Chapter VI.
The English Pastoral Drama
I
We have seen in an earlier chapter what had been achieved within the limits of the mythological drama proper, and also how it had fared with the attempts to introduce the Italian pastoral into England either by way of translation or of direct imitation. We have also seen how, in three notable compositions, three different and variously gifted artists had endeavoured to produce a form of pastoral drama suited to the requirements of the English stage, and how they had each in turn fallen short of complete success. We have now to consider a series of plays, less distinguished on the whole, though varying greatly in individual merit, which, amid the luxuriant growth of the romantic drama, tended, in a more spontaneous and less purposeful manner, towards the creation of something of a pastoral tradition. We shall find in thèse plays a considerable traditional influence, a groundwork, as it were, borrowed from the Arcadian drama of Italy, together with frequent elements owing their origin to plays of the mythological type. But in the great majority of cases we shall also find another influence, which will serve to differentiate these plays from those we have been hitherto concerned with. This is the influence of the so-called pastoral romances of the Spanish type, which manifests itself in the introduction of characters and incidents, warlike, courtly, or adventurous, borrowed more or less directly from the works of writers such as Sidney, Greene, and Lodge. Their influence was extended and enduring, and survived until, towards the middle of the seventeenth century, the fashionable tradition of the Astrée was introduced from France[291]. It was evinced both in a general manner and likewise in direct dramatic adaptation. Since the romances thus dramatized lay claim to a pastoral character, it will be necessary for us to examine as briefly as may be these stage versions, however little of the pastoral element may survive, as a preliminary to considering other plays in which the debt is less specific.
There are extant at least seven plays founded upon Sidney's Arcadia.[292] Since these appear to be wholly independent of one another, it will be convenient to disregard chronology, and to consider first those which have for subject the main story of the romance, four in number, and then the remaining three founded upon various incidents. First, then, and most important, Shirley's play bearing the same title as the romance will claim our attention as the most full and faithful stage-rendering of Sidney's work. Although not printed till 1640 the play was, according to Mr. Fleay's plausible conjecture, performed on the king's birthdayas early as 1632. It cannot exactly be pronounced a good play, but the dramatization is effected in a manner which does justice to the very great abilities of the author, and the same measure of success would probably not have been attained by any other dramatist of the time.
At the opening of the play we find that Basilius, king of Arcadia, has, in consequence of a threatening oracle, committed the government of his kingdom into the hands of a nobleman Philanax, and retired into a rural 'desert' along with his wife Gynecia and his daughters Philoclea and Pamela. Here they live in company with the 'most arrant dotish clowne' Dametas, his wife Miso and daughter Mopsa, rustic characters which supply a coarsely farcical element in the plot, certainly no less out of place and inharmonious in the play than in the romance. There are also the cousins Pyrocles and Musidorus, son and nephew respectively to Euarchus, king of Thessaly, who have arrived in quest of the princesses' loves, and have obtained positions near the objects of their affection, the one disguised as an Amazon under the name of Zelmane, the other seeking service under Dametas and assuming the name of Dorus. Complications, moreover, have already arisen, Basilius falling in love with the supposed Amazon, while Gynecia sees through the disguise and falls in love with the concealed Pyrocles. The disguised lover, in order to allay suspicion, has to feign a return of love to the queen and also to humour the dotage of the king, in the meanwhile revealing himself and his love to Philoclea, whom her father employs to court the affections of the Amazon. Musidorus, on his part, while pretending to court Mopsa, takes the opportunity of addressing his suit to Pamela. At length all is arranged, the princesses consenting to accompany their lovers in flight, and the various guardians being cleverly duped. Pyrocles gives rendezvous both to Basilius and Gynecia in a dark and lonely cave, Dametas is sent to dig for hidden treasure, Miso to seek her maligned husband in the house of one of her female neighbours, and Mopsa to await the coming of Apollo in the wishing-tree. Musidorus and Pamela make for the coast, while Pyrocles goes to fetch his mistress Philoclea. While, however, he is endeavouring to persuade her to take the final and irrevocable step, they are both overcome by a strange drowsiness and are discovered by Dametas, who, disappointed of his treasure, has missed his charge Pamela and comes to give the alarm. Musidorus and his mistress on their side have been captured by outlaws, who, discovering their identity, bring them back, hoping thereby to secure their own pardons. In the meantime, in the cave Gynecia has given Basilius by mistake for Zelmane a love potion, which turns out apparently to be a strong narcotic, for the king at once falls into a death-like trance, and the queen, discovering her mistake and overcome by shame and remorse, accuses herself publicly of having poisoned her husband, and is consequently put under guard. At this juncture Euarchus happens to arrive in search of his son and nephew, and consents to act as judge in the case. The princes, who for no apparent reason assume false names, are brought up for judgement and sentenced to death by Euarchus, whom, unaccountably enough, they fail to recognize. They are about to be led off to execution when Basilius, who is lying on a bier in the judgement hall, suddenly rises, the potion having spent its force. Explanations and recognitions of course follow, the oracle is satisfactorily expounded, and all ends to the sound of marriage bells.
