John Lyly Part 6

SECTION II. _The Eight Plays._

Concerning the order of Lyly's plays there is, as we have seen, some difference of opinion. The discussion between Mr Bond and Mr Baker in reality turns upon the interpretation of the allegory of _Endymion_, and it is therefore one of those questions of literary probability which can never hope to receive a satisfactory answer. Both critics, however, are in agreement as to the proper method of cla.s.sification. They divide the dramas into four categories: historical, of which _Campaspe_ is the sole example; allegorical, which includes _Sapho and Phao_, _Endymion_, and _Midas_; pastoral, which includes _Gallathea_, _The Woman in the Moon_, and _Love's Metamorphosis_; and lastly realistic, of which again there is only one example, _Mother Bombie_. The fault which may be found with this cla.s.sification is that the so-called pastoral plays have much of the allegorical about them, and it is perhaps better, therefore, to consider them rather as a subdivision of cla.s.s two than as a distinct species.

For the moment putting on one side all questions of the allegory of _Endymion_, there are two reasons which seem to go a long way towards justifying Mr Bond for placing _Campaspe_ as the earliest of Lyly's plays. In the first place the atmosphere of _Euphues_, which becomes weaker in the other plays, is so unmistakeable in this historical drama as to force the conclusion upon us that they belong to the same period.

The painter Apelles, whose name seemed almost to obsess Lyly in his novel, is one of the chief characters of _Campaspe_, and the dialogue is more decidedly euphuistic than any other play. The second point we may notice is one which can leave very little doubt as to the correctness of Mr Bond's chronology. _Campaspe_ and _Sapho_ were published before 1585, that is, before Lyly accepted the mastership at the St Paul's choir school, whereas none of his other plays came into the printer's hands until after the inhibition of the boys' acting rights in 1591; the obvious inference being that Lyly printed his plays only when he had no interest in preserving the acting rights.

But whatever date we a.s.sign to _Campaspe_, there can be little doubt that it was one of the first dramas in our language with an historical background. Indeed, _Kynge Johan_ is the only play before 1580 which can claim to rival it in this respect. But _Kynge Johan_ was written solely for the purpose of religious satire, being an attack upon the priesthood and Church abuses. It must, therefore, be cla.s.sed among those political _moralities_, of which so many examples appeared during the early part of the 16th century. _Campaspe_, on the other hand, is entirely devoid of any ethical or satirical motive. Allegory, which Lyly was able to put to his own peculiar uses, is here quite absent. The sole aim of its author was to provide amus.e.m.e.nt, and in this respect it must have been entirely successful. The play is interesting, and at times amusing, even to a modern reader; but to those who witnessed its performance at Blackfriars, and, two years later, at the Court, it would appear as a marvel of wit and dramatic power after the crude material which had hitherto been offered to them. In the choice of his subject Lyly shows at once that he is an artist with a feeling for beauty, even if he seldom rises to its sublimities. The story of the play, taken from Pliny, is that of Alexander's love for his Theban captive Campaspe, and of his subsequent self-sacrifice in giving her up to her lover Apelles.

The social change, which I have sought to indicate in the preceding pages, is at once evident in this play. "We calling Alexander from his grave," says its Prologue[114], "seeke only who was his love"; and the remark is a sweep of the hat to the ladies of the Court, whose importance, as an integral part of the audience, is now for the first time openly acknowledged. "Alexander, the great conqueror of the world,"

says Lyly with his hand upon his heart, "only interests me as a lover."

The whole motive of the play, which would have been meaningless to a mediaeval audience, is a compliment to the ladies. It is as if our author nets Mars with Venus, and presents the shamefaced G.o.d as an offering of flattery to the Queen and her Court. _Campaspe_ is, in fact, the first romantic drama, not only the forerunner of Shakespeare, but a remote ancestor of _Hernani_ and the 19th century French theatre. "The play's defect," says Mr Bond, "is one of pa.s.sion"--a criticism which is applicable to all Lyly's dramas; and yet we must not forget that Lyly was the earliest to deal with pa.s.sion dramatically. The love of Alexander is certainly unemotional, not to say callous; but possibly the great monarch's equanimity was a veiled tribute to the supposed indifference of the virgin Queen to all matters of Cupid's trade.

Between Campaspe and Apelles, however, we have scenes which are imbued, if not vitalized, by pa.s.sion. Lyly was a beginner, and his fault lay in attempting too much. Caring more for brilliancy of dialogue than for anything else, he was no more likely to be successful here, in portraying pa.s.sion through conversation weighted by euphuism, than he had been in his novel. Yet his endeavour to depict the conflict of masculine pa.s.sion with feminine wit, impatient sallies neatly parried, deliberate lunges quietly turned aside, was in every way praiseworthy.

