesseth at that present. And this sentence is irre-
* What ass is this.'] i. e. What an ass, <fec. !,— our early
writers frequently omitting tho article iu such exclama-
tions: see my note on Shakespeare's Works, vol. v. p. 368.
t passengers] Both 4tos. "messengers."
t Richard] See note If, p. 382, first col.
§ 'passenger] Both Itos. " messenger."
EDWARD I.
40.°.
vocable, confirmed by our lord Lluellen Prince of
Wales and Robin Hood of the great mountain.*
LluelL-n. So vailf your budgets to Robin of the
mountain. But what art thou that disdaiuest to
pay this custom, as if thou scornest the greatness
of the Prince of Wales ?
Longsh. Faith, Robin, thou seemest to be a
good fellow : there's my bag ; half is mine, and
half is thine. But let's to it, if thou darest, man
for man, to try who shall have the whole.
Lluellen, Why, thou speakcst as thou shouldst
speak. — My masters, on pain of my displeasure,
depart the place, and leave us two to ourselves.
I must lop his longshanks, 'fore I'll ear+ to a
pair of longshanks.
Longsh. They are fair marks, sir, and I mu6t
defend as I may. — Davy, be gone. — Hold here,
my hearts : long-legs gives you this amougst you
to spend blows one with another.
[Exeunt Friar, and Rice ap Meredith with
Prisoners.
Sir David, [aside.] Now Davy's days§ are almost
come at end. [Retires.
Mortimer, [aside.] But, Mortimer, this sight is
strange. Stay thou in some corner to see what
will befall in this battle. [Retires.
Longsh. Now, Robin of the Wood, alias Robin
Hood, be it known to your worship by these
presents, that the longshanks which you aim at
have brought the King of England into these
mountains to see || Lluellen, and to crack a blade
with his man that supposeth himself Prince of
Wales.
Lluellen. What, Sir King ! welcome to Cam-
bria. TI What, foolish Edward, darest thou en-
dauger thyself to travel these mountains? Art
thou so foolish-hardy as to combat with the
Prince of Wales ?
Longsh. What I dare, thou seest ; what I can
perform, thou shalt shortly know. I think thee
a gentleman, and therefore hold no scorn to fight
with thee.
Lludlen. No, Edward ; I am as good a man as
Longsh. That shall I try. [thyself.
f Tliey fight, and Sir David takes Lluellen's
part, and Mortimer takes Kino Edward's.
* mountain] Both 4tos. "mountaines."
t vail] i. e. down with.
t 'fore I'll ear] Both 4tos. " for lie tare"; — but "ear"
cannot be right. The Editor of Dodsley's 0. P. conjec-
tures "yield" for "ear."
§ Sir David, [aside.] Now Davy's days, &c] Both 4tos.
(making this a portion of the preceding speech) " Dauie
now Dauie daies," <fcc.
|| see.} Both4tos. "vse". (Qy. "visit"?)
H Cambria] Both 4tos. "Cambrias."
Hallo, Edward ! how are thy senses confounded !
— What, Davy, is it possible thou shouldst be
false to England ?
Sir David. Edward, I am true to Wales, and
so have been friends since my birth, and that
shall the King of England know to his cost.
Lluellen. What, potter, did not I charge you
to be goue with your fellows?
Mortimer. No traitor, no potter I, but Morti-
mer, the Earl of March; whose coujing to these
woods was* to deceive thee of thy love, and re-
served to save my sovereign's life.
Sir David. Upon them, brother ! let them not
breathe.
[King Edward has Lluellen down, and
Sir David has Mortimer down.
Longsh. Villain, thou diest I God and my right
have prevailed.
Sir David. Base earl ! now doth David triumph
in thine overthrow. — Ay is me 1 Lluellen at the
feet of Longshanks !
Longsh. What, Mortimer under the sword of
such a traitor !
Mortimer. Brave king, run thy sword up to the
hilts into the blood of the rebeL
Longsh. 0, Mortimer, thy life is dearer to me
than millions of rebels !
Sir David. Edward, release f my brother, and
Mortimer lives.
Longsh. Ay, villain, thou knowest too well how
dear I hold my Mortimer. — Rise, man, and assure
thee that + the hate I bear to thee is love § in
respect of the deadly hatred I bear to that
notorious rebel.
Mortimer. Away ! his sight to me is like the
sight of a cockatrice. — Villain, I go to revenge me
on thy treason, and to make thee pattern to the
world of monstrous treason, || falsehood, and in-
gratitude. [Exeunt Kino Edward and Mortimer.
Sir David. Brother, 'a chafes; but hard was
your hap to be overmastered by the coward.
Lluellen. No coward, David : his courage is
like to the lion, and were it not that rule and
sovereignty set us at jar, I could love and honour
the man for his valour.
Sir David. But the potter, — 0, the villain will
never out of my mind whilst I live ! and I will
lay to be revenged on his villany.
* was] Both 4tos. "is".
t release] Both 4tos. " relieue ".
t thai] Both4tos. "and."
§ love] So I read with the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.
Both 4tos "long."
|| monstrous treason] Both 4tos. "mountains treason".
(Afterwaids, p. 407, sec. col., we find "monstrous t,ta-
son '.) — In this passage the first " trtaton " is an error.
it d 2
404
EDWARD I.
Llaellen. Well, David, what will be shall be ;
then-fore casting these matters out of our heals,
David, thou art welcome to Cambria. Let us in
aud be merry after this cold cooling, and to* pre-
pare to strengthen ourselves against the last
threatenings. [Exeunt.
After the christening and marriage done, the Heralds ho ring
attended, they pass over; the Bride ledby two Noblemen,
Lancaster and Sussex ; and the Bishop.
Glocester. Welcome, Joan, Countess of Glo-
cester, to Gilbert de Clare for ever !
Sussex.^ God give them joy ! — Cousin Glocester,
let us now go visit the king and queen, and
present their majesties with their young son,
Edward Prince of Wales.
Tliw all pass in their order to Kino Edward Long-
shanks's pavilion : the King sits in his tent, with his
Pages about him.
Bishop. We here present^ your highness most
humbly with your young son, Edward of Car-
narvon, Prince of Wales. [Sound trumpets.
Alt. God save Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of
Wales !
Longsk. Edward, Prince of Wales, God bless
thee with long life and honour ! [Kisses him']. —
Welcome, Joan, Countess of Glocester ! God
bless thee and thine for ever ! [Kisses her.] — Lords,
let us visit my queen and wife, whom we will at
once present with a son and daughter honoured
to her desire.
Sound trumpets : they all march to Queen Elinor's
chamber /§ Vie Bishop speaks to her in her bed.
Bishop. We humbly present your majesty with
your young sou, Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of
Wales. [Sound trumpets.
All. God save Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of
Wales !
Elinor. [After kissing the Prince.] Gramercies,
bishop : hold, take that to buy thee a rochet. ||
[Gives purse.
—Welcome, Welshman ! — Here, nurse, open
him and have him to the fire, for God's sake ;
they have touzed him, and washed himlf throughly,
an that be good. — Aud welcome, Joan, Countess
of Glocester ! God bless thee with long life,
• to] Qy. "so"?
t Siwsex] This prefix is omitted in both 4tos.
I here present] Both 4tos. "represent."
§ they all march to Queen Elino7-'s chamber. &c] Here,
of course, (as a little before when " all pats in their order
to King Edward Longshanks's pavilion,") a curtain was
drawn back.
|| rochet] Both 4tos. "rochell."
^1 washed him] The 4to. of 1593 "wash thim," that of
1599 " wash him."— She alludes to the "washing " at the
font.
honour, and heart's-ease ! — I am now as good aa
my word, Glocester ; she is thine : make much of
her, gentle earl.
Longsh. Now, my sweet Nell, what more com-
mandeth my queen, that nothing may want to
perfect her contentment 1
Elinor. Nothing, sweet Ned; but pray, my
king, feast * the lords and ladies royally : and
thanks a thousand times, good men aud women,
to you all for this duty and honour done to your
prince.
Longsh. Master bridegroom, by old custom
this is your waiting-day. t — Brother Edmund,
revel it now or never for honour of your Eng-
land's son. — Glocester, now, like a brave bride-
groom, marshal this many, and set these lords
and ladies to dancing ; so shall you fulfil the old
English proverb, " 'Tis merry in hall when beards
wag all."
After the show, and the King and Queen, with all the Lords
and Ladies, being in place, enter Versses with a halter
about his neck.
Longsh. What tidings brings J Versses to our
court 1 [king.
Versses. Tidings to make thee tremble, English
Longsh. Me tremble, boy ! must not be news
from Scotland
Can once make English Edward stand aghast.
Versses. Baliol hath chosen at this time to stir ;
To rouse him lion-like, and cast the yoke
That Scots ingloriously have borne from thee
And all the predecessors of thy line ;
And makes § his roads || to re-obtain his right, ^1
And for his homage sends thee all despite.**
Lancaster. Why, how now, princoxft! prat'st
thou to a king ?
Versses. I do my message truly from my kiug :
This sword and target chide in louder terms.
I bring defiance from King John Baliol
To English Edward and his barons all.
Longsh. Marry, so, methinks, thou defiest me
with a witness.
* king, feast] Both 4tos. " king to feast ".
f your waiting-day, &c] Both 4tos. " your waiting dale
Sir Dauid you may commaund al ample welcome in our
court, for your eountreymen : brother Edmund reuell it
now or newer," &c. " Either this is a mistake, or there
has been some transposition of the scene ; because no
long since Edward left Sir David with his brother, pr
fe8sing the most deadly hatred to him for his treachery.'
Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.
J brings] Qy. " bringeth " !
§ makes] Both 4tos. "make."
|| roads] i. e. inroads.
f right] Both 4tos. "rights."
** all despite] Both 4tos. " all this despight."
ft princox] i. e. pert fellow.
EDWARD I.
405
Versses. Baliol, my king, in Berwick makes his
court :
His camp he spreads upon the sandy plain,
And dares thee to the battle in his right.
Lancaster. What, court and camp in English-
men's despite 1 [king •'
Longsh. Hold, messenger : commend me to thy
Wear thou my chain, and carry this * to him.
Greet all his routt of rebels more or less ;
Tell them such shameful end will hit them all :
And wend with this as resolutely back
As thou to England brought'st thy Scottishbraves.
Tell, then, disdainfully Baliol from us,
We'll rouse him from his hold, and make him
soon
Dislodge his camp and take + his wallel town.
Say what I bid thee, Versses, to his teeth,
And earn this favour and a better thing.
Versses. Yes, King of England, whom my heart
beloves :
Think, as I promis'd him to brave thee here,
So shall I bid John Baliol 'base from thee.
Longsh. So shalt thou earn my chain and
favour, Versses,
And carry him this token that thou send'st.§
Why, now is England's harvest ripe :
Barons, now may you reap the rich renown
That under warlike colours springs in field,
And grows where ensigns wave|| upon the plains.
False Baliol, Berwick Tf is no hold of proof
To shroud thee from the strength of Edward's
arm : [breach
No, Scot ; thy treason's fear shall make the
For England's pure renown to enter in.**
All. Amain, amain, upon these treacherous
Scots !
Amain, say all, upon these treacherous Scots !
Longsh While we with Edmund, Glocester,
and the rest,
With speedy journeys gather up our forces,
And beat these braving Scots from England's
bounds,
Mortimer, thou shalt take the rout in task
* this] "i. e. the halter with which Versses entered."
Editor of Dodsley's O. P.
t rout] i. e. company, band.
J take] i. e. betake him to. — In this line, I believe, the
reading of the old eds. " toun" ought not to be altered
to "towns", Berwick being meant: see the first speech
in the present col.
§ send'st] A misprint. — " Query * seest ', still alluding
to the halter?" Editor of Dodsley's O. P.— Qy. "scorn'st"
(scornest to wear about thy neck) ?
|| wave] Both 4tos. "wan "
1 Berwick] The 4to. of 1593 " Warwicke."
** in] The 4tos. "on "and "one."
That revel here and spoil fair Cambria.
My queen, when she is strong and well a-foot,
Shall post to London and repose* her there.
Then God shall send us haply all to meet,
And joy the honours of our victories.
Take vantage of our foes and see the time,
Keep still our hold, our fight yet ou the plain.
Baliol, I come, — proud Baliol and ingrate, —
Prepar'd t to chase thy men from England's gate.
[Exeunt.
Enter Baliol -with his ti arn.
Baliol. Princes of Scotland and my loving
friends,
Whcse necks are overwearied with the yoke
And servile bondage of these Englishmen,
Lift up your horns, and with your brazen hoofs
Spurn X at the honour of your enemies.
'Tis not ambitious thoughts of private rule
Have forc'd your king to take on him these arms;
'Tis country's cause ; it is the common § good
Of ua and of our brave posterity.
To arms, to arms !
Versses by this hath told the king our minds,
And he hath brav'd proud England to the proof:
We will remunerate his resolution
With gold, with glory, and with kingly gifts.
First Lord. By sweet Saint Jerome, Versses
will not spare
To tell his message to the English king,
And beard the jolly Longshanks to his face,
Were he the greatest monarch in the world.
And here he comes : his halter makes him haste.
Enter Versses.
Versses. Long live my lord, the rightful king
of Scots !
Baliol. Welcome, Versses ! what news from
England]
Like to the messenger || of Scotland's king?
Versses. Versses, my lord, in terms like to
himself,
Like to the messenger of Scottish king,
Defied the peers of England and herTI lords,
That all her barons trembled** at my threats,
And Longshanks' self,tt as daunted and amaz'd,
Gaz'd on my face, not witting what to say ;
* repose] Both 4tos. "repaste."
t Prepar'd] The conjecture of the Editor of Dodsley's
P.— Both4tos. "Persw.vied."
t Spurn] Both 4tos "Spurre."
§ common] Both 4tos. "commons."
II messenger] Both 4tos. "measure."
U her] Both 4tos. " their ".
** her .... trembled] Both 4tos. "his .... trembles."
tt self] Both 4tos. "himselfe."
406
EDWARD I.
Till rousing up be shak'd his threatening hair :
" Versses," quoth he, " take thou King Edward's
Upon condition tbou a message do [chain,
To Baliol, false pcrjur'd Baliol";
For in these terms he bade me greet your grace,
And give* this halter to your excellence.+
I took the chain, and give Z your grace the rope.
Baliol. You took the chaiu, and give my grace
the rope ! —
Lay hold on him. — Why, miscreate recreant,
And dar'st thou bring a halter to thy king ?
But I will quite § thy pain, and in that chain,
Upon a silver gallows shalt tbou hang,
That honour'd with a golden rope of England,
And a silver || gibbet of Scotland, thou mayst
Hang in the air for fowls to feed upon,
And men to wonder at. — Away with him !
Away ! [Exeunt.
Enter Mortimer, -with Soldiers, pursuing the rebels.
Mortimer. Strike up the U drum ! follow,
pursue, and chase !
Follow, pursue ! spare not the proudest he
That havocks England's sacred royalty ! [Exeunt.
Tlien make the proclamation upon the walls. Sound
trumpets. Exeunt.
Enter Queen Elinor.
Q. Elinor. Now fits the time to purge our
melancholy,
And be reveng'd upon this London dame. —
Katherine!**
Enter Katherine.
Katherine. At hand, madam.
Q. Elinor. Bring forth our London Mayoress
here.
Katherine. I will, madam. [Exit.
Q. Elinor. Now, Nell,
Bethink thee of some tortures for the dame,
And purge thy choler to the uttermost.
Enter Mayoress with Katherina.
Now.Mistress Mayoress, you have attendance urg'd,
And therefore to requite your courtesy,
Our mind is to bestow an office on you straight.
Mayoress. Myself, my life, and service, mighty
queen,
Are humbly at your majesty's command.
* give] Both 4tos. "gauo".
f excellence] Both 4tos. "excellcenes."
t <;ive] The 4to. of 1593 "gaue."
§ quite] i. e. requite.
|| And a silver, &c] Some corruption here.
1[ the] Roth4toH. "that".
** Katherine'] In this .sceno the 4tos. hover between
" Ka'.licrina" and " Kailitrint".
Q, Elinor. Then, Mistress Mayoress, say whether
will you be
Our nurse or laundress ?
Mayoress. Then may it please your majesty
To entertain your handmaid for your nurse,
She will attend the cradle carefully.
Q. Elinor. 0, no, nurse ; the babe needs no
great rocking ; it can lull itself. — Katherine, bind
her in the chair, and let me see how she'll become
a nurse. [The Mayoress is bound to the chair.]
So : now, Katherine, draw forth her breast, and
let the serpent suck his fill. [The serpent is ap-
plied to her breast.] Why, so ; now she is a
nurse. — Suck on, sweet babe.
Mayoress. Ah, queen, sweet queen, seek not
my blood to spill,
For I shall die before this adder have his fill !
Q, Elinor. Die or die not, my mind is fully
pleas'd. —
Come, Katherine : to London now will we,
And leave our Mayoress with her nursery.
Katherine. Farewell, sweet Mayoress : look
unto the babe.
[Exeunt Queen Elinor and Katherine.
Mayoress. Farewell, proud queen, the author
of my death,
The scourge of England and to English dames ! —
Ah, husband, sweet John Bearniber, Mayor of
London,
Ab, didst thou know how Mary is perplex' d,
Soon wouldst thou come to Wales, and rid me of
this pain ;
But, 0, I die ! my wish is all in vain. [Dies.
Enter Llueli.bn running.
Lluellen. The angry heavens frown * on
Britain's face
To eclipse the glory of fair Cambria :
With sore + aspects the dreadful planets lower.
Lluellen, basely turn thy back and fly ?
No, Welshmen fight it to the last and die ;
For if my men safely have got the bride,
Careless of chance I'll reck no sour event.
England's broad womb hath not that armed baud
That can expel Lluellen from his land.
Enter Sir David running, with a halter, ready to hang
himself.
Sir David. Fly, Lord of Cambria ! fly, Prince
of Wales !
Sweet brother, fly ! the field is won and lost :
* frown) Both 4tos. "frownd."
t sore] The 4to. of 1593 " soror," that of 1599 "torar."
I believe we should read "sour," though it occurs a few
linos after.
I
EDWARD I.
107
Thou art beset with England's furious troops,
And cursed Mortimer, like a lion, leads.
Our men have got the bride, but all in vain :
The Englishmen are come upon our backs.
Either flee or die, for Edward hath the day.
For me, I have my rescue in my hand :
England on me no torments shall inflict.
Farewell, Lluellen, while * we meet in heaven.
[Exit.
Enter Soldiers.
First Soldier. Follow, pursue ! — Lie there, what-
e'er thou be.
[Slays Lluellen with a pike-staff.
Yet soft, my hearts ! let us his countenance see.
This is the prince ; I know him by his face :
gracious fortune, that me happy made
To spoil the weed that chokes fair Cambria !
Hale him from hence, and in this bosky t wood
Bury his corpse ; but for his head, I vow J
1 will present our governor with the same.
[Exeunt.
Enter the Friar with a halter about his neck.
Friar. Come, my gentle Richard, § my true
servant, that in some storms hast stood thy
master ; I hang thee, I pray thee, lest I hang for
thee ; and down on thy marrowbones, like a
foolish fellow that have gone far astray, and ask
forgiveness of God and King Edward for playing
the rake-hell aud the rebel here in Wales. Ah,
gentle Richard, many a hot breakfast have we
been at together ! and now since, like one of
Mars his frozen If knights, I must haDg up my
weapon upon this tree, and come per miseri-
cordiam to the mad potter Mortimer, wring thy
hands, friar, and sing a pitiful farewell to thy
pike-staff at parting.
[Sings his farewell** to his pike-staff, and then
retires.
Enter Mortimer with Soldiers, and the Lady Elinor.
Mortimer. Bind fast the traitor t+ and bring him
away, that the law may justly pass upon him,
* while] i. e. until.
t bosky] i. e. bushy.
} vow] Both 4tos. "vowed."
§ Richard] See note If, P- 382, first col.
|| my true servant, that in some storms hast stood thy
master]— stood, i e. stood by. — Both 4tos. "my trewe master
seruant that in some stormes haue stood my moister."
If frozen] Qy. "chosen," says the Editor of Dodsley's
0. P. But perhaps Peele alludes to some incident in
some romance.
** Sings his farewell, &c. ] Both 4tos. "The Frier hauing
song his farewell to his pike-staffe, a takes his leaue of
Cambria, and exit the Frier." But see what follows.
tt the traitor] Can mean no one but Sir David ; who
perhaps ought to appear in this scene, though the 4tos.
do not mark his entrance.
and [he] receive the reward of monstrous treason*
and villany, stain to the name and honour of his
noble country ! — For you that slew Lluellen and
presented us with his head, the king shall reward
your fortune and chivalry. — Sweet lady, abase
not thy looks so heavily to the earth t : God and
the King of England have honour for thee in
store, and Mortimer's heart [is] at [thy] service
and at thy commandment.
Elinor. Thanks, gentle lord; but, alas, who
can blame Elinor to accuse her stars, that in one
hour hath lost honour and contentment?
Mortimer. And in one hour may your ladyship
recover both, if you vouchsafe to be advised by
your friends. — But what makes the friar here
upon his marrowbones ? [doth sue,
Friar, [kneeling.'] 0, potter, potter, the friar
Now his old master is slain and gone, to have a
new !
Elinor, [aside.] Ah, sweet Lluellen, how thy
death I rue !
Mortimer. Well said, friar ! better once than
never. Give me thy hand [raising him] : my
cunning shall fail me but we will be fellows
yet; and now Robin Hood is gone, it shall cost
me hot water but thou shalt be King Edward's
man : only I enjoin thee this — come not too near
the fire ; J but, good friar, be at my hand.
Friar. 0, sir; no, sir, not so, sir; 'a was warned
too lately; none of that flesh I love.
Mortimer. Come on : and for those that have
made their submission aud given their names, in
the king's name I pronounce their pardons; and
so God save King Edward ! [Exeunt.
Tliunder and lightning. Enter Queen Elinor and Joan.
Q, Elinor. Why, Joan,
la this the welcome that the clouds afford ?
How dare these disturb our thoughts, knowing
That I am Edward's wife and England's Queen,
Here thus on Charing-Green to threaten me 1
Joan. Ah, mother, blaspheme not so !
Your blaspheming § and other wicked deeds
Have caus'd our God to terrify your thoughts.
And call to mind your sinful fact committed
Against the Mayoress here of lovely London,
Aud better Mayoress London never bred,
So full of ruth and pity to the poor :
* treason] Both 4tos. "treasons."
t abase not thy looks so heavily to the earth] Corrected by
Walker, Crit. Exam, of the text of Shakespeare. &c, vol. iii.
p. 34. — Both 4tos. " abate not thy lookes so heaucnlie to the
earth."
J near the fire] The 4to. of 1593 "ntare the Frier," that
of 1599, " neare her Friar."
§ blaspheming] Qy. "blasphemy"?
408
EDWARD I.
Her have you made away,
That Loudon cries for vengeance on your head.
Q. Elinor. I rid * her not ; I made her not
away :
By heaven I swear, traitors
They are to Edward and to England's Queen
That say I made away the Mayoress.
Joan. Take heed, sweet lady-mother, swear
not so :
A field of prize-corn will not stop their mouths
That sayt you have made away that virtuous
woman.
Q. Minor. Gape, earth,* and swallow me, and
let my soul
Sink down to hell, if I were author of
That woman's tragedy ! — 0, Joan, help, Joan,
Thy mother sinks !
[The earth opens and swallows her up.
Joan. 0, mother, my help is nothing ! — 0, she
is sunk,
And here the earth is new-clos'd up again !
Ah, Chariug-Qreen, for ever change thy hue,
And never may thy § grass grow green again,
But wither and return to stones, because
That beauteous Elinor sunk || on thee ! Well, I
Will send unto the king my father's grace,
And satisfy him of this strange mishap. [Exit.
Alarum ; a charge : after long skirmish, assault ; flourish.
Eater Kino Edward Longshanks with his train,
and Baliol prisoner.
Longsh. Now, trothless king, what fruits have
braving boasts ]
What end hath treason but a sudden fall ?
Such as have known thy life and briuging up,
Have prais'd thee for thy learning and thy art :
How comes it, then, that thou forgett'st tby
books
That school'd thee to forget ingratitude ?
Unkind ! this hand hath 'nointed thee a king ;
This tongue pronounc'd the sentence of thy
ruth :
If thou, in lieu of mine unfeigned love,
Hast levied arms for to attempt my crown,
Now see the U fruits : thy glories are dispers'd ;
* rid] i. o. despatched, destroyed.
t say] Both 4tos. "said."
t Gape, earth, kc] So the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.
arranges this speech (which is printed as prose in both
4tos. and perhaps slightly corrupted): but qy ?
" Gape, earth, and swallow mo,
And let my soul sink down to hell, if I
Were author of that woman's tragedy ! —
O, Joan, help, Joan, thy mother sinks 1 "
§ th>/] Both 4tos. "the".
|| tun£] Both 4tos. "siucke."
H the] Both 4tos. "thy."
And heifer- like *, sith thou hast pass'd thy bounds,
Thy sturdy neck must stoop to bear this yoke.
Baliol. I took this lesson, Edward, from my
book, —
To keep a just equality of mind,
Content with every fortune as it comes :
So canst thou threat no more than I expect.
Longsh. So, sir : your moderation is enfore'd ;
Your goodly glosses cannot make it good.
Baliol. Then will I keep in silence what I
mean,
Since Edward thinks my meaning is not good.
Longsh.f Nay, Baliol, speak forth, if there yet
remain
A little remnant of persuading art.
Baliol. If cunning [may] have power to win
the king,
Let those employ it that can flatter him ;
If honour'd deed may reconcile the king,
It lies in me to give and him to take.
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 ?
Baliol. Tbe greater hope in them that once
have fall'n.
Longsh. But foolish are those monarchs that
do yield
A conquer'd realm upon submissive vows.
Baliol. There, take my crown, and so redeem
my life.
Longsh. Ay, sir ; that was the choicest plea of
both;
For whoso quells the pomp of haughty minds,
And breaks their staff whereon they build their
trust,
Is sure in wanting power they cannot t harm.
Baliol shall live ; but yet within such bounds
That, if his wings grow flig,§ they may be dipt.
[Exeunt.
Enter \\ the Potter's Wife and John at the place called the
Potter's-hive.
Potter's Wife. John, come away : you go as
though you slept. A great knave and be afraid
of a little thundering and lightening !
* heifer-like] Both 4tos. "his, for Wee."— The Editor of
Dodsley's 0. P. prints " traitor-iiA-e."
t Lnvgsh.] Both 4tos. "Edmund."
t cannot] So the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P. reads. —Both
4tos. " carrie not."
§ flig] i. e. fledged
|| Enter, he] Both 4tos. "Enter the Potter nnd the
Potters wifi), called the Potters hiuc dwelling thtre, and
John her man."
EDWARD I.
409
John. Cull you this a little thundering ? I am
sure my breeches find it a great deal, fur I am
sure they are stuft with thunder.
Potter's Wife. They are stuft with a fool, are
they not ? Will it please you to carry the lan-
tern a little handsomer, and not to carry it with
your hands in your slops*?
John. Slops, quoth you ! Would I had tarried
at home by the fire, and then I should not have
need to put my hands in my pockets ! But I'll
lay my life I know the reason of this foul weather.
Potters Wife. Do you know the reason 1 I pray
thee, John, tell me, and let me hear this reason.
John. I lay my life some of your gossips be
cross-legged that we came from : but you are
wise, mistress, for you come now away, aud will
not stay a-gossipping in a dry house all night.
Potter's Wife. Would it please you to walk and
leave off your knavery ? [Queen Elinor rises gra-
dually out of the earth."] But stay, John : what's
that riseth out of the ground ] Jesus bless us,
John ! look how it riseth higher and higher !
John. By my troth, mistress, 'tis a woman.
Good Lord, do women grow ? I never saw none
grow before.
Potto's Wife. Hold thy tongue, thou foolish
kuave : it is the spirit of some woman.
Q. Elinor. Ha, let me see ; where am I ? On
Charing-Green? Ay, on Charing-Green here,
hard by Westminster, where I was crowned, and
Edward there made king. Ay, 'tis true ; so it is :
aud therefore, Edward, kiss not me, unless you
will straight perfume your lips, Edward.
Potter's Wife. Ora pro nobis 1 John, I pray, fall
to your prayers. For my life, it is the queen
that chafes thus, who sunk this day on Charing-
Green, and now is risen tip on Potter's-Hive ; and
therefore truly, John, I'll go to her.
[Goes to Q. Elinor.
Q. Elinor. Welcome, good woman. What place
is this ? sea or land ? I pray show to me.
Potter's Wife. Your grace need not to fear ;
you are on firm ground: it is the Potter's-Hive :
aud therefore cheer your majesty, for I will see
you safe conducted to the court, if case your
highness be therewithal pleased.
Q. Elinor. Ay, good woman, conduct me to
the court,
That there I may bewail my sinful life,
And call to God to save my wretched soul.
[A cry of " Westward, ho ! " t
Woman, what noise is this I hear ?
* slops] i. e. wide breeches, trousers.
t *' Westward, ho .'"J Ad exclamation of the watermen
Potter's Wife. An like your grace, it is the
watermen that call for passengers to go westward
now.
Q. Elinor. That fits my turn, for I will straight
with them
To King's-town to the court,
And there repose me till the king come home.
And therefore, sweet woman, conceal what thou
hast seen,
And lead me to those watermen, for here
Doth Elinor droop.
John. Come, come ; here's a goodly leading of
you, is there not ? first, you must make ua
afeard, and now I must be troubled in carrying
of you. I would you were honestly laid in your
bed, so that I were not troubled with you.
[Exeunt.
Enter Kino Edward Lonoshanks, Lancaster, Lords,
and a Messenger.
Messenger. Honour and fortune wait upon the
crown
Of princely Edward, England's valiant king !
Longsh. Thanks, messenger; and if my God
vouchsafe
That winged Honour wait upon my throne,
I'll make her spread her plumes upon their heads
Whose true allegiance doth confirm the crown.
What news in Wales ? how wends our business
there ?
Messenger. The false disturber of that wasted
soil,
With his adherents, is surpriz'd, my king ;
And in assurance he shall start no more,
Breathless he lies, and headless too, my lord.*
The circumstance these lines shall here unfold.
[Gives letter.
Longsh. A harmful weed, by wisdom rooted
out,
Can never hurt the true engrafted plant.
Enter Sir Thomas Spencer.
But what's the news Sir Thomas Spencer brings?
Spencer. Wonders, my lord, wrapt up in
homely words,
And letters to inform your majesty.
[Cit'Pi letters.
Longsh. heavens, what may these miracles
portend ]
Nobles, my queen is sick ; but what is more —
Read, brother Edmund, read a wondrous chance.
[Lancaster reads a line of the Queen's sinking.
who plied on the Thames : see the prefatory matter to
the comedy entitled Westward ho, in my ed. of Webster's
Works.
* lord] Both 4tos. "Lordes."
410
EDWARD I.
Iiancasler. And I nor* heard nor read so
strange a tiling !
Longsh. Sweet queen, this sinking is a surfeit
ta'en
Of pride, wherewith thy woman's heart did swell ;
A dangerous malady in the heart to dwell. —
Lords, march we towards London now in haste:
I will go see my lovely Elinor,
And comfort her after this strange affright.
And where t she is importune to have talk
And secret conference with some friars of France,
Mun, thou with me, and I with thee will go,
And take the sweet confession of my Nell ;
We '11 have French enough to parle with the
queen.
Lancaster. Might I advise your royal majesty,
I would not go for millions of gold.
What knows your grace, disguised if you wend,
What you may hear, in secrecy reveal'd,
That may appalj and discontent your highness?
A goodly creature is your Elinor,
Brought up in niceness and in delicacy :
Then listen not to her confession, lord,
To wound thy heart with some unkind conceit.
But as for Lancaster, he may not go.
Lonfjsh. Brother, I am resolv'd, and go I will,
If God give life, and cheer my dying queen.
Why, Mun, why, man, whate'er King Edward
It lies in God and him to pardon all. [hears,
I'll have no ghostly fathers § out of France :
England hath learned clerks and confessors
To comfort and absolve, as men may do ;
And I'll be ghostly father for this once.
Lancaster, [aside.] Edmund, thou mayst not
go, although thou die :
And yet how mayst thou here thy king deny ?
Edward is gracious, merciful, meek, and mild ;
But furious when he finds he is beguil'd.
Longsk. Messenger, hie thee back to Shrews-
bury ;
Bid Mortimer, thy master, speed him fast,
And with his fortune welcome us to London.
I long to see my beauteous lovely queen.
[Exeunt.
Enter Mortimer and Officers, the Friar, Jack, and the
Harper, with Sir David drawn on a hurdle, and
Lluf.llen's head on a spear.
Friar. On afore, on afore !
Jack. Hold up your torches for dropping.
* nor] Both4tos. "not."
t whtre] i. e whereas.
t apptd] So I read with the MS. annotator on the first
edition in the Garriek collection. — Both 4tos. " appeale."
§ fathers] The 4to. of 1509 "futhor."
Friar. A fair procession. — Sir David, be of
good cheer : you cannot go out of the way,
having so many guides at hand.
Jack. Be sure of that ; for we go all the high-
way to the gallows, I warrant you.
Sir David. I go where my star leads me, and
die in my country's just cause and quarrel.
Harper. The star that twinkled at thy birth,
Good brother mine, hath marr'd thy mirth :
An old said saw, earth must to earth.
Next year will be a piteous dearth
Of hemp, I dare lay a penny,
This year is hang'd so many.
Friar. Well said, Morgan Pigot, harper and
prophet for the king's own mouth.
Jack. " Turn date * dite dote dum,"
This is the day, the time is come ;
Morgan Pigot's prophecy,
And Lord Lluellen's tragedy.
Friar. Who saith the prophet is an ass
Whose prophecies come so to pass ?
Said he not oft, and sung it too,
Lluellen, after much ado,
Should in spite heave up his chin
And be the highest of his kin ?
And, see, aloft Lluellen's head,
Empaled with a crown of lead ! —
My lord, let not this sooth-sayer lack,
That hath such cunning in his jack.t
Harper. David, hold still X your clack,
Lest your heels make your neck crack.
Friar. Gentle prophet, an you§ love me, for-
speak me not : 'tis the worst luck in the world to
stir a witch or anger a wise man. — Master Sheriff,
have we any haste || ? Best give my horses some
more hay. [Exeunt.
Queen Elinor If discovered in bed, attended by Joan and
other Ladies.
Q. Elinor. Call forth those renown'd fr'ars
come from France ; [Exit a Lady.
* Turn date, <fec.] This is the burden of the Harper's
song in a former scene (p. 382, sec. col.). — Both 4tos.
" Tunda tedi tedo dote dum."
t jack] Properly a defensive upper garment, is equiva-
lent here to — jacket.
J David, hold still, &c] Qy. "David, hold you still",
&c?
§ you] The4to. of 1593 "ye."
|| ha.ite] Qy. if this be right?
f Queen Elinor, &c] Both 4tos. " Elinor in child-bed,
with her daughter J one and other Ladies." — " The mean-
ing of this stage-direction seems to be ihat the scene dis-
closes Elinor in the bed, as she had been seen before, just
after the Prince of Wales was born." Editor of Dodsley't
O. P.
EDWARD I.
411
And raise me, gentle ladies, in my bed,
That while this faltering engine of my speech
] learn * to utter my concealed guilt,
I may repeat f and so repent my sins.
Joan. What plague afflicts your royal majesty ?
Q, Elinor. Ah Joan, I perish through a double
war ! X
First, in this painful prison of my soul,
A world of dreadful sins holp there § to fight,
And nature, having lost her working power,
Yields up her earthly fortunes unto death.
Next of a war || my soul is over-preas'd,
In thee, my conscience, loaded with misdeeds,
Sits seeing my condition U to ensue,
Without especial favour from above.
Joan. Your grace must account it a** warrior's
cross,
To make resist where danger there is none,
Subdue ft your fever by precious art,
And help you still through hope of heavenly aid.
Q. Elinor. The careless shepherds JJ on the
mountain's tops,
That see the seaman floating on the surge,
The threatening winds conspiring §§ with the
floods
To overwhelm and drown his crazed keel,
His tackle |||| torn, his sails borne overboard,
How pale, like yellow flowers, the captain
stands 1ffl
Upon the*** hatches, waiting for his jerk,
Wringing his hands that ought to ply ftt the
pump,
May blame his fear that laboureth not for life :
* learn] Both 4tos. " leane."— The Editor of Dodsley's
0. P. reads "leave."
t repeat] Both 4tos. "respect."
J war] Both 4tos. " warres."
§ there] Both 4tos. "thee."
|| Next of a war, &c.] Both 4tos. "Next ouer War," &c.
— Here " over-preas'd " may perhaps be equivalent to
" oppress'd" : prease is a common form of press. — " The
meaning," says the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P., "seems to
be that she feels a second war in consequence of her guilt
regarding Joan (which is afterwards explained) whom
she addresses." But the speech is grossly corrupted.
II condition] So the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.— Both
4tos. "conscience."
** account it a] Qy. "count it as a"?
tt Subdue] So the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.— Both 4tos.
" Superdewe."
Jt shepherds] So the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.— Both
4tns. " sleepe rule."
§§ conspiring] Both 4tos. "comes springing."
IHI tackle] Both 4tos. "tackes."
^|1J like yellow flowers, the captain stands] So the Editor of
Dodsley's P ; which reading gives at least a meaning
to the line. — Both 4tos. " Wcr V>Ulowe flowres tht niouu-
taine stundes."
*** the] Both 4tos. "his."
ttt ply] Both4tos. "plaie."
So thou, poor soul, may tell a servile * tale,
May counsel me ; but I that prove the t pain
May hear thee talk but not redress my harm.
But ghastly death already is address'd
To glean the latest blossom of my life :
My spirit fails me. Are these friars come ?
Re-enter Lady with Kino Edward Lonqshanks and
Lancaster m Friars' weeds. \
Longsh. Dominus vobiscum !
Lancaster. Et cum spiritu tao I
Q. Elinor. Draw near, grave fathers, and
approach my bed. —
Forbear our presence, ladies, for a while,
And leave us to our secret conference.
[Exeunt Joan and Ladies.
Longsh. What cause hath niov'd your royal
majesty
To call your servants from their country's bounds,
T' attend § your pleasure here in England's court )
Q. Elinw. See you not, holy friars, mine estate,
My body weak, inclining to my grave? [queen.
Lancaster. We see and sorrow for thy pain, fair
Q. Elinor. By these external || signs of my
Friars, conjecture mine internal grief. [defects,
My soul, ah wretched soul, within this breast,
Faint for H to mount the heavens with wings of
A hundred by flocking troops of sin, [grace,
That stop my passage to my wished bowers.**
Longsh. The nearer, so the greater ft hope of
health :
* servile] A very doubtful word.
t the] Both4tos. "thy."
J in Friars' weeds] " For a husband in the disguise of
a Friar to take his wife's confession was not an uncom-
mon incident in Italian novels, and from these it is per-
haps borrowed in the play. A number of instances are
pointed out in Dunlop's Hist, of Fiction, ii. 305." Editor
of Dodtley's O. P. — Compare the ballad entitled Queen
Eleanor's Confession. Shewing hoio King Henry [the Secoml],
with the Earl Marshal, in Fryars habits came to her, instead
of two Fryars from France, which she sent for. Utterson's
Little Book of Ballads, 1S36. p 22. See it also in A Collec-
tion of Old Ballads, &c, 1723, vol. i. p. 18.
§ T attend] Both 4tos. " For to attend."
|| By these external, &c] Corrected partly by the Editor
of Dodsley's 0. P., and partly by the Rev. J. Mitfoid,
Gent. Mag. for Feby. 1833, p. 102.— Both 4tos. ;
" By this etemall signes of my defectes,
Friers, consecrate mine in eternall griefe."
% Faint for, &c] The Editor of Dodsley's 0. P. prints,—
" Faints for to mount to heaven with wings of grace,
Through hundred busy flocking troops ", (fee.
Qy.
" Pants for to mount the heavens with %cings of grace,
And hinder'd is by flocking troops ", &c. ?
*• bowers] Both 4tos. " howres."
\\ The nearer, so thegreater, he] Both 4tos. " Thenearer,
Elinor, so the greatest," &c. — The Rev. J. Mitford remarks
{Gent. Mag. for Feby. 1833, p. 102) that here the word
J
412
EDWARD L
And deign to us for to impart your grief,*
Who by our prayers aud counsel ought to arm
Aspiring souls to scale the heavenly grace.
Q. Elinor. Shame and remorse do stop my
course of speech.
Longsh. Madam, you need not dread our con-
Who, by the order of the holy church, [ference,
Are all enjoin'd t to sacred secrecy. [assur'd,
Q. Elinor. Did I not think, nay, were I not
Your wisdoms would be silent in that case,+
No fear could make me to bewray myself.
But, gentle fathers, I have thought it good
Not to rely upon these Englishmen,
But on your troths, you holy men of France :
Then, as you love your life and England's weal,
Keep secret my confession from the king ;
For why § my story nearly toucheth him,
Whose love compared with my loose || delights,
With many sorrows that my heart affrights.
Lancaster. My heart misgives.
Longsh. Be silent, fellow friar. [and fair,
Q. Elinor. In pride of youth, when I was young
And gracious in the King of England's sight,
The day before that night his highness should
Possess the pleasure of my wedlock's bed,
Caitiff, accursed monster as I was,
His brother Edmund, beautiful and young,
Upon my bridal couch U by my consent
Enjoy'd ** the flower and favour of my love,
And I became a traitress to my lord.
[ The King beholds Lancaster wofully.
Longsh. Facinus, scelus, infandum nefas 1
Lancaster. Madam, through sickness, weakness
of ft your wits, 'twere very good to bethink your-
self before you speak. [I wot,
Q. Elinor. Good father, not so weak, but that,
My heart doth rent to think upon the time.
But why exclaims this holy friar so ?
0, pray, then, for my faults, religious man !
Longsh. 'Tis charity in men of my degree
To sorrow for our neighbours' heinous sins :
And, madam,Jt though some promise love to you,
" Elinor ", besides destroying the metre, i3 too familiar a
term for the pretended friar to use.
* grief] Both 4tos. " quiet."
f enjoin'd] So the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.— Both 4tos.
" aunoynted."
I wisdom* .... case"] The4to. of 1509 "wisedomc " —
§ For why] i.e. Because. [Both 4tos. "cause."
|| loose] Both 4tos. " losse."— But the couplet, as it
now stands, is nonsense.
*[ couch] The 4to. of 1599 "touch."
** Enjoy'd] Both 4tos. "Enioiea."
ft of] Both 4tos. "and." Peele perhaps wrote,—
" Madam, through sickness, weakness of your wits,
'Twerc good bethink yourself before you speak."
}} And, madam, etc.] This baa no meaning.
And zeal to Edmund, brother to the king,
I pray the heavens you both may soon repent.
But might it please your highness to proceed ?
Q, Elinor. Unto this sin * a worser doth succeed ;
For, Joan of Aeon, the supposed child
And daughter of my lord the English king,
Is basely born, begotten of a friar,
Such time as I was there arriv'd t, in France.
His only true and lawful son, my friends,
He is my hopet, his son that should succeed,
Is Edward of Carnarvon, lately born.
Now all the scruples of my troubled mind
I sighing sound within your reverend ears.
0, pray, for pity ! pray, for I must die.
Remit, my God, the folly of my youth !
My grieved spirit § attends thy mercy-seat.||
Fathers, farewell ; commend me to my king,
Commend me to my children and my friends,
And close mine eyes, for death will have his due.
\_I>i<s.
Longsh. Blushing I shut these thine enticing
lamps,
The wanton baits that made U me suck rny bane.
Pyropus'** harden'd flames ft did ne'er reflect
More hideous flamestt than from my breast arise.
What fault more vile J % unto thy dearest lord !
Our daughter base-begotten of a priest,
And Ned, my brother, partner of my love !
O, that those eyes that lighten'd Caesar's brain,
0, that those looks that master'd Phoebus' §§
brand, [far,
Or else those looks|||| that siain'd*[1[ Medusa's***
Should shrine deceit +tt, desire, and lawless lust !
* Unto this sin, <&c] Both 4tos. give this line to Long-
shanks.
t there arriv'd] The very unsatisfactory alteration of
the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P. — Both 4tos. " their aimed."
{ He is my hope, &c] Corrupted. — Qy. " His only hope",
&c ?
§ grieved spirit] Both 4tos. "groaned spirites".
|| mercy-seat] Both 4tos. " mercies seate ".
*I made] Both 4tos. " make."
** Pyropus'] Both 4tos. "Pirpus."
" Clara micante auro flammasque imitante pyropo."
Ovid, Met. ii. 2.
1 1 flames . . . flames] Repeated by mistake.
}J vile] Both 4to8. " vildc " : but see note t, p. 107, sec.
col. [4tos. "Phucebus."
§§ Phoebus'] So the Editor of Dodsley's P.— Both
llll looks] Qy. "locks"? (Peele elsewhere celebrates
the beauty of Medusa's hair ; see note ||, p. 351, sec. col.):
but qy. is "looks" the right word here, and the wrong
word in the preceding line ?
%% stain'd] i. e. so excelled as to throw a stain on. —
Both 4tos. "staine." [4tos. "Melisaes."
*** Medusa's] So the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.— Both
tit shrine deceit] So the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P. : but
I doubt if, in the reading of both the 4tos. "shrine dis-
creet", the latter word be not rather some misprinted
epithet to "desire."
EDWARD I.
411
Unhappy king, dishonour' d in tliy stock !
Hence, feigned weeds ! unfeigned is my grief.
Lancaster. Dread prince, my brother, if my vows
I call to witness heaven in my behalf; [avail,
If zealous prayer might drive you from suspect,
I bend my knees, and humbly crave this boon,
That you will drive misdeeds * out of your mind.
May never good betide my life, my lord,
If once I dream'd upon this damned deed !
But my deceased sister and your queen,
Afflicted with recureless maladies,
Impatient of her pain, grew lunatic,
Discovering errors never dream'd upon.
To prove this true, the greatest men of all
Within their learned volumes do record +
That all extremes:}: end in naught but extremes.
Then think, king, her agony in death
Bereav'd § her sense and memory at once,
So that she spoke she knew nor || how nor what.
Longsh. Sir, sir, fain would your highness hide
your faults
By cunning vows and gloziug terms of art ;
And well thou mayst delude these listening ears,
Yet ne'er assuage by proof this jealous heart.
Traitor, thy head shall ransom my disgrace.
Daughter of darkness, whose accursed bower
The poets feign'd to lie II upon Avernus,
Whereas ** Cimmerian t+ dai-kness checks the
Dread %% Jealousy, afflict me not so sore ! [sun,
Fair Queen §§ Elinor could never be so false : —
Ay, but she 'vow'd these treasons at her death,
A time not fit to fashion monstrous lies.
Ah, my ungrateful brother as thou art,
Could not my love, nay, more, could not the law,
Nay, further, could not nature thee allure
For to refrain from this incestuous sin ?
Haste from my sight ! [Exit Lancaster.
[To those within.] Call Joan of Aeon here ! —
The luke-warm spring distilling from his eyes,
His oaths, his vows, his reasons || || wrested with
remorse
* misdeeds] Qy. "mistrust"?
+ record] Both 4tos. "discord."
t That all extremes, Ac.] So the Rev. J. Mitford, Gent.
Mag. for Feby. 1833, p. 102.— Both 4tos. ;
" That all extreames, and al and in naught but exlreames."
§ Bereav'd] Both 4tos. " Bereauos."
|| nor] The 4to. of 1599 "not."
H poets . ... lie] Both 4tos. "poet .... Hue."
** Whereas] i e. where.
ft Cimmerian] Both 4tos. "Cimerians."
it Dread] So the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.— Both 4tos.
" Banids ".— Qy. " Damn'd " ?
§§, Queen] An interpolation, I believe.
Illl His oaths, his vows, his reasons] Qy " His oaths, ro>cs,
reasons " ?
From forth his breast, — impoison'd with suspect,
Fain would I deem that false I find too true.
Reenter Joan.
Joan. I come to know what England's king
commands.
I wonder why your highness greets me thus,
With strange regard and unacquainted terms.*
Longsh. Ah, Joan, this wonder needs must
wound thy breast,
For it hath well-nigh slain my wretched heart.
Joan. What, is the queen, my sovereign
mother, dead ]
Woe's me, + unhappy lady, woe-begone !
Longsh. The queen is dead ; yet, Joan, lament
not thou :
Poor soul, guiltless art thou % of this deceit,
That hath more cause to curse than to complain.
Joan. My dreadful soul, assail'd with doleful
speech,
Joins § me to bow my knees unto the ground,
Beseeching your most royal majesty
To rid your woeful daughter of suspect.
Longsh. Ay, daughter, Joan ? poor soul, thou
art deceiv'd !
The king of England is no scorned priest.
Joan. Was not the Lady Elinor your spouse,
And am not I the offspring of your loins?
Longsh. Ay, but when ladies list to run astray,
The poor supposed father wears the horn,
And pleating leave their liege in princes' laps. |j
Joan, thou art daughter to a lecherous friar ;
A friar was thy father, hapless Joan ;
Thy mother in confession 'vow'd U no less,
And I, vile** wretch, with sorrow +t heard no
less. [brat ?
Joan. What, am I, then, a friar's base-born
Presumptuous wretch, why prease %% I 'fore my
How can I look my husband in the face ? [king ?
* unacquainted terms] But, according to the present
text, the King has not yet s-pokeu to her.
■) Woe's me, Ac.] The 4to. of 1593 " Woes in vnhappie
Lady we btgonne."
I Poor soul, guiltless art thou, Ac] Qy. "Guiltless art
thou, poor soul," Ac. ? § Joins] i.e. Enjoins.
II And pleating leave their liege in princes' laps] "This
line seems wholly impracticable." Editor of Dodsley's
O. P. — " We trust that we can set it right without diffi-
culty ;
' Ay, but when ladies list to run astray.
And leave their plighted Ivge in princes' laps,
Hie poor supposed father wears the horn.' "
The Rev J. Mitford, Gent. Mag. for Feby. 1833, p. 102.
H confession 'vow'd] Both 4tos. "profession vowes."
** vhe] Both 4tos. " vilde" : but see note t, p. 167, and
compare the last line but five of this play, p. 415.
tt with sorrow] Both 4tos. " which sorrowed."
\\ prease] i. e. press.
414
EDWARD I.
Why should I live since my renown ia lost ?
Away, thou wanton weed ! hence, world's delight!
[Fulls grovelling on the ground.
Longsh. L'orccchie abbassa *, come vinto e stanco
Destrier c ha in bocca il fren, gli sproni al fianco. —
sommo Dio, come i giudicii umani
Spesso offuscati son da un nembo oscuro/ —
Hapless and wretched, lift up thy heavy head ;
Curse t not so much at t this unhappy chance ;
Uncoustant Fortune still will have her course.
Joan. My king, my king, let Fortune have her
course : —
Fly thou, my soul, and take a better course.
Ay's me, from royal state I now am fall'a !
You purple springs that wander in my veins,
And whilom wont § to feed my heavy heart,
Now all at once make haste, and pity me,
And stop your powers, and change your native
course ;
Dissolve to air, you || lukewarm bloody streams,
And cease to be, that I may be no more.
You TI curled locks, draw from this cursed head :
Abase her pomp, for Joan is basely born ! —
Ah, Glocester, thou, poor Glocester, hast the
wrong
i
Die, wretch ! haste** death, for Joan hath liv'd too
long. [Suddenly dies at the Queen's bed's feet.
Longsh. Revive thee, hapless lady ; grieve not
In vain speak I, for she revives no more. [thus. —
Poor hapless soul, thy own repeated ft moans
Have wrought thy J J sudden and untimely
Lords, ladies, haste ! [death. —
Re-enter Ladies §§ with Glocester and Lords, running.
Ah, Glocester, art thou come ?
* L'orecchie abbassa, &e ] The two first of these Italian
lines (which hoth 4tos. make a portion of Joan's speech)
are from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, c. xx. 131, the two
second from the same poem, c. x. 15. -Both 4tos give
them thus ;
" Porce ine abassa come vinto et stanco.
Defiuer chain hocea il fren gli sproni [2to. of 1599
" sprons "J alfianco.
King. sommo Dio come i guidneo humans,
Spesge offuscan son danu membo oscuuro."
The Editor of Dodsley's 0. P. reruarfcs that those lines
" seem forced in by Peele as a reflection or observation
of his own," &c. : but see note If, p. 400, first col.
t Curse] The4to. of 1593 "Nurse."
X at] Both 4tos. "as.'' § wont] Both4tos. "wants."
|| you] Both Itos. " your."
II You] Both 4tos. "Your."
** haste] Both4tos. "hate."
\\ repeated,] This is the reading of the Editor of Dods-
ley's 0. P.— Both 4tos. "espocted."
Ji thy] Both 4tos. "her."
§§ Re-enter Ladies, &c] Both 4tos. " Entor Edmund,
Gloster, running with Ladies, and eonuaies Iono of Aeon
awaie."
Then must I now present a tragedy.
Thy Joan is dead : yet grieve thou not her
fall;
She was too base a spouse for such a prince.
Glocester. Conspire you, then, with heavens to
work my harms i
sweet assuager of our mortal 'miss,*
Desired death, deprive me of my life,
That I in death may end my life and love !
Longsh. Glocester, thy king is partner of thy
heaviness,
Although nor tongue nor eyes bewray his mean t;
For I have lost a flower as fair as thine,
A love more dear, for Elinor is dead.
But since the heavenly ordinance decrees
That all things change in their prefixed time,
Be thou content, and bear it in + thy breast,
Thy swelling grief, as need is § I must mine.
Thy Joan of Aeon, and my queen deceas'd,
Shall have that honour as beseems their state.
You peers of England, see in royal pomp
These breathless bodies be entombed straight,
With 'tired || colours coverd all with black.
Let Spanish steeds, as swift as fleeting wind,
Convey these princes U to their funeral :
Before them let a hundred mourners ride.
In every time of their enfore'd abode,
Rear up a cross in token of their worth,**
Whereon fair Elinor's picture shall be plac'd.
Arriv'd at London, near our palace-bounds,
Inter my lovely Elinor, late deceas'd ;
And, in remembrance of her royalty,
Erect a rich and stately carved cross,
Whereon her stature +t shall with glory shine,
And henceforth see you call it Charing-cross ;
For whyJJ the chariest §§ and the choicest
queen,
* assuager . . . mortal 'miss] — miss, 1. e. misfortune,
suffering. — Both 4tos. "asswagers . . . martiall misse."
t mean] i. e. moan.
t it in] Qy. " within " ?
g need is] Both 4tos. "needes."
|| 'tired] Both 4tos. "tried." — I give the reading of the
Editor of Dodsley's 0. P.
"H princes] Qy. " princess' " (i. e. princesses)?
** worth] Both 4tos. "worke."
ft stature] Our old poets frequently use stature in the
sense of statue. For instances of that usage, see note on
Marlowe's Works, p. 27, ed. Dyce, 1858.
JJ For why] i. e. Because.
§§ chariest] Both 4tos. "chancest. " — There is an absurd
and vulgar tradition that Charing-crosa was so named
because the body of Edward's chere reine rested there :
does Poele allude to it hore ?
" And henceforth see you call it Charing- cross;
For why the chartist," (fee —
The Editor of Dodsley's 0. P. reads " chastest."
EDWARD I.
415
That ever did delight my royal eyes,
There dwells* in darkness whilst I diet in grief.
But, soft ! what tidings with these pursuivants ? +
Enter Messenger.
Mess. Sir Roger Mortimer, with all success,§
As erst your grace by message did command,
Is here at hand, in purpose to present
Your highness with his signs of victory.
And trothless Baliol, || their accursed king,
With fire and sword doth threat Northum-
berland.
Longsh. How one affliction calls another over !
First death torments me, U then I feel disgrace!
And false Baliol means to brave me too;
But I will find provision for them all :
My constancy shall conquer death and shame.**
[ Exeunt all except Glocester.
* dwells] Both 4tos. "dwell."
t die] Qy. "lie"?
J these pursuivants] But only one person enters,— both
4tos. having " Enter Messenger approch from Mortimer."
" It seems evident ["Seems, madam ! nay, it is,"] that
the end of this play has been most deplorably mangled ;
and there is some reason to suppose that the printed
copy was made up from two different MSS., and both
very imperfect. The printing of the old quarto, too, bad
in the commencement, has grown worse as it proceeded,
and in some places, as the reader has seen, was quite
unintelligible. In this stage-direction perhaps the read-
ing ought to be, 'Enter Messenger, express from Morti-
mer.'" Editor of Dodsley's O. P.
§ success'] Both 4tos. " Sussex."
|| And trothless Baliol, &c] Before this line something
is evidently wanting
% First death torments me, Ac] Both 4tos. ;
" First death torments me. then Ifeele disgrace,
Againe Lluelleu he rebels in Wales,
And false Balioll," &o.
** My constancy shall conquer death and shame, &c] Both
4tos. ;
" My constancie shall conquer death and shame.
And Mortimor tis thou must hast to Wales,
And rouse that Rebel from his starting holes,
And rid thy King of his contentious foe,
Whilst I with Elinor, Gloster, and the rest,
With speedie iourney gather vp our force,
And beat these brauing Scots from out our bounds.
Courage braue Soldiers fates hath done their worst,
Now Vertue let me triumphe in thine aide.
\_Exit Edward.
Gloster solus.
Gloster. Now lone of Aeon," ha.
Some of these lines, with a little variation, have been
already spoken by the king : see p. 405, first col.
Ghcester. Now, Joan of Aeon, let me mourn
thy fall.
Sole, here alone, now sit thee down and sigh,
Sigh, hapless Glocester, for thy sudden loss :
Pale death, alas, hath banish'd all thy pride,
Thy wedlock-vows* ! How oft have I beheld
Thy eyes, thy looks, thy lips, and every part,
How nature strove in them to show her art,t
In shine, in shape, in colour, and compare !
But now hath death, the enemy of love,
Staiu'd and deform'd the shine, the shape, the
red,
With pale and dimness, and my love is dead.
Ah, dead, my love ! vile wretch, why + am I
living )
So willeth fate,§ and I must be contented :
All pomp in time must fade, and grow to
nothing.
Wept 1 like Niobe, yet it profits nothing :
Then cease, my sighs, since I may not regain
her,
And woe to wretched death that thus hath slain
her ! [Exit.\\
Tours. By George Peele, Master of
Arts in Oxenford.
* Thy wedlock-vows, &c] More corruption, and past
cure. — Both 4tos. ;
" Thy wedloche vowes how ought haue 1 beheld ?
Enter Mortimor with the huid [of Lluellen].
Thy eies, thy lookes," &c. —
Qy. is "looks" a misprint for "locks"?
' ' Perhaps ", says the Editor of Dodsley's 0. P. , " a f one
time the play terminated differently, with a triumphant
display of victory instead of the lamentations of Glo-
cester, and the printer, in altering it by one MS. copy,
omitted to take out parts that only belonged to the
other."
f strove in them to show her art] Both 4tos. "store in
them to shew their Art."
t why] The 4to. of 1599 "while."
§ fate] Both 4tos. " fates."
|| Exit] The last scene of this drama is such a mass of
confusion, that we cannot determine when and by whom,
the bodies of Queen Elinor and Joan are carried out.
(In an earlier stage-direction of the4tos. Glocester "oon-
uaies lone of Aeon awaie", see note §§, p. 414, first col.)
The Battell of Alcazar, fovght in Barbarie, betweene Sebastian king of Portugal!, and Abdelmelec Icing of Ifarocco.
With the death of Captaine Stukeley. As it was sundrie times plaid by the Lord high Admirall his seruants. Imprinted
at London by Edward Allde for Richard Bankworth, and are to be solde at his shoppe in Pouls Churchyard at the signe of
the Sunne. 1594. 4to.
In the Biographia Dramatica we are told that the plot of this play is taken from Heylin's Cosmography ; a fact
■which one may be allowed to doubt, as Peter Heylin was not born till the year 1600.
Of Stukely, that "bubble of emptinesse and meteor of ostentation," as he calls him, Fuller gives the following
account : —
"Thomas Stuckley. Were he alive, he would be highly offended to be ranked under any other topick than
that of princes ; whose memory must now be content, and thankful too, that we will afford it a place amongst our
souldiers.
"He was a younger brother, of an ancient, wealthy, and worshipful family, nigh Rlfracombe in this county ;
being one of good parts, but valued the lesse by others because over-prized by himself. Having prodigally mis-
spent his patrimony, he entred on several projects (the issue general of all decaied estates), and first pitched on the
peopleing of Florida, then newly fouud out in the West ladies. So confideut his ambition, that he blushed not to
tell Queen Elisabeth, that he preferred rather to be soveraign of a mole-hill than the highest subject to the greatest king in
Christendome ; adding moreover, that he was assured he should be a prince before his death. I hope (said Queen
Elizabeth) I shall hear from you, when you are stated in your principality. I will write unto you (quoth Stukely). In
what language ? (said the Queen). He returned, In the stile of princes ; To our dear sister.
"His fair project of Florida being blasted for lack of money to pursue it, he went over into Ireland, where he
was frustrate of the preferment expected, and met such physick that turned his feaver into frensie. For,
hereafter resolving treacherously to attempt what he could not loyally atchieve, he went over into Italy.
" It is incredible how quickly he wrought himself thorough the notice into the favour, through the court into
the chamber, yea, closet, yea, bosome of Pope Pius Quintus; so that some wise men thought his Holinesse did forfeit
a parcel of his infallibility in giving credit to such a Glorioso, vaunting that with three thousand souldiers he would
beat all the English out of Ireland.
"The Pope, finding it cheaper to fill Sluckleys swelling sails with aiery titles than real gifts, created him
Baron of Ross, Viscount Murrough, Earl of Wexford, Marquesse of Lemster, and then furnished the title-top-heavy
general with eight hundred souldiers paid by the King of Spain for the Irish expedition.
" In passage thereunto Stuckley lands at Portugal, just when Sebastian the king thereof, with two Moorish kings,
were undertaking of a voyage into Affrica. Stuckly, scorning to attend, is perswaded to accompany them. Some
thought he wholly quitted his Irish design, partly because loath to be pent up in an island (the continent of Affrica
affording more elbow-room for his atchievements), partly because so mutable his mind, he ever loved the last
project (as mothers the youngest child) best. Others conceive he took this Affrican in order to his Irish design ;
such his confidence of conquest, that his break-fast on the Turks would the better enable him to dine on the
English in Ireland.
" Landing in Affrica, Stuckley gave counsil which was safe, seasonable, and necessary ; namely, that for two or
three dayes they should refresh their land-souldiers ; whereof some were sick, and some were weak, by reason of
their tempestuous passage. This would not be heard, so furious was Don Sebastion to engage ; as if he would
pluck up the bays of victory out of the ground before they were grown up ; and so in the Battail of Alcaser their
army was wholly defeated ; where Stuckley lost his life.
" A fatal fight, where in one day was slain
Three kings that were, and one that would be fain.
" This battail was fought [4th August] Anno 1578. Where Stuckley with his eight hundred men behaved himself
most valiantly, till ovor-powred with multitude." — Worthies, p.p. 258-9, ed. 1672.
I throw together a few poetical notices of him :
" that renowned battle
Swift fame desires to carry through the world,
The battle of Alcazar, wherein two kings,
Besides this King of Barbary, was slain,
King of Morocco and of Portugal,
With Stukeley, that renowned Englishman,
That had a spirit equal with a king.
Made follow with these kings in warlike strife,
Honour'd his country, and concluded life."
Heywood's If you know not me, you know nobody, Part Second, Sig. E 2. ed. 1609
" A Btukeley or a Sberloy, for his spirit.
Bounty, and royalty to men at arms."
Cooke's Greene's Tu Quoque, n. d., Sig. D 1
419
"It is a saying auncient 'not autcnticall, I win)
That whoso England will subdow, with Ireland must begin.
Imagine Stukelies onely name iucludeth all that's ill :
Ho forging worth, and to our state malevolent in will,
Of bounteous pensions was therefore possest in Spayne long while,
Uutill (for it a nature was in Stukelie to beguile)
The king, whom he had czen'd long, him purpos'd to exile.
Then for the Pope the fugitive a welcome agent was
(For nothing ill, might worke us ill, hath Spayue and Rome let pas) :
Of him he had an armie, that for Irtlands conquest sayles ;
When through a fight in Barbarie that expedition fayles."
Warner's Albion's England, B. 10. Ch. S4. p. 842. ed 1596.
" Rome's malice and Spaine's practice still concurs
To vexe and trouble blest Elizabeth :
With Stukeley they combine to raise new stirs ;
And Ireland bragging Stukeley promiseth
To give unto the Popes brave bastard sonne,
James Boucampaguo, an ambitious boy ;
And Stukely from the Pope a prize hath wonne,
A holy peacocks taile (a proper toy).
But Stukely was in Mauritania slaiue,
In that great battell at Alcazor fought.
Whereby we see his power doth still defend
Sis church, which on his mercy doth depend."
Taylor's (the Water Poet's) Churches Deliverances, — Workes, p. 143, ed. 1630.
A ballad called The Life and Death of the famous Lord Stukely, an English gallant, in the time of Queen Elizabeth,
who endtd his days in a Battle of three Kings of Barbary, is in Evans's Collection, vol. iii. p. 148. ed. 1810.
Besides the present play (which appears to have been in existence as early as February, 1591-2, — see Acnount of
Peek and his Writings, p. 339), there is a drama printed in 1605, but doubtless acted considerably before that time,*
of which Stukeley is the hero, — The Famous Historye of tlie life and death of Caplaine Thomas Stukely. With his
marriage to Alderman Curteis Daughter, and valiant ending of his life at the Battaile of Alcazar. As it hath beene acted.
Printed for Tkoma-s Pauyer, and are to be sohl at his shop at Vie entrance into the Exchange. 1605. 4to.
The piece on the subject of Stukeloy, which our author mentions in the following lines of his Farewell, Sic,
1589, is, I believe, a play which has not come down to us ; —
" Bid theatres, and proud tragedians,
Bid Mahomet, Scipio, and mighty Tamburlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest,
Adieu."
" The Plott of the Battell of Alcazar, " consisting of one large folio page, and very much mutilated, is among
" Plottes of olde Playes," Additional MSS. 10449, in the British Museum ; and from it we learn that the part of the
Moor, Muly M&hamet, was performed by the celebrated actor Edward Alleyn.
"It is perhaps the " Stewtley" which, according to Henslowe (Diary, p. 83, ed. Shake. Sou.), was first acted
11th Dec. 1696.
EEJ
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
The Moor, Mult Mahambt.
Muly Mahamet, his son.
Abdelmelec, uncle to the Moor, Mult Mahamet.
Muly Mahamet Seth, brother to Abdelmelec.
Son of Rubin Archis.
Abdel Rayes.
Celybin.
Aroerd Zareo,
Zareo.
Pisano, a captain to the Moor, Muly Mahamet.
Calsepius Bassa.
Sebastian, King of Portugal.
Duke of Avero.
Duke op Barceles.
Lord Lodowick.
Lewes de Silva.
Christophero de Tavera.
Don Diego Lopez, Governor of Lisbon.
Don de Mentsis, Governor of Tangier.
Stukeley.
Irish Bishop.
Hercules.
Jonas.
Moorish Ambassadors, Spanish Ambassadors and
Legate, Boy, Soldiers, Messengers, &c.
Calipolis, wife to the Moor, Muly Mahamet.
Rubin Archis, widow of Abdelmunen.
A Queen.*
Ladies.
The Presenter.
Abdelmunen.
Two young Brothers of the Moor, [ Jn (he j himlhtklmt
Muly Mahamet.
Two Murderers.
Fame.
* A Q)ieen] Appears only once in the play, — Act ii. sc. i., where she speaks five lines; and is, I presume, some
petty princess.
THE
TRAGICAL BATTLE OF ALCAZAR IN BARBARY,
WITH THE DEATH OF THREE KINGS AND [OF] CAPTAIN STUKELEY
AN ENGLISHMAN.
ACT I.
Enter the Presenter.
Honour, the spur that pricks the princely mind
To follow rule and climb the stately chair,
With great desire inflames tlie Portingal,
An honourable and courageous king,
To undertake a dangerous dreadful war,
And aid with Christian arms the barbarous Moor,
The negro Muly Hamet, that withholds
The kingdom from his uncle Abdelmelec,
Whom proud* Abdallas wrong'd,
And in his throne installs his cruel son,
That now usurps upon this prince,
This brave Barbarian lord, Muly Mollocco.
The passage to the crown by murder made,
Abdallas dies, and leavesf this tyrant king ;
Of whom we treat, sprung from th' Arabiau Moor,
Black in his look, and bloody in his deeds ;
And in his shirt, stain'd with a cloud of gore,
Presents himself, with naked sword in hand,
Accompanied, as now you may behold,
With devils coated in the shapes of men.
The First Dumb-show.
Enter [the Moor] Muly Mahamet, his Son, and his two
young Brethren: the Moor [Muly Mahamet] shows
them the bed, and then takts his leave of tlum, and they
betake them to their rest. Then the Presenter speaks /
Like those that were by kind of mm-der mumm'd,^
Sit down and see what heinous stratagems
* Whom proud, &c] This line, and the next line but
one, mutilated.
t leaves] The 4to. "deisnes." Something seems to be
wanting here.
J mumm'd] Spilt in the 4to. " murad " : — but I can make
nothing of this passage. — " We consider that one line has
These damned wits contrive ; and, lo, alas,
How like poor lambs prepar'd for sacrifice,
This traitor-king hales to their longest home
These tender lords, his younger brethren both !
The Second Dumb-show.
Enter the Moor [Moly Mahamet], and two Murderers,
bringing in his uncle Abdelmunen : then they draw lite
curtains, and smother the young Princes in the bed :
which done in sight of the uncle, they strangle him in his
chair, and then go forth. Then the Presenter says ;
His brethren thus in fatal bed behears'd,
His father's brother, of too light belief,
This negro puts to death by proud command.
Say not these thiDgs are feigu'd, for true they are ;
And understand how, eager to enjoy
His father's crown, this unbelieving Moor,
Murdering his uncle and his brethren,*
Triumphs in his ambitious tyranny;
Till Nemesis, high mistress of revenge,
That with her scourge keeps all the world in awe,
With thundering drumf awakes the God of War,
strayed from its place, and that the text was originally
thus ;
'Accompanied, as now you may behold,
With devils coated in the shapes of men,
Like those that were by kind of murder mumm'd.'
Then after the Dumb-show,
' Sit down and see what heinous stratagems.' &c.
We consider mumm'd a misprint for nam'd; and the
meaning to be
Like devils in the shapes of men nam'd murderers.
See the second Dumb-show, ' Enter the Moor and two
Murderers.'" The Rtv. J. Mitford, Gent. Mag for Feby.,
1833, p. 103, — who is perhaps right in supposing that the
line has strayed from its place, though his proposal to
read " nam'd" is truly infelicitous.
* brethren] So spelt in the 4to., but to be pronounced
as a trisyllable.
t drum] The 4to. "drums": but compare two passages
in p. 425.
422
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR,
ACT /.
And calls the Furies from Avernus' crags,
To range and rage, and vengeance to inflict,
Vengeance on this accursed Moor for sin.
And now behold how Abdelmelec comes,
Uncle to this unhappy* traitor-king,
Arm'd with great aid that Amurath hath sent,
Great Amurath, Emperort of the East,
For service done to Sultan Solimon,
Under whose colours he had serv'd in field,
Flying the fury of this negro's father,
That wrong'd his brethren to install his son.
Sit you, and see this true and tragic war,
A modern matter full of blood and ruth,
Where three bold kings, confounded in their
height,
Fell to the earth, contending for a crown ;
And call this war The battle of A Icazar. [Exit.
SCENE I.
Sound drumt and trumpets, and then enter Abdelmelec,
Calsepius Bassa and his Guard, and ArgerdZareo,
iciih Soldiers.
Abdelm. All hail, ArgerdZareo; and, ye Moors,
Salute the frontiers of your native home :
Cease, rattling drums ; and, Abdelmelec, here
Throw up thy tremblinghanda to heaven's throne,
Pay to thy God due thanks, and thanks to him
That strengthens thee with mighty gracious
arms
Against the proud usurper of thy right,
The royal seat and crown of Barbary,
Great Amurath, great Emperor of the East : X
The world bear witness how I do adore
The sacred name of Amurath the Great.
Calsepius Bassa, Bassa Calsepius,
To thee, and to thy trusty band of men
That carefully attend us in our camp,
Pick'd soldiers, comparable to the guard
Of Myrmidons that kept Achillea' tent,
Such thanks we give to thee and to them all,
As may concern a poor distressed king,
In honour and in princely courtesy.
Cal. Bas. Courteous and honourable Abdel-
melec,
We are not come, at Amurath's command,
As mercenary men, to serve for pay,
But as sure friends, by our great master sent
To gratify and to remunerate
* unhappy] i.e. wicked.
t Great Amurath, Emperor, &c] Qy " Great Amurath,
the [or, as in the next speech, " great "J Emperor," &c ?
! Bast] The 4*o. "world," — the transcriber's or com-
positor* eyo having cauglit that word in the next line.
Thy love, thy loyalty, and forwardness,
Thy service in bis father's dangerous war;
And to perform, in view of all the world.
The true office* of right and royalty :
To see thee in thy kingly chair enthron'd,
To settle and to seat thee in the same,
To make thee Emperor of this Barbary,
Are come the viceroys and sturdy janizaries
Of Amurath, son to Sultan Solimon.
Enter Muly Mahamet Seth.t Robin Archis, Abdel
Rayes, with others.
Abd. Rayes. Long live my lord, the sovereign
of my heart,
Lord Abdelmelec, whom the gtd of kings,
The mighty Amurath hath happy made !
And long live Amurath for this good deed !
Muly Mah. Seth. Our Moors have seen the
silver moons to wave
In banners bravely spreading o'er the plain,
And in these* semicircles have descried,
All in a golden field, a star to rise,
A glorious comet that begins to blaze,
Promising happy sorting to us all.
Rob. Ar. Brave man-at-arms, whom Amurath
hath sent
To sow the lawful true-succeeding seed
In Barbary, that bows and groans withal
Under a proud usurping tyrant's mace,
Right thou the wrongs this rightful king hath
borne.
Abdelm. Distressed ladies, and ye dames of
Fess,
Sprung from the true Arabian Muly Xarif,
The loadstar and the honour of our line,
Now clear your watery eyes, wipe tears away,
And cheerfully give welcome to these arms :
Amurath hath sent scourges by his men,
To whip that tyrant traitor-king from hence,
That hath usurp'd from us, and maim'd you all.
Soldiers,§ sith rightful quarrels' aid
Successful are, and men that manage them
Fight not in fear as traitors and their feres, ||
That you may understand what arms we bear,
What lawful arms against our brother's son,
In sight of heaven, even of mine honour's worth,
Truly I will deliver and discourse
The sum of all. Descended from the line
* The true offi-e] Qy. " The office true " ?
t Seth] Tho 4to. in the present scene, but, not else-
where, "Xeque." — There is no end to the confusion oi
names in this play.
t these] The4to. "this."
§ Soldiers, &c. ] A mutilated line.
II fera] i. e. companions.
BCENB I.
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
423
Of Mahomet, our grandsire Muly Xarif
With store of gold and treasure leaves Arabia,
And strongly plants himself in Barbary ;
And of the Moors that now with us do wend
Our grandsire Muly Xarif was the first.
From him well wot ye Muly Mahamet Xeque,
Who in his life-time made a perfect law,
Confirm'd with general voice of all his peera,
That in his kingdom should successively
His sons succeed. Abdallas was the first,
Eldest of four,* Abdelmunen the second,
And we the rest, my brother and myself.
Abdallas reign'd his time : but see the change I
He labours to invest his son in all,
To disannul the law our father made,
And disinherit us his brethren ; t
And in his life-time wrongfully proclaims
His son for king that now contends with us.
Therefore I crave to re-obtain my right,
That Muly Mahamet the traitor holds,
Traitor and bloody tyrant both at once,
That murdered his younger brethren both :
But on this damned wretch, this traitor-king,
The gods shall pour down showers of sliarp
revenge.
And thus a matter not to you unknown
I have deliver'd ; yet for no distrust
Of loyalty, my well-beloved friends,:}:
But that th' occasions fresh in memory
Of these encumbers so may move your minds,
As for the lawful true-succeeding prince
Ye neither think your lives nor honours dear,
Spent in a quarrel just and honourable.
Gal. Bas. Such and no other we repute the
cause
That forwardly for thee we undertake,
Thrice-puissant and renowned Abdelmelec,
And for thine honour, safety, § and crown,
Our lives and honours frankly to expose
To all the dangers that on war attend,||
As freely and as resolutely all
As any Moor whom thou commandest most.
Muly Mah, Seth. And why is Abdelmelec, then,
so slow
To chdstise him with fury of the sword
Whose pride doth swell to sway beyond his
reach ?
Follow this pride, then.TI with fury of revenge.
* four] The 4to. " faire."
t brethren] See note *, p. 421, sec. col.
X friends] The 4to. " friend."
§ safety] A trisyllable : see Walker's Shakespeare's Ver-
ification, Sic, p. 158.
|| on war attend] The 4to. "our warre attends."
H then] An interpolation ?
Rub. Ar. Of death, of blood, of wreak, and
deep revenge,
Shall Rubin Archis frame her tragic Bongs :
In blood, in death, in murder, and misdeed,
This heaven's malice did begin and end.
Abdelm. Rubin, these rites to Abdelmuneu's
ghost
Have piere'd by this to Pluto's grave* below;
The bells of Pluto ring revenge amain,
The Furies and the fiends conspire with thee ■
War bids me draw my weapons for revenge
Of my deep wrongs and my dear brother's death.
Muly Mah. Seth. Sheath not your swords, you
soldiers of Amurath,
Sheath not your swords, you Moors of Barbary,
That fight in right of your anointed king,
But follow to the gates of death and hell,
Pale death and hell, to entertain his soul ;
Follow, I say, to burning Phlegethon,
This traitor-tyrant and his companies.
Cal. Bas. Heave up your swords against these
stony holds,
Wherein these barbarous rebels are enclos'd :
Call'd for is Abdelmelec by the gods
To sit upon the throne of Barbary.
Abd. Hayes. Bassa, great thanks, thou t honour
of the Turks.—
Forward, brave lords, unto this rightful war !
How can this battle but successful be,
Where courage meeteth with a rightful cause ?
Rub. Ar. Go in good time, my best-beloved
lord,
Successful in thy work thou undertakes !
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.
Enter, in his chariot, the Moor, Calipolis, and their Son ;
Pisano with the Moor's Guard and treasure.
The Moor. Pisano, take a cornet of our horse,
As many argoletsj and armed pikes,
And with our carriage march away before
By Scyras, and those plots§ of ground
That to Moroccus lead the lower way :
Our enemies keep upon the mountain-tops,
And have encamp'd themselves not far from
Madam, Fess. —
* Pluto's grave'] To substitute " Pluto's cave " will not,
I apprehend, restore the true text here.
t thou] A doubtful reading —The 4to. " the."
X argolets] " Argolet, a light horseman." Otgrave's
Diet. "Argoletiers, Equites ferenlarii or leviter armati."
Coles's Diet.
§ those plots'] An epithet to "plots " has ilropt out.
424
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
act r.
Gold is the glue, sinews, and strength of war,
And we must see our treusure may go safe. —
Away ! [Exit Pisano with the treasure and some
of the Guard.] Now, boy, what's the news?
The Moors Son* The news, my lord, is war,
war and revenge ;
And, if I shall declare the circumstance,
'Tis thus.
Rabin, our uncle's wife, that wrings her hands
For Abdelmunen's death, accompanied
With many dames of Fess in mourning weeds,
Near to Argier encounter'd Abdelmelec,
That bends his force, puff'd up with Amurath's
aid,
Against your holds and castles of defence.
The younger brother, Muly Mahamet Seth,
Greets the great Bassa that the King of Turks
Sends to invade your right and royal realm ;
And basely beg revenge, arch-rebels all,
To be inflict upon our progeny.
The Moor. Why, boy, is Amurath's Bassa such
a bug f
That he is mark'd to do this doughty deed ?
Then, Bassa, lock the winds in wards of brass,
Thunder from heaven, damn wretched men to
death, +
Beat § all the offices of Saturn's sons,
Be Pluto, then, in hell, and bar the fiends,
Take Neptune's force to thee and calm the
seas,
And execute Jove's justice on the world,
Convey Tamburlaine into our Afric here,
To chastise and to menace lawful kings :
* The Moor'* Son] The 4to " Muly Mah." : but to his
speech in the Third Act the 4to. prefixes " The Moores
Sonne," — which prefix, to avoid the coi. fusion caused by
the family name, I have adopted throughout.
t bug] i. e. bugbear.
J damn wretched men to death] Mr. Collier (Supplem.
Notes to Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 278, ed. 1S5S) asserts that
here "damn" is "misprinted for doom": and, on the
words,
" Perform't, or else we damn thee,"
Antony and Cleopatra, act i. sc. i, he observes; "The
corr. fi>., 1P32, alters 'damn' to doom; and although
' damn ' certainly sounds rather coarsely in the mouth of
Cleopatra, and would have done so even in the time of
Shakespeare, yet we make no change, recollecting that
the heroine, in other places, sometimes errs on the scoro
of delicacy, and that ' damn ' is the moro expressive
word, which the poet, on that very account, may have
preferred," &c. But Mr. Collier does not understand
either I'ccle or Shakespeare: in both passages " d"ui„ "
i j e< inivaleut to "condemn." (And compare Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar, act iv sc. i. ;
'• He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him.")
§ Bear] So Walker, Cr'd Bx"m. 0/ the t fit • >/ shul.-i -pinn',
tie, vol. 1., p. 323.— The 4to. " liarre."
L
Tamburlaine, triumph not, for thou must die,*
As Philip did, Caesar, and Caesar's peers.
The Moor's Son. The Bassa grossly flatter'd to
his face,
And Amurath's praise adrane'd above the sound
Upon the plains, the soldiers being spread,
And that brave guard of sturdy janizaries
That Amurath to Abdelmelec gave,
And bade him boldly be witht them as safe
As if he slept within a walled town ; [revenge,
Who take them to their weapons, threatening
Bloody revenge, bloody revengeful war.
The Moor. Away, and let me hear no more of
Why, boy, [this.
Are we successor to the great Abdelmunen +
Descended from th' Arabian Muly Xarif,
And shall we be afraid of Bassas and of bugs,
Raw-head and Bloody-bone ?
Boy, seest here this scimitar § by my side?
Sith they begin to bathe in blood,
Blood be the theme whereon our time shall tread ;
Such slaughter with my weapon shall I make
As through the stream and bloody channels deep
Our Moors shall sail in ships and pinnaces
From Tangier-shore unto the gates of Fess.
The Moors Son. And of those slaughter'd
bodies shall thy son
A hugyll tower erect like Nimrod's frame,
To threaten those unjust and partial gods
That to Abdallas' lawful seed deny
A long, a happy, and triumphant reign.
An alarum tcithin, and then enter a Messenger
Mess. Fly, King of Fess, King of Moroccus, fly,
Fly with thy friends, Emperor of Barbary ;
O, fly the sword and fury of the foe,
That rageth as the ramping lioness
In rescue of her younglings from the bear !
Thy towns and holds by numbers basely yield,
Thy land to Abdelmelec's rule resigns,
Thy carriage and thy treasure taken is
By Amurath's soldiers, that have sworn thy death :
* Tamburlaine, triumph not, for thou must die] In the
Second Tart of the celebrated tragedy that bears his
name, the last words of Tamburlaine are, —
" For Tamburlaine, the scourge of God, must die."
Marlowe's Works, p 74, ed. Dyce, 1S">8.
t with] The 4to. "to." — The preceding lines of this
speech are corrupted.
t successor .... Abdelmunen] The 4to. " succcssours
.... Abdilmelcc."
§ scimitar] The 4to. "semitarie." — This speech is some-
what mutilated.
|| hugy) i. e. huge. — The 4to. "huge" : but in act iv.
sc. 2. it has "Ahugie company of invading Moores";
and in the Prologue to our author's Sir Clyomon and Sir
Vlomijdes we find "hugy heaps of care."
ACT II.
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
425
Fly Aruurath's power and Abdelrnelec's threats,
Or tliou and thine look here to breathe your
last.
The Moor. Villain, what dreadful sound of death
and flight
Is this wherewith thou dost afflict our ears ?
But if there be no safety to abide
The favour, fortune, and success of war,
Away in haste ! roll on, iny chariot-wheels,
Restless till I be safely set in shade
Of some unhauntcd place, some blasted grove
Of deadly yew* or dismal cypress-tree,
Far from the light or comfort of the bud,
There to curse heaven and he that heaveB mo
hence ;
To sick as Envy at Cecropia's gate,
And pine with thought t and terror of mishaps :
Away ! [Exeunt.
ACT II.
Alarum within, and (hen enter the Presenter.
Now war begins his rage and ruthless reign,
And Nemesis, with bloody whip in hand,
Thunders for vengeance on this Negro-Moor ;
Nor may the silence of the speechless night,
Dire architect* of murders and misdeeds,
Of tragedies and tragic tyrannies,
Hide or contain thef barbarous cruelty
Of this usurper to his progeny.
[Three Ghosts, within, cry " Vindieta ! "J
Hark, lords, as in a hollow place afar,
The dreadful shrieks and clamours that resound,
And sound revenge upon this traitor's soul,
Traitor to kin and kind, to gods and men !
Now Nemesis upon her doubling drum,
Mov'd with this ghastly moan, this sad complaint,
'Laruins aloud into Alecto's ears,
And with her thundering wakes, whereas§ they lie
In cave as dark as hell and beds of steel,
The Furies, just|| imps of dire revenge.
* Sire architect] The 4to. " Diuine Architects."
f the] The 4to. " this.'
J Tltree Ghosts, within, cry " Vindieta ! "] So in Locrine,
first printed in 1595, the Ghost of Albanaet exclaims
" Vindieta, cindkta," Sig. G. (an exclaniatiou which was
afterwards much ridiculed; see Jonson's Poetaster, —
W<rks, vol. ii p. 456, ed. Gifford); and, again, in our
author's Farewell, <fec. (vide post) we meet with a line and
a half which we also find in Locrine. But such trifling
coincidences afford no ground for supposing that Peele
was concerned in the composition of that intolerably
stilted and pedantic piece. (It was entered on the Sta-
tioners' Books in 1594 ; and the title-page of the original
edition runs thus : The Lamentable Tragtdie of Locrine, the
eldest sonne of King Brutus, discoursing the warres of the
Britaines, and Hunnes, with their discomfiture : The Brita ines
victorie with their Accidents, and the death of Albanaet. No
lesse pleasant then profitable. Newly setfoorth, ouei-scene and
corrected, By W. S. London Printed by Thomas Creede 1505,
ito Misled by the initial letters W. S. iii the above title-
page, the editor of the folio Sfiakespeare, 1664, re-printed
Locrine in that folio as a work of our great dramatist.)
§ whereas] i e. where. || jv.si] Qy. "the just "?
