Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama Part 28

Or again when he urges her to escape:

I could content myself To look on Pyrocles, and think it happiness Enough; or, if my soul affect variety Of pleasure, every accent of thy voice Shall court me with new rapture; and if these Delights be narrow for us, there is left A modest kiss, where every touch conveys Our melting souls into each other's lips.

Why should not you be pleas'd to look on me?

To hear, and sometimes kiss, Philoclea?

Indeed you make me blush. [_Draws a veil over her face_.]

_Pyr._ What an eclipse Hath that veil made! it was not night till now.

Look if the stars have not withdrawn themselves, As they had waited on her richer brightness, And missing of her eyes are stolen to bed. (ib.)

These pa.s.sages display the tenderer side of Shirley's gift at its best, and prove that, had he but set himself the task, he possessed the very style needed for a successful imitation of the Italian pastoral adapted to the temper of the English romantic drama.

But Shirley's, though the most complete, was not the earliest attempt at placing Sir Philip's romance upon the boards. As long before as 1605 was acted Day's _Isle of Gulls_, a farcical and no doubt highly topical play, which is equally founded on the _Arcadia_, though it follows the story far less closely. Day's t.i.tle was probably suggested by Nashe's _Isle of Dogs_, a satirical play performed in 1597, which brought its author into trouble, but if it deserves Mr. Bullen's epithet of 'attractive,' it must be admitted that it is almost the only part of the play to which that epithet can be applied. Day was in no wise concerned to maintain the polished and artificial dignity of the original; his satiric purpose indeed called for a very different treatment. The _Isle of Gulls_ is a comedy of the broadest and lowest description, almost uniformly lacking in charm, notwithstanding a certain skill of dramatization, and the occurrence of pa.s.sages which are good enough of their kind. It will easily be conceived that a highly ideal and romantic plot treated in the manner of the realistic farce of low life may offer great opportunities of satiric effect; but it must have made the courtly Sidney turn in his grave to see his gracious puppets debased into the vulgar rogues and trulls of the lower-cla.s.s London drama. Day in no wise sought to hide his indebtedness, but on the contrary acknowledged in the Induction that his argument is but 'a little string or Rivolet, drawne from the full streine of the right worthy Gentleman, Sir Phillip Sydneys well knowne Archadea.'

The chief differences between the play and its source are as follows.

Basilius and Gynetia--as Day writes the name--are duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Arcadia[294]--near which, apparently, the island is situated--Philoclea and Pamela become Violetta and Hipolita, Pyrocles and Musidorus appear as Lisander and Demetrius, Philanax and Calander from being lords of the court become captains of the castles guarding the island, and Dametas comes practically to occupy the post of Lord Chamberlain. Among the more important characters Euarchus disappears and Aminter and Julio, rivals of the princes in the ladies' loves, are added, as also Mana.s.ses, 'scribe-major' to Dametas. When the princes have at last prevailed upon their loves to elope with them, and tricked as before their various guardians into leaving the coast clear, they are in their turn persuaded to leave the ladies in the charge of their disguised rivals, who, of course, secure them as their prizes. Thus the gulling is singularly complete all round, not least among the gulled being the audience, whose sympathy has been carefully enlisted on the princes' behalf. The last scene, in which all the characters forgather from their various ludicrous occupations, is, as might be expected, one of considerable confusion, which is rendered all the more confounded by frequent errors in the speakers' names, which remain in spite of the labours of Day's editor.[295]

If we approach the play with Sir Philip's romance in our mind, the characters cannot but appear one and all offensive. In every case Day has indulged in brutal caricature. The courtly characters are represented from the point of view of a prurient-minded bourgeoisie; the rustic figures are equally gross in their vulgarity; while the traitor Dametas, who serves as a link between the two cla.s.ses, is an upstart parasite, described with a satiric touch not unworthy of Webster as 'a little hillock made great with others' ruines.' But if we are content to forget the source of the play, we may take a rather more charitable view. Not all the characters are consistently revolting, several, including the princesses, having at times a fine flavour of piquant roguishness, at others a touch of easy sentiment. For a contemporary audience, of course, there were other points of attraction in the play, for the satirical intent is sufficiently obvious, though it is needless for us here to inquire into the personages adumbrated, that investigation belonging neither to pastoral nor to literary history properly speaking. By far the cleverest as well as the most pleasing scene in the play is that introducing a game of bowls,[296]

during which Lisander courts Violetta in long-drawn metaphor. Part at least of this brilliant double-edged word-play must be quoted, even though the verse-capping may at times pa.s.s the bounds of strict decorum:

_Duke._ Doth our match hold?

_d.u.c.h.ess._ Yes, whose part will you take?

_Duke._ Zelmanes.

_d.u.c.h.ess._ Soft, that match is still to make.

_Violetta._ Lets cast a choice, the nearest two take one.

_Lisander._ My choice is cast; help sweet occasion.

_Viol._ Come, heere's agood.

_Lis._ Well, betterd.

_Duch._ Best of all:

_Lis._ The Duke and I.

_Duke._ The weakest goe to the wall.

_Viol._ Ile lead.

_Lis._ Ile follow.

_Viol._ We have both one mind.

_Lis._ In what?

_Viol._ In leaving the old folke behinde.

_Duke._ Well jested, daughter; and you lead not faire, The hindmost hound though old may catch the hare.

_Duch._ Your last Boule come?

_Viol._ By the faith a me well led.