"A witte apt to conceive and quickest to answer" is attributed by Alexander to Campaspe, and, though she exhibits few signs of it, yet in his very idea of endowing women with wit Lyly leads us on to the high-road of comedy leading to Congreve.

[114] From _Prologue_ at the Court.

In addition to the romantic elements above described, we have here also that page-prattle which is so characteristic of all Lyly's plays. These urchins, full of mischief and delighting in quips, were probably borrowed from Edwardes, but Lyly made them all his own; and one can understand how naturally their parts would be played by his boy-actors.

Their repartee, when it is not pulling to pieces some Latin quotation familiar to them at school, or ridiculing a point of logic, is often really witty. One of them, overhearing the hungry Manes at strife with Diogenes over the matter of an overdue dinner, exclaims to his friend, "This is their use, nowe do they dine one upon another." Diogenes again, in whom we may see the prototype of Shakespeare's Timon, is amusing enough at times with his "dogged" snarlings and sallies which frequently however miss their mark. He and the pages form an underplot of farce, upon which Lyly improved in his later plays, bringing it also more into connexion with the main plot. In pa.s.sing, we may notice that few of Shakespeare's plays are without this farcical substratum.

Leaving the question of dramatic construction and characterization for a more general treatment later, we now pa.s.s on to the consideration of Lyly's allegorical plays. The absence of all allegory from _Campaspe_ shows that Lyly had broken with the _morality_: and we seem therefore to be going back, when two years later we have an allegorical play from his pen. But in reality there is no retrogression; for with Lyly allegory is not an ethical instrument. I have mentioned examples of plays before his day which employed the machinery of the _morality_, for the purposes of political and religious satire. The old form of drama seems to have developed a keen sensibility to _double entendre_ among theatre-goers.

Nothing indeed is so remarkable about the Elizabethan stage as the secret understanding which almost invariably existed between the dramatist and his audience. We have already had occasion to notice it in connexion with Field's parody of Kyd. The spectators were always on the alert to detect some veiled reference to prominent political figures or to current affairs. Often in fact, as was natural, they would discover hints where nothing was implied; and for one Mrs Gallup in modern America there must have been a dozen in every auditorium of Elizabethan England. Such over-clever busybodies would readily twist an innocent remark into treason or sacrilege, and therefore, long before Lyly's time, it was customary for a playwright to defend himself in the prologue against such treatment, by denying any ambiguity in his dialogue. In an audience thus susceptible to innuendo Lyly saw his opportunity. He was a courtier writing for the Court, he was also, let us add, anxious to obtain a certain coveted post at the Revels' Office.

He was an artist not entirely without ideals, yet ever ready to curry favour and to aim at material advantages by his literary facility. The idea therefore of writing dramas which should be, from beginning to end, nothing but an ingenious compliment to his royal mistress would not be in the least distasteful to him. But we must not attribute too much to motives of personal ambition. Spenser's _Faery Queen_ was not published until 1590; but Lyly had known Spenser before the latter's departure for Ireland, and, even if the scheme of that poet's masterpiece had not been confided to him, the ideas which it contained were in the air. The cult of Elizabeth, which was far from being a piece of insincere adulation, had for some time past been growing into a kind of literary religion.

Even to us, there is something magical about the great Queen, and we can hardly be surprised that the pagans of those days hailed her as half divine. When Lyly commenced his career, she had been on the throne for twenty years, in itself a wonderful fact to those who could remember the gloom which had surrounded her accession. Through a period of infinite danger both at home and abroad she had guided England with intrepidity and success; and furthermore she had done all this single-handed, refusing to share her throne with a partner even for the sake of protection, and yet improving upon the Habsburg policy[115] by making coquetry the pivot of her diplomacy. It was no wonder therefore that,

"As the imperial votaress pa.s.sed on In maiden meditation fancy free,"

the courtiers she fondled, and the artists she patronized, should half in fancy, half in earnest, think of her as something more than human, and search the fables of their newly discovered cla.s.sics for examples of enthroned chast.i.ty and unconquerable virgin queens.

[115] "Alii bella gerunt, tu felix Austria nube."