" Revenge," cries Abdelmunen's t grieved ghost,
And rouseth with the terror of this noise
These nymphs of Erebus; "Wreak and revenge"
Ring out the souls of his unhappy brethren.
And now start up these torments of the world,
Wak'd with the thunder of Rhamnusia's drum§
And fearful echoes of these || grieved ghosts, —
Alecto with her brand and bloody torch,
Megsera with her whip and snaky hair,
Tisiphone with her fatal murdering iron :
These three conspire, these three complain and
Thus, Muly Mahamet, is a council held [moan.
To wreak the wrongs and murders thou hast done.
By this imagine was this barbarous Moor
Chas'd from his dignity and his diadem,
And lives forlorn among the mountain-shrubs,
And makes his food the flesh of savage beasts.
Amurath's soldiers have by this install'd
Good Abdelmelec in his royal seat.
The dames of Fess and ladies of the land,
In honour of the son of Solirnon,H
Erect a statue made of beaten gold,
And sing to Amurath songs of lasting praise.
Muly Mahamet's fury over-rul'd,
His cruelty controll'd, and pride rebuk'd,
* yew] The4to. "hue."
f To sick as Envy at Cecropia's gate,
And pine with thought," <fcc] — sick, i. e. sicken (so iu
Shakspeare's Henry IV. Part Sec, act iv. sc. 4 ;
"a little time before
That our great-grands ire, Edward, sick'd and died").
" Cecropia's gate," i. e. the gate of Athens. — The allusion
is to a story in the Sec. Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
—The 4to. ;
" To seeke as Enuie at Cecropes gate,
And pine the thought," <fec.
J Abdelmunen's] The 4to. " Abdilmelecs."
§ Rhamnusias drum] The 4to. " Ramusians drum." —
See note f, p. 359, sec. col. || these'] Qy. "those"?
1[ Solimoit] Here the 4to. " Solinjan": but twice before
(see p. 422) it has " Solimon."
420
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
ACT II.
Now at last* when sober thoughts renew'd
Care of bis kingdom and desired crown,
The aid that once was offer'd and refus'd
By messengers he furiously implores, +
Sebastian's aid, brave King of Portugal.
He, forward in all arms and chivalry,
Hearkens to his ambassadors, and grants
What they in letters and by words entreat.
Now listen, lordings, now begins the game,
Sebastian's tragedy in this tragic war. [Exit.
SCENE I.
Alarum within, and then enter Abdelmelec, Muly
Mahamet Seth, Calsepius Bassa, with Moors and
Janizaries.
Abdelm. Now hath the sun display'd his golden
beams,
And, dusky clouds dispers'd, the welkin clears,
Wherein the twenty-colour'd rainbow shows.
After this fight happy and fortunate,
Wherein our [traitorous] Moors have lost the day,
And Victory, adorn'd with Fortune's plumes,
Alights on Abdelmelec's glorious crest,
Here find we time to breathe, and now begin
To pay thy due and duties thou dost owe
To heaven and earth, to gods and Amurath.
[Sound trumpets.
And now draw near, and heaven and earth give ear,
Give ear and record, heaven and earth, with me ;
Ye lords of Barbary, hearken and attend,
Hark to the words I speak, and vow I make
To plant the true succession of the crown :
Lo, lords, in our seat royal to succeed
Our only brother here we do install,
And by the name of Muly Mahamet Seth
Intitle him true heir unto the crown.
Ye gods of heaven gratulate this deed,
That men on earth may therewith stand content !
Lo, thus my due and duties do I pay+
To heaven and earth, to gods and Amurath !
[Sound trumpets.
Muly Mah. Seth. Renowned Bassa, to remu-
Thy worthiness and magnanimity, [nerate
Behold, the noblest ladies of the land
Bring present tokens of their gratitude.
* at last] Qy. " at the last "1
\ furiously implores] The 4to. "furiously imployes." —
Here "furiously " may be used as equivalent to —
earnestly, vehemently ; but it seems too strong a word :
qy. " fervently "?
J duties do I pay] The 4to. "duetie is done, / pay." —
Compare the Oth and 10th lines of this speech ;
" To pay thy due and dutirs thou dost owe
To heaven," &c.
Enter Rubin Archis, her Son, a Queen,* and Ladies.
Rub. Ar. Rubin, that breathes but for revenge,
Bassa, by this commends herself to thee ;
Receiver the token of her thankfulness :
To Amurath the god of earthly kings
Doth Rubin give and sacrifice her son :
Not with sweet smoke of fire or sweet perfume,
But with his father's sword, his mother's thanks,
Doth Rubin give her son to Amurath.
Queen. As Rubin gives her son, so we ourselves
To Amurath give, and fall before his face.
Bassa, wear thou the gold of Barbary,
And glister like the palace of the Sun,J
In honour of the deed that thou hast done.
Cal. Bas. Well worthy of the aid of Amurath
Is Abdelmelec, and these noble dames. —
Rubin, thy son I shall ere long bestow,
Where thou dost him bequeath in honour's fee,
On Amurath mighty Emperor of the East,
That shall receive the imp of royal race
With cheerful looks and gleams of princely grace. —
This chosen guard of Amurath's janizaries
I leave to honour and attend on thee,
King of Morocco, conqueror of thy foes,
True King of Fess, Emperor of Barbary ;
Muly Molocco, live and keep thy seat,
In spite of fortune's spite or enemies' threats. —
Ride, Bassa, now, bold Bassa, homeward ride,
As glorious as great Pompey in his pride.
[Exeunt
SCENE II.
Enter Don Diego Lopez, the Irish Bishop, Stukeley,
Jonas, Hercules, and others.
Die. Welcome to Lisbon, § valiant Catholics,
Welcome, brave Englishmen, to Portugal :
Most reverent primate of the Irish church,
And, noble Stukeley, famous by thy name,
Welcome, thrice welcome to Sebastian's town;
And welcome, English captains, to you all :
It joyeth us to see his Holiness' fleet
Cast anchor happily upon our coast.
Bish. These welcomes, worthy governor of
Lisbon,
Argue an honourable mind in thee,
* a Queen] See note on the Dram. Pers.
t Receive] The 4to. "Resigne."
t like the palace of the Sun] An allusion to the story of
Phaeton in Ovid, as Walker remarks, Crit. Exam, of the
text of Shakespeare, &c, vol. i. p. 155.
§ Lisbon] Tho 4to. hero and elsewhere " Lisborne."
sOene ii.
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
427
But treat of our misfortune therewithal.
To Ireland by Pope Gregory's command
Were we all bound, and therefore thus embark'd,
To land our forces there at unawares,
Conquering the island* for his Holiness,
And so restore it to the Roman faith :
This was the cause of our expedition,
And Ireland long ere this had been subdu'd,
Had not foul weather brought us to this bay.
Die. Under correction, are ye not all English-
men,
And 'longs not Ireland to that kingdom, lords ?
Then, may I speak my conscience in the cause
Sanst scandal to the holy see of Rome,
Unhonourable is this expedition,
And misbeseeming you to meddle in.
Strike. Lord governor of Lisbon, understand,
Ae we are Englishmen, so are we men,
And I am Stukeley so resolv'd in all
To follow rule, honour, and empery,
Not to be bent so strictly to the place
Wherein at first I blew the fire of life,
But that I may at liberty make choice
Of all the continents that bound the world ;
For why+ I make it not so great desert
To be begot or born in any place,
Sith that's a thing of pleasure and of ease
That might have been perform'd elsewhere as well.
Die. Follow what§ your good pleasure will,
Good Captain Stukeley : be it far from me
To take exceptions beyond my privilege.
Dish. Yet, captain, give me leave to speak ; ||
We must affect our country as our parents,
And if at any time we alienate
Our love or industry from doing it honour,
It must respect effects and touch the soul,
Matter of conscience and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit.
Stuke. Well said, bishop ! spoken like yourself,
The reverend, lordly Bishop of Saint Asses.
Here. The bishop talks according to his coat,
And takes not measure of it by his mind :
You see he hath it made thus large and wide,
Because he may convert it, as he list,
To any form may fit the fashion best.
Bish. Captain, you do me wrong to descant thus
Upon my coat or double conscience,
And cannot answer it in another place.
Die. 'Tis but in jest, lord bishop ; put it up :
* island] The 4to. " land."
t Sans] See note*, page 381, sec. col.
t For wh;/] i. e. Because.
§ what] Qy. "whatever"?
|| to speak] Qy. " to speak a word "?
And all as friends deign to be entertain'd
As my ability here can make provision.
Shortly shall I conduct you to the king,
Whose welcomes evermore to strangers are
Princely and honourable, as his state becomes.
Stuke. Thanks, worthy governor.-Come, bishop,
come,
Will you show fruits of quarrel and of wrath ?
Come, let's in with my Lord of Lisbon here,
And put all conscience into one carouse,
Letting it out again as we may live.*
[Exeunt all except Stukeley.
There shall no action pass my hand or sword,
That cannot make a step to gain a crown ;
No word shall pass the office of my tongue,
That sounds not of affection to a crown ;
No thought have being in my lordly breast,
That works not every way to win a crown :
Deeds, words, and thoughts, shall all be as a
king's j
My chiefest company shall be with kings ;
And my deserts shall counterpoise a king's :
Why should not I, then, look to be a king ?
I am the Marquis now of Ireland made,
And will be shortly King of Ireland:
King of a mole-hill+ had I rather be,
Than the richest subject of a monarchy.
Huff it, brave mind, and never cease t'aspire,
Before thou reign sole king of thy desire. [Exit.
SCENE III.
Enter the Moor, Calipolis, their Son, Zareo, and another.
The Moor. Where art thou, boy ? Where is
Calipolis ?
deadly wound that passeth by mine eye,
The fatal poison J of my swelling heart !
O fortune constant in unconstancy !
Fight earthquakes in the entrails of the earth,
And eastern whirlwinds in the hellish shades !
Some foul contagion of th' infected heaven
Blast all the trees, and in their cursed tops
The dismal night-raven and tragic owl
Breed, and become fore-tellers§ of my fall,
The fatal ruin of my name and me !
* as we may live] i. e. as we may be live or lief, — i.e.
willing, inclined.
+ King of a mote-hill, Ac] So he told Elizabeth. See
prefatory matter to this play, p. 418.
t poison] The 4to. "prison."
§ fore-tellers] Ben Jonson, who, in the fourth act of The
Poetaster, quotes in ridicule some lines from this speech,
reads "fore-runners. " See Gifford's edition of his Work*,
vol. ii. p. 463.
4L'8
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
ACT II.
Adders and serpents hiss at my diBgrace,
And wound the earth wi th aDguish of their stings !
Now, Abdelmelec, now triumph in Fess ;
Fortune hath made thee King of Barbary.
Calip. Alas, my lord, what boot these huge
exclaims
T' advantage us in this Jistress'd estate ?
O, pity our perplex' d estate, my lord,
And turn all curses to subniiss complaints,
And those complaints to actions of relief !
I faint, my lord ; and naught may cursing plaints
Refresh the fading substance of my life.
The Moor. Faint all the world, consume and
be accurs'd,
Since my state* faints and is accurs'd.
Calip. Yet patience, lord, to conquer sorrows so.
The Moor. What patience is for him that lacks
his crown ?
There is no patience where the loss is such :
The shame of my disgrace hath put on wings,
And swiftly flies about this earthly ball.
Car'st thou to live, then, fondt Calipolis,
When he that should give essence to tby soul,
He on whose glory all thy joy should stay,
Is soul-less, glory-less, and desperate,
Crying for battle, famine, sword, and fire,
Rather than calling for relief or life ?
But be content, thy hunger shall have end ;
Famine shall pine to death, and thou shalt live:
I will go hunt these cursed solitaries,!
And make the sword and target here my hound [s]
To pull down lions and untamed beasts. [Exit.
The Moor's Son.§ Tush, mother, cherish your
unhearty soul,
And feed with hope of happiness and ease ;
For if by valour or by policy
My kingly father can be fortunate,
We shall be Jove's commanders once again,
And flourish in a three-fold happiness.
Zareo. His majesty hath sent Sebastian,
The good and harmless King of Portugal,
A promise to resign the royalty
And kingdom of Morocco to his hands ;
And when this haughty offer takes effect,
And works affiance in Sebastian,
My gracious lord, warn'd wisely to advise,
I doubt not but will watch occasion,
And take her fore-top by the slenderest hair,
To rid us of this miserable life.
* Since my state, &c] An imperfect line.
+ fond] i. «. foolish.
I solitaries] i. e. deserts.
§ The. Moor's son] The 4 to. " Mali."— See note *, p. 424,
first col.
The Moor's Son. Good madam, cheer yourself :
my father's wise ; *
He can submit himself and live below,
Make show of friendship, promise, vow, and swear,
Till, by the virtue of his fair pretence,
Sebastian trusting his integrity,
He makes himself possessor of such fruits
As grow upon such great advantages.
Calip. But more dishonour hangs on such
misdeeds
Than all the profit their return can bear :
Such secret judgments have the heavens impos'd
Upon the drooping state of Barbary,
As public merits in such lewdf attempts
Have drawn with violence upon our heads.
Re-enter the Moor, with a piece of flesh upon his sword {
The Moor. Hold thee, Calipolis, feed, and faint
no more ;
This flesh I forced from a lioness,
Meat of a princess, for a princess meet :
Learn by her noble stomach to esteem
Penury plenty in extremest dearth ;
Who, when she saw her foragement bereft,
Pin'd not in melancholy or childish fear,
But as brave minds are strongest in extremes,
So she, redoubling§ her former force,
Rang'd through || the woods, and rent the breed-
ing vaults
Of proudest savages to save herself.
Feed, then, and faint not, fair Calipolis ; ^
For rather than fierce famine shall prevail
To gnaw thy entrails with her thorny teeth,
The conquering lioness shall attend on thee,
And lay huge heaps of slaughter'd carcasses,
As bulwarks in her way, to keep her back.
I will provide thee of a princely osprey,
That as she flieth over fish in pools,**
* wise] Corrected by Walker, Crit. Exam, of the text of
Shakespeare, &c, vol ii. p. 299.— The 4to. "wife."
t lewd] i. e. vile, wicked.
J Re-enter the Moor, with a piece of flesh upon his sword]
The 4to. has " Enter Muly Mahamet with lyons flesh
vpou his sworde " ; which the following speech shows
to be wrong :— the "flesh" was not "lion's flesh," but
flesh forced from the mouth of a lioness.
§ redoubling] A trisyllable.
|| through] The 4to. " thorough."
% Feed, then, and faint not, fair Calipolis] The reader
need scarcely be reminded that Shakespeare ridicules
this line and the last line but one of the scene, in the
rants of Pistol, Henry IV, Part Sec, act ii. sc. 4,—
"Then feed, and be fit, my fair Calipolis."
*■ That as she flieth overfish in pools, &.C.] The osprey
was said to have the power of fascinating the fish on
which it preyed.
SCENE IV.
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
429
The fish shall turn their glistering bellies up,
And thou shalt take thy liberal choice of all :
Jove's stately bird with wide-commanding wings
Shall hover still about thy princely head,
And beat down fowl by shoals into thy lap :
Feed, then, and faint not, fair Calipolis.
Calip. Thanks, good my lord, and though my
stomach be
Too queasy to digest* such bloody meat,
Yet, strength I it with virtue of my mind,
I doubt no whit but I shall live, my lord.
The Moor. Into the shades, then, fair Calipolis,
And make thy son and negroes here good cheer :
Feed and be fat, that we may meet the foe
With strength and terror, to revenge our wrong.
[Exeunt.
SCENE IV.
Enter King Sebastian, the Duke of Avero, the Duke of
Barceles, Lewes de Silva, Christophero de Ta-
vera, and Attendants.
K. Seb. Call forth those Moors, those men of
Barbary,
That came with letters from the King of Fess.
The Moorish Ambassadors are brought in by an Attei dank
Ye warlike lords, and men of chivalry,
Honourable ambassadors of this high regent,
Hark to Sebastian King of Portugal.
These letters sent from your distressed lord,
Torn from his throne by Abdelmelec's hand,
Strengthen'd and rais'd by furious Amurath,
Import a kingly favour at our hands,
For aid to re-obtain his royal seat,
And place his fortunes in their former height.
For 'quital of which honourable arms,
By these his letters he doth firmly vow
Wholly to yield and to surrender up
The kingdom of Moroccus to our hands,
And to become to us contributary ;
And to content himselff with the realm of Fess.
These lines, my lords, writ in extremity,
ContainJ therefore but during fortune's date ;
How shall Sebastian, then, believe the same ]
First Amb. Viceroys,§ and most Christian king
of Portugal,
* digest] The 4to. has "disgest." See note t. P 199,
first col.
t himself] Qy. " him " ?
t Contain] If not a misprint, means — Restrain : but
surely there is some corruption here.
§ Viceroys] Qy. if right?
To satisfy thy doubtful mind herein.
Command forthwith a blazing brand of fire
Be brought in presence of thy majesty ;
Then shalt thou see, by our religious vows
And ceremonies most inviolate,
How firm our sovereign's protestations are.
A brand is brought in by an Attendant.
Behold, my lord, this binds our faith to thee :
In token that great Muly Mahamet's hand
Hath writ no more than his stout heart allows,
And will perform to thee and to tbiue heirs,
We offer here our hands into this flame ;
And as this flame doth fasten on this flesh,
So from our souls we wish it may consume
The heart of our great lord and sovereign,
Muly Mahamet King of Barbary,
If his intent agree not with his words !
K. Seb. These ceremonies and protestations
Sufliceth us, ye lords of Barbary,
Therefore return this answer to your king :
Assure him by the honour of my crown,
And by Sebastian's true unfeigned faith,
He shall have aid and succour to recover,
And seat him in, his former empery.
Let him rely upon our princely word :
Tell him by August we will come to him
With such a power of brave impatient minds,
As Abdelmelec and great Amurath
Shall tremble at the strength of Portugal.
First Amb. Thanks* to the renowned King of
Portugal,
On whose stout promises our state depend [a].
K. Seb. Barbarians, go gladt your distressed
king,
And say Sebastian lives to right his wrong.
[Exeunt Ambassadors.
Duke of Avero, call in those Englishmen,
Don Stukeley, and those captains of the fleet,
That lately landed in our bay of Lisbon.
Now breathe, Sebastian, and in breathing blow
Some gentle gale of thy new-formed joys.
Duke of Avero, it shall be your charge
To take the muster of the Portugals,
And bravest bloods of all our country.:}:
[Exit Doke of Avero.
Lewes de Silva, you shall be despatch'd
With letters unto Philip King of Spain :
Tell him we crave his aid in this behalf;
* Thanks, &c] This line is to be read thus, —
" Thanks to th' reuowned," &c.
t Barbarians, go glad, <fec] Qy. "Go glad, Barbarians,"
&c?
J country] A trisyllable here.
430
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
ACT II.
I kuow our brother Philip nill* deny
His futherance in this holy Christian war.
Duke of Barceles, as thy ancestors
Have always loyal been to Portugal,
So now, in honour of thy toward youth,
Thy charge shall be to Antwerp speedily,
To hire us mercenary men-at-arms :
Promise them princely pay ; and be thou sure
Thy word is ours, — Sebastian speaks the word.
Chri&to. I beseech your majesty, employ me in
this war.
K. Seb. Christopher de Tavera, next unto
myself,
My good Hephaestion, and my bedfellow, +
Thy cares and mine shall be alike in this,
And thou and I will live and die together.
Re-enter the Dcke of Avero, with the Irish Bishop,
Stukeley, Jonas, Hercules, and others.
And now,t brave Englishmen, to you
Whom angry storms have put into our bay ;
Hold not your fortune e*er the worse in this :
We hold our strangers' honours in our hand,
And for distressed frank and free relief.
Tell me, then, Stukeley, for that's thy name I trow,
Wilt thou, in honour of thy country's fame,
Hazard thy person in this brave exploit,
And follow us to fruitful Barbary,
With these six thousand soldiers thou hast
brought,
And choicely pick'd through wanton Italy ?
Thou art a man of gallant personage,
Proud in thy looks, and famous every way :
Frankly § tell me, wilt thou go with me?
Stuhe. Courageous king, the wonder of my
thoughts, ||
And yet, my lord, with pardon understand,
Myself and these whom weather hath enforc'd
To lie at road upon thy gracious coast,
Did bend our course and made amain for Ireland.
K. Seb. For Ireland, Stukeley, (thou mak'st me
wonder much,)H
With seven ships,two pinnaces, and six thousand
men?
* nill] i. e. will not.
t bedfellow] We must remember that formerly the
custom of men sleoping together, and terming each other
bedfellow, was very common. Princes used occasionally
to admit their favourite noblemen or gentlemen to the
high honour of sharing their beds.
I And now, <fcc] Something wanting in this line.
§ Frankly] Qy. is this word a trisyllable here ? or did
Peele write " Now, frankly," &c. !
|| thoughts] After this a line at loast has evidently
dropt out.
If thou mak'st me wonder much] Tho 4to. "thou, mis-
t»k»t vie wondorous much."
I tell thee, Stukeley, they are far too weak
To violate the Queen of Ireland's right ;
For Ireland's Queen commandeth England's force.
Were every ship ten thousand on the seas,
Mann'd with the strength of all the eastern kings,
Conveying all the monarchs of the world,
T invade the island where her highness reigns,
'Twere all in vain, for heavens and destinies
Attend and wait upon her majesty.
Sacred, imperial, and holy is her seat,
Shining with wisdom, love, and mightiness :
Nature that every thing imperfect made,
Fortune that never yet was constant found,
Time that defaceth every golden show,
Dare not decay, remove, or her impair ; *
Both nature, time, and fortune, all agree,
To bless and serve her royal majesty.
The wallowing ocean hems her round about ;
Whose raging floods do swallow up her foe3,
And on the rocks their ships in pieces split,
And even in Spain, where all the traitors dance
And play themselves upon a sunny day,
Securely guard the west part of her isle ;
The south the narrow Britain-sea begirts,
Where Neptune sits in triumph to direct
Their course to hell that aim at her disgrace ;
The German seas alongst the east do run,
Where Venus banquets all her water-nymphs,
That with her beauty glancing on the waves
Distains the cheekf of fair Proserpina.
Advise thee, then, proud Stukeley, ere thou pass
To wrong the wonder of the highest God ;
Sith danger, death, and hell do follow thee,
Thee, and them all, that seek to danger her.
If honour be the mark whereat thou aim'st,
Then follow me in holy Christian wars,
And leave to seek thy country's overthrow.
Stulce. Rather, my lord, let me admire these
Than answer to your firm objections. [words,
His Holiness Pope Gregory the Seventh
Hath made us four the leaders of the rest :
Amongst the rest, my lord, I am but one ;
If they agree, Stukeley will be the first
To die with honour for Sebastian.
* her impair] The 4to. " be impure."
t Distains the cheek, &c] i.e. So excels as to throw a stain
on, sullies by contrast, the cheek, &c. In the preceding
play, see p. 412, sec. col., " stain'd" occurs with the same
meaning — The 4to. has " Disdaiues the checke," &c. ;
which the Rev. J. Mitford vainly attempts to defend
and explain, Gent. Mag. for Foby., 1833, p. 103. (The
old copies of Shakespeare's Pericles have, by a like
mistake, —
"She did disdaine my childe ", &c. — Act iv. sc. S.)
On reconsidering the passage, I am not sure but that we
ought to road " their beauty " and " Dlstaiu thecheik," &c.
SCENE I.
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
431
K. Seb. Tell me, lord bishop, captains, tell me,
all,
Are you content to leave this enterprise
Against your country and your countrymen,
To aid Mahamet King of Barbary ?
Bisk. To aid Mahamet King of Barbary,
'Tis 'gainst our vows, great King of Portugal.
K. Seb. Then, captains, what say you ?
Jon. I say, my lord,* as the bishop said,
We may not turn from conquering Ireland.
Here. Our country and our countrymen will
condemn
Us worthy of death, t if we neglect our vows.
K. Seb. Consider, lords, you are now in
Portugal,
And I may now dispose of you and yours :
Hath not the wind and weather given you up,
And made you captives at our royal will 1
Jon. It hath, my lord, and willingly we
yield
To be commanded by your majesty ;
But if you make us voluntary men,
Our course is then direct for Ireland.
K. Seb. That course will we direct for Barbary. —
Follow me, lords : Sebastian leads the way
To plant the Christian faith in Africa.
Stuke. Saint George for England 1 and Ireland
now adieu,
For here Tom Stukeley shapes his course anew.
[Exeunt.
ACT III.
Enter the Presenter.
Lo, thus into a lake of blood and gore
The brave courageous King of Portugal
Hath drench'd himself, and now prepares amain
With sails and oars to cross the swelling seas,
With men and ships, courage and cannon-shot,
To plant this cursed Moor in fatal hour ;
And in this Catholic caused the King of Spain
Is call'd upon by sweet Sebastian,
Who surfeiting in prime time of his youth
Upon ambitious poison, dies thereon.
By this time is the Moor to Tangier come,
A city 'longing to the Portugal ;
And now doth Spain promise with holy face,
As favouring the honour of the cause,
His aid of arms, and levies men apace :
But nothing less than King Sebastian's good
He means ; yet at Sucor de Tupea
He met, some say, in person with the Portugal,
And treateth§ of a marriage with the king :
But 'ware ambitious wiles and poison'd eyes 1
There was nor aid of arms nor marriage,
For on his way without those Spaniards
King Sebastian went. [Exit.
* lord"] A dissyllable here, as it not (infrequently is in
our early poets : so again in act v. sc. 1 of this play,
" Labour, my lords, to renew our force
Of fainting Moors," &c.
And see Walker's Shakespeare's Versification, &c , p. 32.
t worthy of death] Qy. "worthy death'"!
t cause] The 4to. "case."
§ treateth] Qy. "treated"?
SCENE I.
Enter Kino Sebastian, Lords, Lewes de Silva, and the
Ambassadors and Legate of Spain.
K. Seb. Honourable lords, ambassadors of
Spain,
The many favours by our meetings done
From our beloved and renowned brother,
Philip the Catholic King of Spain,*
Say therefore, good my lord ambassador,
Say how your mighty master minded is
To propagate the fame of Portugal.
First Amb. To propagate the fame of Portugal,
And plant religious truth in Africa,
Philip the great and puissant king of Spain,
For love and honour of Sebastian's name,
Promiseth aid of arms, and swears by us
To do your majesty all the good he can,
With men, munition, and supply of war,
Of Spaniards proud, in king Sebastian's aid,
To spend their bloods in honour of their Christ.
Legate. And farther, to manifest unto your
majesty
How much the Catholic king of Spain affects
This war with Moors and men of little faith,
The honour of your everlasting praise,
Behold, to honourf and enlarge thy name,
He maketh offer of his daughter Isabel
• King of Spain] Something has dropt out here,
t The honour of your everlasting praise.
Behold, tu honour, &.C.] Corrupted.
432
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
ACT J 11.
To link in marriage with the brave Sebastian ;
And to enrich Sebastian's noble wife,
His majesty doth* promise to resign
The titles of the Islands of Moloccus,+
That by his royalty in IudiaJ he commands.
These favours with unfeigned love and zeal
Voweth King Philip to King Sebastian.
K. Seb. And God so deal with King Sebastian s
As justly he intends to fight for Christ ! [soul
Nobles of Spain, sith our renowned brother,
Philip the kiug of honour and of zeal,
By you the chosen orators of Spain§
The offer of the holds he makes
Are not|| so precious in our account,
As is the peerless dame whom we adore,
His daughter, in whose loyalty consists
The life and honour of Sebastian.
As for the aid of arms he promiseth,
We will expect and thankfully receive,
At Cadiz,1I as we sail alongst the coast. —
Sebastian, clap thy hands for joy,
Honoured by this meeting and this match.—
Go, lords, and follow to the famous war
Your king ; and be his fortune such in all
As he intends to manage arms in right.
[Exeunt all except Stukeley and Another.**
Stuke. Sit fast, Sebastian, and in this work
God and good men labour for Portugal !
For Spain, disguising with a double face,
Flatters thy youth and forwardness, good king.
Philip, whom some call the Catholic king,
I fear me much thy faith will not be firm,
But disagree with thy profession.
The other. What, then, shall of those ft men
of war become,
Those numbers that do multiply in Spain ?
Stuke. Spain hath a vent for them and their
supplies :
The Spaniard ready to embark himself,
Here gathers to a head ; but all too sure
Flanders, I fear, shall feel the force of Spain.
Let Portugal fare as he may or can,
Spain means to spend no powder on the Moors.
Tlie other. If kings do dally so with holy oaths,
The heavens will right the wrongs that they
Philip, if these forgeries be in thee, [sustain.
■ doth] The4to. "with."
+ Moloccus] So, I believe, Peele wrote. (In my former
eds. I altered the name to " Moluccas.")
J India] The 4to. "Iudah."
§ By you the chosen orators of Spain] Here again there
is some omission.
|| Tlie offer .... Are not] Sec note U, p. 176, sec. col.
IT Cadiz] The 4to. here, and olsowhero, "Cordis."
** Another] So the 4to. ft those] The 4 to. these."
Assure thee, king, 'twill light on thee at last ;
And when proud Spain hopes soundly to prevail,
The time may come that thou and thine shall fail.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.
Enter Abdelmelec, Muly Mahamet Seth, Aroerd
Zareo, and train.
Abdelm. The Portugal, led with deceiving hope,
Hath rais'd his power, and receiv'd our foe
With honourable welcomes and regard,
And left his country-bounds, and hither bends
In hope to help Mahamet to a crown,
And chase us hence, and plant this Negro-Moor,
That clads* himself in coat of hammer'd steel
To heave us from the honour we possess.
But, for I have myself a soldier been,
I have, in pity to the Portugal,
Sent secret messengers to counsel him.
As for the aid of Spain, whereof they hop'd,
We have despatch'd our letters to their prince,
To crave that in a quarrel so unjust,
He that entitled is the Catholic king,
Would not assist a careless Christian prince.
And, as by letters we are let to know,
Our offer of the seven holds we made
He thankfully receives with all conditions,
Differing in mind [as] far from all his words
And promises to King Sebastian,
As we would wish, or you, my lords, desire.
Ar. Zareo. What resteth, then, but Abdelmelec
may
Beat back this proud invading Portugal,
And chastise this ambitious Negro-Moor
With thousand deaths for thousand damned
deeds 1
Abdelm. Forward, Zareo, and ye manly
Moors ! —
Sebastian, see in time unto thyself :
If thou and thine misled do thrive amiss,
Guiltless is Abdelmelec of thy blood. [Exeunt.
SCENE III.
Enter Don de Menysis, with Captains and others.
De Men. Captain [s],
We have received letters from the king,
That with such signs and arguments of love
• clads] See note t. P- 108, sec. col.
ACT III.
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
433
We entertain the King of Barbary,
That marcheth toward Tangier with his men,
The poor remainders* of those that fled from
Fess,
When Abdelmelec got the glorious day,
And stall'd himself in his imperial throne.
First Cap. Lord governor, we are in readiness
To welcome and receive this hapless king,
Chas'd from his land by angry Amurath;
And if the right rest in this lusty Moor,
Bearing a princely heart unvanquishable,
A noble resolution then it is
Iu brave Sebastian our Christian king,
To aid this Moor with his victorious arms,
Thereby to propagate religious truth,
And plant his springing praise in Africa.
Sec. Cap. But when arrives this brave
Sebastian,
To knit his forces with this manly Moor,
That both in one, and one in both, may join
In this attempt of noble consequence ?
Our men of Tangier long to see their king,
Whose princely face, that's t like the summer's
sun,
Glads all these hither parts of Barbary.
Be Men. Captains, he cometh hithenvard
amain,
Top and top-gallant, all in brave array :
The twenty -sixth day of June he left
The bay of Lisbon, and with all his fleet
At Cadiz happily he arriv'd in Spain
The eighth of July, tarrying for the aid
That Philip King of Spain had promised :
And fifteen days he there remain'd aboard,
Expecting when this Spanish force would come,
Nor stept ashore, as he were goiug still.
But Spain, that meant and minded nothing less,
Pretends a sudden fear and care to keep
His own from Amurath's fierce invasion,
And to excuse his promise to our king ;
For which he storms as great Achilles erst
Lying for want of wind in Aulis' J gulf,
And hoiseth up his sails and anchors weighs,
And hitherward he comes, and looks to meet
This manly Moor whose case he undertakes.
Therefore go we to welcome and receive,§
With cannon-shot and shouts of young and old,
This fleet of Portugals and troop of Moors.
[Exeunt.
* remainders] Qy. " remains " ?
t that's] The4to. "that."
J Aulis'] The4to. " Aldest."
§ receive] The 4to. " rescue." Compare, in the second
speech of this scene, —
" To welcome and receive this hapless king."
scenp; IV.
Trumpets sound, and chambers* are discharged, within.
Then enter King Sebastian, the Duke of Avero,
Lord Lodowick, Stukkley, &c ; the Moor, Cali-
polis, their Son, Jx.
K. Scb. Muly Mahamet, King of Barbary,
Well met, a ^.d welcome to our town of Tangier,
After this sudden shock and hapless war. —
Welcome, brave Queen of Moors : repose thee
here,
Thou and thy noble son. — And, soldiers all,
Repose you here in King Sebastian's town. —
Thus far in honour of thy name and aid,
Lord Mahamet, we have adventured,
To win for thee a kingdom, for ourselves
Fame, and performance of those promises
That in thy faith and royalty thou hast
Sworn to Sebastian King of Portugal ;
And thrive it so with thee as thou dost mean,
And mean thou so as thou dost wish to thrive .'
And if our Christ, for whom in chief we fight,
Hereby t' enlarge the bounds of Christendom,
Favour this war, and, as I do not doubt,
Send victory to light upon my crest,
Brave Moor, I will advance thy kingly son,
And with a diadem of pearl and gold
Adorn thy temples and enrich thy head.
The Moor. brave Sebastian, noble Portugal,
Renown'd and honour'd ever mayst thou be,
Triumpher over those that menace thee !
The hellish prince, grim Pluto, with his mace
Ding down my soul to hell, and with this soul
This son of mine, the honour of my house,
But I perform religiously to thee
That I have holily erst underta'en !
And that thy lords and captains may perceive
My mind in this single and pure to be, —
As pure as is the water of the brook, —
My dearest son to thee I do engage :
Receive him, lord, in hostage of my vow ;
For even my mind presageth to myself,
That in some slavish sort I shall behold
Him dragg'd along this running river shore,
A spectacle to daunt the pride of those
That climb aloft by force, and not by right
The Moor's Son. Nor can it otherwise befall the
man
That keeps his seat and sceptre all in fear ;
That wears his crown in eye of all the world,
Reputed theft and not inheritance.
What title, then, hath Abdelmelec here
To bar our father or his progeny ?
chambers] i. e. small pieces of cannon.
F F
434
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
ACT IV.
Right royal prince, hereof you make no doubt,
Agreeiug with your wholesome Christian laws :
Help, then, courageous lord, with hand and
sword,
To clear his way, whose lets* ai*e lawless men ;
And for this deed ye all shall be renown'd,
Reuown'd and chronicled in books of fame,
In books of fame, and characters of brass,
Of brass, nay, beaten gold : fight, then, for fame,
And find th' Arabian Muly Hamet here
Adventurous, bold, and full of rich reward.
Stuke. Brave boy, how plain this princely
mind in thf?e
Argues the height and honour of thy birth !
And well have I observ'd thy forwardness ; —
Which being tender'd by your majesty,
No doubt the quarrel, open'd by the mouth
Of this young prince impartially to us,
May animate and hearten all the host
To fight against the devil for Lord Mahamet.
K. Seb. True, Stukeley ; and eo freshly to my
mind wrong,
Hath this young prince reduc'd * his fatLer'a
That in good time I hope this honour's fire,
Kindled already with regard of right,
Bursts into open flames, and calls for wars,
Wars, wars, to plant the true-succeeding
prince. —
Lord Mahamet, I take thy noble son
A pledge of honour, and shall use him so. —
Lord Lodowick, and my good Lord of Avero,
See this young prince convey'd safe to Messegon,
And there accompanied as him fitteth best :
And to this war prepare ye more and less,
This rightful war, that Christians' God will bless.
[Exeunt.
ACT IT.
Enter the Presenter.
Now harden'd is this hapless heathen prince,
And strengthen'd by the arms of Portugal,
This Moor, this murderer of his progeny ;
And war and weapons now, and blood and
death,
Wait on the counsels of this cursed king ;
And to a bloody banquet he invites
The brave Sebastian and his noble peers.
Dumb-show. Enter to the bloody banquet.
In fatal hour arriv'd this peerless prince,
To lose his life, his life, and many live3
Of lusty men, courageous Portugals,
Drawn by+ ambitious golden looks.
Let fame of him no wrongful censure sound ;
Honour was object of his thoughts, ambition
was his ground. [Exit.
SCENE I.
Enter Abdflmelec, Celybin, Aroerd Zareo, and others.
Abddm. Now tell me, Celybin, what doth the
enemy ?
* W»] i. e. impediments.
t Drawn by, &c] Qy. "Drawn hither by ambition's
gulden hooks"? (In the 4to. "Drawn" is spelt
" Driweu " : but even if we pronounce it as a dissyl-
lable, the metre will remain imperfect.)
Cel. The enemy, dread lord, hath left the
town
Of Arzil with a thousand soldiers arm'd,
To guard his fleet of thirteen hundred sail ;
And mustering of his men before the walls,
He found he had two thousand armfed horse,
And fourteen thousand men that serve on foot,
Three thousand pioners,+ and a thousand coach-
men,
Besides a number almost numberless
Of drudges, negroes, slaves, and muleters, +
Horse-boys, laundresses, and courtezans,
And fifteen hundred waggons full of stuff
For noblemen brought up in delicate.
Abdelm,. Alas, good king, thy foresight hath
been small,
To come with women into Barbary,
With laundresses,§ with baggage, and with
trash,
Numbers unfit to multiply thy host.
Cel. Their payment in the camp is passing
slow,
And victuals scarce, that many faint and die.
* reduc'd] i. e. brought back,
t pioners] See note J, p. 164, first col.
; vuletera] i. e. muUteers. So iu Shakespeare's Antony
and Cleopatra, act iii. so. 7, —
" Your mariners are muleters, reapers, people
Ingross'd by swift impress."
§ laundresses] The 4to. "landrcsse. '
ACT IV.
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
435
Abdelm. But whithor rnarcheth he in all this
haste 1
Cel. Some think he* marcheth hitherward,
And means to take this city of Alcazar.
Abdelm. Unto Alcazar? uucoustant chance!
Cel. The brave and valiant King of Portugal
Quarters his power in four battalions,
Afront the which, to welcome us withal,
Are six and thirty roaring-pieces plac'd :
The first, consisting of light-armed horse
And of the garrisons from Tangier brought,
Is led by Alvaro Peres de Tavero ;
The left or middle battle, of Italians
And German horsemen, Stukeley doth command,
A warlike Englishman sent by the Pope,
That vainly calls himself Marquis of Ireland;
Alonso Aquilaz conducts the third, —
That wing of German soldiers most consists ;
The fourth legion is none but Portugals,
Of whom Lodevico Caesar hath the chiefestf
charge :
Besides there stand J six thousand horse
Bravely attir'd, prest § where need requires.
Thus have I told your royal majesty
How he is plac'd to brave us in the fight. ||
Abdelm. But where 's our nephew, Muly Maha-
met?
Cel. He marcheth in the middle, guarded about
With full five hundred harquebuze^f on foot,
And twice three thousand needless armed pikes.
Ar. Zareo. Great sovereign, vouchsafe to hear
me speak,
And let Zareo's counsel now prevail :
Whilst time doth serve, and that these Christians
dare
Approach the field with warlike ensigns spread,
Let us in haste with all our furces meet,
And hem them in, that not a man escape ;
So will they be advis'd another time
How they do touch the shore of Barbary.
Abdelm. Zareo, hear our resolution :
And thus our forces we will first dispose.
Hamet, my brother, with a thousand shot
On horse-back, and choice harquebuziers all,
Having ten thousand with ** spear and shield,
* Some think he, &c] Qy. "Something, my lord, he,"&c.t
t chit/est] An interpolation?
J Besides there stand, &c] Mutilated.
§ prest] i. e. ready.
|| to brave us in the fight] The 4to. " to braue his fight."
% harqucbuze] Is here (as Walker notices, Shakespeare's
Versification, <fcc, p. 260) a plural. (Spelt in the 4to.
" hargubuze ".)
** ten thousand with, &c] Qy. " ten thousand foot with,"
&C.1
Shall make the right wing of the battle up;
Zareo, you shall have in chai-ge the left,
Two thousand argolets * and ten thousand
horse ;
The main battle of harquebuze on foot,
And twenty thousand horsemen in their troops,
Myself, environ'd with my trusty guard
Of janizaries, fortunate in war ;+
And toward Arzil will we take our way.
If, then, our enemy will balk our force,
In God's name let him, it will be his best ;
But if be level at Alcazar walls,
Then beat him back with bullets as thick as
hail,
And make him know and rue his oversight,
That rashly seeks the ruiu of this land. [Exeunt.
SCENE II.
Enter Kino Sebastian, the Duke of Avero, Stukelet,
H erccles, and others.
K. Seb. Why, tell me, lords, why left ye
Portugal,
And cross'd the seas with us to Barbary ?
Was it to see the country and no more,
Or else to fly + before ye were assail'd ?
I am asham'd to think that such as you,
Whose deeds have been renowned heretofore,
Should slack in such an act of consequence :
We come to fight, and fighting vow to die,
Or else to win the thing for which we came.
Because Abdelmelec, as pitying us,
Sends messages to counsel quietness,
You stand amaz'd, and think it sound advice,
As if our enemy would wish us any § good :
No, let him know we scorn his courtesy,
And will resist his forces whatsoe'er.
Cast fear aside : myself will lead the way,
And make a passage with my conquering sword,
Knee-deep in blood of these accursed Moors ;
Aud they that love my honour, follow me.||
Were you as resolute as is your king,
Alcazar walls should fall before your face,
And all the force of this Barbarian lord
Should be confounded, were it ten times more.
* argolets] See note J, p. 423, sec. col.
t fortunate in war] After these words something has
dropt out.
t fly] The4to. "slay."
§ any] Inserted by the transcriber ?
|| And they that love my honour, follow me] Resembles a
line in Shakespeare's Richard III., act lii. sc. 4, —
" The rest, that love me, rise and follow me."
r f 2
436
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
AOT IV.
Avero. So well become these words a kingly
mouth,
That are of force to make a coward fight ;
But when advice and prudent foresight
Is joined with such magnanimity,
Trophies * of victory and kingly spoils
Adorn his crown, his kingdom, and his fame.
Here. We have descried upon the mountain-
tops
A hugy t company of invading Moors ;
And they, my lord, as thick as winter's hail,
Will fall upon our heads at unawares :
Best, then, betimes t' avoid this gloomy storm ;
It is in vain to strive with such a stream.
Enter the Moor.
The Moor. Behold, thrice-noble lord, uncall'd
I come
To counsel where necessity commands ;
And honour of undoubted victory
Muke3 me exclaim upon this dastard flight.
Why, King Sebastian, wilt thou now foreslow,+
And let so great a glory slip thy hands 1
Say you do march unto Tarissa now,
The forces of the foe are come so nigh,
That he will let § the passage of the river ;
So unawares you will be fore'd to fight.
But know, king, and you, thrice-valiant
lords,
Few blows will serve. I ask but only this,
That with your power you march into the
field;
For now is all the army resolute
To leave the traitor helpless in the fight,
And ily to me as to their rightful prince.
Some horsemen have already led the way,
And vow the like for their companions :
The host is full of tumult and of fear.
Then as you come to plant me in my seat,
And to enlarge your fame in Africa,
Now, now or never, bravely execute
Your resolution sound and honourable,
And end this war together with his life
That doth usurp the crown with tyranny.
K. Seb. Captains, you hear the reasons of the
king,
Which so effectually have piere'd mine ears,
That I am fully resolute to fight ;
« Trophies] The 4 to. "Troupes."
t hugy) Seo note ||, p. 424, sec. col.
J foreslow] i. e. delay.
{ id J i. e. hinder.
And who refuseth now to follow me,
Let him be ever counted cowardly.
Avero. Shame be his share that flies when
kings do fight !
Avero lays his life before your feet.
Stuke. For my part, lords, I cannot sell my
blood
Dearer than in the company of kings.
[Exeunt all except the Moor.
The Moor. Now have I set these Portugais
a-work
To hew a way for me unto the crown,
Or with their weapons here to dig their * graves.
You bastards of the Night and Erebus,+
Fiends, Furies, hags that fight in beds of steel, J
Range through this army with your iron
whips,
Drive forward to this deed this Christian
crew,
And let me triumph in the tragedy,
Though it be seal'd and honour'd with the §
blood
Both of the Portugal and barbarous Moor.
Ride, Nemesis, ride in thy fiery cart,
And sprinkle gore amongst these men of war,
That either party, eager of revenge,
May honour thee with sacrifice of death ;
And having bath'd thy chariot-wheels in blood,
Descend and take to thy tormenting hell
The mangled body of that traitor-king
That scorns the power and force of Portugal :
* their their] The 4to. "your
your."
t You bastards of the Night and Erebus, &c] The 4to.
"You dastards of", &c. — One of the passages which may
be cited as going far to prove that, in the opening of
Milton's L' Allegro, —
"Hence, loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born," — ■
"Cerberus" is a misprint for "Erebus."
X Fiends, Furies, hags that fight in beds of steel, &e.| The
4to. "Fiends, Fairies, hags, &c. — This is adduced by Mr.
Halliwell to support the reading of the old copies in
Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, act iv. so. 2, —
"A fiend, a. fairy, pitiless and rough." <Src. :
but, even supposing that "fairy" may stand ill the line
just quoted, it is quite evident from the context that
here Pcele must have written "Furies." — The Rev. J.
Mitford, Gent. Mag. for Feb., 1833, p. 103, remarks on
the present passage; "The editor very properly would
substitute ' Furies ' for ' Fairies ' ; but how do they fight
' in beds of steel ' We propose to read,
" ' Fiends, Furies, hags that fight with bats of steel,' " —
a most wanton alteration : compare, iu p. 425, first col.,
" whereas they lie
In cave as dark as hell and beds of steel,
The Furies," <fcc.
§ the] The4to. "my."
ACT V.
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
437
Then let the earth discover to his ghost
Such tortures as usurpers feel below ;
Rack'd let him be in proud Ixion's wheel,
Pin'd let him be with Tantalus' endless thirst,
Prey let him be to Tityus'* greedy bird,
Wearied with Sisyphus' immortal toil :
And lastly for revenge, for deep revenge,
Whereof thou goddess and deviser art,
Damn'd let him be, damn'd, and condemn'd to
bear
All torments, tortures, plagues, and pains of
hell. [Exit.
ACT V.
Enter the Presenter.
Ill be to him that so much ill bethinks ;
And ill betide this foul ambitious Moor,
Whose wily trains with smoothest course of
speech
Have tied and tangled in a dangerous war
The fierce and manly King of Portugal.
[Lightning and thwnder.
Now throw the heavens forth their lightning-
flames,
And thunder over Afric's fatal fields :
Blood will have blood, foul murder scape no
scourge.
Enter Fame, like an angel, and hangs the crowns
upon a tree.
At last descendeth Fame, as Irist
To finish fainting Dido's dying life ;
Fame from her stately bower doth descend,
And on the tree, as fruit new-ripe to fall,
Placeth the crowns of these unhappy kings,
That erst she kept in eye of all the world.
[Here the blazing star.
Now fiery stars, and streaming comets blaze,
That threat the earth and princes of the same.
[Fireworks.
Fire, fire about the axletree of heaven
Whirls round, and from the foot of Cassiope,
In fatal hour, consumes these fatal crowns.
[One crown falls.
Down falls the diadem of Portugal.
[The other crown falls.
The crowns of Barbary and kingdoms fall ; %
Ay me, that kingdoms may not stable stand !
And now approaching near the dismal day,
The bloody day wherein the battles join,
Monday the fourth of August, seventy -eight,
* Tityus'] The 4 to. "Tisons."
t Iris] Qy. is "Iris " a trisyllable here ? or has a word
da-opt out ?
} The crowns of Barbary and kingdoms fall] Qy. " The
crown of Barbary and Morocco falls " (the word "king-
doms " having crept in here from the next line) ?
The sun shines wholly on the parched earth,
The brightest planet in the highest heaven.
The heathens, eager bent against their foe,
Give onset with great ordnance to the war ;
The Christians with great noise of cannon-shot
Send angry onsets * to the enemy.
Give ear, and hear how war begins his song
With dreadful clamours, noise, and trumpets'
sound. [Exit.
SCENE I.
Alarums, and chambers t discharged, within : then enter to
the battle; and the Moors, who form Abdelmelec's
army, fly.
Skirmish still : then enter Abdelmelec in his chair, Argerd
Zabeo, and train.
Abdelm. Say on, Zareo, tell me all the news,
Tell me what Fury rangeth in our camp,
That hath enfore'd our Moors to turn their backs;
Zareo, say what chance did bode this ill,
What ill enfore'd this dastard cowardice ? 1
Ar. Zareo. My lord, such chance as wilful war
affords ;
Such chances and misfortunes as attend
On him, the god of battle and of arms.
My lord, when with our ordnance fierce we sent
Our Moors with smaller shot, as thick as hail
Follows apace, to charge the PorUigal ;
The valiant duke, the devil of Avero,
The baue of Barbary, fraughted full of ire,
Breaks through the ranks, and with five hundred
horse,
All men-at-arms, forward and full of might,
Assaults the middle wing, and puts to flight
Eight thousand harquebuze + that serv'd on foot,
A ud twenty thousand Moors with spear and shield, §
And therewithal the honour of the day.
* onsets] Qy. "answers"?
t chambers] See note *, p. 433, sec. col.
} harquebuze] See note %. p. 435, first col.
§ with s]>ear and shield] After these words a line scorns
to be wanting.
438
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
ACT V.
Abdelm. Ah, Abdelinelec, dost thou live to hear
This bitter process of this first attempt? —
Labour, my lords,* to renew our force
Of fainting Moors, and fight it to the last. —
My horse, Zareo ! — 0, the goal is lost,
The goal is lost !— Thou King of Portugal,
Thrice-happy chance it is for thee and thine
That heavenf abates my strength, and calls me
hence. —
My sight doth fail ; my soul, my feeble soul
Shall be releas'd from prison on this earth :
Farewell, vain world ! for I have play'd my part.
[Dies.
A long skirmish; and then enter Mulv Mahamet Skth.
Muly Mah. Seth. Brave Abdelinelec, thou
thrice-noble lord !
Not such a wound was given to Barbary,
Had twenty hosts of men been put to sword,
As death, pale death, with fatal shaft hath given.
Lo, dead is he, my brother and my king,
Whom I might have reviv'd with news I bring .'
Ar. Zareo. His honours and his types he hath
Unto the world, and of a manly man, [resigu'd
Lo, in a twinkling,! a senseless stock we see I
Muly Mah. Seth. You trusty soldiers of this
warlike king,
Be counsell'd now by us in this advice ;
Let not his death be bruited in the camp,
Lest with the sudden sorrow of the news
The array wholly be discomfited.
My Lord Zareo, thus I comfort you ;
Our Moors have bravely borne themselves in fight,
Likely to get the honour of the day,
If aught may gotten be where loss is such.
Therefore, in this apparel as he died,
My noble brother will we here advance,
And set him in his chair with cunning props,
That our Barbarians may behold their king,
And think he doth repose him in his tent.
Ar. Zareo. Right politic and good is youradvice.
Muly. Mah. Seth.§ Go, then, to see it speedily
perform'd. —
[The body of Abdelmelec is propped up in his chair.
Brave lord, if Barbary recover this,
Thy soul with joy will sit and see the fight.
[Exeunt. ||
* lords] See note *, p. 431, first col.
t heaven] The 4to. "heaucns."
| twinkling] Qy. "twink"?
§ Muly Mah. Seth.] Not in the 4to.
|| Exeunt] No change of scone is supposed here. The
dead Abdelmelec has just been "set in his chair with
cunning propB " ; and presently Muly Mahamet Seth,
having returned victorious, addresses the body, —
" Now hast thou sit u m a trance, and seen," <fcc.
Alarums within: enter to the battle; and the Christians
fly : the Duke ok Avero is slain. Enter Kino Se-
bastian and Stukeley.
K. Seb. Seest thou not, Stukeley, Stukeley,
seest thou not
The great dishonour done to Christendom ?
Our cheerful onset cross'd in springing hope ;
The brave and mighty prince, Duke of Avero,
Slain in my sight : now joy betide his ghost,
For like a lion did he bear himself !
Our battles are all now disordered,
And by our horses' strange retiring-back
Our middle wing of foot-men over-rode.
Stukeley, alas, I see my oversight !
False-hearted Mahamet, now, to my cost,
I see thy treachery, warn'd to beware
A face so full of fraud and villany.
Alarums within,* and they run out, and two set upon
Stukeley, and he drives them in. Then enter the
Moor and his Boy, flying.
The Moor. Villain, a horse !
Boy. 0, my lord, if you return, you die !
The Moor. Villain, I say, give me a horse to fly,
To swim the river, villaiu, and to fly. [Exit Boy.
Where shall I find some unfrequented place,
Some uncouth walk, where I may curse my fill,
My stars, my dam, my planets, and my nurse,
The fire, the air, the water, and the earth,
All causes that have thus conspird in one,
To nourish and preserve me to this shame ]
Thou that wert at my birth predominate,
Thou fatal star, what planet e'er thou be,
Spit out thy poison bad, and all the ill
That fortune, fate, or heaven, may bode a man.
Thou nurse infortunate, guilty of all,
Thou mother of my life, that brought'st me forth,
Curs'd mayst thou be for such a cursed son !
Curs'd be thy son with every curse thou hast !
Ye elements of whom consists this clay,
This mass of flesh, this cursed crazed corpse,
Destroy, dissolve, disturb, aud dissipate,
What water, [fire,] earth, and air congeal'd.
Ala/rwms within, and re-enter the Boy.
Boy. O, my lord,
These ruthless Moors pursue you at the heels,
And come amain to put you to the sword !
The Moor. A horse, a horse, villain, a horse I
That I may take the river straight and fly.
Boy. Here is a horse, my lord,
As swiftly pae'd as Pegasus ;
Mount thee thereon, and save thyself by flight.
* Alarums within, &c] So the 4to., and unintelligibly
enough.
ACT V.
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR,
439
The Moor. Mount nie I will : but may I never
The river,* till I be reveng'd [pass
Upou thy soul, accursed Abdelmelec !
If not on earth, yet when we meet in hell,
Before grim Minos, Rhadamanth, and sEacus,
The combat will I crave upon thy ghost,
And drag thee thorough the loathsome pools
Of Lethe, Styx, and fiery Phlcgethou. [Exeunt.
Alarums within: re-enter Stukelet wounded, followed Oy
Hercules and Jonas.
Here. Stand, traitor, stand, ambitious English-
man,
Proud Stukeley, stand, and stir not ere thou die.
Thy forwardness to follow wrongful arms,
Aud leave our famous expedition erst
Intended by his Holiness for Ireland,
Foully hath here betray 'd and tied us all
To ruthless fury of our heathen foe ;
For which, as we are suref to die,
Thou shalt pay satisfaction with thy blood.
Stuke. Avaunt, base villains ! twit ye me with
Or infamy of this injurious war? [shame
When he that is the judge of right and wrong
Determines battle as him pleaseth best^
But sith my stars bode me this tragic end,
That I must perish by these barbarous Moors,
Whose weapons have made passage for my soul
That breaks from out the prison of my breast ;
Ye proud malicious dogs of Italy,
Strike on, strike down this body to the earth,,
Who.-e mounting mind stoops to no feeble stroke.
Jon. Why suffer we this Englishman to live ? —
[They stab Sxukl;ley.
Villain, bleed on ; thy blood in channels run,
And meet with, those whom thou to death hast
done. [Exeunt Hercules and Jonas.
Sluhe. Thus Stukeley, slain with many a deadly
Dies in these desert fields of Africa. [stab,
Hark, friends; and with the story of my life
Let me beguile the torment of my death.
In England's London, lordings, was I born,
On that brave bridge, the bar that thwarts the
Thames.
My golden days, my younger careless years,
Were when I touch'd the height of Fortune's
wheel,
And liv'd in affluence of wealth and ease.
Thus in my country carried long aloft,
A discontented humour drave me thence
To cross the seas to Ireland, then to Spain.
* The river, &c] This, and the last line but one of the
speech, mutilated.
t are sure'] Qy. "are all now sure"? car" are aH sure"?
(for " sure " is frequently a dissyllabic.)
There had I welcome and right royal pay
Of Philip, whom some call the Catholic King :
There did Tom Stukeley glitter all in gold,
Mounted upon his jennet white as snow,
Shining as Phcebus iu King Philip's court:
There, like a lord, famous Don Stukeley liv'd,
For so they call'd me in the court of Spain,
Till, for a blow I gave a bishop's man,
A strife gau rise between his lord and me,
For which we both were banish'd by the king.
From thence to Rome rides Stukeley all aflaunt :
Receiv'd with royal welcomes of the Pope,
There was I grae'd by Gregory the Great,
That then created me Marquis of Ireland.
Short be my tale, because my life is short.
The coast of Italy aud Rome I left :
Then was I made lieutenant general
Of those small forces that for Ireland went,
And with my companies embark'd at Ostia.*
My sails I spread, and with these men of war
Iu fatal hour at Lisbon we arriv'd.
From thence to this, to this hard exigent,.
Was Stukeley driven, to fight or else to die,
Dar'd to the field, that never could endure
To hear God Mars his drum but he must march.
Ah, sweet Sebastian, hadst thou been welladvis'd,
Thou mightst have manag'd arms successfully !
But from our cradles we were marked all
And destinate to die in Afric here.
Stukeley, the story of thy life is told;
Here breathe thy last, and bid thy friends fare-
well :
And if thy csuntry's kindness be so much,.
Then let thy country kindly ring thy knell.
Now go and in that bed of honour die,
Where brave Sebastian's breathless corse doth lie.
Here endeth Fortune rulet and bitter rage;
Here ends Tom Stukeley's pilgrimage. J [Diis.
Re-enter Muly Mahaxiet Seth, Argerd Zareo, and train,
with drums and trumpets.
Mitly Mah. Seth. Retreat is sounded through
our camp, and now
Fiom battle's fury cease our conquering Moors.
Pay thanks to heaven with sacrificing fire,
Alcazar, and ye towns of Barbary. —
Now hast thou eit as in a trance, and seen,
To thy soul's joy and honour of thy house,
The trophies and the triumphs of thy men,
* Ostia] The 4to. " Austria."
t Here endeth Fortune rule, &c] i. e. Here Fortune
endeth rule, &c. : but perhaps the author wrote " Hart
endeth Fortune's rule," <fec.
J Stukeley's pilgrimage] Qy. " Stukeley's earthly pilgrim
age " ?
440
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAR.
ACT V.
Great Abdelmelec ; and the god of kings
Hath made thy war successful by thy right,
His friends,* whom death and fates have ta'en
from thee.
Lo, this was he that was the people's pride,
And cheerful sunshine to his subjects all !
Now have him hence, f that royally he may
Be buried and embalmed as is meet.
Zareo, have you through the camp proclaim'd
As erst we gave in charge ?
Ar. Zareo. We have, my lord, and rich rewards
propos'd
For them that find the body of the king;
For by those guard[s] that had him in their charge
We understand that he was done to death,
And for his search two prisoners, Portugals,
Are set at large to find their royal king.
Muly Mah. Seth. But of the traitorous Moor
you hear no news
That fled the field and sought to swim the ford ?
Ar. Zareo. Not yet, my lord; but doubtless
God will tell
And with his finger point out where he haunts.
Muly Mah. Seth. So let it rest, and on this
This princely corse, [earth bestow
Till further for his funerals we provide.
Ar. Zareo. From him to thee as true-succeed-
ing prince,
With all allegiance and with honour's types,
In name of all thy people and thy land,
We give this kingly crown and diadem.
Muly Mah. Seth. We thank you all, and as my
lawful right,
With God's defence and yours, shall I [it] keep.
Enter two Portugals with the body of King Sebastian.
First Port. As gave your grace in charge, right
royal prince,
The fields and sandy plains we have survey'd,
And even among the thickest of his lords
The noble King of Portugal we found,
Wrapt in his colours coldly on the earth,
And done to death with many a mortal wound.
Muly Mah. Seth. Lo, here, my lords, this is
the earth and clay
Of him that erst was mighty King of Portugal ! —
There let him lie, and you for this be free
To make return from hence to Christendom.
Enter two Peasants, with the body of the Moor.
First Peas. Long live the mighty King of Bar-
bary !
* His friends, &c] Something is wanting before this
line.
+ Now have him hence, &c] But, from what presently
follows, it would seem that the body is not removed.
Muly Mah. Seth. Welcome, my friend : what
body hast thou there ?
First Peas. The body of th' ambitious enemy
That squander'd all this blood in Africa,
Whose malice sent so many souls to hell,
The traitor Muly Mahamet do I bring,
And for thy slave I throw him at thy feet.
Muly Mah. Seth. Zareo, give this man a rich
reward ;
And thanked be the god of just revenge,
That he hath given our foe into our hands,
Beastly, unarmed, slavish, full of shame. —
But say, how came this traitor to his end ?
First Peas. Seeking to save his life by shame-
ful flight,
He mounteth on a hot Barbarian horse,
And so in purpose to have pass'd the stream,
His headstrong steed throws him from out his
seat;
Where, diving oft for lack of skill to swim,
It was my chanee alone to see him drown'd,
Whom by the heels I dragg'd from out the pool,
And hither have him brought thus fil'd with mud.
Muly Mah. Seth. A death too good for such a
damned wretch :
But sith our rage and rigour of revenge
By violence of his end prevented is,
That all the world may learn by him t' avoid
To hale on princes to injurious war,
His skin we will bo parted from his flesh,
And being stiffen'd out and stuff* d with straw,*
So to deter and fear the lookers-on
From any such foul fact or bad attempt :
Away with him !
[Exeunt some with tlie body of the Moor.
And now, my lords,f for this Christian king :
My Lord Zareo, let it be your charge
To see the soldiers tread a solemn march,
Trailing their pikes and ensigns on the ground,
So to perform the prince's funerals. J
Mere endeth the tragical battle of A Icazar.
* stujf'd with straw] After these words a line (about
the stuffed skin being set up in some conspicuous place)
is certainly wanting.
t lords] See note *, p. 431, first col.
t the prince's funerals] In the two earlier eds. of Peele's
Works I printed "the princes' funerals", with a note,
" i. e. of Abdelmelec and Sebastian ", — wrongly, as I have
long since seen, and as Walker (in his recently published
Crit. Exam, of (lie text of Shakespeare, &c, vol. iii. p. 249)
points out. The word ' 'funerals " was formerly very often
applied to the funeral rites of an individual (compare,
a little before in this page, " his funerals " ) ; and here
" the prince's funerals " are the funeral rites of Sebastian :
"for," observes Walker, "the body of Abdelmelec would
naturally be reserved for more solemn obsequies."
The Old Wines Tale. A pleasant conceited Comedie, played by the Qneenes Maiesties players. Written by 6. P.
Printed at London by John Dauter, and are to be sold by Raph Hancocke, and John Hardie. 1695. 4to. The imprint
at the end is ;
Printed at London by John Danter, for Raph Hancocke, and, John Hardie, and are to be solde at the shop ouer against
Saint Giles his Church without Ciiplegate. 1595.
The Old Wives' Tale had sunk into complete oblivion, till Steevens (see Wooll's Life of J. Warton, p. 39S)
communicated to Reed the account of it which appe.ired in the Biographia Dramatica ; and it was afterwards
more particularly described by T. Warton in his editiou of Milton's Minor Poems.
"This very scarce and curious piece exhibits, among other parallel incidents, two Brothers wandering in quest
of their Sister, whom an Enchanter had imprisoned. This magician had learned his art from his mother Meroe,.
as Comus had been instructed by his mother Circe. The Brothers call out on the Lady's name, and Echo replies.
The Enchanter had given her a potion which suspends the powers of reason, and superinduces oblivion of herself.
The Brothers afterwards meet with an Old Man who is also skilled in magic ; and by listening to his soothsayings,
they recover their lost Sister. But not till the Enchanter's wreath had been torn from his head, his sword
wrested from his hand, a glass broken, and a light extinguished. The names of some of the characters as
Sacrapant, Chorebus, and others, are taken from the Orlando Furioso. The history of Meroe a witch, may be seen
in ' The xi. Bookes of the Golden Asse, containing the Metumorphosie of Lucius Apuleius interlaced with sundiie
pleasant and delectable Tales, &c. Translated out of Latin into English by William Adliugton, Loud. 1500.' See
Chap. iii. 'How Socrates in his returne from Macedony to Larissa was spoyled and robbed, and how he fell
acquainted with one Meroe a witch.' And Chap. iv. ' How Meroe the witch turned divers persons into miserable
beasts.' Of this book there were other editions in 1571, 1590, 1600, and 1639. All in quarto and the black letter.
The translator was of University College. See also Apuleius in the original. A Meroe is mentioned by Ausonius,
Epigr. xix." T. Warton, — Mil' on' s Poems upon stveral occasions, &c, pp. 135-6., ed. 1791. " There is another cir-
cumstance in this play taken from the old English Apuleius. It is where the Old Man every night is transformed
by our magician into a bear, recovering iu the daytime his natural shape." Id. p. 576. " That Milton had an eye on
this ancient drama, which might have been the favourite of his early youth, perhaps it may be at least affirmed
with as much credibility, as that he conceived the Paradise Lost from seeing a Mystery at Florence, written
by Andreini a Florentine in 1617, entitled Adamo." Id. p. 136.
An incident similar to that in this play of the two sisters going to the well and meeting with the golden head,
is to be found (as Mr. T. Rodd, one of the best-informed of booksellers, observes to me,) in a penny history called
the Tales of the Three Kings of Colchester.
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
Sacrapant.*
First Brother, named Calypha.
Second Brother, named Tbelea.
EUMEN1DES.
ERESTUS.
Lampriscus.
huanebango.
COREBUS.
WlGQEN.
Churchwarden.
Sexton.
Ghost of Jack.
Friar, Harvest-men, Furies, Fiddlers, Ac.
Delia, sister to Calypha and Theuba.
VENtxiA, betrothed to Erestus.
ZaNTII'PA, ) , , . . x
Celanta, I daughters to Lampriscos.
B ristess
Antic.
Frolic.
Fantastic.
Cluncit, a smith.
Madok, his wife.
Sacrapant] So Peele most probably chose to write this name : but the proper spelling is " Sampan t " 'as in
i riosto).
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
Enter Antic, Frolic, and Fantastic.
Ant. How now, fellow Frolic ! * what, all
amort ? t doth this sadness become thy madness ?
What though we have lost our way in the woods ]
yet never hang the head as though thou hadst no
hope to live till to-morrow ; for Fantastic and I
will warrant thy life to-night for twenty in the
hundred.
Fro. Antic, and Fantastic, as I am frolic
franion J never in all my life was I so dead slain.
What, to lose our way in the wood, without
either fire or caudle, so uncomfortable] caelum !
terra I maria ! Neptune !
Fan. Why makes thou it so strange, seeing
Cupid hath led our young master to the fair lady,
and she is the only saint that he hath sworn to
serve ]
Fro. What resteth, then, but we commit him
to his wench, and each of us take his stand up in
a tree, and sing out our ill fortune to the tune of
" man in desperation " ? §
Ant. Desperately spoken, fellow Frolic, in tlie
dark : but seeing it falls out thus, let us rehearse
the old proverb ;
" Three merry men,|| and three merry men,
And three merry men be we ;
I in the wood, and thou on the ground,
And Jack sleeps in the tree."
* Frolic] The 4to. (and here only) " Franticke."
t all amort] More properly alamort, i. e. dejected.
X franiori] i. e. idle fellow : in a subsequent scene
Wiggen says that Jack was " the frolic 'stfranion amongst
you."
§ to the tune of " man in desperation"] "By this
straw and thrid, I sware you are no gentleman, no pro-
per man, no honest man, to make me sing, man in
desperation." Nash's Summer's Last Will and Testament,
lCOO, Sig. E 3.
|| Three merry men, &c] This ballad is alluded to in
Shakespeare's Twelfth- Night, Act ii. bc. 3, and in other old
plays.
Fan. Hush ! a dog in the wood, or a wooden*
dog ! comfortable hearing ! I had even as lief
the chamberlain of the White Horsef had called
me up to bed.
Fro. Either hath this trotting cur gone out of
his circuit, or else are we near some village, which
should not be far off, for I perceive the glim-
mering of a glow-worm, a candle, or a cat's eye,
my life for a halfpenny !
Enter Clunch with a lantern and candle.
In the name of my own father, be thou ox or ass
that appearest, tell us what thou art.
Clunch. What am I ! why, I am Clunch the
smith. What are you ? what make you in my
territories at this time of the night?
Ant. What do we make, dost thou ask] why,
we make faces for fear ; such as if thy mortal
eyes could behold, would make thee water the
long seams of thy side slops,J smith.
Fro. And, in faith, sir, unless your hospitality
do relieve us, we are like to wander, with a
sorrowful heigh-ho, among the owlets and hob-
goblins of the forest. Good Vulcan, for Cupid's
sake that hath cozened us all, befriend us as
thou mayst ; and command us howsoever, where-
soever, whensoever, in whatsoever, for ever aud
ever.
Clunch. Well, masters, it seems to me you
have lost your way in the wood : in consideration
* wooden] i. e. mad. Let us not fail to observe Fantas-
tic's precious pun, "a dog in the wood, or a wooden
[wood in] dog."
t Vie White Horse] Was doubtless well-known to our
author : " George was invited one night by certain of his
friends to supper at the White Horse in Friday Street,"
&c. : see among Peele's Jests (appended to the present
volume) the Jest "How George helped his friend to a
supper."
I side slops] i. e. long wide breeches or trousers.
446
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
whereof, if you will go with Clunch to his cottage,
you shall have house-room and a good lire to sit
by, although we have no bedding to put you in.
All. blessed smith, bountiful Clunch !
Clunch. For your further entertainment, it
shall be as it may be, so and so.
[A doy barks within.
Hark I* this is Ball my dog, that bids you all
welcome in his own language : come, take heed
for stumbling on the threshold. — Open door,
Madge ; take in guests.
Enter Madge.
Madge. Welcome, Clunch, and good fellows all,
that come with my good-man : for my good-man's
sake, come on, sit down : here is a piece of cheese,
and a pudding of my own making.
Ant. Thanks, gammer : a good example for
the wives of our town.
Fro. Gammer, thou and thy good-man sit
lovingly together ; we come to chat, and not to
eat.
Clunch. Well, masters, if you will eat nothing,
take away. Come, what do we to pass away the
time ] Lay a crab in the fire to roast for lamb's-
wool.+ What, shall we have a game at trump or
ruff£ to drive away the time 1 how say you ?
Fan. This smith leads a life as merry as a king
with Madge his wife. Sirrah Frolic, I am sure
thou art not without some round or other : no
doubt but Clunch can bear his part.
Fro. Else think you me ill brought up : so set
to it when you will. [.They sing.
* Hark! &c] Here the audience were to suppose a
change of scene, — that the stage now represented the
Smith's cottage. See note *, p. 160, first col., and note *,
p. 237, first col.
\ lamb's-wonl] A drink made of strong ale and the pulp
of roasted crab-apples.
{ trump nr ruff] Mr. Douce and other writers inform
us, that trump (which greatly resembled our modern
whist) was only a different name for ruff; but several
passages, besides that in our text, might be quoted to
show that they were sometimes considered as distinct
games : e. g. ;
" ]{uffe,n\um, trump, noddy, whisk, hole, sant, new-cut."
Taylor's Motto, Workes, 1630. p. 54.
Since I wrote the preceding part of this note, Mr.
J. P. Collier has supplied me with the following illustra-
tion ; —
" And to confoundc all, to amende their baddo games,
having never a good carde in their handes, and leaving
the ancient game of England (Trumpe), where every
coatfl and suto are sorted in their degree, are running to
Ruffe, where the greatest sorto of the suto carrieth away
the game." — Martins Months Minde, 1.089, — Epistk to the
Reader.
SONG.
Whonas the rye reach to the chin,
And chopcherry, chopcherry ripe within,
Strawberries swimming in the cream.
And school-boys playing in the stream ;
Then, O, then, O, then. O, my true-love said,
Till that time come again
She could not live a maid.
Ant. This sport does well ; but methinks, gam-
mer, a merry winter's tale would drive away the
time trimly : come, I am sure you are not with-
out a score.
Fan. I'faith, gammer, a tale of an hour long
were as good as an hour's sleep.
Fro. Look you, gammer, of the giant and the
king's daughter, and I know not what : I have
seen the day, when I was a little one, you might
have drawn me a mile after you with such a die-
course.
Madge. Well, since you be so importunate, my
good-man shall fill the pot and get him to bed ;
they that ply their work must keep good hours :
one of you go lie with him ; he is a clean-skinned
man I tell you, without either spavin or wind-
gall: so I am content to drive away the time with
an old wives' winter's tale.
Fan. No better hay in Devonshire ; o' my
word, gammer, I'll be one of your audience.
Fro. And I another, that's flat.
Ant. Then must I to bed with the good-man. —
Bona nox, gammer. — Good* night, Frolic.
Clunch. Come on, my lad, thou shalt take thy
unnatural rest with me. [Exit with AntiO.
Fro. Yet this vantage shall we have of them
in the morning, to be ready at the sight thereof
extempore.
Madge. Now this bargain, my masters, must I
make with you, that you will say hum and ha to
my tale, so shall I know you are awake.
Both. Content, gammer, that will we do.
Madge. Once upon a time, there was a king, or
a lord, or a duke, that had a fair daughter, the
fairest that ever was ; as white as snow and as
red as blood : and once upon a time his daughter
was stolen away : and he sent all his men to seek
out his daughter ; and he sent so long, that he
sent all his men out of his laud.
Fro. Who drest his dinner, then ?
Madge. Nay, either hear my tale, or kiss my
tail.
Fan. Well said ! on with your tale, gammer.
Madge. Lord, I quite forgot ! there was a
* Good] The4to. "God."
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
447
conjurer, and this conjurer could do any thing,
and he turned himself into a great dragon, and
carried the king's daughter away in his mouth to
a castle that he made of stone ; and there he
kept her 1 know not how long, till at last all the
king's men went out so long that her two brothers
went to seek her. 0, I forget ! she (he, I would
say,) turned a proper* young man to a bear in
the night, and a man in the day, and keeps by a
crosst that parts three several ways ; and he made
hia lady run mad,— Gods me bones, who comes
here 1
Enter the Two Brothers.
Fro. Soft, gammer, here some come to tell
your tale for you.
Fan. Let them alone ; let us hear what they
will say.
First Fro. Upon these chalky cliffs of Albion
We are arrived now with tedious toil ;
And compassing the wide world round about,
To seek our sister, to seek fairj Delia forth,
Yet cannot we so much as hear of her.
Second Fro. fortune cruel, cruel and unkind !
Unkind in that we cannot find our sister,
Our sister, hapless in her cruel chance. —
Soft ! who have we here ?
Enter Erestus § at the cross, stooping to gather.
First Fro. Now, father, God be your speed !
what do you gather there ]
Erest. Hips and haws, and sticks and straws,
and things that I gather on the ground, my son.
First Fro. Hips and haws, and sticks and
straws ! why, is that all your food, father ?
Erest. Yea, son.
Second Bro. Father, here is an alms-penny for
me ; and if I speed in that I go for, I will give
thee as good a gown of grey as ever thou didst
wear.
First Fro. And, father, here is another alms-
penny for me ; and if I speed in my journey, I
will give thee a palmer's staff of ivory, and a
scallop-shell of beaten gold.
Erest. Was she fair ? II
* proper] i. e. handsome.
t and keeps by a cross, <Src] i. e. (unless we ought to
read "and keeps him by a cross,' &c.) and he (the trans-
formed young man) ke> ps by a cross, &c. Compare post,
p. 458, first col. ; "for, master, this conjurer took the
shape of the old man that kept the cross," &c.
t fair] Qy dele ?
5 Erestus'] The 4to. " Senex."
|| Was she fair ?] Something, which suggested this
question, has dropt out.
Second Fro. Ay, the fairest for white, and the
purest for red, as the blood of the deer, or the
driven snow.
Erest. Then hark well, and mark well, my old
spell : —
Be not afraid of every stranger ;
Start not aside at every danger ;
Things that seem are not the same ;
Blow a blast at every flame;
For when one flame of fire goes out,
Then come your wishes well about :
If any ask who told you this good,
Say, the white bear of England's wood.
First Fro. Brother, heard you not what the old
man said?
Be not afraid of every stranger ;
Start not aside for every danger ;
Things that seem are not the same ;
Blow a blast at every flame ;
[For when one flame of fire goes out,
Then come your wishes well about :]
If any ask who told you this good,
Say, the white bear of England's wood.
Second Fro. Well, if this do us any good,
Well fare the white bear of England's wood !
[Exeunt the Two Brothers.
Erest. Now sit thee here, and tell a heavy tale,
Sad in thy mood, and sober in thy cheer ;
Here sit thee now, and to thyself relate
The hard mishap of thy most wretched state.
In Thessaly I liv'd in sweet content,
Until that fortune wrought my overthrow ;
For there I wedded was unto a dame,
That liv'd in honour, virtue, love, and fame.
But Sacrapaut, that curs&d sorcerer,
Being besotted with my beauteous love,
My dearest love, my true betrothed wife,
Did seek the means to rid me of my life.
But worse than this, he with his 'chanting
spells
Did turn me straight unto an ugly bear ;
And when the sun doth settle in the west,
Then I begin to don my ugly hide :
And all the day I sit, as now you see,
And speak in riddles, all inspir'd with rage,
Seeming an old and miserable man,
And yet I am in April of my age.
Enter Venelia mad ; and goes in again.
See where Venelia, my betrothed love,
Runs madding, all enrag'd, about the woods,
All by his cursed and enchanting spells. —
But here ccmes Lampriscus, my discontented
neighbour.
448
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
Enter Lampriscub with a pot of honey.
How now, neighbour ! you look toward the
ground as well as I : you muse on something.
Lamp. Neighbour, on nothing but on the mat-
ter I so often moved to you : if you do anything
for charity, help me; if for neighbourhood or
brotherhood, help me : never was one so cum-
bered as is poor Lampriscus ; and to begin, I
pray receive this pot of honey, to mend your
fare.
Erest. Thanks, neighbour, set it down ; honey
is always welcome to the bear. And now, neigh-
bour, let me hear the cause of your coming.
Lamp. I am, as you know, neighbour, a man
unmarried, and lived so unquietly with my two
wives, that I keep every year holy the day
wherein I buried them both : the first was on
Saint Andrew's day, the other on Saint Luke's.
Erest. And now, neighbour, you of this country
say, your custom is out. But on with your tale,
neighbour.
Lamp. By my first wife, whose tongue wearied
me alive, and sounded in my ears like the clapper
of a great bell, whose talk was a continual torment
to all that dwelt by her or lived nigh her, you
have heard me say I had a handsome daughter.
Erest. True, neighbour.
Lamp. She it is that afflicts me with her con-
tinual clamours, and hangs on me like a bur :
poor she is, and proud she is ; as poor as a sheep
new-shorn, and as proud of her hopes as a pea-
cock of her tail well-grown.
Erest. Well said, Lampriscus ! you speak it
like an Englishman.
Lamp. As curst as a wasp, and as froward as a
child new-taken from the mother's teat ; she is
to my age, as smoke to the eyes, or as vinegar to
the teeth.
Erest. Holily praised, neighbour. As much
for the next.
Lamp. By my other wife I had a daughter so
hard-favoured, so foul,* and ill-faced, that I
think a gi-ove full of golden trees, and the leaves
of rubies and diamonds, would not be a dowry
answerable to her deformity.
Erest. Well, neighbour, now you have spoke,
hear me speak : send them to the well for the
water of life ; there shall they find their fortunes
unlooked for. Neighbour, farewell.
Lamp. Farewell, and a thousand. f [Exit Eees-
* foul] i. e. ugly.
t Farewell, and a thousand] i. e. a thousand times fare-
well. 80 Middloton ; "let me hug thoe : farewell, and
a thousand." A Trick to catch the old one, — Works, vol. ii.
tus.] And now goeth poor Lampriscus to put in
execution this excellent counsel. [Exit.
Fro. Why, this goes round without a fiddling-
stick : but, do you hear, gammer, was this the
man that was a bear in the night and a man in
the day ?
Madge- Ay, this ia he ; and this man that
came to him was a beggar, and dwelt upon a
green.* But soft ! who come here? 0, these
arc the harvest-men; ten to one they sing a song
of mowing.
Enter the Harvest-men a-singing, with this song double
repeated.
All ye that lovely lovers be,
Pray you for me :
Lo, here we come a-sowing, a-sowing,
And sow sweet fruits of love ;
In your sweet hearts well may it prove !
[Exeunt.
Enter Hdanebanqo with his two-hand sword, and
Corebus. f
Fan. Gammer, what is he?
Madge. 0, this is one that ia going to the con-
jurer : let him alone, hear what he says.
Huati. Now, by Mars and Mercury, Jupiter
and Jauus, Sol and Saturnus, Venus and Vesta,
Pallas and Proserpina, and by the honour of my
house, Polimackeroeplacidus, it is a wonder to
see what this love will make silly fellows adven-
ture, even in the wane of their wits and infancy
of their discretion. Alas, my friend ! what for-
tune calls thee forth to seek thy fortune among
brazen gates, enchanted towers, fire and brimstone,
thunder and lightning ? [Her] beauty, I tell thee,
is peerless, and she precious whom thou affectest.
Do off these desires, good countryman : good
friend, run away from thyself; and, so soon as
thou canst, forget her, whom none must inherit
but he that can monsters tame, labours achieve,
riddles absolve, loose enchantments, murder
magic, aud kill conjuring, — and that is the great
and mighty Huanebango.
Cor. Hark you, sir, hark you. First know I
have here the flurtiug feather, and have given the
parish, the start for the long stock : J now, sir, if
p. 86, ed. Dyce. And S. Rowley ; " God ye god night,
and twenty, sir." When you see me, you know me,
Sig D 3, ed. 1621.
* was a beggar, and dwelt upon a green] So we read of
the Blind Beggar oi Bethnal&Vem, &c.
t Corebus] Here the 4 to. has "Booby"; but in subse-
quent scenes it names him " Corebus."
J stock] i.e. sword, I believe. Corebus moans, as it
appears to me, that he has run away from the parish,
aud become a sort of knight-errant.
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
449
it bo no more but ruuniug through a little light- |
ning and thunder, and " riddle me, riddle me
what's this 1 " I'll have the wench from the con-
jurer, if he were ten conjurers.
Huan. I have abandoned the court and honour-
able company, to do my devoir agaiust this sore
Borcerer and mighty magician : if this lady be so
fair as she is said to be, she is mine, she is mine ;
meus, mea, meum, in contempt am omnium gram-
maticorum.
Cor. Of ahum Latinuml
The fair maid is minum,
Cum apurtinantibus gibletis aud all.
Uuan. If she be mine, as I assure myself the
heavens will do somewhat to reward my worthi-
ness, she shall be allied to none of the meanest
gods, but be invested in the most famous stock * of
Huanebango, — Polimackeroeplacidus my grand-
father, my father Pergopolineo, my mother
Dionora de Sardinia, famously descended.
Cor. Do you hear, sir ] had not you a cousin
that was called Gusteceridis '?
Huan. Indeed, I had a cousin that sometime
followed the court iufortunately, and his name
Bustegusteceridis.
Cor. Lord, I know him well ! he is the
knight of the neat's-feet.
Huan. 0, he loved no capon better ! he hath
oftentimes deceived his boy of his dinner; that
was his fault, good Bustegusteceridis.
Cor. Come, shall we go along ]
Enter Erestus at the Cross.
Soft ! here is an old man at the cross : let us
ask him the way thither.— Ho, you gaffer ! I
pray you tell where the wise man the conjurer
dwells.
Huan. Where that earthly goddess keepeth
her abode, the commander of my thoughts, and
fair mistress of my heart.
Erest. Fair enough, and far enough from thy
fingering, son.
Huan. I will follow my fortune after mine
own fancy, and do according to mine own
discretion.
Erest. Yet give something to an old man
before you go.
Huan. Father, methinks a piece of this cake
might serve your turn.
Erest. Yea, son.
* the most famous stock. &c] Here Peele seems to have
had an eye to the haid names in the Miles Gloriosus of
PUutus.
Huan. Huanebango giveth no cakes for alms :
ask of them that give gifts for poor beggars. —
Fair lady, if thou wert once shrined in this
bosom, I would buckler thee haratantara. [Exit.
Cor. Father, do you see this man ? you little
think he'll run a mile or two for such a cake, or
pass for * a pudding. I tell you, father, he has
kept such a begging of me for a piece of this
cake! Whoo ! he comes upon me with "a
superfantial substance, and the foison t of the
earth," that I know not what he means. If he
came to me thus, and said, " My friend
Corebus,"J or so, why, I could spare him a
piece with all my heart ; but when he tells me
how God hath enriched me above other fellows
with a cake, why, he makes me blind aud deaf at
once. Ye-t, father, here is a piece of cake for
you, as hard as the world goes.§ [Gives cake.
Erest. Thanks, son, but list to me ;
He shad be deaf when thou shalt not see.
Farewell, my sou : things may so hit,
Thou mayst have wealth to mend thy wit.
Cor. Farewell, father, farewell ; for I must
make haste after my two-hand sword that is
gone before. [Exeunt severally.
Enter Sacrapant t»; his study.
Sac. The day is clear, the welkin bright and
grey,
The lark is merry and records || her notes ;
Each thing rejoiceth underneath the sky,
But only I, whom heaven hath in hate,
Wretched and miserable Sacrapant.
In Thessaly was I born and brought up ;
My mother Meroe hight,^f a famous witch,
And by her cunning I of her did learn
To change and alter shapes of mortal men.
There did I turn myself into a dragon,
And stole away the daughter to the king,
Fair Delia, the mistress of my heart ;
* pass for] i. e. care for. See note f, P- 156, first col.
f foison'] i.e. plenty.
J Corebus] The 4to. "Booby". See note t, p. 448,
sec. col.
§ as hard as the world goes] Lest the reader should sup-
pose that Corebus means to say, "his cake, is as hard a*
the world goes," I subjoin a passage from the Riturne
from Peraassus, 1606, where the expression in the text
occurs: "lie now to Paul's churchyard: meete me, an
houre hence, at the signe of the Pegasus in Cheapsi ie ;
and ile moyst thy temples with a cup of claret, as hard
as tlte world goes." Act 1. sc. 2. Sig. B 3..
|| records] i. e. sings, tunes. In Coles's Dirt, we find ;
" To Record as birds, Certalim modulari, altemU cancrt."
II hight] i. e. called.
O U
450
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
And brought her hither to revive the man,
That seeineth young and pleasant to behold,
And yet is aged, crooked, weak, and numb.
