Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Once more I give my hand; be ever free
From that great foe to faith, foul jealousy.

Peri. I take it as my best good; and desire,
For stronger confirmation of our love,
To meet this happy night in that fair grove,
Where all true shepherds have rewarded been
For their long service.

to that holy wood is consecrate

A Virtuous Well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh and dull mortality.

By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn
And given away his freedom, many a troth
Been plight, which neither envy nor old time
Could ever break, with many a chaste kiss given
In hope of coming happiness: by this
Fresh fountain many a blushing maid

Hath crown'd the head of her long loved shepherd
With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung
Lays of his love and dear captivity.

The God of the RIVER rises with AMORET in his arms.

River God. What pow'rful charms my streams Back again unto their spring,

With such force, that I their god,
Three times striking with my rod,
Could not keep them in their ranks!
My fishes shoot into the banks;
There's not one that stays and feeds,
All have hid them in the weeds.
Here's a mortal almost dead,
Fall'n into my river-head,
Hallow'd so with many a spell,
That till now none ever fell.
'Tis a female, young and clear,
Cast in by some ravisher.
See upon her breast a wound,

On which there is no plaster bound;

Yet she's warm, her pulses beat,
'Tis a sign of life and heat.
If thou be'st a virgin pure,
I can give a present cure.
Take a drop into thy wound
From my watery locks, more round
Than orient pearl, and far more pure
Than unchaste flesh may endure.
See, she pants, and from her flesh
The warm blood gusheth out afresh.
She is an unpolluted maid;

I must have this bleeding staid.
From my banks I pluck this flow'r

With holy hand, whose virtuous pow'r

Is at once to heal and draw.

The blood returns. I never saw

A fairer mortal. Now doth break

Her deadly slumber: Virgin, speak.

[do bring

[blocks in formation]

I will give thee for thy food
No fish that useth in the mud !
But trout and pike, that love to swim
Where the gravel from the brim
Through the pure streams may be seen:
Orient pearl fit for a queen,
Will I give, thy love to win,
And a shell to keep them in:
Not a fish in all my brook
That shall disobey thy look,
But, when thou wilt, come sliding by,
And from thy white hand take a fly.
And to make thee understand
How I can my waves command,
They shall bubble whilst I sing,
Sweeter than the silver string.
The Song.

Do not fear to put thy feet
Naked in the river, sweet;
Think not leech, or newt, or toad,

Will bite thy foot, when thou hast trod;

Nor let the water rising high,

As thou wad'st in, make thee cry
And sob; but ever live with me,

And not a wave shall trouble thee!

The lyrical pieces scattered throughout Beaumont and Fletcher's plays are generally in the same graceful and fanciful style as the poetry of the Faithful Shepherdess:' some are here subjoined :

[Melancholy.]

[From Nice Valour."]

Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights

Wherein you spend your folly!
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,
But only melancholy!

Welcome, folded arms, and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,

A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up, without a sound!
Fountain heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly hous'd, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan!
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley:
Nothing's so dainty-sweet as lovely melancholy.

[Sony.]

[From the False One.']

Look out, bright eyes, and bless the air! Even in shadows you are fair.

Shut-up beauty is like fire,

That breaks out clearer still and higher.

Though your beauty be confin'd,

And soft Love a prisoner bound,

Yet the beauty of your mind,

Neither check nor chain hath found.

Look out nobly, then, and dare

Ev'n the fetters that you wear!

[The Power of Love.]

[From Valentinian.']

Hear ye, ladies that despise

What the mighty Love has done; Fear examples and be wise; Fair Calisto was a nun

14

Leda, sailing on the stream,

To deceive the hopes of man, Love accounting but a dream, Doted on a silver swan; Danae in a brazen tower, Where no love was, lov'd a shower.

Hear ye, ladies that are coy,

What the mighty Love can do; Fear the fierceness of the boy;

The chaste moon he makes to woo Vesta, kindling holy fires,

Circled round about with spies
Never dreaming loose desires,
Doting at the altar dies;
Ilion in a short hour higher,
He can build, and once more fire.
[To Sleep.]

[From the Same.]

Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes,
Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose
On this afflicted prince: fall like a cloud
In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud
Or painful to his slumbers; easy, sweet [light ?],
And as a purling stream, thou son of night,
Pass by his troubled senses, sing his pain
Like hollow murmuring wind or gentle rain.
Into this prince, gently, oh, gently slide,
And kiss him into slumbers like a bride!

[Song to Pan, at the conclusion of the Faithful Shepherdess.]

