Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama Part 29

More ink than was necessary has been spilt over the motive of this wildly melodramatic play. Seward expressed an opinion that there was nothing in the action of the brother and sister deserving such severe retribution. To him Mason retorted, with somewhat childish seriousness, that, the characters being supposed pagan, the speech of the princess must be held a sacrilegious blasphemy. So Sidney no doubt intended it, and so Beaumont, who was evidently the author of the scene in question, intended it too, and he would possibly, if left to himself, have executed the rest in a manner consonant with this intention. But his collaborator took the opportunity of adding a scene between certain of the lords of the court, in which, with characteristic coa.r.s.eness, he represented the condemned worship in the light of mere vulgar licence. The fact is that not only the playwrights, but, no doubt, the majority of the audience as well, were interested chiefly in the extravagance of the plot, and cared little or nothing for the adequacy of the motive. As a drama the piece is decidedly poor, and the construction which ends the sister's part of the tragedy in the second act leaves much to be desired. There is, moreover, something particularly and unnecessarily revolting in Hidaspes' pa.s.sion for the deformed dwarf, and something forced in the contrast between Leucippus'

licentious relations with Bacha at the beginning of the play and the self-righteousness of his later att.i.tude. Both faults are unfortunately rather typical, one of the extravagant colouring affected by the dramatists, the other of the coa.r.s.e and hasty characterization to which Fletcher in particular is apt to condescend. There are, however, some good pa.s.sages in the play, though it is not always easy to a.s.sign them to their author. The scenes in which Urania appears are pretty, though inferior to the very similar ones in the nearly contemporary _Philaster_. The song of the maidens as they watch by their dying mistress, palinode and dirge in one, is striking in the blending of diverse modes:

Cupid, pardon what is past, And forgive our sins at last!

Then we will be coy no more, But thy deity adore; Troths at fifteen we will plight, And will tread a dance each night, In the fields or by the fire, With the youths that have desire.

Thus I shut thy faded light, And put it in eternal night.

Where is she can boldly say, Though she be as fresh as May, She shall not by this corpse be laid, Ere to-morrow's light do fade? (II. v.)

There is a suggestion of better things, too, in the lines:

he is like Nothing that we have seen, yet doth resemble Apollo, as I oft have fancied him, When rising from his bed he stirs himself, And shakes day from his hair. (I. iii.)

The authors, or one of them, had also learned something of Shakespeare's quaint humour, as appears in the remark:

What should he be beheaded? we shall have it grow so base shortly, gentlemen will be out of love with it. (II. iii.)

The main plot of the above reappears in _Andromana_, a play which was published in 1660 as 'By J. S.' It had probably never been performed when it was printed, and though the initials were possibly intended to suggest Shirley's authorship, there can be little doubt that he was wholly innocent of its parentage. An allusion to Denham's _Sophy_ places the date of composition after 1642.[306] The plot is taken direct from the _Arcadia_, the names being retained, and there is nothing to show that the author, whoever he may have been, knew anything of _Cupid's Revenge_. The story, however, is practically the same except for the addition of the episode of Plangus defeating the Argive rebels, and the omission of the character which appears as Urania in Beaumont and Fletcher's play and as Palladius in the original romance. The end is also slightly different.

After the prince has been rescued by the citizens, Andromana, the queen, plots a general ma.s.sacre. Plangus overhears her conversation with her instrument and confidant, and runs him through with his sword on the spot.

At Andromana's cries the king enters, and she forthwith accuses the prince of attempting violence towards her; the king stabs his son, Andromana stabs the king, next the prince's friend Inophilus, and finally herself. She seems on the whole satisfied with this performance, and with her last breath exclaims:

I have lived long enough to boast an act, After which no mischief shall be new.

Little need be said of this play. It is wholly lacking in distinction of any sort or kind, and the last act with the catastrophe is a mere piece of extravagant botching. There are, however, here and there pa.s.sages which are worth rescuing from the general wreck. One of these is the opening of the first scene between Plangus and Andromana:

_Plangus._ It cannot be so late.

_Andromana._ Believe 't, the sun Is set, my dear, and candles have usurp'd The office of the day.