Thus by enchanting spells I do deceive
Those that behold and look upon my face ;
But well may I bid youthful years adieu.
See where she comes from whence my Borrows
grow !
Bitter Delia with a pot in her hand.
How now, fair Delia ! where have you been ?
Del. At the foot of the rock for running
water, and gathering roots for your dinner, sir.
Sac. Ah, Delia,
Fairer art thou than the i unning water,
Yet harder far than steel or adamaut !
Del. Will it please you to sit down, sir ?
Sac. Ay, Delia, sit and ask me what thou wilt,
Thou shalt have it brought into thy hip.
Del. Then, I pray you, sir, let me have the
best meat from the King of England's table, and
the best wine in all France, brought in by the
veriest knave in all Spain.
Sac. Delia, I am glad to see you so pleasant :
Well, sit thee down. —
Spread, table, spread,
Meat, drink, and bread,
Ever may I have
What I ever crave,
When I am spread,
Meat for* my black cock,
And meat for my red.
Enter a Friar with a chine of beef and a pot of wine.
ere, Delia, will ye fall to 1
Del. Is this the best meat in England ?
Sac. Yea.
Del. What is it ?
Sac. A chine of English beef, meat for a king
and a king's followers.
Del. Is this the best wine in France ?
Sac. Yea.
Del. What wine is it ?
Sac. A cup of neat wine of Orleans, that never
came near the brewers in England.
Del. Is this the veriest knave in all Spain ? t
Sac. Yea.
Del. What, is he a friar ?
* Meat for, &.c.~\ The 4to. "for meate for," &c Cor-
rected by the Rev. J. Mitford,— Gent. Mag. for Feb.
1833, p. 101.
t Is this the veriest knave in all Spain ?] Perhaps there
is an allmion here to the conspiracies of the Catholic
Priests against the Queen, encouraged by Philip of
S] 'in
Sac. Yea, a friar indefinite, and a knave in-
finite.
Del. Then, I pray ye, Sir Friar, tell me before
you go, which is the most greediest Englishman?
Fri. The miserable and mo*t covetous usurer.
Sac. Hold thee there, friar. [Exit Friar.] But,
soft !
Who have we here? Delia, away, be gone !
Enter the Two Brothers.
Delia, away ! for beset are we. —
But heaven or hell shall rescue her for me.
[Exeunt Delia and Sacrapaxt.
First Bro. Brother, was not that Delia did
appear,
Or was it but her shadow that was here ?
Second Bro. Sister, where art thou ? Delia,
come again
He calls, that of thy absence doth complain.—
Call out, Calypha, that * she may hear,
And cry aloud, for Delia is near.
Echo. Near.
First Bro. Near! 0, where ? hast thou any
tidings ?
Echo. Tidings.
Second Bro. Which way is Delia, then ? or that,
or this ?
Echo. This.
First Bro. And may we safely come where
Delia is ?
Echo. Yes.
Second Bro. Brother, remember you the white
bear of England's wood?
" Start not aside for every danger,
Be not afeard of every stranger ;
Things that seem are not the same."
First Bro. Brother,
Why do we not, then, courageously enter?
Second Bro. Then, brother, draw thy sword
and follow me.
Re-enter Sacrapant: it lightens and thunders ; the
Second Brother falls down.
First Bro. What, brother, dost thou fall ?
Sac. Ay, and thou too, Calypha.
[The First Brother falls dmen.
Adeste, damones /
Enter Two Furies.
Away with them :
Go carry them straight to Sacrapanto's cell,
There in despair and torture for to dwell.
[Exeunt Furies with th* Two Brothers.
* Call out, Calypha, that, &c] Qy. "Call out, Calypha,
call, tlx't," Arc?
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
451
These arc Thenores' sons of Thessaly,
That come to seek Delia their sister forth :
But, with a potion I to her have given,
My arts have made her to forget herself.
[ R ein<> vet a turf, and shows a light in a glass.
See here the tiling which cloth prolong my life,
With this enchantment I do any thing;
And till this fade, my skill shall still endure,
And never none shall break this little glass,
But she that's neither wife, widow, nor maid :
Then cheer thyself; this is thy destiny,
Never to die but by a dead man's hand. [Exit,
Enter Eumenides.
Eum. Tell me, Time,
Tell me, just Time, when shall I Delia see ?
When shall I see the loadstar of my life ?
When shall my wandering course end with her
sight,
Or I but view my hope, my heart's delight ?
Enter Erestus at the Cross.
Father, God speed ! if you tell fortunes, I pray,
good father, tell me mine.
Erest. Son, I do see in thy face
Thy blessed fortune work apace :
I do perceive that thou hast wit ;
Beg of thy fate to govern it,
For wisdom govern'd by advice,
Makes many fortunate and wise.
Bestow thy alms, give more than all,
Till dead men's bones come at thy call.
Farewell, my son : dream of no rest,
Till thou repent that thou didst best. [Exit.
Eum,. This man hath left me in a labyrinth :
He biddeth me give more than all,
Till dead men's bones come at my * call ;
He biddeth me dream of no rest,
Till I repent that I do best. [Lies down and sleeps.
Enter Wiooen, Corebus, Churchwarden, and Sexton.
Wig. You may be ashamed, you whoreson
scald Sexton and Churchwarden, if you had any
shame in those shameless faces of yours, to let a
poor man lie so long above ground unburied. A
rot on you all, that have no more compassion of
a good fellow when he is gone !
Ckurch.f What, would you have us to bury
him, and to answer it ourselves to the parish ?
Sex. Parish me no parishes ; pay me my fees,
* my] The4to. "thy."
t Church.] Here, and here only, the 4to. has " Simon",
— by mistake, I suppose, for " Steeven," which is the
name of the Churchwarden.
anil let the rest run on in the quarter's accounts,
and put it down for one of your good deeds, o'
God's name ! for I am not one that curiously
stands upon merits.
Cor. You whoreson, sodden-headed sheep's-
face, shall a good fellow do less service and more
honesty to the parish, and will you not, when he
is dead, let him have Christmas burial?
Wig. Peace, Corebus ! as sure as Jack was
Jack, the frolic'st franiou * amongst you, and I,
Wiggen, his sweet sworn brother, Jack shall have
his funerals, + or some of them shall lie on
God's dear earth for it, that's once. £
Church. Wiggen, I hope thou wilt do no more
than thou darest answer.
Wig. Sir, sir, dare or dare not, more or less,
answer or not answer, do this, or have this.
Sex. Help, help, help !
(Wiggen sets upon the parish with a pike-staff^:
Eomenides awakes and comes to them.
Eum. Hold thy hands, good fellow.
Cor. Can you blame him, sir, if he take Jack's
part against this shake-rotten parish that will not
bury Jack?
Earn. Why, what was that Jack ?
Cor. Who, Jack, sir? who, our Jack, sir' as
good a fellow as ever trod upon neat's-leather.
Wig. Look you, sir; he gave fourscore aud
nineteen mourning gowns to the parish, when he
died, and because he would not make them up a
full hundred, they would not bury him : was not
this good dealing ?
Church. Lord, sir, how he lies ! he was not
worth a halfpenny, and drunk out every penny ;
and now his fellows, his drunken companions,
would have us to bury him at the charge of the
parish. An we make many such matches, we
may pull down the steeple, sell the bells, aud
thatch the chancel : he shall lie above ground
till he dance a galliard about the church-yard,
for Steeven Loach.
Wig. Sic argumentaris, Domine Loach, — An
we make many such matches, we may pull down
the steeple, sell the bells, and thatch the
chancel ? in good time, sir, and hang yourselves
in the bell-ropes, when you have done. Domine,
opponent provpono tibi hanc qucestionem, whether
will you have the ground broken or your pates
broken first? for one of them shall be done
* /)•«)! ion] See note t, p. 445, first col.
t funerals] See note t, P- 440, sec. col.
t that's once] See note §, p. 393, first col.
§ Wiggen sets upon the parish with a pikestaff] Stands
in the 4to. as a portion of the Sexton's speech.
ao 2
452
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
presently, and to begin mine,* I'll seal it upon
your coxcomb.
Eum. Hold thy bands, I pray thee, good
fellow ; be not too hasty.
Cor. You capon's face, we shall have you
turned out of the parish one of these days, with
never a tatter to your arse ; then you are in
worse taking than Jack.
Eum. Faith, and he is bad enough. This
fellow does but the part of a friend, to seek to
bury his friend : how much will bury bim ?
Wig. Faith, about some fifteen or sixteen
shillings will bestow him honestly.
Sex. Ay, even thereabouts, sir.
Eum. Here, hold it, then : — [aside] and
I have left me but one poor three half-pence :
now do I remember the words the old man
spake at the cross, "Bestow all thou hast," and
this is all, "till dead men's bones come at thy
call:" — here, hold it [gives money] ; and so fare-
well.
Wig. God, and all good, be with you, sir !
[Exit Eumenides.] Nay, you cormorants, I'll
bestow one peal oft Jack at mine own proper
costs and charges.
Cor. You may thank God the long staff and
the bilbo-blade crossed not your coxcomb[s].
— Well, we'll to the church-stile and have a pot,
and so trill-lill. [Exit with Wiggen.
Church.
Sex.
Come, let's go.
[Exeunt.
Fan. But, hark you, gammer, methinks this
Jack bore a great sway in the parish.
Madge. O, this Jack was a marvellous fellow !
he was but a poor man, but very well beloved :
you shall see anon what this Jack will come to.
Eater the Harvest-men singing,*, icith women in their
hands.
Fro. Soft ! who have we here ? our amorous
harvesters. §
Fan. Ay, ay, let us sit still, and let them
alone.
* mine] Some word, or words, wanting hero.
t of] i. e. on.
J Enter the Harvest-men singing, &c] T. Warton (Mil-
ton's Foemf. upon several occasions, &c, p. 576. ed. 1791.)
thinks that to the present scene Shakespeare had an eye
in The Tempest, act iv. bc. 1., where Iris says, "You sun-
burn'd Mc'l.lrm.ii, of August weary," &c. and where the
stage-direction is. ' ' Bnt< r certain Reapers properly habited .
they join « ith the Nympht in a graceful dance," &C.
§ harvesters] The Ito. " haruost starres."
Here the Harvest-men sing, Ike song doubled.
Lo, here we come a- reaping, a-reaping,
To reap our harvest-fi uit !
And thus we pass the year so long,
And never be we mute.
[Exeunt the Harvest-men.
Enter Huaneeanoo.
Fro. Soft ! who have we here ?
Madge. 0, this is a choleric gentleman ! All
you that love your lives, keep out of the smell of
his two-hand sword : now goes he to the cou-
jurer.
Fan. Methinks the conjurer should put the
fool into a juggling-box.
Huan. Fee, fa, fuin,
Here is the Englishman, —
Conquer him that can, —
Come * for his lady bright,
To prove himself a knight,
And win her love in fight.
Enter Corebus.
Cor. Who-haw, Master Bango, are you here )
hear you, you had best sit down here, and beg an
alms with me.
Huan. Hence, base cullion! here is he that
commandeth ingress and egress with his weapon,
and will enter at his voluntary, whosoever saith
no.
Voice. No.
[A flame of fire ; and Huanebanco/«Ms down.
Madge. So with that they kissed, and spoiled
the edge of as good a two-hand sword as ever
God put life in. Now goes Corebus in, spite of
the conjurer.
Enter Sacrapant and Two Furies, t
Sac. Away with him into the open fields,
To be a ravening prey to crows and kites :
[Huan. is carried out by the Two Furies.
And for this villain, let him wander up and
down,
In naught but darkness and eternal night.
[Sti'ti-es Corebus blind.
Cor. Here hast thou slain Huan, a slashing
knight,
And robbed poor Corebus of his sight.
Sac. Hence, villain, hence !
[Exit Corebus.
Now I have unto Delia
Given a potion of forgetfulness,
* Come] The 4to. "Came."
t Two Furies] Are not mentioned hero in tlio 4to. :
but it afterwards makes Huanebango be brought in by
"two Furies " and laid beside the Well of Life.
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
4 53
That, when she comes, she shall not know her
brothers.
Lo, where they labour, like to country -slaves,
With spade and mattock, ou this enchanted
ground !
Now will I call her by another name;
For never shall she know herself again,
Until that Sacrapant hath breath'd his last.
See where she comes.
Enter Delia.
Come hither, Delia, take this goad ; here hard
At hand two slaves do work and dig for gold :
Gore them with this, and thou shalt have enough.
[Givis her a goad.
Del. Good sir, I know not what you mean.
Sac. [aside.] She hath forgotten to be Delia,
But not forgot the same she should forget ;
But I will change her name. —
Fair Berecynthia, so this country calls you,
Go ply these strangers, wench; they dig for gold.
[Exit.
Del. heavens, how
Am I beholding* to this fair young man !
But I must ply these strangers to their work :
See where they come.
Enter live Two Brothers in their shirts, with spades, digging.
First Bro. brother, see where Delia is !
Second Bro. Delia,
Happy are we to see thee here !
Del. What tell you me of Delia, prating
swains ?
I know no Delia, nor know I what you mean.
Ply you your work, or else you 're like to
smart.
First Bro. Why, Delia, know'st thou not thy
brothers here]
We come from Thessaly to seek thee forth ;
And thou deceiv'st thyself, for thou art Delia.
Del. Yet more of Delia ? then take this, and
smart : [Pricks them with the f/oad.
What, feign you shifts for to defer your labour ?
Woik, villains, work ; it is for gold you dig.
Second Bro. Peace, brother, peace : this vilef
enchanter
Hath ravish'd Delia of her senses clean,
And she forgets that she is Delia.
First Bro. Leave, cruel thou, to hurt the
unsellable. —
Dig, brother, dig, for she is hard as steel.
Here they dig, and descry a light in a glass under a little
hill.
* beholding] i. e. beholden.
f vile] The 4to. vild. See note t, p. 107, sec. col.
Second Bro. Stay, brother; what hast thou
descried?
Del. Away, and touch it not; 'tis something
that
My lord hath hidden there. [Covers the light again.
Re-enier Sacrapant.
Sac. Well said ! * thou plyest these pioners t
well.—
Go get you in, you labouring slaves.
[Exeunt the Two Brothers.
Come, Berecynthia, let us in likewise,
And hear the nightingale record + her notes.
[Exeunt.
Enter Zantippa,§ to the Well of Life, with a pot in her hand.
Zan. Now for a husband, house, and home :
God send a good one or none, I pray God ! My
father hath sent me to the well for the water of
life, and tells me, if I give fair words, I shall have
a husband. But here comes Celanta my sweet
sister : I'll stand by and hear what she says.
[Retires.
Enter Celanta, ]| to the Well of Life, with a pot in her hand.
Ccl. My father hath sent me to the well for
water, and he tells me, if I speak fair, I shall have
a husband, and none of the worst. Well, though I
am black, I am sure all the world will not forsake
me ; and, as the old proverb is, though I am
black, *U I am not the devil.
Zan. [coming forward.] Marry-gup with a
murren, I know wherefore thou speakest that :
but go thy ways home as wise as thou earnest, or
I'll set thee home with a waniou.
Here she strikes her pitcher against her sister's, and breaks
them both, and then exit.
Cel. I think this be the curstest quean in the
world : you see what she is, a little fair, but as
proud as the devil, and the veriest vixen that
lives upon God's earth. Well, I'll let her alone,
and go home, and get another pitcher, and, for
all this, get me to the well for water. [Exit.
* Well said!] Equivalent to— Well done.' — in which
sense, as I was the first to observe, the words are fre-
quently used by our early writers.
] jiioners] See note }, p. 164, first col.
J record] See noto ||, p. 449, sec. col.
§ Zantippa] Tho 4 to. adds, "the curst Daughter."
II Celanta] The 4to. "the fowle wench."
% though J eim Mad; &c] "Many, quoth hee that
lookt like Lucifer, though J am bleid-e. I am not the
/'•'/', but indeed a Colly.r of Croydon." — Greece's
Quip for an Upstart Courtier. Sis? R 2, cd. n d.
454
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
Enle,; out of Sacrapant's cell, the Two Furies carrying
Huanebango : tlitu lay him by the Well of Life, and
then exeunt. Re-enter Zantippa with a pitcher to the
well.
Zan. Once again for a husband; and, in faith,
Celauta, I have got the start of you ; belike hus-
bands grow by the well-side. Now my father
sp.ys I must rule my tongue : why, alas, what
am I, then ? a woman without a tongue is as a
soldier without his weapon : but I'll have my
water, and be gone.
Here she offers to dip her pitcher in, and a Head rises in
the well.
Head. Gently dip, but not too deep,
For fear you make the golden beard to weep.
Fair maiden, white and red,
Stroke me smooth, and comb my head,
And thou shalt have some cockell-bread.*
* cockell-bread] After many inquiries on the important
subject of cockell-bread, I regret to say I am unable to in-
form the reader what it was. A lady tells me that she
perfectly remembers to have heard in her youth the fol-
lowing fragment of a nursery-rhyme ;
" My grandmother is sick, I wish she was dead,
For she taught me the way to make cockelly-bread."
And to "mould cocklebread" is noticed as a sport or pas-
time in Biome's Jovial Crew : "And then at home here,
or wheresoever he comes, our father is so pensive (what
muddy spirit soe're possesses him, would I could conjure't
out I), that he makes us even sick of his sadness, that
were wont to see my ghossips cock to day, mould cocklebread,
dav/nce clutterdepouch and hannylcin booby, binde barrels,
or do any thing before him, and he would laugh at us."
Sig. D 2. ed. 1652. — So I wrote on the present passage in
1828.
The following Article is from Thoms's Anecdot .-■
and Traditions, &c, printed for the Camden Society,
1839 :—
"Cockle Bread.
Young wenches [Aubrey loquitur] have a wanton sport
which they call moulding of Cockle-bread, viz. they get
upon a table-board, and then gather up their knees and
their coates with their hands as high as they c.iu, and
then they wabble to and fro, as if they w r ere kneading
of dowgh, and say these words, viz.
My dame is sick and gonne to bed,
And lie go mould my Cockle-bread.
I did imagine nothing to have been in this but meer
wautonnesse of youth. But I find in Burchardns, in
bis ' Methodus Confitendi', printed at Colon, 1540, (he
lived before the Conquest,) one of the Articles (on the
vii. Commandment) of interrogating a young woman
is, 'If she did ever 'subigere panem clunibus', and
then bake it, and give it to one she loved to eate, ' ut
in majoicm rnodum exardesceret amor.' So here I find
it to be a relique of natural! magick — an unlawful
philtrum.
White Kennet adds, in a side note, — 'In Oxfordshire,
the Maids, when they put themselves into the fit posture,
sing thus,
My granny is sick, and now is death
And wee'l goe mould some Cockle Bread,
Zan. What is this ?
" Fair maiden, white and red,
Comb me smooth, and stroke my head,
And thou shalt have some cockell-bread'"!
"Cockell" callest thou it, boy! faith, I'll give
you cockell-bread.
She breaks her pitcher upo'n the Head : then it thunders and
lightens; and Huanebango, who is deaf and cannot
hear, rises up.
Huan. Philida, phileridos, pamphilida, flo-
rida, fiortos :
Dub dub-a-dub, bounce, quoth the guns, with a
sulphurous huff -snuff : *
Up with my heels and down with my head,
And this is the way to mould Cockle-bread.'
Aubrey, 1232°."
Mr. Thorns subjoins: "The question in Burchardus, and
which we here quote at length (from Grimm, xxxix),
fully establishes the correctness of Aubrey's views as to
the origin of this game.
' Fecisti quod qiuedam mulieres facere solent, proster-
nunt se in faciem, et discoopertibus natibus jubeut, ut
supra nudas nates conficiatur panis, et eo decocto traduut
maiitis suis ad comedendum. Hoc ideo faciunt ut plus
exardescant in amorem illorum [illarum].'
The rhyme still heard in our nurseries —
'When I was a little girl, I wash'd my mother's dishes;
I put my finger in my eye, and pull'd out little fishes — '
is likewise given by Aubrey, with a verbal alteration,
and another reference to Burchardus, which seems to
establish it as another 'relique of natural magick, an
unlawful philtrum '.
From the following passage in another part of the MS.
fo. 161, it would seem as if Cockle-Bread derived its
name from the peculiar manner in which it was
kneaded.
' I have some reason to believe, that the word Cockle
is an old antiquated Norman word, which signifies nates,
from a beastly rustic kind of play, or abuse, which was
used when I was a schoolboy by a Norman ga'xlner that
lived at Bownton near me. So Hott Cockles is as much
as to say Hott or Heated Buttocks '.
The name Hot Cockles is derived by Strutt, in his
'Sports and Pastimes', p 393, ed. 1833, (which contains,
however, no allusion to any sueh Norman word as that
to which Aubrey refers,) from the ' Hautes Coquiiles ' of
the French. In the ' Memoires <'e V Academic Celtique',
torn. iii.. we have a description of a curious marriage
custom, which may possibly bear some reference to the
' Cockel Bread ' or at least to the etymology of the name."
pp. 94-6.
* Dub dv.b-a-dub, bounce, quoth the guns, with a sulphur-
ous huff-muff] So Stanyhurst in The First Fovre Booki s of
VirgiU Jt'ueis, with other PoetieaU devises thereto annexetl,
1583;
" Lowd dub a dub tabering with Trapping rip rap of
MinVk."
The Description of Liparen, p. 91.
" Thee whil'st in the skie seat great bouncing rumbelo
tluiudriug
Rattleth," &C.
JEneid -1. p. 66.
" Linckt was in wedlock a loftyc Thrasonical hufsnuffe. '
Of a cracking Outttr, p. 95.
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
455
Wak'd with a wench, pretty peat, pretty love,
and my sweet pretty pigsuie,*
Just by thy side shall sit suraamed great Iluane-
baugo :
Safe in my arms will I keep thee, threat Mars, or
thunder Olympus.
Zan. [aside.] Fob, what greasy groom have we
here ? He looks as though he crept out of the
backside of the well, and speaks like a drum
perished at the west end.
Huan. 0, that I might, — but I may not, woe
to my destiny therefore ! t —
Kiss that I clasp ! but I cannot : tell me, my
destiny, wherefore?
Zan. [aside.] Whoop ! now I have my dream.
Did you never hear so great a wonder as this,
three blue beans in a blue bladder, rattle, bladder,
rattle !
Huan. [aside.] I'll now set my countenance,
and to her in prose; it may be, this rim-ram-
ruff; is too rude an encounter. — Let me, fair lady,
if you be at leisure, revel with your sweetness,
and rail upon that cowardly conjurer, that hath
cast me, or congealed me rather, into an unkind
sleep, and polluted my carcass.
Zan. [aside.] Laugh, laugh, Zantippa; thou
hast thy fortune, a fool and a husband under one.
Huan. Truly, sweet-heart, as I seem, about
some twenty years, the very April of mine age.
Zan. [aside.] Why, what a prating ass is this !
Huan. Her coral lips, her crimson chin,
Her silver teeth so white within,
Her golden locks, her rolling eye,
Her pretty parts, let them go by,
Heigh-ho, have wounded me,
That I must die this day to see I
Zan. By Gogs-bones, thou art a flouting knave :
"her coral lips, her crimson chin " ! ka, wilshaw !
Huan. True, my own, and my own because
mine, and mine because mine, ha, ha ! above a
* pigsnie] i e. little pig. (A term of endearment.)
t 0, that I might, — but J may not, woe to my destiny there-
fore.'] Taken verbatim from Gabriel Harvey's Encomium
Lauri ;
" Fame wod I eraue, might I so presume, some farther
acquaintaimce :
that I might.' Out I may not: woe to my destinie there-
fore .' "
See p. 64, first note, of the present volume.
t this rim-ram-nff] So the copy of the 4to. in the
British Museum (King's Library, Pamphlets); while my
copy rea'is "this rule ram ruffe"; — the passage having
been corrected before the whole of the impression was
struck off.— Compare Stanyhurst;
" Of ruffe raffc roaring, mens harts with terror agrysing."
The Description of Liparen, p. 91.
thousand pounds in possibility, and things fitting
thy desire in possession.
Zan. [aside.] The sot thinks I ask of his lands.
Lob be your comfort, and cuckold be your des-
tiny ! — Hear you, sir ; an if you will have us, you
had best say so betime.
Huan. True, sweet-heart, and will royalize thy
progeny with my pedigree. [Exeunt.
Enter EUMENIDES.
Bum. Wretched Eutnenides, still unfortunate,
Envied by fortune and forlorn by fate,
Here pine aud die, wretched Eumenides,
Die in the spring, the April of thy* age !
Here sit thee down, repent what thou hast done:
I would to God that it were ne'er begun !
Enter the Ghost of Jack.
G. of Jack. You are well overtaken, sir.
Bum. Who's that ?
G. of Jack. You are heartily well met, sir.
Eum. Forbear, I say : who is that which piuch-
eth me ?
G. of Jack. Trusting in God, good Blaster
Eumenides, that you are in so good health as all
your friends were at the making hereof, — God
give you good morrow, sir ! Lack you not a neat,
handsome, and cleanly young lad, about the age
of fifteen or sixteen years, that can run by your
horse, and, for a need, make your mastership's
shoes as black as ink ? how say you, sir?
Eum. Alas, pretty lad, I know not how to keep
myself, and much less a servant, my pretty boy ;
my state is so bad.
G- of Jack. Content yourself, you shall not be
so ill a master but I'll be as bad a servant. Tut,
sir, I know you, though you know not me : are
not you the man, sir, deny it if you can, sir,
that came from a strange place in the land of
Catita, where Jackan-apes+ flies with his tail in
his mouth, to seek out a lady as white as snow
and as red as bloodj ? ha, ha ! have I touched
you now ?
Eum. [aside.] I think this boy be a spirit, — How
knowest thou all this?
G. of Jack. Tut, are not you the man, sir, deny
it if you can, sir, that gave all the money you had
to the burying of a poor man, and but one three
half-pence left in your purse ? Content you, sir,
111 serve you, that is flat.
* thy] The4to. "my."
t Jack-an apes] i. e. monkey, ape.
} a lady as while an snow and as red as blood] Compate
the third speech of Madge in p. 446, sec col.
456
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
Eum. Well, my lad, since thou art so impor[tu]-
nate, I am content to entertain thee, not as a
servant, but a copartner in my journey. But
whither shall we go ] for I have not any money
more than one bare three half-pence.
G. of Jack. Well, master, content yourself, for
if my divination be not out, that shall be spent
at the next inn or alehouse we come to; for,
master, I know you are passing hungry : there-
fore I'll go before and provide dinner until that
you come ; no doubt but you'll come fair and
softly after.
Earn. Ay, go before ; I'll follow thee.
Q. of Jack. But do you hear, master? do you
know my name?
Eum. No, I promise thee, not yet.
G. of Jack, Why, I am Jack. [Exit*
Eum. Jack ! why, be it so, then.
Eater the Hostess and Jack, setting meat on the table; and
Fiddlers come to play. Eumenides walks up and down,
and will eat no meat.
Host. How say you, sir] do you plea-e to sit
down ?
Eum. Hostess, I thank you, I have no great
stomach.
Host. Pray, sir, what is the reason your master
is so strange ? doth not this meat please him 1
G. of Jack. Yes, hostess, but it is my master's
fashion to pay before he eats; therefore, a reckon-
ing, good hostess.
Host. Marry, shall you, sir, presently. [Exit.
Eum. Why, Jack, what dost thou mean ? thou
knowest I have not any money ; therefore, sweet
Jack, tell me what shall I do?
G. of Jack. Well, master, look in your purse.
Eum. Why, faith, it is a folly, for 1 have no
money.
G. of Jack. Why, look you, master; do so
much for me.
Eum. [looking into his purse.] Alas, Jack, my
purse is full of money !
Jack. " Alas," master ! does that word belong
to this accident] why, methinks I should have
seen you cast away your cloak, and in a bravado
dancet a galliard round about the chamber : why,
master, your man can teach you more wit than
this.
Re-enter Hostess.
Come, hostess, cheer up my master.
Host. You are heartily welcome; and if it
* Exit] After Jack's exit, as there was no change of
scenery in Peele's days, the audience were to suppose
. Eumenides already arrived at the inn. 8ee note *, p 446,
Cr9tcol. t donee] The 4to. "daunced."
please you to eat of a fat capon, a fairer bird, a
fiuer bird, a sweeter bird, a crisper bird, a neater
bird, your worship never eat of.
Earn. Thanks, my fine, eloquent hostess.
G. of Jack. But hear you, master, one word by
the way : are you content I shall be halves in all
you get in your journey]
Eum. I am, Jack, here is my hand.
G. of Jack. Enough, master, I ask no more.
Eum. Come, hostess, receive your money ; and
I thank you for my good entertainment.
[Gives money.
Host. You are heartily welcome, sir.
Eum. Come, Jack, whither go we now]
G. of Jack. Marry, master, to the conjurer's
presently.
Eum. Content, Jack. — Hostess, farewell.
[Exeunt.
Enter Corebus, and Celania,* to the Well of Life J or water.
Cor. Come, my duck, come : I have now got a
wife : thou art fair, art thou not ] +
Ctl. My Corebus, the fairest alive ; make no
doubt of that.
Cor. Come, wench, are we almost at the well ]
Cel. Ay, Corebus, we are almost at the well
now. I'll go fetch some water : sit down while I
dip my pitcher in.
A Head comes v.p with ears of corn, which she combs into
her lap.
Head. Gently dip, but not too deep,
For fear you make the golden beard to weep.
Fair maiden, white and red,
Comb me smooth, and stroke my head,
And thou shalt have some cockell-bread.
A Second Head comes up full of gold, which she combs into
her lap.
Sec. Head. Gently dip, but not too deep,
For fear thou make the golden beard to weep.
Fair maid, white and red,
Comb me smooth, and stroke my head,
And every hair a sheaf shall be,
And every sheaf a golden tree.
Cel. 0, see, Corebus, I have combed a great deal
of gold into my lap, and a great deal of corn !
Cor. Well said, J wench ! now we shall have
just§ enough : God send us coiners to coin our
gold. But come, shall we go home, sweet-heart]
• Celania] Spelt, throughout this scene, in the 4to.,
" Zelanto.'
t art thou not?] The reader must not foryet that Core-
bus has been struck blind by Sacrapant.
J Well said] See note *, p. 453, sec. col.
§ just] So the Museum copy of the 4to. ; while my copy
has "tost" : see note J, p. 455, first col.
THE OLD WIVES' TALE.
457
Cel. Nay, come, Corebus, I will lead you.
Cor. So, Corebus, things have well hit;
Thou hast gotten wealth to mend thy wit.
{Exeunt.
Enter the Ghost of Jack and Eumenides.
G. of Jack. Come away, master, come.
Earn. Go along, Jack, I'll follow thee. Jack,
they say it is good to go cross-legged, aud say
prayers* backward ; how sayest thou ?
G. of Jack. Tut, never fear, master; let me
alone. Here sit you still ; speak not a word ;
aud because you shall not be enticed with his
enchanting speeches, with this same wool I'll stop
your ears [Puts wool into the ears of Eumenides] :
and so, master, sit still, for I must to the con-
jurer. [Exit.
Enter Sacrapant.
Sac. How now ! what man art thou, that sits
so sad ?
Why dost thou gaze upon these stately trees
"Without the leave and will of Sacrapant?
What, not a word but mum ? f Then, Sacrapant,
Thou art betray'd.
Re-enter the Ghost of Jack invisible, and takes Sackapant's
wreath off from his head, and his sword out of his hand.
What hand invades the head of Sacrapant ?
What hateful % Fury doth envy my happy state ?
Then, Sacrapant, these are thy latest days.
Alas, my veins are numb'd, my sinews shrink,
My blood is pierc'd, my breath fleeting away,
And now my timeless date is come to end !
He in whose life his acts have§ been so foul,
Now in his death to hell decends his soul. [Dies.
G. of Jack. 0, sir, are you gone? now I hope
we shall have some other coil. — Now, master,
how like you this? the coujurer he is dead, and
vows never to trouble us more : now get you to
your fair lady, and see what you can do with her.
— Alas, he heareth me not all this while ! but I
will help that.
[Pulls the icool out of the ears of Eumenides.
Eum. How now, Jack ! what news?
G. of Jack. Here, master, take this sword, and
dig with it at the foot of this hill.
[Gives sword.
Eumenides digt, and spies a light in a glass.
Eum. How now, Jack ! what is this ?
* say prayers] The4to. " say his prayers.
+ What, not a word but mum ?\ See note *, p. 226, sec.
col.
X What hateful, &c] Qy. " What Fury doth envy my
happy state?'"!
§ acts have~] The 4to. "actions hath."
G. of Jack. Master, without this the conjurer
could do nothing ; and so long as this light lasts,
so long doth his art endure, and this being out,
then doth his art decay.
Eum. Why, then, Jack, I will soon put out
this light.
G. of Jack. Ay, master, how?
Eum. Why, with a stone I'll break the glass,
and then blow it out.
G. of Jack. No, master, you may as soon break
the smith's anvil as this little vial : nor the
biggest blast that ever Boreas blew cannot blow
out this little Tight ; but she that is neither
maid, wife, nor widow. Master, wind this horn,
and see what will happen. [Gives horn.
Eumenides winds the horn. Enter Venelia, who breaks the
glass, blows out the light, and then exit.
So, master, how like you this? this is she that
ran madding in the woods, hi3 betrothed love
that keeps the cross; and now, this light being
out, all are restored to their former liberty :
and now, master, to the lady that you have so
long looked for.
77ie Ghost of Jack draws a curtain, and discovers Delia
sitting asleep.
Eum. God speed, fair maid, sitting alone, —
there is once ; God speed, fair maid, — there i«
twice; God speed, fair maid, — that is thrice.
Del. Not so, good sir, for yon are by.
G. of Jack. Enough, master, she hath spoke ;
now I will leave her with you. [Exit.
Eum. Thou fairest flower of these western
parts,
Whose beauty so reflecteth in my sight
As doth a crystal mirror in the sun ;
For thy sweet sake I have cross'd the frozen
Rhine ; •
Leaving fair Po, I sail'd up Dauuby,
As far as Saba, whose enhancing streams
Cut twist the Tartars and the Russians :
These have I cross'd for thee, fair Delia :
Then grant me that which I have su'd for long.
Del. Thou gentle knight, whose fortune is so
good
To find me out and set my brothers free,
My faith, my heart, my hand I give to thee.
Eum. Thanks, gentle madam : but here comes
* For thy sweet sake I have cross'd the frozen Rliirte, etc ] j
This and the next three lines are fouud, with slight va- j
nations, in Greene's Orlando Furioso : see p. 90, first ]
col., of the present volume.
458
THE OLD WIVES' T\LE.
Jack ; thank him, for he is the best friend that
we have.
Re-enter the Ghost of Jack, with Sacrapant's head in
his hand*
How now, Jack ! what hast thou there?
G. of Jack. Marry, master, the head of the
conj urer.
Earn. Why, Jack, that is impossible; he was a
young man.
G. of Jack. Ah, master, so he deceived them
that beheld him ! but he was a miserable, old,
and crooked man, though to each man's eye lie
seemed young and fresh; for, master, tbis
conjurer took the shape of the old man that
kept the cross, and that old man was in the like-
ness of the conjurer. But now, master, wind
your horn.
Eumenides winds his horn. Enter Venelia, the Two
Brothers, and Erestus.
Eum. "Welcome, Erestus ! welcome, fair
Venelia !
Welcome, Thelea and Calyphaf both !
Now have I her that I so long have sought ;
So saith fair Delia, if we have your consent.
First Bro. Valiant Euwenides, thou well de~
servest
To have our favours ; so let us rejoice
That by thy means we are at liberty :
Here may we joy each in other's + sight,
And this fair lady have her wandering knight.
G. of Jack. So, master, now ye think you Lave
clone ; but I must have a saying to you : you
know you and I were partners, I to have half in
all you got.
Eum. Why, so thou shalt, Jack.
G. of Jack. Why, then, master, draw your
sword, part your lady, let me have half of her
presently.
Eum. Why, I hope, Jack, thou dost but jest :
I promised thee half I got, but not half my lady.
G. of Jack. But what else, master? have you
not gotten her? therefore divide her straight,
for I will have half; there is no remedy.
* with Sacrapant's head in his hand] But where did the
decapitation take place? Perhaps when (p. 457, sec. col.)
"the Ghost of Jack drew a curtain, and discovered
Delia,"— the curtain was at the same time so drawn as
to conceal the body of the conjurer,
t Calypha Bpell here in the 4to. "Kalepha."
I in other's] Qy. "in the other's"! (unless "joy" be a
dissyllable hore.)
Eum. Well, ere I will falsify my word unto
my friend, take her all : here, Jack, I'll give her
thee.
G. of Jack. Nay, neither more nor less, master,
but even just ralf.
Eum. Before I will falsify my faith unto my
friend, I will divide her: Jack, thou shalt havehalf.
First Bro. Be not so cruel unto our sister,
gentle knight.
Second Bro. 0, spare fair Delia ! she deserves
no death.
Eum. Content yourselves; my word is passed
to him. — Therefore prepare thyself, Delia, for
thou must die.
Del. Then farewell, world ! adieu, Eumeuides !
Eumenides offtrs to strike, and the Ghost of Jack
stays him.
G. of Jack. Stay, master ; it is sufficient I
have tried your constancy. Do you now re-
member since you paid for the burying of a poor
fellow ?
Eum. Ay, very well, Jack.
G. of Jack. Then, master, thank that good
deed for this good turn : and so God be with
you all ! [Leaps down in* the ground.
Eum. Jack, what, art thou gone? then farewell,
Jack ! —
Come, brothers, and my beauteous Delia,
Erestus, and thy dear Venelia,
We will to Thessaly with joyful hearts.
All. Agreed : we follow thee and Delia.
[Exeunt all except Frolic, Fantastic, and JMadge.
Fan. What, gammer, asleep ]
Madge. By the mass, son, 'tis almost day ; and
my windows shut at the cock's-crow.
Fro. Do you hear, gammer? methinks this
Jack bore a great sway amongst them.
Madge. 0, man, this was the ghost of the poor
man that they kept such a coil to bury; and
that makes him to help the wandering knight
so much. But come, let us in : we will have
a cup of ale and a toast this morning, and so
depart.t
Fan. Then you have made an end of your tale,
gammer ?
Madge. Yes, faith : when this was done, I took
a piece of bread and cheese, and came my way ;
and so shall you have, too, before you go, to your
breakfast. [Exeunt.
* in] i. e. into.
+ depaH] i. e. part.
DAVID AND BETHSABE,
The love of King David and Fair Bethmbe. With the Tragedie of Absalon. As it hath ben diua-s times plated on
the stage. Writhn by George Peele. London, Printed by Adam Mip. 1599. 4to.
This play was reprinted by Hawkin in the second volume of The Origin of the English Drama, 1773 ; and,
excepting one or two errors of the j>ress, the text was, on the whole, accurately given. Octavius Gilchrist
{Letter to Gifford on Ford's Works, p. 11 .) talks rather too contemptuously of Hawkins.
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
David.
Amnon, son of David by Ahinoam.
Chileab, sou of David by Abigail.
Absalon, sou of David by Maacah.
Adonia, son of David by Haggith.
Salomon, son of David by Bethsabe.
Joab, captain of the host to David, j hew8 of David and 8ons otbia sister Zeruiah .
Abisai, (
Amasa, nephew of Da vid and son of his sister Abigail ; captain of the host to Absalon.
Jonadab, nephew of David and son of his brother Shimeah ; friend to Amnon.
Urias, husband of Bethsabe, and a warrior in David's army.
Nathan, a prophet.
Sadoc, high-priest.*
Ahimaas, his son.
Abiathar, a priest.
Jonathan, his son.
Achitophel, chief-counsellor to Absalon.
Cusay.
Ithav.
Bemei.
Jethray.
Hanon, King of_Ammou.
Machaas, King of Gath.
Messenger, Soldiers, Shepherds, and Attendants.
Thamar, daughter of David by Maacah.
Bethsabe, wife of Urias.
Wotuau of Thecoa.
Concubines to David.
Maid to Bethsabe.
Chorus.
* Sadoc, high-priest] So he is described iu the play, p. 475, sec. col., —
"Sadoc, high-priest, preserver of the ark," &o.
The 4to. gives no list of Dram. Pen.).
THE LOYE OF DAVID AND FAIR BETHSABE,
WITH THE TRAGEDY OF ABSALON.
PROLOGUS.
Op Israel's sweetest singer now I sing,
His holy style and happy victories ;
Whose Muse was dipt in that inspiring dew
Arch-angels stilled from the breath of Jove,*
Decking her temples with the glorious flowers
Heavens rain'd on tops of Sion and Mount Sinai.
Upon the bosom of his ivory lute
The cherubins and angels hiid their breasts ;
And, when his consecrated fingers struck
The golden wires of his ravishing harp,
He gave alarum to the host of heaven,
That, wing'd with lightning, brake the clouds, and cast
Their crystal armour at his conquering feet.
Of this sweet poet, Jove's musician,
And of his beauteous son, I prease+ to sing.
Then help, divine Adonai, to conduct
Upon the wings of my well-temper'd verse
The hearers' minds above the towers of heaven,
And guide them so in this thrice-haughty flight,
Their mounting feathers scorch not with the fire
That none can temper but thy holy hand :
To thee for succour flies my feeble Muse,
And at thy feet her iron pen doth use.
* Jove] Equivalent to — Jehovah. See note on Marlowe's Works, p. SO, ed. Dyce, 1858, and note ou Shakespeare'*
Works, vol. iv. p. 203, ed. Dyce.
* precise] i. e. press.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
Tfie Prologue-speaker, before going out, draws a curtain and
discovert Bethsabk, with her Maid, bathing over a
spring : she sings, and David sits above viewing h<r.
THE SONG.
Hot sun, cool fire, temper' d with sweet air,
Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair :
Shine, sun ; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me;
Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me, and please
me :
Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning.
Make not my glad cause cause of [my] mourning.
Let not my beauty's fire
Inflame unstaid desire,
Nor pierce any bright eye
That wandereth lightly.
Beth. Come, gentle Zephyr, trick'd with those
perfumes
That erst in Eden sweeten'd Adam's love,
And stroke my bosom with thy* silken fan :
This shade, sun-proof, is yet no proof for thee;
Thy body, smoother than this waveless spring,
And purer than the substance of the same,
Can creep through that his lances cannot pierce :
Thou, and thy sister, soft and sacred Air,
Goddess of life, and governess of health,
Keep every fountain fresh and arbour sweet ;
No brazen gate her passage can repulse,
Nor bushy t thicket bar thy subtle breath :
Then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes,
And on thy wings bring delicate perfumes,
To play the wanton J with us through the leaves.
Dav. What tunes, what words, what looks,
what wonders pierce
My soul, incensed with a sudden fire?
What tree, what shade, what spring, what
paradise,
* thy] The4to. "the."
t bushy] The 4to. "bushly."— Qy.
see note t, P- 407, first col.
I wanton) The 4to. "wantons."
' busky "=bosky ?
Enjoys the beauty ofiso fair a dame?
Pair Eva, plac'd in perfect happiness,
Lending her praise-notes to the liberal heavens,
Struck with the accents of arch-angels' tuues,
Wrought not more pleasure to her husband's
thoughts
Than this fair woman's words and notes to mine.
May that sweet plain that bears her pleasant
weight
Be still enamell'd with discolour'd * flowers ;
That precious fount bear sand of purest gold ;
Aud, for the pebble, let the silver streams
That pierce earth's bowels to maintain the
source,
Play upon rubies, sapphires, chrysolites ;
The brims let be embrae'd with golden curls
Of moss that sleeps with sound the waters make
For joy to feed the fount with their recourse;
Let all the grass that beautifies her bower
Bear manna every morn instead of dew,
Or let the dew be sweeter far than that
That hangs, like chains of pearl, on Hermou
hill,
Or balm which trickled from old Aaron's
beard. —
Cusay, come up, and serve thy lord the king.
Entei- Cusay above.
Ctt. What service doth my lord the king
command ?
Dav. See, Cusay, see the flower of Israel,
The fairest daughter that obeys the king
In all the land the Lord subdu'd to me ;
Fairer than Isaac's lover at the well,
Brighter than inside-bark of new-hewn cedar,
Sweeter than flames of fine-perfumed f myrrh,
* discoloured] i. e. variously coloured.
t fine-perfumed] England's Parnassus, 1600, (where this
passage is given, p. :il>7, under the head "Descriptions of
Beauty and Personage,") " fire-perfumed."
4G4
DA\ r ID AND BETHSABE.
And comelier than the silver clouds that dance
On Zephyr's* wings before the King of Heaven.
Cu. Is it not Bethsabe the Hethite's wife,
Urias, now at Rabbah t siege with Joab )
Dav. Go know, and bring her quickly to the
king;
Tell her, her graces have found grace with him.
Cu. I will, my lord. [Exit.
Dav. Bright Bethsabe shall wash, in David's
bower,
In water mis'd with purest almond-flower,
And bathe her beauty in the milk of kids :
Bright Bethsabe gives earth to my desires ; +
Verdure to earth ; and to that verdure flowers ;
To flowers sweet odours ; and to odours wings
That carry pleasures to the hearts of kings.
Enter Ccsay, below, to Bethsabe, she starting as something
affright.
Cu. Fair Bethsabe, the King of Israel
From forth his princely tower hath seen thee
bathe ;
And thy sweet graces have found grace with
him :
Come, then, and kneel unto him where he
stands ;
The king is gracious, and hath liberal hands.
Beth. Ah, what is Bethsabe to please the king?
Or what is David, that he should desire,
For fickle beauty's sake, his servant's wife ?
Cu. David, thou know'st, fair dame, is wise
and just,
Elected to the heart of Israel's God ;
Then do not thou expostulate with him
For any action that contents his soul.
Beth. My lord the king, elect to God's own
heart,
Should not his gracious jealousy iucenso
Whose thoughts are chaste : I hate incontinence.
Cu. Woman, thou wrong st the king, and
doubt'st his honour,
Whose truth maintains the crown of Israel,
Making him stay that bade mc bring thee
straight.
Beth. The king's poor handmaid will obey my
lord.
* Zephyr's] England' I Parnassus " Zephyrus'."
+ Itabbah] In the earlier part of our play the 4to.
spells the name of this city " Rabath."
J Eright Eethsabe gives earth to my desires, etc.] Ilere
"earth" (in spite of the repetitions, "earth, earth";
"verdure, verdure"; "flowers, flowers"; "odours,
odours",) seems unintelligible: but assuredly the right
rcaling is not "birth", — as Mr. Collier boldly asserts
that it is, Hist, of the Engl. Stage, p. 34, note, Shakespeare,
vol. i. od. 185S.
Cu. Then come, and do thy duty to his grace;
And do what seemeth favour in his siyht.
[Exit, bdoio, with Bethsabe.
Dav. Now comes my lover tripping like the roe,
And brings my longings tangled in her hair.
To joy* her love I'll build a kingly bower,
Seated in hearing of a hundred streams,
That, for their homage to her sovereign joys, t
Shall, as the serpents fold into their nests
In oblique turnings, wind their J nimble waves
About the circles of her curious walks ;
And with their murmur summon easeful sleep
To lay his golden sceptre on her brows. —
Open the doors, and entertain my love ;
Open, I say, and, as you open, siug,
Welcome fair Bethsabe, King David's darling.
Enter, above, Cusay with Bethsabe.
Welcome, fair Bethsabe, King David's darling.
Thy bones' fair covering, erst discover'd fair,
And all mine eyes § with all thy beauties piere'd :
As heaven's bright eye burns most when most he
climbs
The crooked zodiac with his fiery sphere,
And shineth furthest from this earthly globe ;
So, since thy beauty scorch'd my couquer'd soul,
I call'd thee nearer for my nearer cure.
Beth. Too near, my lord, was your unarmed
heart
When furthest off my hapless beauty piere'd ;
Ami would this dreary day had turn'd to night,
Or that some pitchy cloud had cloak'd the sun,
Before their lights had caus'd my lord to see
His name disparag'd and my chastity !
Dav. My love, if want of love have left thy
soul
A sharper sense of honour than thy king,
(For love leads princes sometimes from their
seats,)
As erst my heart was hurt, displeasing thee,
So come and taste thy ease with easing me.
Beth. One medicine cannot heal our different
harms ;
But rather make both rankle at the bone :
Then let the kiug be cunning in his cure,
Lest flattering both, both perish in his hand.
Dav. Leave it to me, my dearest Bethsabe,
* joy] i.e. enjoy.
t ji'.vs] Is not this an error originating in the word "joy"
a little above ? The sense seems to require " charms."
} their] Walker's correction, Crit. Exam, of the text of
Shakespeare, <fcc , vol. ii. p. 231. — The 4to. "the."
§ And all mine eyes, &c.j To connect this with what
precedes, a fri»-nd would read " Have all mine eyes," &c. :
but. the probability is, that a line has diopt out.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
4(35
Whose skill is conversant in deeper cures. —
And, Cusay, haste thou to my servant Joab,
Commanding him to send Uriaa home
With all the speed can possibly be us'd.
Cu. Cusay will fly about the king's desire.
[Exeunt.
Enter Joab, Abisai, Urias, and others, with drum and
ensign.
Joab. Courage, ye mighty men of Israel,
And charge your fatal instruments of war
Upon the bosoms of proud Amnion's sons,
That have disguis'd your king's ambassadors,
Cut half their beards and half their garments off,
In spite of Israel and his daughters' sons !
Ye fight the holy battles of Jehovah,
King David's God, and ours, and Jacob's God,
That guides your weapons to their conquering
strokes,
Orders your footsteps, and directs your thoughts
To stratagems that harbour victory :
He casts bis sacred eyesight from on high,
And sees your foes run seeking for their deaths,
Laughing their labours and their hopes to scorn ;
While 'twixt your bodies and their blunted swords
He puts on armour of his honour's proof,
And makes their weapons wound the senseless
winds.
Abis. Before this city Rabbah we will lie,
And shoot forth shafts as thick and dangerous
As was the hail that Moses mix'd with fire,
And threw with fury round about the fields,
Devouring Pharaoh's friends and Egypt's fruits.
Ur. First, mighty captains, Joab and Abisai,
Let us assault, and scale this kingly tower,
Where all their conduits aud their fountains are;
Then we may easily take the city too.
Joab. Well hath Urias counsell'd our attempts ;
And as he spake us, so assault the tower :
Let Hanon now, the king of Amnion's sons,*
Repulse our conquering passage if he dare.
Enter Hanon, Machaas, and others, upon the walU.
Ha. What would the shepherd's-doga of Israel
Snatch from the mighty issue of King Ammon,
The valiant Ammonites and haughty Syrians 1
'Tis not your late successive victories
Can make us yield, or quail our courages ;
But if ye dare assay to scale this tower,
Our angry swords shall smite ye to the ground,
And venge our losses on your hateful lives.
* sons] The 4to. "sonne." — Compare the third line of
Joab's first speech in this scene, and more particularly,
the last line but two of page 468, first col.
Joab. Hanon, thy father Nahas gave relief
To holy David in his hapless exile,
Lived his fixed date, and died in peace :
But thou, instead of reaping his reward,
Hast trod it under foot, and scorn'd our king ;
Therefore thy days shall end with violence,
And to our swords thy vital blood shall cleave.
Mach. Hence, thou that bear'st poor Israel's
shepherd's-hook,
The proud lieutenant of that base-born king,
And keep within the compass of his fold ;
For, if ye seek to feed on Amnion's fruits,
And stray into the Syrians' fruitful meads,
The mastives of our land shall worry * ye,
And pull the weeselsf from your greedy throats.
Abis. Who can endure these pagans' blas-
phemies]
Ur. My soul repines at this disparagement.
Joab. Assault, ye valiant men of David's host,
And beat these railing dastards from their doors.
Assault, and they tein the tower ; and then Joab speaks
above.
Thus have we won the tower, which we will
keep,
Maugre the sons of Ammon and of Syria.
Enter Cusay below.
Cu. Where is Lord Joab, leader of the host 1
Joab. Here is Lord Joab, leader of the host.
Cusay, come up, for we have won the hold.
Cu. In happy hour, J then, is Cusay come.
Cusay goes up.
Joab. What news, then, brings Lord Cusay
from the king ?
Cu. His majesty commands thee out of hand
To 6end him home Urias from the wars,
For matter of some service he should do.
Ur. 'Tis for no choler hath surpris'd the king,
I hope, Lord Cusay, 'gainst his servant's truth ?
Cu. No ; rather to prefer Urias' truth.
Joab. Here, take him with thee, then, and go in
peace j
And tell my lord the king that I have fought
Against the city Rabbah with success,
And scaled where the royal palace is,
The conduit-heads and all their sweetest springs:
Then let him come in person to these walls,
With all the soldiers he can bring besides,
* worry] The 4to. "werry."
t weesels] i. e. weasands. (This word is spelt by soma
of our old writers " wesils.")
I hour] A dissyllable here (and eo spelt in the 4to., —
"hower").
B B
466
DAVID AND BETHSABE,
And take the city as his own exploit,
Lest I surprize it, and the people give
The glory of the conquest to my name.
Cu. We will, Lord Joab; and great Israel's
God
Bless in thy hands the battles of our king !
Joab. Farewell, Urias ; haste away the king.
Ur. As sure as Joab breathes a victor here,
Urias will haste him and his own return.
[Exeunt CU3AT and Urias.
Abis. Let us descend, and ope the palace' gate,
Taking our soldiers in to keep the hold.
Joab. Let us, Abisai : — and, ye sons of Judah,
Be valiant, and maintain your victory. [Exeunt.
Enter Amnon,* Jonadab, Jethray, and Amnon's Page.
Jonad. What means my lord, the king's
beloved son,
That wears upon his right triumphant arm
The power of Israel for a royal favour,
That holds upon the tables of his hands
Banquets of honour and all thought's content,
To suffer pale and grisly abstinence
To sit and feed upon his fainting cheeks,
And suck away the blood that cheers his looks 1
Am. Ah, Jonadab, it is my sister's looks,
On whose sweet beauty I bestow my blood,
That make me look so amorously lean ;
Her beauty having seiz'd upon my heart,
So merely t consecrate to her content,
Sets now such guard about his vital blood,
And views the passage with such piercing eyes,
That none can scape to cheer my pining cheeks,
But all is thought too little for her love.
Jonad. Then from her heart thy looks shall be
reliev'd,
And thou shalt joy Jher as thy soul desires.
Am. How can it be, my sweet friend Jonadab,
Since Thamar is a virgin and my sister ?
Jonad. Thus it shall be : lie down upon thy bed,
Feigning thee fever-sick and ill-at-ease ;
And when the king shall come to visit thee,
Desire thy sister Thamar may be sent
To dress some dainties for thy malady :
Then when thou hast her solely with thyself,
Enforce some favour to thy manly love.
See where she comes : entreat her in with thee.
Enter Thamar.
Tha. What aileth Amnon, with such sickly
looks
• Amnon] The 4to. throughout "Ammon."
t merely] i.e. wholly, absolutely.— The Ito "merrily."
X joy] >■ e. enjoy.
To daunt the favour* of his lovely face ?
Am. Sweet Thamar, sick, and wish some
wholesome cates
Dress'd with the cunning of thy dainty hands.
TJia. That hath the king commanded at my
hands:
Then come and rest thee, while I make thee
ready
Some dainties easeful to thy crazed soul.
Am. I go, sweet sister, eased with thy sight.
[Exeunt Thamar, Amnon, Jethray, and Pago.
Jonad. Why should a prince, whose power
may command,
Obey the rebel passions of his love,
When they contend but 'gainst his conscience,
And may be govern'd or suppress'd by will ?
Now, Amnon, loose those loving knots of blood,
That suck'd the courage from thy kingly heart,
And give it passage to thy wither' d cheeks.
Now, Thamar, ripen'd are the holy fruits
That grew on plants of thy virginity ;
And rotten is thy name in Israel :
Poor Thamar, little did thy lovely hands
Foretell an action of such violence
As to contend with Amnon's lusty arms
Siuew'd with vigour of his kindlesst love :
Fair Thamar, now dishonour hunts thy foot,
And follows thee through every covert shade,
Discovering thy shame and nakedness,
Even from the valleys of Jehosaphat
Up to the lofty mounts of Lebanon ;
Where cedars, stirr'd with anger of the winds,
Sounding in storms the tale of thy disgrace,
Tremble with fury, and with murmur shake
Earth with their feet and with their heads the
heavens,
Beating the clouds into their swiftest rack,t
To bear this wonder round about the world.
{ExU.
Re-enter Amnon thrusting out Thamar, and Jethray.
Am. Hence from my bed, whose sight offends
my sotd
As doth the parbreak § of disgorged bears!
Tha. Unkindjunprincely, and unmanly Amnon,
To force, and then refuse || thy sister's love,
Adding unto the fright of thy offence
* favour] i. e. beauty.
f kindtess\ i. e. unnatural.
t rack] i. e. moving massos of vapour. " The winds in
the upper region which move the clouds above (which
we call the rack)", &c— Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum, or A
Naturall Historic, § 115, p. 3'2, ed. 1658.
§ parbreak] i. o. vomit.
|| refuse] i. e. reject.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
467
The baneful torment of my publish' d shame !
0, do not this dishonour to thy love,
Nor clog thy soul with such increasing sin !
This second evil far exceeds the first.
Am. Jethray, come thrust this woman from
my sight,
And bolt the door upon her if she strive. [Exit.
Jeth. Go, madam, go; away; you must begone;
My lord hath done with you : I pray, depart.
[Shuts her out. — Exit.
Tha. Whither, alas, ah, whither shall I fly,
With folded arms and all-amazed soul ?
Cast as was Eva from that glorious soil,
(Where all delights sat bating, wing'd with
thoughts,
Ready to nestle in her naked breasts,)
To bare and barren vales with floods made
waste,
To desert woods, and hills with lightning
scorch'd,
With death, with shame, with hell, with horror
sit;*
There will I wander from my father's face ;
There Absalon, my brother Absalon,
Sweet Absalon shall hear his sister mourn ;
There will I luref with my windy sighs
Night-ravens and owls to rend my bloody side,
Which with a rusty weapon I will wound,
And make them passage to my panting heart.
Why tahi'st thou, wretch, and leav'st the deed
undone ?
Rend hair and garments, as thy heart is rent
With inward fury of a thous-and griefs,
And scatter them by these unhallow'd doors,
To figure Amuon's x-esting cruelty,
And tragic spoil of Thamar' s chastity.
Enter Absalon.
A bs. What causeth Thamar to exclaim so
much ?
Tha. The cause that Thamar shameth to dis-
close.
Abs. Say; I thy brother will revenge that
cause.
Tha. Amnon, our father's son, hath forced me,
And thrusts me from him as the scorn of Israel.
Abs. Hath Amnon forced thee? by David's
hand,
And by the covenant God hath made with him,
Amnon shall bear his violence to hell ;
Traitor to heaven, traitor to David's throne,
* git] An error, I believe : but qy. as to the right
reading ?
t lure] Is hore a disyllabic. — The 4to. "liua."
Traitor to Absalon and Israel.
This fact hath Jacob's ruler seen from heaven,
And through a cloud of smoke and tower of fire,
As he rides vaunting him upon the greens,
Shall tear his chariot-wheels with violent winds,
And throw his body in the bloody sea ;
At him the thunder shall discharge bis bolt ;
And his fair spouse, with bright and fiery wings,*
Sit ever burning on his hateful bones :
Myself, as swift as thunder or his spouse,
Will hunt occasion with a secret hate,
To work false Amnon an ungracious end. —
Go in, my sister ; rest thee in my house ;
And God in time shall take this shame from thee.
Tha. Nor God nor time will do that good for
me. [Exit.
Enter David iclUt his train,.
Dav. My Absalon, what mak'st thou here alone,
And bear'st such discontentment in thy brows?
A bs. Great cause hath Absalon to be displeas'd,
And in his heart to shroud the wounds of wrath.
Dav. 'Gainst whom should Absalon be thus
displeas'd ?
Abs. 'Gainst wicked Amnon, thy ungracious son,
My brother and fair Thamar' s by the king,
My step-brother by mother and by kind : t
He hath dishonour* d David's holiness,
And fix'd a blot of lightness on his throne,
Forcing my sister Thamar when he feign'd
A sickness, sprung from root of heinous lust.
Dav. Hath Amnon brought this evil on my
house,
And suffer'd sin to smite his father's bones ?
Smite, David, deadlier than the voice of heaven,
And let hate's fire be kindled in thy heart :
Frame in the arches of thy angry brows,
Making thy forehead, like a comet, shine,
To force false Amnon tremble at thy looks.
Sin, with his sevenfold crown and purple robe,
Begins his triumphs in my guilty throne ;
There sits he watching with his hundred eyes
Our idle minutes and our wanton thoughts ;
And with his baits, made of our frail desires,
Gives us the hook that hales our souls to hell :
But with the spirit of my kingdom's God
I'll thrust the flattering tyrant from his throne,
* And his fair spouse, with bright and fiery wings]
Hawkins (Preface to TJie Origin of the English Drama,
vol i. p. 11.) thinks this "a metaphor worthy of j£s-
chylus."
f hind] i. e. nature.
I tyran] For tyrant, is a form frequently used by our
old poets.
B H 2
4G8
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
And scourge his bondslaves from my hallow'd
court
With rods of iron and thorns of sharpeu'd steel.
Then, Absalon, revenge not thou this sin ;
Leave it to me, and I will chasten him.
Abs. I am content : then grant, my lord the
king,
Himself with all his other lords would come
Up to my sheep-feast on the plain of Hazor.
Dav. Nay, my fair sou, myself with all my
lords
Will bring thee too much charge ; yet somo
shall go.
Abs. But let my lord the king himself take
pains ;
The time of year is pleasant for your grace,
And gladsome summer in her shady robes,
Crowned with roses and with painted* flowers,
With all her nymphs, shall entertain my lord,
That, from the thicket of my verdant groves,
Will sprinkle honey-dews about his breast,
And cast sweet balm upon his kingly head :
Then grant thy servant's boon, and go, my lord.
Dav. Let it content my sweet son Absalon,
That I may stay, and take my other lords.
Abs. But shall thy best-beloved Amnon go ?
Dav. What needeth it, that Amnon go with
thee ?
Abs. Yet do thy son and servant so much
grace.
Dav. Amnon shall go, and all my other lords,
Because I will give grace to Absalon.
Enter Cu&ay and Urias, with others.
Cu. Pleaseth my lord the king, his servant Joab
Hath sent Unas from the Syrian wars.
Dav. Welcome, Urias, from the Syrian wars,
Welcome to David as his dearest lord.
Ur. Thanks be to Israel's God and David's
grace,
Urias finds such greeting with the king.
Dav. No other greeting shall Urias find
As long as David sways th' elected seat
And consecrated throne of Israel.
Tell me, Urias, of my servant Joab ;
Fights he with truth the battles of our God,
And for the honour of the Lord's anointed \
Ur. Thy servant Joab fights the chosen wars
With truth, with honour, and with high success,
And, 'gainst the wicked king of Amnion's sons,
Hath, by the finger of our sovereign's God,
Besieg'd the city Kabbah, and uohiev'd
* painted) The 4 to. " planted."
The court of waters, where the conduits run,
And all the Ammonites' delightsome springs:
Therefore he wisheth David's mightiness
Should number out the host of Israel,
And come in person to the city Rabbah,
That so her conquest may be made the king's,
And Joab fight as his inferior.
Dav. This hath not God and Joab 's prowess done
Without Urias' valour*, I am sure,
Who, siuce his true conversion from a Hethite
To an adopted son of Israel,
Hath fought like one whose arms were lift by
heaven,
And whose bright sword was edg'd with Israel's
wrath.
Go, therefore, home, Urias, take thy rest ;
Visit thy wife and household with the joys
A victor and a favourite of the king's
Should exercise with honour after arms.
Ur. Thy servant's bones are yet not half so
craz'd,
Nor constitute on such a sickly mould,
That for so little service he should faint,
And seek, as cowards, refuge of his home :
Nor are his thoughts so sensually Btirr'd,
To stay the aims with which the Lord would
smite
And fill their circle with his conquer'd foes,
For wanton bosom of a flattering wife.
Dav. Urias hath a beauteous sober wife,
Yet young, and fram'd of tempting flesh and
blood ;
Then, when the king hath summon'd thee from
arms,
If thou unkindly shouldst refrain her bed,
Sin might be laid upon Urias' soul,
If Bethsabe by frailty hurt her fame :
Then go, Urias, solace in her love ;
Whom God hath knit to thee, tremble to loose.
Ur. The king is much too tender of my ease :
The ark and Israel and Judah dwell
In palaces and rich pavilions ;
But Joab and his brother in the fields,
Suffering the wrath of winter and the sun :
And shall Urias (of more shame than they)
Banquet, and loiter in the work of heaven ?
As suref as thy soul doth live, my lord,
Mine ears shall never lean to such delight,
When holy labour calls me forth to fight.
Dav. Then be it with Unas' manly heart
As best his fame may shine in Israel.
• valour] The 4to. "valours."
f sure] A dissyllable here.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
469
Ur. Thus shall Unas* heart be best content,
Till thou dismiss me back to Joab's bands :
This ground before the king my master's doors
Shall be my couch, and this unwearied arm
The proper pillow of a soldier's head ;
[Lies down.
For never will I lodge within my house,
Till Joab triumph in my secret vows.
Dav. Then fetch some flagons of our purest
wine,
That we may welcome home our hardy friend
With full carouses to his fortunes past
And to the honours of his future arms ;
Then will I send him back to Rabbah siege,
And follow with the strength of Israel.
Enter one with flagons of wine.
Arise, Urias ; come and pledge the king.
Ur. If David think me worthy such a grace,
I will be bold and pledge my lord the king.
[Rises.
Dav. Absalon and Cusay both shall drink
To good Urias and his happiness.
Abs. We will, my lord, to please Urias' soul.
Dav. I will begin, Urias, to thyself,
And all the treasure of the Ammonites,
Which here I promise to impart to thee,
And bind that promise with a full carouse.
[Drinks.
Ur. What 8eemeth pleasant in my sovereign's
eyeB,
That shall Urias do till he be dead.
Dav. Fill him the cup. [Urias drinks.] —
Follow, ye lords that love
Your sovereign's health, and do as he hath done.
Abs. Ill may he thrive, or live in Israel,
That loves not David, or denies his charge. —
Urias, here is to Abisai's health,
Lord Joab's brother and thy loving friend.
[Drinks.
Ur. I pledge Lord Absalon and Abisai's health.
[Drinks.
Cu. Here now, Urias, to the health of Joab,
And to the pleasant journey we shall have
When we return to mighty Rabbah siege.
[Drinks.
Ur. Cusay, I pledge thee all with all my heart. —
Give me some drink, ye servants of the king ;
Give me my drink. [Drinks.
Dav. Well done, my good Urias ! drink thy fill,
That in thy fulness David may rejoice.
Ur. I will, my lord.
.46*. Now, Lord Urias, one carouse to me.
Ur. No, sir, I'll drink to the king ;
Your father is a better man than you.
Dav. Do so, Urias; I will pledge thee straight
Ur. I will indeed, my lord and sovereign;
I'll* once in my days be so bold.
Dav. Fill him his glass.
Ur. Fill me my glass. +
Dav. Quickly, I say.
Ur. Quickly, I say. — Here, my lord, by your
favour now I drink to you. [Drinks.
Dav. I pledge thee, good Urias, presently.
[Drinks.
Abs. Here, then, Urias, once again for me,
And to the health of David's children. [Drinks.
Ur. David's children !
A bs. Ay, David's children : wilt thou pledge
me, man?
Ur. Pledge me, man !
A bs. Pledge me, I say, or else thou lov'st us not.
Ur. What, do you talk ? do you talk ? I'll no
more ; I'll lie down here.
Dav. Rather, Urias, go thou home and sleep.
Ur. 0, ho, sir ! would you make me break my
sentence? [Lies doion.] Home, sir ! no, indeed,
sir : I'll sleep upon mine arm, like a soldier ;
sleep like a man as long as I live in Israel.
Dav. [aside.] If naught will serve to save bis
wife's renown,
I'll send him with a letter unto Joab
To put him in the forefront of the wars,
That so my purposes may take effect. —
Help him in, sirs.
[Exeunt David and Absalon.
Cu. Come, rise, Urias ; get thee in and sleep.
Ur. I will not go home, sir ; that's flat.
Cu. Then come and rest thee upon David's bed.
Ur. On, afore, my lords, on, afore, [Exeunt.
Enter Chorus,
Chorus. O proud revolt of a presumptuous man,
Laying his bridle in the neck of sin,
Ready to bear him past his grave to hell I
Like as the fatal raven.t that in his voice
* III] The Ito. " I."
t Fill me my glass] Here the 4to. has a stage-direction
"He giues him the glasse", which means, I suppose, that
Urias gives the glass to the person who pours out the
wine, to be filled.
J Like as the fatal raven, <fec] Imitated from Du Bartas;
" Ainsi que les corbeaux d'vne peuno venteuse
Fassans les bois plenrana de l'Arabie heureuse,
Mesprisent les iardins et pares delicieux,
Qui de fleurs esmaiUez vont parfumant les cieux,
Et s'arrestent, gloutons, sur la salle carcasse
D'vn crimmel rompu n'aguere a coups de masse," &c.
I' Arche,— 'Premiere Partie du Second Jour de la Seconde
Semaine, p. 270, ed. 1632, 12°.
(In Chapman and Shirley's Chabot, Admiral of France,
act iv. gc. 1, we find, —
470
DAVJD and bethsabe.
Carries the dreadful summons of our deaths,
Flies by the fair Arabian spiecries,
Her pleasant gardens and delightsome parks,*
Seeming to curse them with his hoarse exclaims,
And yet doth stoop with hungry violence
Upon a piece of hateful carrion ;
So wretched man, di*pleas'd with those delights
Would yield a quickening savour to his soul,
Pursues with eager and unstanched thirst
The greedy longings of his loathsome flesh.
If holy David so shook hands with sin,
What shall our baser spirits glory in?
This kinglyf giving lust her rein
Pursues the sequel with a greater ill.
Urias in the forefront of the wars
Is murder'd by the hateful heathens' sword,
And David joys his too dear Bethsabe.
Suppose this past, and that the child is born,
Whose death the prophet solemnly doth mourn.
IExU.
Enter Betiisabe with her Maid.}
Beth. Mourn, Bethsabe, bewail thy foolishness,
Thy sin, thy shame, the sorrow of thy soul :
Sin, shame, and sorrow swarm about thy soul ;
And, in the gates and entrance of my heart,
Sadness, with wreathed arms, hangs her complaint.
No comfort from the ten-string' d instrument,
The tiukling§ cymbal, or the ivory lute ;
Nor doth the sound of David's kingly harp
Make glad the broken heart of Bethsabe :
Jerusalem is fill'd with thy complaint,
And in the streets of Sion sits thy grief.
The babe is sick, sick to the death, I fear,
The fruit that sprung from thee to David's house;
Nor may the pot of honey and of oil
Glad David or his handmaid's countenance.
Urias — wo is me to think hereon 1
For who is it among the sons of men
That saith not to my soul, " The king hath sinn'd;
David hath done amiss, and Bethsabe
Laid snares of death unto Urias' life " ?
My sweet Urias, fall'n into the pit
" like crows and carrion birds,
They fly o'er flowery meads, clear springs, fair gardens,
And stoop at carcasse* " —
which I formerly supposed (see my note on Shirley's
Works, vi. 132) to have been borrowed from the passage
of our text, as I was not then acquainted with the lines
of Du Bartas just cited )
* delightsome parks'] England's Parnassus, 1600, (whore
several lines of this Chorus are given, p. 195, under the
hoad " Man",) has " dolightfull parts."
t This kingly, <fcc] A mutilated line. (In my former
eds. I queried if "kingly ". should be " king by ".)
J Maid] Hero the 4to. "handmaid": but see ante,
p. 463, first col.
§ tinkling] The 4to. " twinckling."
Art thou, and gone even to the gates of hell
For Bethsabe, that wouldst not shroud her shame.
O, what is it to serve the lust of kings !
How lion-like th[e]y rage when we resist !
But, Bethsabe, in humbleness attend
The grace that God will to his handmaid send.
[Exeunt.
Enter David in his gown, walking sadly ; Servants
attending.
Dav. [aside.] The babe is sick, and sad is David s
heart,
To see the guiltless bear the guilty's pain.
David, hang up thy harp; hang down thy head;
And dash thy ivory lute against the stones.
The dew, that on the hill of Hermon falls,
Rains not on Sion's tops and lofty towers ;
The plains of Gath * and Askaron rejoice,
And David's thoughts are spent in pensiveuesa :
The babe is sick, sweet babe, that Bethsabe
With woman's pain brought forth to Israel.
Enter Nathan.
But what saith Nathan to his lord the king?
iVa. Thus Nathan saith unto his lord the king.
There were two men both dwellers in one town :
The one was mighty, and exceeding rich
In oxen, sheep, and cattle of the field;
The other poor, having nor ox, nor calf,
Nor other cattle, save one little lamb
Which he had bought and nourish'd by the hand;
And it grew up, and fed with him and his,
And eat and drank as he and his were wont,
And in his bosom slept, and was to him +
As was his daughter or his dearest child.
There came a stranger to this wealthy man ;
And he refus'd and spar'd to take his own,
Or of his store to dress or make him meat,
But took the poor man's sheep, partly, poor man'a
store, X
And dress'd it for this stranger in his house.
What, tell me, shall be done to him for this ?
Dav. Now, as the Lord doth live, this wicked man
Is judg'd and shall become the child of death ;
Fourfold to the poor man shall he restore,
That without mercy took his lamb away.
Na. Thou art the man; and thou hast judg'd
thyself.
David, thus saith the Lord thy God by me :
I thee anointed king in Israel,
And sav'd thee from the tyranny of Saul ;
Thy master's house I gave thee to possess;
* The plains of Gath, etc.] This and the next lino are
transposed in the 4to. t him] The 4to. "line. '
t But took the poor man's sheep, partly, poor man's store]
Some deep corruption here.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
471
His wives iuto thy bosom did I give,
And Juclah and Jerusalem withal ;
And might, thou know'st, if this had been too
small,
Have given thee more :
Wherefore, then, hast thou gone so far astray,
And hast done evil, and sinned in my sight?
Urias thou hast killed with the sword ;
Yea, with the sword of the uncircumcis'd
Thou hast him slain : wherefore, from this day
forth,
The sword shall never go from thee and thine ;
For thou hast ta'en this Hethite's wife to thee :
Wherefore, behold, I will, saith Jacob's God,
In thine own house stir evil up to thee ;
Yea, I before thy face will take thy wives,
And give them to thy neighbour to possess :
This shall be done to David in the day,
That Israel openly may see thy shame.
Dav. Nathan, I have against the Lord, I have
Sinned ; 0, sinned grievously ! and, lo,
From heaven's throne doth David throw himself,
And groan and grovel to the gates of hell !
[Falls doton.
No. [raising him.] David, stand up : thus saith
the Lord by me :
David the king shall live, for he bath seen
The true repentant sorrow of thy heart ;
But, for thou hast in this misdeed of thine
Stirr'd up the enemies of Israel
To triumph, and blaspheme the God of Hosts,
And say, he set a wicked man to reign
Over his loved people and his tribes, —
The child shall surely die, that erst was born,
His mother's sin, his kiugly father's scorn.*
[Exit.
Dav. How just is Jacob's God in all his works !
But must it die that David loveth so ?
O, that the Mighty One of Israel
Nillt change his doom, and says the babe must
die !
Mourn, Israel, and weep in Sion-gates ;
Wither, ye cedar-trees of Lebanon ;
Ye sprouting almonds, with your flowering tops,
Droop, drown, and drench in Hebron's fearful
streams :
The babe must die that was to David born,
His mother's sin, his kingly father's scorn.
[Sits sadly.
Enter Cusav.
First Serv. What tidings bringeth Cusay to the
king !
* scorn] i.e." disgrace, reproach." Walker's Crit. Exam,
of the text of Shakespeare, Ac, vol. ii. p. 81.
t Will} i. e. will not.
Cti. To thee, the servant of King David's court,
This bringeth Cusay, as the prophet spake ;
The Lord hath surely stricken to the death
The child new-born by that Unas' wife,
That by the sons of Amnion erst was slain.
First Sen*. Cusay, be still ; the king is vexed
sore :
How shall he speed that brings this tidings first,
When, while the child was yet alive, we spake,
And David's heart would not be comforted ?
Dav. Yea, David's heart will not be com-
forted !
What murmur ye, the servants of the king ?
What tidings telleth Cusay to the king 1
Say, Cusay, lives the child, or is he dead?
Ca. The child is dead, that of Urias' wife
David begat.
Dav. Urias' wife, saist thou ?
The child is dead, then ceaseth David's shame :
Fetch me to eat, and give me wine to drink ;
Water to wash, and oil to clear my looks ;
Bring down your shalms, your cymbals, and your
pipes ;
Let David's harp and lute, his hand and voice,
Give laud to bim that loveth Israel,
And sing his praise that shendeth* David's fame,
That put away his sin from out his sight,
And sent his shame into the streets of Gath.
Bring ye to me the mother of the babe,
That I may wipe the tears from off her face,
And give her comfort with this hand of mine,
And deck fair Bethsabe with ornaments,
That she may bear to me another son,
That may be loved of the Lord of Hosts ;
For where he is, of force must David go,
But never may he come where David is.
They bring in water, wine, and oil. Music and a banquet;
and enter Bethsabe.
Fair Bethsabe, sit thou, and sigh no more : —
And sing and play, you servants of the king :
Now sleepeth David's sorrow with the dead,
And Bethsabe liveth to Israel.
They use all solemnities together and sing, &c.
Now arms and warlike engines for assault
Prepare at once, ye men of Israel,
* sliendeth] "In the following passage," says Nares in
his Glossary, "it [shend} seems to mean to protect, which
must be considered as an error, being contrary to all
analogy : —
'This I must succour, this I must defend,
And from the wild boare's rooting ever shtud.'
Brown, Brit. Past, part ii. p. 144."
Iu the passage just cited "shend " is certainly equivalent
to " defend ", as in our toxt "shendeth " is equivalent to
"defendeth."
—
472
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
Ye men of Judah auJ Jerusalem,
That Rabbah may be taken by the king,
Lest it be called after Joab's name,
Nor David's glory shine in Sion streets.
To Rabbah marcheth David with his men,
To chastise Amnion and the wicked ones.
[Exeunt.
Enter Absalon with several others.
Abs. Set up your mules, and give them well to
eat,
And let us meet our brothers at the feast.
Accursed is the master of this feast,
Dishonour of the house of Israel,
His sister's slander, and his mother's shame :
Shame be his share that could such ill contrive,
To ravish Thamar, and, without a pause,
To drive her shamefully from out his house :
But may his wickedness find just reward !
Therefore doth Absalon conspire with you,
That Amnon die what time he sits to eat;
For in the holy temple have I sworn
Wreak of his villany in Thamar's rape.
And here he comes : bespeak him gently, all,
Whose death is deeply graved in my heart.
Enter Amnon, Adonia, and Jonadab.
Am. Our shearers are not far from hence, I
wot;
And Amnon to you all his brethren*
Giveth such welcome as our fathers erst
Were wont in Judah and Jerusalem ; —
But, specially, Lord Absalon, to thee,
The honour of thy house and progeny :
Sit down and dine with me, King David's son,
Thou fair youug man, whose hairs shine in mine
eye
Like golden wires of David's ivory lute.
Abs. Amnon, where be thy shearers and thy
men,
That we may pour-in plenty of thy wines,+
And eat thy goats'-milk, and rejoice with thee?
Am. Here cometh Amnon's shearers and his
men : —
Absalon, sit andj rejoice with me.
Enter a company of Shepherds, who dance and sing.
Drink, Absalon, in praise of Israel ;
Welcome to Amnon's fields from David's court.
Abs. [stabbing Amnon.] Die with thy draught ;
perish, and die accurs'd;
* brethren] See note •, p. 421, sec. col.
t uin«l Tlie 4to. "vines."
I nit mid, he ] Qy. "sit down and," <fcc. ?
Dishonour to the honour of us all ;
Die for the villany to Thamar done,
Unworthy thou to be King David's son !
[Exit with others.
Jonad. 0, what hath Absalon for Thamar done,
Murder'd his brother, great King David's son !
Ad. Run, Jonadab, away, and make it known,
What cruelty this Absalon hath shown.
Amnon, thy brother Adonia shall
Bury thy body 'mong the dead men's bones ;
And we will make complaint to Israel
Of Amnon's death and pride of Absalon.
[Exeunt.
Enter David, Joab, Abisai, Cusav, and others, with drum
and ensign against Rabbah.
Dav. This is the town of the uncircumcis'd,
The city of the kingdom, this is it,
Rabbah, where wicked Hanon sitteth king.
Despoil this king, this Hanon of his crown ;
Unpeople Rabbah and the streets thereof;
For in their blood, and slaughter of the slain,
Lieth the honour of King David's line.
Joab, Abisai, aud the rest of you,
Fight ye this day for great Jerusalem.
Enter Ha non and others on the walls.
Joab. And see where Hanon shows him on the
walls ;
Why, then, do we forbear to give assault,
That Israel may, as it is promised,
Subdue the daughters of the Gentiles' tribes ?
All this must be perform'd by David's hand.
Dav. Hark to me, Hanon, and remember well:
As sure as He doth live that kept my host,
What time our young men, by the pool of Gibeon,
Went forth against the strength of Isboseth,
And twelve to twelve did with their weapons
play;
So sure* art thou and thy men of war
To feel the sword of Israel this day,
Because thou hast defied Jacob's God,
And suffer'd Rabbah with the Philistine
To rail upon the tribe of Benjamin.
Ha. Hark, man : as sure as Saul thy master foil,
And gor'd his sides upon the mountain-tops,
And Jonathan, Abinadab, and Melchisua,
Water'd the dales and deeps of Askaron
With bloody streams, that from Gilboa ran
In channels through the wilderness of Ziph,
What time the sword of tho uncircumcis'd
Was drunken with the blood of Israel ;
So sure shall David perish with his men
• si're] A dissyllable here.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
473
Under the walls of Kabbah, Hanon's town.
Joab. Hanon, the God of Israel hath said,
David the king shall wear that crown of thine
That weighs a talent of the finest gold,
And triumph in the spoil of Hauon's town,
When Israel shall hale thy people hence,
And turn them to the tile-kiln, man and child,
And put them under harrows made of irou,
And hew their bones with axes, and their limbs
With iron swords divide and tear in twain.
Hauon, this shall be done to thee and thine,
Because thou hast defied Israel. —
To arms, to arms, that Rabbah feel revenge,
And Hanon's town become King David's spoil !
Alarum, excursions, assault; exeunt. Tlien the trumpets
sound, and reenter David with Hanon's crown, Joab, <5cc.
Dav. Now clattering arms and wrathful storms
of war
Have thunder' d over Rabbah's razed towers ;
The wreakful ire of great Jehovah's arm,
That for his people made the gates to rend,
And cloth'd the cherubius in fiery coats
To fight against the wicked Hanon's town.
Pay thanks, ye men of Judah, to the King,
The God of Sion and Jerusalem,
That hath exalted Israel to this,
And crowned David with this diadem.
Joab. Beauteous and bright is he among the
tribes ;
As when the sun,* attir'd in glistering robe,
Comes dancing from his oriental gate.
And bridegroom-like hurls through the gloomy
air
His radiant beams, such doth King David show,
Crown'd with the honour of his enemies' town,
Shining in riches like the firmament,
The starry vault that overhangs the earth :
So looketh David King of Israel.
Abis. Joab, why doth not David mount his
throne
Whom heaven hath beautified with Hanon's
crown ?
Sound trumpets, shalms, and instruments of
praise,
To Jacob's God for David's victory.
[Trumpets, <tc
* As when the sun, <fec] Hawkius, who (Preface to The
Origin of the English Draw a, vol. i. p. 11.) justly praises this
simile, had forgotten the following Hues of Spenser ;
" At last, the golden orientall gate
Of greatest heaven gan to open fayre ;
And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate,
Came dauncing forth, shaking his deawie hayrc ;
And hurld his glistring beams through gloomy ayre."
The Faerie Queene, B 1. c. 5. st. 2.
Enter Jon a dab.
Jon ad. Why doth the King of Israel rejoice?
Why Bitteth David crown'd with Rabbah's rule?
Behold, there hath great heaviness befall'n
In Amnon's fields by Absalon's misdeed ;
And Amnon's shearers and tlieir feast of mirth
Absalon hath o'erturned witli his sword ;
Nor liveth any of King David's sons
To bring this bitter tidings to the king.
Dav. Ay me, how soon are David's triumphs
dash'd,
How suddenly declineth David's pride !
As doth the daylight settle in the west,
So dim is David's glory and his gite.*
Die, David ; for to thee is left no seed
That may revive thy name in Israel.
Jonad. In Israel is left of David's seed.
Comfort your lord, you servants of the king. —
Behold, thy sons return in mourning weeds,
And only Amnon Absalon hath slain.
Enter Adonia with other Sons of David.
Dav. Welcome, my sons; dearer to me you are
Than is this golden crown or Hanon's spoil.
0, tell me, then, tell me, my sons, I say,
How cometh it to pass that Absalon
Hath slain his brother Amnon with the sword ?
Ad. Thy sons, king, went up to Amnon's
fields,
To feast with him and eat his bread and oil ;
And Absalon upon his mule doth come,
And to his men he saith, " When Amnon's heart
Is merry and secure, then strike him dead,
Because he forced Thamar shamefully,
And hated her, and threw her forth his doors."
And this did he ; and they with him conspire,
And kill thy son in wreak of Thamar 's wrong.
Dav. How long shall Judah and Jerusalem
Complain, and water Sion with their tears !
How long shall Israel lament in vain,
And not a man among the mighty ones
Will hear the sorrows of King David's heart !
Amnon, thy life was pleasing to thy lord,
As to mine ears the music of my lute,
Or songs that David tuneth to his harp ;
And Absalon hath ta'en from me away
The gladness of my sad distressed soul.
[Exeunt Joab and some others, t
* gite] In the present passage, as well as in the follow-
ing line of our author's Tak of Troy, seems to mean-
splendour, brightness ;
"Done is thy pride, dim is thy glorious gite "
t Exeunt Joab and some others.] The 4to. has "Exeunt
omnes. Manet David." But see David's last speech in
the sec. col. of the next page.
474
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
Enter Woman of Thecoa.*
Wo. of T. [kneeling.] God save King David,
King of Israel,
And bless the gates of Sion for his sake !
Dav. Woman, why uiournest thou ? rise from
the earth ;
Tell me what sorrow hath beMl'n thy soul.
Wo. of T. [rising.] Thy servant's soul, O king,
is troubled sore,
And grievous is the anguish of her heart ;
And from Thecoa doth thy handmaid come.
Dav. Tell me, and say, thou woman of
Thecoa,
What aileth thee or what is come to pass.
Wo of T. Thy servant is a widow in Thecoa.
Two sons thy handmaid had ; and they, my lord,
Fought in the field, where no man went betwixt,
And so the one did smite and slay the other.