All ye woods, and trees, and bow'rs,
All ye virtues and ye pow'rs

That inhabit in the lakes,

In the pleasant springs or brakes,

Move your feet

To our sound,

Whilst we greet

All this ground,

With his honour and his name

That defends our flocks from blame.

He is great, and he is just,"
He is ever good, and must
Thus be honour'd. Daffodilies,
Roses, pinks, and loved lilies,
Let us fling,
Whilst we sing,
Ever holy,
Ever holy,

Ever honour'd, ever young!
Thus great Pan is ever sung.

[From 'Rollo."]

Take, oh take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn,
And those eyes, the break of day,

Lights that do mislead the morn; But my kisses bring again,

Seals of love, though seal'd in vain. Hide, oh hide those hills of snow,

Which thy frozen bosom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow Are yet of those that April wears; But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy chains by thee.

GEORGE CHAPMAN.

GEORGE CHAPMAN, the translator of Homer, wrote early and copiously for the stage. His first play, the Blind Beggar of Alexandria, was printed in 1598, the same year that witnessed Ben Jonson's first and

[blocks in formation]

The beauty of Chapman's compound Homeric epithets (quoted by Thomas Warton), as silver-footed Thetis, the triple-feathered helm, the fair-haired boy, high-walled Thebes, the strong-winged lance, &c., bear the impress of a poetical imagination, chaste yet luxuriant. But however spirited and lofty as a translator, Chapman proved but a heavy and cumbrous dramatic writer. He continued to supply the theatre with tragedies and comedies up to 1620, or later; yet of the sixteen that have descended to us, not one possesses the creative and vivifying power of dramatic genius. In didactic observation and description he is sometimes happy, and hence he has been praised for possessing more thinking' than most of his contemporaries of the buskined muse. His judgment, however, vanished in action, for his plots are unnatural, and his style was too hard and artificial to admit of any nice delineation of character. His extravagances are also as bad as those of Marlow, and are seldom relieved by poetic thoughts or fancy. The best known plays of Chapman are Eastward Hoe (written in conjunction with Jonson and Marston), Bussy D'Ambois, Byron's Conspiracy, All Fools, and the Gentleman Usher. In a sonnet prefixed to All Fools,' and addressed to Walsingham, Chapman states that he was mark'd by age for aims of greater weight.' This play was written in 1599. It contains the following fanciful lines:I tell thee love is Nature's second sun, Causing a spring of virtues where he shines: And as without the sun, the world's great eye, All colours, beauties both of art and nature, Are given in vain to men; so, without love, All beauties bred in women are in vain, All virtues bred in men lie buried;

For love informs them as the sun doth colours.

In 'Bussy D'Ambois' is the following invocation for a Spirit of Intelligence, which has been highly lauded by Charles Lamb:

I long to know

How my dear mistress fares, and be inform'd
What hand she now holds on the troubled blood
Of her incensed lord. Methought the spirit,
When he had utter'd his perplex'd presage,
Threw his chang'd count'nance headlong into clouds:
His forehead bent, as he would hide his face :
He knock'd his chin against his darken'd breast,
And struck a churlish silence through his powers.
Terror of darkness! O thou king of flames!
That with thy music-footed horse dost strike
The clear light out of crystal on dark earth;
And hurl'st instinctive fire about the world:
Wake, wake the drowsy and enchanted night
That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy riddle.
Or thou, great prince of shades, where never sun
Sticks his far-darted beams; whose eyes are made
To see in darkness, and see ever best
Where sense is blindest: open now the heart
Of thy abashed oracle, that, for fear
Of some ill it includes, would fain lie hid:
And rise thou with it in thy greater light.

The life of Chapman was a scene of content and prosperity. He was born at Hitching Hill, in Hertfordshire, in 1557; was educated both at Oxford and Cambridge; enjoyed the royal patronage of King James and Prince Henry, and the friendship of Spenser, Jonson, and Shakspeare. He was temperate and pious, and, according to Oldys, preserved, in his conduct, the true dignity of poetry, which he compared to the flower of the sun, that disdains to open its leaves to the eye of a smoking taper.' The life of this venerable scholar and poet closed in 1634, at the ripe age of seventy-seven.