_Plan._ Indeed, methinks A certain mist, like darkness, hangs on my eye-lids.

But too great l.u.s.tre may undo the sight: A man may stare so long upon the sun That he may look his eyes out; and certainly 'Tis so with me: I have so greedily Swallow'd thy light that I have spoil'd my own.

_And._ Why shouldst thou tempt me to my ruin thus?

As if thy presence were less welcome to me Than day to one who, 'tis so long ago He saw the sun, hath forgot what light is. (I. v.)

Occasional touches, too, are not without flavour:

You can create me great, I know, sir, But good you cannot. You might compel, Entice me too, perhaps, to sin. But Can you allay a gnawing conscience, Or bind up bleeding reputation? (II. v. end.)

or, again:

Shall I believe a dream?

Which is a vapour borne along the stream Of fancy. (V. iii.)

The last in this somewhat dreary catalogue is Glapthorne's _Argalus and Parthenia_, published in 1639 and acted probably the previous year. It is founded on the episode related in Books I and III of the _Arcadia_,[307]

and possibly on Quarles' poem already noticed. The story is briefly as follows. Demagoras, finding his suit to Parthenia rejected in favour of Argalus, robs her of her beauty by means of a poisonous herb, an outrage for which he is slain by his rival. After a while Parthenia regains her beauty through the care and skill of the queen of Corinth, and returns to her lover. During the marriage festivities the king sends for Argalus to act as champion against a knight who has carried off his daughter, and Argalus, obeying the summons, finds himself opposed to his friend Amphialus. They fight, and Argalus is slain. Parthenia then appears disguised as a warrior in armour, challenges Amphialus, and suffers a like fate. With this inconsequent and unmotived tragedy is interwoven a slight and incongruous underplot of rustic buffoonery. As a whole Glapthorne's play is of inconsiderable merit. Here and there, however, we come upon a pa.s.sage which might make us hope better things of the author.[308] Of Argalus it is said that

His gracions merit challenges a wife, Faire as Parthenia, did she staine the East, When the bright morne hangs day upon her cheeks In chaines of liquid pearle. (I. i.)

Demagoras is a glorious warrior who would compel love as he has done fame.

Though Parthenia reminds him that

Mars did not wooe the Queen of Love in Armes,

his fierce soul yet dwells on deeds of force:

I'll bring on Well-manag'd troops of Souldiers to the fight, Draw big battaliaes, like a moving field Of standing Corne, blown one way by the wind Against the frighted enemy; (ib.)

and, remembering former conquests:

This brave resolve Vanquish'd my steele wing'd G.o.ddesse, and ingag'd Peneian Daphne, who did fly the Sun, Give up to willing ravishment, her boughes T' invest my awfull front. (ib.)

Parthenia, healed from the poison, returns

her right Beauty new shining like the Queen of night, Appearing fresher after she did shroud Her gawdy forehead in a pitchy cloud: Love triumphs in her eyes; (III, end.)

and the pastoral poetess Sapho promises an 'epithalamy' for the bridal pair,

Till I sing day from Tethis armes, and fire With ayry raptures the whole morning quire, Till the small birds their Silvan notes display And sing with us, 'Joy to Parthenia!' (ib.)

Into her mouth, too, is put the following picture of the bride which has some kinship with contemporary baroque in Italian architecture and painting, and also occasionally antic.i.p.ates in a remarkable manner the diction of the following century.

The holy Priest had joyn'd their hands, and now Night grew propitious to their Bridall vow, Majestick Juno, and young Hymen flies To light their Pines at faire Parthenia's eyes; The little Graces amourously did skip, With the small Cupids, from each lip to lip; Venus her selfe was present, and untide Her virgine Zone;[309] when loe, on either side Stood as her handmaids, Chast.i.ty and Truth, With that immaculate guider of her youth Rose-colour'd Modestie: These did undresse The beauteous maid, who now in readinesse, The Nuptiall tapers waving 'bout her head, Made poore her garments, and enrich'd her bed. (IV. i.)

So again we find single expressions which are striking, as when Parthenia bids Amphialus, sooner than appease her wrath, to hope

To charme the Genius of the world to peace; (V.)

or when, dying, she commends herself to her dead lover:

take my breath That flies to thee on the pale wings of death. (ib.)