And, lo, behold, the kindred doth arise,
And cry on himt that smote his brother,
That he therefore may be the child of death ;
" For we will follow and destroy the heir."
So will they quench that sparkle that is left,
And leave nor name nor issue on the earth
To me or to thy handmaid's husband dead.
Dav. Woman, return ; go home unto thy
house :
I will take order that thy son be safe.
If any man say otherwise than well,
Bring him to me, and I shall chastise him ;
For, as the Lord doth live, shall not a hair
Shed from thy son or fall upon the earth.
Woman, to God alone belongs revenge :
Shall, then, the kindred slay him for his sin ?
Wo. of T. Well hath King David to his hand-
maid spoke :
But wherefore, then, ha=>t thou determined
So hard a part against the righteous tribes,
To follow and pursue the banished,
Whenas + to God alone belongs revenge?
Assuredly thou saist against thyself:
Therefore call home again the banished ;
Call home the banished, that he may live,
And raise to thee some fruit in Israel.
Dav. Thou woman of Thecoa, answer me,
Answer me one thing I shall ask of thee :
* Woman of Tliecoa] The 4to. " widdow of Thecoa":
but alio is only a pretended toidow.
t And cry on him, &c] Some slight omission here.
he words of Scripture are ; " And they said, Deliver
him that smote his brother, that we may kill him for the
ifo of his brother whom he slew ; and we will destroy
the heir also," Ac.— Sec. Samuel, xiv. 7.
J IV ken as] i. e. When.
Is not the hand of Joab in this work?
Tell me, is not his finger in this fact?
Wo. of T. It is, my lord; his hand is in this
work :
Assure thee, Joab, captain of thy host,
Hath put these words into thy handmaid's mouth ;
And thou art as an angel from on high,
To understand the meaning of my heart :
Lo, where he cometh to his lord the king.
Re-enter Joab.
Dav. Say, Joab, didst thou send this woman in
To put this parable for Absalon ?
Joab. Joab, my lord, did bid this woman speak,
And she hath said ; and thou hast understood.
Dav. I have, and am content to do the thing.
Go fetch my son, that he may live with me.
Joab. [kneeling.] Now God be blessed for King
David's life !
Thy servant Joab hath found grace with thee,
In that thou sparest Absalon thy child. [Rises.
A beautiful and fair young man is he,
In all his body is no blemish seen ;
His hair is like the wire of David's harp,
That twines about his bright and ivory neck ;
In Israel is not such a goodly man ;
And here I bring him to entreat for grace.
Joab brings in Absalon.
Dav. Hast thou * slain in the fields of Hazor
Ah, Absalon, my son ! ah, my son, Absalon!
But wherefore do I vex thy spirit so ?
Live, and return from Gesur to thy house ;
Return from Gesur to Jerusalem :
What boots it to be bitter to thy soul ?
Amnou is dead, and Absalon survives.
Abs. Father, I have offended Israel,
I have offended David and his house ;
For Thamar's wrong hath Absalon misdone :
But David's heart is free from sharp revenge,
And Joab hath got grace for Absalon.
Dav. Depart with me, you men of Israel,
You that have follow'd Rabbah with the sword,
And ransack Amnion's richest treasuries. —
Live, Absalon, my son, live once in peace :
Peace [be] with thee, and with Jerusalem !
[Exeunt all except Absalon.
Abs. David is gone, and Absalon remains,
Flowering in pleasant springtime of his youth :
Why liveth Absalon and is not houour'd
Of tribes and elders and the mightiest ones,
* Hast thou, &c.] Qy. "Hast thou slain Amnon in the
fields of Hazor ?" for I cannot think that this line of nine
syllables is to be defended ou the supposition that David
here avoids mentioning the name of his murdered son.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
475
That round about bis temples be may wear
Garlands and wreaths feet on with reverence ;
Tbat every one that bath a cause to plead
Might come to Absalon and call for right ?
Then in the gates of Sion would I sit,
And publisli laws in great Jerusalem;
And not a man should live in all the laud
But Absalon would do him reason's due :
Therefore I shall address me, as I may,
To love the men and tribes of Israel. [Exit.
Enter David, Ithay, Sadoc. Ahimaas, Jonathan, and
others; David barefoot, icitk some loose covering over
his head ; and all mourning.
Dav. Proud lust, the bloodiest traitor to our
souls,
Whose greedy throat nor earth, air, sea, or
Can glut or satisfy with any store, [heaven,
Thou art the cause these torments suck my blood,
Piercing with venom of thy poison'd eyes
The strength and marrow of my tainted bones.
To punish Pharaoh and his cursed host,
The waters shrunk * at great Adonai's voice,
And sandy bottom of the sea appear'd,
Offering Ms service at his servant's feet ;
And, to inflict a plague on David's sin,
He makes his bowels traitors to his breast,
Winding about his heart with mortal gripes.
Ah, Absalon, the wrath of heaven inflames
Thy scorched bosom with ambitious heat,
And Satan sets thee on a lofty + tower,
Showing thy thoughts the pride of Israel,
Of choice to c;\st thee on her ruthless stones ! —
Weep with me, then, ye sons of Israel ;
Lie down with David, and with David mourn
Before the Holy One that sees our hearts ;
[Lies down, and all the rest after him.
Season this heavy soil with showers of tears,
And fill the face of every flower with dew ;
Weep, Israel, for David's soul dissolves,
Lading the fountains of his drowned eyes,
And pours her substance on the senseless earth.
Sa. Weep, Israel ; O, weep for David's soul,
Strewing the ground with hair and garments torn,
For tragic witness of your hearty woes !
Ahi. 0, would our eyes were conduits to our
hearts,
And that our hearts were seas of liquid blood,
To pour in streams upon this holy mount,
For witness we would die for David's woes !
Jonath. Then should this Mount of Olives
seem a plain
Drowu'd with a sea, that with our sighs should
roar,
And, in the murmur of bis mounting waves,
Report our bleeding sorrows to the heavens,
For witness we would die for David's woes.
Ith. Earth cannot weep enough for David's
woes :
Then weep, you heavens, and, all you clouds,
dissolve,
That piteous stars may see our miseries,
And drop their golden tears upon the grouud,
For witness how they weep for David's woes.
Sa. Now let my sovereign raise his prostrate
bones,
And mourn not as a faithless man would do ;
But be assui'd that Jacob's righteous God,
That promis'd never to forsake your throne,
Will still be just and pure* in his vows.
Dav. Sadoc, high-priest, preserver of the ark.
Whose sacred virtue keeps the chosen crown,
I know my God is spotless in his vows,
And that these hairs shall greet my grave in
peace :
But that my son should wrong his tender'd
soul,
And fight against his father's happiness,
Turns all my hopes into despair of him,
And that dt-spair feeds all my veins with grief.
Ith. Think of it, David, as a fatal plague
Which grief preserveth, but preventeth not ;
And turn thy drooping eyes upon the troops
That, of affection to thy worthiness,
Do swarm about the person of the king :
Cherish their valours and their zealous loves
With pleasant looks and sweet encouragements.
Dav. Methinks the voice of Ithay fills miue
ears.
Ith. Let not the voice of Ithay loathe thine
ears,
Whose heart would balm thy bosom with his
tears.
Dav. But wherefore go'st thou to the wars
with us?
Thou art a stranger here in Israel,
And son to Achis, mighty King of Gath ;
Therefore return, and with thy father stay :
Thou cam'st but yesterday ; and should I now
Let thee partake these troubles here with us?
Keep both thyself and all thy soldiers safe :
Let me abide the hazards of these arms,
And God requite the friendship thou hast
show'd.
* shrunk] The 4to. "shrinke."
t lofty] The4to. "lustie."
* pure] A dissyllable here.
476
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
Ith. As sure as Israel's God gives David life,
What place or peril shall contain the king,
The same will Ithay share in life and death.
Dav. Then, gentle Ithay, be thou still with us,
A joy to David, and a grace to Israel. —
Go, Sadoc, now, and bear the ark of God
Into the great Jerusalem again :
If I find favour in his gracious eyes,
Then will he lay his hand upon my heart
Yet once again before I visit death ;
Giving it strength, and virtue to mine eyes,
To taste the comforts and behold the form
Of his fair ark and holy tabernacle :
But, if he say, " My wonted love is worn,
And I have no delight in David now,"
Here lie I armed with an humble heart
T' embrace the pains that anger shall impose,
And kiss the sword my lord shall kill me with.
Then, Sadoc, take Ahimaas thy son,
With Jonathan son to Abiathar ;
And in these fields will I repose myself,
Till they return from you some certain news.
Sa. Thy servants will with joy obey the king,
And hope to cheer his heart with happy news.
[Exeunt Sadoc, Ahimaas, and Jonathan.
Ith. Now that it be no grief unto the kiug,
Let me for good inform his majesty,
That, with unkind and graceless Absalon,
Achitophel your ancient counsellor
Directs the state of this rebellion.
Dav. Then doth it aim with danger at my
crown. —
thou, that hold'st his raging bloody bound
Within the circle of the silver moon,
That girds earth's centre with his watery scarf,
Limit the counsel of Achitophel,
No bounds extending to my soul's distress,
But turn his wisdom into foolishness !
Enter Cusay with his coat turned and head covered.
Cu. Happiness and honour to my lord the
king!
Dav. What happiness or honour may betide
His state that toils in my extremities ?
Cu. O, let my gracious sovereign cease these
griefs,
Unless he wish his servant Cusay 's death,
Whose life depends upon my lord's relief!
Then let my presence with my sighs perfume
The pleasant closet of my sovereign's soul.
Dav. No, Cusay, no ; thy presence unto me
Will be a burden, since I tender thee,
And cannot brook * thy sighs for David's sake :
* brook] The 4to. " breaks."
But if thou turn to fair Jerusalem,
And say to Absalon, as thou hast been
A trusty friend unto his father's seat,
So thou wilt be to him, and call him king,
Achitophel's counsel may be brought to naught.
Then having Sadoc and Abiathar,
All three may learn the secrets of my son,
Sending the message by Ahimaas,
And friendly Jonathan, who both are there.
Cu. Then rise,* referring the euccess to heaven.
Dav. Cusay, I rise; though with unwieldy
bones
I carry arms against my Absalon. [Exeunt.
Absalon, Amasa, Achitophel, with the Concubines of
David, and others, are discovered in great state ; Absa-
lon crowned.
Abs. Now you that were my father's con-
cubines,
Liquor to his inchaste and lustful fire,
Have seen his honour shaken in his house,
Which I possess in sight of all the world;
I bring ye forth for foils to my renown,
And to eclipse the glory of your king,
Whose life is with his honour fast enclos'd
Within the entrails of a jetty cloud,
Whose dissolution shall pour down in showers
The substance of his life and swelling pride :
Then shall the stars light earth with rich.
aspdets,
And heaven shall burn in love with Absalon,
Whose beauty will suffice to chase + all mists,
And clothe the sun's sphere with a triple fire,
Sooner than his clear eyes should suffer stain,
Or be offended with a lowering day.
First Cone. Thy father's honour, graceless Ab-
salon,
And ours thus beaten with thy violent arms,
Will cry for vengeance to the host of heaven,
Whose power is ever arm'd against the proud,
And will dart plagues at thy aspiring head
For doing this disgrace to David's throne.
Second Cone. To David's throne, to David's
holy throne,
Whose sceptre angels guard with swords of fire,
And sit as eagles on his conquering fist,
Ready to prey upon his enemies :
Then think not thou, the captain of his foes,
Wert thou much swifter than Azahelli was,
* Then rise, &c] This line is givon in the4to. to David.
t chase] The 4to. "chast."
t Azaheli] "And there were three sons of Zeruiah
there, Joab, and Abishai, andAsahel: and Asahel was
as light of foot as a wild roe." Sec. Samuel, ii. 18.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
477
That could outpace the nimble-footed roe,
To scape the fury of their thumpiug beaks
Or dreadful scope of their commanding wings.
Ack. Let not my lord the King of Israel
Be angry with a silly woman's threats ;
But, with the pleasure he hath erst enjoy'd,
Turn them into their cabinets again,
Till David's conquest be their overthrow.
Abs. Into your bowers, ye daughters of
disdain,
Gotten by fury of unbridled lust,
And wash your couches with your mourning
tears,
For grief that David's kingdom is decay'd.
First Cone. No, Absalon, his kingdom is en-
chain 'd
Fast to the finger of great Jacob's God,
Which will not loose it for a rebel's love.
[Exeunt Concubines.
Amu. If I might give advice unto the king,
These concubines should buy their taunts with
blood.
A bs. Amasa, no ; but let thy martial sword
Empty the veins* of David's armed men,
And let these foolish women scape our hands
To recompense the shame they have sustain'd.
First, Absalon was by the trumpet's sound
Proclaim'd through Hebron King of Israel;
And now is set in fair Jerusalem
With complete state and glory of a crown :
Fifty fair footmen by my chariot run,
And to the air whose rupture rings my fame,
Where'er I ride, they offer reverence.
Why should not Absalon, that in his face
Carries the final purpose of his God,
That is, to work him grace in Israel,
Endeavour to achieve with all his strength
The state that most may satisfy his joy,
Keeping his statutes and his covenants pure?
His thuuder is entangled in my hair,
And with my beauty is his lightning quench'd :
I am the man he made to glory in,
When by the errors of my father's sin
He lost the path that led into the land
Wherewith our chosen ancestors were bless'd.
Enter Cusay.
Cu. Long may the beauteous King of Israel
live,
To whom the people do by thousands swarm!
Abs. What meaneth Cusay so to greet his
foe?
* veins] The 4to. "paiiies."
Is this the love thou show'?t * to David's soul,
To whose assistance thou hast vow'd thy life?
Why leav'st thou him in this extremity ?
Cu. Because the Lord and Israel chooseth
thee ;
And as before I serv'd thy father's turn
With counsel acceptable in his sight,
So likewise will I now obey his son.
Abs. Then welcome, Cusay, to King Ab-
salon. —
And now, my lords and loving counsellors,
I think it time to exercise our arms
Against forsaken David and his host.
Give counsel first, my good Achitophel,
What times and orders we may best observe
For prosperous manage of these high exploits.
Ach. Let me choose out twelve thousand
valiant men :
And, while the night hides with her sable mists
The close endeavours cunning soldiers use,
I will assault thy discontented sire ;
And, while with weakness of their weary arms,
Surcharg'd with toil, to shun thy sudden power,
The people fly in huge disoider'd troops
To save their lives, and leave the king alone,
Then will I smite him with his latest wound,
And bring the people to thy feet iu peace.
Abs. Well hath Achitophel given his advice.
Yet let us hear what Cusay counsels us,
Whose great experience is well worth the ear.
Cu. Though wise Achitophel be much more
meet
To purchase hearing with my lord the king,
For all his former counsels, than myself,
Yet, not offending Absalon or him,
This time it is not good nor worth pursuit;
For, well thou know'st, thy father's men are
strong,
Chafing as she-bears robbed of their whelps :
Besides, the king himself a valiant man,
Traiu'd up in feats and stratagems of war ;
And will not, for prevention of the worst,
Lodge with the common soldiers in the field ;
But now, I know, his wonted policies
Have taught him lurk within some secret cave,
Guarded with all his stoutest soldiers ;
Which, if the forefront of his battle faint,
Will yet give out that Absalon doth fly,
And so thy soldiers be discouraged :
David himself withal, whose angry heart
Is as a lion's letted of his walk,
Will fight himself, and all his men to one,
» thotc'si] The4to. "shewdst."
478
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
Before a few shall vanquish bim by fear.
My counsel therefore is, with trumpet's sound
To gather men from Dau to Bersabe,
That they may march in number like sea-sands,
That nestle close in [one] another's neck :
So shall we come upon him in our strength,
Like to the dew that falls in showers from
heaven,
And leave him not a man to march withal.
Besides, if any city succour him,
The numbers of our men shall fetch us ropes,
And we will pull it down the river's stream,
That not a stone be left to keep us out.
Abs. What says my lord to Cusay's counsel
now ?
Ama. I fancy Cusay's counsel better far
Than that is given us from Achitophel ;
And so, I think, doth every soldier here.
All. Cusay's counsel is better than Achi-
tophel's.
Abs. Then march we after Cusay's counsel
all:
Sound trumpets through the bounds of Israel,
And muster all the men will serve the king,
That Absalon may glut his longing soul
With sole fruition of his father's crown.
Ach. [aside.] Ill shall they fare that follow thy
attempts,
That scorns the counsel of Achitophel.
[Exeunt all except Ctjsay.
Cu. Thus hath the power of Jacob's jealous
God
FulfiU'd his servant David's drifts by me,
And brought Achitophel's advice to scorn.
Enter Sadoc, Abiathar, Ahimaas, and Jonathan.
Sa. God save Lord Cusay, and direct his zeal
To purchase David's conquest 'gainst his son !
Abl. What secrets hast thou glean'd from
Absalon?
Ca. These, sacred priests that bear the ark of
God;—
Achitophel advis'd him in the night
To let him choose twelve thousand fighting men,
And he would come on David at uu wares,
While he was weary with his violent toil :
But I advis'd to get a greater host,
And gather men from Dan to Bersabe,
To come upon him strongly in the fields.
Then send Ahimaas and Jonathan
To signify these secrets to the king,
And will* him not to stay this night abroad ;
* uill\ i. e. desire.
But get him over Jordan presently,
Lest he and all his people kiss the sword.
Sa. Then go, Ahimaas and Jonathan,
And straight convey this message to the king.
Aid. Father, we will, if Absalon' s chief spies
Prevent not this device, and stay us here.
[Exeunt.
Enter Semei.
Sem. The man of Israel that hath rul'd as
king,
Or rather as the tyrant of the land,
Bolstering his hateful head upon the throne
That God unworthily hath bless'd him with,
Shall now, I hope, lay it as low as hell,
And be depos'd from his detested chair.
0, that my bosom could by nature bear
A sea of poison, to be pour'd upon
His cursed head that sacred balm hath grac'd
And consecrated King of Israel !
Or would my breath were made the smoke of
hell,
Infected with the sighs of damned souls,
Or with the reeking of that serpent's gorge
That feeds on adders, toads, and venomous
roots,
That, as I open'd my revenging lips
To curse the shepherd for his tyranny,
My words might cast rank poison to his pores,
And make his swoln and rankling sinews crack,
Like to the combat-blows that break the clouds
When Jove's* stout champions fight with fire.
See where he cometh that my soul abhors !
I have prepar'd my pocket full of stones
To cast at him, mingled with earth and dust,
Which, bursting with disdain, I greet him
with.
Enter David, Joab, Abisai, Ithat, and others.
Come forth, thou murderer and wicked man :
The lord hath brought upon thy curse'd head
The guiltless blood of Saul and all his sons,
Whose royal throne thy baseness hath usurp'd;
And, to revenge it deeply on thy soul,
The Lord hath given the kingdom to thy son,
And he shall wreak the traitorous wrongs of
Saul :
Even as thy sin hath still importuu'd heaven,
So shall thy murders and adultery
Be puuish'd in the sight of Israel,
As thou deserv'st, with blood, with death, and
hell.
* When Jove's, ic] A mutilated line.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
479
Hence, murderer, Lenre!
[Throws* atones and earth at David.
Abis. Why doth [t]his dead dog curse my lord
the king ?
Let me alone to take away his head.
Dav. Why meddleth thus the son of Zeruia
To interrupt the action of our God?
Semei useth me with this reproach
Because the Lord hath sent him to reprove
The sins of David, printed in his brows
With blood, that blusheth for bis conscience'
guilt ;
Who dares, then, ask him why he curseth me ?
Sem. Jf, then, thy conscience tell thee thou
hast siun'd,
And that thy life is odious to the world,
Command thy followers to shun thy face ;
And by thyself here make away thy soul,
That I may stand and glory in thy shame.
Dav. I am not desperate, Semei, like thyself,
But trust unto the covenant of my God,
Founded on mercy, with repentance built,
And finish'd with the glory of my sonl.
Sem. A murderer, and hope for mercy in thy
end !
Hate and destruction sit upon thy brows
To watch the issue of thy damned ghost,
Which with thy latest gasp they'll take and
tear,
Hurling in every pain of hell a piece.
Hence, murderer, thou shame to Israel,
Foul lecher, drunkard, plague to heaven aud earth !
[Throws again at David.
Joab. What, is it piety in David's thoughts,
So to abhor from laws of policy
In this extremity of his distress,
To give his subjects cause of carelessness ?
Send hence the dog with sorrow to his grave.
Dav. Why should the sons of Zeruia seek to
check t
His spirit, which the Lord hath thus inspir'd ?
Behold, my son which issu'd from my flesh,
With equal fury seeks to take my life :
How much more then the son of Jemini,
Chiefly since he doth naught but God's
command ]
It may be, he will look on me this clay
* Tlirows, &c] In the 4to. this stage-direction and the
end ot the speech are confounded thus ;
" Hence murtherer, hence, he threw at him."
t Why should the sons of Zeruia setk to check, &c] "The
sous of Zeruia," be it remembered, are Abisai (who a
little before has said "Let me alone to take away his
[Semei's] head ") and Joab. — In this line "seek to " would
seem to be an interpolation.
With gracious eyes, and for his cursing bless
The heart of David in his bitterness.
Sem. What, dost thou fret my soul with
sufferance ?
0, that the souls of Isboseth and Abner,
Which thou seut'st swimming to their graves in
blood,
With wounds fresh bleeding, gasping for
reveDge,
Were here to execute my burning hate!
But I will hunt thy foot with curses still :
Hence, monster, murderer, mirror of contempt !
[Tlirows again at David.
Enter Ahimaas and Jonathan.
AM. Long life to David, to his enemies death !
Dav. Welcome, Ahimaas and Jonathan :
What news sends Cusay to thy lord the king ?
Ahi. Cusay would wish* my lord the king
To pass the river Jordan presently,
Lest he and all his people perish here ;
For wise Achitophel hath counsell'd Absalon
To take advantage of your weary arms,
And come this night upon you in the fields.
But yet the Lord hath made his counsel scorn,
And Cusay 's policy with praise preferr'd ;
Which was to number every Israelite,
And so assault you in their pride of strength.
Jonath. Abiathar besides entreats the king
To send his men of war against his son,
And hazard not his person in the field.
Dav. Thanks to Abiathar, and to you both,
And to my Cusay, whom the Lord requite ;
But ten times treble thanks to his soft hand
Whose pleasant touch hath made my heart to
dance,
And play him praises in my zealous breast,
That turn'd the counsel of Achitophel
After the prayers of his servant's lips.
Now will we pass the river all this night,
And in the morning sound the voice of war,
The voice of bloody aud uukindly war.
Joab. Then tell us how thou wilt divide thy
men,
And who shall have the special charge herein.
Dav. Joab, thyself shall for thy charge conduct
The first third part of all my valiant men;
The second shall Abisai's valour lead;
The third fair Ithay, which I most should grace
For comfort he hath done to David's woes ;
Aud I myself will follow in the midst.
Ith. That let not David; for, though we
should fly,
* Cusay would wish, <tc] Another mutilated line.
480
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
Ten thousand of us were not half so much
Esteeni'd with David's enemies as himself :
Thy people, loving thee, deny thee this.
Dav. What seems them best, then, that will
David do.
But now, my lords and captains, hear bis voice
That never yet pierc'd piteous heaven in vain ;
Then let it not slip lightly through your ears; —
For my sake spare the young man Absalon.
Joab, thyself didst once use friendly words
To reconcile my heart incens'd to him ;
If, then, thy love be to thy kinsman sound,
And thou wilt prove a perfect Israelite,
Friend him with deeds, aud touch no hair of
him, —
Not that fair hair with which the wanton winds
Delight to play, and love to make it curl,
Wherein the nightingales would build their
nests,
And make sweet bowers in every golden tress
To sing their lover every night asleep :
0, spoil not, Joab, Jove's* fair ornaments,
Which he hath sent to solace David's soul !
The best, ye see, my lords, are swift to sin ;
To sin our feet are wash'd with milk of roes,+
And dried again with coals of lightning.^
Lord, thou see'st the proudest sin's poor slave,
And with his bridle § pull'st him to the grave !
For my sake, then, spare lovely Absalon.
Ith. We will, my lord, for thy sake favour him.
[Exeunt.
Enter Achitophel with a halter.
Ach. Now hath Achitophel order'd his house,
And taken leave of every pleasure there :
Hereon depend Achitophel's delights,
And in this circle must his life be clos'd.
The wise Achitophel, whose counsel prov'd
Ever as sound for fortunate success
* Jove's] See note *, p. 462.
f milk of rocs J Walker, who (Shakespeare's Versification,
&c , p. 18) quotes this as if the reading of the old copy
was " milk of roses," justly calls it " a strange passage."
{ lightning] Is here a trisyllable. (Indeed, the 4to. has
"lightening.")
§ And with his bridle, &c] Mr. Collier, quoting the
present passage in his Hixt. of Eng. Dram. Poetry t iii. 204,
gives,
"And with his bridle pulls him to the grave" ;
remarking (ibid); "This line, as printed by the Rev.
Mr. Dyce, exhibits almost the solitary verbal blemish of
his edition : it there stands,
' And with his bridle pull st him to the grave ' :
as if David, addressing the Lord, said, ' Thou pull'st man
to the grave with the bridle of sin ' ; whereas the manning
i 8 , that 'sin with his bridle pulls man to the grave.' The
passage would road better, could wo alter and in the last
line to 'who.' '
As if men ask'd the oracle of God,
Is now us'd like the fool of Israel :
Then set thy angry soul upon her wings,
And let her fly into the shade of death ;
And for my death let heaven for ever weep,
Making huge floods upon the land I leave,
To ravish them and all their fairest fruits.
Let all the sighs I breath'd for this disgrace,
Hang on my hedges like eternal mists,
As mourning garments for their master's death.
Ope, earth, and take thy miserable son
Into the bowels of thy cursed womb :
Once in a surfeit thou didst spew him forth ;
Now for fell hunger suck him in again,
And be his body poison to thy veins.
And now, thou hellish instrument of heaven,
Once execute th' arrest of Jove's just doom,
And stop his breath* that curseth Israel. [Exit.
Enter Absalon, with Amasa and the rest of his train.
Abs. Now for the crown and throne of Israel,
To be confirm'd with virtue of my sword,
And writ with David's blood upon the blade.
Now, Jove, let forth the golden firmament,
And look on him, with all thy fiery eyes,
Which thou hast made to give their glories light:
To show thou lov'st the virtue of thy hand,
Let fall a wreath of stars upon my head,
Whose influence may govern Israel
With state exceeding all her other kings.
Fight, lords and captains, that your sovereign's
face
May shine in honour brighter than the sun ;
And with the virtue of my beauteous rays
Make this fair land as fruitful as the fields
That with sweet milk and honey overflow'd.
God, in the whizzing of a pleasant wind,
Shall march upon the tops of mulberry-trees, +
To cool all breasts that burn with any griefs,
As whilom he was good to Moses' men.
By day the Lord shall sit within a cloud,
To guide your footsteps to the fields of joy;
And in the night a pillar, bright as fire,
Shall go before you, like a second sun,
Wherein the essence of his godhead is ;
That day and night you may be brought to peace,
And never swerve from that delightsome path
That leads your souls to perfect happiness.
* breath] The 4 to. "breast."
f Shall march upon the tops of mulberry trees, tic] "And
it shall be, when thou shalt hear a sound of going in the
tops of the mulberry-trees, that then thou shalt go out
to battle : for God is gone first before thee," <5ic. — First
Chrort. xiv 15.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
481
This shall he do for joy when I am king.
Then fight, brave captains, that these joys may fly
Into your bosoms with sweet victory. [Exeunt.
Tlie battle; and then Absalom hangs by the hair.*
Abs. What angry angel, sitting in these shades,
Hath laid his cruel hands upon my hair,
And holds my body thus 'twixt heaven and earth ?
Hath Absalon no soldier near his hand
That may untwine me this unpleasant curl,
Or wound this tree that ravisheth his lord ?
God, behold the glory of thy hand,
And choicest fruit of nature's workmanship,
Hang, like a rotten branch, upon this tree,
Fit for the axe and ready for the fire !
Since thou withhold'st all ordinary help
To loose my body from this bond of death,
0, let my beauty fill these senseless plants
With sense and power to loose me from this plague,
And work some wonder to prevent his death
Whose life thou mad'st a special miracle !
Enter Joab with a Soldier.
Sold. My lord, I saw the young Prince Absalon
Hang by the hair upon a shady oak,
And could by no means get himself unloos'd.
Joab. Why slew'st thou not the wicked Absalon,
That rebel to his father and to heaven,
That so I might have given thee for thy pains
Ten silver shekelsf and a golden waist ? J
Sold. Not for a thousand shekels would I slay
The son of David, whom his father charg'd
Nor thou, Abisai, nor the son of Gath,§
Should touch with stroke of deadly violence.
The charge was given in hearing of us all;
And, had I done it, then, I know, thyself,
Before thou wouldst abide the king's rebuke,
Wouldst have accus'd me as a man of death.
Joab. I must not now stand trifling here with
thee.
Abs. Help, Joab, help, 0, help thy Absalon !
Let not thy angry thoughts be laid in blood,
In blood of him that sometimes nourish'd thee,
And eoften'd thy sweet heart with friendly love :
0, give me once again my father's sight,
* Absalon hangs by the hair] The following entry occurs
in Henslowe's Diary, under Octr. 1602 ;
"Pd for poleyes and workmaushipp for to hange Ab-
eaJonie xilij*."
p. 241, cd. Shake. Soc. Does Henalowe allude to the
present play, or to some other drama in which Absalon
was "hung"?
t shekels] The 4 to. "sickles."
t waist] i. e. girdle —The 4to. "wast"
§ the son of Oath] i. e. the native of Gath, viz. Ithay
(Ittai).
My dearest father and my princely sovereign I
That, Bhedding tears of blood before his face,
The ground may witness, and the heavens record,
My last submission sound and full of ruth.
Joab. Rebel to nature, hate to heaven and earth t
Shall I give help to him that thirsts the soul
Of his dear father and my sovereign lord ?
Now see, the Lord hath tangled in a tree
The health and glory of thy stubborn heart,
And made thy pride curb'd with a senseless plant :
Now, Absalon, how doth the Lord regard
The beauty whereupon thy hope was built,
And which thou thought' st his grace did glory in ]
Find'st thou not now, with fear of instant death,
That God affects not any painted shape
Or goodly personage, when the virtuous soul
Is stuS 'd with naught but pride and stubbornness ?
But, preach I to thee, while I should revenge
Thy cursed sin that staineth Israel,
And makes her fields blush with her children's
blood)
Take that as part of thy deserved plague,
Which worthily no torment can inflict.
[Stabs him.
Abs. Joab, Joab, cruel, ruthless Joab !
Herewith thou wound'st thy kingly sovereign's
heart,
Wbose heavenly temper hates his children's
blood,
And will be sick, I know, for Absalon.
0, my dear father, that thy melting eyes
Might pierce this thicket to behold thy son,
Thy dearest son, gor'd with a mortal dart !
Yet, Joab, pity me : pity my father, Joab ;
Pity his soul's distress that mourns my life,
And will be dead, I know, to hear my death.
Joab. If he were so remorseful* of thy state,
Why sent he me against thee with the sword f
All Joab means to pleasure thee withal
Is, to despatch thee quickly of thy pain :
Hold, Absalon, Joab's pity is in this;
In this, proud Absalon, is Joab's love.
(Stafts him again ; and then exit irith Soldier.
Abs. Such love, such pity Israel's God send
thee,
And for his love to David pity me !
Ah, my dear father, see thy bowels bleed ;
See death assault thy dearest Absalon ;
See, pity, pardon, pray for Absalon I
Enter Jive or six Soldiers.
First Sold. See where the rebel in his glory
hangs. —
* remorseful] i. e. compassionate.
I >
482
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
Where is the virtue of thy beauty, Absalou ?
Will any of us here now fear thy looks,
Or be in love with that thy golden hair
Wherein was wrapt rebellion 'gainst thy sire,
And cords prepar'd to stop thy father's breath ?
Our captain Joab hath begun to us ;
And here's an end to thee and all thy sins.
[They stab Absalon; who diet.
Come, let us take the beauteous rebel down,
And in some ditch, amids this darksome wood,
Bury his bulk* beneath a heap of stones,
Whose stony heart did hunt his father's death.
Re-enter, in triumph with drum and ensign, Joab ; Abisai
and Soldiers.
Joab. Well done, tallf soldiers ! take the
traitor down,
And in this miry ditch inter his bones,
Covering his hateful breast with heaps of stones.
This shady thicket of dark Ephraim
Shall ever lower on his cursed grave ;
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 :
So shall his end breed horror to his name,
And to his traitorous fact eternal shame.
[Exeunt.
Enter Chorus.
Chorus. dreadful precedent of his just doom,
Whose holy heart is never touch'd with ruth
Of fickle beauty or of glorious shape.t
But with the virtue of an upright soul,
Humble and zealous in his inward thoughts,
Though in his person loathsome and deform'd !
Now, since this story lends us other store,
To make a third discourse of David's life,
Adding thereto his most renowned death,
And all their deaths that at his death he judg'd,
Here end we this, and what here wants to please,
We will supply with treble willingness. § [Exit.
• bull] i. e. body.
t tall] i. e. brave.
J shape] The 4to. " shapes."
§ willingness] In the 4to., after this speech of the
Chorus, the page ends with the following fragment,
which belongs to some earlier scene of the play that has
been lost ;
"Absalon with three nr/oure of his struants or gentlemen.
Abs. What Hoots it Absalon, vnhappie Absalon,
Sighing I say what boots it Absalon,
To naue disclos'd a farre more worthy womb*
Then "
Trumpets sound. Enter Joab, Abimaas, Cusay ; Amasa,
with all the other followers of Absalon.
Joab. Soldiers of Israel, and ye sons of Judah,
That have contended in these irksome broils,
And ript old Israel's bowels with your swords ;
The godless general of your stubborn arms
Is brought by Israel's helper to the grave,
A grave of shame, and scorn of all the tribes :
Now, then, to save your honours from the dust,
And keep your bloods in temper by your bones,
Let Joab's ensign shroud your manly heads,
Direct your eyes, your weapons, and your hearts,
To guard the life of David from his foes.
Error hathmask'd your much-too-forward minds,
And you have sinn'd against the chosen state,
Against his life, for whom your lives are bless'd,
And follow'd an usurper to the field ;
In whose just death your deaths are threatened ;
But Joab pities your disorder'd souls,
And therefore offers pardon, peace, and love,
To all that will be friendly reconcil'd
To Israel's weal, to David, and to heaven.
Amasa, thou art leader of the host
That under Absalon have rais'd their arms ;
Then be a captain wise and politic,
Careful and loving for thy soldiers' lives,
And lead them to this honourable league.
Ama. I will; * at least, I'll do my best :
And for the gracious offer thou hast made
I give thee thanks, as much as for my head. —
Then, you deceiv'd poor souls of Israel,
Since now ye see the errors you incurr'd,
With thanks and due submission be appeas'd ;
And as ye see your captain's precedent,
Here cast we, theD, our swords at Joab's feet,
Submitting with all zeal and reverence
Our goods and bodies to his gracious hands.
[Kneels with othi rs.
Joab. Stand up, and take ye all your swords
again: [All stand up.
David and Joab shall be bless'd herein.
Ahi. Now let me go inform my lord the king
How God liath freed him from his enemies.
Joab. Another time, Ahimaas, not now. —
But, Cusay, go thyself, and tell the king
The happy message of our good success.
Cu. I will, my lord, and thank thee for thy
grace. [Exit.
Ahi, What if thy servant should go too, my
lord?
Joab. What news hast thou to bring since he
is gone?
* I will, &c ] Qy. "Joab, / rcilt," &c. ? or " / will, my
lord," &c.
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
483
Ahi. Yet do Ahimaaa so much content,
That lie may run about so sweet a charge.
Joab. Run, if thou wilt ; and peace be with
thy steps. [Exit Ahimaas.
Now follow, that you may salute the king
With humble hearts and reconciled souls.
A ntu. We follow, Joab, to our gracious king;
And him our swords shall honour to our deaths.
[Exeunt.
Enter David, Bethsabe, Salomon, Nathan, Adonia,
Chileab, with their train.
Beth. What means my lord, the lamp of Israel,
From whose bright eyes all eyes receive their light,
To dim the glory of his sweet aspect,*
And paint his countenance with his heart's
distress ?
Why should his thoughts retain a sad conceit,
When every pleasure kneels before his throne,
And sues for sweet acceptance with his grace]
Take but your lute, and make the mountains
dance,
Retrieve the sun's sphere, and restrain the clouds,
Give ears to trees, make savage lions tame,
Impose still silence to the loudest winds,
And fill the fairest day with foulest storms :
Then why should passions of much meaner power
Bear head against the heart of Israel ?
Dav. Fair Bethsabe, thou mightst increase the
strength
Of these thy arguments, drawn from my skill,
By urging thy sweet sight to my conceits,
Whose virtue ever serv'd for sacred balm
To cheer my piniug3 past all earthly joys :
But, Bethsabe, the daughter of the Highest,
Whose beauty builds the towers of Israel,
She that in chains of pearl and unicorn
Leads at her train the ancient golden world,
The world that Adam held in paradise,
Whose breath refineth all infectious airs,
And makes the meadows smile at her repair, —
She, she, my dearestf Bethsabe,
Fair Peace, the goddess of our graces here,
Is fled the streets of fair Jerusalem,
The fields of Israel, and the heart of David,
Leading my comforts in her golden chains,
Link'd to the life and soul of Absalon.
Beth. Then is the pleasure of my sovereign's
heart
So wrapt within the bosom of that son,
That Salomon, whom Israel's God affects,
* aspM] The 4to. *' aspects."
t She, sJte, my dearest, &c] Qy. "She. she, alas, mv
deanst," &c. ?
And gave the name unto him for his love,
Should bo no salve to comfort David's soul ?
Dav. Salomon, my love, is David's lord ; *
Our God hath nam'd him lord of Israel :
In him (for that, and since he is thy son,)
Must David needs be pleased at the heart ;
And he shall surely sit upon my throne.
But Absalon, the beauty of my bones,
Fair Absalon, the counterfeitt of love,
Sweet Absalon, the image of content,
Must claim a portion in his father's care,
And be in life and death King David's son.
Nath. Yet, as my lord hath said, let Salomon
Whom God in naming hath anointed king. [r<.-ign,
Now is he apt to learn th' eternal laws,
Whose knowledge being rooted in his youth
Will beautify his age with glorious fruits ;
While Absalon, incens'd with graceless pride,
Usurps and stains the kingdom with his sin :
Let Salomon be made thy staff of age,
Fair Israel's rest, and honour of thy race.
Dav. Tell me, my Salomon, wilt thou embrac<-
Thy father's precepts graved in thy heart,
And satisfy my zeal to thy renown
With practice of such sacred principles
As shall concern the state of Israel 1
Sal. My royal father, if the heavenly zeal.
Which for my welfare feeds upon your soul,
Were not sustain'd with virtue of mine own ;
If the sweet accents of your cheerful voice
Should not each hour+ beat upon mine ears
As sweetly as the breath of heaven to him
That gaspeth scorched with the summer's sun ;
I should be guilty of unpardon'd sin,
Fearing the plague of heaven and shame of earth :
But since I vow myself to learn the skill
And holy secrets of his mighty hand
Whose cunning tunes the music of my soul,
It would content me, father, first to learn
How the Eternal fram'd the firmament ;
Which bodies lend § their influence by fire,
And which are fill'd with hoary winter's ice;
What sign is rainy, and what star is fair ;
Why by the rides of true proportion
The year is still divided into months,
The months to days, the days to certain hours ;
What fruitful race shall fill the future world ;
Or for what time shall this round building stand ;
What magistrates, what kings shall keep in awe
Men's minds with bridles of th' eternal law.
* Salomon, my love, in David's lord] Corrupted,
t counterfeit] i.e. portrait.
J hour] A dissyllable here. (The 4to. "howor.")
§ laid] The4to. "l«ad."
I I 2
4S4
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
Lax. Wade not too far, my boy, in wares so*
7 a fee f es of our aspiring thoughts [deep:
Be • iiings present, and record things pait ;
E ■ th _:•- to come exceed our human reach,
And are not painted yet in angels' eyes .
I ".; thy sense, and say — "Thou
power,
Tr_at now art frar.-. g I the fid re world,
-1 .■-:!-.:-.. r. ■
Ey frail conjectures of infer] .- ague,
By monstrous floods, by Sights and flocks of birds,
wels of a sacrificed beast,
Or by the figures of some hidden art ;
But by a true and natural presage,
Laving the ground and perfect architect -
all our actions now before thine eves,
From Adam to the end of Adam's seed :
Leaven, protect my weakness with thy strength !
So look on me thai I may view :
And se- :' ".en in thy brows.
m, come dart thy rays upon my moon !
That now mine eyes, eclipse! to the earth,
May brightly be refin'd and shine to Leaven ;
Transform me from this flesh, that I may live,
Before my death, regenerate with thee.
tboa great God, ravish my earth'.T -: -: - e !
That ij-: the time a more than human skill
. nons of all my sense ;
That, when I think, thy tJi tughts ioaj be my gtri de,
And, when I speak, I may be made by efac -
The perfect echo of thy heavenly voice."
Thu? --; my ton indthou shaft learn them all.
A secret fury ravish eth my soul,
g _7 :_ind above her human bounds ;
And, as the eagle, roused from her stand
With violent Lunger, towering in the air,
BeazeVb her feather*d prey, and thinks to feed,
But seeing then a cloud beneath her feet,
Le-s (all I 1, and is embolden I
. eyes inteDtive to bedare* the sun,
And styeth§ close unto his stately sphere;
-lomon, mounted on the burning wings
Of zeal divine, lets fall his mortal food,
And cheers his senses with celestial air,
Treads in the golden starry labyrinth,
And holds bis ey-s fix'd on Jehovah's browg.
Q :' ther, teach me further what to do.
Nafh. Se*, David, how his haughty spirit mounts.
Even now of height to wield a diadem :
• •»] The 4to. " too."
• ir'hiutt] Qy. "archetype "? unless Pee'e uses the
ormcr ■mini in the sense of the latter.
• ttda*t\ 1. ':. ittf.
i ttfttk] i. e soareth, aecendeth.
Then make Lim promise that he may succeed,
And rest old Israel's bones from broils of war.
D-ir. Nathan, thou prophet, sprung from Jesse's
root,
1 : -■ :...-•:• thee and '.: rely ile:l.-'. v e,
My Salomon shall govern after me.
Beth. He that hath touch'd thee with this
righteous thought
Preserve the harbour of thy thoughts in peace !
'Enter Messenger.
bleu. My lord, thy servants of the watch have
seen
One running hitherward from forth the wars.
Lav. If he be come alone, he bringeth news.
Mm Another hath thy servant seen, my
lord,
Whose running much resembles Sadoc's son.
Lav. He is a good man, and good tidings
brings.
Enter Ahimaas.
AM. Peace and content be with my lord the
king,
Whom Israel'3 God hath bless'd with victory.
Lav. Tell me, Ahimaas, lives my Absalon?
A hi. I saw a troop of soldiers gatheiei,.
But know not what the tumult might import.
Lac. Stand by. until some other may inform
The heart of David with a happy truth.
EnUr CcSAY.
C. '. Happiness and honour live with David's
soul,
Whom God hath bless'd with conquest of hU
foes.
Lav. But, Cusay, lives the young man
Absalon )
Cu. The stubborn enemies to David's peace,
And all that cast their darts against his crown,
Fare ever Jike the young man Absalon !
For as he rid the woods of Ephraim,
Which fought for thee as much as all thy men,
His hair was tangled in a shady oak ;
And hanging there, by Joab and his men
Su='ain'd the stroke of well-deserved death.
Lav. Hath Absaloa su.-tain'd the stroke of
death ?
Die, David, for the death of Absalon,
And make theBe cursed news the bloody darts
That through his bowels rip tby wretched
breast.
Henco, David, walk the solitary woods,
And in some cedar's shade the thunder slew,
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
465
And fire from heaven hath made Lis branches
Sit mourning the decease of Absalon : [black,
Against the body of that blasted plant
In thousand shivers break thy ivory lute,
Hanging thy stringless harp upon his boughs;
And through the hollow sapless sounding trunk
Bellow the torments that perplex thy soul.
There let the winds sit sighing till they burst;
Let tempest, muffled with a cloud of pitch,
Threaten the forests with her hellish face,
And, mounted fiercely on her iron winjs.
Rend up the wretched engine by the roots
That held my dearest Absalon to death.
Then let them toss my broken lute to heaven.
Even to his hands that beats me with the strings,
To show how sadly his poor shepherd sings.
[Goet to kit pavilion and sits clott a tthile.
B th. Die, Bethsabe, to see thy David mourn,
To hear his tunes of aneuish and of helL
0, help, my David, help thy Bethsabe,
Whose heart is pierced with thy breathy swords,*
And bursts with burden of ten thousand griefs !
[Lies dotcn.
Now sit thy sorrows sucking of my blood :
0, that it might be poison to their powers,
And that their lips might draw my bosom dry,
So David's love might ease him, though she die !
Nath. The-e violent passions come not from
David and Bethsabe offend the Highest, [above ;
To mourn in this immeasurable sort.
Dav. [looting forth.] Absalon, Absalon !
my son, my son!
Would God that I had died for Absalon !
But he is dead; ah, dead ! Absalon is dead :
Aiid David lives to die for Absalon.
\8H» dote agaiii.
Enter Joab, Abisai, Ithay, and their train.
Joab. Why lies the queen so prostrate on the
Why is this company so tragic-hu'd ? [ground 1
Why is the king now absent from his men,
And marcheth not in triumph through the
gates? [Unfvlds the pavilion.
David, awake ; if sleep have shut thine eves,
Sleep of affection, that thou canst not see
The honour offer'd to the victor's head :
Joab brings conquest pierced on his spear,
And joy from all the tribes of Israel.
* breathy tKordi] "We suggest whether it should not
be ' breathed words ' ; but if the test's suffered to remain,
we can only say, that 'thy breathy swords', for 'the
swords of thy breath', is more barbaric t'. .in anythiug
which we have met with in Peele." Rev. J. Mii/ord, —
Gent. Mag. for Fiby. 1833, p. 103. "Barbaric" as the
expression may be, I nevertheless believe that it is the
genuine reading.
Dar. Thou man of blood, thousepulchre of death ,
Whose marble breast in tombs* my bowels quick,
Did I not charge thee, nay, entreat thy hand,
Even for my sake, to spare my Absalon ?
And hast thou now, in spite of bavin's health,
And scorn to do my heart some happiness,
Given him the sword and spilt his purple soul?
Joab. What, irks it David, that he victor
That Juda and the fields of Israel [breathes ,
Should cleanse their faces from their child: .
What, art thou weary of tby royal rule ? [blood ?
Is Israel's throne a serpent in thine eyes,
And he that set thee there so far from thanks,
That thou must curse his servant for his sake ?
Hast thou not said that, as the morning light,
The cloudless morning, so should be thine house,
And not as flowers by the brightest rain
Which grow up quickly and as quickly fade ?
Hast thou not said, the wicked are as thorns,
That cannot be preserve! t with the hand,
And that the man shall touch them must be arm'd
With coats of iron and garments made of steel,
Or with the shaft of a defeueed spear?
And art thou angry he is now cut off
That led the guiltless swarming to their deaths,
And was more wicked than an host of men ?
Advance thee from thy melancholy den,
And deck thy body with thy blissful robes,
Or, by the Lord that sways the heaven I swear,
I'll lead thine armies to another king
Shall cheer them for their princely chivalry,
And not sit daunted, frowning in the dark,
When his fair look*, with oil and wine refresh'd,
Should dart into their bosoma ."... isome beams.
And fill their stomachs wi:h triumphant feasts;
That when elsewhere stern war shall sound his
And call another battle to the field, [trump,
Fame still may bring thy valiant soldiers home.
And for their service happily confess
* fKforaif] The 4to. " iatoniba."
t prreerreij Qy. " repressed " ?— The passage of Scrip-
ture to which our author here alhwifW is a^ (b lows :
" And he ^cai! be as the tight of the morning, when
the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds ; aa
:.--...'. :■_:----:.: _ - .:::'..-.. ;
after rain.
'* Although my house be not so with Qod ; ye: ' ■:■
made with me an everlastr.c ooTCnaot, ordered in all
things and sure : for this is all '■■-.■'-•
desire, although he make it not to grow.
" But the sons ■•' Belial shall be all of them as thorns
thrust away, because Dot be taken with hands
[The Vulgate " qua non toiltmtur nunibut"] :
•' But the man that shall touch them must be fenced
with iron and the staff of a spear." ..
See S ■■■••■*. sqq.
480
DAVID AND BETHSABE.
Sho wanted worthy trumps to sound their
prowess :
Take thou this course and live ; refuse and die.
Abis. Come, brother, let him sit there till he
sink;
Some other shall advance the name of Joab.
[Offers to go out with Joab.
Beth, [risiny.] 0, 6tay, my lords, stay ! D.ivid
mourns no more,
But riseth to give honour to your aots.
Dav. [rising, and coming from his pavilion.] Then
happy art thou, David's fairest son,
That, freed from the yoke of earthly toils,
And s^quester'd from sense of human sins,
Thy soul shall joy* the sacred cabinet
Of those divine ideas that present
Thy changed spirit with a heaven of bliss.
joy] i. e. enjoy.
Then thou art gone ; ah, thou art gone, my sou !
To heaven, I hope, my Absalon is gone :
Thy soul there plac'd in honour of the saints,
Or angels clad with immortality,
Shall reap a sevenfold grace for all thy griefs ;
Thy eyes, now no more eyes but shining stars,
Shall deck the flaming heavens with novel
lamps ;
There shalt thou taste the drink of seraphms,
And oheer thy feelings with archangels' food ;
Thy day of rest, thy holy sabbath-day,
Shall be eternal ; and, the curtain drawn,
Thou shalt behold thy sovereign face to face,
With wonder, knit in triple unity,
Unity infinite and innumerable,-^—
Courage, brave captains ! Joab's tale hath stirr'd,
And made the suit of Israel preferr'd.
Joab. Bravely resolv'd, and spoken like a king :
Now may old Israel and his daughters sing.
\Sxumt oiunti.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
The HUtoru of the two valiant Knightt, Syr Clyimon Knight of tht Golden Sheeld, tonne to the King of Denmarke :
And Clamyde* the white Knight, tonne to the King of Suauia. At it hath bene tundry timet Acted by her UaUstie
Plo.yert. London Printed by Thomat Creed*. 1599. 4to.
Sea Actount of PetU and hit WrUingt, p. 345.
DRAMATIS PERSONA
Alexander the Great.
Kino of Dknmark.
Clyomon, his, son.
King of Suavia.
Clamydes, his son.
Thrasellus, King of Norway.
Mvstantius, brother to the Queen of the Isle of Strange Mai she*
Bryan Sans-foy.
Subtle Shift.
Corin, a shepherd.
Boatswain.
Lords, Knights, Soldiers, Servants.
Queen of Denmark.
Juliana, her daughter.
Queen, widow of Patrauius King of the If le of Strange liurkhes.
Neronib, her daughter.
Two Ladies.
Providence,
Rumour.
THE PROLOGUE.
As lately lifting up the leaves of worthy writers' works,
Wherein the noble acts and deeds of many hidden lurks,*
Our author he hath found the glass of glory shining bright,
Wherein their lives are to be seen which honour did delight,
To be a lantern unto those which daily do desire
Apollo's garland by desert in time for to aspire ;
Wherein the froward chances oft of fortune you shall see,
Wherein the cheerful countenance of good successes be,
Wherein true lovers findeth joy with hugy f heaps of care,
Wherein, as well as famous facts, ignomiousj placed are,
Wherein the just reward of both is manifestly shown,
That virtue from the root of vice might openly be known ;
And doubting naught, right courteous all, in your accustom'd wont
And gentle ears, our author he is prest § to bide the brunt
Of babblers' tongues, to whom he thinks as frustrate all his toil
As pearls || castU to filthy swine which in the mire do moil.**
Well,
What he hath done for your delight, he gave not me in charge :
The actors come, who shall express the same to you at large.
* lurks] In this line the rhyme, and in line 9 (which has " lovers findeth ") the metre, forbids any deviation from,
the 4 to.
t hugy] i. e. huge.
J ignomious] i. e. ignominious.
§ prest] i. e. ready.
|| pearls] A dissyllable here.
U cast] The 4to. "taste."
•* moil] i. e. dabble, defile themselva*.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Enter Clamydes.
Clam. As to the weary wandering wights whom
waltering* waves environ,
No greater joy of joys may be than when from
out the ocean
They may behold the altitude of billows to
abate,
For to observe the longitude of seas in former
rate,
And having then the latitude of sea-room for to
pass,
Their joy is greater, through the grief, than erst
before it was ;
So likewise I Clamydes, Prince of Suavia, noble
soil,
Bringing my bark to Denmark here, to bide the
bitter broil
And beating blows of billows high, while raging
storms did last,
My griefs were greater than might be, but, tem-
pests overpast,
Such gentle calms ensued have as make+ my joys
more, J
Through terror of the former fear, than erst it
was before ;
So that I sit in safety, § as sea-man under shrouds
When he perceives the storms be past through
vanishingll of clouds ;
* waltering] i. e. weltering, — rolling.
t have as make] The 4to. "hath as makes."
X my joys more] Qy. " my joy the more," — as " it " occurs
in the next line? But our early writers sometimes apply
" it " to a preceding plural substantive ; and here "joy "
(spelt in the 4to. " ioyes ") would seem to be a dissyllable,
—as in p. 499, first col. ,
"Which makes the mind of Clyomon withjo^s to be clad."
See, too, note t, p. 45S, first col.
§ safety] A trisyllable here : see Walker's Shakespeare's
Versification, dfcc, p. 158.
|| vanishing] The -J to. "vanquishing."
For why*
The doubtful care that drave me off, in danger
to prevail,
Is dash'd through bearing lesser brain and keep-
ing under sail,
So that I have through travail long at last
possess'd the place
Whereasf my bark in harbour safe doth pleasures
great embrace,
And hath such license limited as heart can seem
to ask,
To go and come, of custom free or any other
task :
I mean by Juliana she, that blaze of beauty's
breeding,
And for her noble gifts of grace all other dames
exceeding ;
She hath from bondage set me free, and freed yet
still bound
To her above all other dames that live upon the
ground,
For, had not she been merciful, my ship had
rush'd on rocks,
And so decay 'd amids the storms through force
of clubbish knocks ;
But when she saw the danger great where subject
I did stand
In bringing of my silly J bark full-fraught from
out my land,
She, like a meek and modest dame, — what should
I else say more ? —
Did me permit with full consent to land upon
her shore,
Upon true promise that I would here faithful
still remain,
And that perform which she had vow'd for those
that should obtain
* For tchy] i. e. Because,
f Whereas] i. e. Whore.
{ silly] i. e. poor, weak.
492
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Her princely person to possess ; which thing to
know I stay,
And then adventurously for her to pass upon my
way :
Lo where she comes !
£nter Juliana with a white thield.
Ah peerless dame, my Juliana dear !
Juli. My Clamydes ! of troth, sir prince, to
make you stay thus here
I proffer too much injury, that's doubtless on my
part ;
But let it no occasion give to breed within your
heart
Mistrust that I should forge or feign with you
my love in aught.
Clam. No, lady, touching you in me doth
lodge no such a thought,
But thanks for your great courtesy, that would
so friendly here
In mids of misery receive a foreign stranger mere.
But, lady, say what is your will, that it I may
perstand.*
Juli. Sir prince,
Upon a vow who spouseth me must needslyt
take in hand
The flying serpent for to slay, which in the Forest
is
That of Strange Marvels beareth name; which
serpent doth not miss,
By daily use, from every coast that is adjacent
there,
To fetch a virgin-maid, or wife, or else some lady
fair,
To feed his hungry paunch withal, if case he can
them take ;
His nature, lo, it only is of women spoil to make :
Which thing, no doubt, did daunt me much, and
made me vow indeed,
Who should espouse me for his wife should bring
to me his head ;
Whereto my father willingly did give his like
consent :
Lo, Sir Clamydes, now you know what is my
whole intent ;
And if you will, as I have said, for me this travail
take,
That I am yours with heart and mind your full
account do make.
* perstand] i. e. understand. The word occurs seroral
tiroes in this drama,
t necdsly] i. o. necessarily.
Clam. Ah lady,
If case these travails should surmount the
travails whereby came
Unto the worthies of the world such noble bruit*
and fame,
Yea, though the dangers should surpass stout
Hercules his toil,
Who, fearing naught the dogged fiend, stern
Cerberus did foil ;
Take here my hand, if life and limb the living
gods do lend,
To purchase thee the dearest drop of blood my
heart shall spend :
And therefore, lady, link with me thy loyal heart
for aye,
For I am thine till Fates untwine of vital life the
stay,
Protesting here, if gods assist, the serpent for to
kill.
Juli. Then shalt thou of all women win the
heart and great good-will,
And me possess for spoused wife, who in election am
To have the crown of Denmark here as heir unto
the same ;
For whyt no children hath my sire besides me
but one other,
And he, indeed, is heir before for that he is my
brother,
And Clyomon so hightj his name ; but where he
doth remain
Unto my parents is unknown, for once he did
obtain
Their good-wills for to go abroad, a while to
spend his days
In purchasing through active deeds both honour,
laud, and praise,
Whereby he might deserve to have the order of
a knight :
But, this omitting, unto thee, Clamydes, here I
plight
My faith and troth, if what is said by me thou
dost perform.
Clam. If not,
Be sure, lady, with my life I never will return.
Juli. Then as thou seem'st in thine attire a
virgin § knight to be,
Take thou this shield likewise of white, and bear
thy name by me —
The White Knight of the Silver Shield, to elevate
thy praise. [Qives thield.
* bruit] i. e. report.
f For why] i. e. Because.
t flight] i. e. called.
§ virgin] Tho 4to. "Virfjins."
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
493
Clam. lady, as your pleasure is, I sball at all
assays
Endeavour* my good-will to win, if Mars do send
me might,
Such honour as your grace with joy shall
welcome home your knight.
Juli. Then farewell, my dear Clamydes : the
gods direct thy way,
And grant that with the serpent's head behold
thy face I may !
Clam. You shall not need to doubt thereof,
faithful dame so true !
And, humbly kissing here thy hand, I bid thy
grace adieu. [Exit Juliana.
Ah happy time and blissful day, wherein by fate
I find
Such friendly favours as are food to feed both
heart and mind !
To Suavia soil I swiftly will prepare my footsteps
right,
There of my father to receive the order of a
knight,
And afterwards address myself, in hope of
honour's crown,
Both tiger fell and monster fierce by dint for to
drive down.
The flying serpent soon shall feel how boldly I
dare vaunt me,
An if that Hydra's head she had, yet dread
should never daunt me;
If murdering Minotaur a man might count this
ugly beast,
Yet for to win a lady such I do account it least
Of travails toil to take in hand ; and therefore,
farewell care,
For hope of honour sends me forth 'mongst war-
like wights to share. [Exit.
Enter Sir CLYOMON.f
Clyo. [To Subtle Shift within.] Come on,
good fellow, follow me, that I may under-
stand
Of whence thou art, thus travelling here in a
foreign land ;
Come, why dost thou not leave loitering there
and follow after me ]
S. Shift, [within.] Ah, I am in, an 't shall please
you!
• Endeavour] i. e. Exert.
t Enter Sir Clyomon] The 4to. has " Enter Sir Clyomon
Knight of the Golden Shecld, sonne to the King of Den-
marke, with subtill Shin the Vice, booted."— "The Vice"
—equivalent in this stage-direction to " the buffoon" —
was a prominent character in the early Moral flays j
see Collier's Hist, of Engl. Dram. Poetry, vol. ii. p. 264.
Clyo. In ! why, where art thou in ?
S. Shift. Faith, in a dirty ditch with a wanion,*
so beray'd + as it's pity to see.
Clyo. Well, I see thou art a merry companion,
I shall like better of thy company :
But, I pray thee, come away.
S. Shift, [within.] If I get out one of my legs,
as fast as I may.
Ha lo ! ah my buttock ! the very foundation
thereof doth break ;
Ha lo ! once again I am as fast as though I had
frozen here a week.
Here let him flip unto the stage backwards, as though tie had
pulled his leg out of the mire, one boot off, and thtn rise
up to run in again.
Clyo. Why, how now ! whither runn'st thou ?
art thou foolish in thy mind ?
S. Shift. But to fetch one of my legs, au't
shall please, that I have left in the mire
behind.
Clyo. One of thy legs ! why, look, man, both
thy legs thou hast ;
It is but one of thy boots thou hast lost, thy
labour thou dost wast. %
S. Shift. But one of my boots ! Jesu, I had Buch
a wrench with the fall,
That, I assure, I did think one of my legs had
gone withal.
Clyo. Well, let that pass, and tell me what
thou art, and what is thy name,
And from whence thou cam'st, and whither thy
journey thou dost frame,
That I have met thee by the way, thus travelling
in this sort.
S Shift. What you have requested, an't shall
please, I am able to report.
What I am by my nature each wight shall per-
ceive
That frequenteth my company by the learning
I have :
I am the son of Apollo, and from his high seat I
came ;
But whither I go, it skills§ not, for Knowledge is
my name,
And whoso hath knowledge, what needs he to
care
Which way the wind blow, his way to prepare ?
* with a wanion] i. e. with a curse. — The 4to. "with a
woman "
t beray'd'] i. e. befouled.
I wast] i. o waste, — for the rhyme.
§ skills] i. e. matters, signifies.
494
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Clyo. And art thou Knowledge? of troth, I
am glad that I have met with thee.
S. Shift. I am Knowledge, and have as good
skill in a woman as any man whatsoever
he be,
For this I am certain of, let me but lie with her
all night,
And I'll tell you in the morning whether she is
maid, wife, or sprite ;
And as for other matters, speaking of languishes*
or any other thing,
I am able to serve, an't shall please, an't were
great Alexander the King.
Clyo. Of troth, then, for thy excellency I will
thee gladly entertain,
If in case that with me thou wilt promise to
remain.
S. Shift. Nay, an't shall please ye, I am like to
a woman, — say nay, and take it ; t
When a gentleman proffers entertainment, I were
a fool to forsake it.
Clyo. Well, Knowledge, then sith thou art
content my servant to be,
And endu'd with noble qualities thy personage I
see,
Thou having perfect knowledge how thyself to
behave,
I will send thee of mine errand ; but haste thither,
I crave,
For here I will stay thy coming again.
S. Shift. Declare your pleasure, sir, and whither
I shall go, and then the case is plain.
Clyo. Nay, of no great importance, but being
here in Suavia
And near unto the court, I would have thee to
take thy way
Thither with all speed, because I would bear
li' any shows or triumphs be towards,:}: else would
I not come there ;
For only upon feats of arms is all my delight.
S. Shift, [aside.'] If I had known so much
before, serve that serve will, I would have
serv'd no martial knight. —
Well, sir, to accomplish your will, to the court
I will hie,
And what news is there stirring bring word by
and by.
Clyo. Do so, good Knowledge, and here in
place thy coming I will stay,
For nothing doth delight me more than to hear
of martial play. [Exit S. Shift.
" languishes] A corruption of languages.
t say nay, and tajct H] See note *, p. 123, first col.
J toward.*] i. e. in preparation, at hand.
Can food unto the hungry corpse be cause of
greater joy
Than for the haughty heart to hear, which doth
itself employ
Through martial exercises much to win the
bruit * of fame,
Where mates do meet which thereunto their
fancies seem to frame 1
Can music more the pensive heart or daunted
mind delight,
Can comfort more the careful corpse and over-
palled sprite
Rejoice, than sound of trumpet doth each warlike
wight allure,
And drum and fife unto the fight do noble hearts
procure,
To see in sunder shivered the lance that leads the
way,
And worthy knights unbeavered in field amidst
the fray?
To hear the rattling cannons roar, and hilts on
helmets ring,
To see the soldiers swarm on heaps where
valiaut hearts do bring
The cowardly crew into the case of careful
captives' baud,
Where ancients t brave displayed be and won by
force of haud ?
What wight would not as well delight as this to
hear and see
Betake himself iu like affairs a fellow mate to be
With Clyotuon, to Denmark King the only son
and heir,
Who of the Golden Shield as now the knightly
name doth bear
In every land, since that I foil'd the worthy
knight of fame,
Sir Samuel, before the king and prince of martial
game,
Alexander call'd the Great ; which when he did
behold,
He gave to me iu recompense this shield of
glittering gold,
Requesting for to know my name, the which
shall not be shown
To any knight unless by force he make it to be
known ;
For so I vow'd to Denmark King, my father's
grace, when I
First got his leave that I abroad my force and
strength might try,
* bruit] i. e. report.
f ancients] i. e. eusigns, standards.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
495
Aud so I have myself behav'd in city, town, and
field,
That never yet did fall reproach to the Knight of
the Golden Shield.
Re-enter Subtle Shift running.
S. Shift. God's aines,* where are you, where
are you 1 an you be a man, come away.
Clyo. Why, what is the matter, Knowledge?
to tell thy errand stay.
S. Shift. Stay ! what talk you of staying ? why,
then, all the sight will be past :
Clamydes the king's son shall be dubb'd knight
in all hast.t
Clyo. Ah Knowledge, then come indeed, and
good pastime thou shalt see !
I will take the honour from him that dubbed I
may be :
Upon a courageous stomach, come, let us haste
thither.
S. Shift. Lead you the way and I'll follow;
we'll be both made knights togither.J
[Exit Cltomon.
Ah sirrah, is my master so lusty or dares he be
so bold ?
It is no marvel, then, if he bear a shield of gold :
But, by your patience, if he continue in this
business, farewell master than,§
For, I promise you, I intend not very long to be
his man.
Although under the title of Knowledge my name
I do feign,
Subtle Shift I am called, that is most plain ;
And as it is my name, so it is my nature also
To play the shifting knave wheresoever I go.
Well, after him I will — but, soft now! if my
master chauce to be lost,
And any man examine me, in telling his name I
am as wise as a post :
What a villain was I that, ere he went, could not
ask it !
Well, it's no great matter, I am but half bound,
I may serve whom I will yet. [Exit.
Enter the King or Suavia icith the Herald before him,
Clamydes, and three Lords.
King of S. Come, Clamvdes, thou our son, thy
father's talk attend.
Since thou art prest|| thy youthful days in
prowess for to spend,
* God's anifs] Does it mt an God's soul (Fr. ame) ?
t hast] i. e haste, — for the rhyme.
J tngither] So spelt for the rhyme.
§ than] i. e. then : see note *, p. 206, sec. col.
|| 2'rest] i. e. ready, prompt, —here, perhaps, eager.
And dost of us the order ask of knighthood for
to have,
We know thy deeds deperve the same, and that
which thou dost crave
Thou shalt possess: but first, my son, know thou
thy father's charge,
And what to knighthood doth belong, thine
honour to enlarge ;
Unto what end a knight ia made that likewise
thou mayst know,
And bear the same in mind also, that honour
thine may flow
Amongst the worthies of the world to thy
immortal fame.
Know thou, therefore, Clamydes dear, to have a
knightly name
Is, first, above all other things, his God for to adore,
In truth, according to the laws prescrib'd to him
before ;
Secondly, that he be true unto his lord and
king;
Thirdly, that he keep his faith and troth in
every thing;
And then before all other things that else we can
commend,
That he be always ready prest* his country to
defend ;
The widow poor, and fatherless, or innocent
bearing blame,
To see their cause redressed right a faithful
knight must frame ;
In truth he always must be tried : this is the
total charge,
That will receive a knightly name his honour to
enlarge.
Clam. father, this your gracious counsel
given to me your only son,
Shall not be in oblivion cast till vital race be
run !
What way doth win Dame Honour's crown, tho>e
paths my steps shall trace,
And those that to Reproach do lead, which
seeketh to deface
True Honour in her regal seat, I shall detest for
aye,
And be as utter enemy to them both night and
day.
By flying force of flickering fame your grace
shall understand
Of my behaviour, noble sire, in every foreign
land ;
* ready prest] A sort of pleonasm. See the preceding
note.
496
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
And if you hear by true report I venture in the
barge
Of Wilfulness, contrary this your grace's noble
charge,
Let Ignomy to my reproach, instead of Lady
Fame,
Sound through the earth and azure skies the
strained blast of shame,
Whereby within Oblivion's tomb my deeds shall
be detain'd,
Where * otherwise of Memory the mind I might
have gain'd,
So that the den of Darksomeness shall ever be
my chest, t
Where * worthy deeds prefer each wight with
honour to be blest.
Enter, behind, Clyomon and Subtle Shift.
King of S. Well, Clamydes, then kneel down,
according as is right,
That here thou mayst receive of me the order
of a knight.
[Clamydes kneels; Clyomon with Subtle Shift
watching in place.
S. Shift. Now prepare yourself, or I'll be
either a knight or a knave.
Clyo. Content thyself, Knowledge, for I'll
quickly him deceive.
King of S. The noble order J of a knight,
Clamydes, unto thee
We give through due desert ; wherefore see that
thou be
Both valiant, wise, and hardy.
As the Kino of S. goes about to lay the mace on Clamydes's
head, Clyomon takes the blow.
S. Shift. Away now quickly, lest we be take
tardy.
[Exeunt Clyomon and Subtle Shift.
King, of S. Ah stout attempt of baron bold,
that hath from this my son
The knighthood ta'en ! My lords, pursue ere far
he can be run. [Exeunt two Lords.
Ah Clamydes, how art thou bereft of honour
here !
Was like presumption ever seen, that one, a
stranger mere,§
Should come in presence of a prince and tempt, ||
as he hath done,
To take the knighthood thus away from him who
is his son ?
• Where] i. e. whereas.
t <hert] i e. coffin.
J or'ler] The 4 to. " orders " : but see anU and post.
§ mere] i. e. utter, entire.
t| tempi] i. o. attempt.
Clam. Ah father, how am I perplex'd, till I
revenged be
Upon the wretch which here hathta'eu the honour
thus from me 1
Was ever any one deceiv'd of knighthood bo
before 1
King of S. Well, Clamydes, my lords return ;
stay till we do know more.
Re-enter the two Lords, bringing in Subtle Shift.
First Lord. king, the knight is fled and
gone, pursuit prevaileth * nought ;
But here his slave we taken have to tell why
this he wrought.
King of S. Ah cruel grudge that grieves my
ghost ! shall he escape me so ?
Shall he with honour from my son, without
disturbance, go? —
Ah caitiff thou, declare his name, and why he
ventur'd here,
Or death shall be thy guerdon sure, by all the
gods I swear !
S. Shift. Ah, an't shall please you, I know
neither him, his country, nor name.
Sec. Lord. What, what, sir? are not you his
servant ? will you deny the same ?
King of S. Nay, then you are a dissembling
knave, I know very well.
<S. Shift. An't shall please your grace, even the
very troth I shall tell :
I should have been his servant when we met
togither,+
Which was not full three hours before we came
hither.
King of S. Well, what is his name, and of what
country, declare.
<S. Shift. That cannot I tell, an't shall please
you : you never saw servant in such care
To know his master's name, neither in town nor
field,
And what he was he would [not] tell but the
Knight of the Golden Shield.
King of S. Well, Clamydes, mark my charge,
what I to thee shall say :
Prepare thyself for to pursue that traitor on his
way,
Which hath thine honour reft from thee, and,
either by force of hand
Or love, his name and native soil see that thou
understand,
* prevaileth] i. e. availeth.
\ togither] So written for the rhyme.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
4r>;
That I may kuow for what intent he bare this
grudge to thee,
Else see thou never do * return again to visit rue;
For thib imports him for to be of valiant heart
and mind,
And therefore do pursue thy foe until thou dost
him find,
To know his name and what he is, or, as I said
before,
Do never view thy father I in presence any more.
Clam. Well, father, sith it is your charge and
precept given to me,
And more for mine own honour's sake, I frankly
do agree
To undertake the enterprise, his name to under*
staud,
Or never else to show my face again in Suavia land.
Wherefore I humbly do desire the order to
receive
Of knighthood, which my sole desire hath ever
been to have :
It is the name and mean whereby true honour is
achiv'd ; t
Let me not, then, father dear, thereof be now
depriv'd,
Sith that mine honour cowardly was stoln by
caitiff he,
And not by dinted dastard's deed, father, lost
by me !
King of S. Well, Clamydes, then kneel down :
here in our nobles' sight,
We give to thee that art our son the order of a
knight ;
But, as thou wilt our favour win, accomplish my
desire.
Clam. Else never to your royal court, father,
I'll retire.
King of S. Well, then, adieu, Clamydes dear :
the gods thine aider[s] be ! —
But come, my lords, to have his hire, that caitiff
bring with me.
S. Shift. Alas, an't shall please you, I am
Knowledge, and no evil did pretend ! +
Set me at liberty ; it was the knight that did
offend.
Clam. father, sith that he is Knowledge, I
beseech your grace set him free ;
For in these affairs he shall wait and tend on me,
If he will protest to be true to me ever.
S. Shift. Ah noble Clamydes, here's my hand,
I'll deceive you never !
* do) Theito. "doest."
t achiv'd] i. e. achiev'd, — for the rhyme.
} pretend) i. e. intend.
Clam. Well, then, father, I beseech your grace
graut that I may have him.
King of S. Well, Clamydes, I am content, sith
thou, my son, dost crave him :
Receive him therefore at my hands. — My lords,
come, lee's depart.
All the Lords. We ready arc to wait on you,
king, with willing heart.
[Exeunt all except Clamydes and Subtle Shift.
Clam. Well, Knowledge, do prepare thyself,
for here I do protest,
My father's precepts to fulfill, no day nor night
to rest
From toilsome travel till I have reveug'd my
cause aright
On him who of the Golden Shield now beareth
name of Knight ;
Who of mine honour hath me robb'd in such a
cowardly sort
As for to be of noble heart it doth him not
import.
But, Knowledge, to me thy service still thou
must with loyal heart profess.
S. Shift. Use me that all other villains may
take ensample by me, if I digress.
Clam. Well, then, come follow speedily, that
him pursue we may.
S. Shift. Keep you before, an't shall please you,
for I mind not to stay. [Exit Clajiypes.
Ah sirrah Shift, thou wast driven to thy shifts
now indeed !
I dream'd before that unto wardly I should speed;
And yet it is better luck than I looked to have ;
But, as the proverb saith, good fortune ever
happeneth to the veriest knave :
And yet I could not escape with my master, do
what I can :
Well, by this bargain he hath lost his new
serving-man.
But if Clamydes overtake him now, what buffets
will there be !
Unless it be four miles off the fray, there will be
no standing for me.
Well, after him I will; but howsoever my master
speed,
To shift for myself I am fully decreed. [Exit.
Enter Kino Alexander the Great, a* valiantly tet forth
as may be, and as many Lords and Soldiers as can.
K. Alex. After many invincible victories and
conquests great achiv'd,*
I, Alexander, with sound of fame, in safety am
arriv'd
* achiv'd] i. e. achiev'd, — for the rhyme (ns before)
498
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Upon my borders loDg wish'd-for of Macedoniasoil,
Aud all the world subject have through force of
warlike toil.
Mars, I laud thy sacred name ! and, for this
safe return,
To Pallas' temple will I wend, and sacrifices burn
To thee, Bellona, and the rest, that warlike
wights do guide,
Who for King Alexander did such good success
provide.
Who bows not now unto my beck ? my force who
doth not fear 1
Who doth not of my conquests great throughout
the world hear ?
What king as to his sovereign lord doth now not
bow his knee ?
What prince doth reign upon the earth which
yields not unto me
Due homage for his regal mace ? what country is
at liberty ?
What dukedom, island, or province else, to me
now are not tributary ?
What fort of force, or castle strong, have I not
batter'd down 1
What prince is he that now by me his princely
seat and crown
Doth not acknowledge for to hold? not one the
world throughout
But of King Alexander's power they all do stand
in doubt : *
They fear, as fowls that hovering fly from out the
falcon's way ;
As lamb the lion, so my power the stoutest do
obey :
In field who hath not felt my force where batter-
ing blows abound ]
King or keysar,f who hath not fix'd his knees to
me on ground ?
And yet, Alexander, what art thou ? thou art a
mortal wight,
For all that ever thou hast got or won by force
in fight.
First Lord. Acknowledging thy state, king,
to be as thou hast said,
The gods, no doubt, as they have been, will be
thy shield and aid
In all attempts thou tak'st in hand, if case no
glory vain
Thou seekest, but acknowledging thy victories
and gain
* doubt] i. o. dread,
t kei/iar\ i. e. emperor.
Through the providence of sacred gods to happen
unto thee,
For vain is trust that in himself man doth
repose we see ;
And, therefore, lest these victories which thou,
king, hast got
Should blind thine eyes with arrogancy, thy
noble fame to blot,
Let that victorious Prince his words of Macedon,
thy sire,
T* acknowledge still thy state, king, thy noble
heart inspire ;
Who, after all his victories triumphantly obtain'd,
Lest that the great felicity of that which he* had
gainid
Should cause him to forget himself, a child he
did provide,
Which came unto his chamber-door, and every
morning cried,
" Philip, thou art a mortal man ! " This practice
of thy sire,
Amidst all these thy victories, thy servant doth
desire,
Alexander, that thou wilt emprintt within thy
mind,
And then, no doubt, as father did, thou solace
sweet shalt find.
E. Alex. My lord,*
Your counsel doubtless I esteem, and with
great thanks again
1 do requite your courtesy, rejecting — this is
plain —
All vain-glory from my heart ; and since the gods
divine
To us above all other§ kings this fortune do
assign,
To have in our subjection the world for most part,
We will at this one hour['s] return, with fervent
zeal of heart,
Iu Pallas' temple, to the gods such sacrifices
make
Of thankfuluess for our success, as they in part
shall take
The same a gratulatiou sufficient from us sent :
Come, therefore, let us homewards march t'
accomplish our intent.
All the Lords. We ready are, most famous king,
to follow thee with victory.
K. Alex. Then sound your drums and trumpets
both, that we may march triumphantly.
[ExewU.
• he] The4to. "she."
t emprint] Tho 4to. "them priut."
J lord] Tho4to. "Lords."
other] The 4to. "others."
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
409
Enter Clvomon.
Clyo. Now, Clyomon, a knight thou art, though
some perhaps may say
Thou cowardly cain'st to Clamydes and stole his
right away.
No, no,
It was no cowardly part to come in presence of a
king,
And in the face of all his court to do so worthy
a thing ;
Amidst the mates that martial be and stern
knights of his hall,
To take the knighthood from their prince even
maugre* of them all,
It gives a guerdon of good-will to make my glory
glance ;
When warlike wights shall hear thereof, my
fame they will advance :
And where I was pretendedt late to Denmark
King, my Bire,
His royal grace! to see, homeward to retire,
Now is my purpose altered by bruit of late
report ; §
And where fame resteth to be had, thither
Clyomon will resort.
For, as I understand by fame, that worthy prince
of might,
The conqueror of conquerors, who Alexander
bight, ||
Returning is to Macedon from many a bloody
broil,
And there to keep his royal court now after
weary toil ;
Which makes the mind of Clyomon with ioyall to
be clad,
For there, I know, of martial mates is company
to be had.
Adieu, therefore, both Denmark King and Suavia
Prince beside :
To Alexander's court I will; the gods my journey
guide !
Enter Clamydeb and Subtle Shift,
Clam. Come, Knowledge, here he is. — Nay,
stay, thou cowardly knight,
That, like a dastard, cam'st to steal away my
right,
* mavgre] i. e. in spite.
t where I was pretended] i. e. whereas I intended,
t His royal grace, &c] A mutilated line.
§ bruit of late report] i.e. noise of late report, — a pleo-
nasm.
|| hight] i. e. is called.
U joyi] See note J, p. 401, first col.
Clyo. What, what? you rail, sir princox-prince,*
me coward for to call.
S. Shift. An't shall please you, he is a coward ;
he would have hir'd me, amidst your
father's hall,
To have done it for him, being himself in sucb
fear+
That scarcely he durst before your presence
appear.
Clyo. Why, how now, Knowledge ! what, for-
sake thy master so soon ?
S. Sliift. Nay, master was, but not master is ;
with you I have done.
Clam. Well, for what intent cam'st thou my
honour to steal away ?
Clyo. That I took aught from thee, I utterly
denay.J
Clam. Didst not thou take the honour which
my father to me gave ?
Clyo. Of that thou hadest not, I could thee not
deprave. §
Clam. Didst not thou take away my knight-
hood from me ?
Clyo. No, for I had it before it was given unto
thee;
And having it before thee, what argument canst
thou make
That ever from thee the same I did take ?
S. Shift. That's true ; he receiv'd the blow
before at you it came,
And therefore he took it not from you, because
you had not the same.
Clam. Well, what hight|| thy name? let me
that understand ;
And wherefore thou travelled'st here in my
father's land,
So boldly to attempt in his court such a thiug ?
Clyo. The bolder the attempt is, more fame it
doth bring .
But what my name is desirest thou to know ?
S. Shift. Nay, he hath stoln sheep, I think, for
he is asham'd his name for to show.
Clam. What thy name is I would gladly per-
stand.U
Clyo. Nay, that shall never none know, unless
by force of hand
* princox-prince] i. e. coxcomb-prince.
t fear] The 4to. "stay."
} denay] i. e. deny.
§ deprave] i. e. deprive. So written for the rhyme : it
occurs several times in this play.
|| hight] i. e. is called.
If perstand] i. e. understand : as before and after-
wards.
K K 2
500
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
He vanquish me in fight, such a vow have I
made ;
And therefore to combat with me thyself do
persuade,
If thou wilt know my name.
Clam- Well, I accord to the same.
S. Shift. Nay, then, God be with you ! if you
be at that point, I am gone ;
If you be of the fighter's disposition, I'll leave
you alone.
Clam. Why, stay, Knowledge : although I
fight, thou shalt not be molested.
S. Shift. An't shall please you, this fear hath
made me beray* myself with a proin-
stone+ that was not digested.
Clyo. Well, Clamydes, stay thyself, and mark
my sayings here,
And do not think I speak this same for that thy
force I fear,
But that more honour may redound unto the
victor's part :
Wilt thou here give thy hand to me, withouten
fraud of heart,
Upon the faith which to a knight doth rightly
appertain ?
And by the loyalty of a knight I'll swear to thee
again
For to observe my promise just; which is, if thou
agree
The fifteenth day next following to meet, sir
prince, with me
Before King Alexander's grace, in Macedonia
soil,
Who all the world subject hath through force of
warlike toil,
For he is chief of chivalry and king of martial
mates,
And to his royal court, thou know'st, repair all
estates :
Give me thy hand upon thy faith of promise not
to fail,
And here is mine to thee again, if Fortune's
fro ward gale
Resist me not, the day forespoke to meet, sir
prince, with thee,
Before that king to try our strengths : say if thou
dost agree ;
For triple honour will it be to him that gets the
victory
Before so worthy a prince as he and nobles all so
publicly,
* beray] i. e. befoul.
t proinstonc | i.e. pruno-stone.
Where* otherwise, if in this place we should
attempt the same,
Of the honour that were got thereby but small
would be the fame.
Clam. Well, sir knight, here is my hand, I'll
meet in place forespoke.
Clyo. And, by the loyalty of a knight, I'll not
my words revoke.
Clam. Till then adieu ; I'll keep my day.
Clyo.f And I, if fates do not gainsay. [Exit.
S. Shift. What, is he gone, and did take no
leave of me 1
Jesu, so unmannerly a gentleman did any man
see ?
But now, my lord, which way will you travel,
declare.
Clam. Sith I have fifteen days' respite myself
to prepare,
My lady's charge for to fulfill, behold, I do
intend.
S. Shift. Your lady ! an't shall please you,
why, who is your lady? may a man be so
bold as ask and not offend ?
Clam,. Juliana, daughter to the King of
Denmark, lo, is she,
Whose knight I aua, and from her hands this
shield was given to me
In sign and token of good-will; whose noble
grace to gain,
I have protested in her cause for to omit no pain
Nor travail till I have subdu'd the flying
serpent's force,
Which in the Forest of Marvels is, who taketh
no remorse J
Of womenkiud, but doth devour all such as
are astray,
So that no one dares go abroad nor wander forth
the way ;
And sith I have yet fifteen days myself for to
prepare
To meet the Knight of the Golden Shield, my
heart is void of care :
I will unto the forest wend, sith it is in my way,
And for my Juliana's sake that cruel serpent
slay.
S. Shift. What, are you a madman ? will you
wilfully be slain ?
If you go into that forest, you will never come
out again.
* Where) i. e. Whereas,
t Clyo] The 4to. "Clamy. 1
I remorse] i. e. pity.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
501
Clam. Why so, Knowledge 1 dost thou think
the serpent I fear?
S. Shift. No ; but do you not know of Bryan
Sans-foy, the cbampiou, dwells there ?
Clam. A cowardly kuight, Knowledge, is he,
and dares fight with no man.
S. Shift. Ah, a noble match ! couple him and
me together than.*
Yea, but although he dares not fight, an t
enchanter he is,
And whosoever comes in that forest to enchant
he doth not miss.
Clam. Tush, tush, I fear him not, Knowledge ;
and therefore come away.
S. Shift. Well, seeing you are sowilfull, go you
before, I'll not stay. [Exit Clamydes.
Ah sirrah, now I know all my master's mind, the
which I did not before:
He adventureth for a lady— well, I say no
more.
But to escape the enchantments of Bryan Sans-
foy, —
That's Bryan Without-faith, — I have devis'd a
noble toy ; X
For he and I am § both of one consanguinity ;
The veriest cowardly villain that ever was born,
that's of a certainty,
I'll fight with no man; no more will Bryan,
that's plain,
But by his enchantments he putteth many to
great pain,
And in a forest of strange marvels doth he
keep, ||
Altogether by enchantments to bring men
asleep
Till he have wrought his will of them. To Bryan
straight will I,
And of my master's coming to the forest inform
him privily :
So shall I win his favour ; and, Subtle Shift, in
the end
Thou shalt escape his enchantment, for he will
be thy friend.
Well, unknown to my master, for mine own
safeguard, this will I do;
And now, like a subtle shifting knave, after him
I'll go. [Exit.
* than'] i. e. then : see note *, p. 206, sec. col.
t an] The4to. "and."
J toy] i. e. conceit, fancy, scheme.
§ he and lam] So post, p. 503, sec. col., "such as you
and I am," &c.
I! keep] i. e. dwell.
Enter Bryan Sans-foy.*
B. Sans-foy. Of Bryan Sans-foy who hath not
heard ] not for his valiant acts,
But well I know throughout the world do ring
his cowardly facts.
What though, I pray ? all are not born to be God
Mars his men ;
To toy with dainty dames in courts should be no
copesmatest then :
If all were given to chivalry, then Venus might
go weep,
For any court in venery that she were like to
keep.
But shall I frame, then, mine excuse by serving
Venus she,
When I am known throughout the world faint-
hearted for to be ?