All Lyly's plays except _Campaspe_ and _Mother Bombie_ are written in this vein; each, as Symonds beautifully puts it, is "a censer of exquisitely chased silver, full of incense to be tossed before Elizabeth upon her throne." In the three plays _Sapho and Phao_, _Endymion_, and _Midas_ this element of flattery is more prominent than in the others, inasmuch as they are not only full of compliments unmistakeably directed towards the Queen, but they actually seek to depict incidents from her reign under the guise of cla.s.sical mythology. It is for this reason that they have been cla.s.sified under the label of allegory. It is quite possible, however, to read and enjoy these plays without a suspicion of any inner meaning; nor does the absence of such suspicion render the action of the play in any way unintelligible, so skilfully does Lyly manipulate his story. With a view, therefore, to his position in the history of Elizabethan drama, and to the lessons which he taught those who came after him, the superficial interpretation of each play is all that need engage our attention, and we shall content ourselves with briefly indicating the actual incident which it symbolizes.

The story of _Sapho and Phao_ is, very shortly, as follows. Phao, a poor ferryman, is endowed by Venus with the gift of beauty. Sapho, who in Lyly's hands is stripped of all poetical attributes and becomes simply a great Queen of Sicily, sees him and instantly falls in love with him.

To conceal her pa.s.sion, she pretends to her ladies that she has a fever, at the same time sending for Phao, who is rumoured to have herbs for such complaints. Meanwhile Venus herself falls a victim to the charms she has bestowed upon the ferryman. Cupid is therefore called in to remedy matters on her behalf. The boy, who plays a part which no one can fail to compare with that of Puck in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, succeeds in curing Sapho's pa.s.sion, but, much to his mother's disgust, won over by the Queen's attractions, refuses to go further, and even inspires Phao with a loathing for the G.o.ddess. The play ends with Phao's departure from Sicily in despair, and Cupid's definite rebellion from the rule of Venus, resulting in his remaining with Sapho. In this story, which is practically a creation of Lyly's brain, though of course it is founded upon the cla.s.sical tale of Sapho's love for Phao, our playwright presents under the form of allegory the history of Alencon's courtship of Elizabeth. Sapho, Queen of Sicily, is of course Elizabeth, Queen of England. The difficulty of Alencon's (that is Phao's) ugliness is overcome by the device of making it love's task to confer beauty upon him. Phao like Alencon quits the island and its Queen in despair; while the play is rounded off by the pretty compliment of representing love as a willing captive in Elizabeth's Court.

As a play _Sapho and Phao_ shows a distinct advance upon _Campaspe_. The dialogue is less euphuistic, and therefore much more effective. The conversation between Sapho and Phao, in the scene where the latter comes with his herbs to cure the Queen, is very charming, and well expresses the pa.s.sion which the one is too humble and the other too proud to show.

PHAO. I know no hearb to make lovers sleepe but Heartesease, which because it groweth so high, I cannot reach: for--

SAPHO. For whom?

PHAO. For such as love.

SAPHO. It groweth very low, and I can never stoop to it, that--

PHAO. That what?

SAPHO. That I may gather it: but why doe you sigh so, Phao?

PHAO. It is mine use Madame.

SAPHO. It will doe you harme and mee too: for I never heare one sighe, but I must sigh't also.

PHAO. It were best then that your Ladyship give me leave to be gone: for I can but sigh.

SAPHO. Nay stay: for now I beginne to sighe, I shall not leave though you be gone. But what do you thinke best for your sighing to take it away?

PHAO. Yew, Madame.

SAPHO. Mee?

PHAO. No, Madame, yewe of the tree.

SAPHO. Then will I love yewe the better, and indeed I think it should make me sleepe too, therefore all other simples set aside, I will simply use onely yewe.

PHAO. Doe Madame: for I think nothing in the world so good as yewe[116].

[116] _Sapho and Phao_, Act III. Sc. IV. 60-85.

Altogether there is a great increase in general vitality in this play.

Lyly draws nearer to the conception of ideal comedy. "Our interest," he tells us in his Prologue, "was at this time to move inward delight not outward lightnesse, and to breede (if it might be) soft smiling, not loud laughing"; and to this end he tends to minimize the purely farcical element. The pages are still present, but they are balanced by a group of Sapho's maids-in-waiting who discuss the subject of love upon the stage with great frankness and charm. Mileta, the leader of this chorus, is, we may suspect, a portrait drawn from life; she is certainly much more convincing than the somewhat shadowy Campaspe. The figures in Lyly's studio are limited in number--Camilla, Lucilla, Campaspe, Mileta, all come from the same mould: in Pandion we may discover Euphues under a new name, and the surly Vulcan is only another edition of the "crabbed Diogenes." And yet each of these types becomes more life-like as he proceeds, and if the puppets that he left to his successors were not yet human, they had learnt to walk the stage without that angularity of movement and jerkiness of speech which betray the machine.