It will be seen that in spite of the description 'pastoral' which appears on the title-page of the play, there is little or nothing of this nature to be found in the plot, and in this it is typical of all the plays founded upon Sidney's romance. The only pastoral element indeed is a sort of show or masque, presented by the rustic characters in company with certain shepherds, and even here little of a pastoral nature is visible beyond the characters of the performers. As a play, the Arcadia is distinctly pleasing; the action is bright and easy, the gulling scenes are very entertaining, and some of the love scenes, notably that in which Pyrocles endeavours to persuade Philoclea to escape with him, are charmingly written. Take for instance the following passage, in which the princess confesses her love:[293]
such a truth
Shines in your language, and such innocence
In what you call affection, I must
Declare you have not plac'd one good thought here,
Which is not answer'd with my heart. The fire
Which sparkled in your bosom, long since leap'd
Into my breast, and there burns modestly:
It would have spread into a greater flame,
But still I curb'd it with my tears. Oh, Pyrocles,
I would thou wert Zelmane again! and yet,
I must confess I lov'd thee then; I know not
With what prophetick soul, but I did wish
Often, thou were a man, or I no woman.Pyrocles. Thou wert the comfort of my sleeps.
Philoclea. And you
The object of my watches, when the night
Wanted a spell to cast me into slumber;
Yet when the weight of my own thoughts grew heavy
For my tear dropping eyes, and drew these curtains,
My dreams were still of thee--forgive my blushes--
And in imagination thou wert then
My harmless bedfellow.Pyr. I arrive too soon
At my desires. Gently, oh gently, drop
These joys into me! lest, at once let fall,
I sink beneath the tempest of my blessings. (III. iv.)
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 passages 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 title 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 passages 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-class 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 duchess 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 Manasses, '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 classes, 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 pass the bounds of strict decorum:
Duke. Doth our match hold?
Duchess. Yes, whose part will you take?
Duke. Zelmanes.
Duchess. 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 scrape out that. (II. v.)[297]
The unprinted dramas founded on the Arcadia need not detain us long. One is preserved in a volume of manuscript plays in the British Museum, and is entitled 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 noble 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 manuscript,[300] and is entitled '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 manuscript 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 manuscript, 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 titles 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 god, 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 chastity--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 duchess 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 duchess 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 duchess 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]
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 coarseness, 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' passion 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 attitude. Both faults are unfortunately rather typical, one of the extravagant colouring affected by the dramatists, the other of the coarse and hasty characterization to which Fletcher in particular is apt to condescend. There are, however, some good passages in the play, though it is not always easy to assign 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 massacre. 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 passages 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 lustre 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 passage 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 Goddesse, 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 anticipates 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, Chastity 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 title-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 shore, 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 passage 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 débâcle 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.)
Readers of Suckling will recognize the inspiration of the following lines:
Why so nice and coy, fair Lady,
Prithee why so coy?
If you deny your hand and lip
Can I your heart enjoy?
Prithee why so coy?(IV. iii.)
There is one obvious omission from the above list of plays founded on pastoral romances, but it has been made intentionally. The interest which from our present point of view attaches to As You Like It lies less in the relation of that play to its source in Lodge's romance than to the fact that in it Shakespeare summed up to a great extent, and by implication passed judgement upon, pastoral tradition as a whole. It will therefore be more convenient and more appropriate to postpone consideration of the piece until we have followed out the influence of that tradition, and watched its effect in the wide field of the romantic drama, and come at the end ourselves to face the question of the meaning and the merits of pastoralism as a literary creed.
Looking back for a moment over the plays just passed in review, it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that they present in themselves but the slightest traces of pastoral. It is evident that it was not there that lay the dramatists' interest in the romances. This observation is important, for the tendency is not confined to those plays which are directly founded on works of the sort. The idea of pastoral current among the playwrights, and no doubt among the audience too, was largely derived from novels such as the Arcadia, and, as we have seen, the tradition of these works was one rather of polite chivalry and courtly adventure than of pastoralism proper. Had no other forces been at work the tradition of the stage influenced by the romances would have probably shown no trace of pastoral at all. As it was, something of a genuinely pastoral tradition arose out of the mythological plays and the attempts at imitating the Italian drama, and this combined with the more popular but less genuine pastoralism of the romances to produce the peculiar hybrid which we commonly find passing under the name of pastoral in this country.