No, no, alas, it will not serve ! for many a knight
in love,
Most valiant hearts no doubt they have, a^id
knightly prowess prove
To get their ladies' loyal hearts; but I in Venus'
yoke
Am forc'd for want of valliancy my freedom to
provoke,
Bearing the name and port of knight, enchant-
ments for to use,
Wherewith full many a worthy wight most
cowardly I abuse ;
As witnesseth the number now which in my
castle lie,
Who, if they were at liberty, in arms I durst not
try
The feeblest there though he unarm'd, so is my
courage daunted
WhenasJ I see the glittering arms whereby each
knight is vaunted.
But how I vanquish these same knights is won-
derful to see ;
And knights that ventur'd for her love, whom I
do love, they be,
That's Juliana, daughter to the King of
Denmai'k's grace,
Whose beauty is the cause that I do haunt or
keep this place,
For that no wight may her possess, unless by vow
decreed
He bring and do present to her the flyiug
serpent's head :
* Bryan Sans-foy] Our author probably borrowed the
name Sans-foy from Spenser's Faerie Qw.ene, B. I. C. ii. :
see Account of Peek and his Writing*, p. 344.
t copemiates] "A Copesmato, Sarins. ' Coles's Diet.
I Whenai] i. e. When.
502
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Which many have attempt * to do, but none yet
could him slay,
Net afterward hence back again for me could
pass away,
For that through my enchantments, lo, which
here this forest keep,
So soon as I did look on them, they straight were
in a sleep ;
Then presently I them unarm'd and to my castle
brought,
And there in prison they do lie, not knowing
what was wrought.
Lo, thus I range the woods to see who doth the
serpent slay,
That by enchantment I may take the head from
him away,
And it present unto the dame, as though I were
her knight.
Well, here comes one : I'll shroud myself, for
sure I will not fight.
Enter Subtle Shift.
S. Shift. Gog's blood, J where might I meet with
that cowardly knave, Bryan Sans-foy 1
I could tell him such a tale now as would make
his heart leap for joy.
Well, yonder I have espied one, whatsoever he be.
B. Sans-foy. [aside.] Nay, Gog's blood, I'll be
gone ; he shall not fight with me :
But by enchantment I '11 be even with him by
and by.
S. Shift. Ah, an't shall please you, I'll fight
with no man ; never come so nigh.
B. Sans-foy. Why, what art thou, declare;
whither dost thou run ?
S. Shift. Even the cowardliest villain, an't
shall please you, that lives under the sun.
B. Sans-foy. What, of my fraternity? dost thou
not know Bryan Sans-foy ?
S. Shift. What, Master Bryan ! Jesu, how my
heart doth leap for joy
That I have met with you ! who ever had better
luck?
But touch me not.§
B. Sans-foy. Wherefore ?
S. Shift. Ah, lest you enchant me into the
likeness of a buck !
* attempt] i. e attempted.
t Ne] i. e. Nor.
} Gori'g blood] A corruption of God's blood.
§ But touch me not.] Given to "Bryan," in the 4to. ;
where also the next nine speeches are wrongly distri-
buted, what belongs to Bryan being assigned to Shift,
and vice versa.
B. Sans-foy. Tush, tush, I warrant thee ; but
what art thou, declare.
S. Shift. Knowledge, an it shall please you ;
who hither doth repah
To tell you good news.
B. Sans-foy. Good news ! what are they, Know-
ledge, express.
S. Shift. A knight hath slain the flying serpent.
B. Sans-foy. Tush, it is not so.
S. Shift. It is most true that I do confess.
B. Sans-foy. Ah, what hight * his name, Know-
ledge ? let me that understand.
S. Shift. Clamydes, the White Knight, son to
the King of Suavia land,
Who for Juliana, daughter to the King of Den-
mark's grace,
Did take the attempt in hand : now you know
the whole case.
B. Sans-foy. Ah happy news of gladsomeness
unto my daunted mind !
Now for to win my lady's love good fortune is
assign'd ;
For though she be Clamydes' right, won worthily
indeed,
Yet will I sure possess that dame by giving of
the head.
But, Knowledge, whereabout declare doth that
Clamydes rest.
S. Shift. Even hard by in the forest here, where
he slew the beast,
I left him, and to seek you did hie :
But let us go further into the woods, you shall
meet him by and by.
B. Sans-foy . Well, Knowledge, for thy pains
take this as some reward ; [Gives money.
And if thou wilt abide with me, be sure I'll thee
regard
Above all others of my men ; besides I'll give to
thee
A thing that from enchantments aye preserved
shalt thou be.
S. Shift. Then here is my hand, I'll be your
servant ever.
B. Sans-foy. And, seeing thou art a coward as
well as I, I'll forsake thee never.
But come, let us go Clamydes to meet.
S. Shift. Keep on your way and I'll follow.
[Exit Bryan Sans-foy.
I trust if be meet him, he'll take him
to his feet.
hight] i. e. is called |
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
503
Gog's blood, was ever seen such a jult-headed
villain as he,
To be so afraid of such a faint-heart knave as I
am to see ?
Of the fraternity, quoth you? by'rlady,* it's a
notable brood !
Well, Shift, these chiukst doeth J thy heart
some good ;
And I'll close with Bryan till I have gotten the
thing
That he hath promis'd me, and then I'll be with
him to bring : §
Well, such shifting knaves as I am, the auibo-
dexter || must play,
And for commodity *U serve every man, what-
soever the world say.
Well, after Bryan I will, and close with him
a while,
But, as wt-11 as Clamydes, in the end I'll him
beguile. [Exit.
Enter Clamydes with the head of the flying serpent upon
his sword.
Clam. Ah happy day ! my deadly foe sub-
mitted hath to death :
Lo, here the hand, lo, here the sword that stopt
the vital breath !
Lo, here the head that shall possess my Juliana**
dear !
The Knight of the Golden Shield his force what
need I now to fear ?
Since I by force subdued have this serpent fierce
of might,
Who vanquish'd hath, as I have heard, full many
a worthy knight,
Which, for to win my lady's love, their lives have
ventur'd here :
Besides, that cowardly Bryan, which the Faithless
Shield ft doth bear.
* by'rlady] i. e. by our Lady.
f chinks] i. e. pieces of money.
X doeth] See note * p. 490 : but here perhaps " doeth"
might be altered to "do " without iujury to the metre.
§ I'll be with him to bring] The very obscure expression
to be icitk a person to bnng occurs also in Shakespeare's
Troilus and Cressida, act i. sc. 2, in Kyd's Spanish Tra-
gedy, act iv., in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady,
act v. sc. 4 (which passages are cited at full in my
Remarks on Mr. Collier's and Mr. Knight's eds. of Shake-
speare, &c, p. 149), and in Hariugton's Orlando Furioso,
B. xxxix. 48.
|| ambodexter] Or ambidexter, i. e. one who acts with
either party, double-dealer. (" Ambodexter, Jack-on-
both-side, Ambidexter." Coles's Diet.)
TI commodity] i. e. interest, gain.
** Juliana] The 4to. "Iulianas."
t \ the Faithless Shield] i. e. the shield which has the
impress Scms-foy.
A number keeps, as I have heard, as captives in
his hold,
Whom he hath by enchantment got and not
through courage bold.
Shall such defame 1 dastards, dar'd* by knights,
thus bear their name ?
Shall such as are without all faith live to impair
our fame 1
Shall valiant hearts by cowardly charm bo kept
in captives' thrall r i
Shall knights live subject to a wretch which hath
no heart at all 1
Nay, first, Clamydes, claim to thee fell Atropos
hert stroke,
Ere thou dost see such worthy knights to bear
the heavy yoke
Of cowardly Bryan Without-faith : his charms
let daunt not thee ;
And for his force thou need'st not fear, the gods
thy shield will be.
Well, to meet the Knight of the Golden Shield
yet ten days' space I have
And to set free these worthy knights ; but rest
a while I crave :
Here in this place near to this fort, for that I
weary am
With travail since from killing of the serpent late
I came.J
Lo, here a while I mind to rest, and Bryan then
subdue,
And then to Alexander's court, to keep my
promise true. [Lies down and falls asleep.
Enter Bryan Sans-foy and Subtle Shift.
B. Sans-foy. Come, Knowledge, for here he
lies, laid weary on the ground.
S. Shift. Nay, I 11 not come in his sight, if you
would give me a thousand pound,
For he is the terriblest knight of any you have
heard spoke ;
He'll beat a hundred such as you and I am §
down at one stroke.
B. Sans-foy. Tush, fear thou naught at all : I
have charm'd him, and he is fast asleep,
Lying near unto the castle here which I do keep ;
* dar'd] i. e. terrified, caused to cower.
t her] The4to. "his."
t for that I weary am
With travail since from killing of the serpent late J came,
he] Here I formerly printed " With travel," &c. : but
Clamydes had not travelled far since that adventure ; and
compare what he says in p. 530, sec. col , —
"and when 1 had subdu'd the monster foil
Through weary tight and travail great," Sic.
§ you and I am] See note §, p. 501, first eol.
504
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES,
And ten days in this sleep I have charm'd him to
remain
Before nature shall overcome it that he might *
wake again.
In the mean season, lo, behold, the serpent's
head I'll take away,
His shield, and his apparel : this done, then will
I convey
His body into prison, with other his companions
to lie,
Whose strengths, ah Knowledge, I durst never
attempt to try !
S. Shift. Ah, handle him softly, or else you
will cause him to awake !
B. Sans-foy. Tush, tush, not if all the noise in
the world I were able to make :
Till ten days be expired the charm will not leave
him;
And then, I am sure, he will marvel who did
thus deceive him.
f Tales away from Clamydes his apparel, his
shield, and the serpent's head.
So, now he is stripped, stay thou here for a
season,
And I'll go fetch two of my servants to carry him
into prison.
S. Shift. Well, do so, Master Bryan, and for
your coming I'll stay. [Exit Bryan.
Gog's blood.t what a villain am I my master to
betray !
Nay, sure, I'll awake him, if it be possible, ere
they carry him to jail. —
Master ! what, master ! awake, man ! what,
master ! — Ah, it will not prevail ! %
Am not I worthy to be hang'd? was ever seen
such a deceitful knave ?
What villany was in me when unto Bryan
understanding I gave
Of my master's being in this forest ? but much I
muse, indeed,
What he means to do with my master's apparel,
his shield, and the head.
Well, seeing it is through my villany my master
is at this drift,
Yet, when he is in prison, Shift shall not be void
of a shift
To get him away ; but if it ever come to his
ear
That I was the occasion of it, he'll hang me,
that's clear.
* might] Qy. "may"?
t Gog's blood] A corruption of God's blood.
\ prevail] i. e. avail.
Well, here comes Bryan : I'll cloak with him, if
I may,
To have the keeping of my master in prison
night and day.
Re-enter Bryan Sans-foy with two Servants.
B. Sans-foy. Come, sirs, take up this body, and
carry it in to the appointed place,
And there let it lie, for as yet he shall sleep ten
days' space.
[Exeunt Servants, carrying out Clamydes.
S. Shift. How say you, Master Bryan, shall I of
him have the guard ?
B. Sansfoy. By my troth, policy thy good-will
to reward ;
In hope of thy just service, content, I agree
For to resign the keeping of this same knight
unto thee :
But give me thy hand that thou wilt deceive me
never.
S. Shift. Here's my hand : charm, enchant,
make a spider-catcher* of me, if I be
false to you ever.
B. Sans-foy. Well, then, come, follow after me,
and the guard of him thou shalt have.
S. Shift. A thousand thanks I give you : this
is all the promotion I crave.
[Exit Brvan Sans-foy.
Ah sirrah, little knows Bryan that Clamydes my
master is ;
But to set him free from prison I intend not to
miss:
Yet still in my mind I can do no other but
muse
What practice + with my master's apparel and
shield he will use.
Well, seeing I have play'd the crafty knave with
the one, I'll play it with the other;
Subtle Shift for advantage will deceive his own
brother. [Exit.
Here a noise of Manners within.
Clyo. [within.'] Ah, set me to shore, sirs, in what
country soever we be !
Shipmaster. % [within.] Well, hale out the cock-
boat, seeiug so sick we do him see:
Strike sail, cast anchors, till we have rigg'd our
ship again,
For never were we in such storms before, that's
plain.
* spider-catcher] i. e. monkey.
t practice] i. e. artful tricks.
} SJiipmasler] The 4to. "SLiiftmai."
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
503
Enter Clyomon and Boatswain.
Clyo. Ah, boatswain, gramercies for thy setting
me to shore !
Boat. Truly, gentleman, we were never in the
like tempests before.
Clyo. What country is this wherein now we be !
Boat. Sure, the Isle of Strange Marshes, as our
master told to me.
Clyo. How far is it from Macedonia canst thou
declare ?
Boat. More than twenty days' sailing, an if the
weather were fair.
Clyo. Ah cruel hap of Fortune's spite, which
sigu'd* this luck to me ! —
What palace, boatswain, is this same, canst thou
declare, we see ?
Boat. There King Patranius keeps his court,
so far as I do guess,
And by this train of ladies here I sure can judge
no less.
Clyo. Well, boatswain, there is for thy pains ;
and here upon the shore [Gives money.
I'll lie to rest my weary bones ; of thee I crave
no more.
[Exit Boatswain. Clyomon Iks down. \
Enter Neronis, two Lords, and two Ladies.
Nero. My lords,
Come, will it please you walk abroad to take
the pleasant air,
According to our wonted use, in fields both fresh
and fair ?
My ladies here, I know right well, will not gain-
say the same.
First Lord. Nor we, sure, for to pleasure you,
Neronis, noble dame.
Nero. Yes, yes, men they love entreaty much
before they will be won.
Sec. Lord. No, princess, that hath women's
nature t been since first the world begun.
Nero. So you say.
First Lord. We boldly may,
Under correction of your grace.
Nero. Well, will it please you forth to trace ?
That, when we have of fragrant fields the dulcet
fumes obtain'd, [gain'd
We may unto the sea-side go, whereas § are to be
* sign'd] i. e. assigned.
t Clyomon lies dozen.] The audience, of course, were to
suppose that a change of scene took place on the entrance
of Nerouis ; and that after her exit the stage again re-
presented the sea-shore. See note *, p. 160, sec. col. ;
note *, p. 237, first col. ; note *, p. 456, first col.
t nature] The 4to. "natures."
§ whereas] i. e. where.
More strange * sights among Neptune's waves in
seeing ships to sail,
Which pass here by my father's shore with merry
western gale.
First Lord. We shall your highness lead the
way to fields erst spoke before.
Nero. Do so, and, as we do return, we'll come
hard by the shore. [Exeunt.
Clyo. What greater grief can grow to gripe the
heart of grieved wight
Than thus to see fell Fortune she to hold his
state in spite ?
Ah cruel chance, ah luckless lot, to me poor
wretch assigu'd !
Were ever seen such contraries by fraudulent
goddess blind
To any one, save only I, imparted for to be ?
T' amate f the mind of any man, did ever Fortune
she
Show forth herself so cruel bent as thus to keep
me back
From pointed place by weather driven, my sor-
rows more to sack ] +
Ah fatal hap ! herein, alas, what further shall I
say?
Since I am forced for to break mine oath and
pointed day
Before King Alexander's grace : Clamydes will
be there,
And I through Fortune's cruel spite oppress'd
with sickness here ;
For now within two days it is that we should
meet togither : §
Woe worth the wind and raging storms, alas,
that brought me hither !
Now will Clamydes me accuse a faithless knight
to be,
And eke report that cowardliness did daunt the
heart of me :
The worthy praise that I have won through fame
shall be defae'd,
The name of the Knight of the Golden Shield,
alas, shall be eras'd ! [I
* strange) The 4to. "straunger." The double com-
parative was frequently used ; but here it mars the
verse, unless we alter "among" to '"mong."
t amate] i. e. daunt, dismay. — The 4to. "animate."
J sach] i. e. heap — as by pouring out of a sack : so we
afterwards find in the present play, p. 515, first col.,
" Hath sack'd on me such hugy heaps of ceaseless sorrows
here,"
— a sense in which I do not remember to have seen the
word used elsewhere.
§ togither] So wi itten for the rhyme.
|| eras'd) The 4to. "defaced."
606
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Before that noble prince of might whereas Cla-
mydes he
Will show himself in combat-wise for to exclaim
on me
For breaking of my pointed day ; and, Clyomon,
to thy grief,
Now art thou in a country strange, clean void of
all relief,
Oppress'd with sickness through the rage of
stormy blasts and cold : —
Ah Death, come with thy direful mace ! for
longer to unfold
My sorrows here it booteth not : yet, Clyomon,
do stay ;
The ladies, lo, come towards thee that walk'd the
other way.
Enter Neronis, two Lords, and two Ladies.
Nero. Come, fair dames, sith that we have in
fragrant fields obtain'd
Of dulcet flowers the pleasant smell, and that
these knights disdain'd
Not to bear us company, our walk more large to
make,
Here by the sea of surging waves our home-
return we'll take.* —
My lords, therefore, do keep your way.
First Lord. As it please your grace, we shall
obey.
But, behold, madam, what woful wight here in
our way before, [shore.
As seemeth very sick to me, doth lie upon the
Nero. My lords, let's know the cause of grief
whereof he is oppress'd,
That, if he be a knight, it may by some means be
redress'd. —
Fair sir, well met : why lie you here ? what is
your cause of grief ?
Clyo. O lady, sickness by the sea hath me
oppress'd, in brief.
Nero. Of truth, my lords, his countenance
bewrays him for to be,
In health, of valiant heart and mind and eke of
high degree.
Second Lord. It doth no less than so import,
princess, as you say.
Nero. Of whence are you, or what's your
name, you wander forth this way?
Clyo. Of small valure,t lady fair, alas, my
name it is !
And for not telling of the same hath brought me
unto this.
* take] The 4to. " make."
f valure] i. e. value, worth.
Nero. Why, for what cause, sir knight, should
you not express your name ?
Clyo. Because, lady, I have vow'd contrary
to the same ;
But where I travel, lady fair, in city, town, or
field,
I'm called and do bear by name the Knight of
the Golden Shield.
Nero. Are you that Knight of the Golden
Shield, of whom such fame doth go 1
Clyo. I am that selfsame knight, fair dame, as
here my shield doth show.
Nero. Ah worthy, then, of help indeed ! —
My lords, assist, I pray,
And to my lodging in the court see that you him
convey,
For certainly within my mind his state is much
deplor'd. —
But do despair in naught, sir knight, for you
shall be restor'd,
If physic may your grief redress ; for I, Neronis,
lo,
Daughter to Patranius King, for that which fame
doth show
Upon your acts, will be your friend, as after you
shall prove.
First Lord. In doing so you shall have meed *
of mighty Jove above.
Clyo. princess, if I ever be to health restor'd
again,
Your faithful servant, day and night, I vow here
to remain.
Nero. Well, my lords, come after me; do
bring him, I require.
Both Lords. We shall, princess, willingly
accomplish your desire. [Exeunt.
Enter Bryan Sans-foy, having on the apparel o/Clamydes,
with fiis shield, and the serpent's head.
B. Sans-foy. Ah sirrah,
Now are the ten days full expir'd wherein Cla-
mydes he
Shall wake out of his charmed sleep, as shortly
you shall see.
But here I have what I desir'd, his shield, his
coat, and head :
To Denmark will I straight prepare^ and there
present with speed
» meed] The 4to. "need."
+ prepare] I should have felt no hesitation in altering
this word to "repair," had I not found in the previous
portion of the play ;
"To Suaviasoilel swiftly will prepare my footsteps right."
p. 493, first col.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
507
The same to Juliana's grace, as in Clamydes'
name,
Whereby I am assur'd I shall enjoy that noble
dame;
For why * Clamydes he is safe for ever being free,
And uuto Knowledge is he left here guarded for
to be.
But no man knows of my pretence, + net whither
I am gone ;
For secretly from castle I have stoln this night
alone,
In this order as you see, in the attire of a noble
knight ;
But yet, poor BryaD, still thy heart holds courage
in despite.
Well, yet the old proverb to disprove I purpose
to begin,
Which always saith that cowardly hearts fair
ladies never win :
Shall I not Juliana win, and who hath a coward-
lier heart ?
Yet for to brag and boast it out, I'll will none
take my part ;
For I can look both grim and fierce as though I
were of might,
And yet three frogs out of a bush my heart did
so affright
That I fell dead almost therewith : well, cowardly
as I am,
Farewell, forest, for now I will, in Knight Cla-
mydes' name,
To Denmark to present this head to Juliana
bright,
Who shall a cowardly dastard wed instead of a
worthy knight. [Exit.
Enter Subtle Shift with sword and target.
S. Shift. Be § your leave, I came up so early
this morning that I cannot see my way ;
I am sure it's scarce yet in the break of the
day.
But you muse, I am sure, wherefore these weapons
I bring :
Well, listen unto my tale, and you shall know
every thing ;
and, in the subsequent part, a passage which is still
more to the point;
" I, Providence, prepaire
To thee from seate of mightie Joue."
p. 520, sec. col.
* For why] i. e. Because.
+ pretence'] i. e. intention.
} ne] i. e. nor.
§ Be] i. e. By.
Because I play'd the shifting knave to save my-
self from harm,
And by my procurement my master was brought
in this charm.
The ten days are expir'd, and this morning he
shall awake,
And now, like a crafty knave, to the prison my
way will I take
With these same weapons, as though I would
fight to set him free,
Which will give occasion that he shall mistrust
there was no deceit in me ;
And having the charge of him here under Bryan
Saus-foy,
I'll open the prison-doors, and make as though
I did employ
To do it by force, through good-will and only for
his sake ;
Then shall Clamydes, being at liberty, the
weapons of me take,
And set upon Bryan and all his men, now that
they are asleep,
And so be revenged for that he did him keep
By charm : in this order so shall they both
deceived be,
And yet upon neither part mistrust towards me.
Well, near to the prison I'll draw to see if he be
awake :
Hark, hark, this same is he, that his lamentation
doth make !
Clara, [in prison] Ah fatal hap ! where am I,
wretch ? in what distressed case !
Bereft of tire, of* head, and shield, not knowing
in what place
My body is ! Ah heavenly gods, was e'er such
strangeness seen ?
What, do I dream? or am I still within the
forest green ?
Dream ! no, no, 'las, I dream not I ! my senses
all do fail,
The strangeness of this cruel hap doth make my
heart to quail.
Clamydes, ah, by Fortune she what froward luck
and fate
Most cruelly assigned is unto thy noble state !
Where should I be ? or in what place hath destiny
assign'd
My silly t corpse for want of food and comfort to
be pin'd ?
* tin. of] The 4to. " Tyro."
t silly]ie. poor, wretched. — Here the 4to has"sely";
but in p. 491, sec. coL, it has " my silly barke," and in
p. 633, sec. col., " a sillU [silly] ehephcards boy."
508
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Ah, farewell hope of purchasing my lady ! since
is lost
The serpent's head, whereby I should possess
that jewel most.
Ah, farewell hope of honour eke ! now shall I
break my day
Before King Alexander's grace, whereon my faith
doth stay.
And shall I be found a faithless knight? fie on
fell Fortune, she
Which hath her wheel of fro ward chance thus
whirled back on me !
Ah, farewell King of Suavia land ! ab, farewell
Denmark dame !
Farewell, thou Knight of the Golden Shield ! to
thee shall rest all fame;
To me this direful destiny; to thee, I know,
renown ;
To me the blast of Ignomy; to thee Dame
Honour's crown.
Ah, hateful hap ! what shall I say ? I see the
gods have sign'd *
Through cruelty my careful corpse in prison to
be pin'd ;
And naught, alas, amatest me so, but that I
know not where I am,
Nor how into this doleful place my woful body
came !
S Shift. Alas, good Clamydes, in what an
admiration is he,
Not knowing in what place his body should be !
Clam, [in prison,.} Who nameth poor Clamydes
there ? reply to him again.
S. Shift. An't shall please you, I am your
servant Knowledge, which in a thousand
woes for you remain.
Clam, [in prison.] Ah Knowledge, where am I,
declare, and be brief.
S. Shift. Where are you ! faith, even in the
castle of that false thief,
Bryan Sans-foy, against whom to fight and set
you free,
Look out at the window, behold, I have brought
tools with me.
Clam, [in prison.] Ah Knowledge, then cowardly
that caitiff did me charm ?
S. Shift. Yea, or else he could never have done
you any harm :
But be of good cheer; for such a shift I have
made,
That the keys of the prison I have got, yourself
persuade,
* sign'd] i. o. assigned.
\ amattt] i. e. duuute, dismays.
Wherewith this morning I am come to set you
free,
And, as they lie in their beds, you may murder
Bryan and his men, and set all other at
liberty.
Clam, [in prison.'] Ah Knowledge, this hath me
bound to be thy friend for ever !
S. Shift. A true servant, you may see, will
deceive his master never.
[Opens the prison-door.
So, the doors are open; now come and follow
after me.
Enter Clamydes.
Clam. Ah heavens, in what case myself do I
see !
But speak, Knowledge, canst thou tell how long
have I been here ?
S. Shift. These ten days full, and sleeping
still ; this sentence is most clear.
Clam. Alas, then this same is the day the
which appointed was
By the Knight of the Golden Shield to me that
combat ours should pass
Before King Alexander's grace ; and there I know
he is !
Ah cruel Fortune, why shouldst thou thus wrest
my chance amiss,
Knowing I do but honour seek, and thou dost
me defame,
In that contrary mine expect thou all things
seeks to frame ?
The faith and loyalty of a knight thou causest
me to break :
Ah hateful dame, why shouldst thou thus thy
fury ou me wreak ?
Now will King Alexander judge the thing in me
to be
The which, since first I arms could bear, no
wight did ever see.
But, Knowledge, give from thee to me those
weapons, that I may
Upon that Bryan be reveng'd, which cowardly
did betray
Me of my things, and here from thrall all other
knights set free
Whom he by charm did bring in bale * as erst he
did by me.
Come, into his lodging will I go, and challenge
him and his.
S. Shift. Do so, and to follow I will not miss.
[Exit Clamydes with the weapons.
* bale] i. e. misery.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
503
Ah sirrah, here was a shift according to my
nature and condition ! *
And a thousand shifts more I have to put myself
out of suspicion :
But it doth me good to think how that cowardly
knave, Bryan Sans-foy,
Shall be taken in the snare ; my heart doth even
leap for joy.
Hark, hark ! my master is amongst them ; but
let him shift as he can,
For not, to deal with a dog, he shall have help of
his man. [Exit.
Re-enter, after a little fight within, Clamydes, with three
Knights.
Clam. Come, come, sir knights ; for so unfor-
tunate was never none as I ;
That I should joy t that is my joy the heavens
themselves deny :
That cowardly wretch that kept you here, and
did me so deceive,
Is fled away, and hath the shield the which my
lady gave
To me in token of her love, the serpent's head
like case,
For which this mine adventure was, to win her
noble grace.
First Knight. And sure that same th' occasion
was why we adventur'd hether.+
Clam. Well, sith I have you deliver'd, whenas §
you please, together,
Each one into his native soil his journey do
prepare ;
For though that I have broke my day, as erst I
did declare,
Through this most cowardly caitiff's charms, in
meeting of the knight
Which of the Golden Shield bears name, to know
else what he hight ||
I will to Alexander's court, and if that thence he
be,
Yet will I seek to find him out, lest he impute
to me
Some cause of cowardliness to be ; and therefore,
sir knights, depart ;
As to myself I wish to you with fervent zeal of
heart :
* condition] i. e. quality, disposition.
t joy] i. e. enjoy.
t hether] So spelt for the rhyme.
§ whenas] 1. e. when.
|| hight] i. e. is eailod.
Yet, if that any one of you do meet this knight
by way,
What was the cause of this my let,* let him
perstand t I pray.
All the Knights. We shall not miss, O noble
knight, t' accomplish this your will.
Clam. Well, then, adieu, sir knights, each one ;
the gods protect you still I
[Exeunt Knights.
What, Knowledge, ho ! where art thou, man ?
come forth, that hence we may.
S. Shift, [within.] Where am I 1 faith, breaking
open of chests here within, for I'll have
the spoil of all away.
Clam. Tush, tush,
I pray thee come, that hence we may ; no riches
thou shalt lack.
Re-enter Shift with a bag on his bad.
S. Shift. I come now with as much money as I
am able to carry of + my back ;
Ah, there was never poor ass so loaden ! But how
now ! that cowardly Bryan have you slain ?
And your shield, the serpent's head, and coat,
have you again ?
Clam. Ah, no, Knowledge !
The knights that here wore captives kept, they
are by me at liberty,
But that false Bryan this same night is fled away
for certainty,
And hath all things he took from me convey 'd
where none doth know.
S. Shift. the bones of me ! how will you,
then, do for the serpent's head to Juliana
to show ?
Clam. I have no other hope, alas, but only that
her grace
Will credit give unto my words, whenas § 1 show
my case,
How they were lost : but first, ere I unto that
dame return,
I'll seek the Knight of the Golden Shield
whereas || he doth sojourn,
T' accomplish what my father will'd ; and there-
fore come away.
S. Shift. Well, keep on before, for I mind not
to stay. [Exit Clamtdi *.
* let] i. e. hindrance.
t perstand] i. e. understand : as before and afterwards.
t of] i. e. on.
§ whenas] i. e. when.
|| whereas] i.e. where.
510
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Ah sirrah, the craftier knave, the better luck !
that's plain :
I have such a deal of substance here, where
Bryan's men are slain,
That it passeth :* 0, that I had while for to
stay !
I could load a hundred carts full of kitchen-stuff
away.
Well, it's not best to tarry too long behind, lest
my master over-go,
And then some knave, knowing of my money, a
piece of cozenage show. [Exit.
Enter Neronis.
Nero. How can that tree but wither'd be,
That wanteth sap to moist the root ?
How can that vine but waste and pine,
Whose plants are trodden under foot?
How can that spray but soon decay,
That is with wild weeds overgrown ?
How can that wight in aught delight,
Which shows and hath no good-will shown ?
Or else how can that heart, alas,
But die, by whom each joy doth pass ?
Neronis, ah, I am the tree which wanteth sap to
moist the root !
Neronis, ah, I am the vine whose plants are
trodden under foot !
I am the spray which doth decay, and is with
wild weeds overgrown ;
I am the wight without delight, which shows and
hath no good-will shown :
Mine is the heart by whom, alas, each pleasant
joy doth pass !
Mine is the heart which vades + away as doth the
flower or grass :
In wanting sap to moist the root, is joys that
made me glad ;
And plants being trodden under foot, is pleasures
that were had :
I am the spray which doth decay, whom cares
have overgrown —
But stay, Neronis ; thou saist thou show'st and
hast J no good-will shown :
Why, so I do ; how can I tell ? Neronis, force §
no cruelty ;
Thou seest thy knight endued is with all good
gifts of courtesy :
* passeth] i. e. exceedeth.
f vades] i. e. fades, — passes.
hast] The 4to. " hath."
§ force] Does it mean — regard, or urge?
And doth Neronis love indeed ? to whom love
doth she yield ?
Even to that noble bruit of fame,* the Knight of
the Golden Shield.
Ah woful dame, thou know'st not thou of what
degree he is !
Of noble blood his gestures show, I am assur'd
of this.
Why, belike he is some runagate, that will not
show his name :
Ah, why should I this allegatelf he is of noble
fame.
Why dost thou not express thy love to him,
Neronis, then?
Because* shamefacedness and womanhood bid us
not seek to men.
Ah careful dame, lo, thus I stand, as 'twere one
in a trance,
And lacketh boldness for to speak which Bhould
my words advance !
The Knight of the Golden Shield it is to whom a
thrall I am,
Whom I to health restored have since that to
court he came : §
And now he is prest || to pass again upon his
weary way
Unto the court of Alexander ; yet hath he broke
his day,
As he to me the whole express'd. — Ah sight that
doth me grieve !
Lo where he comes to pass away, of me to take
his leave !
Enter Clyomon.
Clyo. Who hath more cause to praise the gods
than I, whose state deplor'd,
Through physic and Neronis' help, to health am
now restor'd ?
Whose fervent thrall I am become : yet urgent
causes dooth
Constrain me for to keep it close, and not to put
in proof
What I might do to win her love ; as first my
oath and vow
In keeping of my name unknown, which she will
not allow.
* bruit of fame] i. e. report of fame, — person celebrated
by fame.
t alkgate] i. e. allege. t Because] Qy. '"Cause"?
§ came] Here the 4to. has " cam " : but in p. 503, sec.
col., and iu p. 508, first col., it has " came " as the rhyme
to "am."
|| prest] i. e. ready, or, perhaps, eager, as in p. 495.
first col.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
GIL
If I sbould seem to break * my mind, being a
princess born,
To yield her love to one unknown, I know she'll
think it scorn : [stay,
Besides, here longer in this court, alas, I may not
Although tbat with Clamydes he I have not kept
my day,
Lest this he should suppose in me for cowardli-
ness of heart :
To seek him out elsewhere I will from out this
land depart.
Yet though unto Neronis she I may not show
my mind,
A faithful heart, when I am gone, with her I
leave behind,
Whose bounteousness I here have felt : but since
I may not stay,
I will to take my leave of her before I pass away.
Lo where she walks. — princess, well met:
why are you here so sad ?
Nero. Good cause I have, since pleasures pass,
the which should make me glad.
Clyo. What you should mean, princess dear,
hereby I do not know.
Nero. Then listen to my talk a while, sir knight,
and I will show,
If case you will re-answer me my question to
absolve,+
The which propound % within my mind doth
oftentimes revolve.
Clyo. I will, princess, answer you as aptly
as I may.
Nero. Well, then, sir knight, apply your ears
and listen what I say.
A ship, that storms had tossed long amidst the
mounting waves,
Where harbour none was to be had, fell Fortune
so depraves,§
Through ill success, that ship of hope, that
anchor's hold doth fail,
Yet at the last she's driven to land with broken
mast and sail,
And, through the force of furious wind and
billows' bouncing blows,
She is a simple shipwreck made in every point,
God knows.
Now this same ship by chance being found, the
finders take such pain,
That fit to sail upon the seas they rig her up again,
* break] i. e. open, disclose.
t absolve] Here the 4to. has " obsolue " : but after-
wards, p. 533, first col., "absolue."
t propound] i. e. proposition.
§ depraves] i. e. deprives : as before and afterwards.
And, where she was through storms Bore bhak'd,
they make her whole and sound :
Now answer me directly here upon this my pro-
pound,
If this same ship thus rent and torn, being
brought in former rate,
Should not supply the finder's turn * to profit
In what she might. [his estate
Clyo. Herein a-right
I will, princess, as I may, directly answer you.
This ship thus found, I put the case it hath an
owner now ;
Which owner shall sufficiently content the finder's
charge,
And have again, to serve his use, his ship, his
boat, or barge.
The ship, then, cannot serve the turn of finder, f
this is plain,
If case the owner do content or pay him for his
pain ;
But otherwise if none lay claim nor seem that
ship to stay,
Then is it requisite it should the finder's pains
repay
For such endeavour, as it is to serve for his behoof.
Nero. What owner truly that it hath, I have
no certain proof.
Clyo. Then can I not define thereof, but thus
I wish it were,
That you would me accept to be that ship,
lady fair,
And you the finder ! then it should be needless
for to move,
If I the ship of duty ought to serve at your
behoove.
Nero. Thou art the ship, worthy knight, so
shiver'd found by me.
Clyo. And owner have I none, dear dame, I
yield me whole to thee :
For as this ship, I must confess, that was a ship-
wreck made,
Thou hast restor'd me unto health whom sickness
caus'd to vade ; X
For which I yield, princess dear, at pleasure
thine to be,
If your grace, noble dame, will so accept of me !
Nero. If case I will, what have you shown )
Clyo. Because $ I am to you unknown.
* turn] The 4to. "true." Compare 6th line of tha
next speech.
t finder] The 4to. " finders." } vade] i. e. fade.
§ tf case I will, what have you shoicn ?
Clyo. Because, 4c] Some mutilation here, it would
seem.
512
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Nero. Your fame itnporteth what you be.
Olyo. You may your pleasure say of me.
Nero. What I have said due proof [s] do show.
Clyo. Well, lady dear, to thee I owe
More service than of duty I am able to profess,
For that thou didst preserve my life amidst my
deep distress :
But at this time I may not stay, lady, here with
thee :
Thou know'st the cause ; but this I vow, within
three-score days to be,
If destiny restrain me not, at court with thee
again,
Protesting whilst that life doth last thine faithful
to remain.
Nero. And is there, then, no remedy, but needs
you will depart ?
Clyo. No, princess, for a certainty ; but here I
leave my heart
In gage with thee till my return, which, as I said
shall be.
Nero. Well,
Sith no persuasion may prevail, this jewel take of
me,
And keep it always for my sake. [Gives jewei.
Clyo. Of it a dear account I'll make :
Yet let us part, dear dame, with joy,
And to do the same I will myself employ.
Nero. Well, now adieu till thy return : the gods
thy journey guide !
Clyo. And happily in absence mine for thee,
dear dame, provide ! [Exit Neronis.
Ah Clyomon, let dolours die, drive daunts from
out thy mind !
Since in the sight of Fortune now such favour
thou dost find
As for to have the love of her, whom thou didst
sooner judge
Would have denied thy loyalty and 'gainst thy
good-will grudge.
But that I may here keep my day, you sacred
gods, provide
Most happy fate unto my state, and thus my
journey guide,
The which I tempt to take in hand Clamydes for
to meet,
That the whole cause of my first let * to him I
may repeat :
So shall I seem for to excuse myself in way of
right,
And not be counted of my foe a false perjured
knight. [Exit.
* let] i. e. hindrance.
Enter Thrasellus and two Lords.
Tfira. Where deep desire hath taken root, my
lords, alas, you see
How that persuasion booteth not, if contrary it be
Uuto the first expected hope where fancy * hath
take place;
And vain it is for to withdraw by counsel in that
case
The mind who with affection is to one only thing
affected,
The which may not till dint of death from theneef
be sure rejected.
You know, my lords, through fame what force of
love hath taken place
Within my breast a3 touching now Nercnis' noble
grace,
Daughter to Patranius King, who doth the sceptre
sway
And in the Isle of Marshes eke bear rule now at
this day :
Through love of daughter his my sorrows daily
grow,
And daily dolours do me daunt, for that, alas, I
show
Such friendship whereas X favour none is to be
found again;
And yet from out my careful mind naught may
her love restrain.
I sent to crave her of the king; he answer'd me
with nay :
But shall I not provide by force to fetch her
thence away ?
Yes, yes, my lords ; and therefore let your aids
be prest§ with mine,
For I will sure Neronis have, or else my days I'll
pine ;
For King Patranius and his power I hold of small
account :
To win his daughter to my spouse amids his men
I'll mount.
First Lord. Most worthy prince, this rash
attempt I hold not for the best,
For sure Patranius' power is great and not to bo
supprest ;
For why || the isle environ'd is with sea on every
side,
And landing-place, lo, is there none whereas you
may have tide
* fancy] i. e. love.
t thence] The 4to. "them."
} whereas] i e. where.
§ preM] i. e. ready.
|| For why] i.e. Because.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
513
To set your men from ship to shore, but by one
only way,
And in that place a garrison great he keepeth at
this day ;
So that if you should bring your power, your
travail were in vain:
That is not certainly the way Neronis for to gain.
But this your grace may do indeed, and so I
count it best;
To bo in all points with a ship most like a
merchaut prest,
And sail with such as you think best, all dress'd
in merchants' guise,
And for to get her to your ship some secret mean
devise,
By showing of strange merchandise, or other such
like thing :
Lo, this is best advice I can, Thrasellus, lord and
king.
Second Lord. And certainly, as you have said,
my lord, it is the way : —
Wherefore, king, do prosecute the same with-
out delay.
Thra. Of truth, my lords, this your advice doth
for our purpose frame :
Come, therefore, let us hence depart to put in
ure* the same
With present speed, for merchant-wise myself
will thither sail.
First Lord. This is the way, if any be, of
purpose to prevail. [Exeunt.
Enter Clyomon and a Knight.
Clyo. Sir knight, of truth this fortune was most
luckily assign'd,
That we should meet in travel thus, for thereby
to my mind
You have a castle of comfort brought in that you
have me told
Clamydes our appointed day no more than I did
hold.
Knight. No, certis,t sir, he kept not day, the
cause I have express' d,
Through that enchanter Bryan's charms he came
full sore distress'd ;
Yet fortune favour'd so his state that through his
help all we,
Which captives were through cowardly craft,
from bondage were set free,
• ure] i. e. use.
+ certii] i. e. certainly.
And at our parting willed* us, if any with you
met,
We should inform you with the truth what was
his only let.
Clyo. Well, know you where he abideth now,
sir knight, I crave of courtesy.
Knight. No, questionless, I know not I, to say
it of a certainty.
Clyo. Well, then, adieu, sir knight, with thanks ;
I let you on your way.
Knight. Unto the gods I you commit ; naught
else I have to say. [Exit.
Clyo. Ah sirrah, now the hugy t heaps of cares
that lodged in my mind
Are scaled + from their nestling-place, and plea-
sures passage find,
For that, as well as Clyomon, Clamydes broke his
day;
Upon which news my passage now in seeking him
I'll stay,
And to Neronis back again my joyful journey
make,
Lest that she should in absence mine some cause
of sorrow take :
And now all dumps of deadly dole that daunted
knightly breast,
Adieu, since salve of solace sweet hath sorrows
all supprest.
For that Clamydes cannot brag nor me accuse in
ought,
Unto the gods of destinies, that thus our fates
have brought
In equal balance to be weigh'd, due praises 6hall
I send,
That thus to weigh each cause a-right their eyes
to earth did bend.
Well,
To keep my day with lady now I mind not to be
slack,
Wherefore unto Patranius' court I'll dress my
journey back :
But stay, methinks I Rumour hear throughout
this land to ring ;
I will attend his talk to know what tidings he
doth bring.
Enter Rumour § running.
Rum. Ye rolling clouds, give Rumour room,
both air and earth below,
* wilted] i. e. he willed, desired,
t hugy] i. e. huge.
t seated] i. e. separated, dispersed.
§ Rumour] Compare The Induction to Shakespeare's
Henry IV. Pan Second.
514
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
By sea and land, that every ear may understand
and know
What woful hap is chanced now, within the Isle,
of late,
Which of Strange Marshes beareth name, unto
the noblest state.
Neronis, daughter to the king, by the King of
Norway * he
Within a ship of merchandise convey'd away is she.
The king with sorrow for her sake hath to death
resign'd ;
And having left his queen with child to guide
the realm behind,
Mustantius, brother to the king, from her the
crown would take ;
But till she be delivered the lords did order make
That they before King Alexander thither coming
should appeal,
And he, by whom they hold the crown, therein
should rightly deal
For either part : lo, this to tell I Rumour have
in charge,
And through all lands I do pretend t to publish
it at large. [Exit.
Clyo. Ah woful Rumour ranging thus ! what
tidings do I hear ?
Hath that false King of Norway stoln my love
and lady dear ?
Ah heart, ah hand, ah head, and mind, and every
sense beside,
To serve your master's turn in need do every
one provide !
For till that I revenged be upon that wretched
king,
And have again my lady dear and her from
Norway bring,
I vow this body takes no rest. Ah Fortune,
fickle dame,
That canst make glad and so soon sad a knight
of worthy fame !
But what should I delay the time, now that my
dear is gone ?
Availeth aught to ease my grief, to make this
pensive moan ?
No, no ;
Wherefore come, courage, to my heart, and,
happy hands, prepare !
For of % that wretched king I will wreak all my
sorrow and care,
* the King of Norway] i. e. Thrascllus.
t pretend] i. e. intend.
t of] i. e. on.
And, maugre all the might he may be able for to
make,
By force of arms my lady I from him and his will
take. [Exit.
Enter Clamvdes, and Subtle Shift with the bag on his
back as before.
Clam. Come, Knowledge, thou art much to
blame thus for to load thyself,
To make thee on thy way diseas'd * with carrying
of that pelf.
But now take courage unto thee, for to that Isle
I will
Which of Strange Marshes called is; for fame
declareth still
The Knight of the Golden Shield is there and in
the court abideth :
Thither will I him to meet, whatsoever me
betideth,
And know his name, as, thou canst tell, my
father charged me,
Or else no more his princely court nor person for
to see.
Come, therefore, that unto that isle we may our
journey take,
And afterwards, having met with him, our viage t
for to make
To Denmark, to my lady there, to show her all
my case,
And then to Suavia, if her I have, unto my
father's grace.
S. Shift. Nay, but, an't shall please you, are
you sure the Knight of the Golden Shield
in the Isle of Strange Marshes is ?
Clam. I was informed credibly; I warrant
thee, we shall not miss.
S. Shift. Then keep on your way ; I'll follow as
fast as I can. [Exit Clamydes.
Faith, he even means to make a martris J of poor
Shift his man :
And I am so tied to this bag of gold I got at
Bryan Sans-foy's,
That, I tell you, where this is, there all my joy
is.
But I am so weary, sometimes with riding,
sometimes with running, and other times
going afoot,
That, when I come § to my lodging at night, to
bring me a woman it is no boot ;
* diseas'd] i. e. troubled, uneasy.
t viage] i. e. voyage.
t martris] i. e. (I suppose) martyr.
§ come] The 4to. " came."
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
515
And such care I take for this pelf, lest I should
it lose,
That where I come, that it is gold for my life I
dare not disclose.
Well, after my master I must : here's nothing
still but running and riding ;
But I'll give him the slip, sure, if I once come
where I may have quiet biding. [Exit.
Enter Neronis in the forest, in man's apparel.
Nero. As hare the hound, as lamb the wolf, as
fowl the falcon's dint,
So do I fly from tyrant he, whose heart more
hard than flint
Hath sack'd* on me such hugyt heaps of
ceaseless sorrows here,
That sure it is intolerable the torments that I
bear.
Neronis, ah, who knoweth thee a princess to be
born,
Since fatal gods so frowardly thy fortune do
adorn 1
Neronis, ah, who knoweth her in painful page's
show?
But no good lady will me blame which of my
case doth know,
But rather, when they hear the truth wherefore I
am disguis'd,
They'll say it is an honest shift the which I have
devis'd ;
Since I have given my faith and troth to such a
bruit of fame +
As is the Knight of the Golden Shield, and
tyrants seek to frame
Their engines to detract § our vows, as the King
of Norway || hath,
Who of all princes living now I find devoid of
faith :
For, like a wolf in lambskin clad, he cometh with
his aid,
All merchant-like, to father's court, and ginneth U
to persuade
That he had precious jewels brought,** which in
his ship did lie,
Whereof he will'd me take my choice, if case I
would them buy ;
* sack'd] See note t, p. 505, sec. col.
t hugy] i. e. huge.
\ bruit of fame] See note *, p. 510, sec. col.
§ detract] i. e. draw from each other, pull asunder.
|| the King of Norway] i. e. Thrasellus.
H ginneth] i. e. (as perhaps I need hardly observe)
beginneth.
** brought] The 4to. "bought."
Then I, mistrusting no deceit, with handmaids
one or two,
With this deceitful merchant then unto the ship
did go.
No sooner were wo undor hatch but up they
hois'd their sail,
And, having then to serve their turn a merry
western gale,
We were lash'd out from the haven, lo, a dozen
leagues and more,
When still I thought the bark had been at
anchor by the shore.
But being brought by Norway here, not long in
court I was,
But that to get from thence away I brought this
feat to pass ;
For making semblance unto him as though I did
him love,
He gave me liberty or aught that serv'd for my
behove ;
And having liberty, I wrought by such a secret
slight,*
That in this tire like to a page I scap'd away by
night.
But, ah, I fear that by pursuit he will me over-
take !
Well,
Here entereth one to whom some suit for service
I will make.
Enter Corin.
Cor. Go'sf bones, turn in that sheep there, an
you be good fellows ! — Jesu, how chain J
beray'd ! §
Chave I! a cur here, an a were my vellow, cha ^[
must him conswade ;
And yet an cha should kiss, look you, of the arse,
cha must run myself an chill,**
An cha should entreat him with my cap in my
hand, ha wadtt stand still.
But 'tis a world XX to zee what merry lives we
shepherds lead :
Why, we're gentlemen an we get once a thorn-
bush over our head ;
* slight] i. e. artifice, contrivance,
f Go's] i. e. God's.
t cham] i. e. I am.
§ beray'd] i. e. befouled.
|| Cliave] i. e. I have.
II cha] i. e. I.
** chill] i. e. I will.
ft ha wad] i. e. he would. (In my former edition I
queried "ha wad not "1 — very improperly.)
\\ a world] i e. a matter of wonder or admiration.
M.2
bit',
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
We may sleep with our vaoea against the zon, an
were hoga,
Bathe ourselves, stretch out our legs, an't were a
kennel of dogs ;
And then at night, when maids come to milking,
the games begin :
But I may zay to you, my neighbour Hodge's*
maid had a clap, — well, let them laugh
that win !
Chave but one daughter, but chouldt not vor
vorty pence she were zo sped ;
Cha may zay to you, she looks every night to go
to bed :
But 'tis no matter, the whores be so whiskish
when they're under a bush,
That they're never satisfied till their bellies be
flush.
Well, cha must abroad about my flocks, lest the
fengeance wolves catch a lamb,
Vor, by my cursenj zoul, they'll steal an cha
stand by; § they're not averd of the dam.
Nero, [aside.] Well,
To scape the pursuit of the king, of this same
shepherd here,
Suspicion wholly to avoid, for service I'll in-
quire. —
Well met, good father : for your use a servant
do you lack ?
Cor. What, you will not flout an old man, you
courtnold|| Jack?
Nero. No, truly, father, I flout you not ; what
I ask, I would have.
Cor. Go's bones, thee leest : U serve a shep-
herd an be zo brave ? **
You courtnoll crackropes, would be hang'd ! you
do nothing now and then
But come up and down the country, thus to flout
poor men.
Go to, goodman boy ; chave no zeryice vor no
zuch flouting Jacks as you be.
Nero. Father, I think as I speak; upon my
faith and troth, believe me ;
I will willingly serve you, if in case you will take
me.
Cor. Dost not mock ?
Nero. No, truly, father.
• Hodgi 's] The 4to. here " Hogs," but after wardB
"Hodges"
t chewld] i. e. I would.
X curstn] i.e. christened.
§ stand by] Qy. "stand not by "?
U courtnold] i. e. courtier-like : the exact meaning of
the subs, courtnoll is uncertain.
If thee leest] i. e. thou liest. — The Ho. " they leest."
** brave] i. a. finely dressed.
Cor. Then come with me ; by Go's bones, chill
never vorsake thee.
Whow, bones of my zoul, thou'lt be the bravest
shepherd's boy in our town ;
Thous go to church in this coat bevore Madge a
Sunday in her grey gown :
Good Lord, how our church-wardens will look
upon thee ! bones of God, zeest,
There will be more looking at thee than our Sir
John the pariah-priest ;
Why, every body will ask whose boy thou'rt ; an
cha can tell thee this by the way,
Thou shalt have all the varest wenches of our
town in the vields vor to play ;
There's neighbour Nichol's daughter, a jolly
smug whore with vat cheeks,
And neighbour Hodge's maid — meddle not with
her, she hath eaten set leeks, —
But there's Frumpton's wench in the frieze
sack,* it will do thee good to see
What canvosing is at the milking-time between
her and me ;
And those wenches will love thee bonomablyf in
every place,
But do not vail in with them in any kind of case.
Nero. Tush, you shall not need to fear me : I
can be merry with measure as well as they.
Cor. Well, then, come follow after me, and
home chill lead thee the way. [Exit.
Nero. Alas, poor simple shepherd ! by this
princes may see
That, like man, like talk, in every degree. [Exit.
Enter Thrasellus and two Lords.
Thra. My lords, pursue her speedily, she
cannot far be gone ;
And, lo, himself to seek her out, your king he
will be one.
Ah fraudulent dame, how hath she gloz'd from
me to get away !
With sugred words how hath she fed my senses
night and day !
Professing love with outward shows, and in-
wardly her heart
To practise such a deep deceit, whereby she
might depart
From out my court so suddenly, when I did
wholly judge
She lov'd me most entirely and not against me
grudge,
* sack] i. e. a sort of loose upper-dress.— The 4to.
"scake."
t bonomably] i. e. abominably, excessively.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
517
She made such signs by outward shows ! I blame
not wit and policy,
But here I may exclaim and say, "Fie, fie, on
women's subtilty ! "
Well, well, my lords, no time delay, pursue her
with all speed,
And I this forest will seek out myself, as is
decreed,
With aid of such as are behind and will come
unto me.
Both Lords. We shall not slack what here in
charge to us is given by thee. [Exeunt.
Thru. Ah subtle Neronis, how hast thou me
vexed !
Through thy crafty dealings how am I perplexed !
Did ever any win a dame and lose her in such
sort ]
The maladies are marvellous the which I do
support
Through her deceit; but forth I will my
company to meet :
If ever she be caught again, I will her so entreat*
That others all shall warning take by such a
subtle dame,
How that a prince for to delude such engines
they do frame.
Enter Cltomon.
Clyo. Nay, traitor, stay, and take with thee
that mortal blow or stroke
The which shall cause thy wretched corpse this
life for to revoke : t
It joyeth me at the heart that I have met thee in
this place.
Thra. What, varlet, dar'st thou be so bold
with words in such a case
For-to upbraid thy lord and king ] what art thou,
soou declare.
Clyo. My lord and king I thee defy ; % and in
despite I dare
Thee for to say, thou art no prince, for thou a
traitor art ;
And what reward is due therefore, to thee I
shall impart.
Thra. Thou braggest all too boldly still : what
hight § thy name, express.
Clyo. What hight my name thou shalt not
know, ne|| will I it confess ;
* entreat] i. e. treat.
t revoke] i. e. renounce.
} My lord and king I thee defy] i. e. I reject you for my
lord and kiug.
§ hight] i. e. is called.
|| we] i. e. nor.
But for that thou my lady stol'st from father's
court away,
I'll sure revenge that traitorous fact upon thy
flesh this day,
Since I have met so luckily with thee here all
alone,
Although, as I do understand, from thee she now
is gone ;
Yet therefore do defend thyself, for here I thee
assail.
Tfira. Alas, poor boy, thinkest thou against
me to prevail?
They fight, and Thrasellus falU.
Thra. Ah heavens, Thrasellus he is slain ! —
Ye gods, his ghost receive \ [Dies.
Clyo. Now hast thou justice for thy fact, as
thy desert doth crave.
But, ah, alas, poor Clyomou, though thou thy foe
bast slain,
Such grievous wounds thou hast receiv'd as do
increase thy pain :
Unless I have some speedy help, my life must
needly* waBte,
And then, as well as traitor false, my corpse of
death shall taste.
Ah my Neronis, where art thou 1 ah, where art
thou become ?
For thy sweet sake thy knight shall here receive
his vital doom :
Lo, here, all gor'd in blood, thy faithful knight
doth lie !
For thee, ah faithful dame, thy knight for lack
of help shall die !
For thee, ah, here thy Clyomon his mortal stroke
hath ta'en !
For thee, ah, these same hands of his the Norway
King have slain !
Ah, bleeding wounds from longer talk my
foltringt tongue do stay,
And, if I have not speedy help, my life doth
waste away !
Enter Corin and his dog.
Cor. A plague on thee for a cur ! a ha J
driven my § sheep above from the flock :
Ah thief, art not asham'd I I'll beat thee like a
stock ;
* needly] i. e. necessarily.
+ foltring] i. e. faltering.
X a ha] Is evidently used hero in the sense of " thou
hast."— For explanations of some of the other words in
this speech, see ante, pp, 515, 516.
§ my] The 4to. "'me."
518
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
And cha been a-zeeking here above vour miles
and more :
But chill tell you what, chave the bravest lad of
Jack the courtnoll that ever was zeen
bevore.
Ah, the whorecop* is plaguily well lov'd in our
town !
An you had zeen [him] go to church bevore
Madge my wife in her holiday gown,
You would have bless'd yourzelves t'ave seen it :
she went even cheek by jowl
With our head-controm's + wife, brother to my
neighbour Nichol ;
You know ha dwells by Master Justice over the
water on the other side of the hill,
Cham zure you know it, between my neighbour
Filcher's varm-house and the wind-mill.
But an you did zee how Joan Jenkin and Gillian
Geffrey love my boy Jack, —
Why, it ia marvellation to see; Joan did so
baste Gillian's back,
That, by Go's bones, I laugh'd till cha be-piss'd
myzelf when cha zaw it :
All the maids in town vail out for my boy, but
an the young men know it,
They'll be zo jealisom over them, that cham in
doubt
Ich shall not keep Jack my boy till seven years
go about.
Well, cham ne'er the near J vor my sheep, chave
sought it this vour mile ;
But chill home and send Jack foorth to zeek it
another while.
But, bones of God, man, stay ! Jesu, whather
wilt ? wha, what mean'st lie here ]
Clyo. Ah, good father, help me !
Cor. Nay, who there, § by your leave ! chill
not come near. —
What, another ? bones of me, he is either kill'd
or dead ! —
Nay, varewell : vorty pence,|| ye're a knave ! —
Go's death, 'a doth bleed !
Clyo. I bleed, indeed, father ; so grievous my
wounds be,
That if I have not speedy help, long life is not
in me.
* whorecop] i. e. bastard.
+ controm's] i.e. perhaps, compter's, countor's — (auditor
of some sort).
X ne'er the near] i. e. never the nearer.
§ who there] i. e. ho there, — atop there.
|| vorty pence] i. e. I will lay forty pence : see Steevens's
note on the words, "forty ponco, no," in Shakespeare's
Henry Vlll. act ii. sc. 3.
Cor. Why, what art thou ? or how chanc'd
thou earnest in this easel
Clyo. Ah father, that dead corpse which thou
seest there in place,
He was a knight and mine enemy whom here I
have slain,
And I a gentleman whom he hath wounded with
marvellous pain.
Now thou knowest the truth, good father, show
some courtesy
To stop my bleeding wounds, that I may find
some remedy
My life to preserve, if possible I may.
Cor. Well, hear you, gentleman, chould have
you know this by the way,
Cham but vather Corin the shepherd, cham no
suringer* I;
But chill do what cha can vor you, cha were loth
to see you die.
Lo, how zay you by this ] have cha done you any
ease 1 1
Clyo. Father, thy willingness of a certainty
doth me much please.
But, good father, lend me thy helping hand once
again,
To bury this same knight whom here I have Blain :
Although he was to me a most deadly enemy,
Yet to leave his body unburied were great
cruelty.
Cor. Bones of God, man, our priest dwells too
far away.
Clyo. Well, then, for want of a priest, the
priest's part I will play :
Therefore, father, help me to lay his body
aright,
For I will bestow a hearse of J him because he was
a knight,
If thou wilt go to a cottage hereby and fetch
such things as I lack.
Cor. That chill, gentleman, and by and by
return back. [Exit.
Clyo. But, Clyomon, pluck up thy heart with
courage once again ;
And I will set o'er his dead corse, in sign of
victory [plain],
My golden shield, and sword but with the point
hanging down,
As one conquer'd § and lost his renown,
* suringer] i. o. surgeon.
+ have cha done you any ease ?] The 4to. has no stage-
direction here. Most probably we are to suppose that
Corin binds up the wounds of Clyomon.
{ of] i. e. on.
§ As one conquer'd, &c] Some mutilation here.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
f.10
Writing likewise thereupon, that all passengers
may see, [by me.
That the false King of Norway here lieth slain
Re-enter Corin with a hearse.*
Cor. Lo, gentleman, cha brought zuch things
as are requisite for the zaine.
Clyo. Then, good father, help me the hearse
for to frame.
Cor. Thatf chall, gentleman, in the best order
that cha may.
0, that our parish-priest were here ! that you
might hear him say ; X
Vor, by Go's bones, an there be any noise in the
church, in the midst of his prayers he'll
swear :
Ah, he loves hunting a-life ! § would to God you
were acquainted with him a while !
And as vor a woman, — well, chill zay nothing,
but cha know whom he did beguile.
Clyo. Well, father Corin, let that pass, we have
nothing to do withal :
And now that this is done, come, reward thy
pain I shall ;
There is part of a recompense thy good-will to
requite. [Gives money.
Cor. By my troth, cha thank you, cham bound
to pray vor you day and night :
And now chill even home, and send Jack my boy
this sheep to seek out.
Clyo. Tell me, father, ere thou goest, didst
thou not see a lady wandering here about ?
Cor. A lady ! no, good vaith, gentleman, cha
zaw none, cha tell you plain.
Clyo. Well, then, farewell, father ; gramercies
for thy pain. [Exit Corin.
Ah Neronis, where thou art or where thou dost
abide,
Thy Clyomon to seek thee out shall rest no time
nor tide !
Thy foe here lieth slain on ground, and living
is thy friend, [an end.
Whose travel till he see thy face shall never have
My ensign here I leave behind ; these verses writ
shall yield
A true report of traitor slain by the Knight of
the Golden Shield ;
* a hearse] i. e., as Corin himself tells us, "such things
as are requisite for the same," — materials to form some
sort of monument over the dead body.
+ Cor. That] The 4to. "Chat," omitting the prefix to
this speech.
t hear him say] After these words a line is evidently
wanting.
§ a-Ufe] i. e. as his life, exceedingly.
And, as unknown to any wight, to travel I
betake,
Until I may her find whose sight my heart may
joyful make. [Exit.
Enter Subtle Shift very brave.*
S. Shift. Jesu, what a gazing do you make at
me to see me in a gown !
Do you not know, after travel men being in court
or in town,
And specially such as are of any reputation, they
must use this guise,
Which signifieth a fool to be sage, grave, and of
counsel wise ]
But where are we, think you now, that Shift is so
brave 1
Not running to seek the Knight of the Golden
Shield ; another office I have ;
For coming here to the court of Strange Marshes
so nam'd,
Where King Alexander in his own person lies,
that prince mightily fam'd,
Between Mustantius brother to the late king
deceas'd,
And the queen, through King Alexander, a strife
was appeas'd,
But how or which way I think you do not know :
Well, then, give ear to my tale, and the truth I
will show.
The old king being dead through sorrow for
Neronis,
Whom we do hear lover to the Knight of the
Golden Shield is,
The queen, being with child, the sceptre asked to
sway,
But Mustantius the king's brother he did it
denay,t
Whereof great contention grew amongst the
nobles on either side ;
But being by them agreed the judgment to abide
Of King Alexander the Great, who then was
coming hither,
At his arrival to the court they all were call'd
togither : J
The matter being heard, this sentence was given, §
That either party should have a champion to
combat them between,
That which champion were overcome, the other
should sway,
And to be foughten after that time the sixteen
day.
* brave] i. e. finely dressed. I denay] i. e. deny.
t togither] So written for the rhyme.
§ given] To be pronounced " gi'en " for the rhyme.
520
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Now, my master Clamydes coming hither, for
Mustantius will he be ;
But upon the queen's side to venture none can
we see,
And yet she maketh proclamation through every
land
To give great gifts to any that will take the
combat in hand.
Well, within ten days is the time, and King
Alexander he
Stayeth till the day appointed the trial to see ;
And if none come* at the day for the queen to
fight,
Then, without travail to my master, Mustantius
hath his right.
But to see all things in a readiness against th'
appointed day,
Like a shifting knave, for advantage to court I'll
take my way. [Exit.
Enter Neronis disguised as a shepherd's boy.
Nero. The painful paths, the weary ways, the
travails and ill fare,
That simple feat to princess seem[s] in practice
very rare,
As I, poor dame, whose pensive heart no pleasure
can delight
Since that my state so cruelly fell Fortune holds
in spite.
Ah poor Neronis, in thy hand is this t a seemly
show,
Who shouldst in court thy lute supply where
pleasures erst did flow?
Is this an instrument for thee, to guide a shep-
herd's flock,
That art a princess by thy birth and born of
noble stock ?
May mind from mourning more refrain, to think
on former state ?
May heart from sighing eke abstain, to see this
simple rate ?
May eyes from down-distilling tears, when thus
alone X I am,
Resistance make, but must they not through
ceaseless sorrows frame
A river § of distilled drops for to bedew my face?
Ah heavens, when you 're reveng'd enough, then
look upon my case !
* come] The 4to. "came."
t tkis] i. e. her crook.
} alone] The 4to. "aloue."
§ A river, &c] The 4to. has " A Riuer of bedewed drops,
for to distill my fact t "
For till I hear some news, alas, upon my loving
knight,
I dare not leave this loathsome life for fear of
greater spite :
And now, as did my master will, a* sheep that is
astray
I must go seek her out again by wild and weary
way. —
Ah woful sight ! what is, alas, with these mine
eyes beheld?
That to my loving knight belong'd I view the
golden shield.
Ah heavens, this hearse doth signify my knight t
is slain !
Ah death, no longer do delay, but rid the lives of
twain !
Heart, hand, and every sense, prepare, unto the
hearse draw nigh,
And thereupon submit yourselves ; disdain not
for to die
With him that was your mistress' joy, her life
and death like case;
And well I know in seeking me he did his end
embrace ;
That cruel wretch, that Norway King, this cursed
deed hath done :
But now to cut that lingering thread that
Lachis J long hath spun,
The sword of this my loving knight, behold, I
here do take,
Of this my woful corpse, alas, a final end to
make !
Yet, ere I strike that deadly stroke that shall my
life deprave,§
Ye Muses, aid me to the gods for mercy first to
crave ! [Sings here.\\
Well, now, you heavens, receive my ghost ! my
corpse I leave behind,
To be enclos'd with his in earth by those that
shall it find.
Providence deseends.
Prov. Stay, stay thy stroke, thou woful dame:
what wilt thou thus despair ?
Behold, to letH this wilful fact, I, Providence,
prepare **
• a] The4to. "as."
t my knight] Qy. " my loving knight " ?
J Lachis] i. e. Lachesis, — contracted, it appears, for the
sake of the measure.
§ deprave] i. e. deprive, take away : as before and
afterwards.
|| Sings here] See note •*, p. 196, first col.
H let] i. e. hinder.
** prepare] See note t» P- 500, sec. col.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
521
To thee from seat of mighty Jove. Look here-
upon again ;
Read that, if case thou canst it read, and see if
he be slain
Whom thou dost love.
Nero, [after reading the verses on the hearse.] Ah
heavens above,
All laud and praise and honour due to you I here
do render,
That would vouchsafe your handmaid here in
woful state to tender !
But by these same* verses do I find my faithful
knight doth live,
Whose hand unto my deadly foe the mortal
stroke did give,
Whose cursed carcass, lo, it is which here on
ground doth lie :
Ah, honour due for this I yield to mighty Jove
on high !
Prov. Well,
Let desperation die in the* : I may not here
remain,
But be assured that thou shalt erelong thy
knight attain. [Ascends.
Nero. And for their providence divine the
gods above I'll praise,
And show their works so wonderful unto their
laud always.
Well,
Sith that the gods by providence have signed +
unto me
Such comfort sweet in my distress, my knight
again to see,
Farewell all feeding shepherd's flocks, unseemly
for my state ;
To seek my love I will set forth in hope of
friendly fate :
But first to shepherd's house I will, my page's
tire to take,
And afterwards depart from thence my journey
for to make. [Exit.
Enter Clyomon.
Clyo. Long have I sought, but all in vain, for
neither far nor near
Of my Neronis, woful dame, by no means can I
hear.
Did ever fortune violate two lovers in such sort ?
The griefs, ah, are intolerable the which I do
support
* same] Qy. an interpolation ?
+ signed] i. e. assigned.
For want of her ! but hope somewhat revives my
pensive heart,
And doth to me some sudden cause of comfort
now impart
Through news I hear, as I abroad in weary
travel went;
How that the queen her mother hath her
proclamations sent
Through every land, to get a knight to combat
on her side,
Against Mustantius duke and lord to have a
matter tried ;
And now the day is very nigh, as I do
understand :
In hope to meet my lady there I will into that
land,
And for her mother undertake the combat for to
try,
Yea, though the other Hector were, I would him
not deny,
Whatsoever he be : but, ere I go, a golden shield
I'll have;
Although unknown, I will come in as doth my
knighthood crave ;
But cover'd will I keep my shield, because I'll
not be known,
If case my lady be in place, till I have prowess
shown.
Well,
To have my shield in readiness, I will no time
delay,
And then to combat for the queen I straight will
take my way. [Exit.
Enter Neronis disguised as a page.
Nero. Ah weary paces that I walk with steps
unsteady still !
Of all the gripes of grisly griefs Neronis hath her
fill:
And yet amids these miseries which were my
first mishaps,
By bruit* I hear such news, alas, as more and
more enwraps
My wretched corpse with thousand woes more
than I may support ;
So that I am to be compar'd unto the scaled
fort,
Which doth, so long as men and might and
sustenance prevail,
Give to the enemy t repulse that cometh to
assail,
* bruit] i. e. report.
t enemy] The 4to. "enemies."
622
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
But when assistance gins to fail, and strength of
foes increase,
They forced are through battering blows the
same for to release :
So likewise I, so long as hope my comfort did
remain,
The grisly griefs that me assail' d I did repulse
again,
But now that hope begins to fail, and griefs anew
do rise,
I must of force yield up the fort, I can no way
devise [corse
To keep the same ; the fort I mean it is the weary
Which sorrows daily do assail and siege without
remorse.*
And now, to make my griefs the more, report,
alas, hath told
How that my father's aged bones are shrined up
in mould,
Since Norway King did me betray, and that my
mother she
Through Duke Mustantius uncle mine in great
distress to be
For swaying of the sceptre there : what should I
herein say 1
Now that I cannot find my knight, I would at
combat-day
Be gladly there, if case I could with some good
master meet,
That as his page in these affairs would seem me
to entreat t : —
And in good time here cometh one ; he seems a
knight to be ;
I'll proffer service, if in case he will accept of me.
Enter Clyomon with his shield covered, strangely disguised.
Clyo. Well, now, as one unknown, I will go
combat for the queen :
Who can bewray me since my shield is not for to
be seen ?
But stay, who do I here espy? of truth, a proper X
boy:
If case he do a master lack, he shall sustain no
noy,§
For why || in these affairs he may stand me in
passing steed.^J
Nero, [aside.] Well,
I see to pass upon my way this gentleman's de-
creed :
* remorse] i. e. pity.
t entreat] i. e. treat, entertain.
} proper] i. e. handsome.
§ nny] i.e. annoy, hurt, harm.
|| For why] i. e. Because.
U steed] So written for the rhyme.
To him I will submit myself in service for to be,
If case he can his fancy frame to like so well on
me. —
Well met, sir knight, upon your way.
Clyo. My boy, gramercies ; but to me say
Into what country is thy journey dight?*
Nero. Towards the Strange Marshe[s], of truth,
sir knight.
Clyo. And thither am I going; high Jove be
my guide !
Nero. Would gods I were worthy to be your
page by your side !
Clyo. My page, my boy ! why, what is thy
name ? that let me hear.
Nero. Sir knight, by name I am called Cceur-
d'acier.
Clyo. Cceur-d'acier ! what, Heart of Steel ?
now, certi8,f my boy,
I am a gentleman, and do entertain thee with
j°y;
And to the Strange Marshes am I going, the
queen to defend :
Come, therefore, for, without more saying, with
me thou shalt wend.
Nero. As diligent to do my duty as any in tbis
land. [Exit. Clyomon.
Ah Fortune, how favourably my friend doth she
stand !
For thus, no man knowing mine estate nor
degree,
May I pass safely a page as you see. [Exit.
Enter Bryan Sans-foy vrith the head of the serpent.
B. Sans-foy. Even as the owl that hides her
head in hollow tree till night,
And dares not, while Sir Phoebus shines, attempt
abroad in flight,
So likewise I, as buzzard bold, while cheerful day
is seen,
Am fore'd with owl to hide myself amongst the
ivy green,
And darej not with the silly§ snail from cabin
show my head,
Till Vesper I behold aloft in skies begin to
spread,
And then, as owl that flies abroad when other
fowls do rest,
I creep out of my drowsy den when Somnus ||
hath supprest
* dight] i.e. prepared.
t certis] i.e. certainly.
X dare] The 4to. "dares."
§ silly] i. e. simple, harmless.— Here the 4to. has the
spelling " seelie " : but vide note t, p. 507, sec. col.
|| Somnus] The 4to. "summous."
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
523
The head of every valiant heart ; lo, thus I
shroud the day,
And travel, as the owl, by night upon my wished
way ;
The which hath made more tedious my journey
by half part :
But blame not Bryan ; blame, alas, his cowardly
caitiff's heart,
Which dares not show itBelf by day for fear of
worthy wights,
For none can travel openly t' escape the ventu-
rous knights,
Unless he have a noble mind and eke a valiant
heart,
The which I will not brag upon, I assure you, for
my part ;
For if the courage were in me the which in
other is,
I doubtless had enjoy'd the wight whom I do love
ere this.
Well,
I have not long to travel now, to Denmark I draw
nigh,
Bearing Knight Clamydes' name, yet Bryan Sans-
foy am I ;
But though I do usurp his name his shield or
ensign here,
Yet can I not usurp his heart, still Bryan's heart
I bear :
Well,
I force * not that ; he's safe enough ; and Bryan,
as I am,
I will unto the court whereast I shall enjoy that
dame. [Exit.
Enter Subtle Shift as a whiflkr.%
S. Shift. Room there for a reckoning ! see, I
beseech you, if they'll stand out of the way !
Jesu, Jesu, why, do you not know that this is the
day
That the combat must pass for Mustantius and
the queen ?
But to fight upon her side as yet no champion is
seen;
And Duke Mustantius he smiles in his sleeve
because he doth see
That neither for love nor rewards any one her
champion will be :
* force] i. e. care for, regard.
t when as] i. e. where.
J a whiffler] i. e. a person -who clears the way for a
procession.
An't were not but that my master the other
champion is,
To fight for the queen myself I surely would not
miss.
Alas, good lady ! she and her child are like to
lose all the land
Because none will come in in her defence for to
stand ;
For where* she was in election, if any champion
had come,
To rule till she was deliver'd and have the
prince's room,
Now shall Duke Mustantius be sure the sceptre
to sway,
If that none do come in to fight in her cause this
day;
And King Alexander all this while hath he stay'd
the trial to see:
Well, here they come. — Room there for the king !
here's such thrusting of women as it
grieveth me.
Enter Kino Alexander, the Queen of the Me of Strange
Marshes, Mustantius, two Lords, and Clamydes as a
champion.
Must. Alexander, lo, behold, before thy royal
grace
My champion here at pointed day I do present in
place.
K. Alex. Well, sir duke, in your defence is he
content to be?
Clam. Yea, worthy prince, not fearing who
encounter shall with me ;
Although he were with Hercules of equal power
and might,
Yet in the cause of this same duke I['d] challenge
him the fight.
K. Alex. I like your courage well, sir knight;
what shall we call your name ?
Clam. Clamydes, son to the Suavian King,
prince, so hight t the same.
K. Alex. Now certainly I am right glad,
Clamydes, for to see
Such valiant courage to remain within the mind
of thee. —
Well, lady,
According to the order ta'en herein, what do you
say?
Have you your champion in like case now ready
at the day ?
* where] i. e. whereas.
f hight] i. e. is called.
624
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Queen of the S. M. No, sure, king, no cham-
pion I have for* to aid my cause,
Unless 'twill please your noble grace on further
day to pause ;
For I have sent throughout this isle and every
foreign land,
But none as yet hath proffered to take the same
in hand.
K.Alex. No?
I am more sorry certainly your chance to see so
ill,
But day deferred cannot be unless Mustantius
will,
For that his champion ready here in place he
doth present;
And whoso missed at this day should lose, by
full consent
Of either part, the title, right, and sway of regal
mace:
To this was your consentment given as well as
his in place,
And therefore without his assent we cannot
defer t the day.
S. Shift. An't shall please your grace, herein
try Mustantius what he will say.
K. Alex. How say you, Mustantius ? are you
content the day to defer ?
Must. Your grace will not will me, I trust, for
then from law you err ;
And having not her champion here according to
decree,
There resteth naught for her to lose, the crown
belongs to me.
S. Shift. Nay, an't shall please your grace,
rather than she shall it lose,
I myself will be her champion for half a dozen
blows.
Must. Wilt thou ? then by full conge" J to the
challenger there stands.
S. Shift. Nay, soft ! Of sufferance cometh
ease; though I cannot rule my tongue*
I'll rule my hands.
Must. Well, noble Alexander, sith that she
wants her champion as you see,
By greement of your royal grace the crown
belongs to me.
K. Alex. Nay, Mustantius, she shall have law :
wherefore to sound begin,
To see if that in three hours' space no champion
will come in. — [Sound here once.
* for] An interpolation?
f defer] The 4to. " rcferro : " but see ante and post.
I conyi] i.e. leave, permission. — The 4to. "congo."
Of truth, madam, I sorry am none will thy cause
maintain. —
Well
According to the law of arms, yet, trumpet,
sound again. — [Sound second time.
Enter, behind* Cltomon as to combat, and Neronib
disguised as a page.
What, and is there none will take in hand to
combat for the queen ?
S. Shift. Faith, I think it must be I must do the
deed, for none yet is seen.
Queen of the S. M. king, let pity plead for
me here in your gracious sight,
And for so slender cause as this deprive me not
of right !
Consider once I had to spouse a prince of worthy
fame,
Though now blind Fortune spurn at me, her
spite I needs must blame ;
And though I am bereft, king, both of my
child and mate,
Your grace some greement may procure : con-
sider of my state,
And suffer not a widow-queen with wrong op-
pressed so,
But pity the young infant's case wherewith,
king, I go,
And, though I suffer wrong, let that find favour
in your sight.
K. Alex. Why, lady, I respect you both, and
sure would, if I might,
Entreat Mustantius thereunto some such good
order frame,
Your strife should cease, and yet each one well
pleased with the same.
Queen of the S. M. I know your grace may him
persuade, as reason wills no less.
K. Alex. Well, Sir Mustantius, then your mind
to me in brief express ;
Will you unto such order stand here limited by
me,
Without deferring longer time ? say on, if you
agree.
Must. In hope your grace my state will weigh,
I give my glad consent.
K. Alex. And for to end all discord, say,
madam, are you content ?
* Enter, behind, &c] That this stage-direction is neces-
sary, appears from what follows. The 4to. makes Cly-
omon enter immediately before his first speech, — " Enter
Clyomon, as to combat" : but he himself expressly says,
" I enter'd with the blast" (i. e. at the sound of the trumpet).
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
525
Queen of the S. M. Yea, noble king.
K. Alex. Well, then, before my nobles all, give
ear unto the thing/'
For swaying of the sword and mace all discord to
beat down :
The child, when it is born, we elect to wear the
crown ;
And till that time, Mustantius, you of lands and
living here
Like equal part in every point with this the
queen shall share,
But to the child, when it is born, if gods grant it
to live,
The kingdom whole in every part as title we do
give.
But yet, Mustantius, we will yield this recom-
pense to you,
You shall receive five thousand crowns for yearly
pension due,
To maintain your estate while you here live and
do remain ;
And after let the whole belong unto the ci-own
again.
Now say your minds if you agree.
Nero.f [aside.] I would the like choice were
put to me !
Queen of the S. M. I, for my part,J noble
king, therewith am well content.
Must. Well, better half than naught at all : I
likewise give consent.
Clyo. [coming forward.] Renowned king and
most of fame, before thy royal grace,
The queen to aid, I do present my person here
in place.
Must. You come too late, in faith, sir knight ;
the hour and time is past.
Clyo. Your hour I am not to respect ; I enter'd
with the blast.
Clam. What, princox,§ is it you are come to
combat for the queen ?
Good fortune now ! I hope ere long your courage
shall be seen.
Clyo. And sure I count my hap as good to
meet with you, sir knight :
Come,
According to your promise made, prepare your-
self to fight.
* thing] The 4to. "King."— This line is intended to
rhyme with the short line spoken by the Queen.
+ Nero.] Olded. "Page"; which can only mean Neronis.
t /, for my part, &c] The 4to. gives this as well as the
next line to "Must."
§ princox] i. e. coxcomb.
Clam. I knew you well enough, sir, although
your shield were hid from me.
Clyo. Now you shall feel me as well as know
me, if hand and heart agree.
K. Alex. Stay, stay, sir knights, I charge you
not in combat to proceed,
For why the quarrel ended is and the parties are
agreed ;
And therefore we discharge * you both the combat
to refrain.
Nero, [aside.] The heavens therefore, O noble
king, thy happy shield remain !
Clam. king, although we be discharg'd for
this contention now,
Betwixt us twain there resteth yet a combat
made by vow,
Which should be fought before your grace ; and
since we here be met,
To judge 'twixt us for victory let me your grace
entreat.
K. Alex. For what occasion is your strife, f sir
knights, first let me know.
Clam. The truth thereof, renowned king, thy
servant he shall show.
What time, O king, as I should take of Suavia
King my sire [desire,
The noble orderj of a knight, which long I did
This knight a stranger comes to court, and at
that present day
In cowardly wise he comes by stealth, and takes
from me away
The honour that I should have had ; for which
my father he [to me,
Did of his blessing give in charge, O noble king,
That I should know his name that thus bereav'd
me of my right,
The which he will not show unless he be subdu'd
in fight;
Whereto we either plighted faith that I should
know his name,
If that before thy grace, king, my force in
fight could frame
To vanquish him : now having met thus happily
togither,§
Though they are greed, our combat rest[s],
decreed ere we came hither.
* discharge] But for the first line of the next speech
of Clamydes, I should have supposed that this word
had usurped the place of " do charge."
t strife] The4to. "strifes."
J order] So the 4to. several times elsewhere : but here
(and in p. 496, first col.) " orders."
§ togither] So written for the rhyme.
526
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
[K. Alex.] Are you that knight that did subdue
Sir Samuel iu field,
For which you had in recompense of us that
golden shield ?
Clyo. I am that knight, renowned prince,
whose name is yet unknown,
And since I foil'd Sir Samuel, some prowess I
have shown.
Queen of the S. M. Then, as I guess, you are
that knight, by that same shield you bear,
Which sometime was restor'd to health, within
our palace here,
By Neronis our daughter, she betray'd by
Norway King.
Clyo. I am that knight, indeed, queen,
whom she to health did bring;
Whose servant ever I am bound wheresoever
that she be,
Whose enemy, queen, is slain, pursuing her,
by me.
Queen of the S. M. Know you not where she
abides ] sir knight, to us declare.
Clyo. No, certis ; * would to gods I did ! she
should not live in care ;
But escap'd from the Norway King I am assur'd
she is.
Queen of the S. M. Well,
Her absence was her father's death, which
turn'd to balet my bliss.
Clyo. And till I find her out again, my toil no
end shall have.
Nero.% [aside.] Alas, he's nigh enough to her !
small toil the space doth crave.
K. Alex. Well, sir knights, since that you
have declar'd before me here
The cause of this the grudge which you to each
other bear,
I wish you both a while to pause and to my
words attend :
If reason rest with you, be sure, knights, this
quarrel I will end
Without the shedding any blood betwixt you
here in fight.
Clamydes, weigh you are nobly born, and will
you, then, sir knight,
Go hazard life so desperately ? I charge you both
refrain,
Since for so small a cause the strife doth grow
betwixt you twain :
* certis] i. e. certainly.
f bale] i.e. misery.
t Nero.] The4to. "Queene."
And let him know your name, sir knight, and so
your malice end.
Clyo. I have vow'd to the contrary, which vow
I must defend.
K. Alex. Well,
Though so it be that you have vow'd your name
shall not be known,
Yet, not detracting* this your vow, your country
may be shown,
And of what stock by birth you be. [see.
S. Shift, [aside.] By'rlady,t he is dash'd now, I
Clyo. [aside.] Indeed, this hath aston'dj me
much : I cannot but confess
My country, and my birth, my state; which
plainly will express
My name, for that unto them all my state is not
[un] known.
K. Alex. Sir knight,
Of our demand from you again what answer
shall be shown ?
Clyo. Of Denmark, noble prince, I am, and son
unto the king.
K. Alex. Why, then Sir Clyomon hight § your
name, as rare report doth ring ?
Clyo. It doth indeed so hight my name,
prince of high renown ;
I am the Prince of Denmark's son, and heir unto
the crown.
Clam. And are you son to Denmark King ?
then do embrace your friend,
Within whose heart here towards you all malice
makes an end, [heart.
Who with your sister linked is in love with loyal
Clyo. And, for her sake and for thine own, like
friendship I impart.
K. Alex. Well, sir knights, since friendship
rests where rancour did remain,
And that you are such friends become, I certain
am right fain
In hope you will continue still : you shall to
court repair,
And remain, if that you please, a while to rest
you there,
Till time you have decreed which way your
journey you will frame.
Clyo. ) We yield you thanks, beseeching Jove
Clam. S still to augment your fame.
[Exeunt all except Clamydes, Clyomon, and Neronis.
* detracting] i.e. taking from, violating : the expression
"detract our vows," has occurred before, p. 515, first
col., in a somewhat different sense.
t By'rlady] i. e. By our Lady.
t aston'd] confounded, perpioxed.
§ hight] i. e. is called.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
627
Clam. Well, come, my Clyoinon, let us pass,
and, as we journ * by way,
My moat misfortunes unto thee I wholly will
bewray,
What happen'd in my last affairs and for thy
sister's sake.
Clyo. Well, then, Coeur-d'acier, come and wait,
your journey you shall take ;
And, seeing thou art prepar'd and hast all things
in readiness.
Haste theet before to Denmark with speedi-
ness,
And tell the king and the queen that Clyomon
their son
In health and happy state to their court doth
return ;
But in no wise to Juliana say anything of
me.
Nero. I will not show one word amiss contrary
your decree.
Clam. Well, then,
My Clyomon, to take our leave, to court let us
repair.
Clyo. As your friend and companion, Cla-
mydes, everywhere.
[Exeunt Clamydes and Clyomon.
Nero. heavens, is this my loving knight
whom I have serv'd so long ?
Now have I tried his faithful heart : 0, so my
joys do throng
To think how Fortune favoureth me ! Neronis,
now be glad,
And praise the gods thy journey now such good
success hath had.
To Denmark will I haste with joy, my message
to declare,
And tell the king how that his son doth home-
ward now repair ;
And more to make my joys abound, Fortune
could never frame
A finer mean to serve my turn than this, for by
the same
I may unto the queen declare my state in secret
wise,
As by the way I will recount how best I can
devise.
Now pack, Neronis, like a page ; haste hence lest
thou be spied,
And tell thy master's message there : the gods
my journey guide ! [Exit.
* jourii] i. e. journey.
t Haste thee, &c] Sonic mutilation here.
Enter the King and Queen of Denmark, Juliana, and
two Lords.
King of D. Come, lady queen ; and daughter
eke, my Juliana dear,
Wo muse that of your knight as yet no news
again you hear,
Which did adventure for your love the serpent
to subdue.
Juli. father,
The sending of that worthy knight my woful
heart doth rue,
For that, alas, the furious force of his outrageous
might,
As I have heard, subdued hath full many a
worthy knight !
And this last night, father, past, my mind was
troubled sore;
Methought in dream I saw a knight, not known
to me before,
Which did present to me the head of that same
monster slain ;
But my Clamydes still in voice methought I
heard complain
As one bereft of all his joy : now what this
dream doth signify,
My simple skill will not suffice the truth thereof
to specify ;
But sore I fear to contraries th' expect thereof
will hap,
Which will in huge calamities my woful corpse
bewrap
For sending of so worthy a prince, as was
Clamydes he,
To sup * hia dire destruction there for wretched
love of me.