_Lis._ Would I might lead you.

_Viol._ Whither?

_Lis._ To my bed.

_Viol._ I am sure you would not.

_Lis._ By this aire I would.

_Viol._ I hope you would not hurt me and you should.

_Lis._ Ide love you, sweet ...

_Duke._ Daughter, your bowle winnes one.

_Viol._ None, of my Maidenhead, Father; I am gone: The Amazon hath wonne one.

_Lis._ Yield to that.

_Viol._ The cast I doe.

_Lis._ Yourselfe?

_Viol._ Nay sc.r.a.pe out that. (II. v.)[297]

The unprinted dramas founded on the _Arcadia_ need not detain us long.

One is preserved in a volume of ma.n.u.script plays in the British Museum, and is ent.i.tled _Love's Changelings' Change_.[298] It is written in a hand of the first half of the seventeenth century, small and neat, but, partly on account of the porous nature of the paper, exceedingly hard to read.

The dramatis personae include a full cast from the _Arcadia_; and somewhat more stress appears to be laid on the pastoral elements than is the case in either of the printed plays. From what I have thought it necessary to decipher, however, I see no reason to differ from Mr. Bullen, who dismisses it as 'a dull play.'[299] The prologue may serve as a specimen of the style of the piece.

This Scaene's prepar'd for those that longe to see The crosse Meanders in Loves destinie; To see the changes in a shatterd wit Proove a man Changlinge in attemptinge it; To change a n.o.ble minde t'a gloz'd intent Beefore such change will let um see th' event.

This change our Famous Princes had, beefore Their borrowed shape could speake um any more, And nought but this our Poet feares will seize Your liking fancies with that new disease.

Wee hope the best: all wee can say tis strange To heare with patient eares Loves changelinges Change

--which, if this is a fair sample, is very likely true. Below the prologue the writer has added the couplet:

Th' old wits are gone: looke for noe new thing by us, For _nullum est jam Dictum quod non sit dictum prius_.

The other play is preserved in a Bodleian ma.n.u.script,[300] and is ent.i.tled 'The Arcadian Lovers, or the Metamorphosis of Princes.' 'The name of the author,' writes Mr. Hazlitt following Halliwell, 'was probably Moore, for in the volume, written by the same hand as the play, is a dedication to Madam Honoria Lee from the "meanest of her kinsmen," Thomas Moore. A person of this name wrote _A Brief Discourse about Baptism_, 1649.' Mr.

Falconer Madan, however, in his catalogue ascribes the ma.n.u.script to the early eighteenth century, a date certainly more in accordance with the character of the handwriting. If, therefore, the conjecture concerning the author's name is correct, he may be plausibly identified with the Sir Thomas Moore whose tragedy _Mangora_ was acted in 1717. The ma.n.u.script, which contains various poetical essays, includes not only the complete play, which is in prose, but also a verse paraphrase of a large portion of the same. Neither prose nor verse possesses the least merit.[301]

The earliest of the plays founded upon episodes in the _Arcadia_ is Beaumont and Fletcher's _Cupid's Revenge_, which was acted by the children of the Queen's Revels, and published in 1615.[302] A revision, possibly by another hand, has introduced considerable confusion into the t.i.tles of the personae, but need not otherwise concern us.[303] The plot of the play is based on two episodes in the romance, one relating to the vengeance exacted by Cupid on the princess Erona of Lycia for an insult offered to his worship, the other to the intrigue of prince Plangus of Iberia with the wife of a citizen, and the tragic complications arising therefrom.

These two stories are combined by the dramatists, with no very conspicuous skill, into one plot. Plangus and Erona, under the names of Leucippus and Hidaspes, are represented as brother and sister, children of the old widowed duke of Lysia. They make common cause in seeking to abolish the worship of Cupid, and their tragedies are represented as alike due to his offended deity. No sooner has the old duke, yielding to his daughter's prayers, prohibited the worship of the G.o.d, than Hidaspes falls desperately in love with the deformed dwarf Zoilus, and begs him in marriage of her father. The duke, infuriated at such an exhibition of unnatural and disordered affection in his daughter, causes the dwarf to be beheaded, whereupon the princess languishes and dies.[304] In the meanwhile Leucippus has fallen in love with Bacha, the widow of a citizen, and frequents her house secretly, where being surprised by his father, he protests so strongly of her chast.i.ty--hoping thereby to save her credit and his own--that the old duke falls in love with her himself, and shortly afterwards marries her. Having now become d.u.c.h.ess she seeks to renew her intercourse with the prince, and being repulsed resolves upon revenge. She makes the duke believe that his son is plotting against him, and so secures his arrest and condemnation, hoping thereby to obtain the crown for Urania, her daughter by a previous marriage. The citizens, however, rise in revolt and rescue Leucippus, who thereupon goes into voluntary exile. He is followed by Urania, a simple and innocent girl, who, knowing her mother's designs upon his life, hopes to counteract her malice by attending on the prince in the disguise of a page. The d.u.c.h.ess in fact sends a man to murder the prince, the attempt being frustrated by Urania, who herself receives the blow and dies, the murderer being then slain by Leucippus. In the meanwhile the duke dies, and the friends of the prince hasten to him, bringing with them the d.u.c.h.ess as a prisoner. She however, seeing her schemes doomed to failure, nurses revenge, and succeeds in stabbing Leucippus, then turning the dagger into her own heart.[305]