Departing for a moment from the strictly chronological order, and leaving _Gallathea_ for later treatment, we pa.s.s on to _Endymion_, the second of the allegorical dramas, and, without doubt, the boldest in conception and the most beautiful in execution of all Lyly's plays. The story is founded upon the cla.s.sical fable of Diana's kiss to the sleeping boy, but its arrangement and development are for the most part of Lyly's invention: indeed, he was obliged to frame it in accordance with the facts which he sought to allegorize. All critics are agreed in identifying Cynthia with Elizabeth and Endymion with Leicester, but they part company upon the interpretation of the play as a whole. The story is briefly as follows. Endymion, forsaking his former love Tellus, contracts an ardent pa.s.sion for Cynthia, who, in accordance with her character as moon-G.o.ddess, meets his advances with coolness. Tellus determines to be revenged, and, by the aid of a sorceress Dipsas, sends the youth into a deep sleep from which no one can awaken him. Cynthia learns what has befallen, and although she does not suspect Tellus, she orders the latter to be shut up in a castle for speaking maliciously of Endymion. She then sends Eumenides, the young man's great friend, to seek out a remedy. This man is deeply in love with Semele, who scorns his pa.s.sion, and therefore, when he reaches a magic fountain which will answer any question put to it, he is so absorbed with his own troubles as almost to forget those of his friend. A carefully thought-out piece of writing follows, for he debates with himself whether to use his one question for an enquiry about his love or his sleeping friend.

Friendship and duty conquer at length, and, looking into the well, he discovers that the remedy for Endymion's sickness is a kiss from Cynthia's lips. He returns with his message, the kiss is given, Endymion, grown old after 40 years' sleep, is restored to youth, the treachery of Tellus is discovered and eventually forgiven, and the play ends amid a peal of marriage bells. Endymion, however, is left unmarried, knowing as he does that lowly and distant worship is all he can be allowed to offer the virgin G.o.ddess. The play, of course, has a farcical underplot which is only connected very slightly with the main story by Sir Tophas' ridiculous pa.s.sion for Dipsas. His love in fact is presented as a kind of caricature of Endymion's, and he is the laughing-stock of a number of pages who gambol and play pranks after the usual manner of Lyly's boys. The solution of the allegory lies mainly in the interpretation of Tellus' character, and I cannot but agree with Mr Bond when he decides that Tellus is Mary Queen of Scots. He is perhaps less convincing where he pairs Endymion with Sidney, and Semele with Penelope Devereux, the famous _Stella_. Lastly we may notice his suggestion that Tophas may be Gabriel Harvey, which certainly appears to be more probable than Halpin's theory that Stephen Gosson is here meant[117]. But the whole question is one of such obscurity, and of so little importance from the point of view of my argument, that I shall not attempt to enter further into it.

[117] Halpin, _Oberon's Vision_, Shakespeare Society, 1843.

In _Endymion_ Lyly shows that his mastership of St Paul's has increased his knowledge of stage-craft. For example, while _Campaspe_ contains at least four imaginary transfers in s.p.a.ce in the middle of a scene, _Endymion_ has only one: and it is a transfer which requires a much smaller stretch of imagination than the constant appearance of Diogenes'

tub upon the stage whenever and wherever comic relief was considered necessary. There is improvement moreover in characterization. But the interesting thing about this play is Shakespeare's intimate knowledge of it, visible chiefly in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_. The well-known speech of Oberon to Puck, directing him to gather the "little western flower," is to all intents and purposes a beautiful condensation of Lyly's allegory. One would like, indeed, to think that there was something more than fancy in Mr Gollancz's suggestion that Shakespeare when a boy had seen this play of Lyly's acted at Kenilworth, where Leicester entertained Elizabeth; little William going thither with his father from the neighbouring town of Stratford. But however that may be, _Endymion_ certainly had a peculiar fascination for him; we may even detect borrowings from the underplot. Tophas' enumeration of the charms of Dipsas[118] foreshadows Thisbe's speech over the fallen Pyramus[119], while, did we not know Lyly's play to be the earlier, we might suspect the page's song near the sleeping knight to be a clumsy caricature of the graceful songs of the fairies guarding t.i.tania's dreams. Again there are parallels in Shakespeare's earliest comedy _Love's Labour's Lost_.

Sir Tophas, who is undoubtedly modelled upon Roister Doister, reappears with his page, as Armado with his attendant Moth. And I have no doubt that many other resemblances might be discovered by careful investigation. We cannot wonder that _Endymion_ attracted Shakespeare, for it is the most "romantic" of all Lyly's plays. Indistinctness of character seems to be in keeping with an allegory of moonshine; and even the mechanical action cannot spoil the poetical atmosphere which pervades the whole. Here if anywhere Lyly reached the poetical plane. He speaks of "thoughts st.i.tched to the starres," of "time that treadeth all things down but truth," of the "ivy which, though it climb up by the elme, can never get hold of the beames of the sunne," and the play is full of many other quaint poetical conceits.