Queen of D. Tush, daughter, these but fancies
be, which run within your mind.
King of D. Let them for to suppress your joys
no place of harbour find.
Pint Lord. princess, let no dolours daunt :
behold your knight in place.
Juli. Ah happy sight ! do I behold my knight
Clamydes' face ?
Enter Bryan Sans-foy with the serpent's liead on his
sword.
B. Sans-foy. Well,
I have at last through travel long achiev'd my
journey's end :
Though Bryan, yet Clamydes' name I stoutly
must defend. —
* sup] Seems to be equivalent here to— taste. Com
pare " my corpse of death shall taste," p. 517, sec. coL
528
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Ah happy sight ! the king and queen with
daughter in like case
I do behold : to them I will present myself in
place. —
The mighty gods, renowned king, thy princely
state maintain !
King of D. Sir Clamydes, most welcome sure
you are to court again.
B. Sans-foy. princess, lo, my promise here
performed thou mayst see ;
The serpent's head by me subdu'd I do present
to thee
Before thy father's royal grace.
Juli. My Clamydes, do embrace
Thy Juliana, whose heart thou hast till vital race
be run,
Sith for her sake so venturously this deed by
thee was done :
Ah, welcome home, my faithful knight !
B. Sans-foy. Gramercies, noble lady bright.
King of D. Well, Juliana, in our court your
lover cause to stay :
For all our nobles we will send against your
nuptial day.
Go carry him to take his rest.
Juli. I shall obey your grace's hest. —
Come, my Clamydes, go with me in court your
rest to take.
B. Sans-foy . I thank you, lady; now I see
account of me you make.
[Exeunt Juliana and Bryan Sans-foy.
King of D. Well, my queen, sith daughter ours
hath chosen such a make,*
The terror of whose valiant heart may cause our
foes to quake,
Come, let us presently depart, and, as we did
decree,
For all our nobles will we send, their nuptials for
to see.
Queen of D. As pleaseth thee, thy lady queen,
king, is well agreed.
First Lord. May it please your graces to
arrest ,t for, lo, with posting speed
A messenger doth enter place.
King of D. Then will we stay to know the
case.
Enter Neronis disguised at a page.
Nero. The mighty powers, renowned prince,
preserve your state for aye !
King of D. Messenger, thou art welcome : what
hast thou to say ?
* make] i. e. mate,
t arrent] i. e. stop.
Nero. Sir Clyomon, your noble son, Knight of
the Golden Shield,
Who for hi3 valiant victories in town and eke in
field
Is famed through the world, to your court doth
now return,
And hath sent me before to court, your grace
for to inform.
King of D. Ah messenger, declare, is this of
truth the which that thou hast told ?
Nero. It is most true, noble king, you may
thereof be bold.
King of D. Ah joy of joys, surpassing all ! what
joy is this to me,
My Clyomon in court to have, the nuptial for to
see
Of Juliana sister his ! 0, so I joy in mind !
Queen of D. My boy, where is thy master,
speak ; what, is he far behind ?
Declare with speed, for these my eyes do long
his face to view.
Nero. queen, this day he will be here, 'tis
truth I tell to you :
But, noble queen, let pardon here my bold
attempt excuse,
And for to hear a simple boy in secret not
refuse,
Who hath strange tidings from your son to tell
unto your grace.
[Exit with the Queen of D.
First Lord. Behold, my lord, where, as I guess,
some strangers enter place.
King of D. I hope my Clyomon be not far. —
joy, I see his face !
Enter Ci.yomon, Clamydes, and Subtle Shift.
Clyo. Come, Knowledge, come forward ; why
art thou always slack 1
Get you to court, brush up our apparel, untruss
your pack :
Go seek out my page, bid him come to me with
all speed you can.
S. Shift. Go seek out, fetch, bring here ! Gog's
ounds, * what am I, a dog or a man ?
I were better be a hangman an live so like a
drudge :
Since your new man came to you, I must pack, I
must trudge.
Clyo. How, stands thou, knave ? why gets
thou not away ?
S. Shift. Now, now, sir, you are so hasty now,
1 know not what to say. [Exit.
• Gog's ounds] i. e. God's wounds.
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
529
Clyo. noble prince, the goda above preserve
thy royal grace !
King of D. How joyful is my heart, dear son,
to view ngain thy face !
Clyo. And I as joyful in the view of parents'
happy plight,
Whom sacred gods long time maintain in honour
day and night !
But this my friend, father dear, even as myself
entreat,*
Whose nobleness, when time shall serve, to you
he shall repeat.
King of D. If case my son he be thy friend,
with heart I thee embrace.
Clam.f With loyal heart in humble wise I
thank your noble grace.
King of D. My Clyomon, declare, my son, in
thine adventures late
What hath beeu wrought by Fortune most t'
advance thy noble state.
Clyo. father,
The greatest joy of all the joys which was to me %
assign'd,
Since first I left your noble court, by cruel For-
tune blind,
Is now bereft from me away through her
accursed fate,
So that I rather find she doth envy* my noble
state
Than seek for to advance the same; so that I
boldly may
Express she never gave so much but more she
took away ;
And that which I have lost by her and her
accursed ire,
From travail will I never cease until I may aspire
Unto the view thereof, king, wherein is all
my joy.
King of D. Why, how hath Fortune wrought
to thee this care and great annoy ?
Clyo. father,
Unto me the heavenly powers assign'd a noble
dame,
With whom to live in happy life my heart did
wholly frame ;
But not long did that glazing§ star give light unto
mine eyes
But this || fell Fortune gins to frown, which every
state despise,
* entreat] i. e treat.
t Clam.] The 4to. "Clyomon."
\ me] The 4to. " one."
§ glazing] i. e. shining
|| this] Is sometimes, as here, little more than re-
dundant in our earlv writers.
And takes away through canker'd hate that
happy light from me,
Iu which I fixed had my hope a blessed Btuto to
see :
And daughter to the King she was winch of
Strange Marshes night,*
Bearing bruitt each where to be Dame Beauty'u
darling bright,
Right heir unto Dame Virtue's grace, Dame
Nat are's pattern true,
Dame Prudence' scholar for her wit, Dame Venus
for her hue,
Diana for her dainty life, Susanna being sad.J
Sage Saba for her soberness, mild Marpha§ being
glad;
And if I should re-entry make amongst the
Muses Nine,
My lady lack'd no kind of art which man may
well define
Amongst those dainty dames to be : then let all
judge that hear,
If that my cause it be not just for which thia
pensive cheer
Fell Fortune forceth me to make.
King of D. Yet, Clyomon, good counsel take ;
Let not the loss of lady|| thine so pinch thy
heart with grief
That nothing may unto thy mind give comfort or
relief :
What, man ! there ladies are enow, although that
she be gone ;
Then leave to wail the want of her, cease off to
make this moan.
Clyo. No, father,
Never seem for to persuade, for, as is said
before,
What travail I have had for her it shall be triple
Until I meet with her again. [more
Clam. Well, Clyomon, a while refrain,
And let me here my woes recount before your
father's grace ;
But let me crave your sister may be sent for into
place. —
king, vouchsafe I may demand a simple
bound ; **f
Although a stranger, yet I hope such favour may
be found :
* hipht] i. e. is called,
t bruit] i. e. report.
J sad] i. e. serious, grave.
§ Marpha] Qy. "Martha"?
|| of lad!/] The4to. " of the Lady."
f demand a simple bound] Qy. " demand of thee a simplt
bound " ?— bound, i. e. boon, — for the rhyme.
M M
630
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
The thing is this, that you will send for Juliana
hither,
Your daughter fair, that we may talk a word or
twain togither.*
King of D. For what, let me know, sir knight,
do you her sight desire.
Clyo. The cause pretends no harm, my liege,
why he doth this require.
King of D. My lord, go bid our daughter come
and speak with me straightway.
First Lord. I shall, my liege, in every point
your mind herein obey. [Exit.
Clyo. O father, this is Clamydes and son to
Suavia King,
Who for my sister ventur'd life the serpent's head
to bring,
With whom I met in travel mine ; but more
what did befall
To work his woe, whenas+ she comes, your grace
shall know it all.
King of D. My son, you are deceived much, I
you assure, in this ;
The person whom you term him for in court
already is.
Clyo.% No, father, I am not deceiv'd ; this is
Clamydes sure.
King of D. Well, my son, do cease a while such
talk to put in ure,§
For, lo, thy sister entereth place, which soon the
doubt shall end.
Clam. Then for to show my name to her I
surely do pretend. ||
Re-enter Juliana and First Lord ; and, after them, Subtle
Shift.
My Juliana, noble dame, Clamydes do embrace,
Who many a bitter brunt hath bode since that he
saw thy face.
Juli. Avaunt, dissembling wretch ! what credit
canst thou yield ?
Where's the serpent's head thou brought, where
is my glittering shield ?H
Tush, tush, sir knight, you counterfeit; you
would Clamydes be,
I5ut want of these bewrays you quite and shows
you are not he.
* togither] So written for the rhyme.
t whenan] i.e. when.
\ Clyo.] The4to. "Clamy."
§ ure] i. e. use.
|| pretend] i. e. intend.
H my glittering nhield] i.e. the glittering shield which I
gave to you : see p. 492, sec. col.
CUtrn. princess, do not me disdain ! I certain
am your knight.
Juli. What, art thou frantic, foolish man?
avaunt from out my sight !
If thou art he, then show my shield and bring
the serpent's head.
Clam. princess, hear me show my case by
Fortune fell decreed !
I am your knight, and when I had subdu'd the
monster fell
Through weary fight and travail great, as Know-
ledge here can tell,
I laid me down to rest a space within the forest,
where
One Bryan then, who Sans-foy bight,* with
cowardly usage there
By chanting charm brought me asleep ; then did
he take from me
The serpent's head, my coat, and shield the which
you gave to me,
And left me in his prison, lo, still sleeping as I
was :t
Lo,lady, thus I lost those things the which to me
you gave ;
But certainly I am your knight, and he who did
deprave J
The flying serpent of his life, according as you
will'd,
That whoso won your love, by him the same
should be fulfill'd.
Juli. Alas, poor knight, how simply have you
framed this excuse !
The name of such a noble knight t' usurp and
eke abuse.
Clyo. No, sister, you are deceiv'd ; this is
Clamydes sure.
Juli. No, brother, then you are deceiv'd, such
tales to put in ure ; §
For my Clamydes is in court, who did present to
me,
In white attire, the serpent's head and shield as
yet to see.
Clam. That shall I quickly understand. —
king, permit I may
Have conference a while with him, who, || as your
grace doth say,
* hight] i. e. is called. — In tho 4to. the line stands thus ;
" One Bryan than Sance/oy hight, who with cowardly vsage
there." .
t was] The want of a rhyme shows that a line has
dropt out here.
J deprave] i. e. deprive : as several times before.
§ ure] i. e. use.
|| who] The4to. "whom."
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
5oL
Pre-ents * Clamydes for to be before your royal
Juli. Behold, [grace.
No whit aghast to Bhow himself, where be <loth
enter place.
Re-tnier Bryan Sans-foy.
Clam. Ah traitor, art thou he that doth my
name and state abuse ?
Juli. Sir knight.
You are too bold, in presence here such talk
against him for to use.
B. Sans-foy. Wherefore dost thou upbraid me
thus? thou varlet, do declare.
Clyo. No varlet he ; to call him so, sir knight,
to blame you are,t
Clam. Wouldst thou perstand £ for what intent
such talk I here do frame ?
Because I know thou dost usurp my state and
noble name.
B. Sans-foy. Who art thou, or what's thy
name ? re-answer quickly make.
Clam. I am Clamydes, whose name to bear
thou here dost undertake.
B. Sans-foy. Art thou Clamydes ? 'vaunt, thou
false usurper of my state !
Avoid this place, or death shall be thy most
accursed fate :
How dar'st thou enterprise to take my name
thus unto thee?
Clam. Nay, rather, how dar'st thou attempt t'
usurp the name of me ?
Juli. You lie, sir knight, he doth not so;
'gainst him you have it done.
Clyo. Sister, you are deceiv'd,
My friend here is Clamydes Prince, the King of
Suavia's son.
Juli. Nay, brother, neither you nor he can me
deceive herein. §
Clam. king, bow down thy princely ears, and
listen what I say : [grace,
To prove myself the wight I am before your royal
And to disprove this faithless knight, which here
I find in place
For to usurp my name so much, the combat will
I try;
For before I will mine honour lose, I rather
choose to die.
* Presents] Qy. "Pretends"?
t to blame you are] The 4to. "you are too blame." —
Corrected by Mr. Collier, note on Shakespeare, voL vi.
p. 393, ed. 185S.
J perstand] i. e. understand : as several times before.
§ herein] Some error or defect here, this line not
rhyming with the next.
King of D. I like well your deterniin'd mind. —
But how say you, sir knight 1
S. Shift. Nay, by his ounds,* I'll gage my
gowu he dares not fight.
B. Sans-foy. [aside.] By Gog's blood.t I shall be
slain now if the combat I deny, [try.
And not for the ears of my head with him I dare
King of D. Sir 1-night,
Why do you not re-auswer make in trie' i i
your name?
B. Sans-foy. I will, king, if case he dare in
combat try the same.
King of D. Well, then, go to prepare your-
selves, each one his weapons take.
Juli. Good father, let it not be so ; restrain
them for my sake;
I may not here behold my knight in danger for
to be
With such a one who doth usurp his name to
purchase me :
I speak not this for that I fear his force or
strength in fight,
But that I will not have him deal with such a
desperate wight.
King of D. Nay, sure there is no better way
than that which is decreed ;
And therefore for to end their strife the combat
shall proceed. — [to try.
Sir knights, prepare yourselves the truth thereof
Clam. I ready am, no cowar[d]ly heart shall
cause me to deny.
B. Sans-foy. [aside.] Nay, I'll never stand the
trial of it, my heart to fight doth faint ;
Therefore I'll take me to my legs, seeing my
honour I must attaint.
King of D. Why, whither runs Clamydes ?
Sir knight, seem* to stay him.
Clyo. Nay, it is Clamydes, king, that doth
fray him. [will try.
Clam. Nay, come, sir, come, for the combat we
B. Sans-foy. Ah, no, my heart is done !§ to be
Clamydes I deny.
King of D. Why, how now, Clamydes ! how-
chance you do the combat here thus shun !
B. Sans-foy. king, grant pardon unto me !
the thing I have begun
* his ounds] i. e. his (God's) wounds. — The 4to. gives
this line, as well as the two next lines, to "Bryan." —
S. Shift has already mentioned his "gown " : see p. 519,
sec. col.
t Gog's blood] i. e. God's blood.
I seem] Is this reading to be defended by " would seem
me to entreat," p. 522, first col., and by "Nevor seem for
to persuade," p. 529, sec. col. ?
§ done] Qy. "gone"?
H X 2
532
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
1
I must deny ; for I am not Clamydes, this is
plain,
Though greatly to my shame I must my words
revoke again ;
I am no other thau the knight whom they Sana.
foy call :
This is Clamydes, the fear of whom my daunted
mind doth pal.*
Juli. Is this Clamydes? Ah worthy knight,
then do forgive thy dear !
And welcome eke ten thousand times unto thy
lady here !
Clam. Ah my Juliana bright ! what's past I do
forgive,
For well I see thou constant art; and, whilst that
I do live,
For this my firmed faith in thee for ever I'll
repose.
Juli. O father,
Now I do deny f that wretch, and do amongst
my foes
Recount him for this treason wrought.*
King of D. Well, Knowledge, take him unto
thee ; and for the small regard
The which he had to valiant knights, this shall be
his reward :
Sith he by charms his cruelty in cowardly
manner wrought
On knights, who, as Clamydes did, the crown of
honour sought,
And traitourously did them betray in prison for to
keep,
The fruits of such-like cruelty himself by us shall
reap
By due desert: therefore I charge to prison him
convey,
There for to lie perpetually unto his dying
day.
B. Sans-foy. king, be merciful and show some
favour in this case !
King of D. Nay, never think that at my hands
thou shalt find any grace.
[Exit Bryan Sans-foy with Subtle Shift.
Clamydes, ah, most welcome thou our daughter
to enjoy !
The heavens be prais'd that this have wrought to
foil all future noy ! §
Clam. I thank your grace that you thus so well
esteem of me. II
* pal] 1. o. appal.
t deny] i. e. reject, renounce.
} wrought] Some imperfection here.
§ noy] i. o. annoy, hurt, harm.
|| me) Here again something in wanting
Re-enter Subtle Shift.
S. Shift. What, is all things fiuish'd and every
man eas'd ?
Is the pageant pack'd up and all parties pleas'd ?
Hath each lord his lady and each lady her love 1
Clyo. Why, Knowledge, what mean'st thou
those motions to move ?
S. Shift. You were best stay a while and then
you shall know,
For the queen herself comes the motion to sho w.
You sent me, if you remember, to seek out your
page,
But I cannot* find him; I went whistling and
calling through the court in such a rage !
At the last very sca[r]cely in at a chamber I did
pry.
Where the queen with other ladies very busy I
did spy
Decking up a strange lady very gallant and gay.
To bring her here in presence, as in court I heard
say.
Clyo. A strange lady, Knowledge ! of whence
is she canst thou tell me ?
S. Shift. Not I, an't shall please you, but anon
you shall see,
For, lo, where the lady with your mother doth
come.
Clyo. Then straightway my duty to her grace
shall be done.
Reenter the Queen of Denmark with Neronis in female
attire.
The mighty gods preserve your state, queen
and mother dear,
Hoping your blessing I have had, though absent
many a year !
Queen of D. My Clyomon ! thy sight, my son,
doth make thy aged mother glad,
Whose absence long and many a year hath made
thy pensive parents sad ;
And more to let thee know, my son, that I do
love and tender thee,
I have here for thy welcome home a present
which I'll render + thee;
This lady, though she be unknown, refuse her
not, for sure her state
Deserves a prince's son to wed, and therefore
take her for thy mate.
Clyo. noble queen and mother dear, I thank
you for your great good-will,
But I am otherwise bestow'd, and sure I must
my oath fulfil,
* cannot] Qy. " could not " ?
t render] The 4to. "giue to."
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
5:33
And so 1 wind, if gods tofore,* on such decree I
mean to pause,
For sure I must of force deny, my noble father
knows the cause.
King of D. Indeed, my queen, this much he
toid, he lov'd a lady since he went,
Who hath his heart and ever shall, and none but
her to love he's bent.
Clyo. So did I say, and so I will ; no beauty's
blaze, no glistering wight,
Can cause me to forget her love to whom my
faith I first did plight.
Nero. Why, are you so straitdac'd, sir knight,
to cast a lady off so coy %
Turn once again and look on me ; perhaps my
sight may bring you joy.
Clyo. Bring joy to me ! alas, which way ? no
lady's looks can make me glad.
Nero. Then were my recompense but small to
quitf my pain for you 1 had :
Wherefore, sir knight, do weigh my words, set
not so light the love I show,
But when you have bethought yourself, you will
recant and turn, I know.
Queen of D. My Clyomon, refuse her not ; she
is and must thy lady be.
Clyo. If otherwise my mind be bent, I trust
your grace will pardon me.
Nero. Well, then, I see 'tis time to speak : sir
knight, let me one question crave.
Clyo. Say on your mind. J
Nero. Where is that lady now become, to
whom your plighted faith you gave ]
Clyo. Nay, if I could absolve that doubt, then
were my mind at ease.
Nero. Were you not brought to health by her,
when you came sick once off the seas ?
Clyo. Yea, sure, I must confess a truth, she
did restore my health to me,
For which good deed I rest her own in hope one
day her face to see.
Nero. But did you not promise her to return
to see her at a certain day,
And, ere you came that to perform, the Norway
King stole her away,
And so your lady there you lost ?
Clyo. All this I grant, but to his cost,
* gods tofore] The expression "God tofore," — i e God
going before, favouring, — is of frequent occurrence : but
the line is very obscure.
t Quit] i. e. requite.
J Say on your mind] The 4to. gives these words (printed
in Italics) as pai t of Neronis's speech.
For, stealing her against her will, this hand of
mine bereft his life.
Nero. Now, sure, sir knight, you serv'd him
well, to teach him know another man a
wife :
But yet once more, sir knight, reply, the truth I
crave to understand,
In forest once who gave you drink whereas* you
stood with sword in hand,
Fearing lest some had you pursu'd for slaying of
your enemy '<
Clyo. That did a silly shepherd's boy, which
there I took my page to be.
Nero. And what is of that page become 1
remains he with you, yea or no ?
Clyo. I sent him hither ere I came, because
the king and queen should know
That I in health returned was ; but since I never
saw him.
Nero. And, sure, he stands not far from hence,
though now you do not know him.
Clyo. Not far from hence ! where might he be?
Nero. Of troth, sir knight, myself am he:
I brought your message to the king, as here the
queen can testify,
I gave you drink in forest sure when you with
drought were like to die,
I found you once upon the shore full sick whenast
you came from seas,
I brought you home to father's court, I sought
all means your mind to please,
And I it was that all this while have waited like
a page on thee,
Still hoping for to spy a time wherein I might
discover me ;
And so by hap at last I did, I thank your mother's
noble grace,
She entertain'd me courteously when I had told
her all my case ;
And now let this suffice, my dear, I am Neronia
whom you see,
Who many a weary step hath gone before and
siuce I met with thee.
Clyo. sudden joyt ! heavenly sight !
words more worth than gold !
Neronis, my dear, welcome ! my arms I here
unfold
To clasp thy comely corpse withal: twice-wel-
come to thy knight 1
JVe?-o. Aud I as joyful am, no doubt, my
Clyomon, of thy happy sight.
* whereas] i. e. where.
} joy] The4to. "ioyea. 1
\ ichaiaf] i. e. when.
534
SIR CLYOMON AND SIR CLAMYDES.
Clyo. Clamydes, my assured friend, lo, how
Dame Fortune favoureth me !
This is Neronis my dear love, whose face so long
I wish'd to see.
Clam. My Clyomon, I am as glad aa you your-
self to see this day.
King of D. Well, daughter, though a stranger
yet, welcome to court, as I may say.
Queen of D. And, lady, as welcome unto me as
if thou wert mine only child.
Nero. For this your gracious courteay I thank
you, noble princess mild.
Juli. Though strange and unacquainted yet,
do make account you welcome are :
Your nuptial day as well as mine I know my
father will prepare.
King of D. Yes, we are prest* your nuptial
day with daughter ours to see,
As well as Clyomon's our son with this his lady
fair;
Come, therefore, to our court, that we the same
may soon prepare,
For we are prest throughout our land for all our
peers to send.
All. Thy pleasure, most renowned king, thy
servants shall attend. [Exewnt omnes.
* prest] i. e ready, or, rather, earnest, eaqer : compare
p. 495, first col. — A line which rhymed with this Hue hus
di opt out.
DEVICE OF THE PAGEANT
BORNE BEFORE
WOLSTAN DIXIE.
Tlie Device of the Pageant borne before WooUtone Dixi, Lord ilaior of the Citie of London.
Imprinted at London by Edward Allde. 16S5. 4to.
An. 15S5. October 29.
Sir Wolstan Dixie was the fourth son of Thomas Dixie, whose eldest son Richard was the ancestor of the
Baronets of that name. Sir Wolstau was Lord Mayor of London in 15S5 ; and was twice married, — first to Agnes,
daughter of Walkedon, and secondly to Ann, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Christopher Draper, Knight, who
survived him and re-married Sir William Hickman. Having attained the age of sixty-nine, Sir Wolstan Dixie was
buried in the church of St. Michael, Bassingshaw, and bequeathed his estate of Bosworth iu Leicestershire to his
great nephew Sir Wolstan Dixie, father of the first Baronet. — Kiraber's Baronetage, vol. H. p. 66.
Stowc records fifteen benefactions by him, among the " honourable acts of citizens."
THE DEVICE OF THE PAGEANT, Etc.
A Speech spoken by him that rid on a luzern* before
the Pageant, apparelled like a Moor.
From where the Sun doth settle in his wain,
And yokes his horses to his fiery cart,
And in his way gives life to Ceres' corn,
Even from the parching zone, behold, I come,
A stranger, strangely mounted, as you see,
Seated upon a lusty luzeru's back ;
And offer to your honour, good my lord,
This emblem thus in show significant.
Lo, lovely Loudon, rich and fortunate,
Fam'd through the world for peace and happiness,
Is here advanc'd, and set in highest seat,
Beautified throughly as her state requires !
First, over her a princely trophy stauds,
Of beaten gold, a rich and royal arms,
Whereto this London ever more bequeaths
Service of honour and of loyalty.
Her props are well-advised magistrates,
That carefully attend her person still.
The honest franklin and the husbandman
Lays down his sacks of corn at London's feet,
And brings such presents as the country yields.
The pleasant Thames, a sweet and dainty nymph,
For London's good conveys, with gentle stream
And safe and easy passage, what she can,
And keeps her leaping fishes in her lap.
The soldier and the sailor, frankly both,
For London's aid, are all in readiness,
To venture and to fight by laud and sea.
And this thrice-reverend honourable dame,
Science, the sap of every commonwealth,
Surnam'd mechuuical or liberal,
Is vow'd to honour London with her skill.
And London, by these friends so happy made,
First thanks her God, the author of her peace,
And next with humble gesture, as becomes,
In meek and lowly manner doth she yield
Herself, her wealth, with heart and willingness,
Unto the person of her gracious queen,
Elizabeth, renowned through the world,
Stall'd and anointed by the highest power,
The God of kings, that with his holy hand
Hath long defended her and her England.
This now remains, right honourable lord,
That carefully you do attend and keep
This lovely lady, rich and beautiful,
The jewel wherewithal your sovereign queen
Hath put your honour lovingly in trust,
That you may add to London's dignity,
And London's dignity may add to yours,
That worthily you may be counted one
Among the number of a many more
Careful lieutenants, careful magistrates,
For London's welfare and her worthiness.
DIXI.
Spoken by the Children in the Pageant, vi*.
London.
New Troy I hight,* whom Lud my lord surnam'd,
London the glory of the western side ;
Throughout the world is lovely London fam'd,
So far as any sea comes in with tide :
Whose peace and calm, under her royal queen,
Hath long been such as like was never seen.
Then let me live to carol of her name,
That she may ever live and never die,
Her sacred shrine set in the House of Fame,
Consecrate to eternal memory :
My peerless mistress, sovereign of my peace,
Long may she joy with honour's great increase.
» luzern]\.e. lynx. " A luzern, lupus cervariut." Colcs'i
IHct. " Lupus cervarius, a cat of mountain." Id.
* hight] i. e. am called.
538 THE DEVICE OF THE PAGEANT BORNE BEFORE WOLSTAN DIXIE.
Magnanimity.
The country and the Thames afford their aid,
And careful magistrates their care attend ;
All English hearts are glad and well apaid,*
In readiness their London to defend.
Defend them, Lord, and these fair nymphs like-
wise,
That ever they may do this sacrifice.
Loyalty.
The greatest treasure that a prince cau have
Doth lovely London offer to her queen,
Such loyalty as like was never seen,
And such as any English heart can crave.
The Country.
Fur Loudon's aid the country gives supply
Of needful things, and store of every grain.
London, give thanks to Him that sits on high,
(Had never town less cause for to complain.)
And love and serve the sovereign of thy peace,
Under whose reign thou hast this rich increase.
The Thames.
With silver glide my pleasant streams do run,
Where leaping fishes play betwixt the shores :
This gracious good hath God and Kind f beguu
For Loudon's use with help of sails and oars.
London, rejoice, and give thy God the praise
For her whose highness lengths thy happy days.
The Soldier.
Armour of safe defence the soldier hath :
So lovely London carefully attends
To keep her sacred sovereign from acath,
That all this English land so well defends ;
And so far London bids her soldiers go,
As well may serve to shield this land from woe.
The Sailor.
The sailor that in cold and quaking tide
The wrathful storms of winter's rage doth bide,
With streamers stretch 'd prepares his merry bark,
For country's wealth to set his men a-wark;£
That queen and country easily may see
The seaman serves his prince in his degree.
* apaid] i. e. satisfied, pleased.
t Kind] i. e. Nature.
J a-warkj i e. a- work.
Science.
For London's safety and her happiness
The soldier and the sailor may you see
All well prepar'd, and put in readiness
To do such eervice as may fitting be ;
And Art with them do[th] join, and they with
London, then, joy, aud let all ages know [me.
What duty to thy sovereign thou dost owe.
The First Nymph.
Thus with the morning sun and evening star
These holy lights shall burn, the cheerful flame
With sweetest odour shall perfume as far
As India stands, in honour of her name,
Whose trophy we adore with sacred rites,
With sweetest incense, and with endless lights.
The Second Nymph.
So long as sun doth lend the world his light,
Or any grass doth grow upon the ground,
With holy flame our torches shall burn bright,
And Fame shall bruit* with golden trumpet's
sound
The honour of her sacred regiment,+
That claims this honourable monument.
The Third Nymph.
Our holy lights shall burn continually,
To signify our duties to her state,
Whose excellent and princely majesty
Approves J itself to be most fortunate.
The Fourth Nymph.
Virtue shall witness of her worthiness,
And Fame shall register her princely deeds ;
The world shall still pray for her happiness,
From whom our peace and quietness proceeds.
Verses "written vnder the Arms of England.
Gallia victa dedit flares, invicta leones
Anglia, jus belli in flore, leone suum ;
sic, semper ferat Anglia leeta triumphos,
Inclyta Gallorutn flore, leone suo.
Done by George Peele, Master of Arts
in Oxford.
* bruit] i. e. report.
t regiment] i. e. government.
X Approves] i. e. Proves.
The Device of a Pageant, borne before M. William Web, Lord Maior nf the Citie of London, on the day he took his oath ;
being the ISth of October, 1591. Whereunto is annexed a Sjieech delivered by one, clad like a sea-nymph ; who presented a
Pmessc on the water, bravely ri/jd and mand, to the Lord Maior, at the time he tooke barge to go to Westminster. Done by
G. Peek, Maister of Arts in Oxford. Printed for William Wright, ito.
DESCENSUS ASTUTE.
The Presenter's Speech.
See, lovely lords, and you, my lord, behold
How Time Lath turn'd his restless wheel about,
And made the silver moon and heaven's bright
eye
Gallop the zodiac, and end the year,
Whose revolution now begets anew
The days that have created and confirm'd
A worthy governor, for London's good,
To underbear, under his sovereign's sway,
Unpartial Justice' beam, and weav'd a Web *
For your content, and her command in all,
You citizens of this metropolis,
Whose honour and whose oath to gratulate,
Lordings, behold what emblem I present.
Astrsea, daughter of th' immortal Jove,
Great Jove, defender of this ancient town,
Descended of the Trojan Brutus' line,
Offspring of a+ courageous couquering king,
Whose pure renown hath pierc'd the world's
large ears,
In golden scrolls rolling about the heavens ;
Celestial sacred Nymph, that tends her flock
With watchful eyes, and keeps this fount in
peace,
Guarded with Graces, and with gracious trains,
Virtues divine, aud gifts incomparable,
Nor lets blind superstitious Ignorance
Corrupt so pure a spring : happy times,
That do beget such calm and quiet days,
Where sheep and shepherd breathe in such
content !
* Web'] A wretched pun upon the Mayor's name.
t a] Not in the 4to. — Here, observes Walker, "a mu6t
have been lost between of and courageous ; for the sup-
pression of the article is not allowable according to Eliza-
bethan grammar, except under certain conditions, which
might be specified, and which are of very rare occur-
rence." Shakespeare's Versification, dec., p. 15.
Honour attends her throne ; in her bright eyes
Sits Majesty; Virtue and Steadfastness
Possess her heart; sweet Mercy sways her
sword ;
Her Champion, arm'd with resolution,
Sits at her feet to chastise malcontents
That threat her honour's wreck ; and Time and
Kind*
Produce t her years to make them numberless ;
While Fortune for her service and her sake
With golden hands doth strengthen aud enrich
The Web that they for fair Astrsea weave.
Long may she live, long may she govern us,
In peace triumphant, fortunate in wars,
Our fair Astraea, our Paudora fair,
Our fair Eliza, our Zabeta fair ;
Sweet Cynthia's darling, beauteous Cypria's
peer ;
As dear to England and true English heart3
As Pompey to the citizens of Rome ;
As merciful as Caesar in his might ;
As mighty as the Macedonian king,
Or Trojan Hector, terror to the Greeks.
Goddess, live long, whose honours we advance,
Strengthen thy neighbours', propagate thiue own :
Guide well thy helm, lay thine anointed hand
To build the temple of triumphant Truth,
That while thy subjects draw their peace from
thee,
Thy friends with aid of arms may succour'd be,
Astr^a, with her sheephooh, on the top of the
Pageant.
Feed on, my flock, among the gladsome green,
Where heavenly nectar flows above the banks ;
Such pastures are not common to be seen :
Pay to immortal Jove immortal thanks,
* Kind] i. e. Nature,
t Produce] i. e. Extend, longthen.
642
DESCENSUS ASTR^E^E.
For what is good from heaven's high throne doth
fall;
And heaven's great architect be prais'd for all.
Superstition to Ignorance, a friar, sitting by
the fountain.
Stir, priest, and with thy beads poison this
spring ;
I tell thee all is baneful that I bring.
Ignorance, a priest.
It is in vain : her eye keeps me in awe,
Whose heart is purely fixed on the law,
The holy law ; and bootless we contend,
While this chaste nymph this fountain doth
defend.
Euphrosyne.
Whilom, when Saturn's golden reign did cease,
And iron age had kindled cruel wars,
Envy in wrath perturbing common peace,
Engendering canker'd hate and bloody jars ;
Lo, then Olympus' king, the thundering Jove,
Raugbt* hence this gracious nymph Astrrea
fair:
Now once again he sends her from above,
Descended through the sweet transparent air ;
And here she sits in beauty fresh and sheen,
Shadowing the person of a peerless queen.
Aqlaia.
A peerless queen, a royal princely dame,
Euroll'd in register of eternal fame.
Thalia.
The Graces throw their balm about her sacred
head,
Whose government her realm's true happiness
hath bred.
Charity.
That happiness continue in her land,
Great Israel's God, spring of all heavenly
peace,
And let thine angels in her rescue stand :
With her life's wane donef England's joys
decrease :
0, let her princely days never have fine,*
Whose virtues are immortal and divine !
* Raught] i. e. Snatched.
t done] i. e. do.
t fine] i. o. eud.
Hope.
Such virtues as her throne do beautify,
And make her honours mount aud scale the sky.
Faith.
Where hope of her eternal bliss doth rest,
Conceived in her sweet and sacred breast.
Honour.
With radiant beams, reflecting on the earth,
Even from the snowy brows of Albion,
Beyond the utmost verge of Christendom,
As bright as is the burning lamp of heaven,
Shineth my mistress' honour, in whose fame
The heathen carols sing, and all admire,
From icy Tauais to the sevenfold Nile,
Her glory, that commands this western isle.
Champion.
In whose defence my colours I advance,
And girt me with my sword, and shake my
lance :
These British lions, rampant in this field,
That never learn'd in battle's rage to yield,
Breathe terror to the proud aspiring foe,
Ranging the world, commanding where they go ;
Therefore in vain this misproud malcontent
Threatens her state, whose harms the heavens
prevent.
Sit safe, sweet nymph, among thy harmless
sheep :
Thy sacred person aDgels have in keep.
First Malcontent.
What meaneth this] I strive, and cannot strike;
She is preserv'd by miracle belike :
If so, then wherefore threaten we in vain
That queen whose cause the gracious heavens
maintain ?
Second Malcontent.
No marvel, then, although we faint and quail,
For mighty is the truth and will prevail.
In the hinder part of the Pageant did sit a child, representing
Nature, holding in her hand a distaff, and spinning a
web, which passed through the hand of Fortune, and
was wheeled up by Time, icho spake as followeth :
Time.
Thus while my wheel with ever-turning gyres,
At heaven's high best, serves earthly men's
desires,
I wind the Web that Kind so well begins,
While Fortune doth enrich what Nature spins.
DESCENSUS ASTM.E/E.
543
A Speech on the water, delivered in the morning, at
my Lord Mayor's going to Westminster.
List, gentle lords,* and, bubbling stream, be still,
And, whistling winds, your angry murmur cease;
Let Thetis' nymph unfold the goddess" best.
Behold, embark' d thus bravely as you see,
Laden with treasure and with precious ore,
From where in Tellus' veins the parching sun
Doth gold and glittering minerals create,
Are come these strangers lovingly inflam'd,
To gratulate to you, my lovely lord,
This gladsome day wherein your honours spring :
And by the bar that thwarts this silver stream,
Even to the beauteous verge of Troy-novant,f
That decks this Tbamesis on either side,
* lords] Compare the first line of this piece.
f Troy-novant] i. e. London.
Thus far these friends have pierc'd, and all by me
Salute your honour and your company,
Thrice-worthy pretor of this ancient town.
The mortar of these walls, temper'd in peace,
Yet holds the building sure, as are the sprigs
Woven from the spreading root in knotty box.
Labour, fair lord, as other mayors of yore,
To beautify this city with deserts.
So with* these friendly strangers, man by man,
Pass with advisement to receive thy oath ;
Keep it inviolate for thy sovereign's hope,
Virtue's pure mirror, London's great mistress ;
Unsheath the sword committed to thy sway,
With merciful regard of every cause.
So go in peace, happy by sea and land,
Guided by grace and heaven's immortal hand.
« witli] Thelto. "wish."
A FAREWELL
TO
SIR JOHN NORMS AND SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, Etc.
AND
A TALE OF TROY.
M H
A Farewell. EntUuUJ to tkt famotu and fortunate GeneralU of our Bnglith forces : Sir John Iforris de Syr
Drake KnighU, and all theyr brave and resolute followers. Whertunto is annexed : A tale of Troy. Ad
Le--tortm. Parue nee inuideo sine me (liber) ibis ad arma, Hei mihi, quoil domino non 'icet ire tuo. Doone by George Peele,
Maister of Aries in Oxford*. At London Printed by /. C. and are to bet solde by William Wright, at his shop adio.
to S. Mildreds Church in the Powtrie. Anno. 15S9. Ho.
On the back of the tide are the arms of Elizabeth, with the motto "Semper eadem," and under them these
verses;
" Gallia victa dedit flares, inukta Leones
Anplia : rw belli inflore, leone swum :
sic semper ferat Elizabetha triumphos,
Inclyta Gallorum fiore leone suo."
In 15S9, while the public exultation at the defeat of the Spanish Armada had not yet subsided, a band of
gallant adventurers (excited chiefly by the desire of gain or glory) fitted out, almost entirely at their own expense,
a fleet for an expedition to Portugal, for the declared purpose of seating on the throne of that country the bastard
Don Antonio, who had taken refuge in England. On the ISth of April the armament set sail from Plymouth,
consisting of 180 vessels and 21,000 men, under the command of Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris. A minute
detail of the disasters which ensued would here be out of place ; suffice it to say, that about eleven thousand
persons perished in this expedition, and of the eleven hundred gentlemen who accompanied it, only three hundred
and fifty returned to their native country.
The Tale of Troy: By G. Peele M. of Arts in Oxford. Printed by A. B. 1604: the imprint at the end being
London Printed by Arnold Hatfield, dwelling in Eliots Court in the Little old Baylie : And are to be soil by Nicholas Ling.
1604, — forms a very diminutive volume, about an inch and a half in height, and having only two lines iu a page.
It presents a texs differing greatly from that of ed. 15S9. See Account of Peele and hit Writings, pp. 335, 344.
TO
THE MOST FAMOUS GENERALS OF OUR ENGLISH FORCES BY LAND AND SEA,
SIR JOHN NORRIS AND SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, KNIGHTS.
Your virtues famed by your fortunes, and fortunes renowned by your virtues, thrice-honourable
generals, together with the admiration the world hath worthily conceived of your worthiness, have at
this time encouraged me, a man not unknown to many of your brave and forward followers, captains,
and soldiers, to send my short Farewell to our English forces. Whereunto I have annexed an old poem
of mine own, The Tale of Troy, a pleasant discourse, fitly serving to recreate by the reading the chivalry
of England ; to whom, as to your ingenious judgments, I dedicate the same ; that good minds, inflamed
with honourable reports of their ancestry, may imitate their glory in highest adventures, and my coun-
trymen, famed through the world for resolution and fortitude, may march in equipage of honour and
arms with their glorious and renowned predecessors, the Trojans.
Beseeching God mercifully and miraculously, as hitherto he hath done, to defend fair England, that
her soldiers may in their departure be fortunate and in their return triumphant,
GEO. PEELE.
:*a 8
A FAREWELL
ENTITULED
TO THE FAMOUS AND FORTUNATE GENERALS
OF OUR ENGLISH FORCES, Etc.
Have done with care, my hearts! aboard amain,
With stretching sails to plough the swelling
waves :
Bid England's shore and Albion's chalky cliffs
Farewell ; bid stately Troynovant adieu,
Where pleasant Thames from Isis' silver head
Begins her quiet glide, and runs along
To that brave bridge, the bar that thwarts her
course,
Near neighbour to the ancient stony Tower,
The glorious hold that Julius Csesar built.
Change love for arms; girt-to your blades, my
boys !
Your rests* and muskets take, take helm and
targe,
And let God Mar3 his consort make you mirth, —
The roaring cannon,t and the brazen trump,
The angry-sounding drum, the whistling fife,
The shrieks of men, the princely courser's neigh.
Now vailj your bonnets to your friends at home:
Bid all the lovely British dames adieu,
That under many a standard well-advanc'd
Have hid§ the sweet alarms and braves of love;
* rests] i. e. supports for the muskets, which in Peele's
days were very heavy.
f And let God Mars his consort make you -mirth, —
The roaring cannon, &c.] Shakespeare perhaps re-
membered this passage when he wrote Othello's " fare-
well" to war: in Singer's SkoJcespeare (vol. 10, p. 443,
ed. 1826), where Peele's lines are quoted, "trumpet" is
printed instead of " consort."
It is necessary to observe, that when this poem was
produced, and a considerable time after, the expression
" consort of music " was in use : — the term "concert " is
comparatively modern.
t vail] i. e. lower.
§ hid] Olded. "bid."
Bid theatres and proud tragedians,
Bid Mahomet, Scipio,* and mighty Tamburlaine,t
King Charlemagne^ Tom Stukeley,§ and the rest,
Adieu. To arms, to arms, to glorious arms !
With noble Norris, and victorious Drake,
Under the sanguine cross, brave England's badge,
To propagate religious piety,
And liew a passage with your conquering swords
By land and sea, wherever Phoebus' eye,
Th' eternal lamp of heaven, lends us light ;
By golden Tagus, or the western Inde,
Or through the spacious bay of Portugal,
The wealthy ocean-main, the Tyrrhene sea,
From great Alcides' pillars branching forth
Even to the gulf that leads to lofty Rome ;
There to deface the pride of Antichrist,
And pull his paper walls and popery down, —
A famous enterprise for England's strength,
To steel your swords on Avarice' triple crown,
And cleanse Augeas' stalls in Italy.
* Mahomet, Scipio] Old ed. " Mahomet s Poo." Cor-
rected by the Rev. J. Mitford (Gent. Mag. for Feby. 1833,
p. 103), who remarks ; " The fact is, that two letters have
fallen out, probably from the word having been written
in a contracted form, and the s that belonged to the word
has got wrongly attached to ' Mahomet ; ' but the true
reading is clear. . . . Scipio was a great name among
old poets and dramatists ; and is seldom absent in the
list of heroes."
t Tamburlaine] An allusion to Marlowe's well-known
tragedy in Two Parts.
t King Charlemagne] No drama called Charlemagne has
come down to us, nor am I acquainted with any old play
in which that monarch is a character. According to Mr.
Collier (Memoirs of AlUyn, p. 7), the allusion is perhaps
to Greone's play of Orlando Furioso, — a most improbable
conjecture.
§ Tom Stuhfley] See prefatory remarks to our author's
Battle of Alcazar, p. 419.
550
A FAREWELL, Etc.
To arms, uiy fellow soldiers ! Sea and land
Lie open to the voyage you intend ;
And sea or land, bold Britons, far or near,
Whatever course your matchless virtue shapes,
Whether to Europe's bounds, or Asian plaius,
To Afric's shore, or rich America,
Down to the shades of deep Avernus' crags,
Sail on, pursue your honours to your graves :
Heaven is a sacred covering for your heads,
And every climate virtue's tabernacle.
To arms, to arms, to honourable arms ! *
Hoise sails, weigh anchors up, plough up the seas
With flying keels, plough up the land with
swords :
In God's name venture on ; and let me say
To you, my mates, as Caesar said to his,
Striving with Neptune's hills ; " You bear,"
quoth he,
• To arms, to arms, to honourable arms !] In The Lament-
able Trogedie oj Locrine, &c, first printed in 1595, we
find, —
" To amies, my lord, to honourable armes,"
which is followed by what forms part of the eleventh
verse of the present poem,
" Take helme and targe." Sig. F 2.
See note J, p. 425, first col.
" Caesar and Caesar's fortune in your ships."
You follow them, whose swords successful are :
You follow Drake, by sea the scourge of Spain,
The dreadful dragon, terror to your foes,
Victorious in his return from Inde,
In all his high attempts unvanquished ;
You follow noble Norris, whose renown,
Won in the fertile fields of Belgia,
Spreads by the gates of Europe to the courts
Of Christian kings and heathen potentates.
You fight for Christ, and England's peerless
queen,
Elizabeth, the wonder of the world,
Over whose throne the enemies of God
Have thunder'd erst their vain successless
braves.
0, ten-times-treble happy men, that fight
Under the cross of Christ and England's queen,
And follow such as Drake and Norris are !
All honours do this cause accompany;
All glory on these endless honours waits :
These honours and this glory shall He send,
Whose honour and whose glory you defend.
Yours, G. P.
THE TALE OF TROY.*
In that world's wounded part,f whose waves yet
Bwell
With everlasting showers of tears that fell,
And bosom bleeds with great effuse of blood
That long war shed, — Troy, Neptune's city, stood,
Gorgeously built, like to the House of Fame,
Or Court of Jove, as some describe the same ;
* The Tale of Troy] Ed. 1589 gives, as the heading of
this piece, The beginning, accidents, and ende of the xcarre
of Troy. It also has a short running argument, in the
shape of marginal notes, which I have dismissed as an
unnecessary incumbrance to the page.
t In that world's wounded part, &c.J Ed. 15S9 ;
" Wliilom in Troy, that ancient noble towne,
Did dwell a king of honor & renowne,
Of port, of puisaunce, and mickle fame,
And Priam was this mighty princes name ;
Whom, in regard of his triumphant state,
The world as then surnamde the Fortunate,
So happy was he for his progmie,
His queene, his court, his children, and countrie."
Under a prince whom, for his happy state,
That age surnam'd Priam the Fortunate,
So honour'd for his royal progeny,
Blest in his queen, his offspring, and his country :
Y-clypped * Stately Hecuba was she,
A goodly creature + of such majesty
As well became her princely personage ;
And, long before she tasted fortune's rage,
With twenty + sons and daughters, wondrous
thing,
This lusty lady did enrich her king,
Fruit not unlike the tree whereof § they sprung;
The daughters lovely, modest, wise, || and young;
* Y-clyppe'd] i. e. Called, named,
t A goodly creature, &c] Ed. 15S9 ;
" So faire a creature hardlie might you see,
So braue, and of so comelie personage."
X twenty] Ed. 1604 "many." (Both lections being, for
obvious reasons, very objectionable.)
§ whereof} Ed. 1604 " from whence.'
II wise] Ed. 1604 "fair."
THE TALE OF TROY.
551
Tbe sons, as doth my story well unfold,
All knights-at-anns, gay, gallant, brave,* and
bold,
Of wit and manhood t such as might suffice
To venture on the highest piece of service:
His peers as loyal to their royal lord
As might ne X tainted be for deed or word ;
His court presenting § to our human eyes
An earthly heaven or shiuing paradise,
Where ladies troop'd in rich disguis'd attire,
Glistering like stars of pure immortal fire.
Thus happy, Priam, didst thou live of yore,
That to thy hap could naught be added more;|J
Till 'mong the gods I wot not which TJ was he
Envying tho ** this happiness to thee,
Or goddess, or accursed fiend below,
Couspiriug thy Troy's wreck and overthrow, —
Alack, that happiness may not long ft last,
That all our JJ braveries been §§ so brief a
blast !—
Till one, I say, revengeful || || power or other
Buzz'd in the brain of the unhappy mother
A dreadful dream, and, as it did befall,
To Priam's Troy a dream deadly and fatal.
For when the time of mother's pain drew nigh,
And now the load that in her womb did lie
Began to stir and move with ffTl proper strength,
Ready to leave his place ; behold, at length
She dreams, and gives her lord*** to understand
That she should soon bring forth a fire-brand, ttt
Whose flame ++% and fatal smoke would grow so
great
As Ilium's towers it should consume with heat :
* knights-at-arms, gay, gallant, brave] Ed. 1601 "knights
in arms, adventurous."
t Of wit and manhood, &c] Ed. 1604 omits this and
the next line.
t ne] i. e. not.— Ed. 1604 "not."
§ His court presenting, &c] Ed. 1580 ;
" His court presenting to our eartblie eyes
A skye of starres or shyning paradise.
Thus happy, Priam," &c.
|| hap could naught be added more] Ed. 1604 "fortune
heavens could add no nwre."
If which] Ed. 15S9 "what."
** Envying tho] i. e. Grudging then.
it long] Ed. 1601 "ever."
tf oitr] Ed. 1589 "these."
§§ been] i. e. be.
|||| revengeful] Ed. 15S9 "avenging."
1TI Bigan to stir and move with] Ed. 1604 "To move
began and stir with. "
*** lord] Ed. 1604 " pheere " (i. e. husband).
ttt afire-brand] Ed. 1604 "a firy brawl" (but our old
poets often use "fire " as a dissyllable).
ttt Whose flame, &c] Ed. 1589 ;
" Whose hote and clymbing./tonie should grow so great,
That Neptunes Troy it would consume wiih heate."
And, counsel taken of her* troublous dream.
The soothsayers said t that not swift Simoia 1
stream
Nor Xanthus' icy waves + might quench the fire
That did this brand 'gainst Troy's proud walls
conspire.
Which to prevent (a piteous tale to tell)
Both sire and dame 'gainst law and kind § rebel ;
And, that this fear might soon || be overblown,
This babe from Troy withouten ruth is thrown.
But tempted may the gods, not mocked, be :
It is thy fate, nor mayst U thou, Troy, foresee
What must befall, thou mayst it not foreknow :
Yet Paris lives, and men him called so ;
He lives a shepherd's lad ** on Ida hills,
And breathes a man 'gainst Troy and Trojans'
wills,
That threatens fire to Troy, a jolly swains
And here me list tt leave Priam aud his train.,
And tell of J+ Paris yet another while;
How he can nymphs and shepherds' trulls beguile,
And pipen songs, aud whet his wits on books,
And rape poor maids with sweet-alluring looks :
So couth he §§ sing his lays among them all,
And tune his pipe unto the water's fall, ||||
And wear his coat of grey HU and lusty green,
That had the fair CEnone never seen
His ticing curled hair, his front of ivory,
The careless nymph had ne'er been so unhappy.
Then was the time when Flora dight with ***
flowers,
Like Iris in her pride and parti-colours,
Sate in her summer arbours like a queen,
And deck'd the earth with ttt yellow, blue, and
green ;
Then Phoebe gan a solemn hunting make,
A feast for Pallas', Juno['s], Venus' sake ;
* her] Ed. 15S9 "this."— Ed. 1604 " his " (hir).
t said] Ed. 1604 "say."
t Aor Xanthus' icy waves, <fcc] Ed. 15S9 ;
" Might seme to quench that fierce deuouringyicg
That did this brand gainst towne of Troy conspire."
§ kind] i. e. nature.
|| soon] Ed. 1589 "so."
I mayst] Ed. 1589 "may."
** to/] Ed. 1589 "swayne" (which word occurs in the
next line but. one).
I I me list] i. e. it pleases me.
tt tell of] Ed. 1589 "tend we."
§§ coiUh he] i. e. he had skill to, knew how to.
Illl And tune his pipe unto the water's fall] This line is
borrowed from Spenser's Eclogue for April, —
" And timed it unto the water's fall."
ITU grey] See note *, p. 158, first col. But here ed.
1604 has "gay " : with which compare the line in p. 361,
sec. col., "The colour of»his coat is lusty green."
*»* dight with] Ed. 1589 "with her."
ttt deck'd the earth with] Ed. 15S9 " dight the earth in."
552
THE TALE OF TROY.
Aud on that Ida, where King Priam's son,
Paris, this lovely shepherd's swain,* did won,t
A sudden X strife aud variance did befall
Among those goddesses § for a golden ball,
That Ate brought || from hell, a fatal fruit,
And threw among them at Dame Tellua' suit,
That, all too weak her burden to sustain,
To Saturn's sons did of her load complain,
Whose swelling womb the gods agreed to ease
By slaughtering war a-land aud wrecks by seas.
And fatal was it to this shepherd's boy,
That in his bosom bare the baue of Troy,H
To wander by that sacred place alone
(Belike his nymph and walking-mate was gone ) ;
Aud there was chosen judge to end the** strife
That after cost tT full many a man his life.
And thus this doughty daysman,*! as I read,
Did crankly §§ venture on this thankless deed :
Whom Juno first, that proud |||| and stately
goddess,
Entic'd with offer HH of much wealth and rich ess ;
And certes *** gold hath store of eloquence.
Him Pallas eke, the queen of sapience,
Tempted with wisdom +++ and with chivalry,
To win the golden ball bequeath'd to beauty.
But neither wealth nor wisdom might him move,
When Venus gan t' encounter him with love.
So, led away with over-vain conceit,
And surfeiting belike on pleasure's bait,+J+
As men are wont to let the better go
Aud choose the worse, this jolly herd-groom, §§§
lo,
* shepherd's swain] Ed. 1601 "swain disguis'd."
f won] i. e. dwell.
% sudden] Ed. 15S9 "wondrous."
§ those goddesses] Ed. 15S9 "the goddesses." — Here
Walker (Shakespeare's Vtrsification, &c.,p. 210) would alter,
for the metre's sake, "goddesses" to "goddess"' (the
contracted plural).
|| That Ate brought, he ] Ed. 1589 ;
" That some fell furie threw among them all.
Andfatall was it," &c.
IT bare the bane of Troy] Ed. 1604 " carried fire for
Troy."
** the] Ed. 1589 "this."
ft cost] Ed. 15S9 "lost."
J{ daysman] i. e. umpire.
§§ crankly] j. e. briskly.
IHI that proud] Ed. 15S9 "the great."
HIT offer] Ed. 1589 "honor."
*** certes] i. e. certainly,
ttt Tempted with wisdom, &c] Ed 1604;
"Would for pure wisdom's worth and chivalry
This earthly swain to praise her heavenly beauty.
But neither wealth nor wisdom's gifts might move,
When Venus 'gan t' enchant his thoughts with love."
Jit belike on pleasure's bait] Ed. 1604 "on pleasure's
wanton bait."
§SS herd-groom] Ed. 1589 " shephcard."
In hope to win the flower of gallant Greece,*
Fair Helena, that brave and peerless piece,
Giveth the prize to Lady Venus' grace, f
And ends with endless war this doubtful case.
Ah Paris ! hadst thou had but equal X eyes,
Indifferent in bestowing of the prize,
Thy human wits § might have discerned well
Where the || true beauty of the mind did dwell :
But men must err, because that U men they be,
And men with love y-blinded cannot see.**
Throughout the world the rumour being blown
Of this event, the man was quickly known,
And homewards +t comes, forsooth, to luck-
less Xt Troy,
Of yore a shepherd's lad,§§ King Priam's boy;
And in his bosom lodg'd |||| an uncouth heat,
Tbe strength whereof began to grow so great
That needly Paris Till must prepare to see
What might the substance of the*** shadow be
That yet his fancy wrought upon so fast.
So, furnished with men and ships, at last
To Lacedsemon doth this minion come ;
The winds made way, the sea affording room :
In fine, the cut and voyage seeming ++t short,
The knight arrives at Menelaus' court,
Where such his entertainment was, I find,
As justly might content a princely mind ;
For she was there to give him welcome tho,JJJ
Who more his inward sense than eyes§§§ did
know :
A lusty, brave, and lovely |||||| dame was she,
A lass well worthy to be Paris' fee.liUH
* the floxcer of gallant Greece] Ed. 1589 " the gallant
flower of Greece. "
f Giveth the prize to Lady Venus' grace] Ed. 1604 "Giveth
this beauty's prize to Venus' grace."
X equal] i. e. impartial.
§ wits] Ed. 15S9 "wit."
j| Where the] Ed. 1589 "Wherein."
U that] Ed. 1604 "but."
** cannot see] Ed. 1604 "may not see." — Iu England's
Parnassus, 1600, (under the head "Beauty", p. ly,) this
couplet is given thus ;
"All men do err, because that men they be,
And men with beauty blinded cannot see."
ft homewards] Ed 1604 "homeward."
J{ luckier] Ed. 1604 " wretched."
§§ lad] Ed. 15S9 "swayne."
HII bosom lodg'd] Ed. 15S9 " brest did beare.
HIT That needly Paris] — needly, i.e. necessarily. — Ed.
15S9 "As needes Sir Paris."
*** the] Ed. 1589 "this."
ttt seeming] Ed. 1589 "beeing."
ttt tho] i. e. then.
§§§ <y«J Ed - 15S9 "eye."
HUH lovely] Ed. 15S9 "liuely."
HH1I A lass well worthy to be Paris' fee] Ed. 1604
" Whom Venus promis'd Paris for his/ee." (In applying
the word "lass" to Helen, Peelc was warranted by the
usage of the classical writers : see Orelli's note on the
r
THE TALE OF TROY.
553
The queen herself that hight * fair Helena,
Whom yet unseen his thoughts did all obey ;
And by the hand she takes this gallant t guest,
And gives him entertainment of the best.
Yet stately Troy did nourish in her £ pride,
And Priam, whom no king § might mate
beside,
Till love and hate together did conspire
To waste this town with swift-devouring fire. ||
The Prince of Troy gau easily now to see
How well her person with her fame did gree;
When calling H on Dame Venus for his due,
The King of Sparta with a lordly crew
Must post from home, and leave his wife, for-
sooth,
To give Sir Paris welcome for his tooth :
Thus Venus first, to help love's policy,
Advantag'd him ** with opportunity.
And now, as lovers wont their time t' espy.+t
This lover can his task full well apply,
And strives to court his mistress cunningly,
(No whit in fear of women's surquedry,J+)
Whose tender breast the conquering god of love,
As will'd his dame, with arrow §§ gau to prove,
And found it fit for love's impression.
No sooner was King Menelaus gone
But Helen's heart had ta'en so great a flame
As love iucreas'd with Paris' only name : ||||
And now she doth H H survey his lovely face,
And curiously observe each courtly grace ;
And after large disputes of right and wrong,
What did to love and womanhood belong, —
Ah, that this love will not be over-rul'd,***
Ah, that these lovers uillt+t be better school'd ! —
After sweet lines, that from this stranger's pen
Came swiftly to her reading now and then,
passage of Horace, "puella; | Jam virum expertse." Cairn.
iii. 14, 10.)
* hiffht] i.e. was called.
t this gallant] Ed. 15S9 "her new come."
t her] Ed. 1589 "his."
§ king] Ed. 15S9 "prince."
|| this town with swift-devouring fire] Ed. 1589 " this
towne and realme with wastful jire."
U When calling, &c] i. e. When Pons calling on Venus,
&c.
»* him] Ed 1604 "them."
ft time t' e?py] Ed. 15S9 "times espie."
tt surquedry] i.e presumption, arroganco. — This line is
nut in ed. 15S9.
§§ arrow] Ed. 15S9 "arrowes."
Illl with Paris' only name] i. e. with the mere name of
Paris. — Ed. 1604 "with sound of Paris' name."
U«f doth] Ed. 15S9 "gau."
*** wiU not be over-rul'd] Ed. 1589 " icill be no better
rulde."
tt* nill] i.e. will not.
Regard of honour thrown aside by this,
She arms her boldly to this great amiss;*
And, for her heart was from her body hent,f
To Troy this Helen with her lover went,
Thinking, perdy,J a part contrary kind,§
Her heart so raught,|| herself to stay behind.
And thus hath Paris with his cunning caught
The dainty bird that all so far he sought.
No sooner were they started thus away
But thatTI the king, yet all too late a day,
Had news of this unworthy treacherous**
deed,
And after (says iny story) makes soinet-f
speed ;
But hardy %$ Love, that hath no leaden heels,
Tied wings belike §§ unto the Trojan's keels.
Away flies Paris with his chased prey,
As blithe Illl as bird of morning's light in May,
And lands in Troy the beauteous %% Helena;
Whom aged Priam and Queen Hecuba,
And*** all their nobleftt sons and daughters too,
Welcome with royal feasts and great JJ+ ado,
And every lovely dame and courtly §§§ knight
Salute, to do their sovereign honour's right. ||||||
The peers, the princes, and the lords of
Greece,
Touch' d with the rape of this reproachful piece,
Not able to endure this^IH^I villany,
Dishonour to their state and country,****
In fury gan the quarrel undertake ;
Not all alone for Menelaus' sake,
But to rebuke and to avenge beside
Helen's revolt,t+tt Paris' adulterous pride;
* amiss] i. e. fault.
t lent] i. e. seized, taken.
J perdy] i. e. par Dieu, verily.
§ contrary kind] i. e. contrary to nature.
|| raught] i.e. snatched away.
IT that] Ed. 1589 "straight."
** treacherous] Ed. 1589 "trayterous."
ft makes some] Ed. 15S9 "gins to."
{J hardy] Ed. 1589 "conquering."
§§ Tied wings belike] Ed. 1589 " Belike tide wings."
III! As blithe, &c] This line is not in ed. 15S9.
Ill beauteous] Ed. 15S9 "gallant."
*** And] Ed. 15S9 "With."
ttt noble] Ed. 1604 "princely."
}»* great] Ed. 1589 "much."
§§§ courtly] Ed. 15S9 "lustie."
HUH Salute, to do their sovereign honour's right] Ed. 15S9
"Doe pay the priuce such honour as they might";
which the author altered perhaps because " princes '
occurs in the next line.
W Not able to endure this] Ed. 15S9 "Not suffering
such barbarous."
»*** to their rtatc and country] Ed. 1604 " to the honour
of the country." But in our early poets (Shakespeare
included; "country" is frequently a trisyllable.
tttt revolt] Ed. 1589 " false loue. '
554
THE TALE OF TROY.
Making provision for a long-liv'd * war,
That wounded all so deep as t yet the scar
Remains, and will abide J from day to day,
That teeth of§ fretting Time shall never wear
away.
In Aulis' gulf they mightily assemble,
Whose power might make the proudest Troy to
tremble :
Lord Agamemnon there among them all,
With Greeks' consent, was chosen general.
Before this time a while, as I do || read,
Ulysses, by the wit % of Palamede,
Unhappy man,** was fetch'd from Ithaca,
Yet well could counterfeit a cause of stay
To tarry with his wife Penelope ;
But private cause must common cause obey,
And though he feigned ft madness for the
nonce,++
Yet could §§ Sir Palamedes all at once,
To sift his wile, lay down |||| his tender son,
Whom while the sire refus'd to over-run,
That play'd the frantic ploughman there UU in
vain,
He roundly brought him to *** tbe Argive train ;
Who.ftt for the hate he harbour'd in his head,
Nill cease till this Sir Palamede was dead. XXX
So Peleus' valiant §§§ son, the great Achilles,
That lately |||||| with the Grecians went to seas,
Restrain'd a while HUH iu habit of a woman,
Unworthy wrong done to so brave a man,
* long-liv'd] Ed. 1589 "lasting."
f as] Ed. 15S9 "and."
t abide] Ed. 1589 "endure."
§ teeth of] Not in ed. 1604.
|| do] Ed. 1589 "can."
1 wit] Ed. 1589 "meanes."
** Unhappy man, &c.
Yet well could, &c.
To tarry uith, &c.
But private cause, &c] The copy of ed. 1604 which was
lent to me by Mr. Rodd wants the leaf containing these
four lines. (I have already noticed that no more than
two lines are contained in each page of that very dimi-
nutive edition.)
tt ftigned] Ed. 1589 "faind a."
J t the nonce] i. e. the occasion.
§§ could] Ed. 1589 "can."
IHI To lift las wile, lay down] Ed. 1589 " To try At* wit,
offer."
HI there] Ed. 15S9 "all "
*** him to] Ed. 1601 "unto."
lit Who] Ed. 1589 "That."
J!t Nill cease tilt this Sir Palamede was dead] Nill, i. e.
Will not.— Ed. 16ii4 "Accus'd him to the camp that
doom'd him dead."
§S§ valiant] Ed. 1589 "noble."
HUH latdy] Ed. L589 "luth'lie."
UHU Rettravn'd a while, &c] Ed. 1589;
" Clad by his dame in habile of a woman,
Vd worthy cowardize of a valiant man,
Ulysses with his toys and trifles trim,
In pedler's base array, decipher'd him.
The flower * of Greece and armies all by this,
For want of wind, had t hover'd long in Aulis :
What mighty men misdo the meaner rue ;
So great an ill by lingering did % ensue.
So far enrag'd § was angry Artemis
With Agamemnon's sin and small amiss
For striking in the chase a gentle hind,
The Grecians pine, Phoebe restrains the wind :
And, will he, nill he, Agamemnon must,
If he will termed be a general just,
Despatch some trusty messenger or page,
Under pretext of love and || marriage,
To fetoh to Aulis' strand H the Argive queen
To see the spousals of fair Iphigen ;
And Prince Achilles was her fere misnam'd : **
But all untowardly the tt business fram'd ;
For Clytemnestra had espied ere long,
At their arrive, the fetch and fatal wrong. XX
In few,§§ the virgin slain in sacrifice,
The Greeks have wind at will, the waters rise.
How many ills do follow one annoy !
Now merrily sail these |||| gallant Greeks to Troy,
And scour the seas,HU and keep their compass
right :
Away they fly, their tackling toft and tight,
As shoots a streaming star in winter's night ;
A thousand ships well-rigg'd, a glorious sight,
Waving ten thousand flags, they leave the port j
Aud, as ye wot, this war and tragic sport
It was for Helena.
But that no cowardize this deede can hight
In him that was approu'd so good a knight,
Ulissfs with his toyes and tryfles trim
Full like a pedler can decipher him."
* flower] Ed 1589 "force."
t had] Ed. 1589 "haue."
t did] Ed. 1589 "dooth."
§ So far enrag'd, &c] Instead of this and the uext
three lines, ed 15S9 has, —
" Nor was there other helpe but Iphigen,
That might enforce the windes to blow agen."
|| pretext of love anil] Ed. 15S9 "pretence of hue or."
1 strand] Ed. 1589 "gulfe."
** fere misnam'd]— fere, i. e. mate, husband. — Ed. 1589
"louer namde."
tt the] Ed. 1589 "this."
tt At their arrive, the fetch and fatal wrong] Ed. 15S9
" Whereto this subtile message did belong."
§§ In few] Ed. 1589 "In fine."
IHI these] Ed 1589 "our."
HIT And scour the seas, &c] Ed. 1589;
" And scoure the seas, <fc cheerly runne forth right.
As shootes a streaming starre in winters night,
Away they fiye, their tackling teft and tight,
Toppo and top-gallant in the bra u est sort.
And, as ye wote," &c.
THE TALE OF TROY.
555
The King of Troy gan quickly * understand
How Greeks with all their power were hard at
hand ;
And sadly do the peers their prince advise,
The while in rage Cassandra calls and cries,
" Render, ye Trojans, to these madding Greeks
The dame that all this expedition seeks."
And to this battle, bruited far by fame,
Great aid of arms on either party came :
From Tyberf and the quaking Tanais,
To Troy, the queen of Amazons by this,
Penthesilea, with her warlike baud,
Arrives J in honour of King Priam's land.
And over-long it were for me to tell
In fury of this war § what hap befell ;
How many Greeks, how many Trojan knights,
As chivalry by kind || in love delights,
Upon their helmets can their plumes advance,U
And twist their ladies' colours on ** their
lance.
So doth this love make men adventurous : t+
So hardy was the true knight Troilus,
And all for love ++ of the unconstant Cressed,
T' encounter with th' unworthy Diomed.
But leave I here of Troilus to say,§§
Whose passions for the ranging Cressida,
Read as fair|||| England's Chaucer doth unfold,
Would tears exhale from eyes of iron mould.
And that I may give TlH every man his right,
Sir *** Paris mounted, in his armour bright,
Pricks forth, and on his helm his mistress' sleeve :
How could that sight but Menelaus grieve ?
Aud now the Greeks, and now the Trojans may,
As pleaseth +f+ Fortune, bear away the day.
* The King of Troy gan quickly] Ed. 1589 "King Priam
now gan easelie."
t Tyber] So both eds— Qy. "Tyras " or "Ister"?
X Arrives] Ed. 1.089 "Ariu'd."
§ In fury of this war] Ed. 1589 "In this afflicting
warre."
|| kind] i. e. nature.
I Upon their helmets can their plumes advance] Ed. 15S9
" Vpon their helmes their plumes can well aduaunce."
** on] Ed. 1589 "in."
ft So doth this love make men adventurous] Ed 1589 " So
loue doth make them bold and venturous."
\X And all for love] Ed. 15S9 "All for pure loue."
§§ of Troilus to say] Ed. 1004 " of Troilus ought to say ":
but we have just had "Troilus " used as a trisyllable.
Illl Read as fair, &c] Instead of this and the next line,
ed. 1589 has ;
" Requires a vollume to vnfold at large ;
And cunning ueede he be that takes the charge,
To paint the colloures of that chauuging peece,
Staine to all dames of Troy and stately Greece."
II give] Ed. 1589 "doo."
*** Sir] Ed. 1604 " So."
ttf pleaseth] Ed. 1604 "pleased."
The time * of truce set down by martial law,
The dames of Troy with lovely looks do draw
The hearts of many Greeks,t and, lo, at last
The great Achilles is enthralled fast,
That night ne X day he might his rest enjoy ;
So was his heart engaged whole to Troy,
That now no more of arms this warrior would,
Or, mought § I say, no more for love he could :
The camp complains upon his love and sloth,
And charge him with his knighthood and his
oath.
Now rides out Hector, call'd the || scourge of
Greeks,
And, like the untam'd panther, pries and seeks
Where he may prove his strength ;U and, storming
thus,
He lights upon Achilles' friend, Patroclus.
King Peleus' son, thus rous'd, soon gan** him
greet,
And, lion-like, runs fiercely ft bim to meet,
For rescue of his friend, as he were wood, + J
And charging so his staff in furious mood,§§
As falcon |||| wonts to stoop upon his UU prey,
Forgetful of the fair Polyxena,
As Hector had unhors'd Patroclus tho,***
Despoiling him in field, the more thet+t woe,
Unwares to wreak Patroclus' deathJJJ beleek,§§§
He slays a peerless Trojan for a Greek ;
And having thus perform'd this piece of || || || treason,
He triumphs in the spoils of Priam's son.
The Grecians now doUUIj clap their hands for
glee;
But blood will blood, so ever mought **** it be.
■ time] Ed. 1589 "times."
t Greeks] Ed. 1604 "a knight."
J ne] Ed. 1604 "nor."
§ mought] i.e. might.— Ed. 1604 "shall."
|| Now rides out Hector, call'd the] Ed. 1604 " Out Hector
rides, surnam'd the."
I may prove his strength] Ed. 1589 " might proove his
force."
** King Peleus' son, thus rous'd, soon gan] " When as the
great Achilles gan."
ft fiercely] Ed. 1589 "proudlie."
XX wood] i. e. mad.
§§ so his staff in furious mood] Ed. 1589 " tight his staffe
in eager moode."
Illl As falcon, <fec] Ed. 1589 transposes this and the
next line.
II his] Ed. 1589 "her."
*** tho] i. e. then.
ttt the more the] Ed. 15S9 "alas for."
XXX Patroclus' death] Ed. 1589 " this deede of his."
§§§ bdetk] i. e. belike, — so written for the rhyme.
HUH piece of] Ed. 1589 "murdrous."
III The Grecians now do] Ed. 1589 "Now gan the
Grecians" (altered, I suppose, because "gan" occurs in
the next line but one).
**** mought] i. e must.
55G
THE TALE OF TROY.
The Trojans' glory now gau waxen dim,
And cold * their hope, sith death had t seiz5d
him
That gave them hope and happy fortune too.
The mother-queen withouten more ado
Gins + whet her wits to wreak this malice done
And traitorous § murder of her valiant son.
When Hector's death was more than half forgot,
Or at the least dissembled well, I wot,
Right wisely doth || this lady offer make,
That if the Prince Achilles list ^T to take
His love, her daughter Polyxene,** to spouse,
In Pallas' temple should they make their ft
vows :
And this the queen, that reck"d J+ no law of arms,
Vow'd clear to him and void of further harms.
But when the §§ Greek did little think of guile,
To work revenge for Hector's death the while,
Even in the fatal place Sir Paris than |j||
With poison'd arrow rid Till the heedless man ;
And where his mother Thetis had him Lent,
Close to the heel th' envenom'd shatt was stnt.
Now lies the great Achilles dead in Troy ;
The Greeks make moan, the Trojans leap for joy,
And Priam doth bestow his bloodless bones
Upon his discontented *** Myrmidons.
Immediately began an irksome ttt brawl
Among the lords and Grecian princes J+J all
About §§§ the armour of this valiant knight.
Sir Ajax first doth claim it as his right ;
So doth the gracious |||||1 Lord of Ithaca
Look 1[\TT for desert **** to bear the prize away ;
* cold] Ed. 1604 "pale."
t had] Ed 1589 " hath.'-
} Gins] Ed. 15S9 "Gau."
{, traitorous] Ed. 1604 "tragic."
|| Right wisely doth] — wisely, i. e. artfully. — Ed. 1589
" Full wiselie gan. "
t list] Ed. 1604 "pleas'd."
** His love, her daughter Polyxene] Ed. 15S9 " Her
daughter faire Polixena."
H they make th-ir] Ed. 1604 "he make his."
Jt And this the queen, that reck'd] Ed. 1589 "And thus the
queene that knew."
§§ tiu] Ed. 1589 "this."
Illl than] i. e. then : see note *, p. 206, sec. col.
TTT With poison' d arrow rid, &c] — rid, i.e. despatched;
— he-nt, i. e. seized, held. — Ed. 1589;
" With poysoned shaft dispateht the haples man ;
And where his motlier Thetis him not hent,
Directlie thether was his arrowe sent."
**» ,i, ,■„„/. „/,,/] I0,l. i.osii •• wretched hartles."
ttt an irksome] l-'A 1589 "a bloodie."
i;t Grecian princes] Ed. 1589 " Greekish captaines."
at] Ed. 1589 "Touching."
.* doth the gracious] Ed. 1589 " And then gainst him
I
«!«,«, look] FA. 1589 "Thinkea."
""■ desert] Ed. 1604 "deserts.''
And of the two * but one might it enjoy ;
And plead they must upon the strand of Troy
Before their t ship.s, where Ajax in a heat,
For that the Btomach J of the man was great,
Lays open to the Greeks his service done
In their affairs since first this war § begun,
And twits Ulysses with his cowardice :
But, Ajax, this for thee may not suffice,
For though the targe were over-huge || to bear,
And great Achilles' casque U unfit to wear
For wise Laertes' son, yet policy,
The sinews and true ** strength of chivalry,
Is that whereof this knight might tt chiefly
vaunt ;
So with his words he can JJ their wits enchant,
That, when he must conclude and say no more,.
He §§ shows the fatal sign that to the shore
He §§ stole by night from Troy, and then quoth
he,
'Bestow it here, ye Greeks, if ye nill f||| give it
me."
Wherewith he won their hearts, and charm'd
their eyes,
And from Sir Ajax got the U^f martial prize :
The man, whom wrath and fury overcame,
Not able to endure*** this open shame,
Foully sought violent means to stint this strife,
And with a deadly stab reav'd his own life.
And now this wasteful war that lasted long,
To dames of Troy and Greece a tedious wrong,
With hot encounter and unhappy fight,
And tragic end ttt of many a hardy knight,
Gan sort ttt to this, that Greeks, to blear the
eyes
Of Trojans, gin § § § take counsel and advice
* tuo] Ed. 1589 "twayne."
f their] Ed. 1589 "the."
t stomach] i. e. anger, haughtiness.
§ this war] Ed. 1604 "those wars."
|| over-huge] Ed. 1589 " ouer-big."
If great Achilles' casque] Ed 15S9 "stoute^cHifcshelme."
** The sinews and true] Ed. 1589 " That hight indeede
the."
ft Is that whereof this knight might] Ed. 15S9 " Was that
whereof this knight doth."
tt can] See note *, p. 287, sec. col. — Ed. 1589 "g.in."
§§ He] Ed. 1589 "A."
IIH Bestow it here, ye Greeks, if ye nill] Ed. 1604 " Here,
Greeks, bestow it, if you nill."
Iflf Sir Ajax got the] Ed. 1604 "lord Ajax got this."
(But we have had "Sir Ajax " a little before.)
*** Not abU to endure, &c] Ed. 1604 ;
" Dislionour'd with the Greeks, ill brook'd the shame.
But sought foul means basely to stint the strife," <tc.
ftf tragic end] Ed 1589 " hast'ned death."
JJ} sort] Ed. 15S9 "grow "
§§§ Of Trojans, gin, A'c. | Ed. 1589 ;
" Of their foroweried foes, began deuise :
And hailing built a great vnweldie frame," &c.
THE TALE OF TKOY.
557
To rear by art a huge unwieldy frame,
Much like a horse; and having fraught* the
same
With men of war, they make a cunning f show,
As if + from Troy they homewards § meant to
go.
And raise the siege, and leave the prize behind,
But gods do know they nothing less did || mind ;
For, as I ween, my history doth say,
To Tenedos the T{ Grecians slunk away,**
An isle that gave them harbour and abode :
Now leave we there these Greeks to lie at
road.
Amidst this hurly-burly and uproar,
King Priam sends away young Poly dure,
With store of treasure and with ft mickle
muck,
His youngest son, to Thrace : but little luck
Ensu'd hereof; XX for Pylymnestor, lo,
The thirst of Priam's pillage working §§ so,
A woful tale, as I have heard it told,
Murders this prince for lucre of his gold.
The traitorous HII Sinon, for his villany
Th' infainous ^IU author of Troy's tragedy,
While subtle Grecians lurk'd in *** Tenedos,
Gan with the silly Trojans highly glose,
And tell a tale that sounded like a++t truth,
A tale that mov'd the hearers' hearts to XXX
ruth ;
And so bewitch'd King Priam and his court,
That now at last, to Trojans' fatal hurt,
Instead of that might most their states advance,
They greed §§§ to hoise this engine of mischance,
And make a breach, like fools, and never liu ||||||
Till their own hands had pull'd their enemies iu.
Thus riot, rape, and vain credulity,
Bin natn'd chief causes < !IT1T of Troy's tragedy.
* having fraught] Ed. 1589 "well ystuft."
f cunning] Ed. 1589 "subtill."
t if] Ed. 1589 "though."
§ homeward, 1 :] Ed. 1589 "homeward."
|| did] Ed. 1589 "doo."
*\ the] Ed. 1604 "these" (but in the second Hue after
this we have " these Greeks ").
** slunk away] Ed. 1589 " tooke their way."
tt with] Ed. 1(10-1 "of."
It hereof] Ed. 1589 "thisdeede."
§;• pillage working] Ed. 15S9 "riches ehoakt him."
HII traitorous] Ed. 15S9 "subtile."
1J1F infamous] Ed. 1589 "noted."
*** While subtle Grecians lurk'd in] Ed. 1589 " When
traytrous Greekes had sltmcke to."
ttt that sounded like a] Ed. 15S9 "nerdie of little."
tJJ A tale that, mov'd the /leavers' hearts to] Ed. 1589
"Although, as it befell, of mickle."
§§§ greed] Ed. 15S9 "gree."
I! || || lin] i. e. cease.
lUH causes] Ed. 1589 "authors."
This * monstrous horse, that in his spacious t
sides
A traitorous troop of armed X Grecians hides,
Gan now discharge his vast and hideous load,
And spread his bloody bowels all § abroad.
It was the time when midnight's sleep and rest
With quiet pause the town of Troy possess'd ;
The Greeks forsake their || ships and make
return :
Now Troy, as was foretold, began to burn,
And Ilium's lofty U towers to smoke apace ;
The conquering foe begins ** amain to chase
Th' affrighted Phrygians, that now +f unawares
False Sinon had entrapped XX in his snares.
Ah, what a piercing sight it was to see
So fair §§ a town as Troy was said to be,
By quenchless fire laid level with the soil,
The prince and people made the soldiers' spoil !
Th' unhappy Priam maz'd with frights and fears,
Seeing his palace flame about his ears,
Out of his wretched slumber hastily start,||||
And, weening to have play'd a young man's part,
Girta-tolHI his arming-sword with tremblinghaud ;
But she that erst brought forth *** the fatal brand
That fir'd the town, the most unhappy queen,
Whose like for wretchedness +t+ was never seen,
Said, " Leave, my lord ; becomes not us XXX to
strive,
Whom would no morning sun might see alive !
A ud fly from aid of men to powers divine,
And so with me lay hold on Phoebus' shrine."
But he, whose bloody mind and murdering rage
Nor awe §§§ of gods nor reverence of age
Could temper from a deed so tyrannous,
Achilles' son, the fierce uubridled Pyrrhus,
His father's angry ghost |||||| enticing him,
With slaughtering hand, with visage pale and
grim,«HH
» This] Ed. 1589 "The."
t spacious] Ed. 1589 "hugy."
J troop of armed] Ed. 15S9 "throung o/Bubtill."
^ spread his bloody bowels all] Ed. 1589 "silently dis-
perse his strength."
|| their] Ed. 1589 "the."
1 lofty] Ed 1589 "statelie."
** foe begins] Ed. 15S9 " Greekes begiu. "
tt Th' affrighted Phrygians, that now] Ed. 1.">S9 "And
follow fas Itheir foes, that."
J* entrapped] Ed. 15^9 "betrapped."
^.< fair} Ed. 1589 "braue."
HII start] i. e. started.
1ft Girts-to] Ed. 1H04 "Girds to"
*"* that erst brought forth] Ed. 1589 "alas, that bare "
ttt wretchedness] Ed. 1589 " wretched hap."
tt} not us] Ed. 1589 " vs not."
§§§ aice] Ed. 1589 "lawe."
||||!| angry ghost] Ed. 1580 "ghost belike."
1«[H grim} Ed. 1589 "dim."
558
THE TALE OF TROY.
Hath hent * this aged Priam by the hair,
Like butcher bent to slay ; and even there,
The man that liv'd so many golden years,
The great commander t of such lordly peers,
The King of Troy, the mighty King of Troy,
With cruel iron this cursed Greekish boy
Rids of his life, as whilom he had done
With poison'd shaft J Paris, old Priam's son.
Thus souls by swarms do press to Pluto's hall ;
Thus, naked Troy, or now not Troy at all,
Done is thy pride, dim is thy glorious § gite.||
Slain TJ is thy prince in this unhappy fight.
My pen, forbear to write of Hecuba,
That made the sun his glistering ** chariot stay,
And raining tears his golden face to hide,
For ruth of that did after her ft betide ;
Sith this thrice-wretched lady liv'd ++ the last,
Till Fortune's spite and malice all was past,
Aud, worn with sorrows, §§ wexen fell and mad ;
And all the happiness that Priam had
In his mishap || || and bloody funeral,
Was that he saw not yet the end of all,—
His daughters ravish'd,*[fTI slain in sacrifice,
Astyauax, before his mother's eyes,
* hent] i. e. seized.
t great commander] Ed. 1589 "lord and maister."
X poison'd shaft] Ed. 1604 "shaft envenorn'd."
§ glorious] Ed. 1604 "glittering" (but we have "glis-
tering " in the third line after this).
|| gite] See note *, p 473, see. col.
t Slain] Ed. 1589 "Dead."
** sun his glistering] Ed. 1589 "glorious amine his "
H after her] Ed. 1589 "afterwards."
Jt thrice-wretched lady liv'd] Ed. 1589 "vnhappy queeno
suruiude."
§§ sorrows] Ed. 1589 "sorrow."
Illl mishap] Ed. 1589 "mishaps."
Till His daughters ravish' 'd, &c] Ed. 1604 "His children
racisk'd, &c." (Cassandra was "ravished," Polyxena
"slain in sacrifice.")
Hector's sweet boy,* thrown from the highest
tower :
Thus to our end f there needeth but an hour.
Short tale to make, when thus+ the town of
Troy
The Greeks had sack'd, to Asia's great annoy,
When Pyrrhus had the guilty Paris slain,
Lo, now at last the Greeks have home again,
With loss of many a Greek and Trojan's life,
Their wither'd flower, King§ Menelaus' wife.
The good JEne&s, whom the gods beleek ||
Reserv'd some better future U hap to seek,
With old Anchises, leaves this conquer'd** town,
And, on the seas y-tossed up and down,
Arrives at ft Lavine land, when he had seen
The bounty of the famous ++ Carthage queen,
Whom, forc'd by fate,§§ this wandering knight
deceiv'd,
That him and his so royally receiv'd.
My author says, to honour Helen's |||| name,
That through the world hath been belied by fame,
How when the king her fere*HH was absent thence,
(A. tale that well may lessen her offence,)
Sir Paris took the town by arms and skill,
And carried her to Troy *** against her will ;
Whom whether afterward she lov'd or no,
I cannot tell, but may imagine so.
* Hector's sweet boy] Ed. 1589 "The princelie babe."
t end] Ed. 1589 "deathes."
t thus] Ed. 1589 "first."
§ Their wither'd flower, King] Ed. 1589 " Vnhappy
Helen."
ll beUek] i. e. belike, — so written for the rhyme.
1[ better future] Ed. 1589 " further better. "
»* conquer'd] Ed. 1589 "wretched."
ft at] Ed. 1589 "in."
JJ famous] Ed. 1604 "bounteous."
§§ forc'd by fate] Ed. 1589 " driuen by fates."
Illi to honour Helen's] Ed. 1604 "in favour of her."
Iflf fere] i. e. husband.
*"* her to Troy] Ed. 1604 " Helen thence."
AN ECLOGUE GRATULATORY,
ETC.
An Eylogve Gratvlatorie. Entituled : To the right honorable, and renowmcd Shepheatd nf Albion* Arcadia : Robert
Earle of Essex and Ewe, for his welcome into England from. I'ortngall. Done by George Peele. Maister of arts in Oxon.
At London ; Printed by Richard Jones, and are to be solde at the signe of t/ie Rose and Crowne, outr against the Faulcon.
1589. 4lo.
This piece is now given from a transcript (vide Account of Peek and his Writings, p. 335) which belonged to the
late Mr. Heber.
Essex joined the expedition in behalf of Don Antonio (seo p. 546), having fittod out several ships at his own
expense. He sailed without the consent or knowledge of the Queen ; but her anger at his secret departure was
easily appeased on his return. He conducted himself during the expedition with his usual gallantry and
generosity.