Chapman's Homer is a wonderful work, considering the time when it was produced, and the continued spirit which is kept up. Marlow had succeeded in the fourteen-syllable verse, but only in select passages of Ovid and Musæus. Chapman had a vast field to traverse, and though he trod it hurriedly and negligently, he preserved the fire and freedom of his great original. Pope and Waller both praised his translation, and perhaps it is now more frequently in the hands of scholars and poetical students than the more polished and musical version of Pope. Chapman's translations consist of the ‘Iliad' (which he dedicated to Prince Henry), the Odyssey' (dedicated to the royal favourite Carr, Earl of Somerset), and the Georgics of Hesiod,' which he inscribed to Lord Bacon. A version of 'Hero and Leander,' left unfinished by Marlow, was completed by Chapman, and published in 1606.

[ocr errors]

THOMAS DEKKER.

THOMAS DEKKER appears to have been an industrious author, and Collier gives the names of above twenty plays which he produced, either wholly or in part. He was connected with Jonson in writing for the Lord Admiral's theatre, conducted by Henslowe; but Ben and he became bitter enemies, and the former, in his 'Poetaster,' performed in 1601, has satirised Dekker under the character of Crispinus, representing himself as Horace! Jonson's charges against his adversary are his arrogancy and impudence in commending his own things, and for his translating.' The origin of the quarrel does not appear, but in an apologetic dialogue added to the 'Poetaster,' Jonson says

Whether of malice, or of ignorance,

Or itch to have me their adversary, I know not, Or all these mix'd; but sure I am, three years They did provoke me with their petulant styles On every stage.

Dekker replied by another drama, Satiromastir, or the Untrussing the Humorous Poet, in which Jonson appears as Horace junior. There is more raillery and abuse in Dekker's answer than wit or poetry, but it was well received by the play-going public. Dekker's Fortunatus, or the Wishing Cap, and the Honest Whore, are his best. The latter was a great favourite with Hazlitt, who says it unites the simplicity of prose with the graces of poetry.' The poetic diction of Dekker is choice and elegant, but he often wanders into absurdity. Passages like the following would do honour to any dramatist. Of Patience :

Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace:

Of all the virtues, 'tis nearest kin to heaven : It makes men look like gods. The best of men That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer, A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit: The first true gentleman that ever breath'd.

The contrast between female honour and shame—
Nothing did make me, when I loved them best,
To loathe them more than this: when in the street
A fair, young, modest damsel I did meet ;
She seem'd to all a dove when I pass'd by,
And I to all a raven: every eye

That follow'd her, went with a bashful glance:
At me each bold and jeering countenance
Darted forth scorn: to her, as if she had been
Some tower unvanquished, would they all vail :
'Gainst me swoln rumour hoisted every sail ;
She, crown'd with reverend praises, pass'd by them;
I, though with face mask'd, could not 'scape the
hem;

For, as if heaven had set strange marks on such,
Because they should be pointing-stocks to man,
Drest up in civilest shape, a courtesan.
Let her walk saint-like, noteless, and unknown,
Yet she's betray'd by some trick of her own.
The picture of a lady seen by her lover-
My Infelice's face, her brow, her eye,
The dimple on her cheek and such sweet skill
Hath from the cunning workman's pencil flown.
These lips look fresh and lively as her own;
Seeming to move and speak. Alas! now I see
The reason why fond women love to buy
Adulterate complexion: here 'tis read;
False colours last after the true be dead.
Of all the roses grafted on her cheeks,
Of all the graces dancing in her eyes,
Of all the music set upon her tongue,
Of all that was past woman's excellence,
In her white bosom look, a painted board
Circumscribes all! Earth can no bliss afford;
Nothing of her but this! This cannot speak;
It has no lap for me to rest upon;

No lip worth tasting. Here the worms will feed,
As in her coffin. Hence, then, idle art,
True love 's best pictured in a true love's heart.
Here art thou drawn, sweet maid, till this be dead,.
So that thou livest twice, twice art buried.
Thou figure of my friend, lie there!

Dekker is supposed to have died about the year 1638. His life seems to have been spent in irregularity and poverty. According to Oldys, he was three years in the King's Bench prison. In one of his own beautiful lines, he says

We ne'er are angels till our passions die. But the old dramatists lived in a world of passion, of revelry, want, and despair.

JOHN WEBSTER.