[118] _Endymion_, Act III. Sc. II. ll. 30-60.

[119] Cp. also Shakespeare, _Sonnet_ Cx.x.x.

From the point of view of drama, however, it cannot be considered equal to the third of the allegorical plays. As a man of fashion Lyly was nothing if not up to date. In August 1588 the great Armada had made its abortive attack upon Cynthia's kingdom, and twelve months were scarcely gone before the industrious Court dramatist had written and produced on the stage an allegorical satire upon his Catholic Majesty Philip, King of Spain. Though it contains compliments to Elizabeth, _Midas_ is more of a patriotic than a purely Court play. The story, with but a few necessary alterations, comes from Ovid's _Metamorphoses_[120]. It is the old tale of the three wishes. Love, power, and wealth are offered, and Midas chooses the last. But he soon finds that the gift of turning everything to gold has its drawbacks. Even his beard accidentally becomes bullion. He eventually gets rid of his obnoxious power by bathing in a river. The fault of the play is that there are, as it were, two sections; for now we are introduced to an entirely new situation.

The King chances upon Apollo and Pan engaged in a musical contest, and, asked to decide between them, gives his verdict for the goat-foot G.o.d.

Apollo, in revenge, endows him with a pair of a.s.s's ears. For some time he manages to conceal them; but "murder will out," for the reeds breathe the secret to the wind. Midas in the end seeks pardon at Apollo's shrine, and is relieved of his ears. At the same time he abandons his project of invading the neighbouring island of Lesbos, to which continual references are made throughout the play. This island is of course England; the golden touch refers to the wealth of Spanish America, while, if Halpin be correct, Pan and Apollo signify the Catholic and the Protestant faith respectively. We may also notice, in pa.s.sing, that the ears obviously gave Shakespeare the idea of Bottom's "transfiguration."

[120] XI. 85-193.

The weakness of the play, as I have said, lies in its duality of action.

In other respects, however, it is certainly a great advance on its predecessors, especially in its underplot, which is for the first time connected satisfactorily with the main argument. Motto, the royal barber, in the course of his duties, obtains possession of the golden beard: and the history of this somewhat unusual form of treasure affords a certain amount of amusing farcical relief. It is stolen by one of the Court pages, Motto recovers it as a reward for curing the thief's toothache, but he loses it again because, being overheard hinting at the a.s.s's ears, he is convicted of treason by the pages, and is blackmailed in consequence. From this it will be seen that the underplot is more embroidered with incident and is, in every way, better arranged than in the earlier plays.

We must now turn to the pastoral plays, _Gallathea_, _The Woman in the Moon_, and _Love's Metamorphosis_, which we may consider together since their stories, uninspired by any allegorical purpose beyond general compliments to the Queen, do not require any detailed consideration. And yet it should be pointed out that this distinction between Lyly's allegorical and pastoral plays is more apparent than real. There are shepherds in _Midas_, the Queen appears under the mythological t.i.tle of Ceres in _Love's Metamorphosis_. Such overlapping however is only to be expected, and the division is at least very convenient for purposes of cla.s.sification. Lyly's pastoral plays form, as it were, a link between the drama and the masque; indeed, when we consider that all the Elizabethan dramatists were students of Lyly, it is possible that comedy and masque may have been evolved from the Lylian mythological play by a process of differentiation. It may be that our author increased the pastoral element as the arcadian fashion came into vogue, but this argument does not hold of _Gallathea_, while we are uncertain as to the date of _Love's Metamorphosis_. None of these plays are worth considering in detail, but each has its own particular point of interest. In _Gallathea_ this is the introduction of girls in boys'

clothes. As far as I know, Lyly is the first to use the convenient dramatic device of disguise. How effective a trick it was, is proved by the manner in which later dramatists, and in particular Shakespeare, adopted it. Its full significance cannot be appreciated by us to-day, for the whole point of it was that the actors, who appeared as girls dressed up as boys, were, as the audience knew, really boys themselves; a fact which doubtless increased the funniness of the situation. _The Woman in the Moon_ gives us a man disguised in his wife's clothes, which is a variation of the same trick. But the importance of _The Woman_ lies in its poetical form. Most Elizabethan scholars have decided that this play was Lyly's first dramatic effort, on the authority of the Prologue, which bids the audience

"Remember all is but a poet's dream, The first he had in Phoebus' holy bower, But not the last, unless the first displease."