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL OF ESSEX
HIS WELCOME INTO ENGLAND FROM PORTUGAL.
PIERS.
Didte* Id pcean, et, Id, bis dicite, pcean J
Inpatriam rcdiit magnus Apollo mam.
PALINODE.
Herdgroom, what gars t thy pipe to go bo loud ?
Why bin thy looks so smicker % and bo proud !
Perdy,§ plain Piers, but this couth || ill agree
With thilk U bad fortune that aye thwarteth
thee.
PIERS.
That thwarteth me, good Palinode, is fate,
Y-born was Piers to be infortunate ;
Yet shall my bag-pipe go so loud and shrill
That heaven may entertain my kind good -will ;
lo, io pcean t
PALINODE.
Sot, I say, losel,** lewdest tt of all swains,
Sing'st thou proud paeans on these open plains ?
So ill sitteth XX this strain, this lofty note,
With thy rude tire and grey russet coat.
PIERS.
Grey as my coat is, green all are my cares,
My grass to dross, my corn is turn'd to tare3 ;
Yet even and morrow will I never lin §§
To make my crowd |||| speak as it did begin ;
IS, is pcean /
* Dicite, &c] This line is from Ovid, Ar. Am. ii. 1.
t gars] i. e. makes, causes.
J smicker] i. e. smirking.
§ Perdy] i. e. Par Dial, verily.
|| couth] i. o. could.
^f thilk] i. e. this or that same.
*• losel] i. e. worthless fellow.
\ \ lewdest] i. e. most ignorant, most untaught.
}J sitteth] i. e. agreeth.
§ § lin] i. e. cease.
Illl crowd] i. e. fiddle, — instrument.
PALINODE.
Thou art too crauk,* and crowdest all too high;
Beware a chip fall not into thine eye :
Man, if triumphals here be in request,
Then let them chant them that can chant them
best.
PIERS.
Thou art a sour swain, Palinode, perdy ;
My bag-pipe vauuteth not of victory :
Then give me leave sonizance t to make
For chivalry and lovely learning's sake ;
IS, io pcean f
PALINODE.
Thou hardy herdsman, dar'st thou of arms
chant ?
SikeJ verse, I tell thee, ought have a great
vaunt :
Then how may thy boldness scape a fine
frump 1 §
War's laud is matter for the brazen trump.
PIERS.
Of arms to sing I have nor lust nor skill ;
Enough is me to blazon my good-will,
To welcome home that long hath lacked been,
One of the jollicst shepherds of our green ;
IS, is pecan I
PALINODE.
Tell me, good Piers, I pray thec tell it me,
What may thilk jolly swain or shepherd be,
Or whence y-cotnen, that he thus welcome is,
That thou art all so blithe to see his bliss ?
" crank] i. e. brisk.
t snnizanee] i. e. sounding.
t Site] i.e. Such.
§ frump] i. e. flout.
o o
562
AN ECLOGUE
PIERS.
Palinode, thou makest a double demand,
"Which I will answer as I understand ;
Yet will I not forget, so God me mend,
To pipe loud pseans as my stanzas end ;
Id, id pcean /
Thilk shepherd, Palinode, whom my pipe praiseth,
Whose glory my reed to the welkin* raiseth,
He's a great herdgroom, certes, but no swain,
Save hers that is the flower of Phcebe's plain ;
Id, id pcean I
He's well-allied and loved of the best,
Well-thew'd,t fair and frank, and famous by his
crest;
His Rain-deer, racking X with proud and stately
pace,
Giveth to his flock a right beautiful grace ;
Id, id pcean I
He waits where our great shepherdess doth
wun,§
He playeth in the shade, and thriveth in the sun ;
He shineth on the plains, his lusty flock him by,
As when Apollo kept || in Arcady ;
Id, id pcean 1
Fellow in arms he was in their flow'ring days
With that great shepherd, good Philisides ; U
And in sad sable did I see him dight,**
Moaning the miss ft of Pallas' peerless knight ;
Id, id pcean /
With him he serv'd, and watch' d, and waited late,
To keep the grim wolf from Eliza's gate ;
And for their mistress, thoughten these two
swains,
They moughten t+ never take too mickle pains ;
Id, id pcean/
But, ah for grief ! that jolly groom is dead,
For whom the Muses silver tears have shed ;
Yet in this lovely swain, source of our glee,
Mun §§ all his virtues sweet reviven be ;
Id, id pctan I
* welkin] i. e. sky.
t Well-thew'd] i. e. well-mannered, well-disciplined,
having a good deportment : see Jamieson's Et. Diet, of
Soot. Lang, in v. Thewit.
X racking] i. e. moving on.
§ wun] i. e. dwell.
|| kept] i. e. resided, lived.
% Philisides] i. e. Sir Philip Sidnoy, who is frequently
celebrated under this name, which he himself invented.
** dight] i. e. dressed.
1 1 miss] i. o. loss.
tt moughten] i. o. might. [Mon.
*i Mun] i.e. Must,— may: sco Jamioson ubi supra in v.
PALINODE.
So moughten they, Piers, and happily thrive
To keepen this herdsman after death alive :
But whence, I pray thee tell me, come is he,
For whom thy pipe and paeans make such glee ]
PIERS.
Certes, sir shepherd, comen he is from far,
From wrath of deepest seas and storm of war,
Safe is he come — 0, swell, my pipe, with joy 1 —
To the old buildiDgs of new-reared Troy ; *
Id, id pcean /
From sea, from shore, where he with swink t and
sweat
Felt foeman's rage and summer's parching heat,
Safe is he come, laden with honour's spoil :
0, swell, my pipe, with joy, and break the while ;
Id, id pcean 1
PALINODE.
Thou foolish swain that thus art overjoy'd,
How soon may here thy courage be accoy'd ! X
If he be one come new from western coast,
Small cause hath he, or thou for him, to boast.
I see no palm, I see no laurel-boughs
Circle his temples or adorn his brows ;
I hear no triumphs for this late return,
But many a herdsman more dispos'd to mourn.
PIERS.
Pale lookest thou, like spite, proud Palinode ;
Venture doth loss, and war doth danger bode :
But thou art of those harvesters, I see,
Would at one shock spoil all the filberd-tree ;
Id, id pcean I
For shame, I say, give virtue honours due !
I'll please the shepherd but by telling true :
Palm mayst thou see and bays about his head,
That all his flock right forwardly hath led ;
Id, id pcean I
But, woe is me, lewd § lad, fame's full of lies,
Envy doth aye true honour's deeds despise ;
Yet chivalry will mount with glorious wings,
Spite all, and nestle near the seat of kings ;
Id, id pcean I
* new-rearid Troy] i. e. Troynovaut, — London.
t swink] i.e. toil.
} accoy'd] i. e. daunted.
§ lewd] i. e. ignorant, untaught.
GRATULATORY.
503
Base thrall is ho that is foul slander's slave :
To pleasen all what wight may him behave ?
Yea, Jove's great son, though he were now alive,
Mought find no way thilk labour to achive ; *
Id, id pcean I
PALINODE.
Well plead'st thou, gentle lad, for this great
peer :
Then tell me, sith but thou and I am f here,
Did not thilk + bag-pipe, man, which thou dost
blow,
A Farewell § on our soldiers erst bestow ?
How is't, then, thilk great shepherd of the field,
To whom our swains sike humble 'beisance yield,
And thou these lauds and labours seriously,
Was in that work not mention'd specially ?
PIERS.
Hark, Palinode, me dare not speak too loud;
Hence was he raught,|| wrapt in a fiery cloud,
With Mars his viceroy H and a golden drake,**
So that of him me durst no notice take;
Id, id pcean I
But now return'd, to royalize his fame,
Who3e mighty thoughts at honour's trophies aim,
Lest worthily I moughten witned f+ be,
I welcome him with shepherd's country glee ;
Id, id pecan I
And of his dread adventures here sing I,
Equivalent with the Tunic chivalry,
That brake his lance with terror and renown
Against the gates of slaughter'd Remus' town ;
Id, id pcean I
And was the first of many thousands more
That at Penichia Xt waded to the shore :
* achive] So written for the rhyme.
t thou and I am] See note §, p. 501, first col.
I thilk] See note ^T, p. 501, first col. — So old ed. four
times elsewhere : here and in two other places " thick."
§ A Farewell] See p. 549.
|| raught] i. e. snatched, earned off.
•fl Mart his viceroy] i. e. Sir John Norris.
** a golden drake] i. e. a golden dragon, — Sir Francis
Drake.
■ft witned] Or iciten'd — i. e. blamed.
Jt Penichia] i. e. Peniche. Essex commanded the troops
that landed there: see Southey's British Admirals, &c.,
vol. iii. p. 216.
There couth * he lead his landed flock so far,
Till 'a was left of men approv'd in war ;
Id, id pcean I
honour's fire, that not the brackish sea
Mought quench, nor foeman's fearful 'larums
lay!
So high those golden flakes done t mount and
climb
That they exceed the reach of shepherd's rhyme ;
Id, id pcean I
PALINODE.
What boot thy welcomes, foolish-hardy swain ?
Louder pipes than thine are going on this plain ;
Fair Eliza's lasses and her great grooms
Receive this shepherd with unfeign'd welcomes.
Honour is in him that doth it bestow;
Thy reed is rough, thy seat is all too low,
To writen sike praise: hadst thou blithe Homer's
quill,
Thou moughtst have matter equal with thy skill.
PIERS.
Twit me with boldness, Palin, as thou wilt,
My good mind be my glory and my guilt ;
Be my praise less or mickle, all is one,
His high deserts deserven to be known ;
Id, id pcean I
So cease, my pipe, the worthies + to record
Of thilk great shepherd, of thilk fair young lord ;
Leave him with luck to those well-tuned lays
That better ken § to sound sike shepherd's
praise ;
Id, id pman I
Now time is near to pen our sheep in fold,
And evening air is rheumatic and cold.
For my late songs plead thou, my pure good-will !
Though new-come once, brave earl, yet welcome
still »
Id, id pcean /
* couth] i. e. could.
t dons] i. e. do.
t worthies] i. e. worthy acta.
§ ken] i. e. know.
o 2
POLYHYMNIA.
Polyhymnia, Describing the honourable Triumph at Tylt, before her Maiestie, on the 17. of November last past, being
the first day of the three and thirtith yeare of Her Highnesseraigne. With Sir Henrie Lea his resignation of honour at Tylt,
to her Maiestie, and received by the right honorable the Earle of Cumberland. Printed at London by Richard Jhones 1590.
4to.
On the back of the title is ;
" Polyhymnia, /intituled, with all dutie to the Right Honourable Lord Compton of Compton. By George Peek,
Maister of A rtes in Oxforde. "
" It appears," says Nichols, (Prog, of Eliz. vol. iii. p. 41. ed. 1823,) " by Warton's notes on Milton, p. 593, that
George Peele wrote ' Polyhymnia, the Description, &c. 1590,' bvit of this I have not been able to obtain a copy."
I therefore reckon myself most fortunate in being able to offer to the reader a reprint of this very rare and curious
production from a copy in the Library of the University of Edinburgh, among the books presented by Drummond
in 16'26. In my first edition of Peele's Works the poem wanted several lines, Drummond's copy being slightly
mutilated. It is now given complete ; the omissions having been supplied, through the kindness of the Rev. Dr.
Bliss, from a MS. copy which was discovered in an old family mansion in Oxfordshire, and which, like other old
transcripts of our early poetry, has several variations from the printed copy. The Sonnet, at the end of this tract,
" His golden locks," &c. , was reprinted by Beloe (Anec. of Lit vol. ii. p. 5.) among 'Songs from Gawick collection;'
but though several pieces not dramatic are bound up in that collection, I have repeatedly searched it for Polyhymnia
in vain.
Sir Henry Lee was the son of Sir Anthony Lee, and of Margaret sister of Sir Thomas Wyatt. He died at his
mansion at Quarendon in Bucks, in 1011, aged 80.
The following long extract from Segar's Honor, Military and Ciuill, will perhaps be acceptable to the reader : it
forms the whole of the 54th Chapter of the 3d Book, and is entitled " The origmall occasions of the yeerely Triumphs
in England : "
"Here will we remember also (and I hope without enuie so may) that these annuall exercises in amies,
solemnized the 17. day of Nouember, were first begun and occasioned by the right vertuous and honourable Sir
Henry Lea, Master of her highnesse Armorie, and now deseraingly Knight of the Most Noble Order, who, of his
great zeale and earnest desire to eternize the glory of her maiesties court, in the beginning of her happy reigue,
voluntarily vowed (vnlesse infirmity, age, or other accident did impeach him), during his life, to present himselfe at
the tilt armed, the day* aforesayd yeerely, there to performe, in honor of her sacred maiestie, the promise he
formerly made. Whereupon the lords and gentlemen of the sayd court, incited by so worthy an example, deter-
mined to continue that custome, and, not vnlike to the antient Knighthood della Banda in Spaine, haue euer since
yerely assembled in armes accordingly : though true it is, that the author of that custome (being now by age
ouertaken) in the 33. yeere of her maiesties reigne resigned and recommended that office vnto the right noble
George Earle of Cumberland. The ceremonies of which assignation were publiquely performed in presence of her
maiestie, her ladies and nobilitie, also an infinite number of people beholding the same, as followeth.
" On the 17. day of Nouember, anno 1590, this honourable gentleman, together with the Earle of Cumberland,
hauing first performed their seruice in armes, presented themselues vnto her highnesse, at the foot of the staires
vnder her gallery-window in the Tilt-yard at Westminster, where at that time her maiestie did sit, accompanied
with the Vicouut Turyn Ambassador of France, many ladies, and the chiefest nobilitie.
" Her maiestie, beholding these armed knights comming toward her, did suddenly heare a musicke so sweete
and secret, as euery one thereat greatly marueiled. And hearkening to that excellent melodie, the earth, as it were,
opening, there appeared a Pauilion, made of white taffata, containing eight score elles, being in proportion like
vnto the sacred Temple of the Virgins Vestall. This Temple seemed to consist upon pillars of pourferry, arched
like vnto a church : within it were many lampes burning ; also on the one side there stood an altar couered with
cloth of gold, and thereupon two waxe candles burning in rich candlesticks ; upon the altar also were layd certaine
princely presents, which after by three virgins were presented vnto her maiestie. Before the doore of this Temple
stood a Crowned Pillar, embraced by an Eglantine-tree, whereon there hanged a table ; and therein written (with
letters of gold) this prayer following ;
Eliz^e, &c.
Piae, potenti, failicis.sima? virgin!,
fidei, pacis, nobilitatis vindiei,
cui Deus, astra, virtus,
eumma deuouerunt
omnia.
Post tot aunos, tot triumphos,
animam ad pedes positurus
tuos,
sacra senex
affixit arma.
Vitam quietam, imperium, famam
aeternam, ajteruam
precatur tibi,
sanguine ledovnpturus suo.
Ultra coluninas Herculis
columna moueatur tua.
567
Corona snperet coronas oinnca,
ut quam coehuu fctJicissime
nascouti coronam dcdit,
beatissima moriens reportes ccelo.
Summc, Saucte, Sterne,
audi, exaudi,
Dcus.
"The nmsicke aforesayd was accompauiod with these verees, pronounced and sung by M. Hales her naaiestiea
seruant, a gentleman in that arte excellent, and for his voice both commendable and admirable ;
" My golden li >cks time hath to siluer turnd ;
(Oh time too swift, and swiftnes neuer ceasing !)
My youth 'gainst age, and age at youth hath spurnd,
But spurnd in vaine ; youth waineth by encreasing :
Beauty, strength, and youth, flowers fading beene;
Duety, faith, and loue, are rootes and euer greeue.
My helmet now shall make an hiue for bees,
And louers songs shall turne to holy psalnies ;
A man-at-armes must now sit on his knees.
And feed on pray'rs, that are old ages alines:
And so [though?] from court to cottage I depart,
My saint is sure of mine vnspotted hart.
And when I sadly sit in homely cell.
Tie teach my swaines this carrol for a song, —
Blest be the hearts that thinke my souereigue well,
Curs'd be the soules that thinke to doe her wrong 1
Goddesse, vouchsafe this aged man his right,
To be your beadsmau now that was your knight.
" The gifts which the vestall maydens presented unto her maiesty, were these : a vaile of white exceeding rich
and curiously wrought ; a cloke and safegard set with buttons of gold, and on them were grauen emprezes of
excellent deuise ; in the loope of euery button was a noble-mans badge, fixed to a pillar richly embrodered.
" And here (by way of digression) let vs remember a speech which this noble gentleman vsed at such time as
these bvittons were set upon the garment aforesaid: 'I would' (quoth he) 'that all my friends might haue bene
remembred in these buttons, but there is not roome enough to containe them all ; and if I haue them not all,
then ' (said hee) ' those that are left out may take exception. ' Whereunto another standing by, answered; 'Sir,
let as many be placed as can be, and cause the last button to be made like the caracter of <fcc.' ' Now, Godamercie,
with all my heart,' (quoth the Knight,) ' for I would not haue giuen the Catera of my friends for a milion of gold.'
" But to returne to the purpose, — these presents and prayer being with great reuerence deliuered into her
maiesties owne hands, and he himselfe disarmed, offered vp his armour at the foot of her maiesties Crowned Pillar ;
and kneeling vpon his knees, presented the Earle of Cumberland, humbly beseeching she would be pleased to
accept him for her knight, to continue the yeerely exercises aforesaid. Her majesty gratiously accepting of that
offer, this aged knight armed the earle, and mounted him vpon his horse. That being done, he put vpon his owne
person a side * coat of blacke veluet pointed vnder the arme, and couered his head (in liew of an helmet) with a
buttoned cap of the countrey fashion.
" After all these ceremonies, for diners dayes hee ware vpon his cloake a crowne embrodered, with a certaiue
motto or deuice, but what his intention therein was, himselfe best knoweth.
" Now to conclude the matter of assignation, you shall vnderstand that this noble gentleman, by her maiesties
expresse commandement, is yerely (without respect vnto his age) personally present at these military exercises,
there to see, suruey, and as one most carefull and skilfull to direct them ; for indeed his vertue and valour in arms
is such as deserueth to command. And touching that point I will let you know the opinion of MoiiBieur de
Champany, a gentleman of great experience and notable observation, who at his beeing embassadour in England
for causes of the Low-Countreys, and waiting to his friends there, in one of his intercepted letters, among other
occurrents, these words were found: 'I was' (quoth he) 'one day by Sir Christopher Hatton, Captaine of her
maiesties guard, inuited to Eltham, an house of the queeues, whereof he was the guardian. At which time I heard
and saw three things that in all my trauel of France, Italy, and Spaine, I neuer heard or saw the like. The first
was a consort of musicke, so excellent and sweet as cannot be expressed. The second a course at a bucke with the
best and most beautifull greyhounds that euer I did behold. And the third a man-of-armes excellently mounted,
richly armed, and indeed the most accomplished cavaliero I had euer seenc. This knight was called Sir Henry Lea,
who that day (accompanied with other gentlemen of the court) onely to doe me honour, vouchsafed at my returne
to Greenwich to breake certaine lances : which action was performed with great dexterity and commendation.'
" Thus much was the substance (and well neere the whole circumstance) of Sir Henry Lea his last taking of
armes : wherein he seemed to imitate the auncient Romanes, who hauing serued a conuenient time, and claiming
the priuiledges due to old souldiers (whome they called emeriti), did come into Campo Martio, euery man leading
his owne horse ; and there offered his armes vnto Mars in presence of the chiefe magistrates: which ceremony
Scipio, Cassius, the Great Pompey, with many other noble captaines, disdained not to doe.
" Summarily, these aunuall actions haue bene most nobly perfourmed (according to their times) by one Duke,
19 Earles, 27 Barons, 4 Knights of the Garter, and aboue 150 other Knights and Esquiers."— P. 197, q., ed. 1602.
* side] i. e. long.
THE NAMES OF THE LORDS AND
GENTLEMEN THAT RAN,
AND THE ORDER
OF THEIR RUNNING.
THE
COUPLES.
i
VII.
Sir Henry Lee and
Master Robert Carey and
The EAiiL or Cumberland.
Master William Gresham.
ii.
VIII.
The Lord Strange and
Sm William Knowles [and J
Master Thomas Gerrard.
Master Anthony Cooke.
hi.
IX.
The Lord Compton and
Sir Thomas Knowles [and]
Master Henry Nowell.
Sir Philip Butler.
IV.
X.
The Lord Burke and
Master Robert Knowles [andj
Sir Edward Denny.
Master Ralph Bowes.
v.
XI.
The Earl of Essex and
Master Thomas Sidney [andj
Master Fulk Greville.
Master Robert Alexander.
VI.
XII.
Sir Charles Blount [and]
Master John Nedham [andl
Master Thomas Vavasor.
XIII.
Master Richard Acton.
Master Cha
rles Da vers [and]
Master Everard Diqby.
POLYHYMNIA.
Wherefore,* when thirty-two were come and
gone,
Years of her reign, days of her country's peace,
Elizabeth, great empress of the world,
Britannia's Atlas, star of England's globe,
That sways the massy sceptre of her laud,
And holdst the royal reins of Albion ;
Began the gladsome sunny day to shine,
That draws in length date of her golden reign,
And thirty-three she numbereth in her throne,
That long in happiness and peace I pray
May number many to these thirty-three.
Wherefore it fares as whilom and of yore,
In armour bright and sheen fair England's
knights,
In honour of their peerless sovereign,
High mistress of their service, thoughts, and lives,
Make to the tilt amain ; and trumpets sound,
And princely coursers neigh and champ the bit :
When all, address'd for deeds of high devoir,
PreaseJ to the sacred presence of their prince.
_ _. _, , \ Sir Henry Lee,
The First Couple- _, _ '
( The Earl op Cumberland.
Mighty in arms, mounted on puissant horse,
Knight of the crown, in rich embroidery,
And costly fair caparison charg'd with crowns,
O'ershadow'd with a wither'd running vine,
As who would say, " My spring of youth is past,"
In corselet gilt of curious workmanship,
Sir Henry Lee, redoubted man-at-arms,
Leads in the troops : whom worthy Cumberland,
Thrice-noble earl, accoutred as became
So great a warrior and so good a knight,
Encounter'd first, y-clad in coat of steel,
And plumes and pendants all as white as swan,
And spear in rest, right ready to perform
What 'long'd unto the honour of the place.
* Wherefore] Ox. MS. "Therefore."
f holds] Ox. MS. " rules."
t Precise] i. e. Press.
Together went these champions, horse and man,
Thundering along the tilt; that at the shock
The hollow gyring vault of heaven resounds.
Six courses spent, and spears in shivers split,
_ _ , _ , { The Lord Strange,
The Second Couple. ) ,. m ~
r ( Master Thomas Gerrard.
The Earl of Derby's valiant son and heir,
Brave Ferdinand Lord Strange, strangely embark'd
Under Jove's kingly bird the golden eagle,
Stanley's old crest and honourable badge,
As veering 'fore the wind in costly ship,
And armour white and watchet* buckled fast,
Presents himself; his horses and his men
Suited in satin to their master's colours,
Well near twice-twenty squires that went him
by:
And having by his truchmant pardon crav'd,
Vailing his eagle toj his sovereign's eyes,
As who would§ say, " Stoop, eagle, to this sun,"
Dismounts him from his pageant, and attonce,||
Taking his choice of lusty stirring horse
Cover'd with sumptuous rich caparisons,
He mounts him bravely for his friendly foe ;
And at the head he aims, and in his aim
Happily thrives, and breaks his azure staves.
WhomTI gentle Gerrard, all in white and green,
Colours belike best serving his conceit,
Lustily meets, mounted in seat of steel,
With flourishing plume and fair** caparison ;
And then at every shock the shivers fly,
That recommend their honours to the sky.
* watchet] i. c. palo blue.
f truckman] i. e. interpreter.— Old ed. " trounchman '
(a mistake for " trouchman ").
% Vailing his eagle to]— Vailing, i. e. Loweriug. — Ox.
MS. " Tailed hit eagle in."
§ would] So Ox. MS.— Here the old cd. lias "should";
but in three other places of the poem it has " As who
would say."
i| atlonce] For "at once."
t Whom] Ox. MS. "When."
*» fair] Ox. MS. "rich."
570
POLYHYMNIA.
The Third
Couple, j
The Lord Compton,
Master Henry Nowell.
Next, in the virgin's colours, as before
Ran Cumberland, comes lovely Compton in ;
His courser trapp'd in white, and plumes and
staves
Of snowy hue, and squires in fair array,
Waiting their lord's good fortune in the field ;
His armour glittering like the moon's bright rays,
Or that clear silver path, the milk-white way,
That in Olympus leads to Jove's high court.
Him noble-minded Nowell * pricks to meet,
All arm'd in sables, with rich bandalier,
That baldrick-wise he ware, set with fair stones
And pearls of Inde, that like a silver bend
Show'd on his vamish'd corselet black as jet ;
And beauteous plumes aDd basest suitable ;
And on his stirrup waits a trusty train
Of servants clad in purple liveries :
And to't they go, this lord and lusty knight,
To do their royal mistress honour's right.
__ _ "_, , (The Lord Burke,
The Fourth Couple. ] „ „ _
( Sir Edward Denny.
When, mounted on his fierce and foaming steed,
In riches and in colours like his peers,
With ivory plumes, in silver-shining arms,
His men in crimson dight and staves in red,
Comes in Lord Burke, a fair young Ireland lord,
Bent chiefly to thej exercise of arms :
And bouuding§ in his princely mistress' eye,
Chargeth his staff, when trumpet calls|| away,
At noble Denny's head, brave man-at-arms,
That furiously, with flaming sword in hand,
(As if the God of War had sent him down,
Or, if you will, to show his burning zeal
And forwardness in service of her person, U
To whom those martial deeds were consecrate,)
Speeds to the tilt amain,** rich as the rest ;
Himself, his horse, his pages, all in green,
Green velvet, fairly garnish* d horse and man.
* Him noble-minded Nowell, &c] Ox. MS. :
"Him noble-minded Nowell pricks to meet,
Brave Nowell fam'd for courtship and for arms,
All in black armour, with rich bandalier."
t bases] "A kind of embroidered mantle which hung
down from the middle to about the knees, or lower,
worn by knights on horseback." Nares's Gloss,
t chiefly to the] Ox. MS. "to the princely."
§ And bounding, &c] Ox. MS. ;
" And bounding in his royal mistress' eye,
(Askauccs thus, I come to honour thee,)
Chargeth," &c.
H trumpet calls] Ox. MS. "trumpets call."
Tt tier person] Ox. MS. "the day," omitting the next
lino.
** amain] Ox. MS. "apace."
_, _.., _ , 1 The Earl of Essex,
The Fifth Couple. \ .. „ _, '
J ( Master Fulk Greville.
Then proudly shocks amid the martial throng
Of lusty landers, all in sable* sad,
Drawn on with coal-black steeds of dusky hue,
In stately chariot full of deep device,
Where gloomy Time sat whipping on the team,
Just back to back with this great champion, — ■
Young Essex, that thrice-honourable earl ;
Y-clad in mighty arms of mourner's dye,t
And plume as black as is the raven's wing,
That from his armour borrow'd such a light
As boughs of yew receive from shady stream:
His staves were such, or of such hue at least,
As are those banner-staves that mourners bear ;
And all his company in funeral black ;%
As if he mourn'd to think of him he miss'd,
Sweet Sidney, fairest shepherd of our green,
Well-letter'd warrior, whose successor he
In love and arms had ever vow'd to be :
In love and arms, 0, may he so succeed
As his deserts, as his desires would speed !
With this great lord must gallant Greville run,
Fair man-at-arms, the Muses' favourite,
Lover of learning and of chivalry,
Sage in his saws, sound judge of poesy ;
That lightly mounted makes to him amain,
In armour gilt and bases § full of cost.
Together go these friends as enemies ;
As when a lion in a thicket pent,
Spying the boar all bent to combat him,
Makes through the shrubs and thunders as he
goes.
™ „._..,, , \ Sir Charles Blount,
The Sixth Couple. ] ., _ __ '
( Master Thomas Vavasor.
And then, as blithe as bird of morning's light,
Inflam'd with honour, glistering as the sun
What time he mounts the sweating lion's back,
Beset with glorious sun-shine of his train,
Bearing the sun upon his armed breast,
That like a precious shining|| carbuncle,
Or Phcebus' eye, in heaven itself reflects, —
Comes Sir Charles Blount, in or and azure dight;
Rich in his colours, richer in his thoughts,
Rich in his fortune, honour, arms, and art.
And him the valiant Vavasor assails,
On fierce and ready horse, with spear in rest,
* sable] Ox. MS. "sables."
t dye] So Ox. MS. — Old ed. "hue" (which occurs a
little before and a little after this line).
J funeral black] Ox. MS. " black boheest " (i. o., I sup-
pose, " black bchears'd ").
§ bases] Sec noto t in the preceding col.
|| shining] Ox. MS. "sparkling."
POLYHYMNIA.
571
In orange-tawny, bright and beautiful,
Himself, his men, and .ill : and on they speed,
And haste they make to meet, and meet they do,
And do the thing for which they meet in haste;
Each in his armour amiable to see,
That in their looks bear love and chivalry.
The I Master Robert Carey,
Seventh Couple. \ Master William Gresham.
By this the trump call'd Carey to the tilt,
Fair bird, fair cygnet of our silver swan ;
When, like a lord in pomp and princely show,
And like a champion fitted for the war,
And not unlike the son of such a sire,
Under a plume of murrey and of white,
That like a palm-tree beautifully spread,
On mighty horse of Naples mounted fair,
And horse at hand and men aud pages pight,
All with a Burning Heart greets he her grace,
Whose gracious countenance he his heaven
esteems,
And to her sacred person it presents,*
As who would say, "My heart and lifef is hers,
To whom my loyalty this heart prefers."
And at the summons out his foeman flies,
Gresham, the heir of golden Gresham's land,
That beautified X New Troy § with Royal Change,
Badge of his honour and magnificence :
Silver and sable, such his colours were,
And ready was his horse, and readier he,
To bound, and well behave him in her eye,
Upon whose looks his life and honour stood.
Then horse and man conspir'd to meet amain ;
Along the tilt Carey and Gresham go,||
Swift as the swallow, or that Greekish nymph
That seem'd to overfly the ears "J of corn :
And break they do, they miss not, as I ween,
And all was done in honour of their queen.
__.,",,_ 7 \ Sir William Knowles,
The Eighth Couple. I „ . _,
( Master Anthony Cooke.
Then, like the three Horatii in the field,
Betwixt the Roman and the Alban camp,
That triumph' d in the royal right of Rome,
Or old Duke Aymon's glory, Dordogne's pride,**
* And to her sacred person it presents'] Ox. MS. ;
" And to her majesty the same presents."
t heart and life] Ox. MS. " life and all."
t beautified] Ox. MS. "beautifieth."
§ New Troy] i. e. London. It is hardly necessary to
inform the reader that Sir Thomas Gresham founded the
Royal Exchange.
|| go] Ox. MS. "glide."
If ears] Old ed. "eyles."
** Or old. Duke Aymon's glory, Dordogne's pride] The
adventures of the four sons of Aymon have furnished
matter for various romances both iu prose and verse.
Came in the noble English Nestor's sons,
Brave Knowles his offspring, hardy champions;
Each in his plumes, his colours, and device,
Expressing warrior's wit and courtier's grace.
Against Sir William ran a lusty * knight;
Fine in device he was and full of wit,
Famous beyond the chalky British cliffe,
And lov'd and honour'd in hi3 country's bounds,
Anthony Cooke, a man of noble mind,t
For arms and courtship equal to the best:
Valour and Virtue sat upou his helm,
Whom Love and lowering Fortune led along,
And Life and Death he portray 'd in his show ;
A liberal Hand, badge of nobility,
A Heart that in his mistress' honour vows
To task his hand in witness J of his heart,
Till age shake off war's rough § habiliments.
Then with such cunning can they couch their
staves,
That worthily each knight himself behaves.
„,...,„ , I Sir Thomas Knowles,
The Ninth Couple. \ _ _, „
( Sir Philip Butler.
The youngest brother, Mars his sworn || man,
That wan his knightly spurs in Belgia,
And follow'd dub of drum in fortune's grace,
Well hors'd and arm'd, Sir Philip Butler greets ;
The noble Essex friend and follower,
In mourning sable dight by sympathy,
A gentle knight ; aud meekly "J at the tilt
He stands, as one that had no heart to hurt
His friendly foe : but at the trumpet's sound
He flies along ; and bravely at the face
His force he bends : the rival of his fame
Spurs on his steed, nor shuns the shock for fear :
And so they meet ; the armour bears the scar
Of this encounter and delightful war.
„ _ , _ , ( Master Robert Knowles,
The Tenth Couple. .. „ „
( Master Ralph Bowes.
The last, not least, of these brave brethren,**
Laden with honour and with golden boughs,t+
Entering the lists, like Titan arm'd with fire
When in the queachy XX plot Python he slew,
Of Le Livre de quatre fttz Aymon two translations had
appeared in English before Peele's time.
■ lusty] Ox. MS. "gentle."
t mind] So Ox. MS — Old ed. "name."
\ witness] Ox. MS. "trial."
§ war's rough] So Ox. MS. — Old ed. "rough wars."
|| sworn] A dissyllable here.
IT A gentle knight ; anl meekly] Ox. MS. " A knight
well-thew'd ; and mildly."
** brethren] A trisyllable here (and so spelt in the old
ed., "brrtheren ").
H boughs] Ox. MS "leaves."
tl queachy] See note J{. p. 393, sec. col.
. I
572
POLYHYMNIA.
Bowes takes to task with strong and mighty
arm,*
Right richly mounted : horse and man it seem'd
Were well agreed to serve as roughly there
As in the enemy's reach for life they would ; t
And, when they ran, methought a tempest rose,
That in the storm the clattering armours sound,
As horse and man had both been borne to
ground.
The ( Master Thomas Sidney,
Eleventh Couple. i Master Robert Alexander.
Thus long hath dainty Sidney sit and seen
Honour and Fortune hover in the air,
That from J the glorious beams of England's
eye
Came streaming ; Sidney, at which name I sigh,
Because I lack the Sidney that I lov'd,§
And yet I love the Sidneys that survive.
Thus long, I say, sat Sidney and beheld
The shivers fly of many a shaken spear ;
When, mounted on a courser trapp'd in white,
And throughly well-appointed he and his,
Pure sparks of virtue kindling honour's fire,
He thought he might, and, for he might, he
would
Reach at this glory, — fair befall him still ! —
And to the tilt, impatient of delay,
He comes, encounter'd with a threatening point
That Alexander menac'd to him fast,
A valorous and lusty gentleman,
Well-fitted with his armour and his steed ;
And him young Sidney sits, and had he charg'd
The Macedonian Alexander's staff,
He had been answer'd by that valiant youth :||
So well behav'd himself this fair young knight,
As Paris had to great Achilles' lance
Applied his tender fingers and his force.
rm m j /• . sy i ( MASTER [JOHN] NEDHAM,
Tfie Twelfth Couple \ , r i, J
( Master Richard Acton.
The next came Nedhani in on lusty horse,
That, angry with delay, at trumpet's sound
Would snort, and stamp, and stand upon no
ground,
Unwilling of his master's tarriance :
Yet tarry must his master, and with him
His prancing steed ; till trumpets sounding shrill
Made Acton spur apace, that, with applause
Of all beholders, hied him lustily,
* strong and mighty arm] Ox. MS. "etout and sturdy
lance"
t they uovld] Ox. MS. " and fame."
t from] Ox. MS. "fore."
§ Invd] So Ox. MS— Old ed. "loue."
|| that valiant youth] Ox. MS. " this lovely boy."
As who would say, " Now go I to * the goal :"
And then they ride, and run, and take their
chance,
As death were fix'd at point of either's lance.
The I Master Charles Da vers,
Thirteenth Couple. \ Master Everard Digby.
Now drew this martial exercise to end ;
And Davers here and Digby were the last
Of six-and-twenty gallant gentlemen,
Of noble birth and princely resolution,
That ran in compliment, as you have heard,
In honour of their mistress' holiday ;
A gracious sport, fitting that golden time,
The day, the birth-day of our happiness,
The blooming time, the spring of England's peace.
Peace, then, my Muse; yet, ere thou peace,
report,
Say how thou saw'st these actors play their parts,
Both mounted bravely, bravely minded both,
Second to few or none for their success ;
Their high devoir, their deeds do say no less.
And now had England's queen, fair England's
Hfe,t
Beheld her lords, and lovely lordly knights,
Do honour's service to their sovereign :
And heaven by this distill'd down tears of joy,
In memory and honour of this day.
Sir Henry Lee resigns his place of honour at tilt
to the Earl of Cumberland.
And now, as first by him intended was,
In sight of prince, and peers, and people round,
Old Henry Lee, Knight of the Crown, dis-
mounts; +
And in a fair pavilion hard at hand,
Where holy lights burn'd§ on the hallow'd
shrine
To Virtue or to Vesta consecrate,
Having unarm'd his|| body, head and all,
To his great mistress his petition makes ;
That, in regard and favour of his age,
It would so please her princely majesty U
To suffer him give up his staff and arms,
And honourable place wherein he serv'd,
To that thrice -valiant earl whose honour's
pledge
His life should be. With that he singled forth
» to] Ox MS. "for."
f life] Ox. MS. "eye."
t dismount*] Ox. MS. " alights."
§ burn'd] Ox. MS. "bum."
|| his] Ox. MS. "himself."
% princely majesty] Ox. MS. " royal excellcnoe.
POLYHYMNIA.
573
The flower of English knights, the valiant Earl
Of Cumberland ; and him, before them all,
He humbly prays her highness to accept,
And him install in place of those designs ;
And to him gives his armour and his lance,
Protesting to her princely majesty,
In sight of heaven and all her lovely * lords,
He would betake him to his orisons,
And spend the remnant of his waning age,
Unfit for wars and martial exploits,
In prayers for her endless happiness.
Whereat she smiles, and sighs, and seem'd to
say,
• lovely] So Ox. MS. — Old ed. "princely" (which oc-
curs in the preceding Hue).
"Good woodman, though thy green be turn'd to
grey,
Thy age past April's prime * and pleasant May,
Have thy request ; we take him at thy praise :
May he succeed the honour of thy days ! "
"Amen," said all, and hope they do no less ;
No less his virtue and nobility,
His skill in arms and practice t promiseth.
And many champions such t may England live to
have,
And dayB and years as many such § as she in
heart can crave !
* prime] Ox. MS. "spring."
f practice] Ox. MS. "honour."
1 such] Ox. MS. "nioe."
§ such] Ox. MS. "moe."
A SONNET.*
His golden locks time hath to silver turn'd ;
time too swift, swiftness never ceasing !
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurn'd,
But spurn'd in vain ; youth waneth by in-
creasing :
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading
seen ;
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.
• We have seen (p. 567) that Segar has this Sonnet
with several variations : Evans (who had never met with
Polyhymnia) reprinted it from Segar's work, and attri-
buted it to the Earl of Essex, because "Sir Henry
Wotton, in his parallel between the Earl of Essex and
the Duke of Buckingham, says, that a Sonnet of the
Earl's was, upon a certain occasion, sung before the
Queen, by one Halle, in whose voice she took some
pleasure." Old Sallads, vol. iv. p. 48. ed. 1810. Ellis has
given it (from Segar) among the pieces of " Uncertain
Authors." Spec. vol. ii. p. 402. ed. 1811. This Sonnet is
not in the Ox. MS.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And, lovers' sonnets turn'd to holy psalms,
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are age his
alms :
But though from court to cottage he depart,
His saint is sure of his unspotted heart.
And wheu he saddest sits in homely cell,
He'll teach his swains this carol for a song, —
" Bless'd be the hearts that wish my sovereign
well,
Cui's'd be the souls that think her any
wrong ! "
Goddess, allow this aged man his right,
To be your beadsman now that was your
knight.
Speeches to Queen Elizabeth at Theohalds.
The first of these Speeches was originally printed in The History of English Dramatic Poetry by Mr. J. P. Collier,
who has prefaced it with the following remarks : "In 1591 Qneen Elizabeth paid a visit to Lord Burghley, at
Theobalds, where, it seems, she was received with much solemnity, although the Lord Treasurer did not himself
make his appearance to welcome her. In March, 1587, he had lost his mother at a very advanced age, and in
April, 1589, his wife, to whom he was deeply attached, died : in the interval, also, his daughter, Lady Oxford, had
expired, so that in 1591, depressed by these misfortunes, he had resolved to retire from public life, and the visit of
the Queen was, perhaps, intended to revive his spirits, and to recall him to her active service. Mr. Nichols, in his
Progresses, under this date, relates all that was known upon this point, and without being able to explain it, inserts
from Strype a sort of mock writ or summons, directed to Sir Christopher Hatton, the object of which was, by a
little official playfulness, to withdraw Lord Burghley from his seclusion : in that document he is sp'.ken of as a
Hermit ; and it seems clear, that since the death of his wife, two years and some months anterior, he had quitted
his noble mansion in disgust, and, Making only occasional visits to court, had resided in some obscure cottage in
the neighbourhood of Theobalds. A MS. poem, in blank verse, has fallen into my hands, which serves to explain
the whole proceeding : it is a speech supposed to be delivered by a Hermit to the Queen, on her first arrival at
Theobalds, the purpose of which was to excuse the absence of Lord Burghley, by stating that he had taken up his
abode in the cell belonging to the Hermit, in consequence of his grief, and had enjoined the Hermit to do the
honours of the house in his stead. Robert Cecil, knighted just afterwards, was the person who pronounced the
speech, and he referred to it when the Queen again came to Theobalds in 1594. It was written by a poet no less
distinguished than George Peele, who was employed by Lord Burghley's son to aid the scheme ; for the mock
writ, before mentioned, which puzzled Strype, and, as he says, defied commentary, is besought by the individual
in the disguise of a Hermit. The whole piece is in the poet's handwriting, and his initials, Q. P., are subscribed
at the end." Vol. i. pp. 283-4.
The second and third Speeches, forming part of the entertainment to her Majesty on the same occasion, are
now printed from a MS. in Peele's handwriting, which has been obligingly lent to me by Mr. Collier, who was not.
possessed of it when he gave his excellent History to the public.
" On the 10th of May 1591, ' the Queen came from Hackney to Theobalds' [Burghley Papers, vol. ii. p. 106L"
&c. Nichols's Prog, of Queen Elizabeth, vol. iii. p. 74, ed. 1323.
SPEECHES TO QUEEN ELIZABETH AT THEOBALD'S.
I.
THE HERMIT'S SPEECH.
My sovereign lady, and most gracious queen,
Be not displeas'd that one so meanly clad
Presumes to stand thus boldly in the way
That leads into this house accounted yours ;
But, mild and full of pity as you are,
Hear and respect my lamentable tale.
I am a hermit that this ten years' space
Have led a solitary and retired life,
Here in my cell, not past a furlong hence.
Till by my founder, he that built this house,
Forgetful of his writing and his word,
Full sore against my will I was reuiov'd ;
For he, o'ertaken with excessive grief,
Betook him to my silly hermitage,
And there hath liv'd two years and some few
months,
By reason of these most bitter accidents ;
As, first of all, his aged mother's death,
Who liv'd a fifth and saw her four descents
Of those that lineally have sprung from her ;
His daughter's death, a countess of this land,
Lost in the prime and morning of her youth ;
And, last of all, his dear and loving wife.
These brought him to this solitary abode,
Where now he keeps,* and hath enjoined me
To govern this his house and family,
A place unfit for one of my profession ;
And therefore have I oft desir'd with tears,
That I might be restored to my cell,
Because I vow'd a life contemplative ;
But all in vain; for, though to serve your
majesty,
He often quits the place and comes to court,
Yet thither he repairs, and there will live.
Which I perceiving, sought by holy prayers
keeps] i. e. resides, lives.
To change his mind and ease my troubled cares ;
Then, having many days with sacred rites
Prepar'd myself to entertain good thoughts,
I went up to the lantern of this hall,
The better to behold God's works above ;
And suddenly, when my devotion gan
To pierce the heavens, there* did appear to me
A lady clad in white, who clos'd my eyes,
And, casting me into a slumbering trance,
" I am," said she, " that holy prophetess
Who sung the birth of Christ ere he appear'd ;
Sibylla is my name ; and I have heard
The moan thou mak'st for thy unquiet life :
Take thou this table, t note the verses well ;
Every first golden letter of these lines
Being put together signify her name
That can and will relieve thy misery ;
And therefore presently go search her out,
A princely paragon, a maiden queen,
For such a one there is and only one :"
And therewithal she vanish'd was again.
After this vision, coming down from thence,
The bruit X was that your majesty would come;
But yet my founder kept his hermitage,
And gave me warrant to provide for all,
A task unfitting one so base as I,
Whom neither sons nor servants would obey ;
The younger like to scorn my poor advice,
Because that he hereafter in this place
Was to become the guardian of this house,
And so the same to settle in his blood
By that young babe, whom I have heard of late
By your appointment bears my founder's name ;
Therefore I wish, for my good founder's sake,
* there] MS. "that."
t table] i. e. tablet.
} bruit] i. e. report.
f P
578
SPEECHES TO THE QUEEN AT THEOBALD'S.
That he may live, with this hia first-born son,
Long time to serve your sacred majesty,
As his grandfather faithfully hath done.
Now, since you know my most distressed plight,
My guardian's carelessness which came by care,
I humbly crave these verses may be read,
Whose capital letters make Elizabeth,
By you, my noble Lord High Admiral ;
The rather for [that] this great prophetess
Seem'd unto me as if she had foretold
Your famous victory o'er that Spanish navy
Which by themselves was term'd Invincible.
Seeing in these lines your princely name is writ
The miracle of time and nature's glory,
And you are she of whom Sibylla spake,
Vouchsafe to pity this your headman's plaint,
And call my founder home unto his house,
That he may entertain your majesty,
And see these walks, wherein he little joys,
Delightful for your highness and your train ;
Wherein likewise his two sons that be present
Will be both dutiful and diligent,
And this young Lady Vere, that's held so dear
Of my best founder, her good grandfather.
And lastly for myself, most gracious queen,
May it please you to restore me to my cell,
And, at your highness' absolute command,
My Lord High Chancellor may award a writ
For peaceable possession of the same ;
And that [your] majesty's Lord Chamberlain
May from your highness have the like command
To cause my founder, now the guardian
Of this [fair] house, increas'd for your delight,
To take the charge thereof this present night :
Which being done, I'll to my hermitage,
And for your highness pray continually,
That God may pour upon you all his blessings,
And that the hour-glass of your happy reigu
May run at full and never be at wane.
Thus having naught of value or of worth
Fit to present to such a peerless queen,
I offer to your highness, here, this bell,
A bell which hermits call Saint Anthony,
Given me by my noble lord and founder ;
And I'll betake me to this brazen bell,
Which better me beseems ten thousand fold
Than any one of silver or of gold.
Finis. G. P.
II.
THE GARDENER'S SPEECH.
Most fortunate and fair queen, on whose heart
Wisdom hath laid her crown, and in whose hands
Justice hath left her balance, vouchsafe to hear a
country controversy, for that there is as great
equity in defending of poor men's onions as of
rich men's lands.
At Pymms,* some four miles hence, the
youngest son of this honourable old man (whom
God bless with as many years and virtues as
there be of him conceived hopes [and] wishes !)
devised a plot for a garden, as methought, and
in a place unfit for pleasure, being overgrown
with thistles and turned up with moles, and
besides so far from the house that, in my country
capacity, a pound had been meeter than a para-
dise. What his meaning was I durst not inquire,
for sunt animis cekstibits tree ; but what my labours
were I dare boast of.
The moles destroyed and the plot levelled, I
cast it into four quarters. In the first I framed
a maze, not of hyssop and thyme, but that which
* Pymms} Qy. "Minims"?
maketh time itself wither with wondering ; all
the Virtues, all the Graces, all the Muses
winding and wreathing about your majesty, each
contending to be chief, all contented to be
cherished : all this not of potherbs, but flowers,
and of flowers fairest and sweetest ; for in so
heavenly a maze, which astonished all earthly
thought's promise, the Virtues were done in
roses, flowers fit for the twelve Virtues, who have
in themselves, as we gardeners have observed,
above an hundred; the Grace[s] of pansies partly-
coloured,* but in one stalk, never asunder, yet
diversely beautified ; the Muses of nine several
flowers, being of sundry natures, yet all sweet,
all sovereign.
These mingled in a maze, and brought into
such shapes as poets and painters use to shadow,
made mine eyes dazzle with the shadow, and all
my thoughts amazed to behold the bodies. Then
* partly-coloured] i. c. parti-coloured : " there budded
out tho chcckcrd paunsie or partly-coloured harts-ease."
— Greone's Quip for on Upstart Courtier, Sig B. od 1620.
SPEECHES TO THE QUEEN AT THEOJiALD'S.
579
■was I commanded to place an arbour all of
eglantine, in which my master's conceit out-
stripped my cunning: "Kglautine," quoth he,
" I most honour, and it hath been told me that
the deeper it is rooted in the ground, the sweeter
it smelleth in the flower, making it ever so green
that the sun of Spain at the hottest cannot
parch it."
As he was telling me more, I, intending * my
work more than his words, set my spade with all
force into the earth, and, at the first, hit upon the
box.t This ratcatcher (as children do when any
thing is found) cried, "Half!" which I denying,
[he] claimed all, because he killed the moles, and
if the moles had not been destroyed, there had
been no garden ; if no garden, no digging ; if no
digging, no box found. At length this box bred
boxes betwixt us ; till weary of those black and
blue judges, we determined to appeal to your
majesty, into whose hands we both commit the
box and the cause, [I] hoping that this weasel-
monger, who is no better than a cat in a house
or a ferret in a cony-gat,* shall not dis-uade your
majesty from a gardener whose art is to make
walks pleasant for princes, to set flowers, cast
knots, graft trees, to do all things that may
bring pleasure and profit ; and so to give him ono
girdf for all, as much odds as there is between
a woodcleavcr and a carpenter, so great difference
in this matter is between the molecatcher and
the gardener.
WRITTEN ABOUT THE BOX.
I was a giant's daughter of this isle,
Turn'd to a mole by the Queen of Corn :
My jewel I did bury by a wile,
Again never from the earth to be torn,
Till a virgin had reigned thirty-three yeai-3,
Which shall be but the fourth part of her year*.
III.
THE MOLECATCHER'S SPEECH.
Good lady, and the best that ever I saw, or
any shall, give me leave to tell a plain tale, in
which there is no device, but desert enough.
I went to seek you at Greenwich ; and there it
was told me that the queen was gone from
the court : I wondered that the body should start
from the shadow. Next was I pointed to
Hackney ; there they said the court was gone
into the country : I had thought to have made
hue and cry, thinking that he that stole fire from
heaven had stolen our heaven from earth. At
the last I met with a post who told me you were
at Theobald's : I was glad, for that next your
majesty I honour the owner of that house,
wishing that his virtues may double his years
and yours treble.
I cannot discourse of knots and mazes : sure I
am that the ground was so knotty that the
gardener was amazed to see it ; and as easy had it
been, if I had not been, to make a shaft of a
* intending] i. e. attending to.
t the box] Had probably been mentioned before in
Bonie "Speech" which has not come down to us: but
qy. "this box'"!
cammock + as a garden of that croft. I came§ not
to claim any right for myself, but to give you
yours ; for that, had the bickering been between
us, there should have needed no other justice of
peace than this,|| to have made him a mittimus to
the first gardener that ever was, Adam.
I went to lawyers to ask counsel, who made law
like a plaice, a black side and a white ; " for," said
one, " it belongeth to the lord of the soil, by the
custom of the manor." " Nay," said the other,
"it is treasure trove." "What's that ?" quoth I.
" Marry, all money or jewels hidden in the earth
are the queen's." Noli me tangere : I let go my
hold, and desire your majesty that you will hold
yours.
Now, for that this gardener twitteth me with
my vocation, I could prove it a mystery not
mechanical, and tell the tale of the giant's
daughter which was turned to a mole because
she would eat fairer bread than is made of wheat,
• conp-gat] i. e. rabbit-burrow.
t gird] i. e. hit, scoff.
} cammock] i. e. crooked tree, or knee-timber.
§ came] Qy. "come"?
|| this] "his molespade." Marginal note in MS.
v y 2
580
SPEECHES TO THE QUEEN AT THEOBALD'S.
wear finer cloth than is made of wool, drink
neater wine than is made of grapes ; why she was
blind, and yet light of hearing; and how good
clerks told me that moles in fields were like ill
subjects in commonwealths, which are always
turning up the place in which they are bred.
But I will not trouble your majesty, but every
day pray on my knees that all those that be
heavers at your state may come to a mole's
blessing, — a knock on the pate and a swing on a
tree. Now, madam, for this gardener, command
him to end his garden, and, till his melancholy
be past, let him walk in the alleys, and pick up
worms like a lapwing.
THE HONOUR OF THE GARTER.
The Honovr of the Garter. Displaied in a Poerne aralulatorie : Entitled to the worthie and renowned Earleof Northum-
berland. Created Knight of that Order, and installd at Windsore. Anno Reyni Elizabethan. 35. Die Junii. 26. By
George Peek, Maister of Artes in Oxenforde. At London, Printed by the Widdowe Charlewood, for John Busbie, and are
to be sold at the West doore of Paules. 4to. [1593.]
On the back of the title are the arms of Elizabeth with the motto "Semper cadem," and under them these
verses ;
" Gallia victa deditjlores, invicta Leones
Anglia ; ius belli infiore, leone suum:
sic semper feral Elizabetha triumphos,
Inclyta Gallorum jlore, leone suo."
My copy* of this poem differs here and there from the copy in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford,— alterations
having been made in the text after a part of the impression was thrown off.
Henry, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, was born in 1564. Miss Aikiu has given so elegant a sketch of his
life, that I cannot do better than transcribe it here. " Immediately after the fatal catastrophe of his father in
15S5, this young nobleman, anxious apparently to efface the stigma of popery and disaffection stamped by the rash
attempts of his uncle and father on the gallant name of Percy, had seized the opportunity of embarking with
Leicester for the wars of the Low Countries. He now sought distinction on another element and in a cause still
nearer to the hearts of Englishmen [i. e. when in 15S8 he joined the fleet against the Spanish Armada, on board a
vessel hired by himself]. The conversion to Protestantism and loyalty of the head of such a house could not but
be regarded by Elizabeth with feelings of peculiar complacency ; and in 1593 she was pleased to confer upon tho
earl the insignia of the Garter. He was present in 1601 at the siege of Ostend ; where he considered himself as so
much aggrieved by the conduct of Sir Francis Vere, that on the return of this officer to England he sent him a
challenge. During the decline of the queen's health, Northumberland was distinguished by the warmth with
which he embraced the interests of the King of Scots ; and he was the first privy-councillor named by James on
his accession to the English throne. But the fate of his family seemed still to pursue him : on some unsupported
charges connected with the gun-powder plot, he was stripped of all his offices, heavily fined, and sentenced to
perpetual imprisonment ; the tardy mercy of the king procured, however, his release at the end of fifteen years ;
and he passed the remaiuder of his life in tranquil and honourable retirement. This unfortunate nobleman was a
person of considerable talents : the abundant leisure for intellectual pursuits afforded by his long captivity was
chiefly employed by him in the study of the mathematics, including perhaps the occult sciences ; and as he was
permitted to enjoy freely the conversation of such men of learning as he was desirous of assembling around him,
he became one of their most bountiful patrons." t He died in 1632.
All that is known concerning this nobleman is to be found in Collins's Peerage, by Sir E. Brydges, vol. ii.
p. 328.
* Mentioned in the former editions of the present collection as being in the possession of Mr. Thorpe the
bookstller.
t Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, vol. ii. p. 219. Let me observe that one of the weakest parts of Miss
Aikin's pleasing work is her account of the early English dramatists : she appears to have little or no acquaint-
ance with them, and lias drawn her notices not from the best sources. She does not mention Peele.
AD M^CENATEM PROLOGUS.
Plain is my coat, and humble is my gait :
Thrice- noble earl, behold with gentle eyes
My wit's poor worth, even for your nobless,
Renowned lord, Northumberland's fair flower,
The Muses' love, patron, and favourite,
That artisans and scholars dost embrace,
And clothest Mathesis in rich ornaments ;
That admirable mathematic skill,
Familiar with the stars and xodiac,
To whom the heaven lies open as her book ;
Ey whose directions Hndeceivable,
Leaving our schoolmen's vulgar trodden paths,
And following the ancient reverend steps
Of Trismegistus and Pythagoras,
Through uncouth ways and unaecessible,
Dost pass into the spacious pleasant fields
Of divine science and philosophy ;
From whence beholding the deformities
Of common errors, and world's vanity,
Dost here enjoy that sacred sweet content
That baser souls, not knowing, not affect :
And so by Fate's and Fortune's good aspect
Rais'd, in thy height, and these unhappy times,
Disfurnish'd wholly of heroical spirits
That learning should with glorious hands uphold,
(For who should learning underbear but he
That knows thereof the precious worthiness,
And sees true science from base vanity ?)
Hast in regard the true philosophy
That in pure wisdom seats her happiness.
And you the Muses, and the Graces three,
Tou I invoke from heaven and Helicon,
For other patrons have poor poets none,
But Muses and the Graces, to implore.
Augustus long ago hath left the world,
And Liberal Sidney, famous for the love
He bare to learning and to chivalry,
And virtuous Walsiugham are fled to heaven.
Why thither speed not Hobbin and his feres,*
Great Hobbinol, t on whom our shepherds t gaze,
* feres] i. e. companions.
t Hobbinol] Old ed. " Hobbinall." — Hobbinol, as most readers are aware, was the poetic name of Gabriel Harvey,
and Colin Clout that of Spenser : but that Spenser is meant here I have no doubt : in England's Helicon, 1600, is a
l>oem attributed to Spenser called Hnbbinol's TUttie in praise of Eliza, Queme of the Shephcanh.
t shepkerd<f\ Was formerly an ordinary term for poets.
584
AD M^ECENATEM PROLOGUS.
And Harington,* well-letter' d and discreet,
That hath so purely naturalized
Strange words, and made them all free denizens t
Why thither speeds not Rosamond's trumpeter, +
Sweet as the nightingale ? Why go'st not thou,
That richly cloth'st conceit with well-made words,
Campion, accompanied with ouf English Fraunce,£
A peerless sweet translator of our time ?
Why follow not a thousand that I know,
Fellows to these, Apollo's favourites,
And leave behind our ordinary grooms,
With trivial humours to pastime the world,
That favours Pan and Phrebus both alike ?
Why thither post not all good wits from hence,
To Chaucer, Gower, and to the fairest Phaer
That ever ventnr'd on great Virgil's works ?
To Watson, worthy many epitaphs
For his sweet poesy, for Arayntas' tears
And joys so well set down ?§ And after thee
Why hie they not, unhappy in thine end,
Marley,|| the Muses' darling for thy verse,
Fit to write passions for the souls below,
If any wretched souls in passion speak ?
Why go not all into th' Elysian fields,
A nd leave this centre barren of repast,
Unless in hope Augusta will restore
The wrongs that learning bears of covetousness,
And court's disdain, the enemy to art ?
Leave, foolish lad, it mendeth not with words ;
Nor herbs nor time such remedy affords.
Your honour's in all humble service,
GEO. PEELE.
* Harington] i. e. Sir John Harington, whose Orlando Furioso was first printed in 1591.
t Rosamond's trumpeter] i.e. Samuel Daniel : his Delia; contayning certaine sonnets ; with The Complaint of Rosa-
mond appeared in 1592.
J Campion, accompanied with our English Fraunce] Thomas Campion wrote several poems and masques, which
excited no slight contemporary applause. For notices of him and his writings, see Haslewood's Ancient Critical
Essays, vol. ii. p. 6, and Collier's Hist, of Engl. Dram. Poetry, vol. i. pp. 367, 377, 382. Abraham Fraunce (already
mentioned in the present volume, p. 27, and note) poured forth English hexameters with great facility. His poems,
chiefly translations, are not undeservedly forgotten : see a list of them in Ritson's BM. Poet. p. 211. Some account
of his life is given by Malone, Shakespeare (by Boswell), vol. ii. p. 239.
§ To Watson, worthy many epitaphs
For his sweet poesy, for Amyntas' tears
And. joys so well set down] See Account of Peek and his Writings, p. 332 ; also notes * and t, p. 601, first col.
But the pieces more particularly alluded to here are the following. First, Amyntas Thomo? Wotsoni Loralinensis J. V.
studiosi. Nemini datur amare simul et sapere. Excudebat Henriciw Marsh ex assignatione Thomas Marsh, 1585,
duod., its subject the lamentations of Amyntas for the death of Phillis. This poem I have read at the
British Museum (where is the only copy Malone had ever seen), and it is not unworthy of perusal : I
cannot, however, subscribe to the opinion of Nash, who, in his Address "To the Gentlemen Students of both
Universities," prefixed to Greene's Arcadia or Mena/'hon, calls it the " sugred Amintas," and says "it may
march in equipage of honour with any of your ancient poets." (In the Phoenix Ifesi, 1593, is a copy of verses
by Watson, printed also in England's Helicon, 1600, entitled Amintas for his Phillis.) Secondly, Amintx Gav.dia,
Authore Thoma Watsono Londinensi, juris sludioso. Lomlini, Jmpensis Gulihelmi Ponsonbci, 1692, 4to. ; in the Dedi-
cation to which by C. M., Watson is spoken of as dead. Dr. Drake has fallen into an error when he says that
Watson "is supposed to have died about the year 1595" (Shakespeare and his Times, vol. i. p. 663), and appears
never to have heard of the first of these poems.
|| Marley] One of the various ways in which the name of the great dramatist, Christopher Marlowe, used
to be spelt : he was killed by Francis Archer at Deptford, and buried there 1st June 1593.
THE HONOUR OF
THE HONOURABLE ORDER OF THE GARTER.
About the time when Vesper in the west
Qan set the evening watch, and silent Night,
Bichly attended by his twinkling train,
Sent sleep and slumber to possess the world,
And fantasy to hauzen* idle heads ;
Under the starryt canopy of heaven
I laid me down, laden with many cares,
(My bed-fellows almost these twenty years,)
Fast by the stream where Thame and lsis meet,
And day by day roll to salute the sea
For more than common service it perform'd
To Albion's queen, when foemen shipp'd for fight,
To forage England plough'd the ocean up,
And slunk into the channel that divides
The Frenchmen's strand from Britain's fishy
towns.
Even at that time, all in a fragrant mead,
In sight of that fair castle, that o'erlooks
The forest one way, and the fertile vale
Water'd with that renowned river Thames,
Old Windsor Castle, did I take my rest :
When Cynthia, companion of the Night,
With shining brand lightening^ his§ ebon car,
Whose axletree was jet enchas'd with stars,
And roof with shining ravens' feathers ceil'd,
Piercing mine eyelids as I lay along,||
Awak'd me through. Therewith methought I saw
* hauzen] The opening of this poem is given in
England's Parnassus, 1600, p. 333, under the head " Ves-
per" : and in a note on the reprint of that miscellany,
p. 623, we are told that "hauzen." means confound or
frighten, — a mistake. "Hauzen" (the same as "halse")
means embrace.
t starry] England's Parnassus (ibid.) "stately."
} lightening] England's Parnassus (where this passage
is given, p. 334, under the head " Noctis initium")
"lighting."
§ fiit] Here again, as in the third lino of this poem,
our author makes Night masculine.
|| Piecing mine eyelids as I lay along] England's Par-
nassus (ibid.), —
" Piercing my eyelids as 1 lie along."
A royal glimmering light streaming aloft,
As Titan mounted on the Lion's back
Had cloth'd himself in fiery-pointed beams,
To chase the Night, and entertain the Morn ;
Yet scarce had chanticleer rung the midnight peal,
Or Phcebe half-way gone her journey through.
Sleeping or waking as alone I lay,
Mine eyes, and ears, and senses all were serv'd
With every object perfect in his kind :
And, lo, a wonder to my senses all !
For through the melting air, perfum'd with
sweets,
I might discern a troop of horsemen ride,
Arm'd cap-de-pe, with shield and shivering lance ;
As in a plash,* or calm transparent brook,
We see the glistering fishes scour along ;
A number numberless, appointed well
For tournament, as if the God of War
Had held a justs in honour of his love,
Or all the sons of Saturn and of Ops
Had been in arms against Enceladus.
Therewith I heard the clarions and the shalms,
The sackbuts, and a thousand instruments
Of several kinds; and, loudest of them all,
A trump more shrill than Triton's is at sea : f
The samej Renown, precursor of the train,
Did sound, — for who rings louder than Renown 1
He mounted was upon a flying horse,
And cloth'd iu falcon's feathers to the ground :
By his escutcheon justly might you guess
He was the herald of eternity,
And pursuivant-at-arms to mighty Jove.
I look'd to see an end of that I saw,
And still methought the train did multiply ;
And yielding clouds gave way, and men-at-arms
* plash] i. e. pooL
t is at sea] England's Parnassus, p. 381, (under the head
" Renown ",) "on the sea."
t same] England's Parnassus, (ibid.) "said."
686
THE HONOUR OF THE ORDER OF THE GARTER.
Succeed as fast, one at another's heels,
As in the vast Mediterranean sea
The rolling waves do one beget another.
Those that perfum'd the air with myrrh and
balm,
Dancing and singing sweetly as they went,
Were naked virgins, deck'd with garlands green,
And seem'd the Graces, for with golden chains
They linked were, three lovely countenances.
About them Cupid, as to me it seem'd,
Lay playing on his parti-colour'd wings ;
And sometime on a horse as white as milk
I saw* him arm'd and mounted in the throng,
As Love had right to march with men of war.
Weary of looking up, I laid me down,
Willing to rest, as sleepy souls are wont,
When of a sudden such a noise I heard
Of shot of ordnance pealing in mine ears,
As twenty thousand tire had play'd at sea,
Or ..Etna split had belch'd her bowels forth,
Or heaven and earth in arms thundering amain
Had bent their great artillery for war,
And weary Atlas had let fall his load,
Enough to wake Endymion from his trance.
Yet was the welkin clear, nor smoke nor dust
Annoy 'd mine eyes : I gaz'd, and, as I look'd,
Methought this host of aery armed men
Girt Windsor Castle round. Anon I saw,
Under a canopy of crimson bysse,+
Spangled with gold, and set with silver bells
That sweetly chini'd and lull'd me half a-sleep,
A goodly king in robes most richly dight,
The upper like a Romau palliament,
Indeed a chaperon, for such it was ;
And looking nearer, lo, upon his leg
An ancient badge of honour I espied,
A garter brightly glistering in mine eye,
A worthy ornament ! Then I call'd to mind
What princely Edward, of that name the Third,
King Edward, for his great achievments fam'd,
What he began, — the Order of Saint George,
That at this day is honour'd through the world,
The Order of the Garter so y-clept,+
A great effect grown of a slender cause,
Grac'd by a king, and favour'd of his feres,§
Fam'd by hi3 followers, worthy kings and queens,
That to this day are sovereigns of the same.
The manner how this matter grew at first
Was thus. The king, disposed on a time
* saw] Oldcd. "see."
f bysse] " Sorte d'e'toffe de soio.
la Lanr/ue Romane, vol. i. p. 196.
} y-clept] i. e. called.
§ feres] i. e. companions.
Roquefort's Gloss, de
To revel, after he had shaken France,
(0, had he bravely held it to the last !)
And deck'd his lions with their flower-de-lyce,
Dispos'd to revel, — some say otherwise, —
Found on the ground by fortune, as he went,
A lady's garter, and* the queen's, I trow,
Lost in a dance, and took it up himself :
It was a silken ribbon weav'd of blue.
His lords and standers-by, seeing the king
Stoop for this garter, smil'd, as who would say,
" Our office that had been," or somewhat else.
King Edward wistly looking on them all,
With princely hands having that garter seiz'd,
From harmless heart, where honour was engrav'd,
Bespake in French, ('a could the language well,
And rife was French those days with Englishmen ;
They went to school to put together towns,
And spell in France with fescuesf made of pikes,)
" Hani soit qui mal y pense," quoth he.
Wherewith upon advisement, though the cause
Were small, his pleasure and his purpose was
T'advance that garter, and to institute
A noble order sacred to Saint George,
And knights to make, whom he would have bo
term'd
Knights of the Garter. This beginning had
This honourable order of our time.
Hereon I thought when I beheld the king ;
But swifter than my thought, by that I saw,
And words I heard or seem'd to hear at least,
I was instructed in the circumstance,
And found it was King Edward that did march
In robes like those he ware when with his lords
He held Saint George's royal feast on earth.
His eldest son, surnamed the Black Prince, —
Though black of hue, that surname yet in France
He wan, for terror to the Frenchmen's hearts
His countenance was, his sword an iron scourge, —
He on a coal-black courser mounted was,
And in his hand a battle-axe he bent : $
His beaver up ; his corselet was of steel
Varnish'd as black as jet; his bases§ black;
And black from head to foot, yea, horse and hoof,
As black as night. But in a twinck methought
'A chang'd at once his habit and his steed,
And had a garter as his father had,
Right rich and costly, with embroidery
Of pearl and gold : I could on it discern
* and] Ashmol. copy "but."
t fescues] i. e. pieces of wire or stick, with which tho»e
who taught children to read pointed out the letters.
} heni] i e. held.
§ bases] See note t, P- 570, first col.
THE HONOUR OF THE ORDER OF THE GARTER.
587
The poesy whereof I spo.ke of yore ;
And well I wot, since this King Edward's days,
Our kings and queens about their royal arms
Have in a garter borne this poesy.
Still as I lay I gaz'd, and guess'd at once
What was this train, and whither it did bend :
I found at last King Edward was the man,
Accompanied with kings and conquerors,
That from the spacious aery House of Fame
Set forward royally to solemnize
Th' installment of some new-created knights.
For, lo, I saw in strange accoutrements,
Like to King Edward's and the Prince of Wales',
Full four-and-twenty knights, nor more nor less,
In robes with precious collars of Saint George ;
And garters all they had buckled with gold.
Fame, in a stole of purple set with eyes
And ears and tongues, carried a golden book:
Upon the cover this I saw engrav'd ;
Pauci quos* cequus amaiit
Jupiter, aid aniens cvexit ad cethcra virtus,
Dis geniti.
Methought this saying could not but import
They should be noble men of golden minds
And great account, favour'd of prince and peers,
Whose names should in that register be writ,
Consecrate to Saint George's chosen knights.
Herewith the golden book gant open fair,
And eathlyj I might read their names that next
Went to the king : they were no common men,
For to my seeming each one had a page
That bare a fair escutcheon after him,
Whereon his arms were drawn ; I have forgot
Their several coats, but well I wot their names.
And first I saw enroll'd within this book
King Edward's name ; he was the sovereign.
Their register was Fame. Renown, before
That sounded shrill, was officer-at-arms
And usher to the train ; his office-badge
Was a black rod whereof he took his name.
Honour went king-at-arms, next to the knights,
Half-arm'd, like Pallas shap'd for arms and arts,
Rich in habiliments of peace and war:
Ancient and grave he was and sage to see.
Near him went Time, well-pleas'd and well-content
As if he joy'd t' accompany this train,
And in his hand a royal standard bare,
Wherein Saint George was drawn and limu'd in
gold.
Under th& verge, as title to the book,
* Pauci quos, foe] Virgil, JEn. vi. 129.
t gan] Ashmol. copy "did."
♦ ".athly] i. e. easily.
Was writ, Knights of the Order of Faint George,
Knights of the Garter. Edward Prince of Wales
Was first, then Henry Duke of Lancaster,
And Nicholas Earl of Warwick made the third.
Captaino de Buch was next, renown'd for arms.
Then the brave Earls of Stafford and Southamp-
ton;
To whose successors, for his sake that lives
And now survives in honour of that name,
To whom my thoughts are humble and devote,
Gentle Wriothesley, Southampton's star,
I wish all fortune, that in Cynthia's eye,
Cynthia the glory of the western world,
With all the stars in her fair fiimament,
Bright may he rise and shine immortally.
And* Mortimer, a gentle trusty lord,
More loyal than that cruel Mortimer
That plotted Edward's death at Killingworth,t
Edward the Second, father to this king,
Whose tragic cry even now methinks I hear,
When graceless wretches murder'd him by night.
Then Lisle, and Burwash,J Beauchamp, and
Mohun,§
Grey, Courtney, and the Hollands worthy knights,
Fitz-simon, Wale, and Sir Hugh Wrottesley,||
Nele Loryng,U Chandos, Sir Miles Stapleton,
Walter Pagannel,** Earn, and D'Audley ; ft last
Was the good knight Sir Sanchet D'Abriche-
court.^J
These names I read, for they were written fair ;
And, as it seem'd to me, these were the first
Created of that order by the king :
And man by man they march'd in equipage.
A many more there were than I could note,
And, sooth to say, I think the book was full ;
And in the train a number infinite,
True knights of all the orders in the world,
Christians and heathens, that accompanied
This worthy king in bis procession.
Caesar himself was there ; I saw him ride,
Triumphing in his three-and-tweuty wounds,
Because they show'd the malice of the world.
Pompey was there, the rival of his fame,
That died a death as base and violent.
Leave I this theme : the mightiest that have liv'd
*.And] Ashmol. copy "Sir."
t Killingworth] i. e. Kenelworth
t Buricash] Written more correctly " Burghersh."
§ Mohun] Old ed. "Mahun."
|| Wrottesley] Old ed. " Woortesley."
U Nek Loryng] Old ed. " Neale, Lording."
** Poriannel] The proper way of spelling his name is
" Tavclcy." I have met with it written " Taynel."
tt D'Avdley] Old ed. "Dandley."
%\ Sanchet D'Abrkhccourt] Olded. " Haunchet Dambri-
courte."
588
THE HONOUR OF THE ORDER OF THE GARTER.
Have fall'n, and headlong too ; in misery
It is some comfort to have company.
Hector of Troy, and kings ere Troy was built,
Or Thrace was Thrace, were there : old Dardanus,
And Ilus, and Assaracus, came along.
For in the House of Fame what famous man,
What prince, but hath his trophy and his place ?
There Joshua, David, and great Machabee,
Last auchor-hold and stay of Jacob's race,
Did march ; and Macedonian Alexander ;
"Victorious Charles the Great, the flower of France ;
Godfrey of Bullen, whom the Christian kings
Created King of great Jerusalem ;
And Arthur, glory of the western world,
And all his knights were in this royal train.
Jason was there, Knight of the Golden Fleece ;
Knights of the Tosson,* and of Saint Iago,
Knights of the Rhodes, Knights of the Sepulchre,
Were there : the air was pester'dt to my thought.
Among them all a worthy man of mark,
A prince of famous memory I saw,
Henry the Eighth, that led a warlike band
Of English earls, and lords, and lusty knights,
That ware the garter sacred to Saint George.
Who was not there ? I think the court of Fame
Was naked and unpeopled, in this train
There were so many emperors, lords, and kings,
Knights errant and adventurous. In the book
That on a desk lay open before Fame, —
For in a sumptuous chariot did he+ ride
Of crystal, set with leaves of glittering gold,
And fair tralucent§ stones, that over all
It did reflect, — within that glorious book
I 6aw a name rejoiced me to see,
Francis of Bedford ; I could read it plain,
And glad I was that in that precious book
That name I found, for now, methought, I said,
Here virtue doth outlive th' arrest of death ;
For dead is Bedford, virtuous and renown'd
For arms, for honour, and religious love,
And yet alive his name in Fame's records,
That held this garter dear, and ware it well.
Some worthy wight let blazon his deserts :
Only a tale I thought on by the way,
As I observ'd his honourable name.
* Tosson] i. e. Toison d'or. — Of the different orders of
knighthood mentioned here, the reader will find a parti-
cular account in Segar's Honour, &c , pp. 79, 94, 95, 106.
t pester'd] i. e. crowded.
I he] i. e. Fame. See note §, p. 585, first col.
§ tralucent] This word (the same as translucent) is
found in several pieces before the appearance of J orison's
Masque of Hymen, where Gilford (note on his Works,
vol. vii. p. 78) seems to think it was first used.
I heard it was his chance, o'erta'en with sleep,
To take a nap near to a farmer's lodge,
Trusted a little with himself belike :
This aged earl, in his apparel plain,
Wrapt in his russet cloak, lay down to rest,
His badge of honour buckled to his leg,
Bare and unhid. There came a pilfering swad,*
And would have prey'd upon this oruament,
And say'd t t' unbuckle it, thinking him a-sleep :
The noble gentleman,* feeling what he meant,
" Hold, foolish lad," quoth he, " a better prey ;
This garter is not fit for every leg,
And I account it better than my puree."
The varlet ran away ; the earl awak'd,
And told his friends, and smiling said withal,
" 'A would not, had 'a understood the French
Writ on my garter, dar'd t' have stoln the
same."
This tale I thought upon, told me for truth,
The rather for it prais'd the poesy,
Right grave and honourable, that importeth much ;
" 111 be to him," it saith, " that evil thinks."
sacred loyalty, in purest hearts
Thou build'st thy bower ! thy weeds of spotless
white,
Like those that stood for Rome's great offices,
Make thee renown'd, glorious in innocency.
Why stick I here ? The train cast in a ring
About the castle, making melody,
Under the glorious spreading wings of Fame,
1 saw a virgin queen, attir'd in white,
Leading with her a sort§ of goodly knights,
With garters and with collars of Saint George :
" Elizabeth " on a compartiment
Of gold in bysse || was writ, and hung askew
Upon her head, under an imperial crown.
She was the sovereign of the knights she led :
Her face, methought, I knew, as if the same,
The same great empress that we here enjoy,
Had climb'd the clouds, and been in person
there ;
To whom the earth, the sea, and elements
Auspicious are. A many that I knew,
Knighted in my remembrance, I beheld,
And all their names were in that register ;
* swad] i. e. clown, bumpkin. (Todd and Nares are
most amusingly at variance in their explanations of this
word: the former (in his ed. of Johnson's Diet.) says, it
means "a short fat person," the latter (in his Gloss.) "a
slender person ").
t say'd] i.e assay'd, tried.
t gentleman] Ashmol. copy "gentle."
§ tort] i. e. company.
II bysse] " Byce a colour, azur." Palsgrave's Laclar. dt
la Lang. Fr., 1530. fol. xx. (Table of Subst.).
THE HONOUR OF THE ORDER OF THE GARTER.
589
And yet I might perceive some so set down,
That, howsoe'er it hapt I cannot tell,
The carl Oblivion stoln from Letbe's lake,
Or Envy stept from out the deep Avern,
Had raz'd, or blemish 'd, or obscur'd at least.
What have those fiends to do in Fame's fair
court ?
Yet in the House of Fame, and courts of kings,
Envy will bite, or snarl and bark at least,
As dogs against the moon that yelp in vain :
Say " Frustra " to those curs, and shake thy coat.
And all the kings, since that King Edward's
days,
Were with their knights and companies in that
train.
When all were whist,* King Edward thus
bespake :
" Hail, Windsor ! where I sometimes took
delight
To hawk, and hunt, and back the proudest
horse,
And where in princely pleasure I repos'd
In my return from France," — a little sigh
I heard him fetch withal ; his reason why
I cannot guess ; I think it was for this,
That England had given o'er their traffic there, —
"And twenty time3 hail, Windsor!" quoth the
king,
" Where I have stall'd so many hardy knights,
And tournaments and royal justs perform'd:
Behold, in honour of mine ancient throne,
In honour of fair England, and Saint George,
To whom this Order of the Garter first
I sacred held ; in honour of my knights,
Before this day created and install'd,
But specially in honour of those five
That at this day this honour have receiv'd
Under Elizabeth, England's great sovereign, —
Northumberland and Worcester, noble earls,
Borough and Sheffield, lords of lively hope,
And honourable old Knowles fam'd for his
sons,
And for his service gracious and renown'd ;
Lo, from the House of Fame, with princely
trains
Accompanied, and kings, and conquerors,
And knights of proof, loyal and valourous,
I re-salute thee here, and gratulate
To those new knights, created by a queen
Peerless for wisdom and for majesty,
The honour of the Garter : may they long
Wear them as notes of true nobility
* whist] i. e. still, silent.
And virtue's] ornaments ! Young Northumber-
land,
Mounted on Fortune's wheel, by virtue's aim
Become thy badge, as it becometh thee,
That Europe's eyes thy worthiness may see.
And, Worcester, what pure honour hath put on
With chaste and spotless hands, in honour wear ;
Answer the noblest of thine ancestry,
In deeds to fame and virtue consecrate.
Borough, brought up in learning and in arms,
Patron of music and of chivalry,
Brandish thy sword in right, and spend thy wits
In commonwealth-affairs : it shall become
Thy forwardness to follow virtue's cause,
And great designs of noble consequence.
And, Sheffield, shape thy course no otherwise
Than loyalty, the load-star of renown,
Directs ; that, as thine ancestors have done,
Thine earthly race in honour thou mayst run.
To thee, old man," with kindness quoth the king,
" That reap'st this honour in thy waning age,
See what a trophy Queen Elizabeth
Prepares before thy hearse : long mayst thou
live,
And die in fame, that hast well near achiev'd
The noble Norris' honour in thy sons,
Thrice-noble lord, as happy for his few,
As was the King of Troy for many more."
With that he ceas'd, and to the foremost earl, —
For why* methought I sawt them every man,
Stall'd in their places and their ornaments, —
" Percy," quoth he, " thou and thy lordly peers,
Your names are in this register of Fame,
Written in leaves and characters of gold :
So live, as with a many more you may
Survive and triumph in eternity,
Out of Oblivion's reach or Envy's shot ;
And that your names immortally may shine
In these records, not earthly, but divine."
Then shalms and sackbuts sounded in the air,
But shrill'st of all, the trumpet of Renown ;
And by and by a loud retraite he rung.
The train retir'd, as swift as stars don shoot,
From whence they came, and day began to
break ;
And with the noise and thunder in the sky,
When Fame's great double-doorB fell to and shut,
And this triumphant train was vanish'd quite,
The gaudy Morn out of her golden sleep
Awak'd, and little birds uncag'd gan sing
To welcome home the bridegroom of the sea.
* For why] i. e. Because,
t sou] Oided. "see."
iOO
THE HONOUR OF THE ORDER OF THE GARTER.
EPILOGUS.
Wherewith I rous'd, recounting what I saw :
And then thought I ; were it as once it was,
But long ago, when learning was in price,
And poesy with princes gracious,
I would adventure to set down my dream,
In honour of these new-advanced lords,
Saint George's knights. I was encouraged,
And did as I have done; which humbly
here
I yield* as firstlings of my scholar's crop,
Consecrated* purely to your noble name,
To gratulate to you this honour's height,
As little boys with flinging up their caps
Congratulate great kings and conquerors.
Take it in gree,f fair lord. ProcuL hinc tMrba
invidiosa :
Stirj^s rudis urtica est, slirps generosa rosa.
G. P.
* Consecrated] Qy. "Consecrate"?
t gree\ i. e. good part.
Anglorum Ferice, Englandes HoUydayes, celebrated the Vlth of Novemb. latt, 1595, beginninge ha.ppyly the 38 yeare
of the raigne of our soveraigne ladie Queene Elizabeth. By George Peele Mr. of Arte in Oxforde, — was first printed,
about thirty years ago, in an undated 4to., for private circulation, by the late Mr. Fitch of Ipswich, who then
possessed the original MS. Since his decease, I have collated the said MS. (in the well-known handwriting of
Peele), which I had not aeen when I reprinted the poem in a supplementary volume to Peele's Works, 1839.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND WORTHY LADY,
KATHERINE, COUNTESS OF HUNTINGTON.
<3Q
ANGLORUM FERINE.
Descend, ye sacred daughters of King Jove :
Apollo, spread thy sparkling wings to mount,
And try some lightsome sweet Castalian springs
That warble to their silver-winding waves,
Making soft music in their gentle glide :
Clio, the sagest of these Sisters Nine,
Conduct thy learned company to court,
Eliza's court, Astrsea's earthly heaven ;
There take survey of England's empress,*
And in her praise tune your heroic songs :
Write, write, you chroniclers of time and fame
That keep Remembrance' golden register,
And recommend to time's eternity
Her honour's height aud wonders of her age,
Wonders of her that reason's reach transcend,
Such wonders as have set the world at gaze ;
Write, write, you chroniclers of time aud fame,
Elizabeth by miracles preserv'd
From perils imminent and infinite :
Clio, proclaim with golden trump and pen
Her happy days, En-land's high holidays; [flight
O'er Europe's bounds take wing, and make thy
Through melting air, from where the rising sun
Gallops the zodiac in his fiery wain,
Even to the brink where Thetis in her bower
Of pumey f and tralucent J pebble-stones
Receives the weary bridegroom of the sea,
Beyond Grand Cair, by Nilus' slimy bank,
Over the wild and sandy Afric plains,
Along the frozen shore of Tanais,
Whose icy crust Apollo cannot thaw ;
Even there and round about this earthly ball
Proclaim the day of England's happiness,
The days of peace, the days of quietness,
* empress] A trisyllable here (and, as far as I recollect,
written in the MS. "emperess ").
f pumei/] i. e. pumice : Spenser (as Todd remarks in
his ed. of Johnsons Diet.) repeatedly writes the word
pumie.
\ tralucent] See note §, p. 588, first col.
And let her gladsome birth-day be the first,
Her day of birth, beginning of our bliss ;
Set down the day in characters of gold,
And mark it with a stone as white as milk,
That cheerful sunny day. Wear eglantine,
And wreaths of roses red and white put on
In honour of that day, you lovely nymphs,
And pjeans sing and sweet melodious songs ;
Along the chalky cliffs of Albion
Lead England's lovely shepherds in a dance
O'er hill and dale, and downs, and daisy-plots,
Aud be that day England's high holiday;
And holidays aud high days be they all,
High holidays, days, minutes, months, and hours,
That multiply the number of her years ;
Years that for us beget this golden age,
Wherein we live in safety under her,
Wherein she reigns in honour over us :
So may she long and ever may she so,
Un touch* d of traitorous hand or treacherous foe !
Her birth-day being celebrated thus,
Clio, record how she hath been preserv'd,
Even in the gates of death and from her youth,
To govern England in the ways of truth ;
Record heaven's goodness to this gracious queen,
Whose virtue's peer what age hath ever seen I
To pass the story of her younger days,
And stormy tempest happily o'erblown,
Wherein by mercy and by miracle
She was rescu'd for England's happiness,
And comfort of the long-afflicted flock
That stray'd like scatter'd sheep scar'd from the
fold;
To slip remembrance of those careful days,
Days full of dauger, happy days withal,
Days of her preservation and defence ;
Behold the happiest day, the holiday
That young and old and all don* celebrate,
don | i. e. do.
Q Q 2
596
ANGLORUM FERINE, ENGLAND'S HOLIDAYS.
The day of joy, the day of jollity!