And yet it would be scarcely unfair to describe these as for the most part the beauties of decay; they are as rich embroidery upon rotten cloth, and are achieved by careful elaboration of sensuous imagination, and the art of arresting the attention upon a commonplace thought by the use of some striking epithet or novel and daring turn of expression. For the wider and more essential beauties of conception, character, and construction we look in vain in Glapthorne's play.

Sidney's _Arcadia_, however, though the most important, was not the only so-called pastoral romance which left dramatic progeny. It has been customary to describe the _Thracian Wonder_, a play of uncertain authorship, as founded upon the story of Curan and Argentile in Warner's _Albion's England_, a metrical emporium of historical legend very popular at the close of the sixteenth century. The narrative in question was later expanded into a separate work by one William Webster, and published in 1617.[310] That Collier should have given a quite erroneous abstract of Warner's tale, and should then have proceeded to claim it as the source of the play in question, is perhaps no great matter for astonishment, nor need it particularly surprise us to find certain modern critics swallowing the whole fiction on Collier's authority. What is extraordinary is that a scholar of Dyce's ability and learning should have been misled. For it is quite evident that the _Thracian Wonder_ is based, though hardly closely, on no less famous a work than Greene's _Menaphon_.[311] This should of course have been apparent to critics even without the hint supplied by Antimon in the second scene of Act IV: 'She cannot choose but love me now; I'm sure old Menaphon ne'er courted in such clothes.' The dramatist, however, has not followed his source slavishly; the pastoral element is largely suppressed or at least subordinated, and the catastrophe somewhat altered. Instead of the siege of the castle by the shepherds when the heroine is carried off by her own son, we have the following ending. The king himself carries off his daughter, and her son and husband, ignorant of course of their mutual relationship, put themselves at the head of the shepherds in pursuit. At this moment the country is invaded by the king of Sicily, who comes to seek his son, the husband of the heroine, and by the king of Africa, who comes to avenge the banished brother of the king of Thrace. After much fighting it is resolved to decide the issue by single combat, in the course of which explanations ensue which lead to a general recognition and reconciliation. The pastoral element is represented by old Antimon an antic shepherd, a clown his son, his daughter a careless shepherdess and her despised lover, and a careless shepherd.

The play was printed in 1661 by Francis Kirkman, who ascribed it on the t.i.tle-page to John Webster and William Rowley. All critics are agreed that the former at least had nothing to do with the composition; but beyond that it is difficult to go. Perhaps the mention of 'old Menaphon' might be taken to indicate that the romance was at least not new at the time of the composition of the play, for Menaphon himself was not an old man. In spite of the small merit of the play from a poetical point of view, and of occasional extraordinary oversights in the plot--for instance, we are never told how the infant who is shipwrecked on the sh.o.r.e, presumably of Arcadia, comes to be a young man in the service of the king of Africa--its badness has perhaps been exaggerated, and it is undoubtedly from the pen of an experienced stage-hack. I do not know, however, that any pa.s.sage is worth quotation.[312]

Any argument in favour of an early date for the _Thracian Wonder_, based on its being founded on Greene's romance, is sufficiently answered by Thomas Forde's _Love's Labyrinth_, which is a much closer dramatization of the same story, retaining the names and characters almost unchanged, but which cannot have been written very long before its publication in 1660.

One episode, the death of Sephistia's mother, a character unknown to Greene, is apparently borrowed from Gomersall's _Lodovick Sforza_.[313]

The play, which lies somewhat beyond our limits, represents in its worst form the _debacle_ of the old dramatic tradition, continued past its date by writers who had no technical familiarity with the stage. It is equally without poetic merit, except in a few incidental songs. Of these, some are borrowed from Greene, one is a translation from Anacreon also printed in the author's _Poetical Diversions_, some are original. Of the last, one may be worth quoting.[314]

Fond love, no more Will I adore Thy feigned Deity; Go throw thy darts At simple hearts And prove thy victory.

Whilst I do keep My harmless sheep Love hath no power on me; 'Tis idle soules Which he controules, The busy man is free.

(II. i.)