JOHN WEBSTER, the 'noble-minded,' as Hazlitt designates him, lived and died about the same time as Dekker, with whom he wrote in the conjunct authorship then so common. His original dramas are the Duchess of Malfy, Guise, or the Massacre of France, the Devil's Law Case, Appius and Virginia, and the White Devil, or Vittoria Corombena. Webster, it has been said, was clerk of St Andrew's church, Holborn; but Mr Dyce, his editor and biographer, searched the registers of the parish for his name without success. The White Devil' and the 'Duchess of Malfy' have divided the opinion of critics as to their relative merits. They are both powerful dramas, though filled with 'supernumerary horrors.' The former was not successful on the stage, and the author published it with a dedication, in which he states, that most of the people that come to the play-house resemble those ignorant asses who, visiting stationers' shops, their use is not to inquire for. good books, but new books.' He was accused, like

Jonson, of being a slow writer, but he consoles himself with the example of Euripides, and confesses that he did not write with a goose quill winged with two feathers. In this slighted play there are some exquisite touches of pathos and natural feeling. The grief of a group of mourners over a dead body is thus described:

I found them winding of Marcello's corse,
And there is such a solemn melody,

'Tween doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies,
Such as old grandames watching by the dead

Were wont to outwear the nights with; that, believe me,

I had no eyes to guide me forth the room,
They were so o'ercharged with water.

The funeral dirge for Marcello, sung by his mother, possesses, says Charles Lamb, that intenseness of feeling which seems to resolve itself into the elements which it contemplates :'

Call for the robin red-breast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole,

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,
To raise him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And, when gay tombs are robb'd, sustain no harm;
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.
The following couplet has been admired:-

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright; But, look'd to near, have neither heat nor light. The Duchess of Malfy' abounds more in the terrible graces. It turns on the mortal offence which the lady gives to her two proud brothers, Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, and a cardinal, by indulging in a generous though infatuated passion for Antonio, her steward.

[ocr errors]

This passion,' Mr Dyce justly remarks, a subject most difficult to treat, is managed with infinite delicacy; and, in a situation of great peril for the author, she condescends without being degraded, and declares the affection with which her dependant had inspired her without losing anything of dignity and respect.' The last scenes of the play are conceived in a spirit which every intimate student of our elder dramatic literature must feel to be peculiar to Webster. The duchess, captured by Bosola, is brought into the presence of her brother in an imperfect light, and is taught to believe that he

wishes to be reconciled to her.

[blocks in formation]

For I account it the honourablest revenge,

To which you have vow'd much love: the ring upon't You gave.

Duch. I affectionately kiss it.

Ferd. Pray do, and bury the print of it in your heart.

I will leave this ring with you for a love token;
And the hand, as sure as the ring; and do not doubt
But you shall have the heart too: when you need a
friend,

Send to him that ow'd it, and you shall see
Whether he can aid you.

Duch. You are very cold:

I fear you are not well after your travel.
Ha! lights! O horrible!

Ferd. Let her have lights enough.

[Exit.

Duch. What witchcraft doth he practise, that he hath left

A dead man's hand here?

[Here is discovered, behind a traverse, the artificial figures of Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were dead.]

Bos. Look you, here's the piece from which 'twas

ta'en.

He doth present you this sad spectacle,
That, now you know directly they are dead,
Hereafter you may wisely cease to grieve
For that which cannot be recovered.

Duch. There is not between heaven and earth one wish

I stay for after this.

Afterwards, by a refinement of cruelty, the brother sends a troop of madmen from the hospital to make a concert round the duchess in prison. After they have danced and sung, Bosola enters disguised as an old man.

[Death of the Duchess.]

Duch. Is he mad too?

Bos. I am come to make thy tomb.
Duch. Ha! my tomb?

Thou speak'st as if I lay upon my deathbed,
Gasping for breath: Dost thou perceive me sick?
Bos. Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sick-
ness is insensible.

Duch. Thou art not mad sure: dost know me!
Bos. Yes.

Duch. Who am I?

Bos. Thou art a box of wormseed; at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh? a bodies are weaker than those paper-prisons boys use little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste. Our to keep flies in, more contemptible; since ours is tc preserve earthworms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass; and the heaven o'er our heads like her looking glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.

Duch. Am not I thy duchess ?

Bos. Thou art some great woman, sure, for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in grey hairs)

Where I may kill, to pardon. Where are your cubs ? twenty years' sooner than on a merry milkmaid's.

Duch. Whom?

[blocks in formation]

Thou sleepest worse, than if a mouse should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow. Duch. I am Duchess of Malfy still.

Bos. That makes thy sleeps so broken.
Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright;
But, look'd to near, have neither heat nor light.
Duch. Thou art very plain.

Bos. My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living.

I am a tomb-maker.

Duch. And thou comest to make my tomb

Bos. Yes.

Duch. Let me be a little merry. Of what stuff wilt thou make it?