The best of all the days that we have seen
Was wherein she was crowned Englaud*s Queen,
Elizabeth, anointed of the Highest
To sit upon her kingly father's seat,
And wear in honour Eugland's diadem,
To sway that massy sceptre and that sword
That aw'd the world in his triumphant hand,
And now in her's commands the enemy,
And with dishonour drives the daring foe
Back to his den, tir'd with successless arms,
Wearied with wars by laud and wreck by sea.
Muses and Graces, gods and goddesses,
Adorn, adore, and celebrate this day.
The meanest with the mightiest may in this
Express his love; for loyalty alike
Blazons affection's force iu lord and lown.
In honour of this happy day, behold
How high and low, the young and old in years,
England, hath put a face of gladness on,
And court and country carol in her nraise,
And in her honour tune a thousaud lays !
With just return of this triumphant day,
Aud prosperous revolution of the same,
Auspiciously beginning many years
And golden days and infinite to come,
Passing in number and in happiness
The best that ever earthly prince enjoy'd
By sufferance of the highest King of kings ;
Behold, in honour of this holiday,
What pseans loud triumphant London sings,
What holy tunes and sacrifice of thanks
England's metropolis as incense sends !
And in the sound of cymbals, trump3, and shalms,
In honour of his noble mistress' name,
To whom* his life he owes and offers up,
Lo, London's shepherd, guardian of his flock,
Praiseth the Mighty One of Israel,
And with the strings of his unfeigned heart
Tunes his true joy for all those days of peace,
Those quiet days that Englishmen enjoy
Under our queen, fair queen of Brute's New
Troy !
With whom in sympathy and sweet accord
All loyal subjects join, and hearts and hands
Lift up to Heaven's high throne, and sacrifice
< If praiseH and of hearty prayers send ;
Thanksgiving for our blessings aud the grace,
The gracious blessings on that day pour'd down
On England's head ; that day whereon this queen
Inaugur'd was and holily install'd,
Anointed of the highest King of kings,
• wh'nii] MS " who ho."
In her hereditary royal right
Successively to sit enthronized.
And iu this general plaudit and applause,
And celebration of this joyful day,
Wherein pale Envy, vanquish'd long ago,
Gave way to Virtue's great deserts in her,
And wounded with remembrance of her name,
Made hence amain to murmur that abroad
He durst not openly disgorge at home,
In his own nest fil'd with so foul a bird,
Aud breathe his discontentments over sea
Among those erring fugitives that pine
At England's prosperous peace, and nothing more
Do thirst than alteration of the state,
Aud nothing less than our good queen affect;
A number of unnatural Englishmen,
That curse the day so happy held of us,
Whose base revolt from their allegiance due
To prince aud country makes them infamous,
Condemn'd among the Turks and Infidels,
False architects of those foul practices
That end in their dishonour and their shame,
Those bloody stratagems, those traitorous trains,
And cruel siege they lay unto her life,
Precious in sight of heaven and dear to us,
Her loving and her loyal subjects all,
Whom Jacob's God hath many ways preserv'd,
Yea, even betwixt the bridge and water's brink,
Saving her as by miracle in the fall
From Pharoah's rod and from the sword of Saul : —
Lo, in this triumph that true subjects make,
Envied of none but enemies of the truth,
Her enemies, that serves the living Lord
And puts in him her confidence and trust,
Thou, sacred Muse of History, describe,
That all may see how weii she is belov'd,
What troop of loyal English knights iu arms,
Right richly mounted and appointed all,
In shiuing arms accoutred for the war,
Small number of a number numberless,
Held justs iu honour of her holiday,
Heady to do their duties and devoir
Against the mightiest enemy she hath,
Under what clime soe'er his colours wave,
And with keen sword and battle-axe in hand
To wound his crest, whatever foe he be
That any way iu her dishonour braves.
Among this stirring company of knights,
That at the tilt iu fair habiliments
Gau show themselves, renowned Cumberland,
Knight of the Crown, in gilded armour dight,
Mounted at Queeu Elizabeth's approach,
luflam'd with honour's fire, and left his hold
Kept by a dragon, laden with fair .spoils :
ANGLORUM FERINE, ENGLAND'S HOLIDAYS.
607
And there his duty done, and large device
Made by his page known to her majesty,
Whose gracious eye reflecting on this earl
Was like Prometheus' life-infusing fire,
Behold, he stands impatient of delay,
Awaiting there his friendly foe's approach !
Daring he stands, true knight and challenger,
And hardly brooks the time of their address
That shortly came in duty all devote,
To solace with their martial exercise
Their princely mistress, to whose worthiness
That day's device and days of all their lives
Right humbly were and purely dedicate.
The first that led, in cheerful colours clad,
In innocent white and fair carnation,
Was he whose wisdom in his younger years
And love to arms make him so far renown'd,
The noble Earl of Essex and of Ewe.
His mute approach and action of his mutes
Said that he was solicited diversely ;
One way to follow war and war's design*, —
And well he may, for skill he ean full well
Of war's adventures, 'larms, and stratagems ; —
Another way t' apply him to the care
Of commonweal-affairs, and show the way
To help to underbear with grave advice
The weighty beam whereon the state depends :
Well may he this way or the other take,
And both shall his nobility become;
The gravity and greatness of the one
Shall beautify the other's worthiness ;
His senate-robes shall beautify his arms,
His chivalry nobilitate his name.
Then Sussex, seated on his champing steed,
Dreadful to see, and in sad tawny dight,
Came in, as if some angry man of war
Had charg'd his lance and put himself in arms,
Under au eben-trec or blasted yew :
Such show'd his plume, or like in my conceit
To ravens' feathers by the moon's reflex,
Shining where night by day cloth take repose.
Mars in his wrath sitting upon his drum,
Devising tragedies, strikes no greater fear
Into the eyes and hearts of earthly men,
Than did methought this champion in his way ;
Nor in his doings ever man-at-arms
So young of years more forward than this earl:
So prone, so puissant, and successful still
In all his courses was this warlike knight.
Then Bedford and Southampton made up
five,
Five valiant English earls. Southampton ran
As Bevis of Southampton, that good knight,
Had justed in the honour of the day ;
And certes • Bevis was a mighty man,
Valiant iu arms, gentle and debonair ;
And such was young Wriothesley, that camo
As if in duty to his sovereign
And honour's race for all that he had done,
He would + be of the noblest over-run.
Like to himself and to his ancestors,
Ran Bedford, to express his readiness,
His love to arms, his loyalty to her
Whose burning eyeballs did retain the heat
That kindled honour's fire at their hearts;
Bravely ran Bedford, and his staves he brake
Right happily for his high mistress' sake.
Compton of Compton came in shining arms,
Well mounted and appointed for the field,
A gallant lord ; richly array'd was he,
He and his train. Clio, recount his fame ;
Record with me his love to learning's lore.
And valiant doings on, this holiday :
Short will I be in process of his praise ;
Courageously he ran, and with the best
From forth the field bare honour on his crest.
Carew was well-acquainted with the place,
And to the tilt proudly he made approach;
His steed well-taught, himself fitted in all,
Fell to his noble exercise of arms,
And on his courser gan himself advance,
Whose neighs and plays were princely to behold :
Remembrance of this day reviv'd this knight;
His turn he takes, and at the trumpet's sound
Breaks at the head with many a lofty bound.
In bases J and caparisons of cost
Came three redoubted knights and men-at-arms,
Old Knowles his offspring, gallant cavaliers ;
And such they show'd as were King Arthur's
knights
He whilom us'd to feast at Camelct,
Or three of great King Priam's valiant sons
H.id left Elysium and the fields of Mars
To celebrate Eliza's holiday :
They ran as if three Hectors had made way
To meet Achilles, Ajax, Diomede.
Palm had the eldest branching of his crest :
Tis hard to say which brother did the best.
Like Venus' son in Mars his armour clad,
Beset with glorious globes and golden flames,.
Came Dudley in ; nor shall it me becume
To dive into the depth of his device ;
Rich in his thoughts and valiant in his deeds,
* certes] i. e certainly.
\ He trovld, &c] Qy.
" He would not of the noblest be o'<;r-ruu " *
t fcftse.'J See note t, P- 570, first coL
598
ANCLORUM FERINE, ENGLAND'S HOLIDAYS.
No whit dishonour' d by his faiuting horse,
That cowardlike would have held his master
back
From honour's goal, — ill-natur'd and ill-taught,
To fail him foully in so great a presence.
But as an archer with a bended bow
The farther from the mark he draws his shaft,
The farther flies it and with greater force
Wounds earth and air ; so did it fare in this :
This lusty runner, thus restrain'd at first,
Now all inflam'd, soon having chang'd his steed,
And view'd the person of his princely mistress,
Whose radiant beams have * power to set on
fire
The icy ridge of snowy Rhodope,
Flies like a bullet from a cannon's mouth.
His armed horse made dreadful harmony,
Grating against the rails : so valiantly
He justed, that unjust it were in me
Not to admire young Dudley's chivalry.
Young Howard, ramping lion-like, came on,
Anchor of Howard's honourable house,
His noble father's hope, his mother's joy.
Loyal and lovely was this fair young kuight,
Gracious in his beginnings at the tilt,
Pleasing to her to whom he did present
His person and the service of that day,
And all the days and minutes of his life :
Bravely he bare him in his mistress' eye,
And brake f his staves and let the shivers fly.
Drury in flames of gold embroider'd fair,
» have] MS. "and."
f brake] MS. "breakes."
Inflam'd with love of virtue and of arms,
Came* to the tilt like Phoebus,
And like a warrior there demean'd himself;
Heaven's vault, earth's centre sounded of his
force :
So well he ran as they that do him right,
For field and court held him a worthy knight.
Among these runners that in virtue's race
Contended, rivals of each other's praise,
Nowell and Needham, gentlemen of name,
Came mounted and appointed gallantly ;
Both nobly minded, as became them well,
Resolv'd to run in honour of the day.
L'cscu d? amour, the arms of loyalty,
Lodg'd Skydmore in his heart ; and on he came,
And well and worthily demean'd him-elf
In that day's service : short and plain to be,
Nor lord nor knight more forward than was he.
Then Ratcliffe, Reynolds, Blount, and Carey
came,
111 all accoutrements fitting gentlemen;
Well mounted and appointed every man ;
And gallantly and worthily they ran.
Long may they run in honour of the day !
Long may she live to do them honour's right,
To grace their sports and them as she hath.
done,
England's Astrsea, Albion's shiniug sun !
And may she shine in beauty fresh and sheen
Hundreds of years, our thrice-renowned queen !
Write, Clio, write ; write, and record her story,
Dear in heaven's eye, her court and country's
glory.
* Came, <fcc] A mxitilated line.
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
LINES ADDRESSED TO THOMAS WATSON,
Prefixed to The 'EKArOMIIAQIA, or Passionate
Centarie of Love.*
— ♦ —
If graver beads shall count, it overlight
To treat of love, say thou to them, a stain
Is incident unto the finest dye :
And yet no stain at all it is for thee,
These lays of love, as mirth to m«laucholy,
To follow fast thy sad Antigone ft
Which may bear out a broader work than this,
Cornpil'd with judgment, order, and with art;
And shroud thee under shadow of his wings,
Whose gentle heart, and head with learning
freight,*
Shall yield thee gracious favour and defence.
THE PRAISE OF CHASTITY,
WHEREIN IS SET FORTH, BY WAY OF COMPARISON;
HOW GREAT IS THE CONQUEST OVER
OUR AFFECTIONS.
From The Phcenix Nest, 1593.
The noble Romans whilom wonted were.
For triumph of their conquer'd enemies,
The wreaths of laurel and of palm to wear,
In honour of their famous victories ;
* The 'EKATOMrueiA or Passionate Centurie of Loue,
Diuided into two parts : whereof, the first expresseth the
Authors sufferance in Loue: the latter, his long farewell to
Loue and all his tyrannic Composed by Thomas Watson
Gentleman. ; and published at the request of certains Gentle-
nun his very frendes. London Imprinted by lohn Wolfe for
Gabriell Cawood, dwell inge in Pav.les Churchyard at the
Signe of Hie Holy Ghost. 4to. u. d.,— published in 15S2.
It is dedicated to " Lord Edwarde Vere, Earlo of Oxen-
forde," &c. See more concerning Watson in the Account
of Pcele and hU Writings, p 332, and in note §, p. 584.
t thy sad Antigone] Soplioelis Antiij' ne. Interpret* Thoma
Watsono J. U. studioso. Huic adduntur pompce quadam,
ex singulis Tragedies actis derivator; et /.ost eas, totidem
themata sententiis refertissvma ; eodem Thoma Watsono
Authore. Londini excudebat Johannes Wuhiv.s, 1581. 4to.
J fraight] i. e. fraught.
And so, in robes of gold and purple dight,
Like bodies shrin'd in seats of ivory,
Their names renown'd for happiness in fight,
They bear the guerdon of their chivalry.
The valiant Greeks for sack of Priam's town,
A work of manhood match'd with policy,
Have fill'd the world with books of their renown,
As mnch as erst the Roman dupery.
The Phrygian knights that in the House of Fame
Have shining arms of endless memory,
By hot and fierce repulse did win the same,
Though Helen's rape hurt Paris' progeny.
Thus strength hath guerdon by the world's award ;
So praise we birth and high nobility :
If, then, the mind and body reap reward
For nature's dower, conferred liberally,
Press, then, for praise unto the highest room,
That art the highest of the gifts of heaven,
More beautiful by wisdom's sacred doom
Than Sol himself amid the Planets Seven ;
Queen of content and temperate desires,
Choice nurse of health, thy name hight*
Chastity ;
A sovereign power to quench such climbing fire6
As choke the mind with smoke of infamy ;
Champion at-arms, re'neounter with thy foe,
An enemy foul and fearful to behold :
If, then, stout captains have been houonr'd so,
Their names in books of memory cni oll'd
For puissant strength, — ye Roman peers, retirt,
And, Greeks, give ground ; more honour there
is won,
With chaste rebukes to temper thy desire.
Than glory gain'd the world to over-run ;
* hight] i. e. calk-d.
602
THE PRAISE OF CHASTITY.
Than fierce Achilles got by Hector's spoil ;
Than erst the mighty Prince of Macedon,
King Philip's imp * that put his foes to foil
And wish'd more worlds to hold him play than
one.
Believe me, to contend 'gainst armies royal,
To tame wild panthers but by strength of hand,
To praise the triumph, not so special,
As ticing pleasure's charms for to withstand ;
And, for me list compare with men of war,
For honour of the field, I dare maintain,
This victory exceedeth that as far
As Phcebus' chariot Vulcan's forge doth stain :t
Both noble, and triumphant in their kinds,
And matter worthy Queen Kemembrance'
pen;
But that that tangles both our thoughts and
minds,
To master that, is more than over men
To make thy triumph ; sith to strength alone
Of body it belongs, to bruise or wound ;
But raging thoughts to quell, or few or none,
Save Virtue's imps, are able champions found ;
Or those whom Jove hath lov'd; or noble of
birth :
So strong Alcides, Jove's unconquer'd son,
Did lift Achelous' body from the earth,
To show what deeds by Virtue's strength are
done ;
So him he foil'd ; and put to sudden flight,
By aim of wit, the foul Stymphalides :
And while we say, he master'd meii by might,
Behold, in person of this Hercules,
It liketh me to figure Chastity ;
His labour like that foul unclean desire
That, under guide of tickling fantasy,
Would mar the mind through pleasure's
scorching fire.
And who hath seen a fair alluring face,
A lusty girl, y-clad in quaint array,
Whose dainty hand makes music with her lace,
And tempts thy thoughts, and steals thy sense
away ;
' imp] i. O. offspring.
t stain] See note 1Hf, p. 412, B sol.
Whose ticing hair, like nets of golden wire,
Enchain [s] thy heart; whose gait and voice
divine
Inflame thy blood, and kindle thy desire ;
Whose features rape and dazzle human eyne ;
Who hath beheld fair Venus in her pride
Of nakedness, all alabaster white,
In ivory bed, straight laid by Mars his side,
And hath not been enchanted with the Bight ;
To wish to dally, and to offer game,
To coy, to court, et ccetera to do ;
(Forgive me, Chasteness, if in terms of shame,
To thy renown, I paint what longs thereto ;)
Who hath not liv'd, and yet hath seen, I say,
That might offend chaste hearers to enduie ;
Who hath been haled on to touch and play,
And yet not stoop'd to pleasure's wanton lure;
Crown him with laurel for his victory,
Clad* him in purple and iu scarlet dye,
Enroll his name in books of memory,
Net let the honour of his conquest die;
More royal in his triumph than the man
Whom tigers drew in coach of burnish'd gold,
In whom the Roman monarchy began.
Whose works of worth no wit hath erst con-
troll'd :
Elysium be his walk, high heaven his shrine,
His drink sweet nectar, and cimbrosia,
The food that makes immortal and divine,
Be his to taste, to make him live for aye ;
And that I may, in brief, describe his due,
What lasting honour Virtue's guerdon is,
So much and more his just desert pursue,
Sith his desert awards it to be his.
L ENVOY.
To thee, in honour of whose government
Entitled is this Praise of Chastity,
My gentle friend, these hasty lines are meant :
So flowereth Virtue like the laurel-tree,
Immortal green, that every eye may see;
And well was Daphne turu'd into the bay,
Whose chasteness triumphs, grows, and lives for
aye.
* Clad] i. e. Clothe : see note t, P- 108, sec. col.
t Ne] i. e. Nor.
THE HUNTING OF CUPID.
603
LOVE*
— ♦—
What thing is love ? — for sure love is a thing :-
Love is a prick, love is a sting,
Love is a pretty, pretty thing ;
Love is a fire, love is a coal,
Whose flame creeps in at every hole ;
And, as myself can best devise,
His dwelling is in ladies' eyes,
From whence he shoots his dainty darts
Into the lusty gallants' hearts;
And ever since was call'd a god
That Mars with Venus play'd even and odd.
CUPID'S ARROWS,
From England's Parnassus, 1600. t
At Venus' entreaty for Cupid her son,
These arrows by Vulcan were cunningly done.
The first is Love, as here you may behold,
His feathers, head, and body, are of gold :
The second shaft is Hate, a foe to love,
And bitter are his torments for to prove :
The third is Hope, from whence our comfort
springs;
His feathers [they] are pull'd from Fortune's
wings :
Fourth Jealousy in basest minds doth dwell ;
His* metal Vulcan's Cyclops sent from hell.
CORIDON AND MELAMPUS' S0NG,§
From England's Helicon, 1600.
Cor. Melampus, when will love be void of fears?
Mel. When jealousy hath neither eyes nor ears.
Cor. Melampus, when will love be throughly
shriev'd ?
.I/. /. When it is hard to speak and not believ'd.
* Love] These lines were most obligingly transcribed
for me by Dr. Bliss from one of Rawlinson's MSS (in the
Bodleian Library), which attributes them to " Mr. G.
Pecle." Since I received them from Oxford, 1 have dis-
covered that they are an extract from The Hunting of
(. lipid : see the next col.
In an old play. The Wisdorru of Doctor Dodypoll, 1600,
Sig. A 4, Cornelia sings the first six of these lines with
some very trifling variations.
t From England's Parnasrus, 1600] P. 177. under the
head "Lo ve." — These verses are a portion of The Hunting
of Cupid : see p. 604, first col.
J Big] E. P. "This."
§ Coridon and Melam/ius' Song] This song formed part
of The Hunting of Cupid: see p 604, first col.
Car. Melampus, when is love most malcontent ?
Mel. When lovers range and bear their bows
unbent.
Cor. Melampus, tell me when love takes least
harm?
Mel. When swains' sweet pipes are puff 'd and
trulls are warm.
Cor. Melampus, tell me when is love best fed?
Mel. When it has suck'd the sweet that ease hath
bred.
Cor. Melampus, when is time in love ill-spent?*
Mel. When it earns meed and yet, receives no rent.
Cor. Melampus, when is time well-spent in love ?
Mel. When deeds win meed and words love-works
do prove.
Fragments of The Hurting of Cupid from a MS. volume
(consisting chiefly of extracts from books) by Wil-
liam Dkummond of Hawthornden, belonging to the
Society of Scottish Antiquaries.
THE HUNTING OF CUPID. +
BY GEORGE PEELE OF OXFORD, PASTOR.VT..
On the snowie browes of Albion, sueet woodes
sueet running brookes, y' chide in a pleasant
tune and make quiet murmur, leaving [». e., laving]
the lilies, mints and waterfiowers in ther gentle
glide, making her face the marke of his wondring
eies and his eyes the messengers of his wouudit
hart. Like a candle keepith but a iitil raome
zet blazeth round about. Heardgroome w' his
strauberrie lasse. Some w' his sueet hart making
false position putting a schort sillabe wher a
long one should be. some a false supposition, to
cehbrate mistres holiday in Idlenesse.
Love. What thing is love (for wel I wot) love is a
thing
it is a pricke, it is a sting
it is a prettic, prettie thing
it is a fire, it is a cole
whose flame creepes in at eurie hole.
and is [read as] my wit doth best devise
loves dwelling is in ladys eies :
* Melampus, when is time in lure Ulrspent f] So stands
the line in England's Helicon, 1600, Maloiie's copy of
which is now before me : in the reprint of that very rare
work (in The British Bibliographer) it is incorrectly given
thus ;
" Melampus, when is love in time ill-spent ? "
i Th( Hunting of Cupid] This curious jumble is printed
from a verbatim transcript of the original, made by Mr
David Laing of Edinburgh, who kindly examined with
me the Drummond MSS. in the hope of finding some
mention of Peele.
See Account of Peele and his Writings, p. 336
604
THE HAWTHORN-TREE.
from whence do glance loves piercing darts
that niak such holes into o r harts
and al the world herin accord
love is a great and tuightie lord
And when he list to mount so hie
With Venus he in heaven doth lie
And ever more hatli been a god
Since Mars and sche plaid even and od.
Kis a litle and use not.
Q. why kissings good. R. to stirre zour bloud
to make zou wel dispos'd to play, ab aquiloue
omue malum, wold have moued teares in vreath
[1 e. wrath] herselfe. wrinckled sorrow sate in fur-
l'owes of a faire face, famous for his il fortune,
zou that think ther is no heaven but on earth,
zou that sucke poison insteed of honney. he
eseedeth fiends in crueltie and fortune in uu-
constaucie.
set up Cynthea by day and Citherea by nig'
sche strakid his head and mist his homes,
who bluntly bespake her
grew this sueet rose in this soure stalke
Cupids At Venus entreate for Cupid her sone
Arrowes these arrowes by Vlcan are cunningly
done
the first is love the second shafte is hate
but this is hope from whence sueet com-
fort springs
this jelousie in bassest minds doth duell
his mettall Vlcan's Cyclops fetcht from
Hel
a smaking kis that wakt me w* the dine
know good and eschew it praise chastnesse aud
follow lustful love like the old [one or two words
illegible here]
al quicklie com home by weeping crosse.
highest imperial orbe and throne of the thunder
Et non morieris inultus. schelter and shade,
holdeth them faster than Vlcan's tine wires kept
Mars,
a song to be sung for a wager a dish of damsons
new gathered off the trees.
Melampus when wil love be voide of feares
when jelousie hath nather eies nor eires
Melampus tel me when is love best fed [bred
when it hath suck[t]e the sueet y' ease hath
Licoris as sueet to him as licorice. Cor sapifc
et [some ivords illegible here] a hot liver must be in
a lover. To commend anay thing is the Italian
way of crauing. my hart is like a point of geo-
metric indiuisible, and whor it goes it goes al.
Hard hart that did thy reed (poore shephard)
brake
thy reed y' was the trumpet of thy wit
Zet though unworthie sound thy phenix'e
praise
aud with this slender pipe her glorie raise
Cupid enraged to see a thousand boyes
as faire as he sit shooting in her eies
fell doune and sche
pluckt al his plumes and made herselfe a fan
suering him her true litle serumg man.
Muse chuse
My mistres feeds the ayre ayre feeds not her
ly l of the ly r sche is, delyt supreame.
Zet so far from the lytness of her sex
for sche is the bird whose name doth end iu X.
Not clouds cast from the spungie element
nor darknesse shot from Orcus pitchie eyes
Zet both her shines vailed w' her arche beauties
her words such quickning odors cast
as raise the sicke and make the soundest thinke
ayre is not wholsome, til her walke be past
more then the fontaynes til the vnicornes drinke
a thousand echoes vat [?'. e. wait] upon her voice.
Cupid. Those milkie mounts he eurie morning
hants
wher to their drink his mothers doues he calls,
in my younger dayes when my witfcs ran a wool
gathering
some prettie lye he coined.
A MERRY BALLAD OF THE HAWTHORN-
TREE*
TO BE SUNG AFTER DONKIN DARGESOX.+
(From a Manuscript in the Cottonian Library,
Veep. A. xxv. ff. 163-4 )
It was a maid of my country,
As she came by the J hawthorn-tree,
As full of flowers as might be seen,
She raarvell'd to see the tree so green.
At last she asked of this tree,
"How came this freshness unto thee,
And every branch so fair and clean ?
I marvel that you grow so green."
* A merry ballad of the Hawthorn-lrte\ Why did Ritson,
who has given this ballad among his Ancient Simps. 1790,
p. 146, omit to mention that the MS. has "G. Peele''
appended to it? Our poet's name is indeed written in :i
much more modern hand than the ballad, but it must
have been there long before Ritson's day. That Peele
was really the author of it, I think very doubtful.
] Donkin Darf/eson] "This tune, whatovrr it was,
appears to have been iu use till after the Restoration."—
Ritson.
I the] Ritson prints "a."
THE HAWTHORN-TREK.
G05
The tree made answer by and by,
"I have good cause to grow triumphantly;
The sweetest dew that ever be seen
Doth fall ou nie to keep me green."
" Yea," quoth the maid, " but where you grow,
You stand at baud for every blow,
Of every man for to be seen :
I marvel that you grow so green."
" Though many one take flowers fro me,
And many a branch out of my tree,
I have such store they will not be seen,
For more and more my twigs grow green."
" But how an they chance to cut thee down,
And carry thy branches into the town ?
Then will they never no more be seen,
To grow again so fresh and green."
" Though that you do, it is no boot ;
Although they cut me to the root,
Next year again I will be seen
To bud my brauches fresh and green.
And you, fair maid, can not do so,
For if you let your maidhood go,
Then will it never no more be seen,
As I with my brauches can grow green."
The maid with that began to blush,
And turn'd her from the hawthorn-bush ;
She thought herself so fair and clean,
Her beauty still would ever grow green.
When that she heard this marvellous doubt,
She wauder'd still then all about,
Suspecting still what she would ween,
Her maidhood lost would never be seen.
With many a sigh she went her way,
To see how she made herself so gay,
To walk, to see, and to be seen,
And so outfae'd the hawthorn-green.
Besides all that, it put her in fear,
To talk with company any where,
For fear to lose the thing that should be seen
To grow as were the hawthorn green.
But after this never I could hear
Of this fair maiden any where,
That ever she was in forest seen,
To talk again of [with ?] the hawthorn green.
" Merrie conceited Iesls : of George Pede Gentleman, sometimes a Student in Oxford. Wherein it shewed the course of
his life, how he lined : a man very icell kuoicne in tlm Citie of London, and elseichere.
Buy, reade, and iudge,
The price doe not grudge :
It will doe thee more pleasure.
Then twice so much treasure.
London, Printed by G. P. for F. Faulkner, and are to be sold at his Shop in Southwarke, neere Saint Margarets Hill.
1627. 4 to.
Of this tract I have made particular mention in my Account of Peek and his Writings, p. 329.
PEELE'S MERRY CONCEITED JESTS.
THE
JEST OF GEORGE PEELE WITH FOUR OF
HIS COMPANIONS AT BRAINFORD.
George, with others of his associates, being
merry together at the tavern, having more store
of coin than usually they did possess, although
they were as regardless of their silver as a garden-
whore is of her honesty ; yet they intended for a
season to become good husbands, if they knew
how to be sparing of that their pockets were
then furnished withal. Five pounds they had
amongst them; and a plot must be cast how they
might be merry with extraordinary cheer three
or four days, and keep their five pounds whole
in stock. George Peele was the man must do it
or none, and generally they conjured him by
their loves, his own credit, and the reputation
that went on him, that he would but in this show
his wit; and withal he should have all the
furtherance that in them lay. George, as easy as
they earnest to be won to such an exploit, con-
sented, and [they] gathered their money together,
and gave it all to George, who should be their
purse-bearer, and the other four should seem as
servants to George Peele; and the better to
colour it, they should go change their cloaks, the
one like the other, so near as they could possible;
the which at Beelzebub's brother the broker's
they might quickly do. This was soon accom-
plished, and George was furnished with his black
satin suit, and a pair of boots, which were as
familiar to his legs as the pillory to a baker's or
collier's neck; and he sufficiently possessed his
friends with the whole scope of his intent, as,
gentle reader, the sequel will show. Instantly
they took a pair of oars, whose arms were to
make a false gallop no further than Brainford,
where their fare was paid them so liberally, that
each of them, the next tide to London, purchased
two new waistcoats : yet should these good bene-
factors come to their usual places of trade, and
if they spy a better fare than their own, that
happily the gentleman hath more mind to go
withal, they will not only fall out with him that
is of their own sweet transporters, as they are,
but abuse the fare they carry with foul speeches,
as "A pox," or " The devil go with you," as their
godfather Charon, the ferryman of hell, hath
taught them. I speak not this of all, but of
some that are brought up in the east, some in
the west, some in the north, but most part in the
south ; but for the rest, they are honest complete
men. Leaving them, to come to my honest
George ; who is now merry at The Three Pigeons
in Brainford,* with sack and sugar, not any wine
wanting, the musicians playing, my host drinking,
my hostess dancing with the worshipful justice,
for so then he was termed, and his mansion-
house in Kent, who came thither of purpose to
be merry with his men, because he could not so
conveniently near home by reason of a shrewish
wife he had. My gentle hostess gave him all the
entertainment her house could afford; for Master
Peele had paid royally, for all his five pounds was
come to ten groats. Now George Peele's wit
labours to bring in that five pounds there was
spent ; which was soon begotten. Being set at
dinner, " My host," quoth George, " how falls the
tide out for London ?" " Not till the evening,"
quoth mine host : "have you any business, sir?"
" Yes, marry," quoth George, " I intend uot to
go home this two days : therefore, my boat,
saddle my man a horse for London, if you be so
• The Tliree Pigeont in Brainford~\ The persons who fre-
quented The Three Pigeons at Brentford were generally
not of the most respectable description. At a later
period, when the Puritans had put down the stage, it
was kept by the celebrated actor Lowiu, then in old age
and poverty.
610
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
well furnished, for I must send him for one bag
more," quoth George, " ten pounds hath seen no
sun this six months." " I am ill furnished if I
cannot furnish you with that," quoth my host,
and presently saddled him a good nag, and away
rides one of George's men to London, attending
the good hour of his master Peele in London.
In the mean time George bespeaks great cheer to
supper, saying, he expected some of his friends
from London. Now you must imagine there was
not a penny owing in the house, for he had paid
as liberal as Caesar, as far as Caesar's wealth went ;
for, indeed, most of the money was one Csesar's,
an honest man yet living in London. But to the
catastrophe. All the day before, had one of the
othtr men of George Peele been a great solicitor
to my hostess, she would beg leave of his master
he might go see a maid, a sweetheart of his, so
far as Kingston, and before his master went to
bed he would return again ; saying, he was sure
she might command it at his master's hands. My
kind hostess willing to pleasure the young fellow,
knowing in her time what belonged to such
matters, went to Master Peele, and moved him in
it, which he angerly refused; but she was so
earnest in it, that she swore he should not deny
her, protesting he went but to see an uncle
of his some five miles off. " Marry, I thank
you," quoth George : " my good hostess, would
you so discredit me, or hath the knave no more
wit than at this time to go, knowing I have no
horse here, and would he base cullian * go a-
foot?" "Nay, good sir," quoth mine hostess,
" be not angry, it is not his intent to go a-foot,
for he shall have my mare ; and I will assure
you, sir, upon my word, he shall be here again to
have you to bed." " Well," quoth George,
" hostess, I'll take you at your word, let him go ;
his negligence shall light upon you." " So be
it," quoth mine hostess. So down goeth she, and
sends away civil Thomas, for so she called him,
to his sweetheart, backed upon her mare : which
Thomas, instead of riding to Kingston, took Lon-
don in his way ; where meeting with my other
horseman, attended the arrival of George Peele,
which was not long after. They are at Lon-
don; George in his chamber at Brainford, accom-
panied with none but one Anthony Nit, a barber,
who dined and supped with him continually, of
whom he had borrowed a lute,+ to pass away the
* cvUiari] Or cullion, i. o. scoundrel, rogue.
t a lute] Was always to bo found in a barber's shop, for
the amusement of thou) customers who were obliged to
wait.
melancholy afternoon, of* which he could play
as well as Banks his horse. + The barber very
modestly takes his leave : George obsequiously
bids him to supper, who (God willing) would not
fail. George being left alone with his two
supposed men, gave them the mean how to
escape, and walking in the court, George found
fault with the weather, saying it was rawish and
cold; which word mine hostess hearing, my kind
hostess fetched her husband's holiday gown,
which George thankfully put about him, and
withal called for a cup of sack, after which
he would walk into the meadows and practise
upon his lute. " 'Tis good for your worship to
do so," quoth mine hostess : which walk George
took directly to Sion; where having the advan-
tage of a pair of oars at hand, made this [qy. his?]
journey for London. His two associates behind
had the plot in their heads by George's in-
struction for their escape ; for they knew he was
gone. My hostess she was in the market, buying
of provision for supper ; mine host he was at
tables ;+ and my two masterless men desired the
maids to excuse them if their master came,
" For," quoth they, " we will go drink two pots
with my smug smith's wife at Old Brainford." "I
warrant you," quoth the maids. So away went
my men to the smith's at Old Brainford, from
thence to London ; where they all met, and sold
the horse and the mare, the gown and the lute,
which money was as badly spent as it was
lewdly § got. How my host and my hostess
looked when they saw the event of this, go but
to The Three Pigeons at Brainford, you shall
know.
THE
JEST OF GEORGE AND THE BARBER. li
George was not so merry at London with his
capons and claret as poor Anthony the barber
* of] i. e. on.
t Banks his korse~] Banks taught his horse, named
Morocco, to perform feats much more wonderful than
any exhibited by the most accomplished quadrupeds of
our time. The ascent of Morocco to the top of St. Paul's
Church is mentioned by several writers.
t tables] i. e. backgammon.
§ lewdly] i. o. knavishly.
|| The Jest of George and the Barber] George Pycboard
escapes from the sheriff's officers by a like stratagem.
When they arrest him at the suit of his hostess for "four
pound, five shillings, and five pence," he says, " If you
had not crossed me, I was going in great joy to receive
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
Gil
was sorrowful at Braiuford fur the loss of Lis
lute; and therefore determined to come to
Loudon to seek out George Peele ; which by the
means of a kinsman that Anthony Nit had in
Loudon, his name was Cuts or Feats, a fellow
that had good skill in tricks on the cards, and he
was well acquainted with the place where George's
common abode was ; and for kindred-sake he
directed the barber where he should have him,
which was at a blind alehouse in Sea-coal Lane.
There ho found George in a greeu jerkin, a
Spanish platter-fashioned hat, all alone at a peck
of oysters. The barber's heart danced within
him for joy he had so happily found him. He
gave him the time of the day. George not a
little abashed at the sight of the barber, yet went
not to discover it openly. He that at all times
had a quick invention, was not now behindhand
to entertain my barber, who knew for what his
coming was. George thus saluted him. " My
honest barber," quoth George, " welcome to
London : I partly know your business ; you come
for your lute, do you not?" "Indeed, sir,"
quoth the barber, "for that is my coming."
" And believe me," quoth George, " you shall not
lose your labour : I pray you stand to and eat an
oyster, and I'll go with you presently; for a
gentleman in the city of great worship borrowed
it of me for the use of his daughter, that plays
exceeding well and had a great desire to have
the lute : but, sir, if you will go along with me
to the gentleman's house, you shall have your
lute with great satisfaction ; for had not you
come, I assure you, I had sent [it] to you ; for
you must understand that all that was done at
Biainford among us mad gentlemen was but a
jest, and no otherwise." "Sir, I think not any
otherwise," quoth the barber : " but I would
desire your worship that as you had it of me in
love, so in kindness you would help me to it
again." "0 God, what else?" quoth George:
" I'll go with thee presently, even as I am, for
I came from hunting this morning; and should
I go up to the certain gentlemen above, I should
fiye pound of a gentleman, for the device of a masque
here, drawn in this paper ; " and they consent to accom-
pany him to the gentleman's house, on condition ol" their
receiving what remains of the five pounds :ifti-r the claim
of the hostess has been satisfied. George takes them to
a house in tha next street ; and while tho officers think
be is talking to the owner of it about the masque,
George explains his situation to him, and begs permis-
sion to make his exit by a back-door : the good-natured
gentleman likes the jest, and George escapes.— The
Puritan, Act 3, sc. 4 and 5.
hardly get away." " I thank you, sir," quotli the
barber. So on goes George with him in his green
jerkin, a wand in his hand very pretty, till he
came almost at the alderman's house : where
making a sudden stay, " Afore God," quoth
George, "I must crave thy pardon at this instant,
for I have bethought myself, should I go as I am,
it would be imagined I had had some of my
lord's hounds out this morning; therefore I'll
take my leave of thee, and meet thee where thou
wilt about one of the clock." " Nay, good sir,"
quoth the barber, "go with me now; for I
purpose, God willing, to be at Brainford to-
night." "Sayest thou so ?" quoth George : "why,
then, I'll tell thee what thou shalt do : thou art
here a stranger and altogether unknown ; lend
me thy cloak and thy hat, and do thou put on
my green jerkin, and I'll go with thee directly
along." The barber, loth to leave him until he
had his lute, yielded to the change. So when
they came to the gentleman's porch, he put on
George's green jerkin and his Spanish hat, and
he the barber's cloak and his hat. Either of
them being thus fitted, George knocks at the
door: to whom the porter bids heartily welcome,
for George was well known, who at that time had
all the oversight of the pageants.* He desires
the porter to bid his friend welcome ; " For he is
a good fellow and a keeper, Master Porter, one
that at his pleasure can bestow a haunch of
venison on you." ," Marry, that can I," quoth
the barber. " I thank you, sir," answered the
porter. "Master Peele, my master is in the hall;
pleaseth it you to walk in?" "With all my
heart," quoth George : " in the mean time let my
friend bear you company." "That he shall,
Master Peele," quoth the porter ; * and if it
please him, he shall take a simple dinner with
me." The barber gives him hearty thanks, not
misdoubting Master Peele any way, seeing hitn
known ; and himself so welcome, fell in chat with
the porter. George Peele goes directly to the
alderman, who now is come into the court, in the
eye of the barber ; where George, after many
complaints, draws a blank t paper out of his
bosom, and making action to the barber, reads to
the alderman as followeth. " I humbly desire
your worship to stand my friend in a slight
matter. Yonder hard-favoured knave, that sits
by your worship's porter, hath dogged me to
* had all the oversight «/ the pageants] "He's an excel-
lent scholar," says Puttock of George Pyeboard, "and
especially for a masque "—The Puritan, Act. 3, sc 6.
f blanl] Old ed. " black.".-
p. a 8
012
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
arrest me, and I had no other means but to take
your worship's bouse for shelter. The occasion
is but trivial, only for stealing of a piece of flesh,
myself consorted with three or four gentlemen
of good fashion, that would not willingly have
our names come in question. Therefore, this is
my boon ;* that your worship would let one of
your servants let me out at the garden-door,
and I shall think myself much indebted to your
worship." The kind gentleman, little dreaming
of George Peele's deceit, took him into the
parlour, gave him a brace of angels, and caused
one of his servants to let George out at the
garden-door; which was no sooner opened, but
George made way for the barber seeing him any
more, and all the way he went could not choose
but laugh at his knavish conceit, how he had
gulled the simple barber, who sat all this while
with the porter blowing of his nails; to whom
came this fellow that let out George. "You
whoreson keeperly rascal," quoth the fellow,
"do you come to arrest any honest gentleman in
my master's house ?" " Not I, so God help me,"
quoth the barber. " I pray, sir, where is the
gentleman, Master Peele, that came along with
me!" "Far enough," quoth the fellow, "for your
coming near him ; he is gone out at the garden-
door." " Garden-door !" quoth the barber ;
"why, have you any more doors than one?"
" We have, sir ; and get you hence, or I'll set
you going, goodraan keeper." "Alas," quoth the
barber, " sir, I am no keeper, I am quite undone !
I am a barber dwelling at Brainford :" and w ; th
weeping tears up and told him how George had
used him. The servant goes ' in, and tells his
master : which when he heard, he could not but
laugh at the first ; yet in pity of the poor barber,
he gave him twenty shillings towards his loss.
The barber sighing took it, and towards Brainford
home he goes; and whereas he came from thence
in a new cloak and a fair hat, he went home
weeping in an old hat and a green jerkin.
HOW GEORGE PEELE BECAME A
PHYSICIAN.
George on a time being happily furnished both
of horse and money, though the horse he
* Tlirre.fort, this if my boon, tbc.\ George Pyeboard in
the parallel scene of The Puritan, already mentioned,
uses nearly tho same words: " May it please your good
worship, then, but to uphold my device, which is to lot
one of your men put me out at a back-door, and I shall
be bjund to your worship for ever."
hired, and the money he borrowed ; but no
matter how he was possessed of them ; and to-
wards Oxford he rides to make merry with hia
friends and fellow students; and in his way
he took up Wickham, where he sojourned that
night. Being at supper, accompanied with his
hostess, among other table-talk, they fell into
discourse of chirurgery, of which my hostess was
a simple professor. George Peele, observing the
humour of my she-chirurgeon, upheld her in all
the strange cures she talked of, and praised her
womanly endeavour; telling her, he loved her
so much the better, because it was a thing that
he professed, both physic and chirurgery : and
George had a dictionary of physical words, that
it might set a better gloss upon that which he
seemingly professed ; and told his good hostess,
at his return he would teach her something that
should do her no hurt; "For," quoth he, "at this
instant I am going about a great cure, as far as
Warwickshire, to a gentleman of great living, and
one that hath been in a consumption this half
year, and I hope to do him good." " God,"
quoth the hostess, " there is a gentleman not a
quarter of a mile off, that bath been a long time
sick of the same disease. Believe me, sir," quoth
the hostess, " would it please your worship, ere
your departure in the morning, but to visit the
gentleman, and but spend your opinion of him,
and I make no question but the gentlewoman
will be very thankful to you." " 'I faith," quoth
George, " happily at my return I may ; but at
this time my haste is such that I cannot; and so
good night, mine hostess." So away went George
to bed ; and my giddy hostess, right of the nature
of most women, thought that night as long as
ten, till she was delivered of that burden of news
which she had received from my new doctor, for
so he termed himself, Morning being come, at
break of the day mine hostess trudges to this
gentleman's house, acquainteth his wife what an
excellent man she had at her house ; protesting
he was the best seen in physic, and had done the
most strangest cures that ever she heard of;
saying, that if she would but send for him, no
question he would do him good. The gentle-
woman, glad to hear of any thing that might
procure the health of her husband, presently
sent one of her men to desire the doctor to come
and visit her husband. Which message when
George heard, he wondered ; for he had no more
skill in physic than in music; and they were as
distant both from him as heaven from hell.
But, to conclude, George set a bold face on it,
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
613
and away went he to the sick gentleman : where
when he came, after some compliment to the
gentlewoman, he was brought to the chamber,
where the ancient gentleman lay wonderful sick,
for all physic had given him over. George begins
to feel his pulses and his temples, saying, he was
very far spent : " Yet," quoth he, " under God, I
will do him some good, if nature be not quite
extinct." Whereupon he demanded whether
they had ever a garden ? " That I have," quoth
the gentlewoman. " I pray you direct me
thither," quoth George. Where when he came,
he cut a handful of every flower, herb and blossom,
or whatsoever else in the garden, and brought
them in in the lappet of his cloak, boiled them in
ale, strained them, boiled them again ; and when
he had all the juice out of them, of which he
made some pottle of drink, he caused the sick
gentleman to drink off a maudlin cupful, and
willed his wife to give him of that same at morn-
ing, noou, and night; protesting, if any thing in
this world did him good, it must be that ; giving
great charge to the gentlewoman to keep him
Wonderful warm : " And at my return," quoth
George, "some ten days hence, I will return and
see how he fares ; for," quoth he, " by that time
something will be done; and so I will take my
leave.'' " Not so," quoth the gentlewoman ;
" your worship must needs stay and take a
simple dinner with me to-day." "Indeed," quoth
George, " I cannot now stay ; my haste is such,
I must presently to horse." You may suppose
George was in haste until he was out of the
gentleman's house ; for he knew not whether he
had poisoned the gentleman or not, which made
him so eager to be gone out of the gentleman's
house. The gentlewoman, seeing she could by
no means stay him, gave him two brace of angels,
which never shined long in his purse, and de-
sired him at his return to know her house :
which George promised, and with seeming nice-
ness* took the gold, and towards Oxford went
he, forty shillings heavier than he was ; where he
bravely domineered while his physical money
lasted. But to see the strangeness of this. Whe-
ther it was the virtue of some herb which he
gathered, or the conceit the gentleman had of
George Peele, but it so pleased God the geutle-
man recovered; and iu eight days walked abroad;
and that fortunate potion which George made at
random, did him more good than many pounds
that he had spent in half a year hefore in physic.
* niceties*] i. e. scrupulousness.
George, his money being spent, he made his
return towards London ; and when he came
within a mile of the gentleman's house, he in-
quired of a country fellow how such a gentleman
did ? The fellow told him, God be praised, his
good landlord was well recovered by a virtuous
gentleman that came this way by chance. "Art
thou sure of it?" quoth George. "Yes, believe
me," quoth the fellow; "I saw him in the fields
but this morning." This was no simple news
to George. He presently set spurs to his horse,
and whereas he thought to shun the town, he
went directly to his inn : at whose arrival, the
hostess clapped her hands; the ostler laughed;
the tapster leaped; the chamberlain ran to the
gentleman's house, and told him the doctor was
come. How joyful the gentleman was, let them
imagine that have any after-healths. George
Peele was sent for; aud after a million of thanks
from the gentleman and his friends, George Peele
had twenty pounds delivered him ; which money,
how long it was a-spending, let the taverns in
Loudon witness.
HOW GEORGE HELPED HIS FRIEND
TO A SUPPER.
George was invited one night by certain of his
friends to supper at The White Horse in Friday
Street ; and in the evening as he was going, he
met with an old friend of his, who was so ill at
the stomach, hearing George tell him of the good
cheer he went to, himself being unprovided both
of meat and money, that he swore he had rather
have goue a mile about than have met him at
that instant. " And believe me," quoth George,
" I am heartily sorry that I cannot take thee
along with me, myself being but an invited
guest; besides, thou art out of clothes, unfitting
for such a company : marry, this I'll do ; if thou
wilt follow my advice, I'll help thee to thy
supper." " Any way," quoth he to George : " do
thou but devise the means, aud I'll execute it."
George presently told him what he should do;
so they parted. George well entertained, with
extraordinary welcome, and seated at the upper
end of the table, supper being brought up, H. M.
watched his time below; and when he saw that
the meat was carried up. up he follows, ns George
had directed him : who when George si\v, " You
whoreson rascal," quoth George, " what make
you here?" "Sir," quoth he, "1 am come from
614
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
the party jou wot of." " You rogue," quoth
George, "have I not forewarned you of this?"
" I pray you, sir," quoth he, " hear my errand."
" Do you prate, you slave ? " quoth George ; and
with that took a rabbit out of the dish, and threw
it at him. Quoth he, " You use me very hardly."
" You dunghill," quoth George, "do you outface
me?" and with that took the other rabbit, and
threw it at his head; after that a loaf; then
drawing his dagger, making an offer to throw it,
the gentlemen stayed him. Meanwhile H. M.
got the loaf and the two rabbits, and away he
went : which when George saw he was gone,
after a little fretting, he sat quietly. So by that
honest shift he helped his friend to his supper,
and was never suspected for it of the company.
HOW GEORGE PEELE WAS SHAVEN,
AND OF THE REVENGE HE TOOK*
There was a gentleman that dwelt in the west
country, and had stayed here in London a term
longer than he intended, by reason of a book
that George had to translate out of Greek into
English; and when he wanted money, George
had it of the gentleman : but the more he sup-
plied him of coin, the further off he was from
his book, and could get no end of it, neither by
fair means, entreaty, or double payment ; for
George was of the poetical disposition, never to
write so long as his money lasted ; some quarter
of the book being done, and lying in his hands
at random. The gentleman had plotted a means
to take such an order with George nest time he
came, that he would have his book finished. It
was not long before he had his company. His
arrival was for more money : the gentleman bids
him welcome, causeth him to stay dinner ; where
falling into discourse about his book, found
that it was as near ended as he left it two months
ago. The gentleman, meaning to be gulled no
longer, caused two of his men to bind George,
hand and foot, in a chair. A folly it was for him
to ask what they meant by it : the gentleman
sent for a barber ; and George had a beard of an
indifferent size and well grown : he made the
barber shave him, beard and head, left him as bare
of hair as he was of money. The barber he was
well contented for his pains, who left George
* and nf the revenge he took] But "the revenge" is not
described till the third section alter this.
like an old woman in man's apparel ; and his
Voice became it well, for it was more woman than
man. " George," quoth the gentleman, " 1 hate
always used you like a friend; my purse hath been
open to you : that you have of mine to translate,
you know it is a thing I highly esteem ; there-
fore I have used you in this fashion, that I might
have an end of my book, which shall be as much
for your profit as my pleasure." So forthwith he
commanded his men to unbind him; and putting
his hand into his pocket, gave him two brace of
angels. Quoth he, " Master Peele, drink this,
and by that time you have finished my book,
your beard will be grown ; until which time I
know you will be ashamed to walk abroad."
George patiently took the gold, said little, and
when it was dark night, took his leave of the
gentleman, and went directly home : who when
his wife saw, I omit the wonder she made, but
imagine those that shall behold their husbands
in such a case. To bed went George ; and ere
morning he had plotted sufficiently how to cry
quid pro quo with his politic gentleman.
THE
JEST OF GEORGE PEELE AT BRISTOW.
George was at Bristow, and there staying some-
what longer than his coin would last him, his
palfrey that should be his carrier to London, his
head was grown so big that he could not get him
out of the stable. It so fortuned at that instant,
certain players came to the town, and lay at that
inn where George Peele was: to whom George
was well known, being in that time an excellent
poet, aud had acquaintance of most of the best
players in England : from the trivial sort he was
but so so; of which these were; only knew
George by name, no otherwise. There was not
past three of the company come with the carriage,
the rest were behind, by reason of a long journey
they had, bo that night they could not enact ;
which George hearing, had presently a stratagem
in his head to get his horse free out of the stable,
and money in his purse to bear his charges up to
Loudon. And thus it was. He goes directly to
the mayor, tells him he was a scholar aud a
gentleman, and that he had a certain history* of
The Knight of the Rhodes; and withal, how Bristow
was first founded and by whom, and a brief of all
* history] i. e. historical play.
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
Clo
tho j e that before him had succeeded iD office in
that worshipful city ; desiring the mayor, that he
with his presence, and the rest of his brethren,
would grace his labours. The mayor agreed to
it, gave hiin leave, and withal appointed him a
place, but for himself, he could not be there,
being in the evening; but bade him make the
best benefit he could of the city, aud very
liberally gave him an angel ; which George
thankfully receives, aud about his business he
goes, got his stage made, his history cried, and
hired the players' apparel, to flourish out his
show, promising to pay them liberal I}' ; aid
withal desired them they would favour him so
much as to gather him his money at the do >r;
for he thought it his best course to employ them,
lest they should spy out his knavery, for they
have perilous heads. They willingly yield to do
him any kindness that lies in them; ill brief,
carry their apparel to the hall, phice themselves
at the door; where George in the meau time,
with the ten shillings he hail of the mayor,
delivered his horse out of purgatory, and carries
him to the town's end, and there placeth him to
be ready at his coming. By this time the
audience were come, and some forty shillings
gathered ; which money George put in his purse,
aud putting on one of the players' silk robes,
after the trumpet had sounded thrice,* out he
comes, makes low obeisance, goes forward with
his prologue, which was thus ;
" A trifling toy, a jest of no account, perdy ;t
Tlie knight, perhapa you think for to be I :
Think ou so still ; for why } you know that thought is
Sit still a while, I'll send the actors to ye." [free :
Which being said, after some fire-works that he had
made of purpose, threw [qy. thrown ?] out among
them, and down stairs goes he, gets to his horse,
and so with forty shillings to Loudon; leaves the
players to answer it; who when the jest was
known, their innocence excused them, being as
well gulled as the mayor and the audience.
HOW GEORGE GULLED A PINK,
OTHERWISE CALLED A CROSHABLLL.
Coming to London, he fell in company with a
cockatrice; which pleased his eye so well, that
* after the trumpet had sounded thrice] See note *, p. 225,
first col.
t perd:i\ i. e. par Dieu, verily (Here the old ed. has
"pardie" : but see note f, p. 865, sec. col.
X for ichii\ i. e. because.
ge fell a-boarding of her, and proffered her
the wine, which my croshabell willingly accept, d.
To the tavern they go ; where, alter a little
talk, George fell to the question about the thin/
you wot of. My she hobby was very dainty,
which made George far more eager; and my
lecherous animal proffered largely to obtain his
purpose. To conclude, nothing she would giant
unto except ready coin, which was forty shilling-,
not a farthing less; if so he would, nest uight
she would appoint him where he should meet her.
George saw how the game went, that she was
more for lucre than for love, thus cunr ingly
answered her; "Gentlewoman, howsoever you
speak, I do not think your heart agrees with
your tongue : the money you demand is but to
try me, and indeed but a trifle to me; but
because it shall not be said I bought that gem
of you I prize so highly, I'll give you a token
to-morrow, that shall be more worth than your
demand, if so you please to accept it.'' " S
(pjoth she, "it contenfceth me well; and so, if
please you, at this time we'll part, and to-morrow
in the evening meet you where you shall
appoint." The place was determined ; and tiny
kissed and parted, she home, George into Saint
Thomas Apostle's, to a friend of his, of whom he
knew he could take up a petticoat of * trust ; the
first letter of his name begins with G. A petti-
coat he had of him, at the price of five shillings ;
which money is owing till this day. The next
i ight being come, they met at the place appointed,
which was a tavern : there they were to sup ;
that ended, George was to go home with her, to
end his yeoman's plea in her common case. But
Master Peele had another drift in his ruazzard ;
for he did so ply her with wine, that in a small
time she spun such a thread, that she reeled
homewards, and George he was fain to be her
supporter. When to her house she came, with
nothing so much painting in the inside as her
face had on the outside, with much ado her maid
had her to bed; who was no sooner laid, but
she fell fast asleep : which when George perceived,
he sent the maid for milk and a quart of sack to
make a posset ; where, before her return, George
made so bold as to take up his own new petti-
coat, a fair gown of hers, two gold ring* thai lay
in the window, aud away he went. The ^uvu
aud the gold rings he made a chaffer of; the
petticoat he gave to his honest wife, one of the
best deeds he ever did to her. How the crosh-
* of] i. e. on.
616
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
abell looked when she awaked and saw this, I
was never there to know.
HOW THE GENTLEMAN WAS GULLED
FOR SHAVING OF GEORGE.
George had a daughter of the age of ten years,
a girl of a pretty form, but of an excellent wit :
all part of her was father, save her middle ; and
she* had George so tutored all night, that
although himself was the author of it, yet had he
been transformed into his daughter's shape, he
could not have done it with more conceit.
George at that time dwelt at the Bankside : from
whence comes this she-Sinon,+ early in the
morning, with her hair dishevelled, wringing her
hands, and making such pitiful moan, with
shrieks and tears, and beating of her breast, that
made the people in a maze. Some stood won-
dering at the child, others plucked her to know
the occasion; but none could stay her by any
means, but on she kept her journey, crying " 0,
her father, her good father, her dear father ! "
over the Bridge, thorough Cheapeside, and so to
the Old Bailey, where the gentleman sojourned.
There sitting herself down, a hundred people
gaping upon her, there she begins to cry out,
" Woe to that place, that her father ever saw it !
she was a castaway, her mother was undone ! "
till with the noise one of the gentleman's men
coming down, looked on her, and knew her to
be George Peele's daughter. He presently runs
up, and tells his master, who commanded his
man to bring her up. The gentleman was in a
cold sweat, fearing that George had, for the wrong
that he did him the day before, some way undone
himself. When the girl came up, he demanded
the cause why she so lamented and called upon
her father? George his flesh and blood, after a
million of sighs, cried " Out upon him ! he had
made her father, her good father, drown him-
self :" which words once uttered, she fell into a
counterfeit swoon; whom the gentleman soon
recovered. This news went to his heart : and he
being a man of a very mild condition, cheered up
the girl ; made his men to go buy her new clothes
from top to toe; said he would be a father to
her; gave her five pounds; bid her go home and
carry it to her mother, and in the evening he
would visit her. At this, by little and little, she
began to be quiet, desiring him to come and see
her mother. He tells her he will not fail ; bills
her go home quietly. So down stairs goes she
pertly ; and the wondering people that stayed at
door to hear the manner of her grief, had of her
naught but knavish answers, and home went she
directly. The gentleman was so crossed in mind,
and disturbed in thought at this unhappy acci-
dent, that his soul could not be in quiet till he
had been with this woful widow, as he thought ;
and presently went to Black Friars, took a pair
of oars, and went directly to George Peele's
house: where he found his wife plucking of larks,
my crying crocodile turning of the spit, and
George, pinned up in a blanket, at his translation.
The gentleman, more glad at the unlooked-for
life of George than [grieved at] the loss of his
money, took part of the good cheer George had
to dinner; wondered at the cunning of the
wench ; and within some few days after had an
end of his book.
HOW GEORGE READ A PLAY^BOOK TO
A GENTLEMAN.
* she] i. e. her.
t ehe-Sinon] Old ed.
1 *Ae-sinnow.
There was a gentleman whom God had endued
with good living bo maintain his small wit : he
was not a fool absolute, although in this world
he had good fortune ; and he was in a manner an
ingle* to George, one that took great delight to
have the first hearing of any work that George
had done, himself being a writer, and had a
poetical invention of his own, which when he
had with great labour finished, their fatal end
was for privy purposes. This self-conceited
brockt had George invited to half-a-score sheets
of paper; whose Christianly pen had writ Finvi
to the famous play of The Turkish Mahamet and
Hyrin the fair Greek,t'm Italian called acurtezan,
in Spain, a margerite, in French, line curtain [?],
in England, among the barbarous, a whore, but
among the gentle, their usual associates, a punk :
but now the word refined being latest, and the
authority brought from a climate as jet un-
couquered, the fruitful county of Kent, they call
them croshabell, which is a word but lately used.
* ingle] i. e. familiar, intimate,
t brock] i. o. (properly) badger.
{ The Turkish Mahamet and Hyrin the fair Greek:] Seo
tlio Account of Vedc ami his Writings, p. 341.
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
617
and fitting with their trade, being of a lovely and
courteous condition. Leaving them, this fantastic,
whose brain was made of naught but cork and
sponge, came to the cold lodging of Monsieur
Peele, in his black satin suit, his gown furred
with cony, in his slippers. Being in the evening,
he thought to hear George's book, and so to
return to his inn ; this not of the wisest, being of
Saint Barnard's. George bids him welcome ;
told him he would gladly have his opinion in
his book. He willingly condescended ; and
George begins to read, and between every scene
he would make pauses, and demand his opinion
how he liked the carriage of it. Quoth he,
" Wondrous well, the conveyance." " 0, but,"
quoth George, " the end is far better ; " for he
meant another conveyance ere they two departed.
George was very tedious in reading, and the
night grew old. " I protest," quoth the gentle-
man, " I have stayed over-long ; I fear me I
shall hardly get into mine inn." "If you fear
that," quoth George, " we will have a clean pair
of Bheets, and you shall take a simple lodging
here." This house-gull willingly embraced it,
and to bed they go : where George, in the midst
of the night, spying his time, put on this dor-
mouse his clothes, desired God to keep him in
good rest, honestly takes leave of him and the
house to whom he was indebted four nobles.
When this drone awaked, and found himself so
left, he had not the wit to be angry, but swore
scurvily at the misfortune, and said, " 1 thought
he would not have used me so." And although
it so pleased the fates he had another suit to put
on, yet he could not get thence till he had paid
the money George owed to the house, which for
his credit he did ; and when he came to his
lodging, in anger he made a poem of it ;
" Peele is no poet, but a gull and clown,
To take away my clothes and gown :
I vow by Jove, if I can see him wear it,
I'll give him a glyg, and patiently bear it."
HOW GEORGE PEELE SERVED HALF A
SCORE CITIZENS.
George once had invited half a score of his
friends to a great supper, where they were passing
merry, no cheer wanting, wine enough, music
playing : the night growing on, and being upon
departure, they call for a reckoning. George
swears there is not a penny for them to pay.
They, being men of good fashion, by no means
will yield unto it, but every man throws down
his money, some ten shillings, some five, some
more ; protesting, something they will pay.
" Well," quoth George, taking up all the money,
"seeing you will be so wilful, you shall see what
shall follow." He commands the music to play,
and while they were skipping and dancing,
George gets his cloak, sends up two pottles of
hippocras,* and leaves them and the reckoning
to pay. They, wondering at the stay of George,
meant to be gone ; but they were stayed by the
way, and before they went, forced to pay the
reckoning anew. This showed a mind in him, he
cared not whom he deceived, so he profited him-
self for the present.
JEST OF GEORGE RIDING TO OXFORD.t
There was some half-dozen of citizens that had
oftentimes been solicitors to George, he being a
Master of Art at the University of Oxford, that
he would ride with them to the Commencement,
it being at midsummer. George, willing to
pleasure the gentlemen his friends, rode along
with them. When they had rode the better
part of the way, they baited at a village called
Stoken, five miles from Wycombe. Good cheer
was bespoken for dinner ; and frolic was the
company, all but George, who could not be in
that pleasant vein that did ordinarily possess him,
by reason he was without money : but he had
not fetched forty turns about the chamber, before
hi6 noddle had entertained a conceit how to
money himself with credit, and yet glean it from
some one of the company. There was among
them one excellent ass, a fellow that did nothing
but frisk up and down the chamber, that his
money might be heard chide in his pocket. This
fellow had George observed, and secretly con-
veyed his gilt rapier-and-dagger into another
chamber, and there closely hid it : that done, he
* hippocras] A drink made of wine, sugar, and spices,
strained through a cloth. — Old ed. "hypocrist."
i A Jest of (ieorge riding to Oirfurd] In The Puritan,
Captain Idle (who is in prison) and George Pycboard
persuade Nicholas to steal Sir Godfrey's gold chain, to
! hide it in the garden, and to inform the simple knight
that Idle is a great conjuror able to recover it : Sir God-
' frey procures the release of Idle, who, assisted by George
| Pyeboard, plays the conjuror, and makes the Devil drop
I the chain on a rosemary-bank. — Act 1, i. 4 ; Act 4, 8. 2.
G18
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
called up the tapster, and upon his cloak borrows
five shillings for an hour or so, till his man
came, as he could fashion it well enough. So
much money he had; and then who more merry
than George ] Meat was brought up : they set
themselves to dinner, all full of mirth, especially
my little fool, who drank [qi/. dreamed 1 ?] not of
the conclusion of their feast. Dinner ended, much
prattle past, every man begins to buckle to his
furniture : among whom this hichcock missed his
rapier ; at which all the company were in a maze ;
he besides his wits, for he had borrowed it of a
special friend of his, and swore he had rather
spend twenty nobles. "This is strange," quoth
George, " it should be gone in this fashion, none
being here but ourselves, and the fellows of the
house ; " who were examined, but no rapier could
be heard of: all the company much grieved; but
George, in a pitiful chafe, swore it should cost
him forty shillings but he would know what was
become of it, if art could do it : and with that he
caused the ostler to saddle his nag ; for George
would ride to a scholar, a friend of his, that had
skill in such matters. " good Master Peele,"
quoth the fellow, " want no money : here is forty
shillings ; see what you can do ; and if you please,
I'll ride along with you." "Not so," quoth
George, taking his forty shillings, " I'll ride
alone, and be you as merry as you can till my
return." So George left them, and rode directly
to Oxford. There he acquaints a friend of his
with all the circumstance ; who presently took
horse and rode along with him to laugh at the
jest. When they came back, George tells them
he had brought one of the rarest men in England ;
whom they with much compliment bid welcome.
He, after a distracted countenance and strange
words, takes this bulfiuch by the wrist, and
carried him into the privy, and there willed him
to put in his head, but while he had written his
name and told forty : which he willingly did.
That done, the scholar asked him what he saw ?
" By my faith, sir, I smelt a villanous scent, but
I saw nothing." " Then I have," quoth he ; and
with tliat directed him where his rapier was ;
saying, "It is just north-east, enclosed in wood
near the earth " : * for which they all made
diligent search, till George, who hid it under a
settle, found it, to the comfort of the fellow, the
* enclosed in wood near the earth] Compare ;
"Ulr Godfrey ... I know 'tis [i. e. the chain] some-
where above the earth.
Idle. Ay, nigher the earth than thou wot'st on." — The
Puritnn, Act 'S, s. 6.
joy of the company, and the eternal credit of his
friend, who was entertained with wine and
sugar : * and George redeemed his cloak, rode
merrily to Oxford, havingcoin in his pocket, where
this loach spares not for any expense, for the
good fortune he had in the happy finding of his
rapier.
HOW GEORGE SERVED HIS HOSTESS.
George lying at an old widow's house, and had
gone so far on the score that his credit would
stretch no farther ; for she had made a vow not
to depart+ with drink or victuals without ready
money. Which George, seeing the fury of his
froward hostess, in grief kept his chamber ;
called to his hostess, and told her, " She should
understand that he was not without money, how
poorly soever he appeared to her, and that my
diet shall testify ; in the mean time, good hostess,"
quoth he, "send for such a friend of mine." She
did : so his friend came ; to whom George im-
parted his mind, the effect whereof was this, to
pawn his cloak, hose, and doublet, unknown to
his hostess : " For," quoth George, " this seven
nights do I intend to keep my bed." Truly he
spake, for his intent was, the bed should not
keep him any longer. Away goes he to pawn
his apparel : George bespeaks good cheer to
supper, which was no shamblebutcher['s]-stuff,
but according to the place; for, his chamber
being remote from the house, at the end of the
garden, his apparel being gone, it appeared to
him as the counter; therefore, to comfort him-
self, he dealt in poultry. % His friend bi ought
the money, supped with him : his hostess he
very liberally paid, but cavilled with her at her
uukiudness, vowing that, while he lay there, none
should attend him but his friend. The hostess
replied, a' God's name, she was well contented
with it : so was George too ; for none knew
better than himself what he intended. But, iu
brief, thus he used his kind hostess. After his
apparel and money was gone, he made bold with
the feather-bed he lay on, which his friend slily
conveyed away, having as villanous a wolf in his
belly as George, though not altogether so wise,
* wine and sugar] Wlion this tract was written, it was
customary to mix sugar with every kind of wino.
t depart] i. e. part.
t it appeared to him as the counter ; therefore, to comfort
himself, he dealt in poultry] A quibbling allusion to the
Counter Trison in the Poultry.
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
G19
for that feather-bed they devoured in two days,
feathers and all ; which was no sooner digested,
but away went the coverlet, sheets, and the
blanket ; and at the last dinner, when George's
good friend perceiving nothing left but the bed-
cords, as the devil would have it, straight came
in his mind the fashion of a halter, the foolish
kind knave would needs fetch a quart of sack for
his friend George ; which sack to this day never
saw vintner's cellar : and so he left George in a
cold chamber, a thin shirt, a ravished bed, no
comfort left him but the bare bones of deceased
capons. In this distress George bethought him
what he might do : nothing was left him ; and as
his eye wandered up and down the empty chamber,
by chance he spied out an old armour, at which
sight George was the joyfulest man in Christen-
dom ; for the armour of Achilles, that Ulysses
and Ajax strove for, was not more precious to
them, than this to him ; for he presently claps it
upon his back, the halbert in his hand, the
morion on his head ; and so gets out the back
way, marches from Shoreditch to Clerkeuwell, to
the no small wonder of those spectators that
beheld him. Being arrived to the wished haven
he would be, an old acquaintance of his furnished
him with an old suit and an old cloak for his old
armour. How the hostess looked when she saw
that metamorphosis in her chamber, judge those
bomborts that live by tapping, between the age
of fifty and threescore.
HOW HE SERVED A TAPSTER.
Gkorge was making merry with three or four
of his friends in Pye-corner, where the tapster of
the house was much given to poetry ; for he had
engrossed The Knight of the Sun. Venus and
Adonis,* and other pamphlets, which the strip-
ling had collected together ; and knowing George
to be a poet, he took great delight in his com-
pany, and out of his bounty would bestow a brace
of cans of + him. George observing the humour
of the tapster, meant presently to work upon
him. " What will you say," quoth George to
his friends, "if out of this spirit of the cellar I
fetch a good angel that shall bid us all to supper? "
" We would gladly see that," quoth his friends.
" Content yourself," quoth George. The tapster
ascends with his two cans ; delivers one to Master
* Venus and Adonis] Shakspeare's well-known poem,
t of] i. e. on.
Peele, and the other to his friends ; gives them
kind welcome: but George, instead of giving him
thanks, bids him not to trouble him, and begins
in these terms. " I protest, gentlemen, I wonder
you will urge me so much ; I swear I have it
not about me." " What is the matter?" quoth
the tapster ; " hath any one angered you ? "
" No, faith," quoth George : " I'll tell thee, it is
this. There is a friend of ours in Newgate for
nothing but only the command of the justices;
and he being now to be released, sends to me to
bring him an angel. Now the man I love dearly
well, and if he want ten angels, he shall have
them, for I know him sure : but here's the
misery, either I must go home, or I must be
forced to pawn this ; " and plucks an old Harry-
groat* out of his pocket. The tapster looks upon
it : "Why, an it please you, sir," quoth he, " this
is but a groat." " No, sir," quoth George, " I
know it is but a groat : but this groat will I not
lose for forty pounds ; for this groat had I of
my mother as a testimony of a lease of a house I
am to possess after her decease; and if I should
lose this groat, I were in a fair case ; and either
I must pawn this groat, or there the fellow must
lie still." Quoth the tapster, "If it please you,
I will lend you an angel on it, and I will assure
you it shall be safe." "Wilt thou?" quoth
George : " as thou art an honest man, lock it up
in thy chest, and let me have it whensoever I
call for it." "As I am an honest man, you shall,"
quoth the tapster. George delivered him his
groat : the tapster gave him ten shillings : to the
tavern go they with the money, and there merrily
spend it. It fell out in a small time after, the
tapster, having many of these lurches, fell to
decay, and indeed was turned out of service,
having no more coin in the world than this groat;
and in this misery he met George as poor as him-
self. " sir," quoth the tapster, " you are hap-
pily met; I have your groat safe, though since I
saw you last, I have bid great extremity : and I
protest, save that groat, I have not any one penny
in the world ; therefore I pray you, sir, help me to
my money, and take your pawn." " Not for the
world," quoth George : "thou sayest thou hast
but that groat in the w-rld; my bargain was,
that thou shouldst keep that groat until I did
demand it of thee ; I ask thee none. I will do
thee far more good, because thou art an honest
fellow ; keep thou that groat still, till I call for
it ; and so doing, the proudest Jack in England
* Harry-groat] i. e. groat of Heuvy the Eighth.
620
THE JESTS OF GEORGE PEELE.
cannot justify that thou art not worth a groat ;
otherwise they might : and so, honest Michael,
farewell." So George leaves the poor tapster
picking of his fingers, his head full of proclama-
tions what he might do ; at last, sighing, he ends
with this proverb ;
" For the price of a barrel of beer
I have bought a groat's-worth of wit :
Is not that dear?"
HOW GEORGE SERVED A GENTLEWOMAN.
Georoe used often to an ordinary in this town,
where a kinswoman of the good wife's in the
house held a great pride and vain opinion of her
own mother-wit ; for her tongue was as a jack
continually wagging; and for she had heard that
George was a scholar, she thought she would
find a time to give him notice that she had as
much in her head as ever was in her grand-
father's. Yet in some things she differed from
the women in those days ; for their natural com-
plexion was their beauty : now this titmouse,
what she is scanted by nature, she doth replenish
by art, as her boxes of red and white daily can
testify. But to come to George, who arrived at
the ordinary among other gallants, throws his
cloak upon the table, salutes the gentlemen, and
presently calls for a cup of canary. George had
a pair of hose on, that for some offence durst not
be seen in that hue they were first dyed in, but
from his first colour beiug a youthful green, his
long age turned him into a mournful black, and
for his antiquity was in print. Whicli this busy
body perceiving, thought now to give it him to
the quick ; and drawing near Master Peele,
looking upon his breeches, " By my troth, sir,"
q'totli she, "these are exceedingly well printed."
At which word, George being a little moved in
his mind that his old hose were called in question
answered, " And, by my faith, mistress," quoth
George, "your face is most damnably ill paiuted."
"How mean you, sir?" quoth she. "Marry,
thus, mistress," quoth George ; " that if it were
not for printing and painting,* my arse and your
face would grow out of reparations." At which
she biting her lip, in a parrot fury went down
the stairs. The gentlemen laughed at the sudden
answer of George, and being seated to dinner,
the gentlemen would needs have the company of
this witty gentlewoman to dine with them ; who
with little denying came, in hope to cry quittance
with George. When she was ascended, the
gentlemen would needs place her by Master
Peele; because they did use to dart one at
another, they thought it meet, for their more
safety, they should be placed nearest together.
George kindly entertains her, and being seated,
he desires her to reach him the capon that stood
by her, and he would be so bold as to carve for
his money : and as she put out her arm to take
the capon, George sitting by her, yerks me out a
huge fart, which made all the company in amaze,
one looking upon the other, yet they knew it
came that way. " Peace," quoth George, and
jogs her on the elbow, " I will say it was I." At
which all the company fell into a huge laughter;
she into a fretting fury, vowing never she
should sleep quietly till she was revenged
of George his wrong done unto her;
and so in a great chafe left
their company.
* if it were not for printing and painting, &c ] Compare;
" Flavia. Pray you, in ancient times were not those
satin hose? In good faith, now they are new-dyed,
pinked, and scowered, they show as well as if they were
new. What, mute, Balurdo?
" Fetiche. Ay, in faith, and 'twere not for printing and
painting, my breech and your face would be out of repara-
tion." — Marston's Antonio and Mellida, First Part, 1602,
act ii. sc. 1.
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON GREENE.
ibraid .
adrad
addrest
adyts
affects .
aldertruest
ale, the
all amort
amated
amiss
amorets
approve .
.Astrajus
awarraut
away with
axier
ays gar
bain
Barclay's ship
battling .
beh' iding
Bi;-a
blent .
blin
Bocardo
borrow .
brabbling
braids
brave .
breech .
bright of blee
brown-bill
bum .
by . .
by'rlady
collet
can
censure .
die trow, cha
civil
Mr Collier'i
clad
clapperdudgeon
cleeves
clifts
clip
cob, a red-herring'
cobs
commodity
convince
corned .
cote
counterfeit
couuterpane
crake
creeple
crowd
curats .
cut and long-tail
mistake about
cutting .
doin , .
daw ,
denay . .
Mr
mistake about
Collier'i
PAOE
231
277
198
137
256
220
138
153
95
110
168
227
288
188
144
136
187
301
164
166
119
131
124
298
164
296
125
302
104
320
264
172
203
263
208
131
287
89
130
122
123
108
265
154
90
306
144
291
120
278
320
154
158
121
225
318
180
89
267
267
159
225
213
237
PAOE
detract 191
dictamnum .... 208
dilated £78
Vnmine Dawcock . . . 164
doon 304
Dority 102
drad 279
early up, and never the nearer . 161
employ 190
Euphrates 89
fair 118
fancy 166
fashion 120
fast-lancied 160
favour 124
fere 136
flaws 90
fond 119
fond-conceited .... 109
for why 9fi
found 267
frump 200
gassampine .... 135
gear 126
gioson 279
giglot 306
gome 209
gree 91
greet 277
guard 177
guess 166
harp-shilling 204
Hatton, Lady Elizabeth . . 275
hand your clacks . . . . 188
heal 278
bent 281
Hespcrides 90
hight 229
hilding 157
hold my cap to a noble . . . 126
horn-thumb .... 138
hose 145
huffcap 127
hue 234
inconvenient .... 191
intending 129
into Ill
jet 206
lawnds 95
lease-parol 134
leese 261
lemon 117
letters-patents .... 198
lewely 195
lief 266
liefer . .... 305
lig 180
lin .
lour
lovely
lute-strings
roanneth
margorites .
Martlemas
mateth
may
mease .
merkest .
Middleham-castle
mirabolana
'miss .
mo .
mockado
mops
Morglay . .
m ouse
mutton . .
ne wot .
niece .
nild
nill
nouce
noust .
nouriced .
of.
ostry-faggot
out of all ho
over-curious
owe
pair
pantofles
pashed .
pass not of .
posse th .
perceiverance
philautia
pickerel
pigi.t .
pinner
pioners .
plaok erd
plighted .
plunged
plunges .
point of war
ignorantl
by Mr. Collier's MS
portace .
powl .
practice . . .
prease .
prest .
pretend
prevails . ■
prize . . .
quit
quittance
y altered
Corrector
1 10K
, 308
. 197
. 1S9
. 121
89
90
260
98
305
124
194
264
170
109
313
124
218
210
244
176
144
229
301
264
124
1S8
293
235
133
174
246
146
178
164
94
156
1U0
261
204
197
278
2a3
164
U4
2>9
144
131
94
94
162
139
235
135
130
130
124
175
119
231
022
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON GREENE.
rebated
Mr-
Collier's mistake
about
reei ned .
rucureless
re' le
regiment
remorse .
resolve you.
rid .
road .
roisters .
rout
roves a bow beyond bis reach
sackless .
SJilll
sale .
sail .
talt-eellar
say nay, and take it
sect
seeming
seen
scndal .
slioou .
shrow .
side
Biege .
silverliugs
PAGE
90
90
210
200
236
89
130
155
187
255
164
280
156
299
231
194
195
169
123
244
304
216
111
320
209
304
299
130
sithe .
sithens .
(•kills .
hi. ink
8lopS .
souce-wife
sounded thrice
stales
stuinmel red
standards
start .
stock
stomach
stowre
strides a lance
stripped .
swads .
swink
tables .
taint
tall .
teasers
than .
tho .
threap .
timely
tire
to .
treat .
PAOK
305
239
169
140
145
257
225
142
153
141
280
320
234
290
255
153
292
129
193
154
138
153
206
198
187
161
28S
193
160
truchmen
paoi;
, 290
umbles 177
unless 227
ure 225
vade 303
vail 107
veney 175
where 145
whereas 130
whig 304
whde 127
whilst 122
whist 201
white 133
whittle 320
will ...... 213
witch 2n2
wood 101
wooued 194
yearnful
y-bient ,
y-cieped
277
298
300
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON PEELE.
PAC1E
w
PAOB
PACE
a ha
517
chould
. 516
foul ....
. . 448
achived
497
Cithseron
. . 368
fraight
. toi
accoyed
502
clarls .
. 432
franion .
. . 445
a-life
519
cloth of ray .
. . 390
Fraunce, Abraham
. 684
almain
35S
cockell-bread
. 454
froes
. . 356
all amort
392
Commodity
. . 503
frumps
. 364
ailegate
510
con
. 366
funerals .
. . 44(>
amate
5U5
condition
. . 509
ainljodexter . . . .
503
conge' . .
. 524
gain -legged .
. 384
amiss
300
consort .
. . 549
gars
. . 561
ancients
494
controm
. 51S
ghosts crying " Vindict
a" . 425
apaid
381
cony-gat .
. . 579
gird
. . 579
approves
638
copesrnates ,
. 501
Gis
. 398
argolets . . . . . .
423
cottens .
. . 396
gite
. . 473
arrest
528
counterfeit .
. 483
give aim
. 4.2
as hard as the world goes . .
449
courtuold
. . 511)
glazing .
. . 529
astoned .
5'. 6
couth .
. 551
God's ames . . .
. 495
attempt
502
coys
. . 360
gods tofore
. . 533
attonce
862
crake .
. 379
Gog's blond .
. 502
a-wark
538
crank
. . 501
Gog's ounds .
. . 528
Aymon, sons of . . .
571
crankly
. 552
Go's ....
. 515
bale
Banks, his horse . . .
bases
be
bedare . . . . . .
bedfellow
been
beggar dwelling upon a green .
508
610
570
507
484
cross
crowds
cullian .
. . 402
. 401
. . 610
gree
ha wad
. . 354
. 515
ctirsen
. 516
Harington. Sir John
. . 584
cypress-springs
. . 369
Harry-groat
. 619
430
551
44S
damn, Mr. Collier's
mistake
harquebuze .
hast ....
. . 435
. 495
about the meaning
Daniel, Samuel
of . . 424
. . 5S4
hauzen .
hearse ....
. . 585
. 519
beholding . . . . .
beleek
berayed
bonomably
bosky ......
bound
brabble
brave
bravery
break
308
360
493
516
407
529
390
516
352
511
dared .
daysman
deck .
defy
denay .
deny
depart .
deprave .
detract
. 503
. . 366
. 393
. . 517
. 499
. . 532
. 458
. . 499
. 515
bent
h ether
bight
hippocras .
history .
Hobbinol
Horse, The White, in
Street .
hugy ....
. . 5:03
. 509
. . 353
. 617
. . 614
. 683
Friday
. . 44..
. 424
brief
bring-, be with him to . . .
brock
bruit
bug
bulk
burgen
by'rlady
bysse
bysse
356
503
616
492
424
482
352
503
586
588
dictamnum
dight .
discoloured
diseased
disposed
. . 359
. 562
. . 463
. 514
. . 391
ignomious . .
imp ....
in ... .
ingle ....
. . 490
. 602
. . 458
. 616
distaius
dole
don .
done
Donkin Dargcson
. 430
. . 39S
. 595
. . 542
. 604
intending . .
jack ....
Jack-au-apes .
jet ...
. . 579
. 410
. . 455
. 303
doubt
. . 498
joins . . .
. . 413
cammock
579
drake . . .
. 563
jouisance
. 354
Campion, Thomas . . .
5S4
jouru
. . 527
can
357
cathly
. . 587
Jove ....
. 462
cantred
39S
egal .
. 367
joy .
. . 404
centuries
388
endeavour
. . 493
certes
552
entreat . . .
. 517
keep ....
. 501
certis ......
513
equal
. . 552
ken ....
. . 563
cha
515
kept ....
. 562
chain
393
fancy .
. 512
keysar
. . 498
cham . . . . . .
515
farewell and a thousai
id . . 448
Killingworth
. 5S7
chambers
433
favour
. 466
kind
. . 369
chare is chared . . . .
392
feres
. . 352
kinder-kind
. 383
Charing-cross. ridiculous deriva-
fescues
. 586
kiudless .
. . 406
tion of the name
414
fine
. . 542
Charlemagne, King . . .
549
nig .
. 408
Lachis . . .
. 520
charm
353
foison
. . 449
lamb's-wool ,
. . 446
chave
352
foltriug
. 517
languishes .
. 494
cheer
360
fond
. . 428
lay
. . 381
chest
496
force . . . .
. 523
lays ....
. 3S4
chill
6151
foreslow
. . 436
leest .
. . 516
cliinks
503 , for why .
. 412
let ... .
. 436
C24
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON PEELE.
lets .....
lewd
lewdly
liefest . • • . •
lightly
lin
list ......
live
Locrine, the tragedy of .
losel
lovely
lute, a barber's .
luzeru
make
Jlarley (Marlowe), Christophe
martris
maugre ....
mean .....
mere
merely .....
mess
milt
'miss . . . . .
mo
ni"il .....
lajought
moughtcn . . . •
muleters. ....
mini
inuttou ...
naught, and be . . .
Be
needly ....
needsly
ne'er the near .
niceness .....
Kill
nonce .....
nones
1'iiul
noy
" man in deiperation "
of
osprey, its power of fascinating
fish ....
oxlips
pal .....
pautables ....
pavbreak
partly-coloured .
pass for ....
nasseth ....
lVnichia ....
perdy ....
perstand ....
pestered ....
j'liilisides ....
l'igeons, the Three, at Brentford
pigsnie ....
pi tiers ....
plash ....
p.iint-df-vice . . .
point of war .
\,y, to the ....
. rashly altered by Mr
Collier's MS. Corrector .
practice ....
prease ....
pivst ....
pretence ....
pretend ....
PAGE
434
428
610
384
358
557
551
427
425
561
358
610
537
528
584
514
4£>9
414
496
466
393
400
562
355
490
554
662
434
562
381
391
602
517
492
518
613
351
554
351
395
522
445
452
42S
352
532
390
466
578
449
510
563
353
492
588
562
609
455
393
585
379
378
389
389
504
413
43.0
607
497
prevaileth .
princox .
produce
proiti-stone
proper .
properties
propound .
Pueriles, Cato
putney
queaohy .
qui ted .
quit
rack
racking .
ranght
records .
reduced
refuse
regiment
remorse .
remorseful .
rests
revoke
Rhamuusia
rid
rids .
roads .
rood
rout
ruff.
sack . .
sack .
sad
sans
say in brief .
say nay, and
saved .
sealed
scorn .
she-Siiion
shendeth
shent
shepherds .
shroe ,
side
signed
sike . ,
silly
sitteth
skills
slight . .
slops
smicker
solitaries
sonizance
sort .
sorts an end
spider-catcher
start .
stained .
state .
stature .
steed .
stock
stomach
Stukeley, Tom
styeth .
sugar mixed wi
sup
Burquedry
surriuger .
swad
tak
e it
th
wnje
PAGE
496
404
541
500
447
369
411
401
595
393
366
5?3
466
56
351
449
434
4 en ;
367
500
481
649
517
359
408
361
380
392
405
446
50
516
5.9
381
384
494
588
513
471
616
471
367
583
364
445
505
fifil
491
561
493
515
409
561
42.S
561
354
391
504
557
412
369
414
522
448
556
549
484
618
527
553
518
588
swink .
table
tables .
take
take us with ye
tall .
Tamburlaiue
teen
tempt .
than
that's once .
fchilk
this
tho .
though [ am black, I am not the
devil
"Tlnee merry uien,"&c
togi'lier
tooting .
Tosson, the
I o wards .
toy
tralucent
tncfc .
Troy, new reared
Troy, New
Trov-novant
truchmau
t rum 1 1
trumpet sounding thrice
tyrau .
unhappy
vade
vail .
valure
viage .
vorty pence .
waist .
waltering
wanion, with a
wast
watchet
Watson, Thomas
weesels
welkin .
well said
well-thewed .
" Westward, ho
what's he lor a i
whenas
where . .
whereas
v.hiffler .
while .
whilst
whist .
whorecop
who there .
will .
wi tned
won
wood .
wooden .
world, a
worthies .
y-clepcd .
y-clept
y-clypped
THE END.
BRAIilicnv, AGXEW, k CO., PrtlNTEnH, WHITEFRIARS.
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