Bos. Nay, resolve me first; of what fashion? Duch. Why, do we grow fantastical in our deathbed? Do we affect fashion in the grave?

Bos. Most ambitiously. Princes' images on their tombs do not lie as they were wont, secming to pray up to heaven but with their hands under their cheeks (as if they died of the toothache): they are not carved with their eyes fixed upon the stars; but, as their minds were wholly bent upon the world, the self-same way they seem to turn their faces.

Duch. Let me know fully, therefore, the effect
Of this thy dismal preparation,
This talk, fit for a charnel.

Bos. Now I shall.

[A coffin, cords, and a bell produced. Here is a present from your princely brothers; And may it arrive welcome, for it brings Last benefit, last sorrow.

Duch. Let me see it.

I have so much obedience in my blood,
I wish it in their veins to do them good.
Bos. This is your last presence chamber.
Car. O, my sweet lady.

Duch. Peace, it affrights not me.
Bos. I am the common bellman,

That usually is sent to condemn'd persons
The night before they suffer.

Duch. Even now thou saidst

Thou wast a tomb-maker.

Bos. "Twas to bring you

By degrees to mortification: Listen.

Dirge.

Hark, now every thing is still;

This screech-owl, and the whistler shrill,
Call upon our dame aloud,

And bid her quickly don her shroud.
Much you had of land and rent;
Your length in clay 's now competent.
A long war disturb'd your mind ;
Here your perfect peace is sign'd.

Of what is 't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin, their conception; their birth, weeping:
Their life, a general mist of error,
Their death, a hideous storm of terror.
Strew your hair with powders sweet,

Don clean linen, bathe your feet:

And (the foul fiend more to check)

A crucifix let bless your neck.

'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day: End

your groan, and come away.

Car. Hence, villains, tyrants, murderers: alas ! What will you do with my lady? Call for help. Duch. To whom; to our next neighbours? They

are mad folks.

Farewell, Cariola.

I pray thee look thou giv'st my little boy
Some syrup for his cold; and let the girl
Say her prayers ere she sleep.-Now what you please;

What death?

Bos. Strangling. Here are your executioners.
Duch. I forgive them.

The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o' the lungs,
Would do as much as they do.

Bos. Doth not death fright you?
Duch. Who would be afraid on't,

Knowing to meet such excellent company

In th' other world.

Bos. Yet, methinks,

The manner of your death should much afflict you: This cord should terrify you.

Duch. Not a whit.

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut With diamonds? or to be smothered

With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls ?
I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits: and 'tis found
They go on such strange geometrical hinges,
You may open them both ways: any way (for heav'n
sake)

So I were out of your whispering: tell my brothers
That I perceive death (now I'm well awake)
Best gift is they can give or I can take.
I would fain put off my last woman's fault;
I'd not be tedious to you.

Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength
Must pull down heaven upon me.

Yet stay, heaven gates are not so highly arch'd
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees. Come, violent death,
Serve for Mandragora to make me sleep.
Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out,
They then may feed in quiet.

[They strangle her, kneeling.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

A conjecture that an old neglected drama by TнOMAS MIDDLETON supplied the witchcraft scenery, and part of the lyrical incantations, of Macbeth,' has kept alive the name of this poet. So late as 1778, Middleton's play, the Wiah, was first published by Reed from the author's manuscript. It is possible that the 'Witch' may have preceded Macbeth;' but as the latter was written in the fulness of Shak. speare's fame and genius, we think it is more probable that the inferior author was the borrower. He may have seen the play performed, and thus caught the spirit and words of the scenes in question; or, for aught we know, the Witch' may not have been written till after 1623, when Shakspeare's first folio We know that after this date Middleton appeared. was writing for the stage, as, in 1624, his play, A Game at Chess, was brought out, and gave great offence at court, by bringing on the stage the king of Spain, and his ambassador, Gondomar. The latter dleton (who at first shifted out of the way') and complained to King James of the insult, and Midthe poor players were brought before the privycouncil. They were only reprimanded for their audacity in bringing modern Christian kings upon the stage.' If the dramatic sovereign had been James himself, nothing less than the loss of ears and noses would have appeased offended reyalty! Middleton wrote about twenty plays: in 1603, we find him assisting Dekker at a court-pageant, and he was afterwards concerned in different pieces with Rowley, Webster, and other authors. He would seem to have been well-known as a dramatic writer. On Shrove Tuesday, 1617, the London apprentices, in an idle riot, demolished the Cockpit Theatre, and an old ballad describing the circumstance, states

« AnteriorContinuar »